Abraham Lincoln
Page: 24

reason that knows not what rhetoric means. There has been
nothing of Cleon, still less of Strepsiades(2) striving to underbid
him in demagogism, to be found in the public utterances of Mr.
Lincoln. He has always addressed the intelligence of men, never
their prejudice, their passion, or their ignorance.

(1) A famous Latin writer on the *Art of Oratory.*
(2) Two Athenian demagogues, satirized by the dramatist
Aristophanes.

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On the day of his death, this simple Western attorney, who
according to one party was a vulgar joker, and whom the
*doctrinaires* among his own supporters accused of wanting every
element of statesmanship, was the most absolute ruler in
Christendom, and this solely by the hold his good-humored sagacity
had laid on the hearts and understandings of his countrymen. Nor
was this all, for it appeared that he had drawn the great majority,
not only of his fellow-citizens, but of mankind also, to his side. So
strong and so persuasive is honest manliness without a single
quality of romance or unreal sentiment to help it! A civilian during
times of the most captivating military achievement, awkward, with
no skill in the lower technicalities of manners, he left behind him a
fame beyond that of any conqueror, the memory of a grace higher
than that of outward person, and of a gentlemanliness deeper than
mere breeding. Never before that startled April morning did such
multitudes of men shed tears for the death of one they had never
seen, as if with him a friendly presence had been taken away from
their lives, leaving them colder and darker. Never was funeral
panegyric so eloquent as the silent look of sympathy which
strangers exchanged when they met on that day. Their common
manhood had lost a kinsman.