The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1898-02-10

ne was man OF the people, without
culture Or. manners. Unlike jackson,
however, he had the instincts, if not the
education, of a gentleman; was no row,
dy, no drunkard, no profane swearer,
but a plain, honest, quiet, quaint, good
man, with no strong will, but with a
very strong sense of duty. Jackson cared
little either for free trade or protection,
but he cared very much for the Union.
In like manner Abraham Lincoln cared
little for the negro or his freedom,
though he disliked slavery, but he cared
greatly and with his whole heart and
soul for the Union.
Pushed on and backed up by the
will Of the people without any will Of
his own, except the willingness to re-
store the Union at any price, he march
ed from dogma to dogma, from doctrine
to doctrine, from principle to principle,
by external rather than by internal i'm
pulses, and with sad heart that he
should have to do, even under the pres
sure of overpowering state necessity,
anything inconsistent with that consti-
tuition which Washington and jefferson
had made, and which Abraham Lincoln
had sworn to uphold. Andrew Jackson
put down notification; Abraham Lin
coin did not put down secession. Whag
the one did by force Of his own will the
other did by the force of the will of the
people. The one was the fiery horse,
acting by his own volition; the other
was but the inert carriage drawn by
the stalwart muscle of the crowd Jack
son did we'll, but Lincoln did better.
jackson accomplished less than he in
tended, but Lincoln far more than he
hoped, or that at the outset Of his Ca
reer he could even have dreamed of.
That he who would merely circumscribe
slavery within its existing limits and
who was conscientiously of opinion that
if every negro in America left America
and went back to the native Africa of
his fathers and grandfathers, it would
be better for America and better for the
negro should by the stroke of his pen
by the war power, and contrary to the
spirit and letter of the constitution
abolish slavery, was the result Of the
struggle that in the first two years of
it's fury he was the last man in the
Union to imagine. Yet so it was The
weak man became strong by the ire
sistible strength of events. In jackson s
time the love of the Union in the north
was but latent feeling; in Lincoln 8
it was an irresistible force, and, dashed
into fury by the passions Of the war,
would have preferred the utter desola-
ton of the southern states-their con-
version into the original wilderness and
the determination or Punishment of
their whole population-rather than see
them by their own exertions or the aid
Of foreign state erected into an indie
pendent Confederacy. This good and
merciful man was good and merciful to
the end. Even when the south was on
the point Of collapse, when it's hope of
foreign recognition had long since died
away, when its armies were reduced to
the minimum of hope as we'll as of
numbers, when in mingled pride and
despair it refused to arm the negroes,
preferring conquest by its white broth
ers to independence to be purchased by
the aid of black soldiers, Mr.. Lincoln
was ready and anxious to grant honor
able terms Of surrender. In the flush of
victory there was much he could have
done which no other man could have
attempted. He could have issued a gen.
eral amnesty, he could have declared
the Union restored in fact and in theory
on the sole condition that his military
proclamation for the abolition of slav-
cry should be adopted by every south
ern state as the basis of legal enact
ment. But this great and happy result
was not to be attained. The pistol of
fanatic deprived the southern people of
ID friend and the northern people of a
man after their own hearts, who
through good and ill fortune had fought
their fight with humble, contrite
and an honest spirit and given them the
victories -
Southerners who were actively hostile
to Mr.. Lincoln during the war have
since freely expressed their high appre-
citation of his noble traits. In recent
utterance upon war issues the noted
southern editor, Henry Watterson, sum-
med up the view most prevalent among
thinking people of the old Confederate
section. Said he:
"Lincoln himself was southern
man. He had no prejudice against the
south or the southern people. There was
hardly day during the war that he
was not projecting his great personality
between some southern man or woman
and danger, and SO free from vindictive-
ness or excitement Of any sort was his
mind that it cost him nothing to stand
upon the resolution of congress of 1861,
which declared that the war was waged
solely to preserve the Union
Long before Watterson spoke Lieu.
tenant General Longstreet, the most
prominent living representative of Lees
armies, penned this brief but forcible
eulogy upon the martyred war presi-
dent:
without doubt the greatest man of
rebellion times, the one matchless
among 10000, 900 for the peculiar diff
o. cd A