The age-herald., 1897-11-21

l constitution to grant directly or by req sonable implication power to the presi- dent to suppress a state by arms.
 AS rssult of Mir. Ldncolns political 1 leadership, social and political conditions rapidly sprang up which have so com promised the American idea that 25,O00 persons, one-thousandth part of the population, monopolize 60 per cent of all property values. Barnett's estate has besn practically confscated by the | government MT. Lincoln set up. while | Vanderbilts approaches the total as 1 sessed values of all Alabama Wander 1 hilt's is supposed to be worth as much as all the farms, all the farm stock and utensils and all the railroad property combined in Alabama b
 
 Lincoln stepped into the shoes of John Brown. The campaign that elected him in 1860, placed him there with great em- phasis. Thirty-aight years after, his party successor. William McKinlsy his co-adjutor in life and his avowed disci- pie, journeyed afar to stand reverent- tally uncovered at the tomb of Brown, receiving thet plaudits of his party for | the performance. Brown was tried and ! AuilE TUT S1iI-CODIeSSeu overt ITSdSDD | against the United States, but whereas the treason involved the programme of destruction that Lincoln and his party were pledged among themselves to put in practice toward Barnett his heirs and | neighbors and fellow citizens in the | south, it carried no shadow of odium, | but honor rather, in the sight of Lincoln and his party.
 Brown was the issue of the republican | party campaign for president in 1860 and 1t was well known that the party was pledged to organize a north5rn confeder- aey to be put under Lincoln in the event of the election of Vice-Presdent Breck- enridge to the office of chief executive. Lincoln received no electoral vote and a wholly insignificant popular vote except from the states that were then in open nullification and rebellion against the federal government Every state that cast single electoral vote for Lincoln had had for years a republican party. state government and each of these states had statutes making 1t felony to serve on the posse of United States marshal charged with the duty of re- storing fugitive slave under an act of congress that had been validated by the supreme court. MT. Webster had the doors of Fanneuil hall shut in his face by Boston mob to prevent his public pro- test against these statues. There was bloodshed in Boston, in Pennsylvania and other states in the effort of the United States courts to enforce their decrees.
 The averaging of John Brown and the fulfillment of his designs was the argu- ment upon which the army of invasion under Mr. Lincoln was recruited. Gen. Oliver o. Howard, in an article some ten years ago, in the Princeton Review declared that the only thing that held the army together and prevented dis bandm;nt in the winter of 1S61-62, about Centerville, was the industry of him. self and other officers in assuring the soldiers that the war was the taking up and continuance of Browns designs upon the south. As soon as the com manding general of the army, the ablest captain it ever had, George E. McClel- Ian, informed MT. Lincoln, frankly that he would not conduct a war on Browns designs, he was ordered into retirsment permanently The curious inquirer may place under his eye the military orders issued from Washington under MT. Lin coins eye, directing commanders of in- vading armies to Hay waste the land as they marched over it. Gen Fitzpatrick, of Sherman's cavalry wrote to Gen. Jo- seph Wheeler. that it was his intent to punish South Carolina by destroying ev- Srything of value his men could reach. In the same temper, Sheridan burned from 500 to TOO mills, 5000 to 4Oo0 large barns and innumerable residences in the small area, the valley of Virginia.
 
 Senator Seward, making a frisndly call on Secretary of War Jefferson Davis. ill., abed, remarked that while his doctrine of the higher law than the constitution" 10 regulate the affairs in dispute b;tween the sections, was a dangerous one, he used it to please his constituents. The secretary, exclaimed soto voce, from his pillow "I never do that, I never do that" Out from this psychical national infirmity, the higher law" arose Abra- ham Lincoln. He came as the afflicting visitation that shattered those mystic yet propitious qualitizs that make up the American idea. He left behind him huge whirlpool of usurpation of powers of government; @ thunderbolt of pluto cracy If we fail to recover from him, we shall have anarchy or a monarchy.
 There was lingering fondnes for pa ganism quite deep into the Christian age. Many Americans carry the blood of tory ancestors and the creed beside Lincoln, as he was related to the in- famed fanaticism of Uncle Toms Cabin and the pus rifle vaporings of male and. female platform defants of faith and decency, Is ignored by some Southern folk who find 1t difficult to escape Lin coin the hero revolutionst A childlike love of something big explains the con- tradction.
 t I do not expect to see Lincoln reach permanent canonization as savior of the union, because he was elected solely by states that were in revolt against the union, the plainest provis- ions of its constitution and its adju-