By Abraham Lincoln
| Four score and seven years ago Our fathers brought forth on this continent A new nation, Conceived in liberty, And dedicated to the proposition That all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, Testing whether that nation, Or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, Can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field As a final resting-place For those who here gave their lives That that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper That we should do this. But, in a larger sense, We cannot dedicate— We cannot consecrate— We cannot hallow— This ground. The brave men, living and dead, Who struggled here, Have consecrated it far above our poor power To add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember What we say here, [top] But it can never forget What they did here. It is for us, the living, rather, To be dedicated here to the unfinished work Which they who fought here have so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated To the great task remaining before us— That from these honored dead We take increased devotion to that cause For which they gave the last full measure of devotion; That we here highly resolve That these dead shall not have died in vain; That this nation, under God, Shall have a new birth of freedom; And that government of the people, By the people, and for the people Shall not perish from the earth. |
Lincoln attained this classic perfection of ordered thought, and with it, as an inevitable accompaniment this classic beauty of expression, only by great struggle. He became a poet of the first rank only by virtue of his moral spirit. He was continually correcting deficiencies in his character, which were far greater than is generally received, owing to the tendency of American historians of the tribe of Parson Weems to find by force illustrations of moral heroism in the youth of our great men. Thus Lincoln is represented as a noble lad, who, having allowed a borrowed book to be ruined by rain, went to the owner and offered to "pull fodder" to repay him, which the man ungenerously permitted him to do. The truth is, that the neighbor, to whom the book was a cherished possession, required him to do the work in repayment, and that Lincoln not only did it grudgingly, but afterwards lampooned the man so severely in satiric verse that he was ashamed to show himself at neighborhood gatherings. All the people about Gentryville feared Lincoln's caustic wit, and disliked him for it, although they were greatly impressed with his ability exhibited thereby. Lincoln recognized his moral obliquity, and curbed his propensity for satire, which was a case of that "exercise of natural faculty" which affects all gifted persons. And when he left that region he visited all the neighbors, and asked pardon of those whom he had ridiculed. The true Lincoln is a far better example to boys than the [top] fictitious one, in that he had more unlovely traits at first than the average lad, yet he reformed, with the result that, when he went to new scenes, he speedily became the most popular young man in the neighborhood. He was one of those who
| "rise on stepping stones Of their dead selves to higher things." |
The reformation of his character by self examination and determination not to make the same mistake again seems to have induced similar effects and methods for their attainment in the case of his intellectual development. Whatever the connection, both regenerations proceeded apace. Lincoln at first was a shallow thinker, accepting without examination the views of others, especially popular statesmen, such as Henry Clay, whose magnetic personality was drawing to himself the high-spirited young men of the West. Some of the political doctrines which Lincoln then adopted he retained to the end, these being on subjects such as taxation and finance whose moral bearing was not apparent, and therefore into which he never inquired closely, for Lincoln's mind could not be profoundly interested in any save a moral question. When he found that a revered statesman was weak upon a crucial moral issue, he repressed his innate tendency to loyalty and rejected him. Thus, after a visit to Henry Clay in Kentucky, when the slavery question was arising to vex the country despite the efforts the aged statesman had made to settle it by the compromise of 1850, Lincoln returned disillusioned, having found that the light he himself possessed on the subject was clearer than that of his old leader. The eulogy which he delivered on the death of Clay, which occurred shortly afterward (in 1852), is the most perfunctory of all his addresses.
Indeed, not till the time of the Repeal of the Missouri Compromise of 1854, which brought Lincoln back into politics by its overthrow of what he regarded as the constitutional exclusion of slavery from the Territories, did he rise to his highest powers as a thinker and speaker. Lincoln had been defeated for reelection to [top] Congress because of his opposition, though not highly moral in character, to the popular Mexican war, and, regarding himself as a political failure, he had devoted himself to law. His most notable speech in the House of Representatives, a well composed satirical arraignment of President Polk for throwing the country into war, had failed utterly of its intended effect, probably because of its trimming partisan tone. In 1854 he was relieved of the trammels of party, the Whigs having gone to smash. Anti-slavery had become a great moral movement, and he was drawn into its current. Almost at once he became its Western leader. His speech against the Repeal of the Missouri Compromise which had been effected by his inveterate antagonist, Senator Stephen A. Douglas, was his first classic achievement in argumentative oratory. While in the greater aspect of artistic composition, the form of the address as a whole, his master was Euclid, in minor points the influence of Shakespeare, of whom Lincoln had become a great reader, was apparent, as indicated by a quotation from the dramatist, and an application to Senator Douglas of the scene of Lady Macbeth trying to wash out the indelible stain upon her hand. Also the Bible was the source of strong and telling phrases and figures of speech. Thus he denominated slavery as "the great Behemoth of danger," and asked, "shall the strong grip of the nation be loosened upon him, to intrust him to the hands of his feeble keepers?"
And, in the following passage, characteristic of the new Lincoln, I think that either Shakespeare and the Bible had combined to inspire him with graphic description of character and moral indignation, or they enforced these native powers.
"Again, you have among you a sneaking individual of the class of native tyrants known as the 'Slave-Dealer'. He watches your necessities, and crawls up to buy your slave at a speculative price. If you cannot help it, you sell to him; but if you can help it, you drive him from your door. You despise him utterly. You do not recognize him as a friend, or even as an honest man. Your children must not play with his; they may rollick freely with the little negroes, but not [top] with the slave-dealer's children. If you are obliged to deal with him you try to get through the job without so much as touching him. It is common with you to join hands with the men you meet, but with the slave-dealer you avoid the ceremony—instinctively shrinking from the snaky contact."
Of Lincoln's critical appreciation of Shakespeare Frank B. Carpenter, the artist of the "First Reading of the Emancipation Proclamation" (see illustration on [page 206]), writes in his "Six Months at the White House with Abraham Lincoln" as follows:
"[Presently the conversation turned upon Shakspeare, of whom it is well known Mr. Lincoln was very fond. He once remarked, 'It matters not to me whether Shakspeare be well or ill acted; with him the thought suffices.]' Edwin Booth was playing an engagement at this time at Grover's Theatre. He had been announced for the coming evening in his famous part of Hamlet. The President had never witnessed his representation of this character, and he proposed being present. The mention of this play, which I afterward learned had at all times a peculiar charm for Mr. Lincoln's mind, waked up a train of thought I was not prepared for. Said he,—and his words have often returned to me with a sad interest since his own assassination,—'There is one passage of the play of "Hamlet" which is very apt to be slurred over by the actor, or omitted altogether, which seems to me the choicest part of the play. It is the soliloquy of the King, after the murder. It always struck me as one of the finest touches of nature in the world.'