The Kansas City sun. (Kansas City, Mo.) 1908-1924, 1917-02-10


contrast strangely with the passions
which illumined the period in which
his lot was cast, toward the close
breaking into a volcano of blood and
flame, his tragic death unhappily not
the end for we now know that, while
he was entertaining the most benevo-
lent intentions toward the beaten party
In the strife, his taking off gave at once
h signal and the pretext for letting
loose upon the %vanquished a swarm of
evil spirits working ills ever worse
than those of war itself.
For at least ten years before the
secession of the Southern states the
two sectional extremes in and out of
congress talked like madmen, the raw
ing ranging from the abolition orators
melodramatic MY curse be upon the
Constitution of these United States" to
the rodomontade of the Southern sena-
tor who would not be pacifed until he
could "call the muster roll of his slaves
beneath Bunker Hill monument"
AS Ii sectional pressure frightened
In national politics before the advent
- 'N'N"h iOolllllltS luOSG conservative
men who tried to avert the oncoming
clash of arms were driven to the wall.
Neither extreme would listen to mod
crate counsels. The interposition OF
the border states proved of doubtful
restraint and was of short duration.
during the war and after it was over
these patriotic men Jared no better
IMAM mo trnhTp nHC Fha Y,,,-~ 81 l-l-
OF the Southern people COMPOUNDED
with the original secessionists. Even
now the distinction that once existed
Is blurred, if not lost. Yet a great
majority of the Southern people were
devoted TO the Union and at least q
strong minority were opposed to slav-
cry.
No n understood this better than
Abraham Lincoln. He was himself of
southern birth. He and all his tribe
were Southerners. Although he left
Kentucky when a child, he was an old
child; he never was very young; nor
dld he go very far, growing to man.
hood in a Kentucky colony, for what
Is Illinois, what Chicago, but a Ken
AtNAg NOlphgs S"OllCu SOIleN nat OUT
of proportion? He was in no sense
what we used to call "a poor white"
Awkward, %ungainly but aspiring, the
spirit of a hero within that rugged
easement a fine, far-reaching magma
ton behind those heavy brOws; the
courage OF a lion beneath those patient.
kindly aspects; and, long before he
was of legal age, a leader among men.
His first love was a Rutledge; his
wife was a Todd.
Lincoln the Poet,
We know that he was a poet. for
have we not that immortal prose-poem
recited at Gettysburg? We know that
he was a statesman, for has not time
indicated his conclusions? But the
South did not for a long time know,
except as a kind of hearsay, that he
was a frlend-the one friend who had
the power and the will to save it alike
from its enemies and itself. The direst
blow that could have fallen upo a
hapless and PROSTATE people was de-
livered by the assassln's bullet that
struck him down.
Much of a misleading kind has been
written touching what did and did not
happen at the Hampton Roads con-
ference. Nothing happened there
which changed the irreconcilable at
titude of the combatants. Their agents,
indeed argued from opposite prem
ises-the restoration of the Union the
sine qua non of the one side, the rec
ognltion of the Confederacy the ultima
tum of the other.
Neither, indeed, possessed the pow
er to come to terms. Mr.. Davis had
no right to dissolve the C~onfederacy
and disband its armies, Mr.. Lincoln
none to commit his government to n
definite treaty. 1t is a fact, however,
that the federal president was pre-
pared with a plan then and there to
end the war, which, could 1t have been
adopted, would have saved two months
bloody fighting and spared the South
the humiliation of the final collapse
and surrender.
Though this has been denied, it ad-
mits of no dispute. The historic issue