ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 125 



always the raw material of wisdom, he had in his profession 

 a training precisely the opposite of that to which a partisan 

 is subjected. His experience as a lawyer compelled him 

 not only to see that there is a principle underlying every 

 phenomenon in human affairs, but that there are always two 

 sides to every question, both of which must be fully under 

 stood in order to understand either, and that it is of greater 

 advantage to an advocate to appreciate the strength than 

 the weakness of his antagonist s position. Nothing is more 

 remarkable than the unerring tact with which, in his debate 

 with Mr. Douglas, he went straight to the reason of the 

 question ; nor have we ever had a more striking lesson in 

 political tactics than the fact, that, opposed to a man excep 

 tionally adroit in using popular prejudice and bigotry to his 

 purpose, exceptionally unscrupulous in appealing to those 

 baser motives that turn a meeting of citizens into a mob of 

 barbarians, he should yet have won his case before a jury of 

 the people. Mr. Lincoln was as far as possible from an im 

 promptu politician. His wisdom was made up of a know 

 ledge of things as well as of men; his sagacity resulted from 

 a clear perception and honest acknowledgment of difficulties, 

 which enabled him to see that the only durable triumph of 

 political opinion is based, not on any abstract right, but upon 

 so much of justice, the highest attainable at any given 

 moment in human affairs, as may be had in the balance 

 of mutual concession. Doubtless he had an ideal, but it 

 was the ideal of a practical statesman to aim at the best, 

 and to take the next best, if he is lucky enough to get even 

 that. His slow, but singularly masculine, intelligence taught 

 him that precedent is only another name for embodied ex 

 perience, and that it counts for even more in the guidance 

 of communities of men than in that of the individual life. 

 He was not a man who held it good public economy to 

 pull down on the mere chance of rebuilding better. Mr. 

 Lincoln s faith in God was qualified by a very well-founded 

 distrust of the wisdom of man. Perhaps it was his want 

 of self-confidence that more than anything else won him 

 the unlimited confidence of the people, for they felt that 

 there would be no need of retreat from any position he had 

 deliberately taken. The cautious, but steady, advance of 

 his policy during the war was like that of a Roman army. 

 He left behind him a firm road on which public confidence 

 could follow ; he took America with him where he went ; 



