The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1916-04-20

of that day, must have had some of
this feeling, as he conspired with
Fremont, Wendell Phillips and
Horace Greeley in a very nearly sue
cessful effort to defeat Lincoln's Sec
ond election.
One has often heard it said that
if Lincoln had lived, the South would
never have been treated as she was
alter the war, but after a study of
The Real Lincoln,' many doubts
arise in my mind as to whether it
would have made any difference, for
Lincoln was more of politician than
patriot or humanitarian and he
would never have risen above his
party or would most probably have
given his sanction to all the indig-
mites put upon a proud people. 1t
will forever be a debatable, question
what his attitude would have been,
for there is nothing to show he would
have been 1.-The friend in need to
the downtrodden South.
Why Call Him Great?
y Now, why has this man been put
on such a pedestal at the North and
why are the people of the South fall
ing into line and talking about his
"greatness?" One Southerner was
heard to class him with Lee and
Washington-those noble gentlemen,
who walked in the fear of God, whose
lips were never soiled by vile jokes,
whose courage was sublime and
whose patriotism would have risen
far above party politics and personal
consideration! Our youths should
be taught the difference between true
greatness and a shoddy imitation Of
it and should be taught to know the
real Lincoln from the idealized one
that one hears of from the Northern
press and partisan historians. l once
listened to a debate at the Camden
graded school on the query, Were
Calhoun, Clay and Webster Americas
greatest statesmen?" and the mega
tive won and proved to their own
satisfaction that Clay gambled, Web
ster drank and Calhoun tried to ruin
the senate because he couldn't rule
it, and that Americas greatest states7
man was Abraham Lincoln ! 1t is
claimed that a Southern minister was
heard to declare that he was the
greatest man who had walked the
earth since the Nazarene!
l confess I do not know what Lin
coins fame as a statesman rests on,
as l was not old enough when he
was president to understand just
what he did to win the title, and this
phase of his character was not dwelt
on in the only book Of reference at
my command, but l hope, for his ad-
mirers sakes, that it is better found
ed than the claim to his being a
"good man." made by his champions.
It would be anomalous to call per-
son good" who SCOTS at religion and
whose word was not his bond accord
ing to we'll authenticated history,
who was 1ow, tricky and cunning
according to the estimation of a
brilliant member of his cabinet, the
contempt of which member for his
chief made him insulting to him at
times. This contempt seems to have
been shared by the other two men,
,bers of the cabinet, and as Miss Tar
bell admits, by most of the promi-
nent politicians of the day, and was
doubtless engendered by intimate
knowledge of the man himself and
not by scorn of his humble birth or
from the uncouthness of manner for
which he was notorious-his unde-
niable intellect would have made
them pass over his origin and chari-
tably pardon his manners because of
the lack of social training it was al
most impossible for him to have had
in his early youth. What was prob
ably unpardonable was his clownish-
ness, his vulgarity and his general
unfitness to be the chief of great
nation.
Merely Mouthpiece.
A very tyro in logic could prove
that Lincoln's emancipation procla-
nation didn't make him "great," be-
cause he was simply the mouthpiece
of the Northern people, yet I am per-
suaded this proclamation has been
accounted to him for Righteousness
by thousands of both black and white
who believe he was indeed the "great
liberator." Now we must dig about
this pedestal that Lincoln has been
put upon and see if there are good
and true reasons for placing him
there before we simply follow the