recognized before the politicians and the writers did. In the people's mind, the war was "Old Abe's" war. It was Old Abe who stood at the helm. Congress did not know it, but it was really working Lincoln's will. The cabinet did not always know it, but it was Lincoln who really had his way. He kept his own counsel. He carried out his plans.
The people were right. It was Old Abe who was doing things. And without him the most important things would have gone undone. He was an original creation—as Lowell said, a "new birth of our new soil, the first American." Nature, for him, threw aside her old-world molds,
And, choosing sweet clay from the breast
Of the unexhausted West,
With stuff untainted shaped a hero new,
Wise, steadfast in the strength of God, and true.
Of the unexhausted West,
With stuff untainted shaped a hero new,
Wise, steadfast in the strength of God, and true.
Yet what could be clearer than that Abraham Lincoln, who by birth and inheritance was of the South,
