He has been well described by one reared like himself, in the free atmosphere of the West: “Nearly every great figure of history is a kind of great monstrosity. We know nothing about Washington. He is a steel engraving. No dirt of humanity clings to his boots. Lincoln lived where men were free and equal, and was acquainted with the people, not much with books. Every man is in some sort a book. He lived the poem of the year in the fields, the woods, the blessed country. Lincoln had the advantage of sociability. He was thoughtful, and saw on the horizon of his future the perpetual star of hope. To him every field was a landscape; every landscape a poem; every poem a lesson, and every grove a fairy land. Oaks and elms are far more poetical than streets or houses. A country life is in itself an education. It gives the man an idea of home. He hears the rain on the roofs, the rustle of the breeze, the music of nature’s fullest control. You have no idea how many men education spoils. Lincoln’s education was derived from men and things, and hence he had a chance to develop. He had many sides. He not only had laughter, but he had tears, and never that kind of solemnity which is a wash to hide the features. He was not afraid to seek for knowledge where he had it not. When a man is too dignified he ceases to learn. He was always honest with himself. He was an orator; that is, he was natural. If you wish to be sublime you must keep close to the grass. You must sit close to the heart of human experience—above the clouds it is too cold. If you want to know the difference between an orator and a speaker read the oration of Lincoln at Gettysburg, and then read the speech of Everett at the same place. One came from the heart, the other was from out of the voice. Lincoln’s speech will be remembered forever. Everett’s no man will read. It was like plucked flowers.
“If you want to find out what a man is to the bottom, give him power. Any man can stand adversity—only a great man can stand prosperity. It is the glory of Abraham Lincoln that he never abused power only on the side of mercy. When he had power he used it in mercy. He loved to see the tears of the wife whose husband he had snatched from death.”
I draw near the close of my task, having given, as I hope, some fair idea of one whose memory will always remain dear to the hearts of his countrymen. In that chequered life there is much to imitate, much to admire, little to avoid or censure. Happy will be the day when our public men copy his unselfishness, his patriotic devotion to duty!
Within a few months, on the eighteenth anniversary of Mr. Lincoln’s assassination, a poem was read at his grave by John H. Bryant, of Princeton, which will fitly close my story of the Backwoods Boy:
Not one of all earth’s wise and great
Hath earned a purer gratitude
Than the great Soul whose hallowed dust
This structure holds in sacred trust.
How fierce the strife that rent the land,
When he was summoned to command;
With what wise care he led us through
The fearful storms that ’round us blew.
Calm, patient, hopeful, undismayed,
He met the angry hosts arrayed
For bloody war, and overcame
Their haughty power in Freedom’s name.
’Mid taunts and doubts, the bondsman’s chain
With gentle force he cleft in twain,
And raised four million slaves to be
The chartered sons of Liberty.
No debt he owed to wealth or birth;
By force of solid, honest worth
He climbed the topmost height of fame
And wrote thereon a spotless name.
Oh! when the felon hand laid low
That sacred head, what sudden woe
Shot to the Nation’s farthest bound,
And every bosom felt the wound.