Two Men and Two Books, or President Lincoln and Edward Everett (1863)

Source: The Friend. Honolulu: December 1, 1863. Editor: Rev. Samuel C. Damon. 

We have lying on our table two books, which make us acquainted with two distinguished Americans—but how marked the contrast between these two men. The one is Edward Everett, and the other Abraham Lincoln. Mr. Everett's orations and speeches are before us, in three octavo volumes, finished in the best style of Little, Brown & Co., while the Life of President Lincoln is presented in a neat volume, entitled ''The Pioneer Boy, and how he became President." This book is written by Wm. M. Thayer, and published by Walker, Wise & Co., of Boston. Believing that men are very much the creatures of education and circumstance, it is highly worthy of a thoughtful man's study, to ponder well the institutions of a country which can bring forward two such remarkable men as Mr. Everett and President Lincoln. Both were at the same time candidates for the highest offices in the gilt of the American people. Both are truly representative men of very large portions of the American nation. Mr. Everett embodies traits of character and represents a class of cultivated minds, such as are rarely to to be found in America, except in New England, in Massachusetts, in Boston, the Athens of America and "Hub of the Universe." The same is true of President Lincoln—he possesses traits and represents a class of people no where else to be found in America, except in the far West—the region of great rivers and boundless prairies. 

No one can carefully peruse, we think, either Thayer's Life of the Pioneer Boy, or these noble volumes of Mr. Everett, without admiring the two truly great men whose characters are there presented. The very name of Edward Everett has become a synonym for everything that is to be admired in graceful eloquence, classic scholarship, successful diplomacy, refined culture, and all those nameless charms which enter into the character of the very highest type of a well-educated and courteous gentleman and statesman.. In all of his speeches and orations, there is a polish, finish and completeness which makes them almost perfect models in their peculiar style of oratory. If our limits would allow, how easily apt and striking illustrations, from the volumes before us, might be presented. But we must remember that Mr. Everett stands not alone, but is a representative man. He is only one among many similar men. Old Massachusetts has many such. Its schools, colleges and institutions are designed to turn out just such nobly educated specimens of humanity. We do not wonder that that State speaks, as she always has done, with authority in the councils of America, and now how nobly she is represented, in the person of Mr. Sumner, in the Senate of the United States; but we must look to the other representative man, President Lincoln. 

The work of Mr. Thayer is an interesting narrative of the early life and struggles of President Lincoln. Although not educated in the schools, academies and colleges of America, he yet passed through a school of poverty, hardship and discipline, which has fitted him, in no ordinary manner, to know men and their fitness for office. He is an honest, upright and deserving man, and possesses traits a thousand times more to be prized than those which characterize the pettyfogging and corrupt politicians who have succeeded in obtaining high offices of trust in the United States. In his native State —Kentucky—he saw the blighting influence of slavery. When his father sold out his farm for three hundred dollars, the family removed to Indiana, and subsequently to Illinois. This book of Mr. Thayer depicts in vivid colors the struggles of the young man, noted in all the region around for his honesty, industry, sobriety, modesty and integrity. Suppose he was not schooled in books, he was acquainted with the people, and endowed by nature with a sort of Cobbett or Franklin-like turn of mind. In some of his early state-papers, there were inaccuracies of style which offended the nice and fastidious critics, but these have gradually disappeared as he has become more familiar with the peculiar duties of his office. Some of his late efforts are masterly performances. Read, for example, his letter to the Democratic Convention at Albany, or his letter to his friends in Illinois. We do not wonder a writer in the London Star thus refers to the Illinois letter : 

"It places in the clearest, strongest light the wicked unreasonableness of the rebellion and the religious duty of all loyal citizens. As a vindication of the Washington Cabinet, it is a masterpiece of cogent argument. As an appeal to the spirit of the nation, it is sublime in the dignified simplicity of its eloquence. No nobler state paper was ever penned. It is the manifesto of a truly great man in an exigency of almost unequalled moment. It is worthy of a Cromwell or a Washington. 

"It breathes the calm heroism of a Christian patriot—trusting in the blessing of God upon dauntless exertions in a just cause. It is such as Garibaldi and Mazzini might have written from Rome if events had placed them at the head of an Italian commonwealth threatened by a formidable combination of enemies to its freedom and integrity. It is the utterance of a statesman who has nothing to conceal—of a ruler guiltless of oppression—of the genius that consists in transparent honesty and unflinching resolution. Addressed to friends and neighbors, to supporters and opponents, it is open to the world to read. It really challenges the judgment of contemporary civilization, though it contains scarce a hint of any country but the United States." 

We never before were so fully persuaded as now, that President Lincoln is the right man in the right place, at the right time, and most sincerely do we hope ho will receive the suffrages of twenty millions of free men electing him to occupy the Presidential Chair during the next four years. He is not a man who is ashamed to do right, or acknowledge that there is a God in heaven, who rules among the nations of the earth. All honor to the President of the United States, who does not hesitate to take the colored man by the hand, and pledge all the power of the Nation's army and navy in his defence!' As an American residing in a foreign land, we feel a pride in having such a man at the head of our country. He is doing more to make America respected abroad, than any other President since the days of Washington. Some of our readers may question the truth of this assertion, but wait a few years, gentlemen, and we have no fears that a grateful posterity will not assign him his proper place! He is the representative of the future America—free, fearless, noble, true. It makes the blood quicken in our veins when we reflect upon what America, is and is yet to be, with her Everetts and Lincolns scattered all over that land from the shores of the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from the great lakes to the great gulf, all along the shores of those great rivers, and over those wide-spread prairies.