Gold Hill daily news. [volume] (Gold Hill, N.T. [Nev.]) 1863-1882, 1865-06-05
LfnnoMPARABLE SPEECH AT GEL

,,roo1,N As A wR1TER-HIS In
L1MS&TpaR ALE SPEECH AT GET
TYSBURGH. La
When. during the last canvass we heafo
60, Tom. Williams and other Cops of
S;s o,libre denouncing President Lincoln
a. an " Illitera,e Ape" we thought that
avon 70 their poor faculties of literary
;,doment there had not been presented
one single speech or letter of Lineoln's-
certainly they had not read any such
document with calm reflection, to say
nothing of candid and honorable estima-
ton. 1t occurred to US then, as it often
has of late, that the height Of absurd sup
position would be reached, in comparing
any one Of the Democratic rebel stumpers
to Lincoln as speaker or writer. The
bawling of Beebee, the Growing of Camp
bell, the teeheeing of Taylor, the railing
of Tod Robinson, the bowling of Hardy,
the bleating of Buel, the jumbling of Judge
Jones; think a moment-how would they
compare with the most unpretentious, I'M
prepared effort of Honest Old Abe, on the
stump or before any class of audiences
Take out the finest fbres in all their
brains, purify it from whisky, compound
and consolidate the mass-were it posi-
ble-in one homogeneous whole, and then
superaded the aggregate educational ad-
vantages and culture Of them all, and the
cerebrum thus manufactured could not
concoct the logical ideas or frame the fell
citous utterances of Lincolr's off-hand
serenade remarks, when at such moment
he treated Of national affairs. For sen.
tentious beauty and strength, as well as
for exquisite expression of the tenderest
and most patriotic emotions-we have the
concurrins testimony of numerous emf
nent writers for clearinghouse is moth
ing in the language to surpass Lincoln's
Gettysburg Cemetery speech. Says a
New York daily:
Lincoln's forte lay mainly in debate, or
rather in the calculation Of profound truths,
so that they can hardly evade the dullest APP
prehension. No other man ever so success
fully confronted, before prejudiced, negro
despising audience, the plausible fallacies of
Senator Douglas vaunted Popular Sove-
reiguty." His familiar exposition Of that
doctrine in his Springfield speech opening
the Senatorial canvass Of 1855" A wants
to make B slave, c shall not interfere -
was only paralleled in that passage Of one Of
his replies to his great antagonist, which
reads:
"My distinguished friend says it is an in
suit to the emigrants Of Kansas and Nebraska
to suppose that they cannot govern them.
selves. We must not Slur over an argument
Of this kind because it happens to tickle the
ear. I admit that the emigrant to Kansas or
Nebraska is competent to govern himself;
but deny has right to goreyT any other per-
son tcithoA that PERSONS consent"
Men of greater talent have made Republic
can speeches in this city; but Mr.. Lincoln's
Cooper Institute address Of March, 1850, re-
mains to this day the most, lucid, eogent,
convincing argument Of them all. So at the
conservation of the Gettysburg National
Cemetery (Nov. 18th, 1859 where Edward
Everett made an elaborate and graceful ora
ton. and others spoke htly and well, the only
ADDRESS WHICH the WOIlQ WILL ICueluOeE
that of the President, who simply said:
"Fourscore and seven years ago our
fathers brought forth upon this continent
new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedi-
Gated TO the proposition that all men are
created equal. Now we are engaged in a
great civil war, testing whether that nation,
or any nation so conceived and so dedicated
can long endure. We are met on 4 great
battlefield of that war. We have to come
dedicate portion Of that field as final rest
ing-place for those who here gave their lives
that that nation might live. 1t is altogether
fitting and proper that we should do this.
But in a larger sense we cannot dedicate, we
cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this
ground. The brave men, living and dead,
who struggled here, have consecrated it far
above our power to add or detract. The world
will little note, nor long reuasmoer, what we
say here, but it can never forget what they
did here. 1t is for US, the living, rather to
be dedicated here to the unfinished work
which they who fought here have thus far so
nobly advanced. It is rather for US to be
here dedicated to the great task remaining
before US, that from these honored dead we
take increased devotion to that cause for
which they gave the last full measure Of de-
votion; that we here highly resolve that these
dead shall not have died in vain; that this
nation under God, shall have new birth Of
freedom, and that government Of the people,
by the people, and for the people, shall not
perish from the earth"
Said Ralph Waldo Emerson, in his Flu
neral Eulogy, at Concord:
But the weight and penetration Of many
passages in his letters, messages and
speeches, hidden now BY the very closeness
Of their application to the moment, are des-
tined hereafter to wide fame. What preg-
nant definitions; what unerring common
sense; what foresight; and, on great occa-
sions, what lofty, and more than national,
what humane tone! His brief speech at
Gettysburg will not easily be surpassed by
words on any recorded occasion.
Professor Taylor Lewis, of Union Col
lege, in a professedly critical essay on Lin
coin, says he will hazard his reputation
upon the assertion that the choicest rheto-
rical beauties abound in his published pro-
ductions-sentences that will become clas-
steal in our literature. "Mr. Lincoln
never took pains with the adjustment Of
his sentences; and yet they present anti
theses that would have been regarded as
gems in Burke or Demosthenes; there is a
power of retort, kindly yet most telling,
that would have done honor to Thackeray
or D