Lamoille newsdealer. [volume] (Hyde Park, Vt.) 1860-1877, 1864-01-20
AN ESTIMATE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.


the Boston Watchman and Reflector, a BIZ
ographical sketch Of President Lincoln
and good analysis of the strong points
of his character. We quote from the
latter:
The world has seen and wondered at
the greatest sign and marvel of our day. to-
wit, plain working man of the people,
with no more culture, instruction or edu-
cation than any such nottingham may OBJ
tain for himself, called on to conduct the
passage of a great people through cri-
sis involving the destinies of the whole
world. The eyes of princes, mobiles, aris-
tocrats, of dukes, earls, scholars states
men. warriors all turned on the plain
backwoodsman, with his simple sense,
his impurturbable simplicity, his determ-
ined self-reliance, his impracticable and
incompatible honesty. as he sat amid the
war Of conflicting elements with unpre-
tending steadiness, striving to guide the
national ship of state through channel
at whose perils the worlds oldest states
men stood aghast. The brilliant courts
Of Europe leyelled their opera glasses at
the phenomenon. Fair ladies saw that
he had horny hands and disdained white
gloves. Dapper diplomatists were shock
ed at his system Of etiquette, but old
statesmen, who knew the terror of that
passage, were wiser than court ladies and
dandy diplomatists, and watched him
with fearful curiosity, simply asking,
"Will that awkward old lakewood
really get that ship through? If he
does, it will be time for us to look about
u.s."
Sooth to say, our own politicians were
somewhat shocked with his state papers
at first. Why not let us make them
little more conventional and file them to
a classical pattern? NO." was his re-
ply, 81 shall write them myself. The
people will understand them:'' "But
this or that form of expression is not ele-
CANT, not classical" 1.-The people will
understand it" has been his invariable
reply. And whatever may be said of his
state papers as compared with the classic
standards, it has been a fact that they
have always been wonderfully well under
stood 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
undiplomatic. They have more resembled
a fathers talk to his children than a
state paper. And they have had the rel
ish and smack of the soil, that appeals
to the human heart and head which is a
greater power in writing than the most
artful devices of rhetoric Lincoln
might well say with the apostle, but
though | be rude in speech yet not in
knowledge, but we have been thoroughly
made manifest among you in all things"
His rejection of what is called fine writ
ing was as deliberate as st. Pauls 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.
But we say of Lincolns writing, that for
all true, manly purposes Of writing, there
are passages in his state papers. that
could not be better put-they are abso-
lutely perfect. They are brief, condens-
ed, intense, and with power of insight
and expression which make them worthy
to be inscribed in letters of gold.
Such are some of the passages of the
celebrated Springfield letter. especially
that mastery one where he compares the
conduct of the patriotic and loyal blacks
with that of the treacherous and disloyal
whites. No one can read this letter with.
out feeling the influence of mind both
strong and generous.
Lincoln is strong man, but his
strength is of peculiar kind it is not
aggressives so much as passive, and among
the passive thingsit is like the strength
not SO much of stone buttress as of
wire cable. it is strength swaying to ev-
cry influence, Welding on this side and