Lincoln's Birthday : $b a comprehensive view of Lincoln as given in the most noteworthy essays, orations and poems, in fiction and in Lincoln's own writings
History
Lincoln's Birthday : $b a comprehensive view of Lincoln as given in the most noteworthy essays, orations and poems, in fiction and in Lincoln's own writings
Hardly had the late President been consigned to the grave when the
prime minister of England died, full of years and honors. Palmerston
traced his lineage to the time of the conqueror; LINCOLN went back
only to his grandfather. Palmerston received his education from the
best scholars of Harrow, Edinburg, and Cambridge; LINCOLN'S early
teachers were the silent forests, the prairie, the river, and the
stars. Palmerston was in public life for sixty years; LINCOLN for but
a tenth of that time. Palmerston was a skilful guide of an established
aristocracy; LINCOLN a leader, or rather a companion, of the people.
Palmerston was exclusively an Englishman, and made his boast in the
House of Commons that the interest of England was his Shibboleth;
LINCOLN thought always of mankind, as well as his own country, and
served human nature itself. Palmerston, from his narrowness as an
Englishman, did not endear his country to any one court or to any one
nation, but rather caused general uneasiness and dislike; LINCOLN left
America more beloved than ever by all the peoples of Europe.
Palmerston was self-possessed and adroit in reconciling the
conflicting factions of the aristocracy; LINCOLN, frank and ingenuous,
knew how to poise himself on the ever-moving opinions of the masses.
Palmerston was capable of insolence towards the weak, quick to the
sense of honor, not heedful of right; LINCOLN rejected counsel given
only as a matter of policy, and was not capable of being wilfully
unjust. Palmerston, essentially superficial, delighted in banter, and
knew how to divert grave opposition by playful levity; LINCOLN was a
man of infinite jest on his lips with saddest earnestness at his
heart. Palmerston was a fair representative of the aristocratic
liberality of the day, choosing for his tribunal, not the conscience
of humanity, but the House of Commons; LINCOLN took to heart the
eternal truths of liberty, obeyed them as the commands of Providence,
and accepted the human race as the judge of his fidelity. Palmerston
did nothing that will endure; LINCOLN finished a work which all time
cannot overthrow. Palmerston is a shining example of the ablest of a
cultivated aristocracy; LINCOLN is the genuine fruit of institutions
where the laboring man shares and assists to form the great ideas and
designs of his country. Palmerston was buried in Westminster Abbey by
the order of his Queen, and was attended by the British aristocracy to
his grave, which, after a few years, will hardly be noticed by the
side of the graves of Fox and Chatham; LINCOLN was followed by the
sorrow of his country across the continent to his resting-place in the
heart of the Mississippi valley, to be remembered through all time by
his countrymen, and by all the peoples of the world.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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