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
"But was not Mr. Lincoln a man of great humanity?" asks a friend at my
elbow, a little angrily; to which I reply, "Has not that question been
answered already?" Let us suppose that it has not. We must understand
each other. What do you mean by humanity? Do you mean that he had much
of human nature in him? If so, I will grant that he was a man of
humanity. Do you mean, if the above definition is unsatisfactory,
that Mr. Lincoln was tender and kind? Then I agree with you. But if
you mean to say that he so loved a man that he would sacrifice truth
and right for him, for love's sake, then he was not a man of humanity.
Do you mean to say that he so loved man, for love's sake, that his
heart led him out of himself, and compelled him to go in search of the
objects of his love, for their sake? He never, to my knowledge,
manifested this side of his character. Such is the law of human
nature, that it cannot be all head, all conscience, and all heart at
one and the same time in one and the same person. Our Maker made it
so, and where God through reason blazed the path, walk therein boldly.
Mr. Lincoln's glory and power lay in the just combination of head,
conscience, and heart, and it is here that his fame must rest, or not
at all.
Not only were Mr. Lincoln's perceptions good; not only was nature
suggestive to him; not only was he original and strong; not only had
he great reason, good understanding; not only did he love the true and
good--the eternal right; not only was he tender and kind--but in due
proportion and in legitimate subordination, had he a glorious
combination of them all. Through his perceptions--the suggestiveness
of nature, his originality and strength; through his magnificent
reason, his understanding, his conscience, his tenderness and
kindness, his heart, rather than love--he approximated as nearly as
most human beings in this imperfect state to an embodiment of the
great moral principle, "Do unto others as ye would they should do
unto you."
"WITH CHARITY FOR ALL"
BY WILLIAM T. SHERMAN
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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