176 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



plicity and unaffected Americanism of his own character, 

 one art of oratory worth all the rest. He forgets him- 

 self so entirely in his object as to give his / the sympa- 

 thetic and persuasive effect of We with the great body 

 of his countrymen. Homely, dispassionate, showing all 

 the rough-edged process of his thought as it goes along, 

 yet arriving at his conclusions with an honest kind of 

 every-day logic, he is so eminently our representative 

 man, that, when he speaks, it seems as if the people 

 were listening to their own thinking aloud. The dig- 

 nity of his thought owes nothing to any ceremonial 

 garb of words, but to the manly movement that conies 

 of settled purpose and an energy of reason that knows 

 not what rhetoric means. There has been nothing of 

 Cleon, still less of Strepsiades striving to underbid him 

 in demagogism, to be found in the public utterances of 

 Mr. Lincoln. He has always addressed the intelligence 

 of men, never their prejudice, their passion, or their 

 ignorance. 



On the day of his death, this simple Western attor- 

 ney, who according to one party was a vulgar joker, 

 and whom the doctrinaires among his own supporters 

 accused of wanting every element of statesmanship, 

 was the most absolute ruler in Christendom, and this 

 solely by the hold his good-humored sagacity had 

 laid on the hearts and understandings of his country- 

 men. Nor was this all, for it appeared that he had 

 drawn the great majority, not only of his fellow-citizens, 

 but of mankind also, to his side. So strong and so 

 persuasive is honest manliness without a single quality 

 of romance or unreal sentiment to help it ! A civilian 

 during times of the most captivating military achieve- 

 ment, awkward, with no skill in the lower technicalities 



