The Home Front:
BOHN, WILLIAM E.
THE HOME FRONT By William E. Bohn The Incomparable Man of Mystery Almost from the beginning Abraham Lincoln was a man of mystery. When he was nothing but an awkward frontier youth,...
...Had this plan been carried out we would not be in our present quandaryover segregation or faced with such bitterness between the North and South...
...They saw through the crudities of his exterior to the sources of power within...
...There was something about him that was irresistible...
...With whom shall we compare him...
...There has been no one quite like him throughout history...
...The South required no reinstatement: It merely had to send its Senators and Representatives back to Washington, and the old wounds would be healed and the nation would go forward together in prosperity, united in spirit as well as in law...
...How shall we classify this man...
...Mary Todd, whom he finally married, seemed to select him as her mate because she saw something in him which promised future greatness and success...
...As commander in chief, he was equipped not with military training but with a supreme love of mankind and a sensitive insight into the human heart...
...For example, in his debates with Stephen Douglas he drew thousands of hearty frontiersmen with band music and fireworks, though his arguments were always of the highest intellectual standards...
...Lincoln's love of peace made him a successful leader in war...
...His humanness won him the love and trust of men and women of all parties, all sections and all opinions...
...We are fortunate to have him as a part of our American heritage...
...When he was nothing but an awkward frontier youth, folks realized there was something exceptional about him...
...Yet it chose as its candidate in that crucial campaign a man who had served but one unsuccessful term in the House of Representatives...
...His relations with women w-ere painful and uneven...
...Though his mind was exceptionally clear and logical, he had deep currents of mysticism...
...As a statesman in war and peace historians naturally place him beside Winston Churchill...
...This crude joker consistently appealed to the deepest humanitarian motives and to the most liberal interpretation of our Constitution and laws...
...He would disappear for days or a week...
...His campaign revealed him to be an extraordinary combination of practical politician and statesmana man who knew how to speak to and for the people...
...As time passed and his characteristics developed, the educated people in neighboring towns and villages also sensed that Lincoln had unique qualities which justified special attention...
...When Lincoln arrived at the Chicago Wigwam, the appeal of his personality was instantaneous...
...Because he had the magic gift of poetic speech, his words have carried his faith throughout the civilized world, even into the depths of Russia, where he is still revered today...
...While he had all the gifts of the crudest and most ordinary politician-he was a truly gigantic hand-shaker and story-teller -he also was appealing to the literate and cultivated members of his audience...
...Convention members from the East quickly were won to his cause...
...But, in fact, Lincoln was an incomparable mixture of realism and idealism...
...While he was deeply liberal, he unhesitatingly threw traitors into jail...
...He got the call because his Illinois supporters had unusual faith in his abilities and mysterious devotion to him personally...
...No matter how imposing were the authorities arguing against the binding force of the Union, he never lost faith in the right of the nation to defend itself...
...This unusual mixture proved to be the secret of Lincoln's success in the long struggle to preserve the Union...
...It was Lincoln's theory that the Southern states had never been out of the Union, since they had no power to withdraw...
...The nomination of Lincoln as candidate for the Presidency was really a miracle...
...I suppose there was a sort of supreme logic in the tragedy which brought Lincoln's life and the Civil War to a simultaneous end...
...When this marked man entered politics, he offered the voters the strangest possible combination of political virtues...
...As a man of letters he has been compared with Mark Twain and Walt Whitman...
...The Republican party had on its roster a great many men who had made national reputations as Governors, Senators and leaders of Congress...
...Though he had no formal legal training nor schooling in American history, his grasp of constitutional principles was profound...
...As a saint who drew his inspiration from somewhere deep below the surface of life, he was like Mahatma Gandhi...
...Even the big, hearty and illiterate Clary's Grove boys of Illinois thought this young wrestler and rail-splitter was mysteriously superior to themselves...
...As the great struggle blundered on and men died by the hundreds of thousands, it was the people's faith in Lincoln's wisdom and humanity which held the Northern forces together and gave them the courage to continue the apparently hopeless effort...
...Abraham Lincoln remains today the symbol of freedom and brotherhood...
Vol. 44 • February 1961 • No. 8
