And to Lincoln's singular honor it must always be allowed that through all the terrible hours while that crisis was being passed, it was pre-eminently due to Lincoln's mighty moral optimism that our Union was preserved. Amid all the turbulence of armies and arms, his assurance of our national perpetuity was so deeply, firmly based, as to be itself invested and informed with perpetuity. So commanding was his posture of heroic, triumphant confidence, that it mightily availed to guide and steady the Nation through the crisis into an era of internal and international peace. But not merely did Lincoln's composure prevail to secure that this Nation should not dissolve. It also wrought prevailingly to perpetuate our liberty. Throughout the crisis the issue held in stake was whether the Nation should be wholly slave or wholly free. Those were the alternatives between which Lincoln's care and fear, and the Nation's fortune and fate were hung. Throughout the crisis Lincoln's hope was that the Nation should be forever wholly free. His fear was that the Nation might be wholly slave. But above that fear, that hope steadfastly prevailed. One who studies Lincoln through those days comes to feel unerringly that deep beneath an anxiety that seemed at times almost to overwhelm his life, there lay a supreme assurance that, when the crisis should have passed, it should stand clear beyond debate, and sure beyond all doubt, that here in this favored land the chance of all the sons of men should be forever equal, fair, and free. Astutely heedful of the power of selfish, sordid greed; deeply conscious of the blind defiance of scorn and pride; painfully aware of the awful capacity of a human heart for cruelty and hate; and sharp to see how reason yields to prejudice, when chivalry becomes a counterfeit; he still found grounds to hold his anchored hope for universal liberty and brotherhood. This deep-based confidence deserves to be well understood. It is a primary phenomenon in Lincoln's life. How in the deepest welter of violence and strife could Lincoln's mood retain such level evenness? How in all that continental turbulence could he keep so unperturbed? How, through all that confusion was he never confused? In truth his days were mostly dark and sad. Sorrows did overwhelm him. How did his anchorage hold unchanged? When the very hills gave way, his foundations seemed to stay. The assurance to which his soul was attached seemed all but omnipotent. What was the secret, what the ground of such phenomenal steadiness? To answer these inquiries is but to rehearse again what has already been repeatedly made plain. This massive sturdiness of Lincoln's statesmanship, this unalterable political reliability lay inwrought in the hardy fiber of his moral character.