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VI.

HIS MENTAL AND MORAL CHARACTERISTICS.

He surpassed all orators in eloquence, all diplomatists in wisdom, all statesmen in foresight, and the most ambitious in fame.

--JOHN JAMES INGALLS.

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.

He was a man of great passions, and yet he held them well at bay. He was a shrewd man, a long-headed man, a man of deep and profound policies. He was a curious man, a mystery and a riddle. -HERNDON.

Through one of those freaks of nature, that produce a Shakespeare at long intervals, a giant had been born to the poor whites of Kentucky and the sense of superiority possessed President Lincoln at all times. -DONN PIATT.

He was the most perfect ruler of men the world has ever seen.
-EDWIN M. STANTON, in 1865.

Whosoever shall attempt to portray or study the man, Abraham Lincoln, will find himself greatly embarrassed by the uneven and heterogeneous phases of his individuality and

character.

In his physical man he was, in no sense, an ideal; his arms and legs were disproportionately long, his feet and hands were abnormally large, his features were coarse, his hair was unkempt: there was no majesty in his deportment and no grace in his manners; his gait was awkward and ungainly, his gestures were angular and eccentric; even in illustrating

his anecdotes, by various movements of his ungraceful body, the entertainment was enhanced by the awkwardness and grotesqueness of his movements.

While his face, from an artistic point of view, was homely, yet it was in no sense repulsive. The expression of his face when lit up, was significant of genius, and the traces of deep reflection and melancholy exhibited in his eyes marked him as an extraordinary man, and his countenance when in repose was the saddest I have ever known.

In abilities he was the equal of Gladstone, Gambetta, Bismarck or Webster; in achievements he was equal to Mahomet, Columbus, Luther, Napoleon or the aggregate Continental Congress.

The Emancipation Proclamation was as essential a production as the Declaration of Independence, as much a charter of liberty to Man, as indispensable to the resistless march of enlightenment.

To save a government of forty millions of people from premeditated destruction by two-fifths of its members, to preserve its autonomy against the assault of millions of men in arms, to baffle the leading powers of the world in a diplomatic struggle for the overthrow of Republican Government; these were more heroic achievements than any wrought by the Continental Congress, while to open the prison-house of bondage of four millions of MEN, whose servitude was guaranteed by law and confirmed by the judgment of the highest tribunal in the land, and assure liberty to them and their descendants forever, was an unique moral achievement, unsurpassed in history.

The Declaration of Independence was a string of glittering generalities, and contained "a word of promise to the ear, but broken to the hope:" for, eighty years after its promulgation, the Chief Justice of the United States judicially declared that one class of Americans had no rights which any man, citizen or foreigner was bound to respect; yet this renowned document was the crowning glory of our early statesmen. But Abraham Lincoln conceived, planned, promulgated and brought the nation to the support of, a declaration of emancipation from chattel slavery of four millions of Americans,

and, incidentally, from political servitude of over forty millions of men and their descendants.

In one of Thackeray's satires, is introduced three several figures, the first being the wig, robes and high-heeled shoes, in statuesque attitude, such as were then worn by kings; the second, a diminutive, crooked and ugly little man, leaning helplessly on a cane; the third, this same contemptible creature, standing in the high shoes, encased in the royal robes, and adorned with the majestic wig.

The first was called "Rex," the second "Ludovico," and the third, being the other two combined, "Ludovico Rex:" the moral of which was that the complete king, when dissected, was found to be a composite of an insignificant mannikin, and a great deal of trappings-pasteboard, tinsel and velvet.

This extravagant satire reveals a palpable truth, for there is an universal curiosity on the part of men to analyze the character of the head of their state and to divorce the real man from the adventitious surroundings.

In the case of President Lincoln this curiosity is emphasized by his sudden advent into fame, his wonderful genius, the antithesis of his conduct, the colossal work which he performed, and the resplendent lights and deep shades of his character.

He presented to the world the appearance of being at once the most melancholy and the most jocund of men; his administration was apparently a composite of the most profound responsibility and also of laissez faire; he combined within himself the strangely diverse roles of head of the State in the agony of civil war, but he was likewise the court jester: and supremely eminent in both characters.

It was this combination of the "grave and gay," of the “lively and severe," that induced such diverse judgment, and frequently so much misjudgment, of this remarkable man during his administration; that led many acute critics and

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