According to the opinion of English military
experts*, "Against the great military genius of certain Southern
leaders fate opposed the unbroken resolution and passionate
devotion to the Union, which he worshiped, of the great Northern
President. As long as he lived and ruled the people of the
North, there could be no turning back."
* Wood and Edmonds. "The Civil War in the United States."
Lincoln has been ranked with Socrates; but he has also been
compared with Rabelais. He has been the target of abuse that
knew no mercy; but he has been worshiped as a demigod. The ten
big volumes of his official biography are a sustained,
intemperate eulogy in which the hero does nothing that is not
admirable; but as large a book could be built up out of
contemporaneous Northern writings that would paint a picture of
unmitigated blackness--and the most eloquent portions of it would
be signed by Wendell Phillips.
The real Lincoln is, of course, neither the Lincoln of the
official biography nor the Lincoln of Wendell Phillips. He was
neither a saint nor a villain. What he actually was is not,
however, so easily stated. Prodigious men are never easy to sum
up; and Lincoln was a prodigious man. The more one studies him,
the more individual he appears to be.
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