The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1895-02-12

Lincoln Was always SOm6lnlng VI au
enigma, and there is feeling not yet
dead that the last word has not yet been
said concerning the man, unique and
complex above all his compeers. He be-
1onged to the ''plain people, " whom he
loved, and who were ever in his mouth.
He was their voice, one with them in
the limitations of taste and in the ele-
mental forces of temperament. Like
them, he wasted but little thought on
the graces of culture. It was not, one
may fancy, that he did not esteem the
things which decorate social and intel
lectual life. But these had not been
mothers milk to him, and when gigan-
tic issues clutched him in their grip
they SO minimized lesser ideals as to
make them worthless.
So he remained to the last, genius in
cowhide boots, a man of the backwoOds
in outer seeming, but with the delicate
tenderness of q Bayard under the skin,
which needed but pin prick to escape
and transform him into the noblest of
gentlemen. The one statesman of his
period whose grasp on the logic of the
history then being worked out in bat
tlefield and forum and council chamber
was infallible, he could also be at need
the craftiest of wire pullers, with skill
in jerking the puppets which would
have shamed the shrewdest modern pol
itician in his own game The poetic ell
ovation of the prophet, which so often
burned i'll his utterances of tongue and
pen, was linked with homespun sagaci-
ty, and the melancholy SO ingrained in
the substance of his being would often
| burst at the mere twist of a suggestion
into the widest fooling of the buffoon.
Such were some of the antitheses of the
immortal whose name pairs that of
Washington to make the Dioscuri of
American history. Today no less than
at that time, when he filed tho whole
foreground of national life, the essential
quality of the man shines through SO
many and so diverse facets that their
cross lights dazzle perception. Yet he
never ceased to be a man of the ''plain
people, - its finest incarnation indeed,
the Honest Old Abe'' of familiar
speech.
There was nothing in Lincoln s youth
full conditions but what are closely par
| alleled in those of other distinguished
self made Americans. Tt was the life of
the log cabin and the dugout, 16 hours
grapple per diem with hard physical
toll for hog and hominy. He had grown
hair on his chin before he had emerged
from the mysteries of long division.
His rise to distinction as lawyer and
politician, though he began under con-
ditions which handicapped him, was re-
markedly rapid. During the early fifties
he had hammered out solid reputation
throughout the length and breadth of
the west, but his national fame did not
become settled till tie great Douglas
Lincoln debate of 1853, when he crossed
/ blades with one of the strongest contro-
versialists in the country as competitor
| for the United States senate. Those
| speeches have become classics of debate
and sounded the ringing prelude to the
! hundred battlefalds of the early future
with such swordlike epigra1ns as, ga
| house divided against itself cannot
stand. -
When Abraham Lincoln was elected
president, probably no one would have
classed the choice of the Republican
party as special dispensation of Provi-
dence. 1t is sure that there were a score
who were willing to be understood Of
all that each and every one could bet
ter fill that pair Of No. IL shoes than
could the gaunt Illinoisian. Sure it is
! that during large portion of that ter
rible period, 1S61-5, numerous leaders
of public opinion. and of his own
party withal, did not spare the lash, in
season and out of season, from tho
shoulders of their sorely tried chief,
The president, however, felt that the
heart of the ''plain people, was with
him, lifting him on its ground swell
When the history of Republican faction
fighting, specially in the senate, during
the Lincoln administration, is fully
written, it will reveal a curious story
Never did diplomat show more subtle
tact and knowledge of men than did
Lincoln in smoothing the bristles of op-
position and winning his own will. Let
a single instance of a little understood
side of his character suffice.
A jealous senatorial majority in S6a
had determined to drive Secretary Sew
ard from his portfolio at any cost, and
irresistible pressure was brought to bear
sn Mr.. Lincoln. Much as he valued
seward, the cordial support of the senate
was still more essential. Here was a
stump to plow around, to use his ia.
vorite metaphor. Mr.. Chase, the secre.
tary of the treasury. was as great ia.
vorite with the oligarchy in the upper
house as Seward was its bette noir. Lin.
coin demanded and received Mr. Sew.
ards resignation and forthwith sent fol-
Mr.. Chase, whom he also asked to resign
and in written form which he himself