stitution and contemporary history. On its argumentative side, this speech is a notable augury of the Peoria speech of 1854, also in reply to Douglas. Its closing paragraphs, however, contain examples of those antithetical aspects of his style to which reference has been made. In his rebuttal of Mr. Lamborn, one of his Democratic opponents, Lincoln uses a style that in the main is balanced and restrained. His speech closes, however, with a climax much too florid for impressive discussion.

This debate is important in an effort to trace the development of Lincoln's power of thought and his command of an adequate expression. It exhibits his two-fold capacity for matter-of-fact reasoning from things well known and his strength of native fancy and feeling. These could soar when touched by the deeper aspects of the subject or the occasion. They disclose the presence of a color-realm in his soul which, upon occasion, could clothe his convictions in the raiment of beautiful and moving words. His sense for the practical made him a wise and helpful counsellor. This side of his mind is revealed in much that he wrote, but nowhere better than in his letter to Herndon, July 10, 1848, on the way for a young man to rise in the world. The letter of June 22, also to Herndon, advised the

formation among the young men of his acquaintance of a “Rough and Ready" club, for pastime and the improvement of the "intellectual faculties." It embodies a touch of political astuteness as well as sympathy for "the shrewd, wild boys about town" in need of incentives to improvement. How succinct in statement and worldly wisdom are the two letters to his step-brother, John D. Johnston, in 1851, on thriftlessness!2 They remind one of the homebred sense of Franklin, in his character of Poor Richard, who says:

I never saw an oft-removed Tree,

Nor yet an oft-removed Family,

That throve so well as those that settled be.

3

That Lincoln possessed something of the essayist's bent of mind is not difficult to believe. He was accustomed to generalize upon what he observed and knew. The few fragments he has left us as notes for a law lecture and for a popular lecture on Niagara Falls, as well as his observations on the nature and objects of government, imply that at times he sought escape from the limitations of his profession. They reveal a mind of a contemplative There is little indication that he veered toward 1 Page 295, Appendix. 2 Pages 296-298, Appendix.

cast.

3 Page 330, Appendix.

speculative thinking. He concerned himself by choice with concrete interests rather than with matters of hypothesis. Practical life and the experience of its institutions were at all times foremost in his thought. Like Socrates, his mental urge was ethical and spiritual before it was constructive. His ideals looked always in the direction of attainment, although his faculty was critical and interpretative rather than creative.

The slight verse which Lincoln left was not promising in this sense. He had a deep-born love for song, but in what he has left us of verse, there resides, outside of a certain abundant human sympathy and capacity to carry his thought toward a conclusion, no special sense for rhythm, no spontaneous impact of art. The honest, heartfelt verve is not supported by a native flush of color or insight, or the rare gift of workmanship.1

His critical faculty remained dominant. This side of his mind commands our sincere respect. He had a natural aptitude for analysis and for generalization, but his environment, always tending to develop the practical side of his nature, furnished, during the years of his growth and professional education, no congenial atmosphere for the higher artistic perI Pages 322-329, Appendix.

ceptions. He had the necessary endowments of mind. He was nobly sagacious and imaginative, but he lacked the range of equipment to supply standards and method. His environment was such that he was drawn early and continuously in the direction of public speech. Even here he preferred discussion to oratory. Although circumstances drew him toward politics rather than to scholarship or literature, his mind continued dominant over his tongue. Fortunately, he early formed the habit of writing as well as speaking,1 and this habit, nourished by his love for reading and analysis, kept alive his penchant for criticism.

It was Lincoln's capacity for clear, incisive, yet sympathetic criticism that gave him the preeminent place in the leadership of the great movement which culminated in the overthrow of slavery and brought about the new order of American life. Glimpses of this form of his ability may be discerned in a lecture which he gave on Temperance before the Washington Society, January 22, 1842. He condemned the old doctrine of temperance reform by "denunciations against dram-sellers and dram-drinkers.' This method was "unjust, as well as impolitic." Drinking among men had a long history. GovernI Tarbell, I:36, 37.

ment had provided it for soldiers and sailors; physicians had prescribed it. Its manufacture had long been regarded as an honorable livelihood. It was known and acknowledged to be the cause of much harm, "but none seemed to think the injury arose from the use of a bad thing, but from the abuse of a very good thing." The failing of those who abused it was regarded as a misfortune, "not as a crime, or even as a disgrace." Why "assail, condemn, or despise them" then? Another error of the old reformers was their contention that "habitual drunkards were utterly incorrigible" . . . to be turned "adrift and damned without remedy." This attitude was "so cold-blooded and feelingless" . . . it could not "enlist the enthusiasm of a popular cause." As applied to the cause of temperance reform, the doctrine of unpardonable sin is to be denied. It is better to teach, "While the lamp holds out to burn, the vilest sinner may return." The chief of sinners may become the chief apostle of a cause. For their task, "none are so well educated." The world would be vastly benefited by a "total and final banishment from it of all intoxicating drinks." Three-fourths of mankind confess it, and the "rest acknowledge it in their hearts."

There was the note of something prospective in