Democratic Sentinel, Volume 20, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 May 1896 — LINCOLN AS AN ORATOR [ARTICLE]

LINCOLN AS AN ORATOR

A Ft* Sample* of Hla Greta* Gif* ot Lupufe, Among the many gifts that made Lincoln the greatest man of his country in the period of its greatest trial was hla gift of stating the grandest principles in the simplest terms, says the New York Recorder. Everybody who reads Is familiar with his Gettysburg masterpiece, of which Emerson said that there was only one other American speech that compared with it—that of John Brown to the court that tried him. But there is a great mine of good speech In the less famous and largelynegleoted deliverances of our martyrPresident. Here are a few samples Of the Lincoln style, airways simple, always strong: “I say that no man is good enough to govern another man without that other man’s consent I say this is the leading principle, the sheet-anchor, of American republicanism.” “As I understand the spirit of o>ur Institutions, It is designed to promote the elevation of men. I am, therefore, hostile to anything that tends to their debasement” “I hold, if the Almighty had ever made a set of men that should do all the eating and none of the work. He would have made them with mouths only, and no hands; and If He had ever made another class that He had listened should do all the work and none of the eating, He would have made them without mouths and with all hands.” ‘'When the time comes I shall take the ground that I think Is right—right for the North, far the South, for the East, for the West—for the whole country.”

“I have no prejudice against the Southern people. They are just what we should be In their situation. If slavery did not now exist among them they would not introduce it If It did now exist among us we should not Instantly give It up.” “It is but a specious and fantastic arrangement of words by which a man can prove a horse-chestnut to be a chestnut horse.” “Stand with anybody that stands right Stand with him while he 1b right and part with him when he goes wrong.” “What would you do in my position? Would you drop the war where it Is? Or would you prosecute it In future with elder-stalk squirts chargedwith rose water?” “There are already among us those who, if the Union be preserved, will live to see it contain 250,000,000 of population. The struggle of to-day is not only for to-day; it is fw a vast future also.” "No men living are more worthy to be trusted than those who toll up from poverty; none less Inclined to take or touch aught which they have not honestly earned.”