into our civil constitution. But Booth's bullet did its deadly work on April 14, 1865.

The soul of the broad-gauged, far-sighted, generous, merciful Lincoln took its flight to another country, and at the very hour the South, no less than the North,. needed him most.

The patient, considerate, and troubled administration of Abraham Lincoln, free from all hate, malice, or revenge, was over. Radicalism and rancor were now to design and direct the nation's policies of reconstructing the South. What an awful story of trouble and terror, crime and crimination followed in the wake of Andrew Johnson, his successor !

Surely it could never have occurred with Lincoln's wise and humane personality in command at Washington. He indicated enough of his plans for the South before his martyrdom to assure us of the most benevolent, generous, and considerate policies for the restoration and reconstruction of the South. The reign of terror, the carpetbag government, the Kuklux Klan and all were the natural and almost necessary result of Lincoln's assassination.

CHAPTER XXIII

LINCOLN THE MOST UNSELFISH MAN

TIME would fail me to detail the many instances recorded in the various biographies of Lincoln exhibiting almost divine unselfishness; from his kindness to the returning soldier in Kentucky, to his companions and neighbors at Gentryville in Indiana, toward the "plain folk" of New Salem, Illinois, his professional conduct at Springfield and his official life at Washington. But some of these incidents are so strikingly significant, so exceptional and surprising that they should be given more than mere mention in surveying the unselfish character and service of his magnanimous life.

Few great historical characters who were possessed of the ambition of Abraham Lincoln were so utterly free from envy and jealousy of their fellows. Though the leader of the Whig party in Illinois as early as 1840, when he was its unanimous candidate for speaker in the general assembly, his defeat for nomination for Congress in 1842 by John J. Hardin did not sour him.

He came back manfully in 1844, when he was again defeated by Edward M. Baker. He loyally and enthusiastically supported Baker and stumped the district for him.

In 1846 he was again a candidate and was this time nominated. During his term in Congress he received a letter from his old-time partner, Herndon, complaining that the young men of Illinois were being rudely and inconsiderately pushed aside by the older men, whom

Herndon characterized as "the old fossils in the party who were constantly holding the young man back." Mr. Lincoln administered a very gentle and gracious rebuke in the following letter; under date of July 10, 1848, he wrote:

"DEAR WILLIAM:

"Your letter covering the newspaper slips was received last night. The subject of that letter is exceedingly painful to me, and I cannot but think there is some mistake in your impression of the motives of the old men. I suppose I am now one of the old men; and I declare on my veracity, which I think is good with you, that nothing could afford me more satisfaction than to learn that you and others of my young friends at home were doing battle in the contest and endearing themselves to the people and taking a stand far above any I have ever been able to reach in their admiration. I cannot conceive that other men feel differently. Of course I cannot demonstrate what I say; but I was young once, and I am sure I was never ungenerously thrust back. I hardly know what to say. The way for a young man to rise is to improve himself every way he can, never suspecting that anybody wishes to hinder him. Allow me to assure you that suspicion and jealousy never did help any man in any situation."

The petty disappointments and personal insults that come and go in one's personal and public life were either ignored or forgotten by him. He always kept his eye on the "central idea" rather than some personal grievance or insult.

Lincoln was not only not selfish, he was constitu

tionally unselfish in the superlative degree. Nowhere was this better demonstrated than in connection with his Cabinet. Not a man in it was chosen because of his personal loyalty and ability to advance the political fortunes of Abraham Lincoln. Upon the contrary, the primary and paramount idea throughout his choice of Cabinet members was the crystallization of public sentiment for the Union.

This "frontier lawyer" of Duff Armstrong and the Widow Wright, of the Illinois prairies, as he was known in the East, had now become chief counsel for the American people in the great governmental court at Washington, and in this case no Stanton would elbow him out of the great cause to which he had dedicated his life.

He not only continued as counsel, but as chief counsel, and his Cabinet ministers with one glaring and unpardonable exception, recognized who the chief counsel

was.

All this came about, not by any selfish assertion of power, not by any personal vanity, but by reason of superiority of sense, his judgment, his foresight, his fairness and firmness, his loyalty to liberty and his devotion to democracy.

We see him again patiently reading Seward's note, "Some Thoughts for the Consideration of the President," with all its haughtiness, its ungracious insults, and we see again the President's fair, firm, and conclusive answer.

No one will ever know how much his personal pride, during the first year or two of Seward's service, was hurt and cut to the quick. But he ignored it all, and later these two were the most faithful friends in one common cause, Union and Liberty.

No one can ever know the continuous, intolerable, petty, and paltry faultfinding of Chase, his treasonable undermining of the President's political loyalty and fortunes, and his continual quarrelling with other members of the Cabinet, and how long thereafter the President kept him, feeling that while he was disloyal to A. Lincoln, he was rendering efficient service to Uncle Sam. Then finally, when it was discovered that he was tunnelling under Seward through the United States Senate, and also under Lincoln and his policies, it was inevitable that the President should accept Chase's third resignation. Chase had literally forced himself out of the Cabinet.

And then again upon Taney's death, when a new chief justice had to be chosen, how easy it would have been for Mr. Lincoln to have appointed some one experienced and qualified for that honorable place in our national jurisprudence, with no thought at all of Chase, and when some of his friends ventured to urge his name, which in view of the relations between the secretary of the treasury and the President, would seem the sheerest effrontery, how easy it was for Lincoln to say: "Now is my chance to humiliate him, to get even with him.”

Lincoln's appointment of Chase under the circumstances of their past relationship, and Chase's treatment of him, as shown by the latter's own diary, as well as the many disclosures of the biographies of both of them, demonstrate a magnanimity upon the part of Abraham Lincoln so rare and so rich in human kindness that it almost stamps him as divine. Could you have done it? Would you have done it? Would any other President have done it that you ever knew of?

And then to Stanton's conduct, with all its dis