and disturbing consequences would come out of an immediate decision by him, he would let them maul each other, and wrestle like physical champions until both were "winded," tired out with the contest, and then he would decide, the defeated party being more ready to acknowledge the other was the strongest. JOHN CONNESS.

A

XXXII.

JOHN B. ALLEY.

MONG the greatest, wisest and best who ever lived in any country, was the man who was at the head of this Republic during the most trying, perplexing and desperate internal struggle that ever afflicted, destroyed, or saved a nation.

Far-seeing, sagacious, calm and modest, wherever placed-whether in humble private life or upon the highest pinnacle of fame and power-he was the same unpretending, and apparently, in his own estimation, inconsequential personage.

It was my good fortune to know him well during the whole period of his administration as President. I greatly admired him. He was a many-sided person, and for this reason, perhaps, the estimate by different individuals who had the same opportunities of knowing him, was widely different. Many of the most distinguished men of the country, who were in daily intercourse with him, thought but little of his capacity as a statesman. And while entirely true, it is hardly to be believed, that those in both houses of Congress who knew him best had so little confidence in his judgment and ability to administer the govern

ment that very few of the members of the Senate and of the House were in favor of his renomination for the Presidency in 1864.

But the masses of the Republicans rose in their might and demanded his re-nomination and re-election. After the close of the war, when his great good judgment and his patriotism had been seen and read of all men, the conviction was universal that the wisest thing had been done in calling him for a second time to the Presidential chair.

My first knowledge of, and acquaintance with, Mr. Lincoln was in the summer of 1856. In the National Republican Convention of that year, which nominated Fremont for President, "Abe Lincoln," as the Illinois delegation familiarly called him, received a large support for the second office in the nation. He was a quaint but conspicuous character at that time, and all who knew him well seemed to love and admire him. He had the reputation then of being the finest story teller in all the "West." My acquaintance with him was very slight, until after his election as President, when I was a member of Congress I continued as such during the whole

of his Presidency.

When he was nominated for the Presidency, in 1860, Mr. Seward and his friends were greatly disappointed. Mr Seward, himself, apparently exhibited, under his discomfiture, great philosophy,

and, in the several speeches which he made urging Mr. Lincoln's election, he displayed a magnanimity that challenged the admiration of the whole Republican party. They were the ablest and most exhaustive and effective speeches that were delivered by anybody during that campaign.

Lincoln had not been long in the Presidential chair before the people seemed instinctively to perceive the kind of man that he was. When nominated, the person who first received the information in Washington was the great leader of the Northern Democracy, Stephen A. Douglas. I happened to be in the Senate Chamber when Mr. Douglas received the telegram announcing the fact. He went with me from the Senate Chamber to the House of Representatives, of which I was then a member, and a small squad of Republicans gathered around him to hear him read the telegram. After reading it, he paused for a few moments and then said of his great antagonist, "Well, gentlemen, you have nominated a very able and a very honest man."

To me he always seemed to be a very great man. In all the qualities of true greatness of character and mind he was the equal, if not the superior, of all the great statesmen that I have ever known. Of all these public men, none seemed to have so little pride of opinion. He was always learning and did not adhere to views which he found to be erroneous,