ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 165 



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-confi 

 dence that more than anything else won him the unlim 

 ited 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 ; what he gained he occupied, and his 

 advanced posts became colonies. The very homeliness 

 of his genius was its distinction. His kingship was con 

 spicuous by its workday homespun. Never was ruler so 

 absolute as he, nor so little conscious of it ; for he was 

 the incarnate common-sense of the people. With all 

 that tenderness of nature whose sweet sadness touched 

 whoever saw him with something of its own pathos, there 

 was no trace of sentimentalism in his speech or action. 

 He seems to have had but one rule of conduct, always 

 that of practical and successful politics, to let himself 

 be guided by events, when they were sure to bring him 

 out where he wished to go, though by what seemed to 

 unpractical minds, which let go the possible to grasp at 

 the desirable, a longer road. 



Undoubtedly the highest function of statesmanship is 

 by degrees to accommodate the conduct of communities to 

 ethical laws, and to subordinate the conflicting self-inter 

 ests of the day to higher and more permanent concerns. 

 But it is on the understanding, and not on the senti 

 ment, of a nation that all safe legislation must be based. 

 Voltaire's saying, that " a consideration of petty circum 

 stances is the tomb of great things," may be true of 

 individual men, but it certainly is not true of govern 

 ments. It is by a multitude of such considerations, each 



