The Life of Abraham Lincoln

by Henry Ketcham

The duties of the President of the United States include the writing of state papers that are considerable both in number and in volume. Many of the Presidents, from Washington down, have been men of great ability, and almost all of them have had sufficient academic training or intellectual environments in their early years. These state papers have frequently been such as to compare favorably with those of the ablest statesmen of Europe. With every new election of President the people wait in expectancy for the inaugural address and the messages to congress. These are naturally measured by the standard of what has preceded—not of all that has preceded, for the inferior ones are forgotten, but of the best. This is no light test for any man.

Lincoln's schooling was so slight as to be almost nil. He did not grow up in a literary atmosphere. But in the matter of his official utterances he must be compared with the ablest geniuses and most cultured scholars that have preceded him, and not merely with his early associates. He is to be measured with Washington, the Adamses, Jefferson, and not with the denizens of Gentryville or New Salem.

Perhaps the best study of his keenness of literary criticism will be found in his correction of Seward's letter of instruction to Charles Francis Adams, minister to England, under date of May 21, 1861. Seward was a brilliant scholar, a polished writer, a trained diplomatist. If any person were able to compose a satisfactory letter for the critical conditions of that period, he was the one American most likely to do it. He drafted the letter and submitted it to Lincoln for suggestions and corrections. The original manuscript with Lincoln's interlineations, is still preserved, and facsimiles, or copies, are given in various larger volumes of Lincoln's biography. This document is very instructive. In every case Lincoln's suggestion is a marked improvement on the original. It shows that he had the better command of precise English. Lowell himself could not have improved his criticisms. It shows, too, that he had a firmer grasp of the subject. Had Seward's paper gone without these corrections, it is almost certain that diplomatic relations with England would have been broken off. In literary matters Lincoln was plainly the master and Seward was the pupil.

The power which Lincoln possessed of fitting language to thought is marked. It made him the matchless story-teller, and gave sublimity to his graver addresses. His thoroughness and accuracy were a source of wonder and delight to scholars. He had a masterful grasp of great subjects. He was able to look at events from all sides, so as to appreciate how they would appear to different grades of intelligence, different classes of people, different sections of the country. More than once this many-sidedness of his mind saved the country from ruin. Wit and humor are usually joined with their opposite, pathos, and it is therefore not surprising that, being eminent in one, he should possess all three characteristics. In his conversation his humor predominated, in his public speeches pure reasoning often rose to pathos.

If the author were to select a few of his speeches or papers fitted to give the best example of his literary qualities, and at the same time present an evidence of the progress of his doctrine along political lines, he would name the following: The House-divided-against-itself speech, delivered at Springfield June 16, 1858. The underlying thought of this was that the battle between freedom and slavery was sure to be a fight to the finish.

Next is the Cooper Institute speech, Feb. 12, 1860. The argument in this is that, in the thought and intent of the founders of our government, the Union was permanent and paramount, while slavery was temporary and secondary.

Next was his inaugural, March 4, 1861. This warned the country against sectional war. It declared temperately but firmly, that he would perform the duties which his oath of office required of him, but he would not begin a war: if war came the aggressors must be those of the other side.

The next was the Emancipation Proclamation, September 22, 1862, and January 1, 1863. This was not a general and complete emancipation of all slaves, it was primarily a military device, a war measure, freeing the slaves of those who were in actual and armed rebellion at the time. It was intended to weaken the belligerent powers of the rebels, and a notice of the plan was furnished more than three months in advance, giving ample time to all who wished to do so, to submit to the laws of their country and save that portion of their property that was invested in slaves.

Then came the second inaugural, March 4, 1865. There was in this little to discuss, for he had no new policy to proclaim, he was simply to continue the policy of the past four years, of which the country had shown its approval by reelecting him. The end of the war was almost in sight, it would soon he finished. But in this address there breathes an intangible spirit which gives it marvelous grandeur. Isaiah was a prophet who was also a statesman. Lincoln—we say it with reverence— was a statesman who was also a prophet. He had foresight. He had _in_sight. He saw the hand of God shaping events, he saw the spirit of God in events. Such is his spiritual elevation of thought, such his tenderness of yearning, that there is no one but Isaiah to whom we may fittingly compare him, in the manly piety of his closing paragraph:

"Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, 'The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have home the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan; to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."