The Shasta courier., 1864-04-09
OF the People--For the People.

A distinguished american writer says Of
Abraham Lincoln :
:. Little did the Convention that nominated
Abraham, Linleon for President know what
they were doing. Little did the honest, ia
therly, patriotic man, who stood in his sim
plicity on the platform at Springfield, asking
the prayers of his townsmen and receiving
their pledges to remember him, toresee how
awfuly be was to need those prayers, the
prayers of all the working. suffering common
people throughout the world. Gods hand
was upon him with visible protection. say
ing him first from the danger of assassination
at Baltimore and bringing him safely to our
national capital. Then the world have seen
and wondered at the greatest sign marvel OF
our day, tG wit. plain working man of the
peope with no more culture, instruction, or
education than any such working man may
obtain for himself. called on to conduct the
passage of great people through crisis in
voving the destinies ofthe whole world. The
ewes Of princes. mobiles, aristocrats, of dukes,
earls. scholars, statesmen. warriors. all turn
ed on the plain ackwoodsman, with his sim
pie sense, his imperturbable simplicity, his
determined self reliance, his impracticable
and incorruptible honesty, as he sat amid the
war of conflicting element with unpretending
steadiness striving to guide the national ship
through channel at whose perils the world s
oldest statesmen stood aghast. The brilliant
courts of Europe ieveled their opera glasses
at the phenomenon. Fair ladies saw that be
had horny hands and disda;ned white gloves.
Dapper diplomatists were shocked at his sys
tenn of etiquette. bat old statesmen who knew
the terrors of that passage, were wiser than
court ladies or dandy diplomatists, and watch
ed him with fearful curiosity, simply ask
ing. - VIII that awkward Id baekwoodsman
really get that ship through? If he does, it
will be time for us to look about US.
Sooth to say. our own politicians were some
what shocked with his state papers at first.
Why not let us make them a little more con-
ventional, and file them to aclassical pattern? =?
" No. was his reply, = shall write them
myself. The people will understand them.
g But this or that form of expression is not
elegant, not classical" . The people will
understand it, has been his invarlable reply.
And whatever may he said of his state papers
as compared with the classic standards. 1t has
been fact that they have always been won
derfuly well understood by the people, and
that since the time Of Washington the state
papers of no President have more controlled
the popular mind. And one reason for this
is, that they have been informal and undip-
lomatic. They have more resembled faith
er's talk to his children than state papers.
And they have had that relish and smack of
the soul, that appeal to the simple human
heart and head. which is greater
power in writing than the most artful devi-
ces of rhetoric. Lincoln might well say with
the apostle, '' But though | be rude in speech
yet not in knowledge, but we ave been thor
oughly made manifest among you in all
things" His rejection of what is called fine
writing was as deliberate as St. Paul's, and
for the same reason-because he felt that he
was speaking on subject which must be
made clear to the lowest intellect, though it
should fail to captivate the highest