Part 5 (2/2)

”Douglas don't care whether slavery is voted up or down, but G.o.d cares, and humanity cares, and I care; and with G.o.d's help I shall not fail. I may not see the end; but it will come, and I shall be vindicated; and these men will find that they have not read their Bibles right.”

Much of this was uttered as if he were speaking to himself, and with a sad, earnest solemnity of manner impossible to be described. After a pause, he resumed: ”Doesn't it appear strange that men can ignore the moral aspect of this contest? A revelation could not make it plainer to me that slavery or the Government must be destroyed. The future would be something awful, as I look at it, but for this rock on which I stand (alluding to the Testament which he still held in his hand). It seems as if G.o.d had borne with this thing (slavery) until the very teachers of religion had come to defend it from the Bible, and to claim for it a divine character and sanction; and now the cup of iniquity is full, and the vials of wrath will be poured out.” After this, says Mr. Bateman, the conversation was continued for a long time. Every thing he said was of a peculiarly deep, tender, and religious tone, and all was tinged with a touching melancholy. He repeatedly referred to his conviction that the day of wrath was at hand, and that he was to be an actor in the terrible struggle which would issue in the overthrow of slavery, though he might not live to see the end.[9]

[9] The foregoing statement has been verified by Mr. Bateman as substantially correct.

Perhaps in all history there is no example of such great and long continued injustice as that of the British press during the war toward Mr. Lincoln. His death shamed them into decency. While he lived they sneered at his manners. Let them turn to their own Cromwell. They said his person was ugly. Has the world recognized the ability of Mirabeau, or that of Henry Brougham, notwithstanding their ugliness? They made scurrile jests about his figure, as though a statesman must be necessarily a sculptor's model! They were facetious about his dress, as though a greater than a Fox or a Chatham must be a Beau Brummel. They were horrified by his jokes. If the same had been told by the patrician Palmerston, instead of the plebeian Lincoln, they would not have lacked the ”Attic salt,” but would have rivaled Dean Swift or Sidney Smith.

It has been truly said there is one parallel only, to English journalism's treatment of Lincoln, and that is to be found in their treatment of Napoleon. ”The Corsican Ogre,” and the ”American Ape,” were phrases coined in the same mint. But the great Corsican was England's bitter foe; Lincoln was never provoked either by his own or his country's wrongs, to hostility against Great Britain. Yet at the great Martyr's grave, even this injustice changed to respect and reverence; even ”Punch” repented and said--

”Yes he had lived to shame me from my sneer, To lame my pencil, and confute my pen; To make me own this hind, of princes _peer_, This rail-splitter a true-born _King_ of men.”

The place Mr. Lincoln will occupy in history, will be higher than any which he held while living. His Emanc.i.p.ation Proclamation is the most important historical event of the nineteenth century. Its influence will not be limited by time, nor bounded by locality. It will ever be treated by the historian as one of the great landmarks of human progress.

He has been compared and contrasted with three great personages in history, who were a.s.sa.s.sinated,--with Caesar, with William of Orange, and with Henry IV. of France. He was a n.o.bler type of man than either, as he was the product of a higher and more Christian civilization.

The two great men by whose words and example our great continental Republic is to be fas.h.i.+oned and shaped are Was.h.i.+ngton and Lincoln.

Representative men of the East, and of the West, of the Revolutionary era, and the era of Liberty for all. One sleeps upon the banks of the Potomac, and the other on the great prairies of the Valley of the Mississippi. Lincoln was as pure as Was.h.i.+ngton, as modest, as just, as patriotic; less pa.s.sionate by nature, more of a democrat in his feelings and manners, with more faith in the people, and more hopeful of their future. Statesmen and patriots will study their record and learn the wisdom of goodness.

END OF BOOK ADVERTIs.e.m.e.nTS

ENGRAVED PORTRAIT OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN.

The Portrait of Mr. LINCOLN, accompanying this book, has been engraved, for the Publisher, expressly for it. No labor or expense has been spared to produce a First-Cla.s.s Engraving. It was executed by H. B. HALL, JR., ESQ., who unquestionably stands in the front rank of American Engravers.

The great Painting of

”The Last Hours of Lincoln,”

is now being engraved by Mr. HALL, in the same style.

This PORTRAIT of President LINCOLN is p.r.o.nounced by all to be the most life-like--the best ever engraved of him. It may not be improper to state that I have a letter from his family to that effect, which I refrain to place in print. I will, however, publish a few from persons intimately acquainted with him, selecting from the large number that I have received.

Engraved Portrait of President Lincoln.

OPINIONS OF HIS FRIENDS.

”WAs.h.i.+NGTON, D. C., _June 22, 1868_.

”DEAR SIR:--

”I have examined with interest the steel engraving of President LINCOLN published by you. I knew him intimately more than thirty years, being at times a member of his family.

”I regard this portrait the happiest likeness--and it conveys to me the most pleasing recollection of ABRAHAM LINCOLN of any that I have seen.

”Very truly yours, ”J. B. S. TODD.

”COL. JOHN B. BACHELDER.”

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