The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1899-08-28
LINCOLN, THE PATRIOT.

Some of the presidents fool friends
who cannot distinguish between a pa
triot and a parasite. who hold that 10y
atty consists in endorsing every mis-
take, covering up every scandal, and
defending every dangerous policy of the
administration. who claim that his i'm
perial majesty, the chief executive of
this republic. can do no wrong, are ig-
norantly assailing the record of one far
greater and better and more tvpically
American than william Mckinley.
Abraham Lincoln didn't believe it
wrong. in a government of, by and for
the people. TO criticise the president and
his policy while engaged in foreign
war. He held that it was not only his
right. but his duty, to do SO, when he
felt that the president was on the wrong
track or that his policy was at variance
with the traditional policy of the Am
erican government Hannas cuckoos
would call Lincoln a traitor or copper
head if he were alive today and saw fit
TO oppose the .imperialistic drift of new
republicanism.
Lincoln was a member of congress
during the progress of the Mexican
war. His whole record is one of oppo-
sition to that conflict, and his speeches
were severe arraignments of President
Polk. In one of these, delivered on the
floor of the national house of represent
atives. on the 18th of January, 1913, he
said:
Now. sir. for the purpose of obtaining
the very best evidence rs to whether Tex
as had actually carried her revolution to
the place where the hostilities of the pres
ent war commenced. ht the president an
swer the interrogatoi1es / propose. or
some similar ones. Les him answer fully.
fairly and candidly. Let him answer with
facts and not with arguments: Let him
remember he sits where Washington sat.
and. so remembering. let him answer as
Washington would answer. As a nation
should not and the Almighty will not be
eVaded so let him attempt no evasion
no equivocation. And if. so answering. he
can show that the soil was ours where
the first blood of the war was shed-that
it was not within an inhabited country,
or. if within such; that the Inhabitants
had submitted themselves to the civil au-
thority of Texas or of the United States.
and that the same is true of the site of
Fort Brown-then l am with him for his
justification.
But if he cannot or will not do this-if
on any pretense, or no pretense, he shall
refuse or omit it-then ! shall be fully
convinced of what / more than suspect
already-that he is deeply conscious of
being in the wrong; that he feels the blood
of this war, like the blood of Abel, is cry
ing to heaven against him; that originally
having some strong motive-what. | will
not stop now TO give my opinion concern
ing-to involve the two countries in a war.
and trusting to escape scrutiny by fixing
the public gaze upon the exceeding bright
ness of military glory-that attractive
rainbow that rises in showers of blood
that serpent's eye that charms to destroy
he plunged into II. and has swept on and
on TILL disappointed in his calculation of
the ease with which Mexico might be SUBJ
dued, he now finds himself he knows not
where He is a bewildered. COMPOUNDED
and miserably perplexed man. God grant
he may be able to show there is not some
thing about his conscience more painful
than all his mental perplexity.
While we were engaged in a war
against foreign power, a war in which
we were justified if ever nation was
justified in appealing to force. in war
to avenge a massacre more merciless
and bloody than that night attack of
the Tagals, in war to protect the
lives, liberty and property of American
settlers. Abraham Lincoln saw a dam
ger of criminal aggression. and cried
out against the policy which caused
the blood of American heroes to flow
on foreign soil. But he wasn't regarded
as traitor or a copperhead or a Santa
Ana sympathizer for so doing. AT least