his party who had little confidence in him when he first became
President, but equally surprised the country and the world.

He was patient, tireless and usually silent when great conflicts
raged about him to solve the appalling problems which were
presented at various stages of the war for determination, and
when he reached his conclusion he was inexorable. The wrangles of
faction and the jostling of ambition were compelled to bow when
Lincoln had determined upon his line of duty.

He was much more than a statesman; he was one of the most
sagacious politicians I have ever known, although he was entirely
unschooled in the machinery by which political results are
achieved. His judgment of men was next to unerring, and when
results were to be attained he knew the men who should be
assigned to the task, and he rarely made a mistake.

I remember one occasion when he summoned Colonel Forney and
myself to confer on some political problem, he opened the
conversation by saying: "You know that I never was much of a
conniver; I don't know the methods of political management, and I
can only trust to the wisdom of leaders to accomplish what is
needed."

Lincoln's public acts are familiar to every schoolboy of the
nation, but his personal attributes, which are so strangely
distinguished from the attributes of other great men, are now the
most interesting study of young and old throughout our land, and
I can conceive of no more acceptable presentation to the public
than a compilation of anecdotes and incidents pertaining to the