He hated slavery from the beginning, but was not an abolitionist until it was constitutional to be so. At the head of the nation, when precedents were useless, he was governed by justice only. He was singularly fortunate in the selection of his cabinet officers, and the reason was he never allowed prejudice to prevent his placing a rival in high office.
Yes, Mr. Lincoln is probably the most remarkable example on the pages of history, showing the possibilities of our country. From the poverty in which he was born, through the rowdyism of a frontier town, the rudeness of frontier society, the discouragement of early bankruptcy, and the fluctuations of popular politics, he rose to the championship of Union and freedom when the two seemed utterly an impossibility; never lost his faith when both seemed hopeless, and was suddenly snatched from earth when both were secured. He was the least pretentious of men, and when, with the speed of electricity, it flashed over the Union that the great Lincoln—shot by an assassin—was no more, the excitement was tremendous. The very heart of the republic throbbed with pain and lamentation. Then the immortal President was borne to his last resting-place in Springfield, Illinois. All along the journey to the grave, over one thousand miles, a continual wail went up from friends innumerable, and they would not be comforted. Never was there a grander, yet more solemn funeral accorded to any, ancient or modern. He was a statesman without a statesman's craftiness, politician without a politician's meanness, a great man without a great man's vices, a philanthropist without a philanthropist's dreams, a christian without pretensions, a ruler without the pride of place or power, an ambitious man without selfishness, and a successful man without vanity. Humble man of the backwoods, boatman, axman, hired laborer, clerk, surveyor, captain, legislator, lawyer, debater, orator, politician, statesman. President, savior of the republic, emancipator of a race, true christian, true man.
Gaze on such a character; does it not thrill your very soul and cause your very heart to bleed that such a man should be shot by a dastardly assassin? Yet on the 14th of April, 1865, J. Wilkes Booth entered the private box of the President, and creeping stealthily from behind, as become the dark deed which he contemplated, deliberately shot Abraham Lincoln through the head, and the country lost the pilot in the hours when she needed him so much.
[Edward Everett.]
Among the more eminent of eminent men stands Edward Everett in the annals of American history. We do not give his history to show how he struggled through privations, overcoming all obstacles, until victory at last crowned his efforts, as so many of our great men have been obliged to do, but we do delineate his achievements to illustrate what hard work will do, provided a man has ability to develop. Yes, to show what hard work will do. But some will say, 'Well, that does sound well, but I guess if Edward Everett had been an ordinary man no amount of hard work would have made him the Edward Everett of history'; another may say, 'That's so, it is foolish to argue as you do, and hold up such men as examples, intimating that their success is the result of hard work'; and still another may say, 'Say what you will, you cannot gain-say the factor of opportunities, of 'luck,' if you choose to so designate it.'
We do not gain-say anything; we simply point to history; read for yourself. Take eminent men, read their lives, and see if seven-tenths, at least, of our great men did not acquire success through their own effort. Read carefully and see if they did not largely MAKE their own opportunities. True, all cannot be Everetts or Clays, but by extraordinary effort and careful thought, any one will better his or her condition. Sickness may come, they will be the better prepared. Losses will be more easily met and discharged. No man ever succeeded by waiting for something to turn up. The object of this work is not to make people delude themselves by any conceited ideas, but to encourage, to inspire, to enkindle anew the fires of energy laying dormant. The point is, it is not a 'slumbering genius' within people that it is our desire to stimulate, but a 'slumbering energy.' We are content that others should take care of the 'genius'; we are satisfied that any influence, no matter from what source it comes, that will awaken dormant energies will do the world more good than ten times the same amount of influence trying to prove that we are fore ordained to be somebody or nobody.
Mr. Everett was a man who fully comprehended and appreciated this fact. All great men understand that it is the making the most of one's talents that makes the most of our chances which absolutely tells. Rufus Choate believed in hard work. When some one said to him that a certain fine achievement was the result of accident, he exclaimed: "Nonsense. You might as well drop the Greek alphabet on the ground and expect to pick up the Illiad." Mr. Beecher has well said that every idle man has to be supported by some industrious man. Hard labor prevents hard luck. Fathers should teach their children that if any one will not work neither shall he attain success. Let us magnify our calling and be happy, but strive to progress. As before said, Mr. Everett fully understood all this and great men innumerable could be quoted in support of this doctrine.
The year 1794 must ever be memorable, as the year in which Mr. Everett was ushered into the world, in which he was to figure as so prominent a factor. We have written a long preamble, but it is hoped that the reader has taken enough interest thus far to fully take in the points which we have endeavored to make, and it is further hoped that such being the case, the reader will, by the light of those ideas, read and digest the wonderful character before us.
Undoubtedly Everett possessed one of the greatest minds America has ever produced, but if he had rivaled Solomon in natural ability, he could not have entered Harvard College as a student at the age of thirteen had he not been an indefatigable worker, and will any man delude himself into the belief that he could have graduated from such a school at the age of only seventeen, and at the head of his class, had he not exercised tremendous energy. Still further do any of the readers who chance to read this volume think that he was picked up bodily and placed in the ministerial chair vacated by the gifted Buckminister when he was only nineteen because he was lucky? A city preacher at nineteen! Occupying one of the first pulpits in the land at nineteen! "Why, he was gifted." Of course he was, and he was a tremendous worker. Thus was his success enhanced.