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offense to others-leave them in a mood to come to us if they shall be compelled to give up their first love. This, too, is dealing justly with all, and leaving us in a mood to support heartily whoever shall be nominated. I believe I have once before told you that I especially wish to do no ungenerous thing toward Governor Chase, because he gave us his sympathy in 1858 when scarcely any other distinguished man did. Whatever you may do for me, consistently with these suggestions, will be appreciated and gratefully remembered.

May 18, Lincoln was nominated for President by the Republican convention at Chicago, on the third ballot. Seward was his only close competitor. On the next day, at his home in Springfield, he thanked the committee of formal notification from the convention "for the high honor" done him, and expressed his sense of the responsibility it imposed,— "a responsibility which I could almost wish had fallen upon some one of the far more eminent men and experienced statesmen whose distinguished names were before the convention." On the 23rd, he wrote his acceptance in a letter to George Ashmun of the Massachusetts delegation, who was chairman of the convention. This letter was exceedingly apt for the time and the occasion.

SIR: I accept the nomination tendered me by the convention over which you presided, and of which I am formally apprised in the letter of yourself and others, acting as a committee of the convention for that purpose.

The declaration of principles and sentiments which accompanies your letter meets my approval; and it shall be my care not to violate or disregard it in any part.

Imploring the assistance of Divine Providence, and with due regard to the views and feelings of all who were represented in the convention-to the rights of all the States and Territories and people of the nation; to the inviolability of the Constitution; and the perpetual union, harmony, and prosperity of all-I am most happy to coöperate for the practical success of the principles declared by the convention.

Your obliged friend and fellow-citizen,

A. LINCOLN.

This letter was in engaging contrast to the long political discussions contained in the letters of acceptance by Lincoln's two leading opponents for the Presidency. It was in strict keeping with his decision to observe prudence and discretion in his utterances during the political contest. Shortly afterward, he received a friendly letter, advising caution in making promises of any kind, from the

poet, William Cullen Bryant, who had introduced Lincoln at Cooper Institute. "Mr. Bryant's letter contained much political wisdom, and was written in that scholarly style for which he was distinguished. But it could not surpass the simple dignity and grace of Lincoln's reply":1

SPRINGFIELD, ILL., June 28, 1860. Please accept my thanks for the honor done me by your kind letter of the 16th. I appreciate the danger against which you would guard me; nor am I wanting in the purpose to avoid it. I thank you for the additional strength your words give me to maintain that purpose.

Your friend and servant,

A. LINCOLN.

As the reader of Lincoln's compositions moves from one to another, he is continually reminded of their sanity and human spirit. Sometimes they are crude and disappointing in statement, sometimes they are sportive, transient, or unstudied in matter. In compositions of some length he is rarely sure and inviolate in manner or in points of detail. In this respect he was like everybody else who has written prose extensively. Somebody has called attention to his accustomed use of the "split infiniI Browne, p. 248.

tive."

About this, an amusing story is told of a correction suggested to him in the second paragraph of his letter accepting the nomination for the Presidency. He handed the letter to his friend, Dr. Newton Bateman, State Superintendent of Education, with the remark:

"Mr. Schoolmaster," he said, "here is my letter of acceptance. I am not very strong on grammar, and I wish you to see if it is all right. I wouldn't like to have any mistakes in it."

The doctor took the MS. and after reading it, said: "There is only one change I would suggest, Mr. Lincoln. You have written, 'It shall be my care to not violate or disregard it in any part; you should have written, not to violate. Never split an infinitive, is the rule."

Mr. Lincoln took the manuscript, regarding it a moment with a puzzled air. "So you think I better put those two little fellows end to end, do you?" he said as he made the change.1

Lincoln's fund of ideas outran his resources and technic of speech. In this, too, he was not unlike many another of his fellow mortals.

1 Tarbell, I:361.

CHAPTER VII

ON THE ROAD TO WASHINGTON

And, moving up from high to higher,
Becomes on Fortune's crowning slope
The pillar of a people's hope,
The centre of a world's desire.

-Tennyson.

Naturally, Lincoln's elevation to the responsibility which the Presidency involved opened to him a wide vista of intellectual expansion as novel as it was, at the time, disquieting. There were many sober-minded citizens within his own party who had serious misgivings as to his preparation for the task before him,-a task full of hazard, which called for the most exquisite handling to avoid the shipwreck which already threatened the republic. Few, if any, could realize at the moment the sound character of his preparation and the singleness of purpose that had been evolved in his previous mastery of constitutional history and principles, in his eager and intensive acquaintance with the thought of his contemporaries on both sides of the great question which had long disturbed the nation, and in his

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