His pioneer home in Indiana was a type of
the pioneer land in which he lived. If ever there was a man who was a
part of the time and country he lived in, this was he. The same simple
respect for labor won in the school of work and incorporated into blood
and muscle; the same unassuming loyalty to the simple virtues of
temperance and industry and integrity; the same sagacious judgment
which had learned to be quick-eyed and quick-brained in the constant
presence of emergency; the same direct and clear thought about things,
social, political, and religious, that was in him supremely, was in the
people he was sent to rule. Surely, with such a type-man for ruler,
there would seem to be but a smooth and even road over which he might
lead the people whose character he represented into the new region of
national happiness and comfort and usefulness, for which that character
had been designed.
But then we come to the beginning of all trouble. Abraham Lincoln was
the type-man of the country, but not of the whole country. This
character which we have been trying to describe was the character of an
American under the discipline of freedom. There was another American
character which had been developed under the influence of slavery. There
was no one American character embracing the land. There were two
characters, with impulses of irrepressible and deadly conflict. This
citizen whom we have been honoring and praising represented one. The
whole great scheme with which he was ultimately brought in conflict, and
which has finally killed him, represented the other.
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