| Show HANNIBAL HAMLIN HANNIBAL HAMLIN who died at bangor maine on the ath dinst to is one of the best examples we ire have had of a claw class of citizens peculiar to america which make free government a practicable institution without any of the vaulting ambitious ambitions that stamp the life of the ordinary man of destiny by some means or other he became in trusted with all but one of the great official responsibilities of the nation before he was thirty years old he was a member of the maine state legislature not many years after he was sent to congress and a little later was promoted to the united states senate having served ten years in that august assembly he returned to be inaugurated governor of his state when lincoln was nominated for president hamlin came in for the vice presidency he made a good vice president and would have made a good president had bad that office been given him indeed he be would have filled any office or trust capably he was not brilliant or startling in any capacity but was the embodiment of common sense and conscience in the discharge of duty to his sort of capability the great republic owes vastly more than to its sons of genius it is such citizens as hannibal hamlin that prevent men with more talent and less integrity of purpose from wrecking the nation our men of sparkling achievements make the nations history but it to is the under stratum of the hamlin type that carry the government and all of its attendant greatness personal ano and national |
