shall never see him in true historic perspective
until we conceive him as the instrument of a vast social idea--the
determination to make a government based on the plain people successful
in war.

He did not scruple to seize power when he thought the cause of the
people demanded it, and his enemies were prompt to accuse him of holding
to the doctrine that the end justified the means--a hasty conclusion
which will have to be reconsidered; what concerns us more closely is the
definite conviction that he felt no sacrifice too great if it advanced
the happiness of the generality of mankind.

The final significance of Lincoln as a statesman of democracy is brought
out most clearly in his foreign relations. Fate put it into the hands of
England to determine whether his Government should stand or fall. Though
it is doubtful how far the turning of the scale of English policy in
Lincoln's favor was due to the influence of the rising power of English
democracy, it is plain that Lincoln thought of himself as having one
purpose with that movement which he regarded as an ally. Beyond all
doubt among the most grateful messages he ever received were the New
Year greetings of confidence and sympathy which were sent by English
workingmen in 1863. A few sentences in his "Letter to the Workingmen
of London" help us to look through his eyes and see his life and its
struggles as they appeared to him in relation to world history:

"As these sentiments [expressed by the English workmen] are manifestly
the enduring support of the free institutions of England, so am I sure
that they constitute the only reliable basis for free institutions
throughout the world.... The resources, advantages, and power of the
American people are very great, and they have consequently succeeded to
equally great responsibilities. It seems to have devolved upon them to
test whether a government established on the principles of human freedom
can be maintained against an effort to build one upon the exclusive
foundation of human bondage. They will rejoice with me in the new
evidence which your proceedings furnish that the magnanimity they
are exhibiting is justly estimated by the true friends of freedom and
humanity in foreign countries."

Written at the opening of that terrible year, 1863, these words are a
forward link with those more celebrated words spoken toward its close
at Gettysburg. Perhaps at no time during the war, except during the few
days immediately