Greenbrier independent. [volume] (Lewisburg, Va. [W. Va.]) 1859-1980, 1896-04-16

! ue was statesman Tor has no
. time vindicated his conclusions ?
But the South does not know, excep
as kind of hearsay that he was ,
: friend; the one friend who had tn,
power and the will to save it from
itself. The direst blow that cOulC
have been inflicted on the South wa
delivered by the assassin's bulle
that struck him down.
But | degrees. Throughout thu
wild contention that preceded the
war, amid the lurid passions that at.
tended the war itself, not one bitter
or narrow word escaped the lips of
Abraham Lincoln, whilst there was
hardly day that he was not pro.
Jecting his big, sturdy personality
between some Southern man or wo.
men and danger.
Under date of Feb. End, 1913, and
from the hall of the House of Rep.
resentatives at Washington, he be.
ing member, find this short note
|" his law partner at Springfield:
" Dear William II just take up
my pen to say that Mr.. Stephens, of
Georgia, a little, slim, pale-faced,
conSumptive man, with voice like
Logan's," (that was Stephen T., not
John Az has just concluded the
; best speech of an hours length ever
heard. My old, withered, dry eyes,
he was not then turned 81 "are
full Of tears yet"
from that time forward, he never
ceased to love Stephens, of Georgia,
After the formal interview at that
famous Hampton Roads conference.
when Confederate Commissioners
Stephens, Campbell and Hunter had
traVersed the fields of discussion
WIN Mr.. Lincoln, the President, and
Mr.. Seward, the Secretary of State,
Mr.. Lincoln, the friend, still the old
wing colleague, though one was now
PRESIDENT of the United States, and
the other Vice President ofthe South
crh Confederacy, took the slim, pale
raced, consumptive little man aside,
and, placing his arm over his shoul
der pointed to sheet of paper he
held in his other hand and said,
stephens, write Union at the ton
or that page, and you may write be-
low it whatever you please"
NEW BIRTH OF FREEDOM.
In the preceding conversation Mr..
I1lhcoln had intimated that payment
1or the slaves was not outside nos
slole agreement for reunion and
and peace. He based that statement
upon proposal he always had in hand
to appropriate S4OO, 100000 to this
purpose. am not going to tell any
tales out of school. IF when we are
h1
oliia or those who knew what terms
were really offered the Confederacy
within ninety days of his total col
lapse-wili show that in the individ.
ual Judgment of all of them the wis
dom OF the situation said accept
And why were they not accepted
God again. 1t was the will of God
that there should be, as Gods own
prophet had promised, ga new birth |
OF freedom. ."and this only could be
reached by the complete obliteration
ana extinction Of the idea of slavery.
God struck Lincoln down in the mo-
ment of his triumph, to attain it
God blighted the South to attain it.
And here we are this night to attest
1t. Gods will be done on earth as
II Is IN heaven. But let no Southern
man point his finger at mo because |
canonize Abraham Lincoln, for he
was the only friend we had at court |
when friends were most in need; he
ne was the one man in power who
wanted to preserve us intact, to save
us from the wolves of mere passion
and plunder that stood at our door
and so, as that God, of whom it has
been said that whom He loveth He
chasteneth," meant that we should
be chastened. Lincoln was put out
of the way by the bullet of an assas-
sin, having neither lot nor parcel,
north or south, but a winged ennis
sary OF fate, come from the shadows
of the mystic world, which Aeschylus
and Shakespeare created, and conse-
Grated to tragedy!
EASY TO IMPUGN MOTIVES.
am sometimes moved to wonder
shall we ever attain journalism
sufficiently upright in the treatment
OF current events to publish fully
and fairly the utterances of our pub
lie men, and, except in the cases of
provable dishonor, to leave their mo-
tives and personalities alone. Read
ing just what Abraham Lincoln said
and did, it is inconceivable how such
man could have aroused antago-
nism so relentless and abuse so saw
age, to die at last by the hand of an
assassin.
We boast our superior civiliza-
tion and ourenlightened freedom
OF speech and vet, how many of us
when a strange voice begins to utter
unfamiliar or unpalatable things
how many of usstop and ask
ourselves, after all, may not this
man be speaking the truth
1t is so easy to call names. 1t
Is so easy to impugn motives. 1t
is so easy to misrepresent opinions
we cannot readily answer. From
the least to the greatest affairs, we
are the merest creatures Of party
spirit, and yet, for the most part,
how small its aims, how imperfect
its instruments, how disappointing
it's conclusions!
One thinks now that the world in
which Lincoln lived might have
dealt more gently by such a man.
lie was himself 40 gentle-so up
right in nature and so broad of mind
so sunny and so tolerant in tenn
per-so simple and so unaffected in
bearing-a rugged exterior covering
an undaunted spirit, proving by his
every act and word that
The braVest are the tenderest.
The loving are the daring,
| thnnnh hn N L. n