Delaware gazette. [volume] (Delaware, Ohio) 1855-1886, 1864-01-29
Abraham Lincoln.

Mrs. Harriet BeeehSr Stowe is writing
series Of articles for the Christian WatchmAr
and Reflector, on :" Men Of Our Tinss" Il
the issue of that paper January 7th, shs says
Abrahan Lincoln is, in the .strictest sense, q
man of the working classes. All his advan-
tsges and abilities are those of man of the
working classes and his position, now at the
head Of one Of the most powerful nations OIL
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 laborsr's son that digs in eur fields
At seven years of age he was set to work. axe
IN band; to clear up a farm in the Western
! fsrest. Until he was seventeen his life was
shat Of simple farm laberer, with only such
intervals Of schooling as farm laborers GET
Probably the school instruction Of his whole
life would not amount to more than year.
At nineteen he made trip to New OreapE
as a hired hand on fatboat, and on his re-
turn he split the rails fer log cabin and built
it, and inclosed ten acres of land with a rail
fence of his ewn handiwork The next year
he hired himself for twelve dollars month to
build fiat-beat and to take her to New Or
leans and every one who knows what the
life of Mississippi beat-man was in those
days must know that it nvelved every kind of
labor.
In 1882, in the Black Hawk Indian war,
the hardy boat-man volunteered to fight for
his country, and was unaninousIy elected a
Captain, and served with homer for a season
in frontier military life. After this, while
serving as postmaster, ne began lis law
studies, borrowing the books he was too poor
to buy, aRd studying BY the light of his even
ing fire. He acqzired a name in the country
ab0ut as a man Of resources and shrewdness
be was enc who people looked to for csuusel
in exigencies, and to whom they were ready to
dspute almost any enterprise which needed
skill and energy. The surveyor of Sangamon
county being driven with werk, came to him
to get him to take the survey of tract off his
hands. Trae, he had never studied surveying
but what of that ? He accepted the "iob,"
procured the chain and did the work Do
we net see in this a parable Of the wider will
derness which in latter years he has underta-
ken to survey and fit fer human habitation
without chart or surveyors chain /?
-
Little did the Convention that nominated
Abraham Lincoln for President know what
they were doing. Little did the honest, faith
erly, patriotic maz, who stood in his simpliei
ty on the platform at Springfield, asking the
prayers of his toWnsmen, and receiving their
pledges to remember him, foresee how awful
he was 10 need those prayers, the prayers of
all this nation, and the prayers Of all the
working suffering common people throughout
the world. Gods hand was upon him with
visible protection, saving first from the danger
of assassination at Baltimsre, and bringing
him safely to our National capital Then the
world has Seen and wondered at the greatest
sign and marvel of our day, to wit a plain
working man of the people, with ne more euI-
ture, instruction or education than any such
working man may obtain for himself, called on
to conduct the passage Of d great people
through a crisis involving the destinies of the
whole world. The eyes of princes MOBILES
aristocrats, of dukes, earls, scholars, states
men, warriors, all turned on the plain back
weodsman, with his simple sense, his imPertu-
bable simplicity, his determined self-relianee,
his inpracticable and incorruptible honesty,
as he sat amid the war of conflicting elements
with unpretended steadiness striving to guide
the National ship through the channel OF
whose psrils the worlds oldest statesmen
stoo aghast. Ths brilliant courts of Europe
lsvslsd their opera glasses at the phenomenon.
Fair ladies saw that he had horny hands and
disdained white gloves. Dapper dipIomatists
were shocked at his system of etiquette, but
old statesmen, who knew the terrors of the
passage, were wiser than court ladies and dan
dy dipIematists, who watched him with fear
ful curiosity, simply asking, q viii that awk
ward old backwoodsman really get that ship
through? If he does, it will be time for us to
look about US"
Lincoln is strong man, but his strength
is of peculiar kind it is not aggressive SO
much passive, and among passive things
it is like the strength not 80 much Of stone
buttress as of wire cable 1t is strength |
swaying to- every influence, yielding on this |
side and on that side TO popular needs, yet
tenacously and inhexibly 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.
SurroundedNSy all sorts of conflicting |
claims, by traitors, by halfhearted, timid
men, by Border State men, aud Free State
men, by radical Abolitionists and Conserva-
tives, he has listened to all, weighed the |