"The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."
Neither was the mind deficient in enthusiasm, which could prophesy:—
"There are already those among us, who, if the Union be preserved, will live to see it contain two hundred and fifty millions. The struggle of to-day is not altogether for to-day; it is for a vast future also."
"The President," said a leading member of the Cabinet, on one occasion, "is his own War-Minister. He directs personally the movements of the armies, and is fond of strategy; but pays much less attention to official details than is generally supposed."
Mr. Lincoln's wit was never malicious nor rudely personal. Once when Mr. Douglas had attempted to parry an argument by impeaching the veracity of a senator whom Mr. Lincoln had quoted, he answered that the question was not one of veracity, but simply one of argument. "By a course of reasoning, Euclid proves that all the angles in a triangle are equal to two right angles. Now, if you undertake to disprove that proposition, would you prove it to be false by calling Euclid a liar?"[1]
- ↑ Speech at Charleston, September 18th, 1858.
