Mr. Lincoln served in Congress. Did he cut any figure there? None whatever. He appeared to be out of his element. His Congressional record is not to be compared to that of Thaddeus Stevens or Stephen A. Douglas. We look into the lives of such men as Benjamin Franklin, the elder Adams, of Thomas Jefferson, of Clay, Calhoun and Webster, of Alexander Hamilton and George Washington, and there is no trouble in finding _their_ foot-prints on the sands of time; but in the achievements of statesmanship _where are the foot-prints of Mr. Lincoln_? You will look into the statute-books in vain to find them. We have a great financial policy, born of the creative, forceful statesmanship of Alexander Hamilton and Henry Clay; we have a great protective system, owing its origin to the same two statesmen; we have a great homestead policy, which owes its birth to Andrew Johnson, of Tennessee; we have a great national policy of internal improvements, but Mr. Lincoln was not its father. _Consequently, there is not a single national line of policy which owes its paternity to this statesman whom Mr. Ross classes as “The greatest man the world has produced.”_ In the State of Illinois, compare Mr. Lincoln’s work with Mr. Jefferson’s work in the State of Virginia. Did Mr. Lincoln leave his impress any where upon the established order in Illinois? I have never heard of it. In Virginia, Jefferson found the church and state united, both taxing the people and dividing the spoils. Mr. Jefferson divorced the church from the state, confiscated the church’s ill-gotten wealth, devoting it to charitable and educational purposes; and put an end to legalized religious intolerance. In Virginia there was a land monopoly, perpetuated by entails and primogenitures. Mr. Jefferson made war upon it, broke it up, and thus overthrew the local aristocracy. He formulated a school system and established in America its first modern college. Can anything which Mr. Lincoln, the statesman, did in Illinois compare with Mr. Jefferson’s work in Virginia? So far as national statesmanship is concerned, Mr. Lincoln is not to be classed with either of “The Great Trio”, nor with Mr. Jefferson, nor with Alexander Hamilton. Each of the five named were statesmen of the first order, possessing original, creative ability in that field of work. There is no evidence whatever that Mr. Lincoln possessed that talent.