132 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



every month of the war, every movement of the allies of 

 slavery in the Free States, has been making Abolitionists by 

 the thousand. The masses of any people, however intelligent, 

 are very little moved by abstract principles of humanity and 

 justice, until those principles are interpreted for them by the 

 stinging commentary of some infringement upon their own 

 rights, and then their instincts and passions, once aroused, 

 do indeed derive an incalculable reinforcement of impulse 

 and intensity from those higher ideas, those sublime tradi 

 tions, which have no motive political force till they are allied 

 with a sense of immediate personal wrong or imminent peril. 

 Then at last the stars in their courses begin to fight against 

 Sisera. Had anyone doubted before that the rights of human 

 nature are unitary, that oppression is of one hue the world 

 over, no matter what the colour of the oppressed had any 

 one failed to see what the real essence of the contest was 

 the efforts of the advocates of slavery among ourselves to 

 throw discredit upon the fundamental axioms of the Declara 

 tion of Independence and the radical doctrines of Christianity, 

 could not fail to sharpen his eyes. 



While every day was bringing the people nearer to the 

 conclusion which all thinking men saw to be inevitable from 

 the beginning, it was wise in Mr. Lincoln to leave the shap 

 ing of his policy to events. In this country where the rough 

 and ready understanding of the people is sure at last to be 

 the controlling power, a profound common-sense is the best 

 genius for statesmanship. Hitherto the wisdom of the Pre 

 sident s measures has been justified by the fact that they 

 have always resulted in more firmly uniting public opinion. 

 One of the things particularly admirable in the public utter 

 ances of President Lincoln is a certain tone of familiar 

 dignity, which, while it is perhaps the most difficult attain 

 ment of mere style, is also no doubtful indication of personal 

 character. There must be something essentially noble in an 

 elective ruler who can descend to the level of confidential 

 ease without losing respect, something very manly in one 

 who can break through the etiquette of his conventional rank 

 and trust himself to the reason and intelligence of those who 

 have elected him. No higher compliment was ever paid to a 

 nation than the simple confidence, the fireside plainness,with 

 which Mr. Lincoln always addresses himself to the reason of 

 the American people. This was, indeed, a true democrat, who 

 grounded himself on the assumption that a democracy car^ 



