That was the truth. Who ever thinks of or reads Everett's Gettysburg speech now? If one will compare those two speeches he will get an idea how superior genius is to education; how superior that intellectual faculty is which sees the vitality of a question and knows how to state it; how superior that intellectual faculty is which regards everything with the fire of earnestness in the soul, with the relentless purpose of a heart devoted to objects beyond literature.
Another remarkable peculiarity of Mr. Lincoln's was that he seemed to have no illusions. He had no freakish notions that things were so, or might be so, when they were not so. All his thinking and reasoning, all his mind, in short, was based continually upon actual facts, and upon facts of which, as I said, he saw the essence. I never heard him say anything that was not so. I never heard him foretell things; he told what they were, but I never heard him intimate that such and such consequences were likely to happen without the consequences following. I should say, perhaps, that his greatest quality was wisdom. And that is something superior to talent, superior to education. It is again genius; I do not think it can be acquired. All the advice that he gave was wise, and it was always timely. This wisdom, it is scarcely necessary to add, had its animating philosophy in his own famous words, "With malice toward none, with charity for all."
Another remarkable quality of Mr. Lincoln was his great mercifulness. A thing it seemed as if he could not do was to sign a death warrant. One day General Augur, who was the major general commanding the forces in and around Washington, came to my office and said:
"Here is So-and-So, a spy. He has been tried by court-martial; the facts are perfectly established, he has been sentenced to death, and here is the warrant for his execution, which is fixed for to-morrow morning at six o'clock. The President is away. If he were here, the man certainly wouldn't be executed. He isn't here. I think it very essential to the safety of the service and the safety of everything that an example should be made of this spy. They do us great mischief; and it is very important that the law which all nations recognize in dealing with spies, and the punishment which every nation assigns to them, should be inflicted upon at least one of these wretches who haunt us around Washington. Do you know whether the President will be back before morning?"
"I understand that he won't be back until to-morrow afternoon," I replied.
"Well, as the President is not here, will you sign the warrant?"
"Go to Mr. Stanton," I said; "he is the authority."
"I have been to him, and he said I should come to you."
Well, I signed the order; I agreed with General Augur in his view of the question. At about eleven o'clock the next day I met the general. "The President got home at two o'clock this morning," he said, "and he stopped it all."