166 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



in itself trifling, but all together weighty, that the framers 

 of policy can alone divine what is practicable and there 

 fore wise. The imputation of inconsistency is one to 

 which every sound politician and every honest thinker 

 must sooner or later subject himself. The foolish and 

 the dead alone never change their opinion. The course 

 of a great statesman resembles that of navigable rivers, 

 avoiding immovable obstacles with noble bends of con 

 cession, seeking the broad levels of opinion on which men 

 soonest settle and longest dwell, following and marking 

 the almost imperceptible slopes of national tendency, 

 yet always aiming at direct advances, always recruited 

 from sources nearer heaven, and sometimes bursting 

 open paths of progress and fruitful human commerce 

 through what seem the eternal barriers of both. It 

 is loyalty to great ends, even though forced to combine 

 the small and opposing motives of selfish men to accom 

 plish them ; it is the anchored cling to solid principles of 

 duty and action, which knows how to swing with the 

 tide, but is never carried away by it, that we demand 

 in public men, and not sameness of policy, or a conscien 

 tious persistency in what is impracticable. For the im 

 practicable, however theoretically enticing, is always po 

 litically unwise, sound statesmanship being the applica 

 tion of that prudence to the public business which is the 

 safest guide in that of private men. 



No doubt slavery was the most delicate and embarrass 

 ing question with which Mr. Lincoln was called on to deal, 

 and it was one which no man in his position, whatever his 

 opinions, could evade ; for, though he might withstand 

 the clamor of partisans, he must sooner or later yield to 

 the persistent importunacy of circumstances, which thrust 

 the problem upon him at every turn and in every shape. 



It has been brought against us as an accusation 

 abroad, and repeated here by people who measure their 



