“I don’t think them are proper words, Rhett, to apply to Abraham Lincoln. I knowed him personally, you know, back in Illinois. I’ve told you that a hundred times. An’ I’ve studied him a good deal sence then, and I’ve come to the conclusion ’at they ain’t no man ever lived in this country who can see furder ahead, an’ know better how to git there’n Abe Lincoln. An’ I don’t believe no other president, or king, or emperor for that matter, has ever felt on his heart a personal responsibility for his country as Abe Lincoln has felt it, or has strove or struggled or strained or labored or prayed as Abe Lincoln hes, that his country might be saved an’ become great an’ happy. That’s what I say.” “But, Seth, that’s mere sentiment. Take the facts. Why can’t he see, if he has such marvelous insight, that the South is demanding merely her rights? All she wants now is to be let alone, to take her property and go, to govern herself as she sees fit. And when she is assured that she may do so, this war will cease, peace will come, the horrible struggle will be at an end. Why does Abraham Lincoln persist in striving to compel this brave people, by force of arms, to pass again under the galling yoke of his hostile government?” “I’ll tell ye why, Rhett. It’s becuz Abe Lincoln sees better’n they do what’s best fur ’em. He sees that ef the South was permitted to go an’ set up a separate govamint, an’ hev her own institutions an’ flag, an’ foreign ministers, an’ all that, ’at the next thing, by cracky! the Western states ’d want to jine up an’ do the same thing, with jest as good reason, an’ then the New England states ’d foller suit, an’ in less’n ten years they’d be a dozen different govamints, in place of the old United States, an’ they’d be everlastingly at each other’s throats, an’ they wouldn’t one of ’em amount to a hill o’ beans. It’d be rank folly; that’s what I say.”