ntry, where the rough and ready understanding of the people is sure
at last to be the controlling power, a profound common-sense is the
best genius for statesmanship. Hitherto the wisdom of the President's
measures has been justified by the fact that they have always resulted
in more firmly uniting public opinion. One of the things particularly
admirable in the public utterances of President Lincoln is a certain
tone of familiar dignity, which, while it is perhaps the most difficult
attainment of mere style, is also no doubtful indication of personal
character. There must be something essentially noble in an elective
ruler who can descend to the level of confidential ease without
forfeiting respect, something very manly in one who can break through
the etiquette of his conventional rank and trust himself to the reason
and intelligence of those who have elected him. No higher compliment
was ever paid to a nation than the simple confidence, the fireside
plainness, with which Mr. Lincoln always addresses himself to the
reason of the American people. This was, indeed, a true democrat, who
grounded himself on the assumption that a democracy can think. "Come,
let us reason together about this matter," has been the tone of all his
addresses to the people; and accordingly we have never had a chief
magistrate who so won to himself the love and at the same time the
judgment of his countrymen. To us, that simple confidence of his in the
right-mindedness of his fellow-men is very touching, and its success is
as strong an argument as we have ever seen in favor of the theory that
men can govern themselves. He never appeals to any vulgar sentiment, he
never alludes to the humbleness of his origin; it probably never
occurred to him, indeed, that there was anything higher to start from
than manhood; and he put himself on a level with those he addressed,
not by going down to them, but only by taking it for granted that they
had brains and would come up to a common ground of reason. In an
article lately printed in "The Nation," Mr. Bayard Taylor mentions the
striking fact, that in the foulest dens of the Five Points he found the
portrait of Lincoln. The wretched population that makes its hive there
threw all its votes and more against him, and yet paid this instinctive
tribute to the sweet humanity of his nature. Their ignorance sold its
vote and took its money, but all that was left of manhood in them
recognized its saint and martyr.

Mr