“It was a great blunder, a sad thing for the white race and the black race.”
“Wall, what would you have done?” sez Josiah.
“I don’t know,” sez Cousin John sadly—“I don’t know; perhaps mistakes were inevitable. The question was so great and momentous, and the danger and the difficulties seemed so impenetrable on every side.”
“Lincoln did the best he could,” sez Josiah sturdily; “and I know it.”
“And so do I know it,” sez Cousin John. “That wise, great heart could not make any other mistake only a mistake of judgment, and he was sorely tried to know what was best to do. The burden weighed down upon him so, I fancy he was glad to lay it down in any way.
“The times were so dark that any measure adopted for safety was only groping towards the light, only catching at the first rope of safety that seemed to lower itself through the heavy clouds of war.
“The heavy eyes and true hearts watching through those black hours will never be forgotten by this republic.
“And now, in looking back and criticising the errors of that time, it is like the talk of those who are watching a storm at sea, when, in order to save the ship, wrong ropes may be seized, and life-boats cast out into the stormy waves may be swept down and lost. But if the ship is saved, let the survivors of the crew forever bless and praise the brave hands and hearts that dared the storm and the peril.
“But when the sky is clearer you can see more plainly than when the tempest is whirling about you and death and ruin are riding on the gale.
“You can see plainer and you can see farther.