Where were the hidings of his power? Why is Lincoln revered above his fellows, the orators, the soldiers, and the statesmen and editors and secretaries of his time? A line of contrast with the other great men who were his competitors for fame will make Lincoln's supremacy to stand forth as clear in outline as the mountains, and as bright as the stars. For example, Wendell Phillips was the agitator and orator of the abolitionists. Phillips said, "Emancipation is the essential thing. The Union secondary. If the Southern States will not emancipate the slaves, force them out of the Union." Horace Greeley was the editor of the war epoch. Greeley said, "Emancipation is first, the Union secondary. If they prefer slavery to liberty let the erring sisters go." Beecher was the all-round man of genius. His great speech in England began with an exordium at Manchester; he stated the arguments at Edinburgh, Glasgow and Liverpool; he pronounced the peroration at Exeter Hall, in London, and no such peroration and eloquence has been heard since Demosthenes' philippic against the tyrant of Macedon. But Beecher's criticisms of Lincoln in the New York Independent during April and May of 1862 led Lincoln to exclaim after reading one of them, "Is Thy servant a dog that he should do this thing?" If these great men did not appreciate the national crisis, Lincoln understood it perfectly. Now, over against the editorials of Beecher and Horace Greeley and the lectures of Phillips, stands Lincoln, and to these three men he sent words addressed only to Horace Greeley, explaining to them why the time had not come for the Emancipation Proclamation. And although a part of this we have quoted in defense of Webster's position in 1850, that and yet more of the famous letter may well be repeated here:—
"I would save the Union.
"If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them.
"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and not either to save or destroy slavery.
"If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it.
"If I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it.
"And if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that.
"What I do about slavery and the coloured race I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union.
"I shall do less whenever I believe that what I am doing hurts the cause.
"And I shall do more whenever I believe that doing more will help the Union."