“All quiet along the Potomac, they say,
Except now and then a stray picket
Is shot, as he walks on his beat, to and fro,
By a rifleman hid in the thicket.
“His musket falls slack; his face, dark and grim,
Grows gentle with memories tender,
As he mutters a prayer for the children asleep,
For their mother, may Heaven defend her.”
Washington’s struggle and patience against adversities and confusions, through his long career as leader in the making of the Union, was doubtless an ever present example and consolation to Lincoln in the no less stupendous task of preserving the Union.
Laboulaye, the French Statesman says, “History shows us the victory of force and stratagem much more than of justice, moderation and honesty. It is too often only the apotheosis of triumphant selfishness. There are noble and great exceptions; happy those who can increase the number, and thus bequeath a noble and beneficent example to posterity. Mr. Lincoln is among these. He would willingly have repeated, after Franklin, that ‘falsehood and artifice are the practice of fools, who have not wit enough to be honest.’ All his private and all his political life was inspired and directed by his profound faith in the omnipotence of virtue.”