The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1914-10-16

as martyrs are. He would have died
smiling for any cause he had espous.
ed: he was lacking In charity fol
such as did not agree with him.
Nature seems to select that order OF
men when something is to be accom-
plished only through the frey ordeal
lof battle. Born free himself, he
could never understand why all the
human race should not likewise be
free, SO he hated human slavery as
being a cruel blot on civilization,
wrong great enough to awaken the
vengeance of Almighty God to de-
stroy.
He was sent to the house of repre-
sentatives and soon gravitated to the
front there and held his place to
the end.
When the great war came on and
others, deplored it, he exulted and
declared that it had to be and he
was glad of it, as the black horror
of slavery could be unrooted in no
other way.
He chafed over the slow progress
of the war; he was impatient with
the commanders in the field, and
more than once he doubted both the
sagacity and energy of President
Lincoln's management of his great
office. All those years he was ill
in body and that fact, perhaps, in
tensified his Impotence. One morn
ing, when struggling up the steps of
the capitol, he was accosted by
friend who asked him how he was.
In his terse and incisive way, he
replied: weaker and weaker every
day, thank Cod"
When the war was over with the
death of President Lincoln as the
final mighty sacrifice, there was no
spirit of Cancellation in his iron heart,
Rather, he wanted every one who
had been leader in the south, pun
ished.
When President Johnson wanted a
policy of Cancellation adopted,
Stevens, forgetting the courage
which Johnson had shown in his
own state when the fury of approach
ing secession was roaring around
him, and not compromising the real
greatness of his nature, never rested |
until articles of Impeachment were
filed against him.
There was no selfishness in this. |
With all the fury of a fanatical ma
ture, intensified by the spectacle of
the sorrow and wreck of the great |
war, he believed he was doing his |
country and humanity holy service
in pressing the case against the presi-
dent.
And so fierce was public sentiment |
in the north at the time that it is
! wonder that he failed. The truth |
was that at the time the north, like
The south, was shrouded in mourning
and in millions of souls the thought |
that retribution should be exacted
was ruling one.
We doubt whether President Lin
coin, had he lived, could have re-
sisted the mighty pressure. That
The feeling long since passed away
Is the best proof of the innate sense |
Of right of the American people, and
that the people, north and south,
meet together lay chaplets on the
graves of the blue and the Gray" is
the best evidence of the inherent |
greatness and generosity of our free
people.
Feeble as he was for years, Mr.. |
oLCfOAS llNOu W UC oCFSlIy-AFO years
of age, dying in harness in Washing
ton, August II, 1868.
A great soul was his. His speeches
in congress show how broad was his
how great was his love for
native land, how jealous he was of
his country's honor and how faithful
he was to every trust.
He made for himself a place in
the front rank of the nations states
men, and his fame will grow brighter
the more his character is studied and
the last remnant of the evil passions
awakened by the war disappears.
On memorial days his name will
always be spoken in reverence when
the sacred roll is called of the names
of the immortals who preserved ours
a nation-that sacred roll to which
no answers come back.