courage was never questioned. His integrity is above suspicion. All this is well known. But is all this enough to make a great man in the middle of this century; a great man in America, and for such an office? Judge for yourselves. I sincerely believe that he was more of a man than his political supporters thought him; that he had more natural sagacity, more common sense, more firmness of purpose, and very much more honesty than they expected or desired. Rumors reach me that he was not found quite so manageable as his "friends" and admirers had hoped; that he had some conscience and a will of his own. It seems to me that he honestly intended to be an honest and impartial ruler, the President of his country; that he took Washington for his general model; that he never sought the office, and at first did not desire it, but when he came to it endeavored to deserve well of his country and do well by mankind. But with the best intentions, what could such a man do, especially with such foes, and more especially with such friends. It is said he was a religious man: sometimes that means that a man loves God and loves men; sometimes that he is superstitious, formal, hypocritical, that he does not love men, and is afraid of God, or of a devil. I do not know in which sense the word is used in reference to him. But it appears to me that he was a man of veracity, honest, upright, and downright too; a good father, a good husband, a good friend, faithful to his idea of duty; very plain, very unpretending, mild and yet firm, good-natured, free and easy. There were many that loved him; a rare circumstance among politicians. He was a temperate man, also, remarkably temperate, and such temperance as his is not a very common virtue in high political and social stations in America, as we all know too well. These are all the good qualities I can make out his title to. I suppose there are some ten thousand men in Massachusetts that are his equals in all these qualities, as honest, as able, and as patriotic as he. It is hardly worth while to worship those qualities in a President which are not rare in farmers, and traders, and butchers and mechanics. There are two things which seem to me decidedly wrong in his public career. His partisans at the North claimed that he was hostile to slavery. I never could find any reason for that opinion: at the South his friends insisted that he was the decided friend of slavery. When his opinion was asked on this matter, he remained steadily and pertinaciously silent. To me this does not seem honest or manly.