Produced by Al Haines
Statesmen—even the greatest—have rarely won the same unquestioningrecognition that falls to the great warriors or those supreme inscience, art or literature. Not in their own lifetime and hardly tothis day have the claims to supremacy of our own Oliver Cromwell,William III. and Lord Chatham rested on so sure a foundation as thoseof a Marlborough or a Nelson, a Newton, a Milton or a Hogarth. This isonly natural. A warrior, a man of science, an artist or a poet arejudged in the main by definite achievements, by the victories they havewon over foreign enemies or over ignorance and prejudice, by the joyand enlightenment they have brought to the consciousness of their ownand succeeding generations. For the statesman there is no such exactmeasure of greatness. The greater he is, the less likely is his workto be marked by decisive achievement which can be recalled byanniversaries or signalised by some outstanding event: the chief workof a great statesman rests in a gradual change of direction given tothe policy of his people, still more in a change of the spirit withinthem. Again, the statesman must work with a rough and readyinstrument. The soldier finds or makes his army ready to yieldunhesitating obedience to his commands, the sailor animates his fleetwith his own personal touch, and the great man in art, literature orscience is master of his material, if he can master himself. Thestatesman cannot mould a heterogeneous people, as the men of awell-disciplined army or navy can be moulded, to respond to his calland his alone. He has to do all his work in a society of which a largepart cannot see his object and another large part, as far as they dosee it, oppose it. Hence his work at the best is often incomplete andhe has to be satisfied with a rough average rather than with his ideal.
Lincoln, one of the few supreme statesmen of the last three centuries,was no exception to this rule. He was misunderstood and underrated inhis lifetime, and even yet has hardly come to his own. For his placeis among the great men of the earth. To them he belongs by right ofhis immense power of hard work, his unfaltering pursuit of what seemedto him right, and above all by that childlike directness and simplicityof vision which none but the greatest carry beyond their earliestyears. It is fit that the first considered attempt by an Englishman togive a picture of Lincoln, the great hero of America's struggle for thenoblest cause, should come at a time when we in England are passingthrough as fiery a trial for a cause we feel to be as noble. It is atime when we may learn much from Lincoln's failures and success, fromhis patience, his modesty, his serene optimism and his eloquence, sosimple and so magnificent.
March, 1916.
II. THE GROWTH OF THE AMERICAN NATION 1. The Formation of a National Government 2. Territorial Expansion 3. The Growth of the Practice and Traditions of the Union G