^^ * o , o 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 'bv" 
 
 .-^o^ 
 
 
 y 
 
 
 
 'bv" 
 
 
 
 
 >"* «.^ ^fi- -"'%Miar* "^ ^ ' 
 
 
 \/ 
 
 "oV" 
 
 rfv 
 
 d^ » 9 • • * ^ 
 
 %.'^^-'\o> v-'^'n/ %.*^-'*/ V'^\*' 
 
 
 
 .-^^o 
 
 'by' 
 
 
 
 - -oV*^ 
 
 r^ 
 
 
 "'^_ 
 
 • %,<^^'/;^A^o v.^-^^ * 
 
 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2010 with funding from 
 The Library of Congress 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/washingtonlincolOObrad 
 
Ila0l|tn9t0n an& ©nrnln 
 
This edition is limited to five hundred copies^ of 
 which the first fifty copies are bound in cloth ^ and the 
 remaining four hundred and fifty copies in paper. 
 
 All copies have been numbered and signed by the 
 author. 
 
 This copy is No.^./...^ X^ 
 
 i^iecc^^ ^'^ 
 
llaBl|tn0t0tt anb Utnrnln 
 
 A Comparison, a Contrast and a Consequence 
 
 An Address Delivered on June 18, 1904 
 
 at 
 
 aUe:g 3f0riget 'Penittx* 
 
 Before the Pennsylvania Society of 
 Sons of the Revolution 
 
 To Commemorate the Abandonment of the Camp by the 
 Continental Ariiiy in 1778 
 
 By 
 The Rev. Cyrus Townsend Brady, Lh,D. 
 
 Published by the Society 
 
 1904 
 
1. 
 
 VK 
 
 ■V 
 
 
 PRISS OF 
 
 tTbc 5obn G. Wlliwton Co. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 
 """«r°n--" 
 
Respectfully dedicated 
 
 TO 
 
 jfrancis \)on HlbaOe Cabeen 
 
 WITH THE SINCERE ADMIRATION 
 AND ESTEEM OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
A Qlomjiartson. a (Enntrast nnh a (Hanstvintntt, 
 
 Gentlemen and Comrades, Sons of the Revolution. 
 
 Deeply sensible of the privileges of the opportunity you have 
 afforded me, I undertake the discharge of its obligations with a 
 seriousness of intent and an earnestness of purpose which I trust 
 will win me the consideration accorded to honest endeavor. 
 
 Rare, indeed, is it that any man whose station is merely that of 
 a private citizen of our Republic is permitted to address so dis- 
 tinguished an assemblage, amid such historic surroundings, on so 
 happy an occasion. And profoundly do I appreciate the honor. 
 Without further preliminary save this assurance, therefore, I 
 enter upon my pleasant task. 
 
 Nations are like men. They begin, they end, and between their 
 limits are comprised the seven ages. Their span is longer than 
 that of the individual, but short enough in the sight of Him to 
 whom a thousand years are but as yesterday when it is past. 
 
 The United States of America was conceived at Lexington, 
 quickened at Bunker Hill and born at Philadelphia It was bap- 
 tized in blood and snow at Trenton. It spoke stern words from 
 the cannon mouth at Saratoga. It struggled desperately for life 
 amid the cold at Valley Forge. It struck boldly for victory at 
 Guilford Courthouse and the Cowpens. It finally assumed the 
 toga virilis of independence at Yorktown. 
 
 Youngest among nations centuries old it had to run the gamut 
 of experience thereafter. It grew by leaps and bounds until its 
 confines were measured by the Atlantic and the Pacific, the Great 
 Lakes and the Gulf of Mexico. The Mississippi from a boundary 
 
 (9) 
 
lo Washington and Lincoln 
 
 became a bisector. Its position was assured by the death grapple 
 at Lundy's Lane; on the decks of the frigate Constitution; behind 
 the cotton bales and sugar barrels at New Orleans. Thereafter 
 it was fain to sow its wild oats ; consequently it behaved badly 
 in '46 and '47 in Mexico. Lastly, it stood upon its feet and 
 fought successfully for its very existence in '61 and '65, in the 
 longest, the most costly and the most terrible of modern wars. 
 
 To-da)% before the wondering nations, it faces the future with 
 a confidence, an assurance, begot of the past. Yet no one may 
 say what the years may bring to it, or what it may bring to the 
 years, in the days that are to come. 
 
 History is usually but the record of events. The chronicler 
 goes from crisis to crisis. The story of a people is epitomized 
 in the lives of its great men. The mind leaps in succession from 
 figure to figure. Yet this is but half of history. Great men are 
 the products of their time, crises the culminating points of slow- 
 moving persistent forces ; as the water swells inward from the 
 sea in long undulations scarcely noticed until the crest of the 
 wave breaks, flashes into sudden foam and is gone. 
 
 With a full consciousness of this mighty, determinatiA^e under- 
 current, it is yet difficult to disassociate history from the crisis 
 and from the men who dominated it, or failed. It is the white 
 cap that catches the eye when the heaving of the deep passes 
 unnoticed. It is the light that shines in the darkness that dis- 
 closes the nature of the surrovmding midnight. This is the use 
 of the study of crisis and man ; by it we are led to deeper things 
 hidden from superficial glance. 
 
 Disregarding for this argument the greater fields of literature, 
 art and science, with no disparagement of their importance — 
 God forbid ! — we confine our attention to men of affairs. 
 
 Among the ancient Hebrews stand Moses the Law-giver and 
 Paul the Saint. Rise in our minds at the name of Greece, 
 Pericles, chief of her statesmen ; Alexander, greatest apostle of 
 her progress ; Leonidas, high exemplar of her courage. Rome with 
 her two thousand years of history recalls Caesar, typifying her 
 ambition ; Brutus, her patriotism ; Augustus, her empery. Charle- 
 magne, the unifier ; Richelieu, the statesman ; Napoleon, the law- 
 giver, appear for France ; Frederick, creator of the kingdom. 
 
A Contrast and a|Consequence ii 
 
 Bismarck, founder of the empire, for Germany; Czar Peter and 
 Empress Catharine for Russia ; Gregory the Seventh, that Hilde- 
 brand of Canossa, for Italy ; Charles V. and Christopher Colum- 
 bus for Spain. Nearer our own, we bare our brows before that 
 stern ironside, Cromwell, and that sailor of sailors. Nelson, for 
 England. We bow lowest of all in homage to the greatest patriot, 
 the noblest character of the first sixteen centuries of our era, 
 William the Silent, of storm-beaten Netherlands. 
 
 Then we turn to America. The men we have enumerated are 
 those that have stamped themselves upon five thousand years of 
 history. It might be unfair to expect that in one century and a 
 quarter the new nation could produce any fit for inclusion in that 
 brilliant category. Yet it has done so. My mind dwells to-day 
 upon two names, which can never be disregarded by any who 
 strive to enumerate the small score of the world's supreme — 
 George Washington and Abraham Lincoln ! 
 
 It has been the fashion among those who have been privileged 
 to address you upon successive commemorations on this historic 
 field, to dwell upon the local happenings, the history of events. 
 The account of the ragged, destitute, hungry men at Valley Forge, 
 freezing, bleeding in the snow, yet holding on, has been repeated 
 many times and oft. And well it may be; for such a story of 
 deathless heroism it is difficult to parallel in the annals of nations. 
 The men of Valley Forge can never be too highly praised, their 
 heroism too largely dwelt upon. Here they overcame victory. 
 Here they defeated defeat. Here they founded an heritage for, 
 and gave an example to, succeeding generations. 
 
 But I have deliberately chosen to fix my attention this morning 
 rather upon the man than upon the men. And I have broadened 
 the scope of my remarks. Valley Forge stands for the supreme 
 struggle of the Revolution. The place is national, therefore. 
 Nay, it is epochal in universal history. In my judgment the 
 cause of American independence was settled here rather than on 
 any other battlefield in the war. Surviving this winter its future 
 might be delayed, but it was assured. For man here fought 
 against nature. He had to oppose his feeble powers not to men 
 who differed from him only in degree of strength or capacity, 
 but to those immutable laws which bring the heat in summer and 
 
12 Washington and Lincoln 
 
 the cold in winter, which produce the thirst pang and the hunger 
 grip. Against these the highest human courage usually avails 
 nothing. Before these man breaks and falters. So did not our 
 forefathers in the snow. 
 
 The ambition of Napoleon was finally buried on the ice-heaped 
 plains of Muscovy ; the genius of liberty lived, it grew, it thrived 
 at Valley Forge. Therefore, from the long roll at Lexington to 
 the grounding arms at Yorktown, the supreme incident of the 
 American Revolution is the winter at Valley Forge. 
 
 Happy is that great commonwealth, Pennsylvania, keystone of 
 the mighty federal arch, which includes within its borders such 
 hallowed ground ; for, as I have said elsewhere and to this splen- 
 did assemblage, no spot on earth — not the plains of Marathon, 
 nor the passes of Sempach, nor the place of the Bastile, nor the 
 dykes of Holland, nor the moors of England — is so sacred in 
 the history of the struggle for human liberty as are the hills of 
 Valley Forge. 
 
 You will bear with me, I am sure, if I take a long leap through 
 the years and call your attention to another fact which justly 
 fills us as children of Pennsylvania with a double pride ; that 
 within our borders is a second spot hallowed by the blood of men, 
 of equal importance and of equal interest in our history and in 
 the history of the world with this. That sacred field lies to the 
 westward where rise the slopes of Gettysburg. 
 
 At Valley Forge it was determined whether or not the Repub- 
 lic should die in its childhood ; at Gettysburg it was settled 
 whether or not the Republic should exist in its manhood. As in 
 the winter of '76 the opponents of liberty put forth their greatest 
 efforts, seconded by the bitter circumstance of nature, to stifle 
 the new idea, and failed ; so in '63 the Confederacy reached the 
 "high topgallant" of its fortunes when brave Armistead fell before 
 the Pennsylvania soldiers on Cemetery Ridge. There were five 
 years of varying conflict after Valley Forge, and two years of 
 bloody fighting after Gettysburg, but in both cases it was but the 
 ebbing of a tide. 
 
 The man who stands to us for the heroism at Valley Forge is 
 George Washington ; the man who stands to us for the supreme 
 event at Gettysburg is Abraham Lincoln. At first glance no two 
 
A Contrast and a Consequence 13 
 
 men could be more dissimilar, yet the first is the cause of the 
 second, the second the complement of the first. For to George 
 Washington and Valley Forge are due Abraham Lincoln and 
 Gettysburg. In history they can never be disassociated. This 
 is a contrast, a comparison and a consequence. 
 
 The struggle that has been going on in the world since the days 
 primeval has been a struggle for human liberty. Viewed from 
 the nearer point this fact has usually been uncomprehended. The 
 baser passions of humanity, the ambition of kings, the love of 
 women, the pride of potentates, the covetousness of states, aye, 
 even the claims of religion, have precipitated wars ; and the results 
 have often seemed in accord with such conceptions, methods and 
 aims. But he who reads history aright — "that power charged 
 with the promulgation of the judgment of God upon the pride of 
 man" — will see that in the larger total throughout the ages things 
 have worked together for good. Oftentimes the conqueror who 
 has defied God's laws and ministered to his own ambition has 
 been made, despite himself, the avatar of a new dispensation, the 
 tyrant has brought liberty in his train. 
 
 In every age there have lived men who were ahead of their times, 
 who have nobly perished in an herculean effort to drag to some 
 higher level the sluggish mass. And other men, sometimes lesser, 
 sometimes greater, upon their failures have builded success. Rare 
 indeed has there been a fortuitous concurrence of time and mass 
 and man. 
 
 One of the greatest of the liberators was Cromwell. He could 
 strike down injustice, he could kill a tyrant, but he could not build 
 a structure which would outlast his own personal influence. The 
 passing of the Protector brought back that contemptible fribble 
 Charles II. Brutus could remove Imperial Caesar, simply to make 
 way for the more imperial Augustus. Alexander could bring a vast 
 empire under his sway which fell to pieces by its own weight when 
 his death, in a drunken brawl at thirty-three, relaxed the weld- 
 ing hand. Napoleon could incarnate the spirit of the French Rev- 
 olution — that thing of noble sentiment and atrocious deed — and, 
 when opportunity and his genius put the world at his feet, could 
 grasp at omnipotence until the mere human frame, unable to sus- 
 tain such a divine attribute, gave way, and the man ate out his 
 own heart, an exile at St. Helena. 
 
14 * Washington and Lincoln 
 
 The greatest before our own nation gave the world assurance 
 of a man was William of Orange, the Dutch patriot and statesman 
 who stands next to Washington. See vis Tranquillus in Undis! 
 Rarely has there ever been such a people, such a leader, such an 
 opportunity and such a success as in the Netherlands. It is good 
 for the world that he and they lived and wrought as they did. Yet 
 to-day kings and queens reign in the country for whose independ- 
 ence he fought alike the ravaging sea and the ravening Spaniard ! 
 
 When what has been called the greatest document ever struck 
 ofif at one time by human hand, the Declaration of Independence, 
 was spread before the eyes of startled Europe ; in spite of the age- 
 long struggle, human liberty — civic, political and religious liberty, 
 that is — was in most countries a philosophic dream. Even that 
 sturdy little Helvetian confederacy was under the domination of 
 an oligarchy as narrow and as supreme as that which had swayed 
 for a thousand years the destinies of Venice. There was liberty 
 nowhere on the surface. There was a passion for it everywhere 
 in human hearts. 
 
 Then it pleased God to bring together in America such a group of 
 men as few countries have ever assembled at one time within their 
 borders. James Otis, John Adams, Patrick Henry, Thomas Jef- 
 ferson, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, Robert Morris and 
 Benjamin Franklin, to think and plan; Nathaniel Greene, Israel 
 Putnam, Anthony Wayne, Daniel Morgan, John Stark, Francis 
 Marion, John Paul Jones, Richard Montgomery, Harry Lee, 
 Baron De Kalb, Marquis de Lafayette, and in his earlier career, 
 Benedict Arnold, to do and dare ; and as the unifying spirit not 
 only to direct, but also to lead, and thus to stand supreme among 
 them all — George Washington. Providence also put a blundering 
 fool upon a throne and surrounded him with venal counsellors and 
 incompetent soldiers, to equalize the struggle of the few against 
 the many. Thus the Revolution was fought and won. Thus 
 the country was established. 
 
 There is one significant feature of it. It was fought, won and 
 established under the leadership and guidance I might say of an 
 oligarchy, certainly of an aristocracy. We had no official aristoc- 
 racy in the country, but unofficially there were well-established 
 differences in rank even in democratic New England, where 
 
A Contrast and a Consequence 15 
 
 students were placed in Harvard College in accordance with the 
 social status of their fathers ! With few exceptions the soldiers and 
 statesmen of the Revolution were, in the old-fashioned sense of the 
 word, of the degree of gentlemen. They came from the best 
 society of their day. True, they could have done nothing had 
 there not been that fortuitous concurrence of ideas and the ideal 
 as represented by the people and the few. True, they could have 
 accomplished little had not the time been ripe for such leadership 
 as they could offer; had not the idea of liberty been already 
 inwrought in the minds of the people by the slow process of the 
 ages. The understanding of this point is of great importance in 
 tracing our future development. It was the aristocracy of the 
 land to which was due the establishment of the government. 
 Nor by this do I minimize the popular contribution to the work. 
 That was necessary. Nothing could have been accomplished with- 
 out the people. But without the leadership mentioned nothing 
 could have been done by the people. They were not yet capable 
 of evolving a leader themselves. 
 
 There never was a kinglier man in any land, at any time, than 
 George Washington. Wherever such a character might have 
 appeared his career would have been a marked one. If he had 
 not been born to the purple he would have achieved it. No 
 man is independent of opportunity. For if, as Shakespeare says, 
 its guilt is great, so also is its virtue; but if ever a man were 
 independent of opportunity, it was George Washington. 
 
 Such an assemblage of qualities as he exhibited has rarely, if 
 ever, been seen before in a single man ; yet he was not a demigod. 
 The blood burned in his veins as prodigally as it beats in our 
 own. He was full of the joy of life. His passions were as strong 
 as those of any man. But his character was remarkable for a 
 purity, an honesty, a dignity, a sanity, a restraint, a self-control, an 
 ability and a courage, at which succeeding ages have marveled. 
 The testimony to his qualities is abundant and unimpeachable. In 
 mind and mien he was more royal than the king. In my judg- 
 ment, had he so desired, he might have been the founder of an 
 empire and a dynasty, instead of the Father of a Republic. 
 
 In the earlier history of the struggle for human liberty, we find 
 that the successive steps were always taken upon the initiative of 
 
i6 ' Washington and Lincoln 
 
 the great, the gently-born, the well-to-do. Hampden was of the 
 rank of gentleman, as was Cromwell, although he is nearer to 
 an exception to this statement than any other. The Barons of 
 Runnymede wresting the Magna Charta were the high aris- 
 tocracy of England, and the people without them would have had 
 no power to move the ineffable John. The early leaders of the 
 French Revolution — as Mirabeau ! — were of the same high class. 
 Not for a long time did men like Marat and Barere come to the 
 fore. The American Revolution was engineered and directed 
 and assured, I reaffirm, by the aristocracy, the best blood of the 
 country. 
 
 What then ! Having achieved their task, Washington and his 
 fellows deliberately put liberty and its maintenance into the hands 
 of the people. In the very nature of things, by the very plans 
 which they made, by the Constitution itself, the whole power, 
 the authority of the government, the entire responsibility for its 
 administration and for its preservation, were taken out of the 
 hands of the few and put into the hands of the many. 
 
 It is difficult to estimate the importance of that action. There 
 was no precedent for it. Experience had no word to say con- 
 cerning its feasibility. The boldness of the Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence was surpassed by the boldness of the Constitution. The 
 one had stated that all men were created free and equal, that 
 government derived its just powers from the consent of the gov- 
 erned ; the other showed that men had the courage to stand by 
 their assertions. Words are lacking to emphasize the sublime 
 faith and the noble courage of the Constitution-makers — again the 
 nation's best ! Coldly considered it was an experiment of such 
 magnitude that we stand aghast even in backward contempla- 
 tion of it. It might have been such a failure. 
 
 It is probable that the experiment never would have succeeded 
 if the transition had been sharp and abrupt between the customary 
 and the proposed method of government. The habit of centuries 
 was still strong in humanity. During the earlier years of the 
 Republic the people, timid in their own powers, committed its 
 destinies to the same class under whose leadership had been won 
 its liberty. The earlier Congresses exhibited a degree of wealth, 
 station and culture which no succeeding assemblage of legisla- 
 tors has paralleled. 
 
A Contrast and a Consbquencb 17 
 
 But the people learned rapidly and their work justified the 
 trust reposed in them. Among themselves the genius for leader- 
 ship grew and flourished. The first President who came from the 
 people was Andrew Jackson. In character, in service, in ability, 
 he stands midway between Washington and Lincoln, falling short 
 of both, yet worthy of mention with either. What he might have 
 been, given the opportunity of the other two, is a question which 
 it were idle to discuss. No such crises ever confronted him in his 
 career as Washington faced or as Lincoln dominated. The people 
 had much to learn. Much in his career, as their representative, is 
 the subject of merited censure; but the praise outweighs the 
 blame. 
 
 In the first ninety years of its history the Republic had demon- 
 strated its right to existence. Its course, save for the blot on its 
 escutcheon involved in the unjust war with Mexico, had been 
 highly honorable among nations. It was not likely that any for- 
 eign foe would ever be able to overwhelm it or impair the stability 
 of its institutions. With a constantly increasing success had been 
 demonstrated the feasibility of a government administered by, and 
 for the benefit of, the people. The event had justified the wisdom 
 of the founders. The world on every hand looked on and took 
 lessons. And well it might. No single fact in history has been 
 so pregnant with happiness and welfare to mankind as the demon- 
 stration of democratic government which we have afforded. The 
 consequences are not yet exhausted. 
 
 The political course of the world's history since 1776 has not 
 been backward. Some of us may live to see the day when Russia 
 will become a representative government, when the absolutism of 
 Germany will be an archaic fiction, and when kings will be by the 
 grace of the people, if indeed they be at all. Some day all civilized 
 nations, whatever their outward form of government, will be as 
 free as we are, as England or as France are, to-day. 
 
 For this the world may thank the United States and its makers. 
 
 Now a country which may have strength enough to fight 
 valiantly for its existence against external foes may yet carry 
 within itself the seeds of its own destruction. In 1861 came the 
 final trial as to whether or not the experiment that was begun by 
 Washington was finally to come to an inglorious end. Without 
 
i8 Washington and Lincoln 
 
 passion or prejudice, — certainly it is too late for that now — with- 
 out any feeling for any section of our country but love and devo- 
 tion, without going into the causes of the Civil War ; looking only 
 to the fact that upon its success or failure depended the exist- 
 ence of the United States, realizing that if one section could 
 separate from the main body upon aggrievement, so also could 
 another, and that one single separation probably meant the solu- 
 tion of all organic coherence and the substitution of a number of 
 jealous, circumscribed, petty and insignificant States for a great 
 homogeneous nation, thus involving the utter downfall of the 
 great idea of the founders of the Republic and of the Constitu- 
 tion ; we can realize the importance of the conservation of the 
 United States as a nation. 
 
 This was second only — and perhaps I am not right in using 
 the word second — to its establishment. The aristocracy of the 
 country had founded a nation and had committed its government 
 to the people. No longer did aristocracy dominate. No longer 
 does it dominate to-day — I use the words in the old sense of 
 degree ; in the long run the aristocracy of talent and character 
 will always dominate in the Republic and elsewhere. Washington 
 had done his part. Would the people be equal in the crisis to the 
 obligations of their position? 
 
 Who is responsible for the successful conduct of the war 
 between the States ? To whom, under God, is due the perpetuation 
 of the Republic? Many men took great part, many men deserve 
 well of the nation. Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, Farragut and 
 Meade ; Stanton, Sumner, Chase and Seward. Their services are 
 as nothing compared to those of Abraham Lincoln, And he was 
 a man of the people. In every sense of the word, mark it, a man 
 of the people ! The people themselves had brought forth a man 
 capable of leadership. Out of the dust of earth did God make 
 this man in His own image. Washington opened the way for 
 Lincoln, and Lincoln trod successfully upon the path. 
 
 As Valley Forge brings up Washington, so Gettysburg brings 
 up Lincoln. There was no battle, no clash of arms, at Valley 
 Forge. It was a struggle on the part of Washington and his men 
 for existence in a winter. Lincoln was not on the field of Gettys- 
 burg when the war drum throbbed above it and the blood of 
 
A Contrast and a Consequence 19 
 
 men was poured upon it ; but whoever mentions Gettysburg thinks 
 of Lincoln, as whoever mentions Valley Forge thinks of Washing- 
 ton. For Lincoln said things at Gettysburg of which the fight- 
 ing was but the expression, and Washington did things at Valley 
 Forge of which the Declaration of Independence was the record. 
 
 Dissimilar I said these men were. Washington, born of the 
 world's great; the richest, the best bred, the most important, the 
 most influential man of his time. Lincoln, so humble, so obscure 
 in his origin that it can with difficulty be traced. Washington, 
 with every grace and charm and characteristic that marks the 
 highbred gentleman ; Lincoln, with few or none of these things. 
 One a prince, the other a peasant. 
 
 It is idle to speculate as to which was the greater man. Both 
 were necessary, both were complete, both did their allotted work 
 absolutely. 
 
 Washington's character is not complex. It is simple and easy 
 to understand — and not the less great and admirable on that 
 account. Be it remarked in passing, that he was no English coun- 
 try gentleman, as has been alleged, but as good an American as 
 Franklin or as Lincoln himself. 
 
 Lincoln was a creature of contradictions. In person so homely 
 as when pictured almost to repel, but with an appeal so powerful 
 and inexplainable that in personal contact his ugliness was for- 
 gotten. Perhaps men near him caught a glimpse of his soul, un- 
 consciously revealed. A man full of that quaint humor we love 
 to call American, yet over his face a tinge of sadness as if tragedy 
 peeped from behind the mask of comedy. A man whose stories 
 were frequently not repeatable, yet of a deeply religious nature, 
 a piety as fervent as it was uncommon, a trust as pervading as it 
 was sincere. An unlettered man, yet whose beautiful words will 
 live as long as the language of Shakespeare and the English Bible 
 shall endure. A man with many failings, who made many mis- 
 takes ; a man with the stain of the soil whence he sprang clinging 
 to him ; yet with qualities that enabled him to speak to his fellow 
 men with the foresight of a prophet, to accomplish the impossible 
 with the powers of a king, to pursue his duty with the serenity 
 of a saint. 
 
 As I look back upon our American history, as I view side by 
 
20 ' Washington and Lincoln 
 
 side these two gigantic men towering among their contempo- 
 raries, each ready in the day of need, I break forth in the words 
 of the ancient prophet, "What hath God wrought?" The one to 
 found and build a RepubHc, to give it a priceless heritage into a 
 people's hands ; the other to rise in the crowded hour and say in 
 the words of a greater than man, "I have finished the work which 
 thou gavest me to do. . . . Those that thou gavest me I have 
 kept and none of them is lost." 
 
 Oh, flag that floats above us, thank God that from thy blazonry 
 never hath been torn a single star! 
 
 As I draw from both these Homeric men the outward seeming, 
 they grow more like. I seem to discern an equal patience, an equal 
 courage, an equal sanity, an equal abnegation of self, an equal 
 desire for the welfare of their fellow men, an equal resolution that 
 freedom shall have her opportunity here in the land they both 
 loved so well. In God's great Valhalla where men meet face to 
 face, each man known for what he is, I see the great noble and the 
 great commoner with clasped hands — friends. One forever, in- 
 separably joined. Named together on our diptychs of the dead 
 who yet will never die. For it was "Washington who made Lin- 
 coln. For it was Lincoln who assured Washington. 
 
 Gentlemen, so much for the past. What of the future? Can 
 we unlock it with the past's blood-rusted key? On the threshold 
 of a new century stands the country of Washington and Lincoln. 
 The United States is menaced by threatening conditions, con- 
 fronted by difficult problems, weighted with grave responsibilities, 
 external and internal. These are the circumstances of success. 
 To struggle is to live. The law of battle is the law of life. Well 
 might Alexander weep with no more worlds to conquer, for then 
 began his decadence. The country whose need fails to engross its 
 highest citizenship in its problems, in which the people do not 
 cheerfully give their best consideration to its questions, is a coun- 
 try already in a state of decay. Thank God for all our burdens ! 
 By them we prove our manhood. 
 
 For one hundred years we were content to expand peacefully 
 within our natural limits. Between the seas we reigned supreme. 
 In the twinkling of an eye we found ourselves projected, almost 
 without intent, into the sphere of world politics. Not that we 
 
A Contrast and a Consequence 21 
 
 were in a state of complete isolation before. As with individuals 
 so with nations entire isolation is not possible ; as men live among 
 men, so nations must live among nations, sustaining certain 
 definite and well-understood relations with one another, whatever 
 may be the individual desire to be solitary, alone. 
 
 But our concerns with foreign powers and affairs had been 
 remote and not of especial importance. 
 
 To-day we have become a factor in the politics of the world. In 
 the Chancellaries of Europe the leading question in nearly every 
 contingency, — not purely local, — that arises is, "What will the 
 United States do?" Our American diplomacy which has honesty 
 for its finesse and truth for its subtilty — where neither has been 
 in vogue — takes the lead in public questions. With neither army 
 nor navy comparable in size to that of other nations, — although so 
 far as they go unsurpassed — we are still the greatest single factor 
 to be reckoned with. 
 
 We have said to one-half the world, "This half is ours. Keep 
 out of it!" Therefore, we have made ourselves responsible foi 
 the welfare, the well-being and more especially the well-doing, 
 of that of which we have assumed to be the warden. How are we 
 discharging that trust? So as to retain the respect of older 
 powers, on the one hand, and the affection of those newer nations 
 of which we have assumed the guardianship on the other, or not? 
 
 Our flag floats in the sunrise on one hemisphere in Porto Rice 
 at the same hour that it is gilded by the sunset in the Philippines 
 on the other. And the end is not yet. We are about to teat 
 asunder the barrier which has separated ocean from ocean since 
 God called the dry land from the deep. This is our position 
 among the weak and the strong. What is to be the end of our 
 expansion? Shall we go on? Shall we stand still? Shall we 
 acquire? Shall we retain? 
 
 Never in history did a nation say as we did to Cuba, "Go, you 
 are free !" Shall we say that some day to our little brown breth- 
 ren across the Pacific ? Shall we train and try them for that end ? 
 Shall we grasp at power with greedy rapacious hands? Shall 
 we give way to vaulting ambition which shall by and by o'erleap 
 itself and carry us down in its fall ? That depends upon you, oh, 
 Sons of the Revolution, for in that name, in larger sense, may I 
 not include all the citizens of the Republic ? 
 
2 2 Washington and Lincoln 
 
 Shall the Republic continue to stand for honesty and integrity 
 and the fear of God among the nations? Shall there be liberty 
 wherever the flag flies, or else the withdrawal of the flag? Shall 
 we stand eternally for what Washington founded and Lincoln 
 preserved? Or shall we do some other thing? That depends 
 upon you. 
 
 There come to our harbors every day a horde of people from 
 the Old World, following that westward moving star of empire, 
 seeking their fortunes in this land of equal opportunity for all, of 
 special privilege for none. What shall we do with them? What 
 shall be our position with regard to immigration ? How much of 
 such an influx can our people assimilate ? What quantity of food 
 of that character can the nation digest? How many foreign 
 people can we turn into good American citizens without lowering 
 our immortal standards? How far shall we shut the open door? 
 What restriction shall we place upon our welcome ? That depends 
 upon you. 
 
 These are external problems. There are internal ones, perhaps 
 of greater moment and harder to solve. Within our borders are 
 millions of black people, an alien race whose mental habit and 
 temperament differ from ours even as we are physically at vari- 
 ance. What shall we do with these people? Believe me, Appo- 
 mattox simply changed the form of the question. It settled another 
 question, not that one. Emancipation solved one problem only to 
 introduce another. That problem confronts us with a constantly 
 increasing demand, a demand full of menace, fraught with appall- 
 ing possibilities. There appears as yet no solution of it. Educa- 
 tion, we fatuously cry, but education is not the universal resolvent. 
 We can not educate away the racial difference. The welfare of 
 this country depends on the retention of power by the white race. 
 White and black in blend make gray, the ruination of the posi- 
 tive and valuable in both. How shall this be a white man's 
 country with a white man's government and yet a fit home for 
 the black man? What are we going to do about this question? 
 That depends upon you. From you must come the prophet to 
 show us the way. 
 
 The principle of combination is universally accepted in the 
 affairs of men. Consolidation, concentration, are the conditions 
 
A Contrast and a Consequence 23 
 
 of success. How far may this consolidation and concentration 
 in the form of capital, on the one hand, and of men on the other, 
 be brought about? And when brought about what relation shall 
 they sustain to each other? What shall we do with the trusts, 
 what shall we do with the unions ? That depends upon you. 
 
 Life without law is impossible. Laws are man's expression 
 of his reading of the will of God. Happy is the state in which the 
 laws are not only adequate but observed. How shall we check 
 the general disregard of law which is so singular a reversion to 
 conditions long past when every man was a law unto himself? 
 Long ago the right of private war was done away with. There 
 is a backward swing of the pendulum of public opinion. Men 
 have forgot that vengeance is God's and punishment belongs to 
 the state. How shall we reassert effectively our determination 
 that the law shall be administered only by those whom we have 
 charged with that solemn, that vital duty? 
 
 The daily histories of the times, the newspapers, ring with 
 charge and countercharge of political corruption in city, state 
 and nation. We would fain believe that much of the hue and 
 cry is false, but we know that a terrible proportion of it is true. 
 The best blood of the nation is strangely indifferent to the 
 demands of the hour. For good government there should be a 
 proper blending of Washington and Lincoln, the one represent- 
 ing education, culture, refinement, the other the great beating 
 heart of the people. It will not do to trust to the low, the ignorant 
 and the venal, the issues of life and government. Republics in 
 history have tended to become oligarchies. Shall we reverse the 
 work of Washington and Lincoln and submit ourselves unresist- 
 ing, indifferent, to an oligarchy of bosses ? 
 
 And there are social problems as pressing. The sanctity of 
 home life, the holiness of the marriage relation, is everywhere 
 invaded. The social unit, the family, is being sundered into dis- 
 orderly atoms by the growing evil of divorce. In it we are strik- 
 ing at the children. 
 
 There is a growing inclination to excess on the part of the rich 
 and the well-to-do which is fatal to national honor, to national 
 honesty. Frugality is to a democracy what modesty is to a 
 woman. Extravagance is an attribute of empire. The follies of 
 
24 Washington and Lincoln 
 
 men in high station are vices when they are translated by men of 
 less degree. There is a tendency in our midst to become intoxi- 
 cated not only with our position in the world, but with our internal 
 prosperity. How shall we check it? 
 
 Publicity is the safeguard of a Republic. Concealment is the 
 essence of despotism. How, while conserving the freedom of the 
 press, shall we also conserve the freedom of the private citizen, 
 so that his personal affairs with which the public have no concern 
 shall not be exploited and misrepresented by unscrupulous news- 
 papers? 
 
 These, gentlemen and comrades, are a few of the things which 
 call to the patriotism of to-day. Love of country is usually asso- 
 ciated with the bullet and the bayonet. The call of the flag above 
 our heads is not merely a summons to war, it is a demand upon 
 every citizen at every moment to do his civic duty with the 
 same devotion, the same courage, with which he would answer an 
 appeal to arms. It takes more resolution, of a higher if of a dif- 
 ferent order, to grapple with the questions which I have so briefly 
 outlined, than simply to follow a leader or even to lead ourselves 
 in the high places of the field. 
 
 In what did Washington's greatness lie ? In what did Lincoln's 
 greatness lie? I would not affirm that they were supreme above 
 all others in any particular field. Washington, brilliant soldier 
 that he was, was not the greatest captain that ever set a squadron. 
 Lincoln, profoundly politic and farseeing as he was, was not the 
 greatest statesman that ever outlined a policy. Indeed it would 
 be hard to point to any one thing in which these two unchallenged 
 might claim the palm. 
 
 They were great because in each of them were blended a con- 
 geries of qualities which made up a personality, not supernatural 
 or superhuman, as many would fain urge, but a personality far 
 beyond the common lot ; a personality that was honest, that was 
 pure, that was unselfish, that was able, that was devoted to man- 
 kind, to the country in which they both served ; a personality 
 which chose duty and service for its watchwords. When you 
 analyze great men, as a rule you will find that their greatness lies 
 in that mysterious thing we call personality, which is made up of, 
 and is yet disassociated from, special talents. Many talents go to 
 
A Contrast and a Consequence 25 
 
 make genius. To be great there must be balance and proportion. 
 Without these the most brilHant achievement lacks permanence. 
 
 We cannot all be great statesmen, great soldiers, great admin- 
 istrators — what you will, but we may all be great patriots. We 
 can each one of us so direct these qualities which God has be- 
 stowed upon us as to become a personality whose sole aim and 
 end is the betterment of men and the service of the state. It is 
 not idle for me to bid you strive to follow the example of Wash- 
 ington or of Lincoln. There is no example too high for us to 
 struggle to attain, not even the Example of the Cross. 
 
 Like the ancient Roman I do not despair of the Republic. God 
 mercifully in the past hath preserved us. Sure His hand hath 
 led us through valleys and shadows. He hath sustained us in the 
 hour of gloom and defeat. He hath restrained us in the day of 
 triumph and success. Humbly am I confident that He will not 
 desert us now. He hath more work for us to do. 
 
 But we may not thrust all the burdens of our future upon Him. 
 As the work of salvation in the individual is a co-operation between 
 God and man, so the work of salvation in a nation is the co-opera- 
 tion of the same Power and the people. Let us here consecrate 
 ourselves anew to the service of mankind in the spirit of our fore- 
 fathers. In Lincoln's spirit : Let us here highly resolve that if we, 
 individually or collectively, can bring it about, this government of 
 the people and by the people, and for, not merely the United 
 States, but all humanity as well, which looks to us as the light of 
 liberty throughout the ages, shall not perish from the face of the 
 earth. 
 
 And, by the grace of God, and in the name of Washington and 
 Lincoln, oh, my countrymen, let us rise in our manhood and seize 
 the glorious opportunities which are ours for the taking in this 
 country of the free. 
 
!| S4 
 

 
 
 .% ^^, 
 
 
 'bV" 
 
 >bV' 
 
 % ^^ 
 
 
 
 !?7r«" A 
 
 
 V^ 
 
 L<^' ..^" 
 
 ';^o^ 
 
 
 
 »bv^ 
 
 
 K^ ^ 
 
 
 • « * ^v' 
 
 
 ■Sa 
 
 
 "^^ A^ *'> 
 
 *XT*' ./V 
 
 
 iV^ 
 
 vvT* ./v 
 
 '^^.^ ov-^^ia'- ^o^^' :^^^ ^-^^S' i^^:, ^o^ 
 
 
 
 > "V.<^ 
 
 b >^ 
 
 
 
 o".. -^o 
 
 
 ^oV'' 
 
 K<J^°^ 
 
 
 
 vv 
 
 
 .0' 
 
 ;♦ .0-' ^. 
 
 
 >• ./ "o. 
 
 ** .0 
 
 
 '- %/ * 
 
 '•^a.%^' 
 
 
 
o 
 
 
 o /•/^^..y.vO jfc 
 
 ^ . . C^nt^e, PA nl , o « • ♦ "^o A'i' . ' ' • * ^^ o"^ . o " » * '