War times and periods of great public agitation have always brought forth in every free country the most scurrilous and vicious denunciations and slanders of public men. Such vile vituperation of Washington, Lincoln and others in our stormy periods, if all printed would make many volumes that bear in numerous instances the logical appearance of authentic history. But when sifted down, each to its origin, it is always what some one, long since gone from the possibility of explanation, has said, or been supposed to say, who might have known or might have misunderstood.
Every young man, if not every boy, sooner or later hears, as if indisputable, the most vulgar stories about men whom the world has enrolled as their noblest benefactors. All the moral world then seems to go to pieces as these stories seem to be the truth. But it is a common evidence of the viciousness, the most degenerate and cowardly viciousness, that is thus seen to remain possible in the composition of common minds. Political perversions of the meaning and motives of public men are so common in election times that the only wonder is, the only reassurance is, how little the disease of slander prevails, and yet, alas, we may not see how much injury and despair it has caused and is causing in growing minds. Many delight in making respected people appear filthy. Somehow, it satisfies and excuses their own brains and degenerate character.
Many people vaguely know that an assertion may be wrong, they even more vaguely know what is the right thing, and, when some one appears to state clearly what is wrong, and to give a clear idea of what is right, and a clear vision of the right way, then he becomes the embodiment of the people and they follow him. It was thus that Lincoln was the superbly great man. In the days when Americanism was a mist and a fog in so many high places, Lincoln stood forth as the embodied patriotism and mind of America. When men stormed around him with ideas as diverse as the wind, he was a soul high and clear as the unchanging sun. The storm-makers are gone, but Lincoln remains, unchanged, one of the beacon lights of mankind.
Lincoln’s favorite poem reflects the deep burden of his own soul. It is a long poem written by William Knox, who was a much valued friend of Sir Walter Scott.
Four of the stanzas are as follows:
One of the great perils of the American republic, which makes progress so slow and misery so rich in victims, is the perversions which opponents put upon the words of public men, and the distortions which are given to their meaning. It is not only brutal, but to misshape righteous ideas is treason to those who receive them, and it brands such malefactors as criminal minds. The traitor and the liar are abhorred, but somehow we have not yet classified the unspeakable vice that deforms minds by disfiguring ideas so that they make a man say what he never said and to represent what he never was. This malignant vice is not above the village gossip and the vile tongue of common slander, but it has been especially the method of gamblers in the most sacred social interests, and of demagogues trying to control the election of officers and legislators for our government.
Such perversions were placed on Lincoln’s meaning throughout the South that his name was the most abhorred of all names, until the miseries of reconstruction, by contrast, so brought in comparisons that he became known as the one great soul who had not, through all the terrible struggle, ever uttered a single bitter word against them, and who was the one great friend who could have given them justice and peace.
Soon the typical view of the intelligent South was that “his untimely and tragic end was one of the severest catastrophes of the war,” and, to the South, his death was “the direst misfortune that ever darkened the calendar of its woes.”
Up to the time of his nomination and following him in many ways on to his death, the Eastern States took up the most trivial news items and used them for ridicule, as representing Lincoln to be the mere caricature of a man.
One of these minor incidents, showing this defaming method, is represented as follows in the newspaper headlines of New York and New England. The great news, in the midst of the fearful times, relating to this incident was usually introduced in these words, “Old Abe kisses a Pretty Girl.”
Here is the true story: A little girl named Grace Bedell lived at Westfield, New York. Her father was a republican, but her two brothers were democrats, and, therefore, hearing much excited argument, she was greatly interested. Of course, she was a republican and she wanted to help her father. Seeing a portrait of Lincoln gave her an idea. If Lincoln only had whiskers like her father, he would look better, and so her brothers might not be so much against him. No sooner was this improvement thought of than she hastened to put it into an earnest letter to Mr. Lincoln, telling him of her idea.
She seemed to think that all great men, like her father, must have a little girl, so she said in closing, “If you have no time to answer my letter, will you allow your little girl to reply for you?”
Such a letter could not be ignored by the great-hearted man to whom it came. He replied,
“Springfield, Illinois, Oct. 19, 1860.
“My dear little Miss:
“Your very agreeable letter of the fifteenth is received. I regret the necessity of saying I have no daughter. I have three sons; one seventeen; one nine, and one seven years of age. They, with their mother, constitute my whole family. As to whiskers, having never worn any, do you think people would call it a piece of silly affectation if I should begin now?
It happened, when on the journey to Washington to be inaugurated, that the train stopped at Westfield. Suddenly, in speaking to the people, he remembered.
“I have a little correspondent at this place,” he said, “I would like to see her.”
Some one called out and asked if Grace Bedell was in the crowd that surged around the train. Far back in the crowd the way began to open and a beautiful little girl came forward, timid but happy, to speak to the President-elect, who was also happy to show her that he had taken her advice and begun to grow a beard. The little girl was lifted up to him. He took her in his arms and tenderly kissed her forehead in the midst of the enthusiastic approval of a cheering multitude.
But the story ran the rounds of the East as the uncouth conduct of a backwoods demagogue.
As Europe got its idea of the new President from the New York and New England papers, he was believed by foreign leaders to be the proof of degenerate democracy and the failure of popular government. Throughout the war there was lavished upon him an unceasing tirade of caricature and lampoon. But they had been deceived. The shock of his assassination seemed to tear off the veil that blinded their eyes, and since then all the scholarship of Europe has analyzed his career as showing one of the great characters of the world. History finds that he was a prophet of ideal humanity, the farthest possible from despotic sovereignties. Dynastic states can never fight for a democratic government merely to preserve it, and democracies can never fight merely to preserve a party in power. It may very well be doubted that the North could have won the Civil War if there had not been involved the moral issues of human slavery. England would surely have intervened for the starving workers of their cottonmills, but the workers refused to have their cause supported by fastening slavery upon any part of the human race.
Lincoln Statue—Chicago, Illinois.
The way Lincoln looked at the malicious denunciations of his conduct of the war, the vile stories told about him and the wicked perversions of the things he said was once characterized by him in the story of an incident that happened to two Irish emigrants who had come out into the wilderness fresh from the Emerald Isle.
They were tramping their way through the West seeking for work. One evening they camped at the edge of a pond of water. Being tired, they were soon fast asleep. Suddenly they were awakened by a chorus of bellowing sounds the like of which they had never heard before. It was not comparable to anything they knew of man or beasts. Baum, gurgle and bellow it went here, there, and then seemingly everywhere. They grabbed their walking-stick shillelahs, ready to face the enemy, whether man, beast or devil. But nothing was to be seen. They crept forward, then boldly searched, strained their eyes in every direction and defied their enemy with many insulting challenges to show himself, but the scattering bellowing was all that could be found.
At last a happy thought struck one of them. “Jamie,” he cried to his companion, “I know what it is! It’s nothing but a noise.”
Lincoln took this attitude toward all minor things that could have absorbed his time for weightier questions.
When General Phelps captured Ship Island, near New Orleans, early in the war, he took upon himself the power of freeing all the slaves on the island. This looked like something very important to many people, who were surprised that Lincoln took no notice of it. At last he was taken to task for it, and he settled the whole question with a story.
There was once a man who was very meek but he had a very aggressive wife. He had the reputation of being badly henpecked. One day a friend saw the poor man’s wife switching him out of the house.
The first time the friend met the henpecked man, after that disgraceful episode, the friend said, “I have always stood up for you, as you well know, but now I am done with you. Any man who allows his wife to switch him out of the house deserves all he gets.”
The abused man patted his friend on the back and in a conciliating tone said, “Now don’t feel that way about it, it didn’t hurt me a bit, and you have no idea what a great amount of satisfaction it gives my dear wife.”
Lincoln saw things as symbols with moral meanings. On seeing a tree covered with a luxuriant vine, he said, “The vine is beautiful, but, like certain habits of men, it decorates the ruin it makes.”
Speaking of the difference in meaning between character and reputation, he said, “Character is like a tree and reputation is like its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it, but the real thing is the tree.”
Some influential people were urging him to declare the slaves free before conditions made such a thing practical. He pressed that point home to them with a question.
“How many legs,” he asked, “will a sheep have if you call the sheep’s tail a leg?”
They promptly answered five.
“You are wrong,” he replied, “for calling a sheep’s tail a leg won’t make it so.”
To importunate and impetuous persons Lincoln always had the right reply. Once a rather proud mother came before him with a rather haughty-looking son.
“Mr. President,” she said very conclusively, “you must give a Colonel’s commission to my son.”
He waited for her to explain why he must do so.
“Sir,” she exclaimed, “I have a right to demand it. My grandfather fought at Lexington; my uncle stood his ground at Blandensburg; my father fought at New Orleans; and my husband was killed at Monterey.”
“I guess, Madam,” Lincoln promptly replied, “that your family has done its share for its country. Let’s give others a chance.”
Our story here has to do only with episodes that compose the personal interest of Lincoln and does not take into consideration the usual public or political affairs that build up his historical character and national service. But the tragedy of his martyrdom has many important points of interest relating to the interpretation of his personal life. The Book of Fate opens only upon the past and we call it history, but it is the “light of experience” for social reason and the moral law.
On the evening of April 14, 1865, a happy party of distinguished friends were gathered for dinner with President Lincoln at the White House. Mrs. Lincoln, being the manager of social affairs, made up a theatre party to see Laura Keene play “Our American Cousin” at Ford’s Theatre. In the party were General Grant and his wife, and Governor Oglesby of Illinois. The box for the party having been procured in the morning, the manager of the theatre announced in the afternoon papers that the President and the Hero of Appomattox would be present at the farewell benefit performance of Miss Keene.
The house was filled, but the President came late, as Mr. and Mrs. Grant had decided to take the train that evening for the West, and Mrs. Lincoln had to rearrange the plans for her party, so as to include Major Rathburn and his stepsister, Miss Harris, daughter of Senator Harris of New York. The President desired to give up going, but, on being told how disappointed the public would be, he yielded to the persuasion and went.
They arrived about the middle of the first act and were received with loud applause, the people standing as the band played “Hail to the Chief.”
One can hardly refrain from pausing, as this scene comes before the mind, to wonder if the log-cabin boy had beheld this scene in a prophetic dream how extravagant and impossible it would have seemed.
On reaching the box, the President took a large arm-chair in front, with Mrs. Lincoln by his side on the right.
After they were seated, the interrupted play was resumed.
It was about the middle of the third act, the time 10.20, when the audience was startled by a shot, and immediately the shout, “Sic semper tyrannis” (so ever to tyrants). Next came the piercing shriek of Mrs. Lincoln, then a well-known actor, John Wilkes Booth, was seen to swing out over the box and fall heavily upon the stage.
The horrified people arose with cries of alarm and all was confusion, so that witnesses from the audience could see no more, and they poured forth into the streets with the dreadful news that the President had been shot.
Booth had desired to make the assassination as spectacular and sensational as possible. He prepared himself, just before the terrible deed, with a heavy drink of whisky in the nearby saloon. Going into the theatre from the front, he passed along the wall to the passageway leading to the box. He took out a visiting card and went up to the President’s messenger, who was sitting just outside. Presenting the card, he passed through the door into the aisle back of the box, closing and barring the door after him. Slipping in just behind the President, he aimed the pistol at the back of his victim’s head and fired the shot.
Some testify that his first words were “Revenge for the South.”
As the assassin swung himself over to take the twelve-foot leap to the stage, Major Rathburn of the party tried to catch him, and so received a severe wound on the hand from a dagger. An American flag draped the front of the stage, and in this Booth’s spur caught, throwing him so as to fracture his left leg, and which actually resulted in being the cause of his capture. This flag has thus been called the “mute avenger of its Nation’s Chief.”
Excited crowds were nothing new in Washington, but witnesses declare they never saw such insane despair as that with which the people expressed their grief. Shouting, frenzied men and women ran aimlessly here and there in a chaos of ungovernable disorder.
People could hardly believe that the hideous deed had been done by John Wilkes Booth, whose rising fame as a tragedian was only surpassed by his famous brother and father. But he had been recognized by Laura Keene, as with quick thought she grasped a glass of water and ran to the President’s box. She seemed to be almost the first to understand, and to reach the martyr’s side with help for him. She held his head in her lap while the doctors were examining the wound. Her silk dress stained with his blood is still kept with the sacred relics at his tomb in Springfield, Illinois.
The picture of that box party cannot be surpassed by anything ever set up in the romantic imagination. At the death-moment it contained five persons. One of them was the greatest man of his time, just emerging as victor in one of the most consequential struggles of all human history. The death blow was upon him from a type of man as utterly his opposite in everything making the form of man that anyone can conceive. He was of the most illustrious family of actors in his time, handsome, a fashionable beau, and a moral degenerate,—the most courted idler of the social show. For his deed he was destined in a few weeks to die the death of a beaten dog in a filthy stable. But no less in direful tragedy was the fate of the betrothed lovers, Major Rathburn and his stepsister, Miss Harris, who were the guests in that ghastly social hour. A few months later the young man went insane, killed his sweetheart and died in a madhouse.
Lincoln was still alive but unconscious when responsible persons, in a few minutes, came into control. He was carried across the street to the nearest room where he could be made as comfortable as possible. The doctors had no hope that he would ever return to consciousness. The surgeons and the nearest official friends were all that were allowed to remain in the little room with him. The pale light of a single gas jet flickered down over him. Secretary Stanton stood against the wall writing telegrams that told how the battle was going, and giving orders needed to keep the peace of that dark hour. At seven-twenty-two the next morning Lincoln’s heart ceased to beat and one of the greatest characters of history had passed from life.
Mr. Stanton closed the martyr’s eyes, drew the sheet over his face, and said, “Now he belongs to the Ages.”
The nation was in mourning at the unspeakable tragedy. Friend and foe had just begun to learn how great was the difference between him and other men. Coming as it did at the close of the war, in the very dawn of peace, the assassination seemed so needless and cruel, even in the name of his bitterest foe.
Walt Whitman wrote one of the most stirring appreciations of the time.
William Cullen Bryant wrote the ode for the funeral services held in New York City. Two of the stanzas are as follows:
Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote for the funeral services at Concord, Massachusetts, a poem of which the following is the last stanza:
Lincoln’s death was received throughout the South generally as the death of an enemy. Well do they know now that it could have been said of them then, “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
The sorrow throughout the North was as in the midst of Egypt’s ancient woe. It was as if “There was not a house where there was not one dead.”
As was once said of a great martyr of liberty, slain three centuries before, so it could be said of Lincoln, “He went through life bearing the load of a people’s sorrows upon his shoulders with a smiling face. While he lived he was the guiding star of a whole brave nation, and when he died the little children cried in the streets.”
Periodicals that had ridiculed him from his first appearance in their view, and that had caused many of their readers to believe him little better than a clown in the arena of affairs, or than a court fool before the nations, dropped their defaming caricatures of him, and gave him nearer justice.
One of the most belittling and besmirching periodicals of England against Lincoln was the “London Punch.” The war-president of the United States was, largely from this source of authority, the jest of all Europe.
But the issue following the assassination of Lincoln contained a great picture. It was symbolical of England laying a wreath of flowers upon Lincoln’s coffin. The picture was drawn by Tenniel and with it was a most penitent poem by Tom Taylor, who was author of the play, “Our American Cousin,” which Lincoln was attending when assassinated. Five of the expressive stanzas are as follows:
In 1879, at an unveiling in Boston of Freedman’s Memorial Statue, a duplicate of the original in Lincoln Square, Washington, a poem was read from Whittier, of which the last three stanzas are the most significant in their characterization. It beautifully expresses the faith that in righteousness is personal power, even as it also “exalteth a nation.”
Vachel Lindsay invokes the spirit of American patriotism when he says,
Herr Loewes in the Prussian Parliament said: “Mr. Lincoln performed his duties without pomp or ceremony, and relied on that dignity of the inner self alone, which is far above rank, orders and titles. He was a faithful servant, not less of his own country than of civilization, freedom and humanity.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes, writing of Lincoln’s death, said:
Samuel Francis Smith, author of the national hymn, “America,” in a long poetic tribute wrote:
Horace Fiske closed a poem inspired by the Saint Gaudens statue, as follows:
Theodore Roosevelt said, in an address on the character of Lincoln, “One of his most wonderful characteristics was the extraordinary way in which he could fight valiantly against what he deemed wrong, and yet preserve undiminished his love and respect for the brother from whom he differed.”
Woodrow Wilson said, “There was no point at which life touched him that he did not speak back to it instantly its meaning.”
Sir Spencer Walpole says in his history, “Of all men born to the Anglo-Saxon race in the nineteenth century, Abraham Lincoln deserves the highest place in history.”
The centennial anniversary of Lincoln’s birth called forth expressions of appreciation from over all the world. His memory and his meaning had not grown dim in the interests of humanity. A few typical examples illustrate the love and reverence inspired by his great work in the human cause.
James Oppenheim, in his poem in praise of the Lincoln child, says,
James Whitcomb Riley, writing of Lincoln, the boy, says in the last stanza:
Ambassador Bryce of England, speaking at Lincoln’s tomb before a vast gathering at the centennial anniversary of Lincoln’s birth, said, “To us in England, Lincoln is one of the heroes of the race from whence we sprung. Great men are the noblest possession of a Nation, and are potent forces in the moulding of national character. Their influence lives after them, and, if they be good as well as great, they remain as beacons lighting the course of all who follow them. They set for succeeding generations the standards of public life. They stir the spirit and rouse the energy of the youth who seek to emulate their virtues in the service of their country.”
Vice-President Fairbanks in an address at Harrisburg on that occasion said, “His life was spent in conflict. In his youth, he struggled with nature. At the bar of justice he contended for the rights of his clients. In the wider field of politics, he fought with uncommon power to overthrow the wrong and enthrone the right. He fought not for the love of conquest, but for the love of truth. By nature he was a man of peace. He instinctively loved justice, right, and liberty. His conscience impelled him to uphold the right whenever it was denied his fellowman.”
S. E. Kiser ended a centennial poem with the following stanza:
Virginia Boyle, in her poem for the Philadelphia Brigade Association, said in two of her stanzas:
Edwin Markham concluded a centennial poem as follows:
American freedom and democratic humanity require American minds to be composed of free-made ideas, organized efficiently for the righteous promotion of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” if we are ever to be safe in the faith that “government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth.”
The American order, however defective, even as it is composed of defective minds, is the only safety for a free humanity. The Western hemisphere is under the control of that democratic order, and America is large enough and powerful enough to stand alone, in clear vision and unadulterated theory, for the rights of man. America alone is clear-minded enough for the unprejudiced and unbiased championship of a free-minded world.
Washington and Lincoln reached the heights from which they saw together one vision of the Promised Land, “ordained from the foundations of the world” for the chosen order of human evolution. They wanted no “entangling alliances” with a foreign order, or a fragmentary system of human freedom. Americans have so far kept the peace with the uncompromised moral law of the “free and equal” rights of man. America is dedicated to the proposition that a compromised order of freedom and equality, either through treaty or war, shall never invade the Western Hemisphere.
American youth, and every newcomer entitled to home or refuge on American soil, must know the truth that makes men free. That truth is marvellously embodied in the lives of Washington and Lincoln. Their careers and patriotism have been contrasted and unified by many learned students of their meaning for America. The characterization of their lives, as significant for Americans, and needing much to be well understood, has been nobly done by Charles Sumner. The more important part of that impressive valuation is as follows:
“The work left undone by Washington was continued by Lincoln. Kindred in service, kindred in patriotism, each was naturally surrounded at death by kindred homage. One sleeps in the East, the other sleeps in the West; and thus, in death, as in life, one is the complement of the other.
“Each was at the head of the republic during a period of surpassing trial; and each thought only of the public good, simply, purely, constantly, so that single-hearted devotion to country will always find a synonym in their names. Each was the national chief during a time of successful war. Each was the representative of his country at a great epoch of history.
“Unlike in origin, conversation, and character, they were unlike, also, in the ideas which they served, except so far as each was the servant of his country. The war conducted by Washington was unlike the war conducted by Lincoln,—as the peace which crowned the arms of the one was unlike the peace which began to smile upon the other. The two wars did not differ in the scale of operations, and in the tramp of mustered hosts, more than in the ideas involved. The first was for national independence; the second was to make the republic one and indivisible, on the indestructible foundations of liberty and equality. In the relation of cause and effect, the first was the natural precursor and herald of the second. By the sword of Washington independence was secured; but the unity of the republic and the principles of the Declaration were left exposed to question. From that day to this, through various chances, they have been questioned, and openly assailed,—until at last the republic was constrained to take up arms in their defence.
“Such are these two great wars in which these two chiefs bore such part. Washington fought for national independence and triumphed, making his country an example to mankind. Lincoln drew a reluctant sword to save those great ideas, essential to the life and character of the republic. * * *
“Rejoice as you point to this child of the people, who was lifted so high that republican institutions became manifest in him! * * * Above all, see to it that his constant vows are fulfilled, and that the promises of the fathers are maintained, so that no person in the upright form of man can be shut out from their protection. Then will the unity of the republic be fixed on a foundation that cannot fail, and other nations will enjoy its security. The cornerstone of national independence is already in its place, and on it is inscribed the name of George Washington. There is another stone which must have its place at the corner also. This is the Declaration of Independence, with all its promises fulfilled. On this stone we will gratefully inscribe the name of Abraham Lincoln.”
Emancipation Statue of Lincoln—Washington, D. C.
Carlyle says that “sincerity, a deep, great, genuine sincerity, is the first characteristic of all men in any way heroic. All great men have this as the primary material in them.” This is why the so-called “art for art’s sake” never can be great. It is sincerity for merely formal success, and not for the spirit of “life more abundantly.” Formal efficiency is achieved only in the complicated training of an extended education, but social efficiency of immeasurably greater value is the simplicity of knowledge. It is the source and explanation of all interests, and in that learning, Lincoln had no superior. He never achieved any good that he did not at once want to share it with others. As a boy he never learned anything good that he did not want to express it to others. In this process of receiving and giving is the fundamental means of building character and mind. In teaching others, he taught himself, and thus in losing his life he found it. In being able to tell his observations and interpretations to his comrades, he was training to be the schoolmaster of the world.
Lincoln’s earnest sincerity relating to himself, his associates, his community, his country, and for all mankind, may be illustrated in a few quotations:
“The man who will not investigate both sides of a question is dishonest.”
“After all, the one meaning of life is simply to be kind.”
“I have not done much, but this I have done—wherever I have found a thistle growing, I have tried to pluck it up, and in its place to plant a flower.”
“I have been too familiar with disappointment, to be very much chagrined by defeat.”
“Without the assistance of that Divine Being I cannot succeed, and with that assistance I cannot fail.”
“If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time, or die by suicide.”
“A majority held in restraint by constitutional checks and limitations, and always changing easily with deliberate changes of popular opinions and sentiments, is the only true sovereign of a free people.”
“Twenty-five years ago I was a hired laborer. The hired laborer of yesterday may labor on his own account today, and hire others to labor for him to-morrow. Advancement and improvement in conditions is the order of things in a society of equals,—in a democracy.”
In a speech at Columbus, Ohio, September 16, 1859, he said, “I believe there is a genuine popular sovereignty. I think a definition of genuine popular sovereignty, in the abstract, would be about this: That each man shall do precisely as he pleases with himself, and with all those things which exclusively concern him. Applied to government this principle would be, that a general government shall do all those things which pertain to it, and all the local governments shall do precisely as they please in respect to those matters which exclusively concern them. I understand that this government of the United States, under which we live, is based upon that principle; and I am misunderstood if it is supposed that I have any war to make upon that principle.”
But, there is a patriotic masterpiece of Lincoln’s thought, which, with the reinforcement of occasion and place, such as the field of Gettysburg was, contains all the unmeasurable and priceless meaning of Lincoln for American patriotism and the manhood of America. It is his address of dedication on the battlefield of Gettysburg. In effect on the human mind, it probably can never be surpassed as a message of political freedom for the rights of man.
The battle of Gettysburg is regarded by historians as one of the decisive battles of the world. It was fought July 2, 3 and 4, 1863. On the first anniversary, a great national meeting was held there to dedicate the ground as a government burial place for the soldiers who had died there.
Mr. Seward, Secretary of State, on the eve of the dedication, in the course of an address, said, “I thank my God for the hope that this is the last fratricidal war which will fall upon this country, vouchsafed us from heaven, as the richest, the broadest, the most beautiful and capable of a great destiny, that has ever been given to any part of the human race.”
At the opening of the ceremonies, before a vast concourse of people, from all the Northern states, convened on the open battlefield, Rev. T. H. Stockton said in the course of his dedicatory prayer, “In behalf of all humanity, whose ideal is divine, whose first memory is Thine image lost, and whose last hope is Thine image restored, and especially of our own nation, whose history has been so favored, whose position is so peerless, whose mission is so sublime, and whose future so attractive, we thank Thee for the unspeakable patience of Thy compassion, and the exceeding greatness of Thy loving kindness.... By this Altar of Sacrifice, on this Field of Deliverance, on this Mount of Salvation, within the fiery and bloody line of these ‘munitions of rocks,’ looking back to the dark days of fear and trembling, and to the rapture of relief that came after, we multiply our thanksgivings and confess our obligations.... Our enemies ... prepared to cast the chain of Slavery around the form of Freedom, binding life and death together forever.... But, behind these hills was heard the feeble march of a smaller, but still pursuing host. Onward they hurried, day and night, for God and their country. Footsore, wayworn, hungry, thirsty, faint,—but not in heart,—they came to dare all, to bear all, and to do all that is possible to heroes.... Baffled, bruised, broken, their enemies recoiled, retired and disappeared.... But oh, the slain!... From the Coasts beneath the Eastern Star, from the shores of Northern lakes and rivers, from the flowers of Western prairies, and from the homes of the Midway and Border, they came here to die for us and for mankind.... As the trees are not dead, though their foliage is gone, so our heroes are not dead, though their forms have fallen.... The spirit of their example is here. And, so long as time lasts, the pilgrims of our own land, and from all lands, will thrill with its inspiration.”
Edward Everett, as the orator of the day, said in the course of his scholarly address, “As my eye ranges over the fields whose sod was so recently moistened by the blood of gallant and loyal men, I feel, as never before, how truly it was said of old, ‘it is sweet and becoming to die for one’s country.’ I feel, as never before, how justly from the dawn of history to the present time, men have paid the homage of their gratitude and admiration to the memory of those who nobly sacrificed their lives, that their fellowmen may live in safety and honor.... I do not believe there is in all history, the record of a Civil War of such gigantic dimensions where so little has been done in the spirit of vindictiveness as in this war.... There is no bitterness in the hearts of the masses.... The bonds that unite us as one People,—a substantial community of origin, language, belief and law; common, national and political interests ... these bonds of union are of perennial force and energy, while the causes of alienation are imaginary, factitious and transient. The heart of the People, North and South, is for the Union.... The weary masses of the people are yearning to see the dear old flag floating over their capitols, and they sigh for the return of peace, prosperity and happiness, which they enjoyed under a government whose power was felt only in its blessings.... You feel, though the occasion is mournful, that it is good to be here! God bless the Union! It is dearer to us for the blood of brave men which has been shed in its defense.... ‘The whole earth,’ said Pericles, as he stood over the remains of his fellow citizens, who had fallen in the first year of the Peloponnesian War, ‘the whole earth is the sepulchre of illustrious men.’ All time, he might have added, is the millennium of their glory.”
The place and the occasion were supremely inspiring to patriotism, not only for the triumph of moral principle in one’s country, but for its meaning to all humanity. The great battlefield spread out before the eyes of the vast concourse gathered there from all the states, and the spirit of the heroic scenes animated every mind.
Edward Everett, then regarded as the greatest orator in America, had delivered the dedicatory oration through a long strain of attention, during the weary and fatiguing hours. The President was then called on to close the dedication with whatever he might feel desirable to say. He did so in a few words, but these few words are cherished as among the greatest contributions to the meaning of civilization. To one of the decisive battles for freedom in the world, it gave a starry crown from “the voice of the people” as “the voice of God.”
The War Department appropriated five thousand dollars to cast this speech in bronze and set it up on the battlefield of Gettysburg. It is regarded as a masterpiece of dedication in the literature of the world.
“Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
“Now we are engaged in a great civil war testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
“But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.
“It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us: that from the same honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead should not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
The understanding person who becomes conscious of a meaning for his life, realizes a most important responsibility to work for the betterment of his mind and the material conditions that are to become as his future self. The moral person, who becomes conscious of a meaning for human life, works for this betterment as his contribution to the progress of posterity. This means that a moral individual coincides with a social humanity. Anything not thus harmonizing morally for the world as it is, in order to promote a world as it ought to be, is an enemy of both self and society.
Lincoln admonishes us to remember that “The struggle of today is not altogether for today,—it is for a vast future also.” We learned rapidly, when the true situation came into our view, that, as Professor Phelps voiced it long ago, “To save America we must save the world.” American patriotism is clearly world-patriotism, and it has become synonymous with humanity. This old truth was discovered by the Revolutionary Fathers, and it is the mission of America to make it the truth of the World.
The International Teachers’ Congress representing eighteen nations, which met at Liege in 1905, adopted five definite ideas of International Peace, that should be promoted through all available ways, in all the schools of civilized nations. Briefly stated, those fundamental ideas were as follows:
1. The morality of individuals is the same for people and nations.
2. The ideal of brotherly love has no limit.
3. All life must be duly respected.
4. Human rights are the same for one and all.
5. Love of country coincides with love of humanity.
Such principles and such a definition of patriotism were upheld by the makers and preservers of America, at the greatest cost of treasure and life, and they are the life-interest of every one worthy of the name American. It moved Bishop J. P. Newman to say of Lincoln in his anniversary oration of 1894, “Lincoln’s mission was as large as his country, vast as humanity, enduring as time. No greater thought can ever enter the human mind than obedience to law and freedom for all.... Time has vindicated the character of his statesmanship, that to preserve the Union was to save this great nation for human liberty.”
American faith has at last come to the conditions when it can realize itself in fulfilling the moral work of the world. That vision came into full view during the Great European War.
President Wilson, in his address to Congress, April 2, 1917, said:
“We are at the beginning of an age in which it will be insisted that the same standards of conduct and of responsibility for wrong shall be observed among nations and their Governments that are observed among the individual citizens of civilized states.”
Congress acted upon this reaffirmation of the responsibility of Americans and the mission of America. Concerning the monstrous invasion of humanity and ruthless denial of international law, he said:
“Neutrality is no longer feasible or desirable where the peace of the world is involved and the freedom of its peoples and the menace to that peace and freedom lies in the existence of autocratic Governments backed by organized force which is controlled wholly by their will, not by the will of their people. We have seen the last of neutrality in such circumstances.”
The Way of Peace, as the morality of democracies, he clearly defined, so that even the worst prejudice could not becloud the issue with irrelevant or contradictory assertions.
“A steadfast concert for peace can never be maintained except by a partnership of democratic nations. No autocratic Government could be trusted to keep faith within it or observe its covenants. It must be a league of honor, a partnership of opinion. Intrigue would eat its vitals away; the plotters of inner circles who could plan what they would and render account to no one would be a corruption seated at its very heart. Only free peoples can hold their purpose and their honor steady to a common end and prefer the interests of mankind to any narrow interest of their own.”
Washington was charged with the heroic task of making the thirteen colonies safe for “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness;” Lincoln’s patriotic mission was to unchain this Ideal for all America: and Wilson’s sublime conception was to make the world “safe for democracy,” that its peace might be planted on “the trusted foundations of liberty.”
A mind-union upon human meaning as an ideal is necessary for the patriotism of America. The right to life means that the making of right life has a right way. Those who deny the meaning of America divest themselves of all claims in reason upon the rights of life defined in American history. The American kingdom of right is perfecting itself as rapidly as minds can be mobilized for its sublime task. The war-message extending the definition of American freedom says:
“We have no selfish ends to serve. We desire no conquest, no dominion. We seek no indemnities for ourselves, no material compensation for the sacrifices we shall freely make. We are but one of the champions of the rights of mankind. We shall be satisfied when those rights have been made as secure as the faith and the freedom of the nations can make them.”
And, finally, the duty of every American, worthy of America, enters the third epoch of American history, as did the patriot duty of Washington and Lincoln in their time. The message concludes in these measured terms:
“It is a fearful thing to lead this great, peaceful people into war—into the most terrible and disastrous of all wars, civilization itself seeming to be in the balance.
“But the right is more precious than peace, and we shall fight for the things which we have always carried nearest our hearts—for democracy, for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own Governments, for the rights and liberties of small nations, for a universal dominion of right by such a concert of free peoples as shall bring peace and safety to all nations and make the world itself at last free.
“To such a task we can dedicate our lives and our fortunes, everything that we are and everything that we have, with the pride of those who know that the day has come when America is privileged to spend her blood and her might for the principles that gave her birth and happiness and the peace which she has treasured. God helping her, she can do no other.”
The world in its social evolution has come on through its immemorial struggle to the crisis in its history, where civilization, as liberty in moral law, can progress further only as the forces of humanity are organized “to make the world safe for democracy.” The final truth is that the world will be made safe for democracy when democracy is made safe for the individual. All political creeds, religious interests and moral ideals, must have this democracy in which to work, before they can become free to develop their own truth.
Autocratic egotism, whether framed in national or personal will, among many or few, must perish from the earth, with all its spoils and masteries, before there can be any possible “government of the people, for the people and by the people.” As “a house divided against itself cannot stand,” so, a civilization cannot stand whose humanity is divided into the three special interests known to us as individuals, the nation and an alien world.
The human task of conscience and reason, made clear in the progress of experience, finds the humanity of child, mother and man in all its relations and interests, or it has not found God or the meaning of the Universe.
Human peace and salvation are gained, not only through persuasion, education and regeneration, but also that the composing conditions of “peace on earth” shall be made materially safe for “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
Physically, as well as spiritually, the faith that is “without works is dead.” The righteousness that allows its right to be defeated is not righteous, and the conscience that permits the crimes of inhumanity is no less unlawful before man and God. In such conditions, the prophet cried out, “Cursed be he that doeth the work of the Lord negligently, and cursed be he that keepeth back his sword from blood.”
The American democracy of Washington and Lincoln, with their hosts of devoted associates, means individual righteousness and responsibility making safe the free-born mind for a moral world. What is an American and why so is the patriotic and religious interest developed through ages of sacrifice and suffering. Only those who are willing “to give the last full measure of devotion” to that divine work are heirs to the humanity of Washington and Lincoln, and who are thus entitled to be named Americans, or are worthy to share the heritage of America.