The Life Story of Abraham Lincoln - 10

The Life Story of Abraham Lincoln 

In one respect Mr. Lincoln
was more fortunate than Henry. However some may think him
wanting in zeal, the most fanatical can find no taint of
apostasy in any measure of his, nor can the most bitter
charge him with being influenced by motives of personal
interest. The leading distinction between the policies of
the two is one of circumstances. Henry went over to the
nation; Mr. Lincoln has steadily drawn the nation over to
him. One left a united France; the other, we hope and
believe, will leave a reunited America. We leave our readers
to trace the further points of difference and resemblance for
themselves, merely suggesting a general similarity which has
often occurred to us. One only point of melancholy interest
we will allow ourselves to touch upon. That Mr. Lincoln is
not handsome nor elegant, we learn from certain English
tourists who would consider similar revelations in regard to
Queen Victoria as thoroughly American in the want of
*bienseance.* It is no concern of ours, nor does it affect
his fitness for the high place he so worthily occupies; but
he is certainly as fortunate as Henry in the matter of good
looks, if we may trust contemporary evidence. Mr. Lincoln
has also been reproached with Americanism by some not
unfriendly British critics; but, with all deference, we
cannot say that we like him any the worse for it, or see in
it any reason why he should govern Americans the less wisely.
(1) One of Henry's titles was Prince of Bearn, that being
the old province of France from which he came. People of
more sensitive organizations may be shocked, but we are glad
that in this our true war of independence, which is to free
us forever from the Old World, we have had at the head of our
affairs a man whom America made, as God made Adam, out of the
very earth, unancestried, unprivileged, unknown, to show us
how much truth, how much magnanimity, and how much statecraft
await the call of opportunity in simple manhood when it
believes in the justice of God and the worth of man.
Conventionalities are all very well in their proper place,
but they shrivel at the touch of nature like stubble in the
fire. The genius that sways a nation by its arbitrary will
seems less august to us than that which multiplies and
reinforces itself in the instincts and convictions of an
entire people. Autocracy may have something in it more
melodramatic than this, but falls far short of it in human
value and interest.