Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1864-04-07
Abraham Lincoln.
rY HARRIET BEEcHER STOWE

!
The revolution through which the Ameri
can nation is passing is not mere local con-
vulsion. 1t is war for a principle which
concerns all mankind. 1t is war for the
rights of the working class of mankind, as
against the uSurpation of privileged aristoc-
racies You can make nothing else out of it.
That is the reason why, like shaft of light
in the iudgms snt day, it has gone through all
nations. dividing to the right and left the
multitudes For Us and Our cause, all the
common working classes of Europe-all that
toll, and sweat and are oppressed. Agalest
us. all the privileged class;s, nob.es, princes,
bankers. and great manufacturers, and all who
live at ease A silent instinct, piercing to
the d yiding ofsoul and spirit, joints and mar
row, has gone through tn; earth, and sent
every soul instinctively where it belongs
The poor laborers of Birmingham and Man
chester, the poor silk weavers of Lyons, to
whom our conflict has been present starva-
ton and lingering death, have stood bravely
for US. No sophstrie5 could blind deceive
them-they knew that our cause was their
| cause. and they have suffered their part her, i.
icallv, as if fighting by our side, because they
knew that our victory was to be their victo-
rv. On the other side, all artist )crats and
holders of exclusive privileg S have felt the
instinct of opp s:tion, ana the sympathy with
struggling arisrocracy, for they too feel
that our victory will be their doom.
| This great contest has visibly ben held in
| the hands of the Almighty God and is a ful-
| Gliment Of the solemn prophecies with which
the Bible is sown thick as stars. that he ;uld
spare the soul of the needy and Judge the
cause of the poor. 1t was he who chose tue
instrument for the work, and he chose him
| Ia tl,,,. ;rrIt
| terests of the great ma tority of mankind for
which he stands.
Abraham Lincoln is, in the strictest sense,
man Of the working classes All his advan-
| tages and abilities are those of man of the
working classes; all his disadvantages and
disabilities are those of a man of the work
ing classes; and his position now at the head
of one OF the most powerful nations of the
earth, is sign to all who live by labor that
their day is coming. Lincoln was born to
the inheritance Of hard work, as truly as the
poorest laborerS son that digs in our fields.
At seven years of age he was put to work,
axe in hand, to clear up farm in Western
forest. Until he was seventeen his life was
that of a simple farm laborer, with only such
intervals of schooling as farm laborers get
Probably the school Instructions of his whole
life would not amount to more than one year
as hired hand on fiat boat, and on his re-
turn he split the rails for log cabin and
built it, and enclosed ten acres Of land with
Il rail fence Of his own handiw3rk The next
Year he hired himself for twelve dollars
month to build fat boat and take her to
New Orleans; and any one who knows what
the life Of Il Mississippi boatsnlan was in those
days knows that it Involved every kind o. Ia
Dor. In 1882, in the Black Hawk Indian
war, the nardy boatsman volunteered to fight
foT his country, and was unanimously elected
| Il captain, and served with honor for season
in frontier military life After this, vile
serving as u os;mastcr, he began his law
studies, borrowing the law books he was too
poor to buy, and studying by the light of his
evening fire. He acquired a name in the
country about as a man of sErewdness: h.
was one that people looked to for council in
ezigcncles; and to whom they were ready to
depute almost any enterpris. which needed
skill and en"rgy. The Surveyor Of San@l-
mon county being driven with work, came to
him to take tie survey of tract off from
his hands. True he had aeyer studied survey
| lng-but what Of that? lie accepted tic
Job, procured Il 1lain, treatise on survey
ing, and did the work. Do YOU not see ia
| this a parable of the wilderness which in la
ter years be has undertaken to survey and fit
|
or's chain?
In 1886 our backwoodSman, fat boat hand
| captain, surveyor, obtained a license to prac
tice law, and, as might be expected rose rap
idly. One anecdote will show the esteem in
which he was held in the neighborhood. A
client came to him IN a case relating to a
certain land claim, and Lincoln said to him,
| y oar first step must be to take thirty thouS
and dollars aud go and make legal tender
it OF course will be refused, but it is a neces-
sary step"
| But, said the man, II haven't the thirty
thousand dollars to make it with"
"oh, that's 1t. Just step over to the bank
with me and I'll get it."
| SO into the bank they went, and Lincoln
says to the cashier, I'VE Just want to take
thirty thousand dollars to make 4 legal ten
der with Ill bring it back in an hour or
| two
| The cashier handed across the money to
| Honest Abe" and without scratch of the
| pen in acknowledgment he strobe his way
| with the specie, all in most sacred simplicity
made the tender, and brought it back with as
much nonchalance as if he had been borrow
ing silver spoon of his grandmother His
| honesty, snreWdnesS, energy, and keen practi-
cal insight into men and things, soon made
him the most influential man in the State
He became the reputed leader of the Whig
party, and canvassed the State as stump
speaker in the time of Henry CLAW, and in
| 1916 was elected representative to Congress
Here he met the grinding of the great uues-
tion of the day-the upper and neither mill
stone of slavery and freedom revolving against
each other. Lincolns whole nature inclined
him to be harmonizer of conflicting parties
rather than a committed combatant on either
side. He was firmly and from principle an
enemy to slavery--but the ground he occu-
| pied in Congress was in some respects mid
die ono between the advance guard Of anti
slavery and the spears of the ire-eaters. He
voted with John Quincy Adams fer the recent
of anti-slavery petition: he voted with Gid
dings for a committee of inquiry into the con-
stitutionality of slavery in the District of CO.
lumbia, and the expediency of abolishng sla-
very in that district: he voted for the various
resolutions prohibiting slavery in the terrific
ries to be acquired from Mexico, and he vo-
ted forty two times for the Wilmot Proviso
In January l6, 1S49, he offered a plan for
abolshing slavery in the District of Columbia,
by compensation from the national treasury,
with the consent of .-.aiority of the citizens.
, He opposed the annexation of Texas, but vo-
ted for the bill to pay the expenses of the
war. .ar...-.. = ..gsl. ~ .-.-
But at the time of the repeal of the Mis-
souri, compromise he took the field, heart and
soul, against the plot to betray our territories
to slavery. 1t was mainly owing to his exer.
tions that at this critical period Republican
Senator was elected from Illinois, when a
Republican Senator in the trembling IA
tional scales of the conflict was worth a thou
sand times his weight ia gold Jsass s a.4.
d. ! rr-g-