Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 26, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 July 1883 — Beecher on Lincoln. [ARTICLE]

Beecher on Lincoln.

“I think that Lincoln was to a remarkable degree both a statesman and a politician; that he based his views of expediency on great principles, but that in executing expedient objects he was as shrewd and keen a politician as ever was in Washington. He had a broad sympathy for human nature and he understood it very well. He was as devoid of personal ambition and selfishness as any man of whom we have a record in our history. He was a man who wanted to do that which was right and best for this whole nation, South and North, and was willing to go as jjear to the edge of doubtful expediency as a man could go and not go over the precipice; but he saved himself.” “Whatever its effect upon the country, don’t you think that his death and its m annex’ and at the time was a great thing for him in history ?” “Yes, sir. I think that his coffin was more than the Presidential chair. It certainly gave to the whole of his career the influence of a kind of political saintship. ” ■*Do you believe he would have carried out a different policy from that of Johnson?” “I know that at the time that things were drawing to a consummation he had in an inchoate form the very policy that Johnson undertook to carry out under a change of circumstances. I know it, because the Cleveland letter that I wrote was the result of conferences with Gov. Andrew and President Lincoln, just preceding Lincoln’s death, as to what were to be the nextcoming steps nftei - the breaking down of the rebellion, and at that time, under the circumstances, it seemed to me that they had, on the whole, very wise views. It may be said almost in a sentence what their policy was. It was to say to the leading public men of the Soutlx: Gentlemen, you took your section out of the Union; you must bring it back. We hold you responsible. We will give you all the powei’ necessary to do it. Slavery is gone, and, as you went out with these men who have been defeated, now you must come back and we will trust you.”— Interview with Beecher, in the New York Herold.