The Sun.
London, England, 1865-05-19 00:00:00

Emerson on President Lincoln.

The following address was delivered by Ralph
Waldo Emerson in Concord, Massachusetts, on oc-
casion of the funeral services in honour of Mr.
Lincoln :

We meet under the gloom of a calamity which darkens
down over the minds of good men in all civilised society,
as the fearful tidings travel over sea, over land, from coun-
try to country, like the shadow of an uncalculated eclipse
over the planet. Old as history is, and manifest as are its
tragedies, I doubt if any death has caused so much pain to
mankind as this has caused, or will cause, on its announce-
ment ; and this not so much because nations are, bymodern
arts, brought so close together, as because of the mysteri-
ous hopes and fears which, in the present day, are con-
nected with the name and institutions of America. In
this country, on Saturday, every one was struck dumb,
and saw, at first, only deep below deep, as he meditated on
the ghastly blow. And, perhaps, at this hour, when the
coffin which contained the dust of the President came for-
ward on its long march through mourning States, on its
way to its home in Illinois, we might well be silent, and
suffer the awful voices of the times to thunder to us. Yes,
but that first despair was brief ; the man was not so to be
mourned. He was the most active and hopeful of men ;
and his work had not perished; but acclamations of
praise for the task he had accomplished burst out into a
song of triumph, which even tears for his death cannot
keep down. The President stood before us a man of the
people. He was thoroughly American, had never crossed
the sea, had never been spoiled by English insularity, or
French dissipation ; a quiet native, aboriginal man, as an
acorn from the oak; no aping of foreigners, no frivolous
accomplishments, Kentuckian born, working on a farm, a
flatboatman, a captain in the Blackhawk war, a country
lawyer, a representative in the rural legislature of Illinois
—on such modest foundations the broad structure of his
fame was laid. How slowly, and yet by happily prepared
steps, he came to his place. All of us remember—it is only
a history of five or six years—the surprise and disappoint-
ment of the country at his first nomination at Chicago. Mr.
Seward, then in the culmination of his good fame, was the
favourite of the Eastern States. And when the new and
comparatively unknown name of Lincoln was announced
(notwithstanding the report of the acclamations of that con-
vention) we heard the result coldly and sadly. It seemed
too rash, on a purely local reputation, to build so grave a
trust in such anxious times ; and men naturally talked of
the chances in politics as incalculable. But it turned out
not to be chance. The profound good opinion which the
people of the West had conceived of him, and which they
had imparted to their colleagues, that they also might jus-
tify themselves to their constituents at home, was not rash,
though they did not begin to know the richness of his
worth. A plain man of the people, an extraordinary fortune
attended him. Lord Bacon says, "Manifest virtues procure
reputation ; occult ones fortune." He offered no shining
qualities at the first encounter; he did not offend by supe-
riority. He had a face and manner which disarmed suspi-
cion, which inspired confidence, which confirmed goodwill.
He was a man without vices. He had a strong sense of duty
which it was very easy for him to obey. Then he had what
farmers call a long head ; was excellent in working out the
sum for himself, in arguing his case and convincing you fairly
and firmly. Then it turned out that he was a great worker,
had prodigious faculty of performance, worked easily. .A:good
worker is rare ; everybody has some disabling quality. In
a host of young men that start together, and promise so
many brilliant leaders for the next age, each fails on trial ;
one by bad health, one by conceit or by love of pleasure, or
by lethargy, or by an hasty temper--each has some dis-

qualifying fault that throws him out of the carol..
But this man was sound to the core, cheerful,
persistent, all right for labour, and liked nothing
so well. Then he had a vast good nature, which made
him tolerant and accessible to all ; fair-minded, leaning
to the claim of the petitioner, affable, and not sen-
sible to the affliction which the innumerable vista paid .t°
him, when President, would have brought to any one elso,
And how this good nature became a noble humanity in
many a tragic case which the events of the war brought to
him every one will remember, and with what increasing
tenderness he dealt when a whole race was thrown on his
compassion. The poor negro said of him, on an impressive
occasion, "Massa Linkum am eberywhere." Then his broad
good humour, running easily into jocular talk, in which he
delighted and in which he excelled, was a rich gift to this
wise man. It enabled him to keep his secret, to meet every
kind of
`man and every rank in society ; to take off the edge
of the severest decisions, to mask his own purpose and
sound his companion, and to catch with true instinct the
temper of every company he addressed. And, more than an,
it is to a man of severe labour, in anxious and exhausting
crises, the natural restorative, good as sleep, and is the pro-
tection of the overdriven brain against rancour and insanity'.
His occupying the chair of state was a triumph of the geed
sense of mankind and of thepublic confidence. This middle-
class country has got a middle-class President at last. Yes,
in manners, sympathies, but not in power, for his powers
were superior. His mind mastered the problem of the day;
and, as the problem grew, so did his comprehension of it.
Rarely was man so fitted to the event, In the midst of fears
and jealousies, in the Babel of counsels and parties, this
man wrought incessantly with all his might and all his
honesty, labouring to find what the people wanted, and he"
to obtain that. It cannot be said there is any exaggeration
of his worth. If ever a man was fairly tested he was.
There was no lack of resistance, nor of slander, nor of
ridicule. The times has allowed no State secrets; the
nation has been in such a. ferment, such multitudes had to
be trusted, that no secret could be kept. Every door wag
ajar, and we know all that befel. Then what an occasion
was the whirlwind of the war 1 Here was place for 120
holiday magistrate, the fair-weather sailor ; the new pilot
was hurried to the helm in a tornado. In four years—the
four years of battle-days—his endurance, his fertility of
resources, his magnanimity, were sorely tried and never
found wanting. There, by his courage, his justice, 1114
even temper, his fertile counsel; his humanity, he stood an
heroic figure in the centre of an heroic epoch. He is the
true history of the American people in his time. Step by
step he walked before them; slow with their slowness/
quickening his march by theirs ; the true representative of
this continent; =entirely public man; father of his count*
the pulse of 20,000,000 throbing in his heart, the thought of
their minds articulated by his tongue. Adam Smith remarks
that the axe which in Houbraken's portraits of British
kings and worthies is engraved under those who have suf-
fered at the block adds a certain lofty charm to their Pic-
ture. Apd who does not see, even in this tragedy so recent,
how fast the terror and ruin of the massacre are already
burning into glory around the victim. Far happier this
fate than \t,i have lived to be wished away ; to have
watched the decay of his own faculties ; to have seen--
perhaps, even he—the proverbial ingratitude of statesmen ;
to have seen mean men preferred. Had he not lived long
enough to keep the greatest promise that ever man reiti!e
to his fellow-men—the practical abolition of slavery ? 'l'4;
had seen Tennessee, Missouri, and Maryland emaneiPaw
their slaves. He had seen Savannah, Charleston, and Rich-
mond surrendered ; had seen the main army of the rebellion
lay down its arms. He had conquered the public opinion
of Canada, England, and France. Only Washington can
compare with him in fortune. And what if it should turn
out, in the unfolding of the web, that he had reached the
term; that this heroic deliverer could no longer serve ttsl
that the rebellion had touched its natural conclusion, all
what remained to be done required new and uncommitted
hands—a new spirit born out of the ashes of the war ;
that Heaven, wishing to show the world a completed belie*
factor, shall make him serve his country even more 191
death than by his life. Nations, like kings, are not geed, by
facility and complaisance. " The kindness of kings consistot.°
in justice and strength." Easy good nature has been
that
dangerous foible of the republic, and it was necessary tea
its enemies should outrage it, and drive us to maw° et
firmness, to secure the salvation of this country in the ne'
ages.