The Richmond palladium. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1855-1875, 1864-01-27
THE PRESIDENCY--f864.

viction that the reelection of Mr.. LIN
coin is called for by the sentiment o
National policy, and Of National graft
tudc, and because we believe that his
election is desired by fully three fourths
of the honest and patriotic masses of ouI
fellow citizens. We announce this name
with feeling almost amounting to awe
for If we are to beiieve-and who can
doubt it-that an ovcrruling Providence
guides the dcstinies Of Nations, to US if
appears that ABRAHAM LINCOLN has been
selected as an instrument by Almighty
God to accomplish the great work, not
alone Of saving, but the equally sublime
work of preserving for all time to come,
our wonderful Government, purged of
those evils which experience has demon
strated to he fatal to our institutions
healed and made sound and whole from
the diseases which have laid siege to its
very life. To this conclusion we come
from all the extraordinary circumstances
which have attended the present strange
TO human eyes) and unexampled war.
century, in the full blaze of the history of
man, Christian people, everywhere
blending with the flag of their land the
symbol of the Prince of Peace; people
living under the most benign rule which
God has ever vouchsafcd to man; apeo-
pie upon whom prosperity, rcnown and
honor, in the eyes of all christendom,
have been fairly raincd down as if in
golden showers from mild, indulgent
Heaven; apeople protected by their geo
graphical position and by common
union of strength and interest against
all possibility of successful foreign in
vasion;-we say, If it be n remarkable
fact that such people, under such cir
cumstanccs, should be so stricken blind
as deliberately to inaugurate the violence
and chaos of war against their own
brethren and fond common parent a
.gaexhich fepW thesy ybSgla glatain0c0ntfal
nationally promise no other resalt than
either that of our mutual ruin, or, other
wise, that the humiliation and snbjuga-
ton of those whose parricidal hands
struck the first blow,--if this fact be in
deed wonderful and bewildering, pas.
all human solution, shall we not recog-
nize therein the work of that awful Pow
or who scourges nations rs He does in
dividuals and who, through His Proph
ets, has announced the fearful truth that
'.Me Nations tchich forget God shall surely
perishs"
And if this fact appears to us to be
providential, then, we ask: How happens
it, that at such time, a Magistrate
should have been raised up for us pos
scssing the elements of character which
are universally acknowledged as marking
the nature of ABRAHAM LINCOLN? I'm
selfish, unambitious, modest, gentle. hu-
name, even to weakness; just, cautious.
.forbearing and of an cquable temper such
as has distinguished no other public
man, so fully, since the days of WASH
INGroN? 1t is indeed most wonderful,
that, passing 10y the noted politicians and
statesmen of the land, a plain man, grown
in our woods, of very little political eN
sense, his high moral qualities, and for
the friendly title which he had won
amongst his old neighbors as ..HoNEsT
ABE," should have been selected to guide
storm as has convulsed his administra-
ton? What might not bad, ambitious.
selfish man have done, with the instru-
ments of hell ready created to his hand,
toward the utter ruin OF our social and
political structure. The student of his
tory well knows what such one might
have done. Treason rampant in the
South; corruption stalking naked and
inviting cooperation in the North; in
temperate, honest zeal clamoring to rush
in where angels fear to tread every
where confusion; here were indeed the
tools for despotism, such as. in such
times, with rare and sublime eNcep-
tions has marked the characters of the
men of like periods.
In the midst of these temptations and
Of this confusion; when all the great
lights to whom the people had been ac-
customed to look up, as if by some mir
acle, had suddenly disappeared from
mortal eyes-(CLAr, WEBSTER, DoueLAs,
and the like )-when the people were ex-
claiming with one voice.-"Give us sta
bility of some sort: Give us n man
Give us leader Give us Military Die
tator:" at such time as this, the whole
power Of this nation, and with it. all of
its past, al Of its present, and all of its
future; its purse and its sword, were
committed to the absolute keeping of
ABKAHax LINCOLN. What a mighty trust.
Let az think of it who live to behold the