Page:Abraham Lincoln address (1909).djvu/14

 Another (Judge David Davis) says:

"He had no faith, in the Christian sense of the term." (Id., 489.)

Lamon then quotes Mrs. Lincoln as saying:

"Mr. Lincoln had no hope and no faith, in the usual acceptance of those words." (Id., 489.)

And Mr. Nicolay, Lincoln's private secretary, as saying:

"Mr. Lincoln did not, to my knowledge, in any way change his religious views, opinions or beliefs from the time he left Springfield to the day of his death." (Id., 492.)

It seems to us that these statements from these sources ought to settle this question, and that it is wrong, and nothing short of an outrage on the truth of history to assert that Mr. Lincoln was, or ever claimed to be, a Christian; that such an assertion can only reflect on those who make it, and must bring upon them the application of the maxim, falsus in uno falsus in omnibus; for surely those who are so reckless as to misrepresent a fact of this nature will not hesitate to misrepresent any other fact that it suits them to misrepresent or to misstate.

We come now to consider some other phases of this strange man, his conduct and his character.

First. We think it can be safely affirmed that Mr. Lincoln was one of the most secretive, crafty, cunning and contradictory characters in all history, and therein lies, we believe, the true reason why the world now deems him great. In short, he and his unscrupulous eulogists have, for the time being, outwitted and deceived the public. Mr. Seward said his "cunning amounted to genius"; and if there ever was on this earth a judge of real cunning, William H. Seward was that man. The best evidence of the contradictions of his character is furnished by Holland, one of his most partisan admirers and biographers. Mr. Holland says, at page 241:

"'To illustrate the effect of the peculiarity of Mr. Lincoln's intercourse with men, it may be said that men who knew him through all his professional and political life have offered opinions as diametrically opposed as this, viz: That he was a"