White Pine news weekly mining review. [volume] (East Ely, Nev.) 1910-1920, 1911-02-12

in his own official family, was a
stranger.
Stanton had treated Lincoln with
the most cruel abuse at their first
meeting. and in describing him had
given a scurllous tongue its full and
unimpeded range. The great news
papers of the country attempted TO
make Lincoln an object of nation
wide contempt. There a nothing
too sharp or too bitter for the pens
of the scribes who pictured him.
Yet, through ii all, was his same I'M
ending patience, his charity and his
good will, even for those who de-
famed him most. He seemed to
dread praise more than he feared
criticism. 1t is related that upon
one occasion, when his genius was
so conspicuous as to cause the reluct-
ant admiration of Stanton, a kindly
word of appreciation for Lincoln es-
capped from the lips of the great war
minister. When this phase reached
Lnicoln's ear he said it reminded
him of the Hoosier blacksmith who
told his neighbors he guessed he
loved ginger bread more than any
one in the world and got less of it.
Seward and Chase. great as they
undoubtedly We're, were not yet
great enough to sink their personal
differences in the face of the coming
storm. 1t required all the infinite
tact, patience, and humility which
Lincoln had to hold them together,
and to keep each within his
sphere. 1t seemed to them that the
man of least impotence in the Lin
coin administration was Abraham
Lincoln. To be sure, he was Presi-
dent, but they had been selected by
some occult ~interposition to relieve
him of the responsibilities of his
Office.
The country awaited Lincoln's
inauguration with intense anxiety,
first, because of what he might say,
and, secondly. because of the results
of his declaration. Instead of pro-
claiming war, his inaugural was a
prayer for peace; a call to the South
to come back TO the Union and to
abandon the frenzied passions of the
moment. Standing at the front of
the Capitol, overlooking an upturned
STD u ldNtS. ulutI tOHulllOIS ludI
would appall the bravest soul, Lin
coin made his appeal to the hearts
and sympathy of the erring South,
and to the conscience of the civilized
world. The sublimity of its thought,
the depth of its feeling, its infinite
mercy and charity, will thrill human
ity as long as memory endures.
I'm your hands, my dissati-
fed fellow-countrymen, and not
in mine, is the momentous issue
of civil war. The government will
not attack you. You can have
no conflict without being your
selves 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.
| am loath to close. We are
not enemies, but friends. We
must not be enemies. Though
passion may have strained it, it
must no break, our bonds of
affection. The mystic chords
of memory, stretching from
every battlefield and patriot
grave to every living heart and
hearth-stone, all over this broad
land, will yet swell the chorus
of the Union, when again touch
ed; as surely they will be, by
the better angels of our
nature"
But its appeal was in vain
Secession flew to arms and the curse
of war was loose upon the land.
England, France and Spain, were
merely waiting for an opportunity
to inject themselves into our affairs
international friendship is a myth
and a delusion, the product of the
dreams of doctrinaires. Selfish in.
terest wrote the policy of the
Powers. all of whom sought, so fan
as they could, the overthrow of the
Republic. England was more keenly
alive to the cotton fields than tc
human rights. When I speak oil
England, / the government
not the people of England: for they
even at the time when our war was
closing their factories, and bringing
idleness and want upon them, urged