The Hartford Seminary Record (Volume 16)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: But the man who emerged in 1854 stood full-grown?a trained and furnished intellect, an athlete in logic, a finished orator, a statesman of the foremost grade. Here he showed himself. Those preceding years could not have been idle. They must have been struggling, seasoning, ripening years. But all was undisclosed. As he says, He kept still. His outburst in 1854 was an immense surprise. From then until 1860 the demonstrations of his intellectual strength were amazing. Then, if never before, he proved himself a student. His mind showed its store and power. The problem that aroused him was the Nebraska Bill. This Bill uncovered a conspiracy, as he thought, to fix slavery in honor everywhere and forever. This opened into a mighty study?the relation of slavery to the Constitution. Into the deeps and reaches and meanings and issues of that problem he delved untiringly, insistently, historically, exhaustively?until one is compelled to say, not merely here is true scholarship, but here scholarship has become heroic. This is the period?1854-1860?in which to study and test the very fiber of Lincoln's mind, as a reasoning investigating instrument embattling with a towering and intricate theme. Here one can make any test to which the action and outcome of student life can anywhere be reduced. Here are true research, careful pondering, and finished published report?research that shows ideal historic sense; judgment that was never a conjecture, but a conclusion drawn out of prolonged, deliberate thought, and which years are silently stamping as unerringly correct; and a manner of announcing his findings that attains almost to the refinement of dramatic art. In testing the action of Lincoln's intellect in this period of six years, one is tempted to select its earliest speech. In his own ...