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and helpless at the feet of the North, and its leaders charged with complicity in that awful crime. That time, of all others, afforded the leaders of the Republican party—always quick and bold in action the opportunity to deify this its first President; and those leaders, with a stroke of audacity and genius never surpassed, seized upon that opportunity and manufactured a false glamour with which they have surrounded the name and fame of their chosen head calculated to deceive the "very elect"; and they have so persisted in their efforts in this direction, from that day to this, that the lapse of nearly half a century has failed to dispel the delusions manufactured at that time and amid these surroundings by these people. Mr. Lincoln is credited with the saying:
"You can fool some of the people all the time; you can fool all the people some of the time, but it is impossible to fool all the people all the time."
We believe the time is coming, if it is not already here, when the scales will fall from the eyes of a great many in regard to the true history and character of this chosen hero of the North.
CHARACTERISTICS OF LINCOLN.
Of course, within the limits of this paper, we shall make no attempt to do more than to give some glimpses of the true character, characteristics and conduct of Mr. Linclon, nor shall we attempt to follow his biographers in their details of the career and conduct of this enigmatical man.
Lamon says he was "morbid, moody, meditative, thinking much of himself, and the things pertaining to himself, regarding other men as instruments furnished to hand for the accomplishment of views which he knew were important to him, and therefore considered important to the public. Mr. Lincoln was a man apart from the rest of his kind. * * * He seemed to make boon companions of the coarsest men on the list of his acquaintances—low, vulgar, unfortunate creatures." * * * "It was said that he had no heart—that is, no personal attachments warm and strong enough to govern his passions. It was seldom that he praised anybody, and when he did, it was not a rival or an equal in the struggle for popularity and power." * * * "No one knew better how to damn with faint praise, or to divide the glory of another by being the
