It is the spirit always that is sovereign. Lincoln,
like the rest of us, was put through the discipline of the world,--a
very rough and exacting discipline for him, an indispensable discipline
for every man who would know what he is about in the midst of the
world's affairs; but his spirit got only its schooling there. It did not
derive its character or its vision from the experiences which brought it
to its full revelation. The test of every American must always be, not
where he is, but what he is. That, also, is of the essence of democracy,
and is the moral of which this place is most gravely expressive.
We would like to think of men like Lincoln and Washington as typical
Americans, but no man can be typical who is so unusual as these great
men were. It was typical of American life that it should produce such
men with supreme indifference as to the manner in which it produced
them, and as readily here in this hut as amidst the little circle of
cultivated gentlemen to whom Virginia owed so much in leadership and
example. And Lincoln and Washington were typical Americans in the use
they made of their genius. But there will be few such men at best, and
we will not look into the mystery of how and why they come.
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