Very
rarely, in the course of the ages, have circumstances so converged upon
a single person and a special crisis as to invest them with the
importance which rested upon this great leader at this difficult time.
Yet, in the briefest instant that can be measured, an ignoble tippler
had dared to cut the life-thread from which depended no small portion of
the destinies of millions of people. How the history of this nation
might have been changed, had Mr. Lincoln survived to bear his
influential part in reconstructing and reuniting the shattered country,
no man can tell. Many have indulged in the idle speculation, though to
do so is but to waste time. The life which he had already lived gives
food enough for reflection and for study without trying to evolve out of
arbitrary fancy the further things which might have been attempted by
him, which might have been of wise or of visionary conception, might
have brilliantly succeeded or sadly failed.
It is only forty years since Abraham Lincoln became of much note in the
world, yet in that brief time he has been the subject of more varied
discussion than has been expended upon any other historical character,
save, perhaps, Napoleon; and the kind of discussion which has been
called forth by Lincoln is not really to be likened to that which has
taken place concerning Napoleon or concerning any other person
whomsoever.
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