ncoln means different things to different persons, and
the aspect which he presents depends to an unusual degree upon the moral
and mental individuality of the observer. Perhaps this is due to the
breadth and variety of his own nature. As a friend once said to me:
Lincoln was like Shakespeare, in that he seemed to run through the whole
gamut of human nature. It was true. From the superstition of the
ignorant backwoodsman to that profoundest faith which is the surest
measure of man's greatness, Lincoln passed along the whole distance. In
his early days he struck his roots deep down into the common soil of the
earth, and in his latest years his head towered and shone among the
stars. Yet his greatest, his most distinctive, and most abiding trait
was his humanness of nature; he was the expression of his people; at
some periods of his life and in some ways it may be that he expressed
them in their uglier forms, but generally he displayed them in their
noblest and most beautiful developments; yet, for worse or for better,
one is always conscious of being in close touch with him as a fellow
man. People often call him the greatest man who ever lived; but, in
fact, he was not properly to be compared with any other. One may set up
a pole and mark notches upon it, and label them with the names of Julius
Caesar, William of Orange, Cromwell, Napoleon, even Washington, and may
measure these men against each other, and dispute and discuss their
respective places. But Lincoln cannot be brought to this pole, he cannot
be entered in any such competition. This is not necessarily because he
was greater than any of these men; for, before this could be asserted,
the question would have to be settled: How is greatness to be estimated?
One can hardly conceive that in any age of the world or any combination
of circumstances a capacity and temperament like that of Caesar or
Napoleon would not force itself into prominence and control. On the
other hand, it is easy to suppose that, if precisely such a great moral
question and peculiar crisis as gave to Lincoln his opportunity had not
arisen contemporaneously with his years of vigor, he might never have
got farther away from obscurity than does the ordinary member of
Congress. Does this statement limit his greatness, by requiring a rare
condition to give it play? The question is of no serious consequence,
since the condition existed; and the discussion which calls it forth is
also of no great conseq