[317] very bottom, and shows every configuration of the varied interior. I felt at that moment that a ray had darted down to the bottom of Abraham Lincoln's heart, and that I could see the whole. It seemed to me as beautiful as that emerald pool, and as pure. I have never forgotten that glimpse. When the strange revocation came of the most rational and reasonable proclamation of Fremont,-- “The slaves of Rebels shall be set free,” --I remembered that hearty “Amen,” and stifled my rising apprehensions. I remembered it in those dark days when McClellan, Nero-like, was fiddling on James River, and Pope was being routed before Washington, and the report came that a prominent Cabinet Minister had boasted that he had succeeded in preventing the issue of the Emancipation Proclamation; I said: “Abraham Lincoln will prove true yet.” And he has! God bless him! he has. Slow, if you please, but true. Unimpassioned, if you please, but true. Jocose, trifling, if you please, but true. Reluctant to part with unworthy official advisers, but true himself--true as steel! I could wish him less a man of facts, and more a man of ideas. I could wish him more stern and more vigorous: but every man has his faults, and still I say: Amen to Abraham Lincoln! 1
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1 This article was written and first published some months previous to Mr. Lincoln's reelection, during the depression of the public mind following the “raid” on Washington.
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