"When I saw him at Gettysburg as he exclaimed, 'That we here highly resolve that the dead shall not have died in vain; that the nation shall, under God, have a new birth of freedom, and that the government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth!'--when I heard him declare in his second inaugural address, 'Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled up by the bondman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years, so still it must be said, "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."... With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right,'--as I looked upon him and heard him utter these sentiments, upon these occasions, Abraham Lincoln was the most solemn, the most dignified, the most majestic, and at the same time the most benignant human being I ever saw. "Rochefoucauld says that 'Gravity is a mystery of the body invented to conceal defects of the mind.' Lord Shaftesbury says that 'Gravity is the very essence of imposture.' Abraham Lincoln had none of this. "Man is the most serious of animals. Man is the most frivolous of animals. It is said that man is the only animal that can both laugh and cry. Abraham Lincoln gave full vent to his emotions. He went through life with no restraints nor manacles upon his human nature. He was honest in the expression of his feelings, whether serious or otherwise, honest in their manifestation, honest with himself. "It was because Abraham Lincoln was the most human of human beings that he is loved as has never been any other man that ever lived."--CLARK E. CARR: _My Day and Generation_, pp. 107-9. There was much reason for this wide disparity of opinion in the varying moods of Lincoln himself, and the contrary aspects of his personality. But this was not the sole reason. Springfield itself was greatly divided concerning Mr. Lincoln. There were lawyers who had been on opposing sides of cases against him and had sometimes won them. There were all the petty animosities which grow up in a small city. Furthermore, Springfield was moderately full of disappointed people who had expected that their friendship for Lincoln would have procured for them some political appointment. Any political aspirant living in Maine or Missouri who had a fourth cousin living in Springfield and possessed of a speaking acquaintance with Mr. Lincoln, felt that he and his kinsfolk suffered an unmerited discourtesy if Mr. Lincoln through such influence did not produce on application a commission as Major-General or an appointment as Ambassador to some foreign court.