An Estimate of Abraham Lincoln
(The Editor of a Northern magazine applied to me for an article on Abraham Lincoln.
After some hesitation, I decided to comply with the request. In doing so, my rule of SAYING WHAT I THINK was followed. Mr. Lincoln was “sized up”, just as I would try to measure the proportions of Cromwell, of Robert Bruce or of Gladstone, or any other historical character.
But the Northern editor was “afraid” my article would stir up “sectional feeling.” He, therefore, returned it with the polite letter which follows.
Whosoever reads this rejected Lincoln article, which the Jeffersonian Magazine now presents, will probably feel some surprise that so liberal an estimate of Mr. Lincoln was ruled out, as contraband, by a non-political Northern magazine.
It is proper for me to say that so much of the article as follows the paragraph in which the South’s feeling toward Mr. Lincoln is expressed, was written after the MS came back. Even with these additions, I fear that my Northern brother would have been afraid to publish my estimate of Lincoln.
“New York, November 21, 1908.
“The Hon. Thomas E. Watson,