Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday Part 16

Go, darkly borne, from State to State, Whose loyal, sorrowing cities wait To honor all they can The dust of that good man!

Go, grandly borne, with such a train As greatest kings might die to gain: The just, the wise, the brave Attend thee to the grave!

And you, the soldiers of our wars, Bronzed veterans, grim with n.o.ble scars, Salute him once again, Your late commander--slain!

Yes, let your tears, indignant, fall, But leave your muskets on the wall: Your country needs you now Beside the forge, the plough!

(When justice shall unsheathe her brand,-- If mercy may not stay her hand, Nor would we have it so-- She must direct the blow!)

And you, amid the master-race, Who seem so strangely out of place, Know ye who cometh? He Who hath declared ye free!

Bow while the body pa.s.ses--nay, Fall on your knees, and weep, and pray!

Weep, weep--I would ye might-- Your poor, black faces white!

And children, you must come in bands, With garlands in your little hands, Of blue, and white, and red, To strew before the dead!

So sweetly, sadly, sternly goes The fallen to his last repose: Beneath no mighty dome.

But in his modest home;

The churchyard where his children rest, The quiet spot that suits him best: There shall his grave be made, And there his bones be laid!

And there his countrymen shall come, With memory proud, with pity dumb, And strangers far and near, For many and many a year!

For many a year, and many an age, While history on her ample page The virtues shall enroll Of that paternal soul!

[21] _By permission of Charles Scribner's Sons._

SOME FOREIGN TRIBUTES TO LINCOLN

From "The Lives and Deeds of Our Self-made Men"[22]

BY MRS. HARRIET BEECHER STOWE

(1889)

On the first of May, 1865, Sir George Grey, in the English House of Commons, moved an address to the Crown, to express the feelings of the House upon the a.s.sa.s.sination of Mr. Lincoln. In this address he said that he was convinced that Mr. Lincoln "in the hour of victory, and in the triumph of victory, would have shown that wise forbearance, and that generous consideration, which would have added tenfold l.u.s.tre to the fame that he had already acquired, amidst the varying fortunes of the war."

In seconding the second address, at the same time and place, Mr.

Benjamin Disraeli said: "But in the character of the victim, and in the very accessories of his almost latest moments, there is something so homely and so innocent that it takes the subject, as it were, out of the pomp of history, and out of the ceremonial of diplomacy. It touches the heart of nations, and appeals to the domestic sentiments of mankind."

In the House of Lords, Lord John Russell, in moving a similar address, observed: "President Lincoln was a man who, although he had not been distinguished before his election, had from that time displayed a character of so much integrity, sincerity and straightforwardness, and at the same time of so much kindness, that if any one could have been able to alleviate the pain and animosity which have prevailed during the civil war, I believe President Lincoln was the man to have done so." And again, in speaking of the question of amending the Const.i.tution so as to prohibit slavery, he said: "We must all feel that there again the death of President Lincoln deprives the United States of the man who was the leader on this subject."

Mr. John Stuart Mill, the distinguished philosopher, in a letter to an American friend, used far stronger expressions than these guarded phrases of high officials. He termed Mr. Lincoln "the great citizen who had afforded so n.o.ble an example of the qualities befitting the first magistrate of a free people, and who, in the most trying circ.u.mstances, had gradually won not only the admiration, but almost the personal affection of all who love freedom or appreciate simplicity or uprightness."

Professor Goldwin Smith writing to the London Daily News, began by saying, "It is difficult to measure the calamity which the United States and the world have sustained by the murder of President Lincoln. The a.s.sa.s.sin has done his best to strike down mercy and moderation, of both of which this good and n.o.ble life was the mainstay."

Senhor Rebello da Silva, a member of the Portuguese Chamber of Peers, in moving a resolution on the death of Mr. Lincoln, thus outlined his character: "He is truly great who rises to the loftiest heights from profound obscurity, relying solely on his own merits as did Napoleon, Was.h.i.+ngton, Lincoln. For these arose to power and greatness, not through any favor or grace, by a chance cradle, or genealogy, but through the prestige of their own deeds, through the n.o.bility which begins and ends with themselves--the sole offspring of their own works.... Lincoln was of this privileged cla.s.s; he belonged to this aristocracy. In infancy, his energetic soul was nourished by poverty.

In youth, he learned through toil the love of liberty, and respect for the rights of man. Even to the age of twenty-two, educated in adversity, his hands made callous by honorable labor, he rested from the fatigues of the field, spelling out, in the pages of the Bible, in the lessons of the gospel, in the fugitive leaves of the daily journal--which the aurora opens, and the night disperses--the first rudiments of instruction, which his solitary meditations ripened. The chrysalis felt one day the ray of the sun, which called it to life, broke its involucrum, and it launched forth fearlessly from the darkness of its humble cloister into the luminous s.p.a.ces of its destiny. The farmer, day-laborer, shepherd, like Cincinnatus, left the ploughshare in the half-broken furrow, and, legislator of his own State, and afterwards of the Great Republic, saw himself proclaimed in the tribunal the popular chief of several millions of people, the maintainer of the holy principle inaugurated by Wilberforce."

There are some vague and some only partially correct statements in this diffuse pa.s.sage; but it shows plainly enough how enthusiastically the Portuguese n.o.bleman had admired the antique simplicity and strength of Mr. Lincoln's character.

Dr. Merle d'Aubigne, the historian of the Reformation, writing to Mr.

Fogg, U. S. Minister to Switzerland, said: "While not venturing to compare him to the great sacrifice of Golgotha, which gave liberty to the captives, is it not just, in this hour, to recall the word of an apostle (I John iii, 16): 'Hereby perceive we the love of G.o.d, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren?' Who can say that the President did not lay down his life by the firmness of his devotion to a great duty? The name of Lincoln will remain one of the greatest that history has to inscribe on its annals.... Among the legacies which Lincoln leaves to us, we shall all regard as the most precious, his spirit of equity, of moderation, and of peace, according to which he will still preside, if I may so speak, over the restoration of your great nation."

The "Democratic a.s.sociation" of Florence, addressed "to the Free People of the United States," a letter, in which they term Mr. Lincoln "the honest, the magnanimous citizen, the most worthy chief magistrate of your glorious Federation."

The eminent French liberal, M. Edouard Laboulaye, in a speech showing a remarkably just understanding and extremely broad views with respect to the affairs and the men of the United States, said: "Mr. Lincoln was one of those heroes who are ignorant of themselves; his thoughts will reign after him. The name of Was.h.i.+ngton has already been p.r.o.nounced, and I think with reason. Doubtless Mr. Lincoln resembled Franklin more than Was.h.i.+ngton. By his origin, his arch good nature, his ironical good sense, and his love of anecdotes and jesting, he was of the same blood as the printer of Philadelphia. But it is nevertheless true that in less than a century, America has pa.s.sed through two crises in which its liberty might have been lost, if it had not had honest men at its head; and that each time it has had the happiness to meet the man best fitted to serve it. If Was.h.i.+ngton founded the Union, Lincoln has saved it. History will draw together and unite those two names. A single word explains Mr. Lincoln's whole life: it was Duty. Never did he put himself forward; never did he think of himself; never did he seek one of those ingenious combinations which puts the head of a state in bold relief, and enhances his importance at the expense of the country; his only ambition, his only thought was faithfully to fulfil the mission which his fellow-citizens had entrusted to him.... His inaugural address, March 4, 1865, shows us what progress had been made in his soul. This piece of familiar eloquence is a master-piece; it is the testament of a patriot. I do not believe that any eulogy of the President would equal this page on which he had depicted himself in all his greatness and all his simplicity.... History is too often only a school of immorality. It shows us the victory of force or stratagem much more than the success of justice, moderation, and probity. It is too often only the apotheosis of triumphant selfishness. There are n.o.ble and great exceptions; happy those who can increase the number, and thus bequeath a n.o.ble and beneficent example to posterity! Mr. Lincoln is among these. He would willingly have repeated, after Franklin, that 'falsehood and artifice are the practice of fools who have not wit enough to be honest.' All his private life, and all his political life, were inspired and directed by this profound faith in the omnipotence of virtue. It is through this, again, that he deserves to be compared with Was.h.i.+ngton; it is through this that he will remain in history with the most glorious name that can be merited by the head of a free people--a name given him by his cotemporaries, and which will be preserved to him by posterity--that of Honest Abraham Lincoln."

A letter from the well-known French historian, Henri Martin, to the Paris Siecle, contained the following pa.s.sages: "Lincoln will remain the austere and sacred personification of a great epoch, the most faithful expression of democracy. This simple and upright man, prudent and strong, elevated step by step from the artisan's bench to the command of a great nation, and always without parade and without effort, at the height of his position; executing without precipitation, without flourish, and with invincible good sense, the most colossal acts; giving to the world this decisive example of the civil power in a republic; directing a gigantic war, without free inst.i.tutions being for an instant compromised or threatened by military usurpation; dying, finally, at the moment when, after conquering, he was intent on pacification, ... this man will stand out, in the traditions of his country and the world, as an incarnation of the people, and of modern democracy itself. The great work of emanc.i.p.ation had to be sealed, therefore, with the blood of the just, even as it was inaugurated with the blood of the just. The tragic history of the abolition of slavery, which opened with the gibbet of John Brown, will close with the a.s.sa.s.sination of Lincoln.

"And now let him rest by the side of Was.h.i.+ngton, as the second founder of the great Republic. European democracy is present in spirit at his funeral, as it voted in its heart for his re-election, and applauded the victory in the midst of which he pa.s.sed away. It will wish with one accord to a.s.sociate itself with the monument that America will raise to him upon the capitol of prostrate slavery."

The London Globe, in commenting on Mr. Lincoln's a.s.sa.s.sination, said that he "had come n.o.bly through a great ordeal. He had extorted the admiration even of his opponents, at least on this side of the water.

They had come to admire, reluctantly, his firmness, honesty, fairness and sagacity. He tried to do, and had done, what he considered his duty, with magnanimity."

The London Express said, "He had tried to show the world how great, how moderate, and how true he could be, in the moment of his great triumph."

The Liverpool Post said, "If ever there was a man who in trying times avoided offenses, it was Mr. Lincoln. If there ever was a leader in a civil contest who shunned acrimony and eschewed pa.s.sion, it was he. In a time of much cant and affectation he was simple, unaffected, true, transparent. In a season of many mistakes he was never known to be wrong.... By a happy tact, not often so felicitously blended with pure evidence of soul, Abraham Lincoln knew when to speak, and never spoke too early or too late.... The memory of his statesmans.h.i.+p, translucent in the highest degree, and above the average, and openly faithful, more than almost any of this age has witnessed, to fact and right, will live in the hearts and minds of the whole Anglo-Saxon race, as one of the n.o.blest examples of that race's highest qualities. Add to all this that Abraham Lincoln was the humblest and pleasantest of men, that he had raised himself from nothing, and that to the last no grain of conceit or ostentation was found in him, and there stands before the world a man whose like we shall not soon look upon again."

In the remarks of M. Rouher, the French Minister, in the Legislative a.s.sembly, on submitting to that a.s.sembly the official despatch of the French Foreign Minister of the Charge at Was.h.i.+ngton, M. Rouher remarked, of Mr. Lincoln's personal character, that he had exhibited "that calm firmness and indomitable energy which belong to strong minds, and are the necessary conditions of the accomplishment of great duties. In the hour of victory he exhibited generosity, moderation and conciliation."

And in the despatch, which was signed by Mr. Drouyn de L'Huys, were the following expressions: "Abraham Lincoln exhibited, in the exercise of the power placed in his hands, the most substantial qualities. In him, firmness of character was allied to elevation of principle.... In reviewing these last testimonies to his exalted wisdom, as well as the examples of good sense, of courage, and of patriotism, which he has given, history will not hesitate to place him in the rank of citizens who have the most honored their country."

In the Prussian Lower House, Herr Loewes, in speaking of the news of the a.s.sa.s.sination, said that Mr. Lincoln "performed his duties without pomp or ceremony, and relied on that dignity of his inner self alone, which is far above rank, orders and t.i.tles. He was a faithful servant, not less of his own commonwealth than of civilization, freedom and humanity."

[22] _By permission of Dana Estes Company._

FROM 'THE GETTYSBURG ODE'

BY BAYARD TAYLOR

After the eyes that looked, the lips that spake Here, from the shadows of impending death, Those words of solemn breath, What voice may fitly break The silence, doubly hallowed, left by him?

We can but bow the head, with eyes grown dim, And as a Nation's litany, repeat The phrase his martyrdom hath made complete, n.o.ble as then, but now more sadly sweet: "Let us, the Living, rather dedicate Ourselves to the unfinished work, which they Thus far advanced so n.o.bly on its way, And saved the perilled State!

Let us, upon this field where they, the brave, Their last full measure of devotion gave, Highly resolve they have not died in vain!-- That, under G.o.d, the Nation's later birth Of Freedom, and the people's gain Of their own Sovereignty, shall never wane And perish from the circle of the earth!"

From such a perfect text, shall Song aspire To light her faded fire, And into wandering music turn Its virtue, simple, sorrowful, and stern?

His voice all elegies antic.i.p.ated; For, whatsoe'er the strain, We hear that one refrain: "We consecrate ourselves to them, the Consecrated!"

[Transcriber's Note: Some of the poem omitted in original.]

TRIBUTES

Thank G.o.d for Abraham Lincoln! However lightly the words may sometimes pa.s.s your lips, let us speak them now and always of this man sincerely, solemnly, reverently, as so often dying soldiers and bereaved women and little children spoke them. Thank G.o.d for Abraham Lincoln--for the Lincoln who died and whose ashes rest at Springfield--for the Lincoln who lives in the hearts of the American people--in their widened sympathies and uplifted ideals. Thank G.o.d for the work he did, is doing, and is to do. Thank G.o.d for Abraham Lincoln.

_James Willis Gleed._