Anybody can be a giant in heroism and reform among Hottentots and South Sea savages. But the era of the Civil War was an era of heroes. Great men walked in regiments up and down the land. It was the age of Daniel Webster, whose genius is so wonderful that he achieved the four supreme things of four realms,--the greatest legal argument we have, the Dartmouth College case; the greatest plea before a judge and jury, the Knapp murder case; our finest outburst of inspirational eloquence, the oration at Bunker Hill; the greatest argument in defense of the Constitution, his reply to Hayne. It was the age of John C. Calhoun, a statesman whose political theories led half a continent to deeds of daring war. It was the era of Seward, the all-round scholar, of Chase the greatest secretary of treasury since Alexander Hamilton, a man who struck the rock with the rod of his genius, and made the waters of finance flow forth from the desert. It was the age of our greatest orators, for then Wendell Phillips and Beecher were at their best. It was the era of Emerson, the philosopher; of Theodore Parker, the reformer; of Garrison, the abolitionist; of Lovejoy, the martyr; of Lowell and Whittier, the poets of freedom; of Greeley, the editor; it was also the age of the greatest soldiers, Grant and Sherman, and Sheridan and Lee. The great man is a form of fruit ripened in an atmosphere made warm and genial, and the climate that nurtured Lincoln unfolded the talents that represented also other forms of mental fruit. Among these men Lincoln lived and wrote and spoke, and suffered and died;--but he stands forth a master among men, an indisputable genius, one of the five supreme statesmen of all history. Now if we are to understand the unique place of Abraham Lincoln in our history we must recall again for a moment the men who set the battle lines in array. Unfortunately, most of our histories tell our children and youth that the Civil War raged about the slave. As a matter of fact, slavery was the occasion of the war, but not the cause. Slavery was the sulphur match that exploded the powder magazine, though the powder magazine could have been set off by a spark from the flint and steel, or a hundred other methods. The Civil War was really fought over the question whether a constitutionally formed nation dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal could permanently endure. The whole period from 1789 to 1865 was a critical period, during which the Constitution was being tested and tried out.