Crawford avalanche. (Grayling, Mich.) 1879-19??, 1895-04-04

uenU-ueVeT SUCH u ruler us ADrdnafLl
Lincoln He did not represent
hereditary privileges, for he came
from the plainest of the plain people !;
he did not represent heredity, for he
had none; he did not represent the
colleges or the universities, for he
knew them not he did not represent
capital and great accumulations, for
he had neither; but he did represent
the toiler upon the farm, in the
workshop, upon the highway, in the
factory, anywhere, everywhere where
honest men and honest women were
striving to better their conditions
and to illustrate the dignity of labor
and the nobility Of American citizen
ship.
Lincoln knew nothing of the dig
Nifty, 80 far as it is expressed in man.
ner and dress. which belongs to high
station. The instructive sense Of
propriety and consciousness of supe-
riority and greatness which hedged
Washington was absent in him. The
test of greatness is the wearing Of the
halo. 1t destroyed Napoleon, it
ruined two-thirds OF the generals in
the war, it has driven great and little
politicians, from the commencement
Of our republic until now into OBJ
security. But Lincoln was never
troubled as to the size OF his head.
He never overestmated nor underes-
timated who he was, what he was,
nor what he represented. He never
forgot where he came from and never
lost sight of the fact that except by
the accident of position he was neith-
err better nor worse than those who
placed him in the presidential chair.
He possessed what no other ruler
ever did; or, il he did, no other ruler
ever dared to use, the power Of hu-
NOR.
when Mr. Lincoln came to Wash
ington he was unknown to the great
leaders Of his party. He had the
courage, which only very great man
can have, of summoning them all
into his cabinet This Illinois law
yer, orator and statesman called to
his aid the men who had demon
strated in the Senate, in the House
and in the courts that they were the
leaders Of men, In less than q year
every one OF those great leaders recog-
nized,that in Abraham Lincoln he was
in the presence Of his chief and
superior.
mo petitioner for mercy ever left
Lincoln with his petition not granted.
1t was impossible for him to ap-
prove death warrant. To the father
pleading for his son he gave respite
and when the father wanted some
thing more his answer was If
your BOY lives till that sentence is
carried out he will be so old that
the world will think Methuselah
was baby in years when he
died.
He was first. last and all the
time an American an American
when Napoleon, invading Mexico,
would have broken up the Union; an
American when Great Britain would
have interfered for the purpose OF
destroying the republic, because, as
Lord Salisbury said, we kept shop
and were her rivals in business; an
American in his earnest devotion to
the Union and the constitution, an
American in his love Of liberty, an
American in his belief that within
the borders Of the United States
should be manufactured ell that the
people of the United States might re-
quire for themselves. He loved the
Union above all things. He was the
representative OF the cult which was
started by Daniel Webster. The
world little knows what it owes to
that brain. The Union one and in
separable, now and forever, was the
inspiration OF the schools. 1t created
q mighty wave Of unreasoning wor-
ship Of the Union. Lincoln absorbed
IL. Lincoln understood it. In his in
augural address = the first one = II
was the Union; in his inaugural ad.
dress-the second one it was the
Union; in all his letters and speeches
it was the Union. 1t was the Union
with slavery, or the Union without
slavery; but always the Union OF the
| States.