In a very important sense Mr. Lincoln may be regarded as the founder of the Republican Party. He was its leader in the first successful national contest, and it was during his administration as President that the policy of the party was developed and its capacity for the business of government established. The Republican Party gave to Mr. Lincoln the opportunity for the services on which his fame rests, and the fame of Mr. Lincoln is the inheritance of the Republican Party. His eulogy is its encomium, and therefore when we set forth the character and services of Mr. Lincoln we set forth as well the claims of the Republican Party to the gratitude and confidence of the country, and the favorable opinion of mankind.
If it could be assumed that for the Republican Party the Book of Life is already closed, it is yet true that that party is an historical party and Mr. Lincoln is an historical personage, not less so than Cromwell, Napoleon, or Washington, and all without the glamor that rests upon the brows of successful military chieftains.
Of Mr. Lincoln's predecessors in the Presidential office, two only, Washington and Jefferson, can be regarded as historical persons in a large view of history. The author of the Declaration of Independence is so identified with the history of the country that that history cannot outlast his name and fame.
As the author of that Declaration and as the exponent of new and advanced ideas of government, Jefferson was elected to the Presidency, but his administrations, excepting only the acquisition of Louisiana, were not marked by distinguished ability, nor were they attended or followed by results which have commanded the favorable opinion of succeeding generations.
Washington had no competitors. The gratitude of his countrymen rebuked all rivalries. He was borne to the Presidency by a vote quite unanimous, and he was supported in the discharge of his duties by a confidence not limited by the boundaries of the Republic.
It is only a moderate exaggeration to say that when Mr. Lincoln was nominated for the Presidency, he was an unknown man; he had performed no important public service; his election was not due to personal popularity, nor to the strength of the party that he represented; but to the divisions among his opponents.
In 1862, when eleven hostile States were not represented in the Government, the weakness of the administration was such that only a bare majority of the House of Representatives was secured after a vigorous and aggressive campaign on the part of the Republican Party. Thus do the circumstances and incidents of the formative period in Mr. Lincoln's career illustrate and adorn the events that distinguished the man, the party and the country.
I am quite conscious that in our attempt to give Mr. Lincoln a conspicuous place in the ranks of historical personages, we are to encounter a large and intelligent public opinion which claims that distance in time and even distance in space are the necessary conditions of a wise and permanent decision.
The representatives of that opinion maintain that contemporaries are too near the object of vision, that to them a comprehensive view is impossible, and that the successive generations of one's countrymen may be influenced by inherited passions, or by transmitted traditions.
Some of us were Mr. Lincoln's contemporaries, and one and all we are his countrymen, and in advance we accept joyfully any qualifications of our opinions that may be made in other lands or by other ages, if qualifying facts shall be disclosed hereafter. But nearness of observation, and a knowledge of the events with which Mr. Lincoln's public life was identified, may have given to his associates and co-workers opportunities for a sound judgment that were not possessed by contemporary critics and historians of other lands, and that the students of future times will be unable to command.