(1889)
On the first of May, 1865, Sir George Grey, in the English House of
Commons, moved an address to the Crown, to express the feelings of the
House upon the assassination of Mr. Lincoln. In this address he said
that he was convinced that Mr. Lincoln "in the hour of victory, and in
the triumph of victory, would have shown that wise forbearance, and
that generous consideration, which would have added tenfold lustre to
the fame that he had already acquired, amidst the varying fortunes of
the war."
In seconding the second address, at the same time and place, Mr.
Benjamin Disraeli said: "But in the character of the victim, and in
the very accessories of his almost latest moments, there is something
so homely and so innocent that it takes the subject, as it were, out
of the pomp of history, and out of the ceremonial of diplomacy. It
touches the heart of nations, and appeals to the domestic sentiments
of mankind."
In the House of Lords, Lord John Russell, in moving a similar address,
observed: "President Lincoln was a man who, although he had not been
distinguished before his election, had from that time displayed a
character of so much integrity, sincerity and straightforwardness, and
at the same time of so much kindness, that if any one could have been
able to alleviate the pain and animosity which have prevailed during
the civil war, I believe President Lincoln was the man to have done
so." And again, in speaking of the question of amending the
Constitution so as to prohibit slavery, he said: "We must all feel
that there again the death of President Lincoln deprives the United
States of the man who was the leader on this subject."
Mr. John Stuart Mill, the distinguished philosopher, in a letter to an
American friend, used far stronger expressions than these guarded
phrases of high officials. He termed Mr. Lincoln "the great citizen
who had afforded so noble an example of the qualities befitting the
first magistrate of a free people, and who, in the most trying
circumstances, had gradually won not only the admiration, but almost
the personal affection of all who love freedom or appreciate
simplicity or uprightness."
Professor Goldwin Smith writing to the London Daily News, began by
saying, "It is difficult to measure the calamity which the United
States and the world have sustained by the murder of President
Lincoln. The assassin has done his best to strike down mercy and
moderation, of both of which this good and noble life was the
mainstay."
Senhor Rebello da Silva, a member of the Portuguese Chamber of Peers,
in moving a resolution on the death of Mr. Lincoln, thus outlined his
character: "He is truly great who rises to the loftiest heights from
profound obscurity, relying solely on his own merits as did Napoleon,
Washington, Lincoln. For these arose to power and greatness, not
through any favor or grace, by a chance cradle, or genealogy, but
through the prestige of their own deeds, through the nobility which
begins and ends with themselves--the sole offspring of their own
works.... Lincoln was of this privileged class; he belonged to this
aristocracy. In infancy, his energetic soul was nourished by poverty.
In youth, he learned through toil the love of liberty, and respect for
the rights of man. Even to the age of twenty-two, educated in
adversity, his hands made callous by honorable labor, he rested from
the fatigues of the field, spelling out, in the pages of the Bible, in
the lessons of the gospel, in the fugitive leaves of the daily
journal--which the aurora opens, and the night disperses--the first
rudiments of instruction, which his solitary meditations ripened. The
chrysalis felt one day the ray of the sun, which called it to life,
broke its involucrum, and it launched forth fearlessly from the
darkness of its humble cloister into the luminous spaces of its
destiny. The farmer, day-laborer, shepherd, like Cincinnatus, left
the ploughshare in the half-broken furrow, and, legislator of his own
State, and afterwards of the Great Republic, saw himself proclaimed in
the tribunal the popular chief of several millions of people, the
maintainer of the holy principle inaugurated by Wilberforce."
There are some vague and some only partially correct statements in
this diffuse passage; but it shows plainly enough how enthusiastically
the Portuguese nobleman had admired the antique simplicity and
strength of Mr. Lincoln's character.
Dr. Merle d'Aubigne, the historian of the Reformation, writing to Mr.
Fogg, U. S. Minister to Switzerland, said: "While not venturing to
compare him to the great sacrifice of Golgotha, which gave liberty to
the captives, is it not just, in this hour, to recall the word of an
apostle (I John iii, 16): 'Hereby perceive we the love of God, because
he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for
the brethren?' Who can say that the President did not lay down his
life by the firmness of his devotion to a great duty? The name of
Lincoln will remain one of the greatest that history has to inscribe
on its annals.... Among the legacies which Lincoln leaves to us, we
shall all regard as the most precious, his spirit of equity, of
moderation, and of peace, according to which he will still preside, if
I may so speak, over the restoration of your great nation."
The "Democratic Association" of Florence, addressed "to the Free
People of the United States," a letter, in which they term Mr. Lincoln
"the honest, the magnanimous citizen, the most worthy chief
magistrate of your glorious Federation."
The eminent French liberal, M. Edouard Laboulaye, in a speech showing
a remarkably just understanding and extremely broad views with respect
to the affairs and the men of the United States, said: "Mr. Lincoln
was one of those heroes who are ignorant of themselves; his thoughts
will reign after him. The name of Washington has already been
pronounced, and I think with reason. Doubtless Mr. Lincoln resembled
Franklin more than Washington. By his origin, his arch good nature,
his ironical good sense, and his love of anecdotes and jesting, he was
of the same blood as the printer of Philadelphia. But it is
nevertheless true that in less than a century, America has passed
through two crises in which its liberty might have been lost, if it
had not had honest men at its head; and that each time it has had the
happiness to meet the man best fitted to serve it. If Washington
founded the Union, Lincoln has saved it. History will draw together
and unite those two names. A single word explains Mr. Lincoln's whole
life: it was Duty. Never did he put himself forward; never did he
think of himself; never did he seek one of those ingenious
combinations which puts the head of a state in bold relief, and
enhances his importance at the expense of the country; his only
ambition, his only thought was faithfully to fulfil the mission which
his fellow-citizens had entrusted to him.... His inaugural address,
March 4, 1865, shows us what progress had been made in his soul. This
piece of familiar eloquence is a master-piece; it is the testament of
a patriot. I do not believe that any eulogy of the President would
equal this page on which he had depicted himself in all his greatness
and all his simplicity.... History is too often only a school of
immorality. It shows us the victory of force or stratagem much more
than the success of justice, moderation, and probity. It is too often
only the apotheosis of triumphant selfishness. There are noble and
great exceptions; happy those who can increase the number, and thus
bequeath a noble and beneficent example to posterity! Mr. Lincoln is
among these. He would willingly have repeated, after Franklin, that
'falsehood and artifice are the practice of fools who have not wit
enough to be honest.' All his private life, and all his political
life, were inspired and directed by this profound faith in the
omnipotence of virtue. It is through this, again, that he deserves to
be compared with Washington; it is through this that he will remain in
history with the most glorious name that can be merited by the head of
a free people--a name given him by his cotemporaries, and which will
be preserved to him by posterity--that of Honest Abraham Lincoln."
A letter from the well-known French historian, Henri Martin, to the
Paris Siècle, contained the following passages: "Lincoln will remain
the austere and sacred personification of a great epoch, the most
faithful expression of democracy. This simple and upright man, prudent
and strong, elevated step by step from the artisan's bench to the
command of a great nation, and always without parade and without
effort, at the height of his position; executing without
precipitation, without flourish, and with invincible good sense, the
most colossal acts; giving to the world this decisive example of the
civil power in a republic; directing a gigantic war, without free
institutions being for an instant compromised or threatened by
military usurpation; dying, finally, at the moment when, after
conquering, he was intent on pacification, ... this man will stand
out, in the traditions of his country and the world, as an incarnation
of the people, and of modern democracy itself. The great work of
emancipation had to be sealed, therefore, with the blood of the just,
even as it was inaugurated with the blood of the just. The tragic
history of the abolition of slavery, which opened with the gibbet of
John Brown, will close with the assassination of Lincoln.
"And now let him rest by the side of Washington, as the second founder
of the great Republic. European democracy is present in spirit at his
funeral, as it voted in its heart for his re-election, and applauded
the victory in the midst of which he passed away. It will wish with
one accord to associate itself with the monument that America will
raise to him upon the capitol of prostrate slavery."
The London Globe, in commenting on Mr. Lincoln's assassination, said
that he "had come nobly through a great ordeal. He had extorted the
admiration even of his opponents, at least on this side of the water.
They had come to admire, reluctantly, his firmness, honesty, fairness
and sagacity. He tried to do, and had done, what he considered his
duty, with magnanimity."
The London Express said, "He had tried to show the world how great,
how moderate, and how true he could be, in the moment of his great
triumph."
The Liverpool Post said, "If ever there was a man who in trying times
avoided offenses, it was Mr. Lincoln. If there ever was a leader in a
civil contest who shunned acrimony and eschewed passion, it was he. In
a time of much cant and affectation he was simple, unaffected, true,
transparent. In a season of many mistakes he was never known to be
wrong.... By a happy tact, not often so felicitously blended with pure
evidence of soul, Abraham Lincoln knew when to speak, and never spoke
too early or too late.... The memory of his statesmanship, translucent
in the highest degree, and above the average, and openly faithful,
more than almost any of this age has witnessed, to fact and right,
will live in the hearts and minds of the whole Anglo-Saxon race, as
one of the noblest examples of that race's highest qualities. Add to
all this that Abraham Lincoln was the humblest and pleasantest of men,
that he had raised himself from nothing, and that to the last no grain
of conceit or ostentation was found in him, and there stands before
the world a man whose like we shall not soon look upon again."
In the remarks of M. Rouher, the French Minister, in the Legislative
Assembly, on submitting to that Assembly the official despatch of the
French Foreign Minister of the Chargé at Washington, M. Rouher
remarked, of Mr. Lincoln's personal character, that he had exhibited
"that calm firmness and indomitable energy which belong to strong
minds, and are the necessary conditions of the accomplishment of great
duties. In the hour of victory he exhibited generosity, moderation and
conciliation."
And in the despatch, which was signed by Mr. Drouyn de L'Huys, were
the following expressions: "Abraham Lincoln exhibited, in the exercise
of the power placed in his hands, the most substantial qualities. In
him, firmness of character was allied to elevation of principle.... In
reviewing these last testimonies to his exalted wisdom, as well as the
examples of good sense, of courage, and of patriotism, which he has
given, history will not hesitate to place him in the rank of citizens
who have the most honored their country."
In the Prussian Lower House, Herr Loewes, in speaking of the news of
the assassination, said that Mr. Lincoln "performed his duties without
pomp or ceremony, and relied on that dignity of his inner self alone,
which is far above rank, orders and titles. He was a faithful servant,
not less of his own commonwealth than of civilization, freedom and
humanity."
[22] _By permission of Dana Estes Company._