The Sun.
London, England, 1866-02-28 00:00:00

HIS EDUCATION.

Otherwise his education was altogether American. The
Declaration of Independence was his compendium of poli-
tical wisdom, the life of Washington his constant study,
and something of Jefferson and Madison reached him
through Henry Clay, whom he honoured from boyhood.
For the rest, from day to day he lived the life of the Ame-
rican people, walked in its light, reasoned with its reason,
thought with its power of thought, felt the beatings of its
mighty heart, and so was in every way a child of nature—
s child of the West—a child of America.

HIS PROGRESS IN LIFE.

-- -
At 19, feeling impulses of ambition to get on in the
world, he engaged himself to go down the Mississippi in a
flatboat, receiving $lO a month for his wages, and after-
ward he made the trip once more. At 21 he drove his
father's cattle as the family migrated to Illinois, and split
rails to fence in the new homestead in the wild. At 23 he
was a captain of volunteers in the Black Hawk war. Ho
kept a shop; he learned something of surveying; but of
English literature he added to Bunyan nothing but Shak-
spere's plays. At 25 he was elected to the Legislature of
Illinois, where he served eight years. At 27 he was ad-
mitted to the bar. In 1837 he chose his home at. Spring-
field, the beautiful centre of the richest land in the State.
In 1847 he was a member of the National Congress, where
he voted about 40 times in favour of the principle of the Jef-
ferson Proviso. In 1854 he gave his influence to elect from
Illinois to the American Senate a Democrat who would
certainly do justice to Kansas. In 1858, as the rival of
Douglas, he went before the people of the mighty Prairie
State, saying—" This Upion cannot permanently endure,
half slave and half free ; the Union will not be dissolved,
but the house will cease to be divided ; and now in 1861,
with no experience whatever as an executive officer, while
States were madly flying from their orbit, and wise men
knew not whero to find counsel, this descendantof Quakers,
this pupil of Bunyan, this child of the great West, was
elected President of America.

He measured the difficulty of the duty that devolved on
him, and was resolved to fulfil it.

HE GOES TO WASHINGTON.

As on the 11th of February, 1861, he left Springfield,
which for a quarter of a century had been his happy home,
to the crowd of his friends and neighbours whom he was
neverot
h more to meet, he spoke a solemn farewell: —"know how soon I shall see you again. A duty has devolved
upon
rue,
greater than that which has devolved upon any
other manB,,nc,e ,
suc-
ceeded except for th
Washington.He never would have suc-
times ead of Divine Providence, upon which
he at all
relied.i On the same Almighty Being I
plat©
my
reliance pray that I may receive that Divine '
as7sictaneeuCcelvssithtit.t7hlh I cannot succeed, but with
"I am but an as certain.,
am.
To the men of Indiana he said,
business to risentlA temporary instrument: it isyour
preserve the Union and liberty."
At the capital of Ohio he
out 1 reason why I &honid said—" Without a name, with-
upon me a task such as did not a name, there has fallen
of his country." At
various platen
even r..et upon the Father
ally at Albany before the Legislature,place in New York especi-
the united support of the great which tendered him
" While I hold myself the humblest State, he said—
who have ever been elevated to the P°reaslildthe individuals
more difficult task to perform than any of them.
1 have a
a true heart to the work. I must rely upon 47. I bring
the whole country for support, and with the:: sustaining
of
aid even I, humble as I am, cannot fail to carry the sahl%inegf
state safely through the storm." To the assembly of 14,,-;-
Jersey at Trenton, he axplained —"I shall take the ground
1 deem most just to the North, the East, the West, the
South, and the whole country, in good temper, certainly
with no malice to any section. lam devoted to peace, but
it may be necessary to put the foot down firmly." In the
old Independence Hall of Philadelphia he said—" I have
never had a feeling politically that did not spring from the
sentiments embodied in the Declaration of Independence,
which gave liberty, not alone to the people of this coun-
try, but to the world in all futtire time. If the country
cannot be saved without giving up that principle, I would
rather be assassinated on the spot than surrender it. 1
have said nothing but what I am willing to live and die
by."

IN WHAT STATE HE FOUND THE COUNTRY.
Travelling in the dead of night to escape assassination,
Lincoln arrived at Washington nine days before his inau-
guration. The outgoing President, at the opening of the
session of Congress, had still kept as the majority of his
advisers men engaged in treason ; had declared that in case

of even an "imaginary" apprehension of danger from no-
tions of freedom among the slaves, "disunionwou'd become
inevitable." Lincoln and others had question'd tl.e opinion
of Taney; such impugning he described to the "factious
temper of the times." The favourite doctrine of the majo-
rity of the Democratic Party on the power of a Territorial
Legislature over Slavery he condemned as an attack on
" the sacred rights of property." The State Legislature;
he insisted, must repeal what he called " their unconstitu-
tional and obnoxious enactments," and which, if such were
null and void, "it would be impossible for any human
power to save the Union." Nay ! if these unimportant
acts were not repealed, "the injured States would be jus-
tified in revolutionary resistance to the Government of the
Union." He maintained that no State might secede at its
sovereign will and pleasure; that the Union was meant for
perpetuity, and that Congress might attempt to preserve,
but only by conciliation ; that " the sword was not placed
in their hands to preserve it by force ;" that " the last
desperate remedy of a despairing people would be an ex-
planatory amendment recognising the decision of the Su-
preme Court of the United States." The American Union
he called "a confederacy" of State; and he thought it a
duty to make the appeal for the amendment "before any of
these States should separate themselves from the Union."
These views of the Lieutenant-General, containing some
patriotic advice, conceded the right of secession, pro-
nounced a quadruple rupture of the Union " a smaller evil
than the reuniting of the fragments by the sword," and
e eschewed the idea of invading a seceded State." After
changes in the Cabinet, the President informed Congress
that matters were still worse ; that " the South suffered
serious grievances, which should be redressed in peace."
The day after this message the flag of the Union was fired
upon from Fort Moultrie, and the insult was not revenged
or noticed. Senators in Congress telegraphed to their
constituents to seize the national forts, and they were not
arrested. The finances of the country were grievously
embarrassed. Its little army was not within reach—the
part of it in Texas, with all its stores, was made over by its
commander to the seceding insurgents. One State over an-
other voted in Convention to go out of the Union. A Peace
Congress, so-called, met at the request of Virginia, to concert
the terms of a capitulation for the continuance of the Union.
Congress in both branches sought to devise conciliatory
expedients ; the territories of the country were organised
in a manner not to conflict with any pretensions of the
South, or any decision of the Supreme Court ; and, never-
theless, the seceding States formed at Montgomery a Pro-
visional Government, and pursued their relentless purposes
with such success that the Lieutenant-General feared the
City of Washington might find itself "included in a foreign
country," and proposed, among the options for the consi-
deration of Lincoln, to bid the seceded States " depart in
peace." The great Republic seemed to have its emblem in
the vast unfinished Capitol, at that moment surrounded by
masses of stone and prostrate columns never yet lifted into
their places ; seemingly the monument of high but delusive
aspirations, the confused wreck of incohate magnificence,
sadder than any ruin of Egyptian Thebes or Athens.