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Campus Mirror Published During the College Year by the Students of Spelman College, Atlanta, Georgia VOL. XV FEBRUARY 15, 1939 No. 5 How I Consider Our Six teenth President, Lincoln Dorothea Boston. ’39 As we approach another birthday of one of our national heroes, Abraham Lin coln. it seems quite necessary in this time of crises to think a moment about this in dividual and the qualities which made it possible for him to find for the people a way out of their crisis. Even leaders to day, when faced with conflicts which dare not ever become quite so hitter as those were, are quite lost as to how the prob lems should be handled. Not so with Lincoln. He knew the issue and dealt with it in such a manner as to break down the institution which caused the division and began a reorganization of the nation which the greatest leaders since his death have not been wise enough to complete. In giving a brief analysis of Lincoln 1 cannot give his exact thoughts, but I will give his words, which must he records of his thoughts, to say exactly what I mean. In 1858 Abraham Lincoln first came into prominence as a national figure. He was then forty-nine years old, very tall and lanky, awkward and homely, but was the possessor of a keen, well-trained mind. In June of that year he spoke these words which are often quoted: “I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the union to he dissolved I do not expect the house to fall but I do expect that it will cease to be divided.” In his speech in July of the same year in Chicago, he made such an utterance as this. and it set his audience on fire: “Let us discard all this quibbling about this man and the other man. this race and the other race, and the other race being in ferior. and therefore they must be placed in inferior positions, discarding our stand ards that we have left to us. Let us dis card all these things and unite as one people throughout this land until we shall stand up declaring that all men are cre ated equal.” In the following September of the same year, 1858, in a speech in Charleston, Illinois, he said these things which may seem to some to be contradictory. “I am not nor ever have been in favor of mak ing voters of the free Negroes, or jurors, or qualifying them to hold office, or hav ing them marry with white people. I will say in addition that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which, I suppose, will forever for bid the two races living together upon terms of social equality; and inasmuch as they can not so live, that while they do remain together, there must be the posi tions of the superiors and the inferiors; and that I. as much as any other man, am in favor of the superior position being assigned to the white man.” These statements certainly seem to con tradict each other, but Lincoln said of them, “If you take the trouble to analyze the statements carefully, you wdll see that they are so slippery in context that there is really no conflict between them. There is only a difference in quality.” In the three together he expressed his honest feelings that were elaborated when he said: “My paramount object in the strug gle is to save the Union, and it is not either to save or destroy slavery.” Whether this matter may be considered by both white and colored races as so many or so few words, the fact is that on December 18. 1865 (he had become presi dent. been reelected, served as Command- er-in-Chief of the Union \rmy and had vastly more knowledge and insight on the national problem), Abraham Lincoln proclaimed one of the “landmarks of Uni versal history” as part of the Constitution of the United States of America when he wrote: “And by virtue of the powers and for the purpose aforesaid. I order and de clare that all persons held as slaves with in said states and parts of states, are and henceforth shall be free." And I today cherish the fact that he seemed sincere, honest and true; and he allowed himself to be used a* a tool of Cod for the emancipation of my people!