uence. For what is gained by trying to award him
a number in a rank-list of heroes? It is enough to believe that probably
Lincoln alone among historical characters could have done that especial
task which he had to do. It was a task of supreme difficulty, and like
none which any other man ever had to undertake; and he who was charged
with it was even more distantly unlike any other man in both moral and
mental equipment. We cannot force lines to be parallel, for our own
convenience or curiosity, when in fact they are not parallel. Let us not
then try to compare and to measure him with others, and let us not
quarrel as to whether he was greater or less than Washington, as to
whether either of them, set to perform the other's task, would have
succeeded with it, or, perchance, would have failed. Not only is the
competition itself an ungracious one, but to make Lincoln a competitor
is foolish and useless. He was the most individual man who ever lived;
let us be content with this fact. Let us take him simply as Abraham
Lincoln, singular and solitary, as we all see that he was; let us be
thankful if we can make a niche big enough for him among the world's
heroes, without worrying ourselves about the proportion which it may
bear to other niches; and there let him remain forever, lonely, as in
his strange lifetime, impressive, mysterious, unmeasured, and unsolved.

FOOTNOTES:

[79] See _ante_, pp. 237-241 (chapter on Reconstruction).

[80] Grant, _Memoirs_, ii. 460.

[81] Grant, _Memoirs_, ii. 459. This differs from the statement of N.
and H. x. 216, that "amid the wildest enthusiasm, the President again
reviewed the victorious regiments of Grant, marching through Petersburg
in pursuit of Lee." Either picture is good; perhaps that of the silent,
deserted city is not the less effective.

[82] Between March 29 and the date of surrender, 19,132 Confederates had
been captured, a fate to which it was shrewdly suspected that many were
not averse.

[83] May 11, 1865.

[84] Hon. George W. Julian says: "I spent most of the afternoon in a
political caucus, held for the purpose of considering the necessity for
a new cabinet and a line of policy less conciliatory than that of Mr.
Lincoln; and while everybody was shocked at his murder, the feeling was
nearly universal that the accession of Johnson to the presidency would
prove a godsend to the country." _Polit. Recoll._ 255.

INDEX

[**Transcriber's Note: The index