The Republican party nominated him for the presidency and the people decided at the polls that a house divided against itself could not stand, and that slavery had cursed soul and soil enough.
It is not a common thing to elect a really great man to fill the highest official position. I do not say that the great Presidents have been chosen by accident. Probably it would be better to say that they were the favorites of a happy chance.
The average man is afraid of genius. He feels as an awkward man feels in the presence of a sleight-of-hand performer. He admires and suspects. Genius appears to carry too much sail—to lack prudence, has too much courage. The ballast of dullness inspires confidence.
By a happy chance Lincoln was nominated and elected in spite of his fitness—and the patient, gentle, just and loving man was called upon to bear as great a burden as man has ever borne.
III.
THEN came another crisis—the crisis of Secession and Civil war.
Again Lincoln spoke the deepest feeling and the highest thought of the Nation. In his first message he said:
"The central idea of secession is the essence of anarchy."
He also showed conclusively that the North and South, in spite of secession, must remain face to face—that physically they could not separate—that they must have more or less commerce, and that this commerce must be carried on either between the two sections as friends, or as aliens.
This situation and its consequences he pointed out to absolute perfection in these words: