Americus times-recorder. [volume] (Americus, Ga.) 1891-current, 1920-07-23
A MORAL ISSUE AGAIN.
New York World.)

IVA "ACA WY AiiCb az viz " AAASO
House on Sunday resembled that
which Abraham Lincoln faced in
1864. Through popular WEAKNESS
with war and the persistent attacks
of politicians, a cause for which great
sacrifices had been made was threat
ened with abandonment.
If the leading Republicans and
their newspapers were to be believed
in 1894 discomfort at the North had
reached a point where nothing mat
tered any more. The country was
staggering under the awful losses in
the Wilderness and at Atlanta. 1t
was not believed that Lincoln could
be reelected and party chieftalns
were recommending desperate exped-
tents of various kinds to meet their
defeatist views.
So profound was the depression
that Mr.. Lincoln himself despaired
of success at the polls and drew up a
paper indicating his hopelessness,
which was to be published after his
expected defeat. 1t was at this time
that George w. Julian said that not
ten Republicans in Congress favor
ed Lincoln, and Thaddeus Stevens
made the more sweeping statement
that except Arnold, of Illinois, the
President did not have a political
friend in either House.
What these discordant elements
pretended to believe and sought to
prove was, like the contentious OF
their successors to-day, that, in the
language of Wendell Phillips, the
"civic and military failure of the
Administration" was self-evident.
Greeley was shouting for peace on
almost any terms, and Fremont and
his followers were so impatient over
delay in putting emancipation into
the Constitution that they regarded
the preservation of the Union as q
secondary matter.
Other factions, then as now, were
denouncing the President because OF
his views on finance and tariff, his
conduct of the war, his distribution
of offices, especially in the Cabinet,
his failure to appoint their favorites
to high commands in the army, the
belief that he was likely to be too
lenient with "rebels," and the
charge that he had become welded
to militarism and was exercising des-
potic powers. All ,this detraction
proceeded from Republicans who
professed to speak for the loyal
North, and of course gave great sat
isfaction to such Democrats as were
not ardently enlisted for the war.
In the face of this tempest of dis
approval and despair, Abraham Lin
coin in 1864, like Woodrow Wilson
in his attitude toward the League OF
Nations in 1920, held to his ideal
of a reunited country prospecting In
peace and Invested by legal forms OF
the curse of slavery. He wanted to
finish the work that he had begun,
whatever the cost. He was pledged
to the living and the dead that the
Union should endure. That was his
first object, and it was with hope ra-
Their than faith that he awaited the
verdict of his countrymen.
| Since the armistice of 1918 the
present Administration has encouh.
tered the same slanderous opposition
from the same source. Mr.. Wilson's
aim has been to finish the work un.
dertaken when we took arms in wal
to end war. At every step he has
been misrepresented and obstructec
for the most unworthy purposes
There have been periods when il
seemed that the honor of the Re
public and it's vital material interests
also were likely to be sacrificed, az
was the prospect in Lincoln's day, tt
greed, malice and cowardice.
Thanks to the resolute spirit OF
President Wilson, Loyalty supported
by his successor as Democratic leader
official America is to stand fast on {
moral issue as it did in Lincoln's day
1t is for the people to say whether
for the first time in their history ar
appeal in that behalf is to be rejected
because they are tired and timid.