Rensselaer Republican, Volume 16, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 November 1883 — The Second Greatest Man. [ARTICLE]

The Second Greatest Man.

If we are united in the opinion as to which is our best month, we are equally of one mind who was the greatest man that the United States has produced. That has become a traditional article of belief. But the question now is who was the second greatest man ? This is a question which the drawer refers to the autumn and winter debating societies for solution. It will be a good exercise for the young gentlemen and young ladies—for we remember what age we are living in, that we are living in a grand and awful time, and perhaps it was a woman —to bring forward their candidates for the second honor, and to refreslv ffie mind oFYfieiV"audieiices with the virtues of these rival claims to greatness. The question is an old one, for we learn in Judge Curtis’ able “Life of James Buchanan” that it was asked in 1833 in the Alexander Institution, in Moscow. In one of his letters Mr. Buchanan Says that he heard the boys examined and to the question, who was tile greatest man that America had produced? a boy promptly answered, “Washington.” But on the second question, who was the next in greatness, the boy hesitated, and the question never has been answered. The same boy, who might have settled this question if he had not hesitated, was asked who was the celebrated ambassador to Paris, and instantly answered, as if he had been in a civil service examination, Ptolsmy Philadelphus. But he at once corrected himself, and said Franklin. And the Drawer thinks that Franklin wouldn’t be a bad second to start on. —The Easy Chair in Harper’s Magazine.