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Selected American history
The Life of Abraham Lincoln
By Henry Ketcham
CHAPTER XXXV.
LITERARY CHARACTERISTICS.
The duties of the President of the United States include the writing of
state papers that are considerable both in number and in volume. Many
of the Presidents, from Washington down, have been men of great
ability, and almost all of them have had sufficient academic training
or intellectual environments in their early years. These state papers
have frequently been such as to compare favorably with those of the
ablest statesmen of Europe. With every new election of President the
people wait in expectancy for the inaugural address and the messages to
congress. These are naturally measured by the standard of what has
preceded--not of all that has preceded, for the inferior ones are
forgotten, but of the best. This is no light test for any man.
Lincoln's schooling was so slight as to be almost nil. He did not
grow up in a literary atmosphere. But in the matter of his official
utterances he must be compared with the ablest geniuses and most
cultured scholars that have preceded him, and not merely with his early
associates. He is to be measured with Washington, the Adamses,
Jefferson, and not with the denizens of Gentryville or New Salem.
Perhaps the best study of his keenness of literary criticism will be
found in his correction of Seward's letter of instruction to Charles
Francis Adams, minister to England, under date of May 21, 1861. Seward
was a brilliant scholar, a polished writer, a trained diplomatist. If
any person were able to compose a satisfactory letter for the critical
conditions of that period, he was the one American most likely to do
it. He drafted the letter and submitted it to Lincoln for suggestions
and corrections. The original manuscript with Lincoln's
interlineations, is still preserved, and facsimiles, or copies, are
given in various larger volumes of Lincoln's biography. This document
is very instructive. In every case Lincoln's suggestion is a marked
improvement on the original. It shows that he had the better command of
precise English. Lowell himself could not have improved his criticisms.
It shows, too, that he had a firmer grasp of the subject. Had Seward's
paper gone without these corrections, it is almost certain that
diplomatic relations with England would have been broken off. In
literary matters Lincoln was plainly the master and Seward was the
pupil.
The power which Lincoln possessed of fitting language to thought is
marked. It made him the matchless story-teller, and gave sublimity to
his graver addresses. His thoroughness and accuracy were a source of
wonder and delight to scholars. He had a masterful grasp of great
subjects. He was able to look at events from all sides, so as to
appreciate how they would appear to different grades of intelligence,
different classes of people, different sections of the country. More
than once this many-sidedness of his mind saved the country from ruin.
Wit and humor are usually joined with their opposite, pathos, and it is
therefore not surprising that, being eminent in one, he should possess
all three characteristics. In his conversation his humor predominated,
in his public speeches pure reasoning often rose to pathos.
If the author were to select a few of his speeches or papers fitted to
give the best example of his literary qualities, and at the same time
present an evidence of the progress of his doctrine along political
lines, he would name the following: The House-divided-against-itself
speech, delivered at Springfield June 16, 1858. The underlying thought
of this was that the battle between freedom and slavery was sure to be
a fight to the finish.
Next is the Cooper Institute speech, Feb. 12, 1860. The argument in
this is that, in the thought and intent of the founders of our
government, the Union was permanent and paramount, while slavery was
temporary and secondary.
Next was his inaugural, March 4, 1861. This warned the country against
sectional war. It declared temperately but firmly, that he would
perform the duties which his oath of office required of him, but he
would not begin a war: if war came the aggressors must be those
of the other side.
The next was the Emancipation Proclamation, September 22, 1862, and
January 1, 1863. This was not a general and complete emancipation of
all slaves, it was primarily a military device, a war measure, freeing
the slaves of those who were in actual and armed rebellion at the time.
It was intended to weaken the belligerent powers of the rebels, and a
notice of the plan was furnished more than three months in advance,
giving ample time to all who wished to do so, to submit to the laws of
their country and save that portion of their property that was invested
in slaves.
Then came the second inaugural, March 4, 1865. There was in this little
to discuss, for he had no new policy to proclaim, he was simply to
continue the policy of the past four years, of which the country had
shown its approval by reelecting him. The end of the war was almost in
sight, it would soon he finished. But in this address there breathes an
intangible spirit which gives it marvelous grandeur. Isaiah was a
prophet who was also a statesman. Lincoln--we say it with reverence--
was a statesman who was also a prophet. He had foresight. He had
insight. He saw the hand of God shaping events, he saw the spirit of
God in events. Such is his spiritual elevation of thought, such his
tenderness of yearning, that there is no one but Isaiah to whom we may
fittingly compare him, in the manly piety of his closing paragraph:
"Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of
war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until
all the wealth piled by the bondman's two hundred and fifty years of
unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with
the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said
three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, 'The judgments of
the Lord are true and righteous altogether. With malice toward none,
with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to
see the right, let us strive to finish the work we are in; to bind up
the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have home the battle,
and for his widow, and his orphan; to do all which may achieve and
cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."
The study of these five speeches, or papers, will give the salient
points of his political philosophy, and incidentally of his
intellectual development. These are not enough to show the man Lincoln,
but they do give a true idea of the great statesman. They show a
symmetrical and wonderful growth. Great as was the House-divided-
against-itself speech, there is yet a wide difference between that and
the second inaugural: and the seven years intervening accomplished this
growth of mind and of spirit only because they were years of great
stress.
Outside of this list is the address at the dedication of Gettysburg
cemetery, November 19, 1863. This was not intended for an oration.
Edward Everett was the orator of the occasion. Lincoln's part was to
pronounce the formal words of dedication. It was a busy time--all times
were busy with him, but this was unusually busy--and he wrote it on a
sheet of foolscap paper in such odd moments as he could command. In
form it is prose, but in effect it is a poem. Many of its sentences are
rhythmical. The occasion lifted him into a higher realm of thought. The
hearers were impressed by his unusual gravity and solemnity of manner
quite as much, perhaps, as by the words themselves. They were awed,
many were moved to tears. The speech is given in full:
GETTYSBURG ADDRESS.
"Fourscore 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, 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 thus far 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, for the people, shall not perish from the
earth."
The effect of this speech was not immediate. Colonel Lamon was on the
platform when it was delivered and he says very decidedly that Everett,
Seward, himself, and Lincoln were all of opinion that the speech was a
failure. He adds: "I state it as a fact, and without fear of
contradiction, that this famous Gettysburg speech was not regarded by
the audience to whom it was addressed, or by the press or people of the
United States, as a production of extraordinary merit, nor was it
commented on as such until after the death of the author."
A search through the files of the leading New York dailies for several
days immediately following the date of the speech, seems to confirm
Lamon's remark--all except the last clause above quoted. These papers
give editorial praise to the oration of Everett, they comment favorably
on a speech by Beecher (who had just returned from England), but they
make no mention of Lincoln's speech. It is true that a day or two later
Everett wrote him a letter of congratulation upon his success. But this
may have been merely generous courtesy,--as much as to say, "Don't feel
badly over it, it was a much better speech than you think!" Or, on the
other hand, it may have been the result of his sober second thought,
the speech had time to soak in.
But the silence of the great daily papers confirms Lamon up to a
certain point. At the very first the speech was not appreciated. But
after a few days the public awoke to the fact that Lincoln's "few
remarks" were immeasurably superior to Everett's brilliant and learned
oration. The author distinctly remembers that it was compared to the
oration of Pericles in memory of the Athenian dead; that it was
currently said that there had been no memorial oration from that date
to Lincoln's speech of equal power. This comparison with Pericles is
certainly high praise, but is it not true? The two orations are very
different: Lincoln's was less than three hundred words long, that of
Pericles near three thousand. Pericles gloried in war, Lincoln mourned
over the necessity of war and yearned after peace. But both orators
alike appreciated the glory of sacrifice for one's country. And it is
safe to predict that this Gettysburg address, brief, hastily prepared,
underestimated by its author, will last as long as the republic shall
last, as long as English speech shall endure.
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