St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1896-02-14

"" WhNH " bpluul0 tHTOuRH
the hackle Of the rule Of three.
Lincoln was the mighty wrestler. The
man never lived who could throw him
on equal ground. Once in his clutches,
the strongest antagonist was broken,
wEirled with his feet to the planets and
cast prone. Horace Greeley was no
weakling. When he was enraged, the
power Of the gods was on him. In the
high noon Of the wan he attacked the
president and demanded to know his
meaning. Would he or would he not
abolish slavery? Was he or was he not q
friend to freedom? Had the loyal peo-
pie hoped in vainf Would the admins
tration never do anything? What was
the war waged for anyhow? Did the
president himself know or did he not
know his W meaning? Would he
plainly tell the nation what were his
purposes and aimsp And this is Lin
coins reply:
eff there be those who would not
sav the Union unless they could at the
same time save slavery, l do not agree
with them. IL there be those who would
not save the Union unless they could at
the same time destroy slavery, I do not
agree with them. My paramount object
is to save the Union, and not either to
save Or destroy slavery. If I could save
the Union without freeing any slave, /
would do 1t. If l could save it by free
ing all the slaves, l would do it,, and if
I could do it by freeing some and leav-
ing others alone l would also do that.
What l do about slavery and the colored
race I do because l believe it helps to
a the Union, and what | forbear l
forbear because | donot believe it helps
to save the Union. l shall do less when
ever l shall believe that what l am do
ing hurts the cause, and l shall do more
whenever | believe doing more will help
the cause"
Since the death Of Thucydides there
has not, l believe, been written another
such paragraph as that Talleyrand
and Burke and Webster all sitting to-
gether could not have composed It'll It
is tougher than wrought steel. The pre-
cision of it is equal to the strength,
and the cogency to the dispassion. 1t is
well nigh the unapproachable model Of
all that was ever done in human argu-
ment. No phalanx of bayonets ever
went SO level across the field against the
enemy. 1t is a countercharge that goes
over the redan without breaking a step.
After that was said there was silence in
the cavilers' camp for times and a half
time. And the secret Of it is simply the
strength and clearness Of the thought.
The holnely phrase is only the necessary
garb of the immortal thinking.
There are those who speak Of the hap
piness of language, as though men were
gifted with words and the power Of ar
ranging words without respect to
thought. There is no gift Of language,
but the gift Of thought. Clearness Of
speech and greatness Of phraseology are
the necessary correlatives of great think
ing. The allegation of sublime language
without sublime thought in it is prepos-
ferrous, and the assertion that the
thought is great and strong, but that the
language is weak and imperfect, is an
absurdity. Thought is born in language,
and not otherwise. The thinker is he
who makes out of the nebulous ideality
of the question the convincing and some
times immortal fabric of speech.
Such was Lincoln's power. He came
humbly and patiently to the greatest
problems of political and national life
in the midst Of an epoch Of convulsion
and cataclysm, and the chaos, passing
through his powerful formative facul-
ties, resolved itself into stellar beauty
and order. In his intellectual action he
was as matter of fact as he was great in
comprehension. His mental product was
the most inornate in the world. At bot
tom he regarded it az almost a sin to in
dulge in a figure of speech; even when
his composition seemed of itself to rise
from the merely syllogistic basis into
flight or fancy he stood back and would
not follow.
Coming to the end of his first inau-
gural, Lincoln reached these words "In
your hands, my fellow countrymen, and
not in mine, is the momentous issue OF
civil war. The government will not as
sail you. You can have no conflict with
out being yourselves the aggressors.
You have no oath registered in heaven
to destroy the government, while shall
have the most solemn one to preserve,
protect and defend it," AT this point he
paused, for he had finished the argu-
ment. But Seward thought that there
should be an imaginative appeal added
to the address. Lincoln assented, but
could not do it, He passed the address
into the hands of the secretary and
asked him for a suggestion, and this is
what Seward wrote and appended tothe
manuscript: II close. We are not, we
must not be, aliens or enemies, but fell
low countrymen and brethren. Although
passion has strained our bonds of affec-
tion too hardly, they must not, l am
sure they will not, be broken. The mys-
tic chords which, proceeding from so
many battlefields and SO many patriot
graves, pass through all the hearts and
all hearths in this broad continent of
ours will yet again harmonic in their
ancient music when breathed upon by
the guardian angel Of our nation"
And tbs is what the paragraph be-
came after it had passed the alembio of
the purifying fires: