Prescott journal. [volume] (Prescott, Wis.) 1861-1871, 1865-05-13


sion, 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. This, and
one other American speech, that of John
Brown to the court that tried him, and part
OF Kossuth's speech at Birmingham, can only
be compared with each other, and with no
fourth
His occupying the chair of State was tri-
umph of the good sense of mankind, and of
the public conscience The iniddle-class
country had got middle class President at
last. Yes, in manners and sym pathies, but
not in powers, for his powers were superior.
This man grew according to the need, His
mind mastered the problem of the day and
as the problem grew, so did his comprehen.
sion of it. Rarely was man so fitted to the
event In the midst of fears and jealousies,
in the Babel of counsels and parties, this man
wrought necessarily with all his might and
all his honesty, laboring to find what the peo-
pie wanted, and how to obtain that. 1t can
not be said there is any exaggeration of his
worth. If ever a man was fairly tested, he
was. There was no lack of resistance, nor of
SANDER, nor of ridicule. The times have al.
lowed no state secrets; the nation has been
in such ferment, such mutitudes had to be
trusted, that no secret could be kept. Every
door was aar, and we know all that betel.
Then, what an occasion was the whirlwind
of the war. Here was place for no holiday
magistrate, no fair-weat sailor; the new
pilot was hurried to the helm in a tornado.
In four years,-four years of battle-days,-
his endurance, his fertility of resources, his
magnanimity, were sorely tried and never
found wanting. There, by his courage, his
Justice, his even temper, his fertile counsel,
his humanity, he stood a heroic figure in the
centre of heroic epoch. He is the true his
tory of the American people in his time.
Step by step he walked before them; slow
with their slowness, quickening his march by
theirs; the true representative of this CONT
nent an entirely public man; father of his
country, the pulse of twenty millions throb-
bling in his heart, the thought of their minds
articulated by his tongue.
Adam Smith remarks that the axe, which,
in Houbraken's portraits of British kings and
worthless, is engraved under those who have
suffered at the block, adds certain lofty
charm to the picture. And who does not see,
even in this tragedy so recent, how fast the
terror and ruin OF the massacre are already
burning into glory around the victim? Far
happier this fate than to have lived to be
wished away; to have watched the decay OF
his own faculties; to have seen,-perhaps
even he,-the proverbial ingratitude of states
men; to have seen mean men preferred.
Had he not lived long enough to keep the
greatest promise that ever man made to his
fellow-men,-the practical abolition of slave.
ry? He had seen Tennessee, Missouri and
Maryland emancipate their slaves. He had
seen Savannah, Charleston and Richmond sur
rendered; had seen the main army of the re-
bellion lay down its arms. He had conquer
ed the public opinion of Canada, England
and France. Only Washington can compare
with him in fortune.
And what if it should turn out, in the un.
folding of the web, that he had reached the
term that this heroic deliverer could not
longer serve US that the rebellion had touch
ed its natural conclusion, and what remained
to be done required new and uncommitted
hands,-a new spirit born out of the ashes OF
the war; and that Heaven, wishing to show
the world completed benefactor, shall make
him serve his country even more by his death
than by his life. Nations, like kings, are not
good by facility and complaisance. 'The
kindness OF kings consists in justice and
strength" Easy good-nature has been the
dangerous foible of the Republic, and it was
necessary that its enemies should outrage it,
and drive us TO unwonted frmness, to secure
the salvation of this country in the next ages.
The ancients believed in a serene and beau.
tiful Genius which ruled in the affairs of ma
tiOns which, with slow but stern Justice,
carried forward the fortunes of certain chosen
houses, wedding out single offenders, or Of
Tending families, and securing at last the firm
prosperity of the favOrites of Heaven. 1t was
too narrow a view of the Eternal Nemesis.
There is a serene Providence which rules the
fate of nations, which makes little account of
time, little of one generation or race, makes
no account of disasters, conquers alike by
what is called defeat or by what is called vic
tory, thrusts aside enemy and distractions,
brushes everything immoral as inhumen, and
obtains the ultimate triumph of the best race
by the sacrifice of everything which resists
the moral laws of the world. 1t makes its
own instruments, creates the man for the
time, trains him in poverty, inspires his ge-
MUS, and arms him for the task. 1t has Civ
en- every race its own talent, and ordains that
only that race which combines perfectly with
the virtues of all shall endure.