Class ^ I 
 
 Book 
 
 
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 7* 
 
 PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 
 
 From the Princeton Review, July 1865. 
 
 V 
 
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1865.] President Lincoln. 435 
 
 Am. V. — President Lincoln. 
 
 The scriptural doctrine of Providence assumes: 1. The real 
 existence of the external world. 2. The efficiency of secondary 
 causes. That is, that created minds as agents, originate their 
 own acts; and that material substances have properties or 
 forces inhering in them, which make them the efficient and 
 necessary antecedents of their effects. 3. That all events, 
 whether in nature or history (supernatural events excepted), 
 have their proximate and adequate causes in the agency and 
 properties of created substances, spiritual or material. 4. That 
 God, as an infinite and omnipresent spirit, is not a mere spec- 
 tator of the world, looking on as a mechanist upon the machine 
 which he has constructed; nor is he the only efficient cause, 
 so that all effects are to be referred to his agency, and so that 
 the laws of nature are only the uniform methods of his operation ; 
 but he is everywhere present, upholding all things by the word 
 of his power, and controlling, guiding, and directing the action 
 of second causes, so that all events occur according to the 
 counsel of his will. An abundant harvest is proximately due 
 to the operation of second. causes, but God so determines and 
 directs those causes as to secure the designed result. The pros- 
 perity of individuals, of communities, and of nations, is due to 
 secondary causes, but those causes are so determined by God, 
 that he is to be acknowledged as the Giver of all good. This 
 is equally true of all events, whether prosperous or adverse, 
 whether in themselves good or evil. Nothing happens by 
 necessity or by chance. God governs all his creatures and all 
 their actions. This universal and absolute control of Divine 
 Providence is, on the one hand, consistent with the character 
 of God, so that he is, in no sense, the author of sin; and, on 
 the other hand, with the nature of his creatures. He governs 
 free agents with certainty, but without destroying their liberty, 
 and material causes, without superseding their efficiency. 
 
 It is impossible to express or to conceive the importance of 
 
436 President Lincoln. [July 
 
 these familiar principles of scriptural truth. They are not the 
 discoveries of human reason; neither philosophy nor science 
 (when divorced from the Bible) even accepts them. They are 
 however the foundation of all religion, of all order, of all Chris- 
 tian civilization ; and the only ground of confidence or hope. 
 
 Every great event therefore is to be viewed in two different 
 aspects: first, as the effect of natural causes; and, secondly, as 
 a design and result of God's providence. The interpretation 
 of Divine providence is indeed often a matter of great difficulty 
 and responsibility. It requires humility and caution. Some 
 of his dispensations are, as to their design, perfectly clear, 
 others are doubtful, and others to us and for the present inscru- 
 table. In one thing however we are safe; we have a right to 
 infer that the actual consequences of any event, whether great 
 or small, are its designed consequences; whether intended in 
 judgment or mercy to those affected by them must be deter- 
 mined partly by their nature, partly by their attendant circum- 
 stances, and partly by the course of subsequent events. Why 
 the Reformation was suppressed in Italy and Spain, and allowed 
 to succeed in Northern Germany and Great Britain, we cannot 
 even now determine; but it is none the less our duty to recog- 
 nize these events as due to the ordering providence of God, and 
 to study them as such. 
 
 No Christian can look upon the events of the last four years 
 without being deeply impressed with the conviction that they 
 have been ordered by God to produce great and lasting changes 
 in the state of the country, and probably of the world. Few 
 periods of equal extent in the history of our race are likely to 
 prove more influential in controlling the destinies of men. 
 Standing, as we now do, at the close of one stage at least of 
 this great epoch, it becomes us to look back and to look around 
 us, that we may in some measure understand what God has 
 wrought. 
 
 Although at the South, and by the partisans of the Southern 
 cause at .the North, the cause of the desolating war just brought 
 to a close has been sought elsewhere than in the interests of 
 slavery, the conviction is almost universal, both at home and 
 abroad, that the great design and desire of the authors of the 
 late rebellion were the perpetuation and extension of the system 
 
1865.] President Lincoln. 437 
 
 of African slavery. That this conviction is well-f bunded is 
 plain, because slavery has been from the formation of the 
 government the great source of contention between the two 
 sections of the country; because the immediate antecedents of 
 secession -were the attempts to extend slavery into the free Ter- 
 ritories of the Union ; the abrogation of the Missouri compro- 
 mise, in order to facilitate that object; the Dred Scott decision, 
 which shocked and roused the whole country, because it was 
 regarded as proof that even the Supreme Court, the sacred 
 palladium of our institutions, had become subservient to the 
 slave power. The reaction produced by these attempts to per- 
 petuate and extend the institution of slavery, led to the election 
 of Mr. Lincoln, on the avowed platform that while slavery was 
 not to be interfered with within the limits of the States which 
 had adopted the institution, its extension to the free Territories 
 belonging to the United States was to be strenuously resisted. 
 The success of the party holding this principle was the imme- 
 diate occasion of secession, and the formation of the Southern 
 Confederacy. Besides these obvious facts, it is notorious that 
 the public mind at the South had been exasperated by exagge- 
 rated accounts of the anti-slavery feeling at the North, and 
 inflamed by glowing descriptions of an empire founded on 
 slavery, where all property and power should be concentrated 
 in the hands of slaveholders, and all labour performed by slaves. 
 This was advocated as the best organization of society, as the 
 only secure foundation for what was called free institutions, and 
 the only method in which the highest development of man was to 
 be attained. Accordingly slavery was declared to be the corner- 
 stone of the new Confederacy; slaveholders were called upon by 
 the Richmond editors to sustain the burdens of the war, because 
 the war was made for them ; and the editor of the leading journal 
 in Charleston, South Carolina, declared that the South sought 
 and desired independence only for the sake of slavery ; that if 
 slavery were to be given up, they care not for independence. 
 It cannot therefore be reasonably doubted that the great design 
 of the authors of the rebellion was the extension and preserva- 
 tion of the sj^stem of African slavery. 
 
 As little can it be doubted that this was a most unrighteous 
 end. Without going to the unscriptural extreme of maintaining 
 
438 President Lincoln. [July 
 
 that all slaveholding is sinful, two tilings are, in the judgment 
 of the Christian world, undeniable ; first, that however it may 
 be right in certain states of society and for the time being to 
 hold a class of men in the condition of involuntary bondage, 
 any effort to keep any such class in a state of inferiority or 
 degradation, in order to perpetuate slavery, is a great crime 
 against God and man; and, secondly, that the slave laws of the 
 South, being evidently designed to accomplish that end, were 
 unscriptural, immoral, and in the highest degree cruel and 
 unjust. It is self-evident that only an inferior race can perma- 
 nently be held in slavery, and it is therefore unavoidable that 
 the effort to perpetuate slavery involves the necessity of the 
 perpetual degradation of a class of our fellow-men. Such was the 
 design and effect of the laws which forbade slaves to be taught 
 to read or write ; which prohibited their holding property; which 
 made it a legal axiom that slaves cannot marry : which author- 
 ized the separation of parents and children, and of those living 
 as husbands and wives. These laws, which no Christian can 
 justify, had been for more than a century operating at the 
 South. The state of the slaves therefore in 1860 was little, if 
 any, better than it was a hundred years before. Household 
 servants, and, to a certain degree, the slaves in the Border 
 States, had made advances in knowledge and in the^r social con- 
 dition; but the great mass of the bondmen in the cotton, rice, 
 and sugar plantations was to the last degree degraded. The 
 journal of Mrs. Fanny Kemble, written a few years ago, pho- 
 tographs these Southern plantations, the slaves, their habita- 
 tions, their food, dress, and social state, their sufferings and 
 wrongs, in such a way as to compel faith in the fidelity of the 
 picture, while it revolts and horrifies the beholder. To lament 
 over this system as an evil entailed by former generations, to 
 admit that it ought not to be perpetuated, and to acknowledge 
 the obligation to labour for its removal, is one thing; to main- 
 tain that the system which necessitates this degradation of 
 millions of our race, is a good system, which ought to be con- 
 tinued and extended, is a very different thing. It is the great 
 revolution which the high price of Southern productions, and 
 the consequent profitableness of slavery, wrought in the opinions 
 and feelings of Southern men on this subject, which is the true 
 
1865.] President Lincoln. 439 
 
 cause of the terrible evils which have rendered the South a 
 desolation. It could not be that an offence so great as the 
 indefinite perpetuity of a system so fraught with evil, and the 
 avowal of the purpose not only to perpetuate but to extend it, 
 could long continue without provoking the Divine displeasure. 
 There is not one man in a thousand who will not be more or 
 less corrupted by the possession of absolute power, even when 
 that power is legitimate. But when it is illegitimate, and 
 requires for its security the constant exercise of injustice, no 
 community and no human being can escape its demoralizing 
 influence. This is evinced in the cast of character which it 
 produces; the arrogance, insubordination, recklessness of the 
 interests and rights of others, the loss of the power to restrain 
 the passions which have few external restraints, which it 
 unavoidably engenders. The moral sense becomes perverted 
 by the necessity of justifying what is wrong, so that we see even 
 good men, men whom we must regard as children of God, vin- 
 dicating what every unprejudiced mind instinctively perceives 
 to be wrong. It is enough to humble the whole Christian world 
 to hear our Presbyterian brethren in the South declaring that 
 the great mission of the Southern church was to conserve the 
 system of African slavery. Since the death of Christ no such 
 dogma stains the record of an ecclesiastical body. We are not 
 called upon to dwell on the manifold evils, which, until recently, 
 even Southern statesmen and Christians acknowledged to be the 
 inevitable fruits of slavery. It is enough that it operates so 
 unfavourably on the character of the masters, that it dooms the 
 slave to degradation, that by rendering manual labour deroga- 
 tory, it consigns a large class of the white inhabitants of slave 
 countries to poverty and ignorance. The picture drawn by 
 Southern men of the class known as the "poor whites," is the 
 severest condemnation of slavery which has ever been exhibited 
 to the world. 
 
 The first and most obvious consequence of the dreadful civil 
 war just ended, has been the final and universal overthrow of 
 slavery within the limits of the United States. This is one of 
 the most momentous events in the history of the world. That 
 it was the design of God to bring about this event cannot be 
 doubted. Although sagacious men predicted that such must be 
 
440 President Lincoln. [July 
 
 the result of secession and an attempt to overthrow the consti- 
 tution, it was not contemplated at the beginning, and for a long 
 time after the commencement of the war it did not appear to 
 be probable. Almost all foreigners, and a large class of our 
 own people predicted the success of the South, and the chances 
 were, so to speak, in favour at least of a compromise, which 
 would leave slavery untouched within the limits of the States. 
 But God has ordered it otherwise. Resistance to the constitu- 
 tional limitation of slavery to the States in which it already 
 existed, resistance to all plans of gradual emancipation, the 
 insane purpose to dissolve the Union and overthrow the govern- 
 ment in favour of this system, have led to its sudden and final 
 overthrow. The inevitable difficulties and sufferings consequent 
 on such an abrupt change in the institutions and social organiza- 
 tion of a great people, must be submitted to, as comprehended 
 in the design of God in these events. 
 
 Although the destruction of slavery seems to have been the 
 great end intended in our recent trials, it is plain that this 
 war was designed to affect other important changes in the state 
 of the country. It has settled some of those political questions 
 which kept the public mind in a state of constant agitation. It 
 has determined the limits of State sovereignty. Sovereignty is 
 independence ; freedom from any control which is not inward or 
 subjective. He is a sovereign who has the right and the power 
 to do as he pleases. A ruler is sovereign when his own will is 
 his only law; a State is sovereign when it has the right to regu- 
 late all its affairs, internal and external, according to its own good 
 pleasure. It is plain that sovereignty is a matter of degrees. 
 Absolute independence belongs only to God. There is no ruler 
 on earth who is not more or less bound by the usages, traditions, 
 and rights of the people whom he governs. There is no nation 
 that is not restricted by the common law of nations. The war 
 has not destroyed the sovereignty of the States; it has simply 
 defined it. It has nut obliterated State lines nor abrogated 
 State rights ; it has only settled the fact that we are a nation, 
 and not a confederacy of nations, from which any member or 
 any number of members may withdraw at pleasure. The United 
 States are an indissoluble whole, composed of many self-govern- 
 ing communities, whose rights and sovereignty are limited in an 
 
1865.] President Lincoln. 441 
 
 equal degree by a common constitution. The great point 
 decided is, that, the allegiance of every American citizen is 
 primarily due to the United States, and not to the particular 
 State to which he may belong. This is only saying that the 
 constitution of the United States, and the laws and treaties 
 made in accordance therewith, bind the conscience of the people, 
 anything in the laws, constitution, or acts of their own States 
 to the contrary notwithstanding. To this conclusion the war 
 forced the South itself. It was seen that the self-defence of 
 their Confederacy as a whole was impossible on the theory of 
 the independent sovereignty of its several parts. To this con- 
 clusion, therefore, the whole country has been brought. We 
 are one nation henceforth, so long as it shall please God to> 
 grant us his favour. 
 
 Another consequence of the war, nearly allied to the one 
 just mentioned, has been the development of the sentiment of 
 nationality. This sentiment was deeply settled in the public 
 mind; but it was in a measure dormant. The war has called it 
 into vigorous and conscious exercise. When the assault on 
 Fort Sumter roused the nation from its slumber, the people 
 started to their feet in the full consciousness of their nationality. 
 That sentiment has nerved their arms, sustained their faith, 
 courage, and patience through four terrible years. It made 
 them willing to send fathers, sons, and brothers to the battle- 
 field, and cheerfully to bear the heavy load of taxation required 
 by the exigencies of the country. It cherished in the popular 
 mind the settled purpose to save the life of the nation at what- 
 ever cost. No one can doubt that this sentiment is stronger and 
 more general now than it ever was before. Nor can it be 
 doubted that it must tend to strengthen the bonds of our 
 government, and to give consistency and power to our govern- 
 ment, both at home and abroad. 
 
 Another no less obvious effect of the war has been the aston- 
 ishing development of the power and resources of the country. 
 It never entered the imagination of any man that the United 
 States would be able to raise, equip, and sustain, year after 
 year, an army of from five to eight hundred thousand men ; 
 a navy of several hundred armed vessels; to raise from the 
 voluntary contributions of the people three thousand millions 
 
 vol. XXXVII. — NO. III. 56 
 
442 President Lincoln. , [July 
 
 of dollars; to provide the immense stores of ordnance, arms, 
 and other munitions of war neces'sary for such a conflict; to 
 organize the vast material of the quartermaster, commissary, 
 hospital and ambulance departments; in short, no one dreamed 
 that we could rise in four years from one of the lowest to the 
 very highest of the military powers of the earth. What are to 
 be the effects of this astonishing development of power, or what 
 the design of God in thus rousing the nation to exhibit its giant 
 strength in the face of the whole world, we can but conjecture 
 and hope. The effect must necessarily be to increase our self- 
 respect. We have earned the right to place ourselves in the 
 rank of the foremost nations of the age. God grant that the 
 consciousness of strength may not render us arrogant, unjust, 
 or aggressive. It will be a great blessing if this giant should 
 now seek repose, or devote his strength to the works of peace ; 
 to conquering the wilderness, to developing the resources of the 
 country, and to making it the refuge of the oppressed and the 
 home of the free. The impression produced on foreign nations 
 by this exhibition of the power and resources of the United 
 States, must be no less profound, and tend, it is to be hoped, 
 to lead them to be less disparaging and contemptuous in their 
 language and spirit, and more disposed to cultivate the relations 
 of amity and peace. If such power and resources are pos- 
 sessed, and capable of being called into action by a moiety of 
 the nation, what may be expected from its energy as a whole, 
 from the united North and South, should any great emergency 
 call for the manifestation of our combined strength? 
 
 Another consequence of the war, for which we are bound to 
 be deeply grateful to God, is the astonishing exhibition of bene- 
 volence of which it has been the occasion. The history of the 
 Christian and Sanitary Commissions will constitute one of the 
 brightest pages in the records of the human race. Never before 
 were millions of money raised annually by voluntary contribu- 
 tions for the alleviation of human suffering; never before were 
 so many persons of both sexes found willing to devote their 
 time and labour, and risk life and health to carry relief to the 
 suffering, and instruction and consolation to the dying. Our 
 land was covered with ministering angels, and our armies and 
 hospitals everywhere attended and followed by these messengers 
 
1865.] President Lincoln. 443 
 
 of mercy. Still further, at no period of our history has there 
 been such a religious spirit generally manifested by the people 
 of this land. More prayer has probably been offered to God 
 during the past years, from sincere hearts, than in any ten 
 years of the previous history of our country; Never before 
 have there been such frequent, open, and devout recognitions of 
 the authority of God as the Ruler of nations, and of Jesus 
 Christ, his Son, as the Saviour of the world, by our public men, 
 as during the progress of this terrible war. 
 
 The war has closed. It has done its work for the present, 
 both of judgment and mercy. While it has reformed some great 
 evils, and conferred upon us some great national blessings, it 
 has left us a heritage of new and difficult problems, in the solu- 
 tion of which the character of the nation and the welfare of 
 this and of coining generations is deeply involved. Among 
 these problems are, 1. The proper treatment of those who have 
 been engaged in the rebellion ; 2. The reorganization of society 
 necessary on the sudden transition from slave to free labour; 
 
 3. The means to be adopted to secure the rights of the freedmen, 
 and to promote their mental, moral, and social improvement; 
 
 4. How far they are to be admitted, and by what degrees, and 
 on what terms, to the right of suffrage and all other privileges 
 of citizenship. These are subjects on which extreme opinions 
 are zealously advocated by earnest and powerful parties. Just 
 when these momentous questions arise for decision, the man 
 who, of all others, by common consent was the best qualified, 
 both by his character and adventitious circumstances, to deal 
 with them, has been called away. The government has changed 
 hands, not by the expiration of the term of one chief magistrate 
 and the election of another; not even by the death of the 
 President in the course of nature, but by the sudden, unex- 
 pected blow of an assassin. This is the event which summoned 
 the nation to humiliation and prayer. Never were these duties 
 more incumbent. The fact that all things are ordered by God, 
 and must work out his wise designs, does not change the nature 
 of afflictions, or modify the duties which flow from them as 
 afflictions. When God brings any great calamity upon us, he 
 means us to feel it. He designs that we should be humbled, 
 that we should mourn and pray. It is thus that he makes our 
 
444 President Lincoln. [July 
 
 trials the means of good. If we harden our hearts under his 
 chastising hand; if we refuse to mourn and to humble ourselves 
 in his sight, our afflictions become punishments, and work out 
 for us only evil, however they may minister to the good of 
 others. 
 
 The violent death of such a man as President Lincoln in such 
 a crisis, was therefore a proper occasion for national sorrow, 
 humiliation, and prayer. 
 
 It is, in the first place, a most mysterious event. We cannot 
 see the reason for it, nor conjecture the end it is designed to 
 accomplish. We can see the reason for many of our recent 
 national disasters. Had we been as overwhelmingly successful 
 at the beginning as we have been at the close of the war, none 
 of the great results to which we just referred would have fol- 
 lowed. Slavery would not have been overthrown, and nation- 
 ality would not have been vitalized; our power would not have 
 been developed, and our stand among the nations of the earth 
 would have been very different from what it is at present. But 
 why Mr. Lincoln should have been murdered just when he was 
 most needed, most loved, and most trusted, is more than any 
 man can tell. God however is wont to move in a mysterious 
 way. It was mysterious to the struggling church of the first 
 centuries, when the apostles, and afterwards one great leader, 
 and another, and another were cut down. It was and is a 
 mystery why the early Reformers had their voices, when raised 
 to proclaim the gospel in a corrupt age, choked in the flames; 
 why Henry IV. of France, who stood between the cruel fana- 
 ticism of the Romanists and the Protestants of that fair land, 
 should be the victim of assassination; or why the pious and 
 lovely Edward VI. of England, should have been taken away 
 at the dawn of the Reformation ; or why the graceful head of 
 the godly Lady Jane Grey should have fallen on the scaffold. 
 These are things we cannot, even after the lapse of centuries, 
 understand. There is a use in mystery. What are we, that 
 we should pretend to understand the Almighty unto perfection, 
 or that we should assume to trace the ways of him whose foot- 
 steps are in the great deep? It is good for us to be called 
 upon to trust in God when clouds and darkness are round 
 about him. It makes us feel our own ignorance and impotency, 
 
1865.] President Lincoln. 445 
 
 and calls into exercise the highest attributes of our Christian 
 nature. It is therefore doubtless a beneficent dispensation 
 which calls upon this great nation to stand silent before God, 
 and say, It is the Lord, let him do what seemeth good in his 
 sight. The Judge of all the earth must do right. 
 
 The death of Mr. Lincoln is not only a mysterious event ; it 
 is just cause of great national sorrow. The leader in the oppo- 
 sition in the British House of Commons recently said, in refe- 
 rence to this event, that on rare occasions national calamities 
 assume the character of domestic afflictions. This is eminently 
 true. When Mr. Lincoln died, the nation felt herself widowed. 
 She rent her garments, she sat in the dust, put ashes on her 
 head, and refused to be comforted. Never in our history, sel- 
 dom if ever in the history of the world, has the heart of a great 
 people been so moved as when, on the 15th of April last, the 
 intelligence flashed over the country that our President had 
 been murdered. It was not merely sorrow for the loss of a great 
 man when most needed, or of one who had rendered his country 
 inestimable services, but grief for a man whom every one per- 
 . sonally loved. It was this that gave its peculiar character to 
 that day of lamentation. Still more remarkable in the annals 
 of the country and of the world was the 19th of April— the 
 day of the President's funeral. At 12 o'clock, noon, of that 
 memorable day, the whole country was draped in mourning; 
 our palaces and cottages, our public buildings and private resi- 
 dences, our cities, and villages, and isolated dwellings. Wealth 
 veiled herself in crape, and poverty sought some symbol of 
 sorrow, however insignificant. All our churches at that hour 
 were filled with weeping worshippers. Millions of people were 
 on their knees before God. The sun never shone on such a 
 spectacle. Where, moreover, can history point to a funeral 
 progress of fifteen hundred miles through countless myriads of 
 uncovered mourners? The past cannot be recalled. It was 
 truly said by the Rev. Dr. Dix, of New York, "Abraham Lin- 
 coln has been canonized and immortalized by the blow of an 
 assassin." No effect is without its adequate cause. Such an 
 unparalleled movement of the heart of this great people; such 
 an answering cry of indignation and sorrow from foreign, and 
 even unfriendly nations, prove beyond contradiction that Abra- 
 
446 President Lincoln. [July 
 
 ham Lincoln deserved to be reverenced, loved, and lamented, as 
 few rulers of men have ever merited the confidence and love of 
 their fellow-men. 
 
 It was his character, his public services, and the avowed 
 principles of his administration which gave him this hold on 
 the heart of the people, and renders his death so great a national 
 calamity. 
 
 As to his character, little need be said. He was a plain 
 man. His early life was passed in the self-denial and toil of 
 poverty. He was in great measure a self-educated man ; the 
 simplest rudiments of learning were all that he received in the 
 schools. Education however is not learning; it is the exercise 
 and development of the powers of the mind. There are two 
 great methods by which this end may be accomplished. It may 
 be done in the halls of learning, or in the conflicts of life. Mr. 
 Lincoln's education was effected by the latter method. He was 
 born in 1809. In his twenty-seventh year he was elected a 
 member of the Legislature of Illinois, where he served for 
 several years in succession. In 1837 he was admitted to the 
 bar; in 1846 he was chosen a member of Congress; in 1848 he- 
 was a delegate to the national convention; in 1858 he sustained 
 on equal terms his protracted struggle with Mr. Douglas before 
 the people of Illinois and under the eyes of the whole nation. 
 Thus for twenty-three years before his election to the Presidency 
 in 1860, his mind was taxed to its utmost, and was in constant 
 contact with the great questions and principles which agitated 
 the public mind. During the four years of his first term of office, 
 which of all the colleges or universities of Christendom could 
 have afforded him such an educational discipline? He grew in 
 those years probably more than in all his previous life. As an 
 intellectual man, therefore, for his natural mental endowments, 
 for the acquisition of knowledge gained in all these struggles and 
 political conflicts; for the discipline to which he was subjected 
 during his official career, he deserves the high admiration of his 
 country as a man of sterling ability. None but pedants can 
 look on Mr. Lincoln as an uneducated man. He had a culture 
 a thousand times more effective than that usually effected in the 
 schools of learning. He was remarkably sagacious; perceiving 
 intuitively the truth, presenting it clearly, and sustaining it 
 
1865.] President Lincoln. 447 
 
 with arguments pertinent and conclusive. Some of his state 
 papers and public letters are masterly; they can hardly be 
 excelled as means of accomplishing the end he had in view. 
 He was reticent of his plans and purposes. He weighed long 
 and deliberately his own measures, with little consultation. 
 Facile and easily influenced on minor matters, he was immovable 
 on all great questions on which he had once made up his mind. 
 He was therefore consistent in all his plans and principles. He 
 kept a steady hand on the helm of state, and never suffered the 
 ship of the nation to swerve from its course. His moral cha- 
 racter was unimpeachable; his integrity was proverbial; he was 
 known among men as honest Abraham Lincoln. , The crowning 
 trait of his character however was his tenderness of heart; it 
 was this more than his talents, position, or services that 
 endeared him to the people. A volume might be filled with 
 illustrations of this feature of his character. There is not an 
 instance on record in which an application for mercy or relief 
 was not either granted or tearfully declined. It was a standing 
 order at the White House, that no matter how he was engaged, 
 day or night, no one who came to him with a petition for pardon 
 should be either turned aside or delayed. He has risen at mid- 
 night, and ridden several miles to a distant post, for fear that a 
 reprieve should not reach lis destination in time. A father 
 applied to the proper authorities for permission for a son in the 
 rebel service to return home, and was refused. A younger bro- 
 ther, a mere boy, determined to make a personal appeal to the 
 President. He was readily admitted, and presented his peti- 
 tion. " Ah, my son," said Mr. Lincoln, "that is a case in which 
 I cannot interfere." "But, sir," replied the boy, "my mother 
 is ill, and will die if my brother does not come home." This 
 the President could not stand, and without a word wrote and 
 signed the order of release. If this were a weakness, God 
 bless the weak ! AVc should remember that Jesus Christ never 
 refused to relieve the sufferings or hear the prayers of any child 
 of sorrow, no matter how unworthy or sinful he might be. And 
 if God were not thus merciful, we should all perish. This trait 
 in Mr. Lincoln's character was so conspicuous, it is not necessary 
 to dwell upon it. It was made a complaint against him by 
 sterner men, that he often stood in the way of justice. How- 
 
448 President Lincoln. [July 
 
 ever this may have been, it cannot be denied that the people 
 loved him for his tenderness. God poured on his head the 
 excellent oil of mercy, and its fragrance fills the land. 
 
 No one of our Presidents so frequently and devoutly acknow- 
 ledged his dependence upon God, or so earnestly requested the 
 prayers of God's people in his behalf. The Hon. Mr. Colfax, 
 an elder in the Presbyterian Church, and one of the most inti- 
 mate of Mr. Lincoln's personal friends, has given public sanc- 
 tion to the report, which has been so extensively circulated, of 
 his avowal of his personal faith in Christ, and love for the 
 _ divine Redeemer. There is much therefore in the mental and 
 moral character of our late President, and in the integrity, 
 purity, and kindness of his heart, to account for the deep reve- 
 rence and love universally manifested for him throughout the 
 country and the whole civilized world. A man who retained in 
 the highest post of honour and power the native simplicity of 
 his character, without affectation or assumption; who was never 
 dismayed by disaster nor elated by success; who bore insult and 
 injustice without enmity or retaliation; who laboured to the 
 last to do good to his enemies ; who never exulted over a fallen 
 foe; who felt "malice for none, and charity for all," assuredly 
 deserves the epithets of both good and great. As such, Abra- 
 ham Lincoln will be known in all coming time. 
 
 His public services cannot yet be fully appreciated. He was 
 called to the administration of the government at the outbreak 
 of the greatest rebellion of modern times. The task which he 
 had to accomplish was pronounced by all the leading statesmen 
 of Europe to be impossible. To reduce to submission to the 
 constitution and laws a population of seven or eight millions of 
 men, occupying a territory of a thousand miles in extent, with 
 a seacoast of more than double that amount; animated by one 
 spirit, inflamed with the deadliest passions; whose pride, power, 
 possessions, and cherished institutions were all staked on the 
 issue ; led by men of the highest courage and culture, and sus- 
 tained by the avowed sympathy and secret aid of almost all 
 foreign governments, was indeed a herculean task. This work 
 had to be undertaken without preparation, without an army, 
 without a navy, without adequate supplies of any kind. Every- 
 thing had to be created, and w r hen prepared, had to be used 
 
1865.] President Lincoln. 449 
 
 under every disadvantage arising from the number and distance 
 of the places to be guarded or assailed. The work however has 
 been done ; the Union is restored ; the constitution is preserved ; 
 the rights of property, the liberty of speech and of the press 
 remain intact. No breach has been made in our fundamental 
 law; no encroachment allowed on the charter of our rights. 
 We are as free a people at this moment as when the war began. 
 We have risen immensely in power and influence among the 
 nations of the earth. Four millions of slaves have been eman- 
 cipated by the course of events, and without infraction of the 
 constitution. Mr. Lincoln's administration bids fair to form 
 one of the most important epochs in the history of the world. 
 The man who entered on the epoch aware of the tremendous 
 responsibility he assumed, and begging his fellow-citizens to 
 pray for him ; and who so conducted the affairs of the govern- 
 ment, that the struggle, under the blessing of God, has resulted 
 in the complete success of the national cause, has rendered a 
 service to his country and to the world which few men have 
 ever rendered to the generation in which they lived. 
 
 As to the principles of his administration, a religious journal 
 is not the place for any extended discussion. Our only object, 
 is to indicate in few words what we regard as those principles of 
 his policy which constitute a part of his claim on the love and 
 gratitude of his country. 
 
 The first thing to be noticed under this head is, that while 
 Mr. Lincoln had definite and avowed objects in view, he writh 
 singular wisdom kept himself free as to the means to be adopted 
 for their accomplishment. He was no fanatic, wedded to one 
 idea, or to any abstract principle. If one plan would not do. 
 he would try another. He formed the simple determination to 
 do the best he could ; but Avhat was best he did not attempt to 
 decide beforehand, but left to be determined by the circum- 
 stances of the country and the state of the public mind./ The 
 object of the war from the beginning, he declared to be the 
 preservation of the Union and the authority of the constitution. 
 To this object he steadily adhered. It was not. and it never 
 became an anti-slavery Avar. The abolition of slavery was no 
 more a legitimate object of civil war than the abolition of false 
 religion. Mr. Lincoln distinctly declared, that if he could .-■ 
 xxxvu. — no. in. 57 
 
450 President Lincoln. [July 
 
 the Union with slavery, he would do it; if the destruction of 
 slavery was necessary to the preservation of the Union, he 
 would do all he lawfully could to overthrow that system. It 
 was not until he became convinced that, as the war had been 
 inaugurated for the preservation and extension of slavery, it 
 could not be successfully terminated without emancipating the 
 slaves, that he resolved upon that measure. God has evidently 
 so overruled the course of events that the destruction of slavery 
 is the inevitable consequence of the triumph of the national 
 arms. The wisdom of the President was however conspicuously 
 displayed in his adhering to the legitimate object of the war, 
 and allowing emancipation to follow as a consequence, instead 
 of making it an end to be distinctly aimed at. 
 
 Another prominent feature of Mr. Lincoln's administration 
 was a spirit of conciliation. From first to last he endeavoured 
 to persuade the revolted States to return to their allegiance, in 
 order to save them from the miseries of war. And in the pro- 
 cess of reconstruction his ruling idea was to disturb as little as 
 possible existing relations, to inflict as few penalties as possible, 
 and to restore all rights and privileges as fully and as rapidly 
 as was consistent with public safety. He made a clear distinc- 
 tion between sin and sinners, between the offence and the 
 offenders. This is a distinction which is not commonly made, 
 for the obvious reason that generally there is no legitimate 
 ground for it. In ordinary cases of theft and murder all the 
 criminality and turpitude which belong to the offence attach 
 also to the offender. But in other cases, especially in the 
 offences of nations or communities, the distinction is legitimate 
 and important. Idolatry is a great crime; it is apostasy from 
 God. It is denounced in the Bible as the greatest of all sins ; 
 it is declared to be always inexcusable. And yet no man can 
 doubt that had we been born in India or Africa, we too would 
 have been idolaters. Popery, the worship of the Virgin Mary, 
 the adoration of the Host, are justly regarded by all Protestants 
 as great offences against God and Christ. But had we been 
 born in Italy or Spain, we too had been papists. Slavery, as 
 it existed at the South (meaning by slavery the whole system of 
 slave laws there in force) is also a great moral evil. And yet 
 had we been born and educated under that system, we doubtless 
 
/ 
 
 1865.] President Lincoln. 451 
 
 would either have acquiesced in it or defended it. Rebellion is 
 a great crime (unless for just cause,) and the rebellion of the 
 South was wanton and wicked: yet we must be strong in our 
 seff-conceit if we take for granted that had we been South Caro- 
 linians or Georgians, we should have resisted the overwhelming 
 tide of popular feeling. This is not apologizing for idolatry, 
 popery, slavery, or rebellion. It is only saying in other words 
 what our blessed Lord himself says, when he declares it will be 
 more tolerable in the day of judgment for the heathen than for 
 us. This is true, not because heathenism is not the sum and 
 essence of all moral evil, but because there is in such cases a 
 great distinction between the criminality of an offence in itself 
 considered, and the responsibility of the offender. The reason 
 for this is obvious. A man's character, his opinions, feelings, 
 and conduct are determined in part by the inward principles of 
 his nature, and largely by the external influences to which he is 
 subject. If kept in ignorance of the truth; if error is con- 
 stantly inculcated, and all the power of education and example 
 be brought to bear in favour of evil, it is almost unavoidable 
 that the judgment will be perverted and the mind corrupted. 
 Men thus brought up to regard idolatry, popery, slavery, or any 
 other form of evil to be right, and surrounded by those who 
 support and defend it, will not, by a righteous judge, as our 
 Lord teaches, be dealt with according to the heinousness of the 
 offence in itself considered, but according to the circumstances 
 and opportunities of the offender. That Mr. Lincoln recog- 
 nized this obvious principle of justice is plain from his official 
 declarations and acts. 
 
 It is no less plain that he made another distinction equally 
 important, viz., that between moral and political offences. Mr. 
 Lincoln was not an advocate for impunity in crime. He did 
 not refuse to allow the law to take its course when men were 
 convicted of slave- trading, of arson, or murder. Executions 
 for all these offences occurred under his administration, and 
 with his official sanction. But he declared his aversion to the 
 infliction of capital punishment for any political offences. If 
 any of the rebel commanders, or other officials, should be con- 
 victed of burning cities, of murdering our soldiers, or starving 
 our prisoners, he would have acquiesced in their being punish- 
 
452 President Lincoln. [July 
 
 ed to the full extent of their criminality. In this the public 
 conscience, as well as the public feeling, would fully have sus- 
 tained him. But he saw clearly that there is a great difference 
 between moral criminals and political offenders. This is a dis- 
 tinction which is made by all enlightened and Christian people. 
 Great Britain and our own country have entered into treaties with 
 other nations for the delivering to justice, of forgers, murder- 
 ers, thieves, but not of rebels. Political refugees find a secure 
 asylum under the flag of England, and of the United States, 
 wherever it floats on land or sea. Even the Turks have acted 
 on this principle, and refused to deliver to their Russian neigh- 
 bours those who had rebelled against the authority of the Czar. 
 This is not done on the assumption that rebellion is not often, 
 perhaps generally, a great moral offence, but because whether it 
 is an offence against morality or not, depends on circumstances. 
 The right of revolution is a sacred right of freedom. It is a 
 right which, if Englishmen and Americans had not claimed 
 and exercised, despotism had now been universal and inex- 
 orable. It is of special moment in times of popular excite- 
 ment, that great principles of moral and of civil policy should 
 be kept constantly in view. It is plain that rebellion, as homi- 
 cide, may be an atrocious crime, or justifiable, or commenda- 
 ble, according to circumstances. Whereas moral offences are 
 always, and under all circumstances, evil. A good thief, or a 
 good murderer, is as much a solecism as good wickedness. But 
 a good rebel is no such solecism. Hampden was a rebel, so 
 was Washington; they and thousands of other good men have 
 risen in armed resistance to constituted authority, and such 
 resistance has been justified by the verdict of the enlightened 
 conscience of the world. But even when rebellion is not justi- 
 fiable ; nay, when it is not only a great mistake, but really a 
 great crime in itself considered, it does not necessarily follow 
 that those who commit it must be wicked men. It is often the 
 effect of wrong political theories. In the protracted wars in 
 England, between the houses of York and Lancaster, good men 
 were found on either side. So also, in the war between Charles 
 I. and the Parliament; between the adherents of the Stuarts 
 and the house of Hanover. It did not follow that a man was 
 wicked because he conscientiously believed that the Pretender 
 
1865.] President Lincoln. 453 
 
 was legally entitled to the British throne. A man might be a 
 Christian, and believe that the Salic law bound the Spanish 
 nation, and rendered it incumbent on him to be a Carlist. In 
 like manner it cannot be doubted that thousands of our South- 
 ern brethren religiously believed that their allegiance was due 
 first to their several States, then, and only conditionally, to the 
 Union. This does not infer moral depravity. No sane man 
 can believe that all the Episcopal, Presbyterian, Methodist, 
 and Baptist clergy and laity, who entered into the rebellion, 
 were unrenewed, wicked men. There is, therefore, a distinc- 
 tion between political offences and ordinary crimes, and to treat 
 both alike would be a violation of the plainest principles of jus- 
 tice. This is not saying that rebellion, except for adequate 
 cause, is not a moral offence ; nor is it saying that the late 
 Southern rebellion was not a great crime, for such it assuredly 
 was ; nor is it saying that because a man thinks a thing is 
 right, to him it is right ; but it is saying that there may be a 
 great difference between the criminality of ar%act in itself, and 
 the blameworthiness of the offenders. Men forget what a 
 strange anomalous thing human nature, is. There have been 
 pious persecutors, and pious slave-traders. The Scotch Cove- 
 nanters believed that it was the duty of the civil magistrate to 
 suppress false religions, and therefore they felt justified in 
 treating their opponents as their opponents treated them. As 
 Samuel hewed Agag in pieces, they believed heretics should be 
 put to death. John Newton (author of hymns still sung in all 
 our churches,) was a slave-trader after his conversion. Why, 
 then, must we take it for granted that every man who aided 
 the rebellion was in heart a reprobate. 
 
 The reason why the people join in the clamour for the judi- 
 cial condemnation of the rebels, is that they do not discriminate 
 in their own minds between the indignation excited by the 
 atrocities committed during the rebellion and the political offence 
 itself. That our prisoners were massacred, or deliberately 
 starved to death, that cities were burned, and hundreds of 
 Union men persecuted to death, may well excite the greatest 
 abhorrence, and call for the severest condemnation. Let the 
 authors of such offences be arrested and tried for these atroci- 
 
454 President Lincoln. [July 
 
 ties, and no voice will be raised in opposition. But this is 
 very different from calling for the judicial execution of the abet- 
 tors of the rebellion for their crime against the state. We be- 
 lieve indeed that the authors of the rebellion were, to a great 
 degree, controlled by a wicked ambition and the desire to per- 
 petuate slavery. Men however can be tried only for overt acts. 
 One man may commit the same act from one motive and an- 
 other for another. One may act under the influence of the 
 worst feelings of our nature, and another from a mistaken sense 
 of duty, and from a wrong political theory. We join, there- 
 fore, in denouncing the late rebellion as a great crime ; we be- 
 lieve that its authors and abetters, in many cases, were influ- 
 enced by bad motives ; that there is no apology for the spirit 
 of pride, arrogance, malice, and hatred, which so generally 
 characterized all classes at the South during this struggle ; we 
 abhor the cruelties, the murders, confiscations, and violence 
 of all kinds of which loyal men were made the victims ; and we 
 believe our late president would not have shielded any of the 
 authors of these acts of cruelty and violence from the just pun- 
 ishment of their crimes. All this may be admitted, and it re- 
 mains none the less true, that the political offence of rebellion 
 is to be distinguished from these crimes by which it was atten- 
 ded. Good men shared in the rebellion, but not in these acts 
 of violence. Mr. Lincoln's avowed purpose not to inflict the 
 extreme penalty of the law upon political crimes was, therefore, 
 perfectly consistent with his condemnation of the rebellion, and 
 his abhorence of the spirit and conduct of its authors. 
 
 Another reason on which this purpose was founded was that, 
 while the punishment of ordinary crimes is indispensable to the 
 well-being of society, the punishment of political offences is 
 often unnecessary. In many cases treason and rebellion, when 
 confined to a few persons, must be severely punished, as the 
 only means of deterring others from the commission of the 
 same offence. But when a rebellion involves a great multitude 
 of men, and leads to a civil war which issues in the establish- 
 ment of the legitimate government, no such necessity ordin- 
 arily exists. The misery and loss consequent on the suppres- 
 sion of such outbreaks answers all the ends of punishment as 
 a means of prevention. In the present case, no man can esti- 
 
1865.] President Lincoln. 455 
 
 mate the amount of suffering which the rebellion has entailed 
 upon the South. The loss of property must amount to many 
 thousands of millions of dollars ; all productive industry has 
 been interrupted for four years; cities have been destroyed; 
 whole districts of country laid waste; the great body of the 
 property-holders have been impoverished. To this must be 
 added the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives. Fathers, 
 sons, and brothers have been swept away. Almost every fami- 
 ly is in mourning. Besides all this, the South has lost its pres- 
 tige and preponderance. They are no longer masters. They 
 are humbled in their own eyes, and in the eyes of the whole 
 world. If all this is not sufficient to prevent rebellion for cen- 
 turies to come, no number of executions for political offences 
 can have any effect. We might as well empty a cup of water 
 into the ocean to increase its volume. 
 
 Thirdly, all unnecessary punishments are positive evils. 
 They exasperate instead of subduing; they exalt criminals into 
 martyrs. The sympathy felt for the victims is transferred to 
 the cause for which they suffer. Unnecessary punishment 
 degrades justice into vengeance; all history proves its impo- 
 licy. Ireland, Poland, and Venetia, stand as examples and 
 warnings. It is as necessary to conciliate the South as it was 
 to subdue it. If we fail in this, we cut the locks of our own 
 strength, and prepare millions of allies for any foreign enemy 
 by whom we may hereafter be assailed. Nothing would better 
 please the despots of the Old World than that we should pursue 
 such a course as to make the South to us what Ireland is to 
 England and Poland to Russia. The cry for blood and confis- 
 cation which has been raised in so many quarters, and which 
 has desecrated so many sanctuaries, is insensate as well as anti- 
 Christian. It is a cry for the nation not only to degrade but 
 to enfeeble itself, and to entail upon our posterity a burden which 
 it will be hard for them to bear. Our only security is in doing 
 right. Let us be as magnanimous and generous in victory as 
 we were brave and constant in conflict. The character of our 
 country, and its influence for good over other nations depends 
 more perhaps on the way in which we use our victory than upon 
 success in securing it. This our friends abroad all see, and 
 therefore with one voice they deprecate all judicial vengeance, 
 
456 President Lincoln. [July 
 
 and call upon us to give to the world an example of leniency 
 as imposing as our exhibition of courage and strength. 
 
 Once more, the divinely appointed method of overcoming 
 evil is to return good for evil. If thy enemy hunger, feed him ; 
 if he thirst, give him drink; for by so doing thou shalt heap 
 coals of fire upon his head. All that is necessary is that we 
 should act as the Christian Commission did in dealing with the 
 rebel wounded and prisoners. They fed, clothed, nursed, and 
 tended them, without making it an antecedent condition that 
 they should renounce their political heresies, or profess repent- 
 ance for their rebellion. All they had to do was to be submis- 
 sive and quiet. The consequence was that thousands were 
 converted from enemies into friends. 
 
 President Lincoln however was no weakling. Although his 
 avowed policy was that of conciliation ; although he earnestly 
 desired to make the South cordially loyal and submissive to 
 the government, and win them back to the love of the Union 
 which their fathers had cherished, his main object nevertheless 
 was the security of the government and of our national institu- 
 tions ; and therefore it was only so far as was consistent with 
 that object that he favoured the restoration of the abettors of 
 the rebellion to the rights of citizenship and to the possession 
 of political power. But his views of what was consistent with 
 the public safety were of the largest and most liberal character. 
 
 The principles which regulated his action regarding slavery, 
 constituted a third distinguishing feature of Mr. Lincoln's 
 policy. On this subject he held, 1. That all men are the chil- 
 dren of Adam; made of one blood and possessing the same 
 nature; and therefore are all entitled to be regarded and treated 
 as men. No symptom of permanent slavery can be justified, 
 except on -the assumption that the enslaved class are a different 
 and inferior race of beings. If all men are by nature one, if 
 all have the same essential attributes of humanity, there can 
 be no just reason why one class should be for ever condemned to 
 inferiority and bondage. It was the great scriptural truth of 
 the unity of the human race as to origin and species, which lay 
 at the foundation of all President Lincoln's opinions and policy 
 in regard to slavery. 
 
 2. This being the case, neither the colour of the skin, nor 
 
1865.] President Lincoln. 457 
 
 unessential differences in the varieties of men, is any just ground 
 for a permanent distinction between one class of men and an- 
 other. He held that every man fit to be free (and not otherwise) 
 was entitled to be free; that every man able to manage property 
 had the right to hold property; and that every man capable of 
 discharging the duties of a father is entitled to the custody of 
 his children. From this it would follow, by parity of reason, 
 that every man who has the intelligence and moral character 
 necessary to the proper exercise of the elective franchise is 
 entitled to enjoy it, if compatible with the public good. In 
 other words, these rights and privileges cannot justly be made 
 dependent on the colour of the skin or any other adventitious 
 difference. On the other hand, it is a dictate of common sense 
 that no man, whether white or black, has a right to exercise 
 any privilege for which he is not qualified. A child, or a crimi- 
 nal, is not entitled to the liberty due to an adult or to a virtuous 
 man. An idiot or a lunatic is not entitled to the control of 
 property or the custody of children; nor are the grossly igno- 
 rant or vicious entitled to the exercise of any civil prerogative 
 which they cannot enjoy with safety to society. 
 
 Once more, it is plain that Mr. Lincoln was opposed to all 
 sudden revolutionary changes. These were to be avoided, and 
 he strove to avoid them so far as was consistent with the 
 paramount aim of his administration, the preservation of the 
 national life. 
 
 Such we regard as a correct, although very imperfect view 
 of the character, the services, and principles of our lamented 
 President. The profound grief occasioned by his death, the 
 abiding sense of the loss which the nation has sustained in his 
 being called away at this important crisis of our history, not 
 only prove the high estimate entertained of his character and 
 services, but the almost universal approbation accorded by the 
 people to the distinctive principles of his administration. This 
 public judgment cannot be reversed; nor can it be safely dis- 
 regarded. Popular excitement may cause the public mind to 
 swerve for a time from the course marked out by this greal 
 and good man, but the national heart, having once approved of 
 his policy, will be sure to revert to it, and pay him the highest 
 honour a people can render a ruler, by carrying out his prin- 
 
 VOL. xxxvii. — no. in. 58 
 
458 President Lincoln. [July. 
 
 ciples, and doing what he would have done, had God spared 
 his life. 
 
 We are called upon to humble ourselves before God under 
 a great national bereavement, but, at the same time, we are 
 bound to render thanks to the Giver of all good, for having 
 raised such a man as Mr. Lincoln to the presidency in the day 
 of our trial, and also to pray that the mantle of the dead may 
 fall upon the living; that the Spirit which was on him who led 
 us through the wilderness, may be given in double measure to 
 him whose office it is to give the nation rest. 
 
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