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ABRAHAM LINCOLN
BY
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
THERE have been many painful crises since the impatient vanity ofSouth Carolina hurried ten prosperous Commonwealths into acrime whose assured retribution was to leave them either at themercy of the nation they had wronged, or of the anarchy they hadsummoned but could not control, when no thoughtful Americanopened his morning paper without dreading to find that he had nolonger a country to love and honor. Whatever the result of theconvulsion whose first shocks were beginning to be felt, therewould still be enough square miles of earth for elbow-room; butthat ineffable sentiment made up of memory and hope, of instinctand tradition, which swells every man’s heart and shapes histhought, though perhaps never present to his consciousness, wouldbe gone from it, leaving it common earth and nothing more. Menmight gather rich crops from it, but that ideal harvest of pricelessassociations would be reaped no longer; that fine virtue which sentup messages of courage and security from every sod of it wouldhave evaporated beyond recall. We should be irrevocably cut offfrom our past, and be forced to splice the ragged ends of our livesupon whatever new conditions chance might leave dangling for us.
We confess that we had our doubts at first whether the patriotismof our people were not too narrowly provincial to embrace theproportions of national peril. We felt an only too natural distrust ofimmense public meetings and enthusiastic cheers.
That a reaction should follow the holiday enthusiasm with whichthe war was entered on, that it should follow soon, and that theslackening of public spirit should be proportionate to the previousover-tension, might well be foreseen by all who had studied humannature or history. Men acting gregariously are always in extremes;as they are one moment capable of higher courage, so they areliable, the next, to baser depression, and it is often a matter ofchance whether numbers shall multiply confidence ordiscouragement. Nor does deception lead more surely to distrust ofmen, than self-deception to suspicion of principles. The only faiththat wears well and holds its color in all weathers is that which iswoven of conviction and set with the sharp mordant of experience. Enthusiasm is good material for the orator, but the statesman needssomething more durable to work in,—must be able to rely on thedeliberate reason and consequent firmness of the people, withoutwhich that presence of mind, no less essential in times of moral thanof material peril, will be wanting at the critical moment. Would thisfervor of the Free States hold out? Was it kindled by a just feelingof the value of constitutional liberty? Had it body enough towithstand the inevitable dampening of checks, reverses, delays? Had our population intelligence enough to comprehend that thechoice was between order and anarchy, between the equilibrium ofa government by law and the tussle of misrule bypronunciamiento? Could a war be maintained without theordinary stimulus of hatred and plunder, and with the impersonalloyalty of principle? These were serious questions, and with noprecedent to aid in answering them.
At the beginning of the war there was, indeed, occasion for themost anxious apprehension. A President known to be infected withthe political heresies, and suspected of sympathy with the treason