Abraham Lincoln: The True Story of a Great Life, Volume 1 (of 2) — John Shaqi
Abraham Lincoln: The True Story of a Great Life, Volume 1 (of 2)Herndon, William Henry
History
Abraham Lincoln: The True Story of a Great Life, Volume 1 (of 2)
Herndon, William Henry
Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865
But more than intellectual gifts, more than good-fellowship, did the
sense of justice give him his hold on others. That was a magnetic field
whose influences could not be escaped. He carried it as unconsciously
as he carried his hair. The Athenians would never have ostracized
him--indeed, they would never have called him the Just. They would have
taken him as they took the bees on Hymettus--as one naturally searching
after sweet things.
To say that Mr. Lincoln was a man who had the courage of his convictions
would be rather an under-statement. This was part and parcel of his
sense of justice. He wore it as he wore his clothes, except that it
fitted him much better than his garments usually did. At the time I
first knew him it was irksome to very many of his friends to be told
that there ought to be an efficient fugitive slave law. But it was his
conviction as a lawyer that there ought to be one, and he never failed
to say so when interrogated, or when occasion required that that subject
should be touched upon. And it is a fact that abolitionists like Lovejoy
and Codding would take this from Lincoln without murmuring, when they
would not take it from anybody else. He never would echo the popular
cry, "No more slave States!" Whenever this subject was discussed he
would say that if a Territory having the requisite population and
belonging to us should apply for admission to the Union without fraud or
constraint, yet with slavery, he could not see any other disposition to
be made of her than to admit her. And when he had said this, even to an
audience of radical antislavery men, there would be no protestations.
Those who were not convinced would observe a respectful silence.
Mr. Lincoln's facial expression when in repose and when animated
presented most remarkable contrasts. I have before me a photograph of
him taken at Pittsfield, Illinois, during the campaign of 1858. It looks
as I have seen him a hundred times, his lantern jaws and large mouth
and solid nose firmly set, his sunken eyes looking at nothing yet not
unexpressive, his wrinkled and retreating forehead cut off by a mass
of tousled hair, with a shade of melancholy drawn like a veil over
his whole face. Nothing more unlike this can be imagined than the same
Lincoln when taking part in a conversation, or addressing an audience,
or telling a story. The dull, listless features dropped like a mask. The
melancholy shadow disappeared in a twinkling. The eye began to sparkle,
the mouth to smile, the whole countenance was wreathed with animation,
so that a stranger would have said: "Why, this man, so angular and
somber a moment ago, is really handsome."
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