[From the London Daily News, April 27, 1865.]
[Extract.]
abraham lincoln.
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To trace the events of Mr. Lincoln’s administration would be to write the history of the great revolution through which the United States have passed during the last four years, a task which does not come within the scope of this article. It would be foolish to pretend that Mr. Lincoln foresaw what no one could foresee, the extent and character of the work before him when he assumed the presidency. It is sufficient if it can be truly affirmed that he brought to his duties qualities and a character which fitted him to grapple with the tremendous difficulties of his position as they arose. Mr. Lincoln was thoroughly in sympathy with the interests of the American people, and completely imbued with reverence for those ideas of justice, freedom, and humanity which are expressed in American institutions. His first words on taking office were suited to develop that trust of the nation in itself, without which it was impossible to hope to sustain it in a war begun and carried on by an aristocracy based upon the denial of human rights. On his way to Washington in February, 1861, he said, at Indianapolis: “Of the people, when they rise in mass in behalf of the Union and of the liberties of their country, truly it may be said, ‘The gates of hell cannot prevail against them;’ “and he concluded his address with the words: “I appeal to you again to constantly bear in mind that with you, and not with politicians, not with Presidents, not with office-seekers, but with you, rests the question, shall the Union and shall the liberties of this country be preserved to the latest generation?” Again and again, in the short speeches made by him during his journey to Washington, he dwelt on this idea. “It is with you, the people, to advance the great cause of the Union and the Constitution.” “I am sure I bring a heart true to the work. For the ability to perform it, I must trust in that Supreme Being who has never forsaken this favored land, through the instrumentality of this great and intelligent people.” And in an address to a returning Ohio regiment delivered last August, he said: “I wish it might be more generally understood what the country is now engaged in. We have, as all will agree, a free government, where every man has a right to be equal with every other man. In this great struggle this form of government and every form of human right is endangered if our enemies succeed. There is more involved in the contest than is realized by every one; there is involved in this struggle the question whether your children and my children shall enjoy the privileges we have enjoyed.” These were in Mr. Lincoln’s eyes the principles by which alone the republic could live; it was by them that slavery was to be stifled and overthrown.
Mr. Lincoln’s political course in reference to the rebellion was based on the doctrine laid down in his first inaugural address: “I hold that the contemplation of universal law and by the Constitution the union of these States is perpetual.” [Page 382] It has often been said that his successive measures against slavery were only adopted for political purposes, and to save the Union. This may be admitted with the explanation that in Mr. Lincoln’s view only the necessity of saving the Union gave him a warrant to attack slavery by some of those measures. At the beginning of the struggle he, in common with the mass of the people of the North, was ready to guarantee to the people of the South protection for slavery within its existing limits. His oath as President to support the Constitution was interpreted by him as depriving him of all lawful right to interfere, directly or indirectly, with the institution of slavery in the States where it then existed. But the progress of events taught him, as it taught the people, that slavery, like every other partial interest or relation, was subordinate to the general interest; that it was subject to the Constitution; that if, to preserve the Union, slavery must be destroyed, the Constitution, which formed the bond of the Union, could not be pleaded in its defence. His course in this matter was in accordance with the fundamental principles of his political creed. He never pretended to be a crusader like John Brown, or the leader of an agitation, like Mr. Garrison. His duties were those of a statesman and a magistrate, and the very fact that he had never uttered a single revolutionary sentiment qualified him to accompany and guide the remarkable but gradual development of national opinion on this vital subject. He had to unite the people of the loyal States, and to keep them together. Had he not succeeded in this he could have done nothing for liberty, nothing against slavery; and he did succeed.
In this country great alarm has often been expressed for the loss of liberties which it was supposed would ensue in America as a consequence of the exceptional measures to which be more than once resorted in times of emergency. It belongs to American lawyers to decide how far those measures were warranted by the Constitution; and differences of opinion may well exist as to their necessity and policy. The American people, however, showed their appreciation of the trustworthiness of Mr. Lincoln by re electing him after he had suspended the habeas corpus and suppressed newspapers. No alarm for the fate of their most precious rights and the establishment of the worst despotism over them prevented them from recording their votes for him last November. Their sentiments on the subject were, as they then showed, more in harmony with those of Mr. Lincoln’s letter to the Hon. Erastus Corning, written on the 13th of June, 1863.
“Nor am I able,” said he, “to appreciate the danger apprehended that the American people will, by means of military arrests during the rebellion, lose the right of public discussion, the liberty of speech and the press, the law of evidence, trial by jury, and habeas corpus, throughout the indefinite peaceful future which, I trust, lies before them, any more than I am able to believe that a man could contract so strong an appetite for emetics during temporary illness as to persist in feeding upon them during the rest of his healthful life.”
It is given to few men to triumph over the most formidable obstacles, as Mr. Lincoln triumphed, by the mere force of honesty and sagacity. His simple integrity of purpose, firmness of will, patience, humanity, and the deep sense of accountability which marked every important act, united to form a character which has steadily and visibly gained upon the minds and hearts, not of his own countrymen alone, but also of the world. Even the enemies of his country and foreign powers acknowledged in him a man whom they could trust. In this country Mr. Lincoln’s name is mentioned with regret by many who four years ago half believed that he was the wretched imbecile he was described to be by the Richmond press. And even at Richmond we will undertake to affirm there are those, lately foremost in resisting his authority, who will deeply regret that the political changes which military events have rendered necessary are not to be conducted under his guidance. We will conclude this hasty and imperfect [Page 383] sketch with the words of one of the most distinguished of Mr. Lincoln’s countrymen in the North American Review:
“The results of the policy pursued by Mr. Lincoln during his administration thus far are its own best justification. The verdict of the future is not to be foreshown. But there can be little doubt that history will record the name of Abraham Lincoln as that of a pure and disinterested patriot. She may find in his course many errors; she may point out in his character many defects; she will speak of him as a man who had to contend against the disadvantages of imperfect culture, of self-education, and of little intercourse with men of high breeding. But she will speak also of the virtues which the hard experience of early life had strengthened in him; of his homely sincerity and simplicity; of his manly frankness and self-respect; of his large, humane, and tender sympathies; of his self-control and good temper; of his truthfulness and sturdy honesty. She will represent him as actuated by an abiding sense of duty, as striving to be faithful in his service of God and of man, as possessed with deep moral earnestness, and as endowed with vigorous common sense and faculty for dealing with affairs. She will tell of his confidence in the people, and she will recount with approval their confidence in him. And when she has told all this, may she conclude her record by saying that to Abraham Lincoln more than to any other man is due the success which crowned the efforts of the American people to maintain the Union and the institutions of their country, to widen and confirm the foundations of justice and liberty, on which those institutions rest, and to establish inviolable and eternal peace within the borders of their land.”
Such is the man whom Providence, by a mysterious dispensation, decrees to be no longer necessary to his country.
In the hour of his great work done, President Lincoln has fallen. Not, indeed, in the flush of triumph, for no thought of triumph was in that honest and humble heart, nor in the intoxication of applause, for the fruits of victory were not yet gathered in his hand, was the chief of the American people, the foremost man in the great Christian revolution of our age, struck down. But his task was, nevertheless, accomplished, and the battle of his life won. So he passes away from the heat and toil that still have to be endured, full of the honor that belongs to one who has nobly done his part, and carrying in his last thoughts the sense of deep, steadfast thankfulness that he now could see the assured coming of that end for which he had so long striven in faith and hope. Who shall pity or lament such a death, while the tears of a nation fall upon his corpse, and the world softly speaks how true and good he was? Who will not bow the head submissive to the inscrutable decree which mocks our plans and fancies, but even in our sorrow makes us feel that it is wiser, juster, kinder, than our vain wishes might have been?
For in all time to come, not among Americans only, but among all who think of manhood as more than rank, and set worth above display, the name of Abraham Lincoln will be held in reverence. Rising from among the poorest of the people, winning his slow way upwards by sheer hard work, preserving in every successive stage a character unspotted and a name untainted, securing a wider respect as he became better known, never pretending to more than he was, nor being less than he professed himself, he was at length for very singleness of heart and uprightness of conduct, because all felt that they could trust him utterly, and would desire to be guided by his firmness, courage, and sense, placed in the chair of President at the turning point of his nation’s history. A life so true, rewarded by a dignity so majestic, was defence enough against the petty shafts of malice which party spirit, violent enough to light a civil war, aimed against him. The lowly callings he had first pursued became his titles to greater respect among those whose respect was worth having; the little external rusticities only showed more brightly, as the rough matrix the golden ore, the true dignity of his nature. Never was any one, set in such high place and surrounded with [Page 384] so many motives of furious detraction, so little impeached of aught blameworthy. The bitterest enemy could find no more to lay to his charge than that his language was sometimes too homely for a supersensitive taste, or that he conveyed in a jesting phrase what they deemed more suited for statelier style. But against these specks, what thorough nobility have we not set? A purity of thought, word, and deed never challenged, a disinterestedness never suspected, an honesty of purpose never impugned, a gentleness and tenderness that never made a private enemy or alienated a friend—these are indeed qualities which may well make a nation mourn. But he had intellect as well as goodness. Cautiously conservative, fearing to pass the limits of established systems, seeking the needful amendments rather from growth than alteration, he proved himself in the crisis the very man best suited for his post. He held back the ardent while he gave confidence to the timid, his reluctance to innovate did not prevent him from recognizing and accepting the changes in the situation which the progress of events brought to pass, and the firmness with which he refused to proceed faster than they warranted was equalled by the tenacity with which he refused to retire from the position he had at last thought it right to take up. So four years of trial convinced his countrymen that there was none among them who could better fill his place. And there can be no doubt that in his known respect for established rights, as well as in his known justice, impartiality, and benevolence, South as well as North had begun to look upon him as their surest friend, and as the safe arbiter in whom they could both trust to exact no more and to claim no less than might suffice to make their reconciliation perpetual.
But he has fallen, and by a southern hand. We cannot as yet tell the motive that urged the treacherous blow, but the fact that two had conspired to murder, the one the President, the other the Secretary of State, shows that at least there is not insanity to be reckoned as a possible explanation. But we will not, without overwhelming proof, let the horrible conspiracy, or the phrases of its actors, lead us to lay it to the charge of abettors in the South. We will not doubt that from what lately was the southern government and people there will come at once earnest disavowals of any knowledge of the meditated crime, and that if the murderer of Mr. Seward has reached the territory their power yet holds, he will be seized and surrendered as one guilty of a crime against humanity itself. On no other terms at least will their English sympathizers believe in southern “chivalry.” For though some among us have by growth of prejudice come to think slavery not sin, there is no Englishman yet whom secret assassination does not horrify. And the kindly nature, the earnest desire to do right, which even his opponents confessed in Abraham Lincoln, will, now that he has gone, turn to him all sympathies and make all among us call with one voice for vengeance on his detestable murderer.
But a harder task than vengeance lies yet on the North, which they must enter on before the first hours of mourning have passed. They have a government to carry on, a war to finish, a commonwealth to reconstruct. It were vain to conceal how the difficulty of each part of their task is enhanced by the loss of their chosen and tried head. Nor, unhappily, have they made provision for an event so wholly unforeseen. The Vice-President, who, in virtue of the Constitution, has already taken the oaths as President for nearly the term of four years still remaining to be run, is not the man whom they would have selected had they thought of such an event as his sitting in the President’s chair. Already, too, there has been removed from his side the Secretary of State, who has during Mr. Lincoln’s tenure of office shared most fully his confidence and his designs. It is a great and terrible crisis. But we have confidence that the people will meet it worthily, and, if they do, that they will surmount all their troubles. Chief among our reasons for this belief is the reflection that Mr. Lincoln was himself rather a representative than a leader. His personal influence had not formed his party; he was only selected in its exigencies to do its behests, [Page 385] Admirably as he has done them, we must not think that he was the only one who could have substantially done the same, And though Andrew Johnson was not selected to represent the party, but only as a secondary compromise between sections, this is an occasion which it may be hoped will extinguish sections, and unite all in a common effort. Round him will still stand the old leaders—Stanton, Chase, and Grant. The responsibilities thus thrust upon him will, it may be expected, force him to guide his acts by their counsels, and by the public opinion of the people which has made him what he is, and which they guide. But in the firm heart of the people, tried and purified as it has been for four years in the furnace of affliction, lies, under God, our hope for the future. Eminently a law-abiding people, they will follow, first of all, and as far as possible, the path their Constitution points out. But if a chance more powerful than their will, if the perversity of this man or of that, renders the effort dangerous, they will know how to save the Constitution by sacrifice. Meantime, their great common sorrow, their great common danger, will obliterate division, and nerve them to energy. As when a beloved captain falls in fight, his men press forward with more impetuous and irresistible force to secure the post to which he led them, the fall of the captain of the people will fill them with the sterner resolve to be victors in the combat in which he was their leader, and to gain the object for which his life was given.