ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 123 



men can govern themselves. He never appeals to any 

 vulgar sentiment, he never alludes to the humbleness of his 

 origin; it probably never occurred to him, indeed, that 

 there was anything higher to start from than manhood ; 

 and he put himself on a level with those he addressed, not 

 by going down to them, but only by taking it for granted 

 that they had brains, and would come up to a common 

 ground of reason. In an article lately printed in The 

 Nation, Mr. Bayard Taylor mentions the striking fact, 

 that in the foulest dens of the Five Points he found the 

 portrait of Lincoln. The wretched population that makes 

 its hive there threw all its votes and more against him, and 

 yet paid this instinctive tribute to the sweet humanity of 

 his nature. Their ignorance sold its vote and took its 

 money, but all that was left of manhood in them recognised 

 its saint and martyr. 



Mr. Lincoln is not in the habit of saying &quot; This is my 

 opinion, or my theory,&quot; but &quot;This is the conclusion to 

 which, in my judgment, the time has come, and to which, 

 accordingly, the sooner we come the better for us.&quot; His 

 policy has been the policy of public opinion based on 

 adequate discussion and on a timely recognition of the 

 influence of passing events in shaping the features of 

 events to come. 



One secret of Mr. Lincoln s remarkable success in capti 

 vating the popular mind is undoubtedly an unconsciousness 

 of self which enables him, though under the necessity of 

 constantly using the capital /, to do it without any 

 suggestion of egotism. There is no single vowel which 

 men s mouths can pronounce with such difference of effect. 

 That which one shall hide away, as it were, behind the 

 substance of his discourse, or, if he bring it to the front, 

 shall use merely to give an agreeable accent of individuality 

 to what he says, another shall make an offensive challenge 

 to the self-satisfaction of all his hearers, and an unwarranted 

 intrusion upon each man s sense of personal importance, 

 irritating every pore of his vanity, like a dry north-east 

 wind, to a gooseflesh of opposition and hostility. Mr. 



