V.

J. P. USHER..

"Without doubt the greatest man of rebellion times, the one matchless among forty millions for the peculiar difficulties of the period, was Abraham Lincoln." JAMES LONGSTREET.

MR

R. LINCOLN'S greatness was founded upon his devotion to truth, his humanity and his innate sense of justice to all.

In his career as a lawyer, he traversed a wide range of territory in Illinois; he attended many courts and had many professional engagements, some remunerative and others not. In all his conflicts at the bar, wherein it may be said he was successful in every case that he ought to have been, he never inflicted an unnecessary wound upon an adversary, and no one ever thought of uttering a rude word to him. He affected no superior wisdom over his fellows, yet he was often appealed to by the judge to say what rule of law ought to be applied in a given case, and what disposition the parties ought to make of it, and his opinion, when expressed, always seemed to be so reasonable, fair and just, that the parties accepted it. He was never known to re

buke any one for intemperance, profanity, or other violation of social duty. While he professed nothing in these respects, people did not drink immoderately in his presence, neither were they vulgar nor profane. When he appeared, every one seemed to be happy; they wanted to hear him talk; he always had something to say that would amuse or instruct themsomething that they had not heard before. He argued great causes, in which principle and property were involved, logically, and with wonderful ability. Trifling causes he met with ridicule, and often by an anecdote, in the use of which he was unsurpassed: the cause would be abandoned in a gale of merriment, the losing party being neither provoked nor angry.

A man endowed with such qualities was bound to be a successful politician; and, if he turned his attention in that direction, none who knew him could doubt upon which side he would be, or with which party he would unite. He was a Whig, because he believed the principles of that party best conduced to the welfare of his fellow-man. He believed that the true principles of government were those which Mr. Clay advocated. He believed in the protection of American industries. He believed that the slavery of men was wrong in principle, and impossible of justification, and he held in profound veneration and respect the founders of the State of

Illinois, who had, by constitutional provision, forever prevented the existence of that institution in the State.

His opinions upon this subject would have remained a sentiment only, for he manifested no disposition by word or act to interfere with slavery where it existed, but for the violent attempt to introduce slavery in Kansas and Nebraska upon the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. Mr. Douglas, the author of the repeal, sought to justify his act by the claim that the Kansas-Nebraska act submitted the question of slavery to the people of those territories, when they should come to adopt a constitution and apply for admission into the Union as States. Upon the questions involved the debates between him and Mr. Lincoln occurred.

There were comparatively few Abolitionists, in the strict sense of the term, in the State of Illinois. Their doctrines and pretensions were very unpopular. But a few years had gone by since Lovejoy was mobbed and killed at Alton, his press thrown into the river, and his murder passed unavenged; and yet Lovejoy neither said nor published anything more hostile to slavery than Lincoln uttered in those debates. But Lovejoy was an avowed Abolitionist; Lincoln was not. Mr. Douglas said at Freeport, in the northern part of the State, that Mr. Lincoln would not dare to speak at Carlisle, in the southern

part of the State, where they were soon to appear, in the same terms he did at Freeport. When they reached Carlisle, Mr. Lincoln referred to Mr. Douglas's remark, and spoke in the same strain as before, and no one remonstrated. He could do this because the people believed he was entirely sincere. His earnest and gentle manners compelled them to respect and tolerate the freedom of speech. At Charleston he said: "Because I do not want and would not have a negro woman for a slave it does not follow that I want her for a wife." This expression illustrates his aptness in enforcing an argument. A committee from the convention sitting in Richmond, which finally passed the Virginia ordinance of secession, went to Washington with the request that the President should order the evacuation by Major Anderson of Fort Sumter. During the colloquy which occurred between Mr. Lincoln and this committee, Mr. Lincoln said:

"I understand you claim and believe yourselves to be Union men, that the Richmond Convention is opposed to a dissolution of the Union, and that you believe a majority of the people of the State want to remain in the Union."

They said: "Yes."

Then Mr. Lincoln replied:

"I can't understand it at all; Virginia wants to remain in the Union, and yet wants me to let South

Carolina go out and the Union be dissolved, in order that Virginia may stay in.”

The masterly debates between Douglas and Lincoln made Lincoln the nominee of the Republican Party for President at the Chicago Convention in 1860, to the great disappointment of Mr. Seward and his supporters. The election came on, and resulted in the election of a majority of Republican electors; but these electors did not receive a majority of the public vote by nearly a million of votes, which fact Mr. Lincoln often referred to during his administration. The Republican Party, as such, stood pledged to the maintenance, inviolate, of the rights of the States, and especially the right of each State to order and control its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment exclusively. To that pledge Mr. Lincoln determined rigorously to adhere, and if, during his administration, there was any seeming digression from that resolve, it was brought about and compelled by the exigencies of the war. In his first inaugural address he expressed

himself as follows:

"I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so."

This, he said, was quoted from one of his former speeches, and, further, that the same sentiment