Abraham Lincoln's Cardinal Traits; / A Study in Ethics, with an Epilogue Addressed to Theologians

by Clark S. Beardslee

PART V. CONCLUSION

Lincoln's Character

In all the chapters that have gone before, the essential constructive factors have been very few. This is evident from their continual reiteration—a reiteration that is too conspicuous to be overlooked. In this is intimation that the last inclusive affirmation of this study will be remarkable for its brevity and also for its open clarity. The simple elements of such a closing synthesis may be here set down.

As encouraging this attempt, it may be first remarked that Lincoln's life attests and demonstrates the primacy of character. This is the foundation of his fame; and hereby his fame is felt to be secure. To this all men agree. This world-wide consent may be said to be unhesitant, spontaneous, unforced, arising as though by common instinct, or by a moral intuition, all men everywhere viewing him alike, even as all eyes everywhere act alike in receiving and reflecting light. Here is something of a significance nothing less than imperial for a student of ethics. For it seems to say that by universal suffrage an international tribute is rendered to a common pattern of human life; that there is a world ideal in the moral realm; that this ideal is visibly near; and that this realized ideal is so altogether friendly, admirable and excellent as to win from every land an overflowing flood of thankfulness and joy. So genuine, so genial, and so grand is Lincoln's moral life. In the face of such a life, and of such a tribute, a student of ethics may be emboldened to assume that his science has indeed foundations; that those sure grounds are after all not far to seek; and that when those cornerstones are once uncovered, they will be within the easy comprehension of common men. Here, then, in Lincoln's open and exalted life is at once a challenge and a test for all who would like to attempt a careful survey of the moral realm.

One sterling, standing coefficient of Lincoln's character was its thoughtfulness. Piercing, pondering thought was with him a habitude. His mind had insight, and he used its eye unsparingly. This was no mere mental cunning, though he was surely passing shrewd and keen. In Lincoln insight was so inseparably allied with an active sense of responsibility that it may be best defined as searching honesty. Into the massive, solid, stubborn problems of his perplexing day he drilled and pierced by plodding, patient, penetrating thought. Kepler never fixed his mind more steadily upon any study of geometric curves than Lincoln his upon the intricate questions of government. And not in vain. It may be truly said that Lincoln's moral judgments and resolves were without exception the long-sought winnings of exactest and most exacting mental toil.

One fruit of this sharp scrutiny was a quite unusual foresight. In this keen certitude touching things to come he was almost without a peer. But its design and its utility for him were ethical. The coming issues towards which he explored were moral. The future he foresaw was thick with evolving sanctions involved in moral deeds. For such events, whether near or far, he had a seeing eye. And with a steady view to those oncoming certainties he shaped his resolutions, and plotted out his life. That those high purposes involved his soul in untold sorrow he well and unerringly foresaw. It was not by mental blunders that he became enmeshed in the anguish and anxiety that made his life so shadowed and solitary. And it was not by shrewder wits that other men escaped his all but constant fellowship with reproach and grief. Lincoln saw beforehand whither his studied view of duty and his clear-eyed obedience led. Where other men stood blind he achieved to see that his selected, sorrow-burdened path was the only way to the happiness that could wear and satisfy. His insight was betrothed right loyally to the faithful league of moral verities. Thus Lincoln's character was stamped and sealed with prudence. Here gleams his wisdom. His thought was balanced, looking many ways and comprehending many parts. Hence his sane judiciousness.

But this well-pondered carefulness was no mere mental sapience. The world of Lincoln's painstaking thought was a world of character; a world of liberty; a world of binding obligation; a world of right and wrong; a world of God-like opportunities; a world of awful sanctions; a world where dignity and shame are infinite; a world of manhood and of brother men; a world where human souls outrank all other things, like God.

These were the themes that Lincoln's mind inspected and adjudged. It is by virtue of his life-long search to find in such mighty interests as these their rational consistency, that mental values of the highest grade pervade and signalize his character. No mortal course in all our history was ever reasoned out more carefully than the course that Lincoln chose and held with moral heroism to his death. To overlook or underrate this thoughtfulness in any reasoned estimate or exposition of Lincoln's character would be infinitely unfair. As with light and vision, his thoughtfulness is the medium in which his character stands manifest.

Quite as elemental in Lincoln's character as his thoughtfulness is his courtly deference to duty. Lincoln's conscience controlled and held him in his course, as gravitation holds and guides this globe. This all men discern; and discerning, they admire. Deep in the center of this unanimous admiration is a respect for Lincoln that amounts almost to reverence. Lincoln's estimate of law was most profound. When, after humble and all-engrossing search, he found and traced those sovereign obligations to which he bowed his life, his estimate and attitude were as though he stood face to face with God. But in that deference was a courtliness that was beautifully Lincoln's own. He too admired, where he obeyed. His thoughtfulness was a stately, sovereign court that sanctioned and made supreme every law that he revered. This transcendent, all-commanding sense of duty, springing from within, and also descending from above, seated centrally within his character, is centrally and inseparably inwrought within his fame. While his name abides this princely heed for duty will persist to challenge and to test each studied statement of his character.