“I have endured,” wrote Lincoln not long before his death, “a great
deal of ridicule without much malice, and have received a great deal of
kindness not quite free from ridicule.” On Easter Day, 1865, the world
knew how little this ridicule, how much this kindness, had really
signified. Thereafter, Lincoln the man became Lincoln the hero, year by
year more heroic, until to-day, with the swift passing of those who knew
him, his figure grows ever dimmer, less real. This should not be. For
Lincoln the man, patient, wise, set in a high resolve, is worth far more
than Lincoln the hero, vaguely glorious. Invaluable is the example of
the man, intangible that of the hero.
And, though it is not for us, as for those who in awed stillness
listened at Gettysburg with inspired perception, to know Abraham
Lincoln, yet there is for us another way whereby we may attain such
knowledge—through his words—uttered in all sincerity to those who
loved or hated him. Cold, unsatisfying they may seem, these printed
words, while we can yet speak with those who knew him, and look into
eyes that once looked into his. But in truth it is here that we find his
simple greatness, his great simplicity, and though no man tried less so
to show his power, no man has so shown it more clearly.
Thus these writings of Abraham Lincoln are associated with those of
Washington, Hamilton, Franklin, and of the other “Founders of the
Republic,” not that Lincoln should become still more of the past, but,
rather, that he with them should become still more of the present.
However faint and mythical may grow the story of that Great Struggle,
the leader, Lincoln, at least should remain a real, living American.
No matter how clearly, how directly, Lincoln has shown himself in his
writings, we yet should not forget those men whose minds, from their
various view-points, have illumined for us his character. As this nation
owes a great debt to Lincoln, so, also, Lincoln’s memory owes a great
debt to a nation which, as no other nation could have done, has been
able to appreciate his full worth. Among the many who have brought about
this appreciation, those only whose estimates have been placed in these
volumes may be mentioned here. To President Roosevelt, to Mr. Schurz
and to Mr. Choate, the editor, for himself, for the publishers, and on
behalf of the readers, wishes to offer his sincere acknowledgments.
Thanks are also due, for valuable and sympathetic assistance rendered in
the preparation of this work, to Mr. Gilbert A. Tracy, of Putnam, Conn.,
Major William H. Lambert, of Philadelphia, and Mr. C. F. Gunther, of
Chicago, to the Chicago Historical Association and personally to
its capable Secretary, Miss McIlvaine, to Major Henry S. Burrage, of
Portland, Me., and to General Thomas J. Henderson, of Illinois.
For various courtesies received, the editor is furthermore indebted to
the Librarian of the Library of Congress; to Messrs. McClure, Phillips
& Co., D. Appleton & Co., Macmillan & Co., Dodd, Mead & Co., and Harper
Brothers, of New York; to Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Dana, Estes & Co.,
and L. C. Page & Co., of Boston; to A. C. McClure & Co., of Chicago; to
The Robert Clarke Co., of Cincinnati, and to the J. B. Lippincott Co.,
of Philadelphia.
It is hardly necessary to add that every effort has been made by the
editor to bring into these volumes whatever material may there properly
belong, material much of which is widely scattered in public libraries
and in private collections. He has been fortunate in securing certain
interesting correspondence and papers which had not before come into
print in book form. Information concerning some of these papers had
reached him too late to enable the papers to find place in their proper
chronological order in the set. Rather, however, than not to present
these papers to the readers they have been included in the seventh
volume of the set, which concludes the “Writings.”
[These later papers are, in this etext, re-arranged into chronologic
order. D.W.]
October, 1905, A. B. L.