The Richmond palladium. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1855-1875, 1864-03-30
abraham Lincoln.


4 ed in the Christian Watehman and Re
hector, on Men of our Times" In the,
issue of that paper of january eth. we
find an article ON the President of the
Uniten States, from which we make
few extracts: ss& @@ @A -
Abrsham Lincoln is. in the strictest
sense, a man of the working classes.
All his advantages and abilities are those
of 2 man of the working classes; and his
position, now at the head Of one of the
most powerful nations Of the earth, is a
sign to all who live by labor that their
day is coming. Lincoln was born to the
inheritance of hard work. as truly rs the
poorest lahorer's son that digs in our
fields, At seven years of age he was Sc.
to work. Ak in hand, to clear up a farm
in a Western forest. Until he was sew
enteen his life was that Of simple farm
Iahorer. with only such intervals of
schooling as farm loborers get Proha-
bly, tA9sehool instruction of his whole
life would not amount TO more than one
year. At nineteen he made a trip to
New Orleans as a hired man on a flathoat,
and on his return he split the rails for \
log cabin and built in and enclosed ten
acres of land with . rail fence of his own
handiwork. The next year he hired
himself for twelve dollars a month to
haild u tlathoat and to take her to New
Orleans, and any one who knows what
| the life Ola Mississippi boatman was in
those days must know it itinvolved every
| kind of labor.
Inls3a, in the Black Hawk Indian wa
| the hardy boatmm volunteered to fgt
/ f.ar Try niynN
elected a captain, and served with hone
for a season in the frontier military life
After this, while serving as postmaster
| he began his law studies, borrowing the
books he was too poor to buy, and study
ing by the light Of his evening fire. He
acquired a name in the country as n man
of resources and shrewdness, he was one
that people looked to for counsel in exi-
gencies, and to whom they were ready
Il to depute almost any enterprise which
needed skill and energy. The surveyor
| of Sangmon county, being driven witt
work, came to him to take the survey o.
a track offhis hands. True, he had new
or studied surveying, but what of tha.
| He accepted the Job" procured chair
and did the work. Do we not see in thi
a parable of the wider wilderness whicf
| in latter years he has undertaken to sur
vey and fit for human habitation withou
chart or surveyors chain?
Little did the convention that nomina-
ted Abraham Lincoln for President know
what they were doing Little did the
honest, fatherly, patriotic man, who stood
in his simplicity on the platform 1t
Springfield, asking the prayers of his
| townsmen and receiving their pledges to
remember him, see how awfully he was
to need those prayers, the prayers of all
this nation, and the prayers of all the
working, suffering common people
througout the world. Gods hand was
upon him with visible protection, sa-
wing him first from danger of assassi-
nation at Baltimore, and bringing him
safely to our national capital.
Then the world has seen and wonder
ed at the greatest sign and marvel of our
day, to-wit plain working man of tho
people, with no more culture, instruction
or education than any such working man
may obtain for himself, called on to con.
duct the passage off great people through
crisis involving the destinies Of the
whole world. The eyes Of princes, no.
bles, aristocrats, dukes, carls, scholars,
statesmen, warriors all turned on the
plain backwoodsman, with his simple
sense, bis imperturbablc simplicity, his
determined self reliance, his impractical
bic and incorruptible honesty, as he sat
amid re war of conflicting elements with
unpretending stcadiness, striving to
guide the national ship through chan
mel at whose sperils the worlds oldest
statesmen stood aghast- The brilliant
courts Of Europe leyelled their opera
glasses at the phenomenon. Fair ladies
saw that he had horny hands, and dis
daincd white gloves. Dapper diploma
fists were shocked at his system of cti-
quette, but old statesmen, who knew the
terrors Of that passage, we're wiser than
court ladies and dandy diplonatists,
who watched him with fearful curiosity,
simply asking: will that awkward old
backwoodsman really get the ship
through? II he does it will be time for
US to look about US.
Lincoln is strong man, but his
strength is of a peculiar kind it is not
aggressive SO much as passive, and
among passive things it is like the
strength not 90 much of stone buttress
as of wire cable. 1t IL strength sway
ing to every influence, yielding on this
side and on that to popular deeds, yet
tenaciously and indaxibly bound to carry
its great end; and probably by no other
kind of strength could our national ship
have been drawn safely thus far during
the tossings and tempests which beset
her way. sae ~
Surrounded by all sorts Of conflicting
claims, by traitors, by half hearted, timid
men. by radical Abolitionists and conser-
vatiyes, he has listened to all, weighed
the words Of all, waited, observed, yield
ed now here now there, bat in the main
kept one infaxible, honest purpose and
drawn the national ship through.
In the time Of our trouble Abraham
Lincoln has had his turn Of being the
best-abused man OF oar natios- Like
Moses leading his Isreal through the
wilderness. he has seen the day when
every man seemed ready to ~saone him.
and yet with simple, wig, perseverance,.
he has held on, conscious Of honest inten-
tons, and lookiDg to God for help.-All
the nation have felt in the Increasing
solimnity Of his proclamatious and pa