An eminent man of politics has said that the similes of the learned
which liken Abraham Lincoln to King Henry IV. of France and other
historical notables are far from the mark and reveal their
miscomprehension of the Machiavel redeemed by moral goodness. He thinks
that without the hypocrisy being censurable he was more of the type of
Pope Sixtus the Fifth. This celebrity, who, like Lincoln, was in the
hog business at one time, pretended silliness to be elected pontiff.
The die cast, he stood forth in all his native strength, keeping the
friends who did not try to sway him, and becoming a rod of steel where
he had been rated as lead. [Footnote: Greeley stamped Lincoln as "the
slowest piece of lead that ever crawled."] At the same time as he
dispraised himself--mocked and laughed--he let out glimpses of true
ambition. When his short-sighted advisers warmly crossed his ground of
setting himself with freedom against the pro-slavery party, assuring
him that he would thereby lose the senatorship as against Douglas, he
confessed:
"I am after larger game. The battle of 1860 (for the chair of
Washington) is worth a hundred of this."
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"A BOUNTEOUS PRESIDENT--IF ANYTHING IS LEFT!"
"Mr. Speaker, we have all heard of the animal standing in doubt between
two stacks of hay and starving to death; the like of that would never
happen to General Cass. Place the stacks a thousand miles apart; he
would stand stock-still, midway between them, and eat both at once; and
the green grass along the line would be apt to suffer some, too, at the
same time. By all means, make him President, gentlemen. He will feed
you bounteously--if--if--there is anything left after he shall have
helped himself."--(Speech, House of Representatives, July 27, 1848.)
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