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Show CHARLES McCULLEV WIXS IX 11. S. ORATORY v': d over his generals. If they lost ;;i ;und, he lost confidence in them li they gained ground he gained con-i: con-i: donee in them. This was a great :.lr-.iin upon the president and he was '.cry tired. The day before his death, told his wife that when his term vf:s up, they would go back to Ken-!;-:ky an! live the rest of their lives i.i peace. But this was not to be. It was the ; ';;ht of April 14, 1865, Ford's thea-tro thea-tro was crowded, even the standing too mwas taken. The play was our "American Cousins" and Mr. and 1 Mrs. Lincoln were to- be present. Itj was just after the curtain had risen on the second scene in the last act, that a shot rang out. In a moment the truth was known. President Lincoln Lin-coln had been shot by John Wilkes Booth. The president became insensible in-sensible and died the next morning. Thus perished one of our greatest Americans. "On the day of his death," says Towell, "This simple western attorney, attor-ney, who ac.ordingf to one party was a "vulgar joker." and whom among his own supporters was accused ot wanting every element of statesman ship, was the most absolute ruler in Christendom, and this solely by the hold his good humored sagacity had laid on the hearts of his countrymen. Never before that April morning did such multitudes of men shed tears for the death of one they had never l seen. Never was funeral panegyric so j eloquent as the silent look of sympathy sym-pathy which strangers exchanged when they met on that day. Their common manhood had lost a friend." Mr .Lincoln had all the properties .of a leader, and as has been shown, j he used them to an advantage during the Civil war. Mr. Lincoln not only wen the war at Appamatox court house, but also- won many of the hearts of the South. In doing this, he showed that he was capable of getting get-ting people to believe his way was right. . A parallel might he drawn down between Lincoln and Henry IV, of France. Henry was heir to the throne. His followers were Hugenots. When he became king, he was only king in name over the greater part of France. The Catholics began to see that Henry was the true leader, and so they swore allegiance to him. Later on, the other provinces united with these and in the end Henry IV. left a reunited France. When Lincoln Lin-coln beeani'-. steersman for the ship of state, there was no ready material on hand for a war. The lumber was still growing in the forest and the iron still unmined, which would build ships for the navy. Untrained officers forced into mobs for the army ar-my and an empty treasury to pay expenses with. Lincoln mustered up an army with many promising officers, offi-cers, began a large navy and finally through his effort all the states were reunited. Lincoln possessed clear vision. He could see tnat there would be trouble trou-ble over the slave question. In a speech at Springfield, 111., June 17, 1858, Lincoln said, "A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently, per-manently, half slave and half free. I do not expect the union to be dissolved; dis-solved; I do not expect the house to fall; but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will either become all one thing or all another." The "never say die" spirit was strong in Lincoln. He would stick up for what he thought was right; nor would he st?nd to be bullied into anything. any-thing. After his speech of the seventeenth, sev-enteenth, mfny of his friends criticized criti-cized him, saying that he would lose many of his friends by the speech. In answer to them, Lincoln said; "Friends, I have weighed it from every corner and am thoroughly convinced con-vinced that the time has come when it should be uttered, and if I must go down because of this speech, then let me go dow-n linked to the truth die in the advocacy of what Is right and just." Lincoln's sense of foresight was keen and strong. He not only saw that the slavery question must come to a head if. the near future, but that when it did, it would be a long struggle. strug-gle. It would be more than just putting put-ting down a rebel band, as some supposed sup-posed it would be. It cannot be said that Lincoln was not sympathetic. In fact. I believe he was all sympathy. A story is told of a mother who went to Lincoln. She told him that her boy was to be shot and asked Lincoln to pardon him. Lincoln answered, "Well, I think the boy will do us more good above the ground than under It. They're killed off fast enough on the battlefield battle-field anyway." Another example of his human nature na-ture is shown by the following letter let-ter to Mrs. Pixby of Boston, Mass: Dear Madam I have been shown in the files of the war department, a statement of the Adputant General of Massasus-setts, Massasus-setts, that you are the mother of 5 sons who have died gloriously on the field of ba'.tle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any word of mine, which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelm ing. But I cunnot refrain from tendering tender-ing you the consolation that may be found in thanks of the people they died to save. I pray that our Heavenly Heaven-ly Father may assuage the anger of your bereavement and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly cost-ly a sacrifice upon the altar of Freedom. Free-dom. Yours very sincerely and respectfully respect-fully Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln was also humorous and always al-ways had a little story to tell, no matter how important the business was. When asked how long he thought a man's legs ought to be he answered, "Just long enough to reach from his body to the ground. "Genius," says Wilson, "does not pick on special persons to perform its duties." And so it was with Lincoln. He was born into a family of the humbler class; he did not have many advantages in his boyhood; his father and mother were uneducated and the neighborhood was peopled by rough, coarse, ignorant poverty stricken people. And yet, through all this, Lincoln grew up into one of the strongest characters in American 1 history. He traveled the so-called road from "log cabin to white house" At each of the way stations on that ascending highway, he adjusted with admirable precision, tactfully holding hold-ing his own and ever sensing the greater needs of the group with which he allied himself. Thus the humble backwoodsman gained for himself, the right to the title, "The American." |