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Abraham Lincoln



by James Russell Lowell








THERE have been many painful crises since the impatient vanity of

South Carolina hurried ten prosperous Commonwealths into a

crime whose assured retribution was to leave them either at the

mercy of the nation they had wronged; or of the anarchy they had

summoned but could not control; when no thoughtful American

opened his morning paper without dreading to find that he had no

longer a country to love and honor。  Whatever the result of the

convulsion whose first shocks were beginning to be felt; there

would still be enough square miles of earth for elbow…room; but

that ineffable sentiment made up of memory and hope; of instinct

and tradition; which swells every man's heart and shapes his

thought; though perhaps never present to his consciousness; would

be gone from it; leaving it common earth and nothing more。  Men

might gather rich crops from it; but that ideal harvest of priceless

associations would be reaped no longer; that fine virtue which sent

up messages of courage and security from every sod of it would

have evaporated beyond recall。  We should be irrevocably cut off

from our past; and be forced to splice the ragged ends of our lives

upon whatever new conditions chance might leave dangling for us。



We confess that we had our doubts at first whether the patriotism

of our people were not too narrowly provincial to embrace the

proportions of national peril。  We felt an only too natural distrust of

immense public meetings and enthusiastic cheers。



That a reaction should follow the holiday enthusiasm with which

the war was entered on; that it should follow soon; and that the

slackening of public spirit should be proportionate to the previous

over…tension; might well be foreseen by all who had studied human

nature or history。  Men acting gregariously are always in extremes;

as they are one moment capable of higher courage; so they are

liable; the next; to baser depression; and it is often a matter of

chance whether numbers shall multiply confidence or

discouragement。  Nor does deception lead more surely to distrust of

men; than self…deception to suspicion of principles。  The only faith

that wears well and holds its color in all weathers is that which is

woven of conviction and set with the sharp mordant of experience。 

Enthusiasm is good material for the orator; but the statesman needs

something more durable to work in;must be able to rely on the

deliberate reason and consequent firmness of the people; without

which that presence of mind; no less essential in times of moral than

of material peril; will be wanting at the critical moment。  Would this

fervor of the Free States hold out?  Was it kindled by a just feeling

of the value of constitutional liberty?  Had it body enough to

withstand the inevitable dampening of checks; reverses; delays? 

Had our population intelligence enough to comprehend that the

choice was between order and anarchy; between the equilibrium of

a government by law and the tussle of misrule by

*pronunciamiento?*  Could a war be maintained without the

ordinary stimulus of hatred and plunder; and with the impersonal

loyalty of principle?  These were serious questions; and with no

precedent to aid in answering them。



At the beginning of the war there was; indeed; occasion for the

most anxious apprehension。  A President known to be infected with

the political heresies; and suspected of sympathy with the treason;

of the Southern conspirators; had just surrendered the reins; we will

not say of power; but of chaos; to a successor known only as the

representative of a party whose leaders; with long training in

opposition; had none in the conduct of affairs; an empty treasury

was called on to supply resources beyond precedent in the history

of finance; the trees were yet growing and the iron unmined with

which a navy was to be built and armored; officers without

discipline were to make a mob into an army; and; above all; the

public opinion of Europe; echoed and reinforced with every vague

hint and every specious argument of despondency by a powerful

faction at home; was either contemptuously sceptical or actively

hostile。  It would be hard to over…estimate the force of this latter

element of disintegration and discouragement among a people

where every citizen at home; and every soldier in the field; is a

reader of newspapers。  The peddlers of rumor in the North were the

most effective allies of the rebellion。  A nation can be liable to no

more insidious treachery than that of the telegraph; sending hourly

its electric thrill of panic along the remotest nerves of the

community; till the excited imagination makes every real danger

loom heightened with its unreal double。



And even if we look only at more palpable difficulties; the problem

to be solved by our civil war was so vast; both in its immediate

relations and its future consequences; the conditions of its solution

were so intricate and so greatly dependent on incalculable and

uncontrollable contingencies; so many of the data; whether for hope

or fear; were; from their novelty; incapable of arrangement under

any of the categories of historical precedent; that there were

moments of crisis when the firmest believer in the strength and

sufficiency of the democratic theory of government might well hold

his breath in vague apprehension of disaster。  Our teachers of

political philosophy; solemnly arguing from the precedent of some

petty Grecian; Italian; or Flemish city; whose long periods of

aristocracy were broken now and then by awkward parentheses of

mob; had always taught us that democracies were incapable of the

sentiment of loyalty; of concentrated and prolonged effort; of far…

reaching conceptions; were absorbed in material interests; impatient

of regular; and much more of exceptional restraint; had no natural

nucleus of gravitation; nor any forces but centrifugal; were always

on the verge of civil war; and slunk at last into the natural

almshouse of bankrupt popular government; a military despotism。 

Here was indeed a dreary outlook for persons who knew

democracy; not by rubbing shoulders with it lifelong; but merely

from books; and America only by the report of some fellow…Briton;

who; having eaten a bad dinner or lost a carpet…bag here; had

written to *The Times* demanding redress; and drawing a

mournful inference of democratic instability。  Nor were men

wanting among ourselves who had so steeped their brains in

London literature as to mistake Cockneyism for European culture;

and contempt of their country for cosmopolitan breadth of view;

and who; owing all they had an all they were to democracy; thought

it had an air of high…breeding to join in the shallow epicedium that

our bubble had burst。



But beside any disheartening influences which might affect the timid

or the despondent; there were reasons enough of settled gravity

against any over…confidence of hope。  A warwhich; whether we

consider the expanse of the territory at stake; the hosts brought into

the field; or the reach of the principles involved; may fairly be

reckoned the most momentous of modern timeswas to be waged

by a people divided at home; unnerved by fifty years of peace;

under a chief magistrate without experience and without reputation;

whose every measure was sure to be cunningly hampered by a

jealous and unscrupulous minority; and who; while dealing with

unheard…of complications at home; must soothe a hostile neutrality

abroad; waiting only a pretext to become war。  All this was to be

done without warning and without preparation; while at the same

time a social revolution was to be accomplished in the political

condition of four millions of people; by softening the prejudices;

allaying the fears; and gradually obtaining the cooperation; of their

unwilling liberators。  Surely; if ever there were an occasion when

the heightened imagination of the historian might see Destiny visibly

intervening in human affairs; here was a knot worthy of her shears。 

Never; perhaps; was any system of government tried by so

continuous and searching a strain as ours during the last three

years; never has any shown itself stronger; and never could that

strength be so directly traced to the virtue and intelligence of the

people;to that general enlightenment and prompt efficiency of

public opinion possible only under the influence of a political

framework like our own。  We find it hard to understand how even a

foreigner should be blind to the grandeur of the combat of ideas

that has been going on here;to the heroic energy; persistency; and

self…reliance of a nation proving that it knows how much dearer

greatness is than mere power; and we own that it is impossible for

us to conceive the mental and moral condition of the American who

does not feel his spirit braced and heightened by being even a

spectator of such qualities and achiev

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