Band books

... Tact, business talent, knowledge of men, resolution,
promptitude and sagacity in dealing with immediate emergencies, a
character which lends itself easily to conciliation, diminishes friction
and inspires confidence, are especially needed, and they are more likely
to be found among shrewd and enlightened men of the world than among men
of great original genius or of an heroic type of character."
The American people should feel profoundly grateful that the greatest
American statesman since Washington, the statesman who in this absolutely
democratic republic succeeded best, was the very man who actually
combined the two sets of qualities which the historian thus puts in
antithesis. Abraham Lincoln, the rail-splitter, the Western country
lawyer, was one of the shrewdest and most enlightened men of the world,
and he had all the practical qualities which enable such a man to guide
his countrymen; and yet he was also a genius of the heroic type, a leader
who rose level to the greatest crisis through which this nation or any
other nation had to pass in the nineteenth century.


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