Men of Our Times; Or, Leading Patriots of the Day: Being narratives of the lives and deeds of statesmen, generals, and orators. Including biographical sketches and anecdotes of Lincoln, Grant, Garrison, Sumner, Chase, Wilson, Greeley, Farragut, Andrew, Colfax, Stanton, Douglass, Buckingham, Sherman, Sheridan, Howard, Phillips and Beecher.Stowe, Harriet Beecher
History
Men of Our Times; Or, Leading Patriots of the Day: Being narratives of the lives and deeds of statesmen, generals, and orators. Including biographical sketches and anecdotes of Lincoln, Grant, Garrison, Sumner, Chase, Wilson, Greeley, Farragut, Andrew, Colfax, Stanton, Douglass, Buckingham, Sherman, Sheridan, Howard, Phillips and Beecher.
Stowe, Harriet Beecher
United States -- Biography; United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Biography
"One day, as President Lincoln drove past a Washington hotel, sitting
alone in his carriage, three gentlemen stood talking in front of
the hotel. One of them, a foreigner of high cultivation and great
distinction, with a gesture quite involuntary, raised his hat and
remained uncovered until Mr. Lincoln had passed by. One of his
companions, surprised at so much ceremony, observed, "You forget that
you are in republican America and not in Russia." "Not at all, sir--not
at all," was the reply, given with a certain indignation; "that is the
only living ruler whom I sincerely reverence. I could not avoid showing
the feeling, if I would. He is a patriot, a statesman, a great-hearted
honest man. You Americans reverence nothing in the present." And
after a few more sentences to the like effect, he ended by saying:
"Not only your posterity, but the posterity of all the peoples which
love honesty and revere patriotism, will declare that the part which
President Lincoln was called to perform, required the exercise of as
noble qualities as the 'Father of his Country' ever possessed. It is
any thing but a credit to you that you do not better appreciate the man
whom God has sent in these perilous times to rule the people of this
republic."
The rebuke was received in silence. But such cases were very few. The
general tone of foreign opinion about him was thoroughly unjust. Not so
the obituary testimonials from across the sea.
On the first of May, 1865, Sir George Grey, in the English House of
Commons, moved an address to the Crown, to express the feelings of the
House upon the assassination of Mr. Lincoln. In this address he said
that he was convinced that Mr. Lincoln "in the hour of victory, and in
the triumph of victory, would have shown that wise forbearance, and
that generous consideration, which would have added tenfold lustre to
the fame that he had already acquired, amidst the varying fortunes of
the war."
In seconding the same address, at the same time and place, Mr. Benjamin
Disraeli said: "But in the character of the victim, and in the very
accessories of his almost latest moments, there is something so homely
and so innocent that it takes the subject, as it were, out of the pomp
of history, and out of the ceremonial of diplomacy. It touches the
heart of nations, and appeals to the domestic sentiments of mankind."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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