Robert Browning appreciates the honored names when he says,
“A nation is but an attempt of many,
To rise to the completer life of one;
And they who live as models for the mass
Are simply of more value than they all.”
[CHAPTER V]
I. BUSINESS NOT HARMONIOUS WITH THE STRUGGLE FOR LEARNING
The people believed in Lincoln and that made him believe in himself, but they would never have believed in him if they had not seen the unchanging conduct that is necessary for human confidence. If the people had not believed in him he would never have had the confidence to develop his way of life, able at last to face the world-making problems of the great Civil War, and thus to hold to a course of conduct, which he knew to be right, against the hisses, slander and desperate intrigue of men and masses, who knew that he was making a civilization in America contrary to their mercenary interests and their customary moral standards.