This capacity for companionship which so linked men of all types to Lincoln in his lifetime and so held them to him in death is one clue to his final success in bringing out of the struggle over slavery in this country certain solid and definite results—results that have enlarged the boundaries of human freedom and given a convincing demonstration of the need and the preciousness of more and more unionism if we are to secure our final better world. He could not have done what he did had he been less understanding of men and their limitations as well as of their powers, less experienced in passing behind human walls, finding what there was there and using it, not asking of a man what he could not give, not forcing on him what he could not receive.
Who can estimate what it was to the nation to have as a leader through the Civil War a man “born with a pass-key to hearts.”
Ida M. Tarbell.
CONTENTS
| PAGE | |
|---|---|
| [He Knew Lincoln] | 3 |
| [Back in ’58] | 43 |
| [Father Abraham] | 87 |
| [In Lincoln’s Chair] | 127 |