of the greatest of Americans and the best of men.




ABRAHAM LINCOLN

BY JOSEPH H. CHOATE

[This Address was delivered before the Edinburgh Philosophical
Institution, November 13, 1900. It is included in this set with the
courteous permission of the author and of Messrs. Thomas Y. Crowell &
Company.]


ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

When you asked me to deliver the Inaugural Address on this occasion, I
recognized that I owed this compliment to the fact that I was the
official representative of America, and in selecting a subject I ventured
to think that I might interest you for an hour in a brief study in
popular government, as illustrated by the life of the most American of
all Americans. I therefore offer no apology for asking your attention to
Abraham Lincoln--to his unique character and the part he bore in two
important achievements of modern history: the preservation of the
integrity of the American Union and the emancipation of the colored race.

During his brief term of power he was probably the object of more abuse,
vilification, and ridicule than any other man in the world; but when he
fell by the hand of an assassin, at the very moment of his stupendous