ot been of so peculiar a sort that he could
influence all these diverse and powerful interests, slowly, by degrees,
without heat, without the imperative note, almost in silence, with the
universal, enfolding irresistibility of the gradual things in nature,
of the sun and the rain. Such was the genius of Lincoln--all but
passionless, yet so quiet that one cannot but believe in the great depth
of his nature.

We are, even today, far from a definitive understanding of Lincoln's
statecraft, but there is perhaps justification for venturing upon one
prophecy. The farther from him we get and the more clearly we see him in
perspective, the more we shall realize his creative influence upon his
party. A Lincoln who is the moulder of events and the great creator of
public opinion will emerge at last into clear view. In the Lincoln
of his ultimate biographer there will be more of iron than of a less
enduring metal in the figure of the Lincoln of present tradition. Though
none of his gentleness will disappear, there will be more emphasis
placed upon his firmness, and upon such episodes as that of December,
1860, when his single will turned the scale against compromise; upon
his steadiness in the defeat of his party at the polls in 1862; or his
overruling of the will of Congress in the summer of 1864 on the question
of reconstruction; or his attitude in the autumn of that year when
he believed that he was losing his second election. Behind all his
gentleness, his slowness, behind his sadness, there will eventually
appear an inflexible purpose, strong as steel, unwavering as fate.

The Civil War was in truth Lincoln's war. Those modern pacifists who
claim him for their own are beside the mark. They will never get over
their illusions about Lincoln until they see, as all the world is
beginning to see, that his career has universal significance because of
its bearing on the universal modern problem of democracy. It will not do
ever to forget that he was a man of the people, always playing the hand
of the people, in the limited social sense of that word, though playing
it with none of the heat usually met with in the statesmen of successful
democracy from Cleon to Robespierre, from Andrew Jackson to Lloyd
George. His gentleness does not remove Lincoln from that stern category.
Throughout his life, besides his passion for the Union, besides his
antipathy to slavery, there dwelt in his very heart love of and faith
in the plain people. We