The Greene County Republican. [volume] (Waynesburg, Pa.) 185?-1867, 1867-03-20
NO. Al.

and tretted with State cares. They
} talked awhile of the clients, and the
town, and then the war rolled between
them once more
One sentence Mr.. Herndon recolIects
OF the President before his departure for
Washington that is memorable as show
ing bis purpose.
BILLY, he said, Il hope there will be
no trouble, but will make the South a
graveyard rather than see q Slavery
gospel triumph, or successful secession
lose this government to the cause of the
people and representative institutions
10 this Mr.. Herndon added MIR.
Lincoln was merclless IN the abstract.
Battles never moved him unless he trod
among their corpses. He would have
carried on the war forever, or as long as
the people intrusted him its manage
ment, rather than give up
Speaking among the associations of
his working lite, the years of Abraham
Lincoln began to return in the vvidness
OF their monotony, bleak and unremu-
ncrated, hard and practical, full of patti
ent walk down road without turning,
Frightened BY dutltulness alone, pointed,
but not cheored by wayslde anecdote,
and successful, not so much because he
was sangune of himself, as because be
rated not emincnce and honor too high
or too difficult. When he found him
self competing for the Senatorship, with
the quickest, the least scrupu!ous, and
the most flattered orator in the Union,
he saw nothing odd or dramatic about
it. His Presidential opportunity sur
prisea everybody but himself-not that
he had seIt-conceit, but that he thought
the Office possible. He was none of
your Rlchelieus, meditatng aside the
great uses to which Providence had put
him. lie never made a bid for the IA
vor or forgiveness ofhlstory, but ruled
the nation ASH it were pravticlng law and
practiced law as if it were ruling the
nation,
This real greatness OF mind, oblivi
BUSINESS of circumstances, ascending from
practice of three thousand dollars a
year to twenty five thousand, as ii there
were no contrast between them, giving
Billy permission to use the firm style
as before, without corsious poetic
trait yet ever in absent moments look
ing very long away pondering the dis
tance of rewards, promises, vindicatons,
with a longing that was poetry y,-these
compose some of the character OF one
whose tame differs vastly from his life,
and must do so by the anomaly Of the
man.
The strongest of his loves and faiths
was the People. He had more rever-
ence for them in bulk than for their
highest public exemplars Rellgiously
he was reverent man without creed,
believing in benefcent &c d--no MORE
No denomination has special claim TO
him he was not a regular church,
goer; the few clergymen whom he liked
recommended themselves on personal
grounds he refused to argue on religi4
Gus matters, but inclined toward Con,
gregatlonal independence. His mother
and sisters were fond of camp meetings,
and a rather humorous letter held by
MIR. Herndon, says that \ portion OF
their family was regularly converted
every year, and backslid in the Winter,
know ofno better Illustration OF dt>
ference between the real lite and the re>
nown OF Mr.. Lincoln than you can get
by visiting his grave. A horse railroad
two miles long, leads to it in the GENE,
terry Of" Oak Ridge. Behind you, is
his real life. Springfield Western
market town, set upon the monotonous
prairie, half the year noisy with the
chatter of politicians, plethcric with
lawyers, for all of whom there is less
than enough to do, and savoring much
Of the frost and frontier pretty prairie
city, but capitalized so that what the
State has not done for the town, and
what the people expect to do, make it
an unfinished desultoriness. All at once
as You approach the Sangamon river,
tho scene changes, Stalwart young
oaks of natural growth become plenti-
fuI. The landscape is plowed with leafy
ravines. Bold knobs start MP. A crook
goes splashing around the abrupt hills.
Shadow, murmur, and surprises succeed
the levil of life IN the city. And among
all these mysteries, itself the great mys-
terry of our age,t the vault Of the President
caps hill, a temporary edilice of brick,
and the great editice of one of the hand.
somest cemeteries in the Union, winding
brook beneath it,
The last,
As 'twere the cape of long ridge Of hills
and all the white tombs martial about
it; buttonwood, maple and ash trees
cluster at its base Here is to be his
monument. About $4,000 have been
collected for it up to this time, and it ia
supposed the State will vote enough to
make 100000 in all. 1t would be
blasphemy to mar the dead mans grave
with any mere prettyness OF marble or
smartncss ofbronze Let the fiery, un-
tanned Western genius be Of timid chisel
here. abraham Lincoln is a good
epitaph if plainly lettered. And, after
all, will any monument be like the
man, tor no such one was ever the
sculptors theme before. Canovs could
get no notion of Mr.. Lincoln An
allegory would be unlike him, shaft
too formal, a statue too inexpensive -
If the Pacific Railroad could be called
by his name, that would be better than
either; bat this man will trouble any
artist in that he was so unlike any