“Our national strife springs not from our permanent part, not from the land we inhabit, not from our national homestead.  There is no possible severing of this but would multiply, and not mitigate, evils among us.  In all its adaptations and aptitudes it demands union and abhors separation.  In fact, it would ere long, force reunion, however much of blood and treasure the separation might have cost."(30)

A third time he made a great literary stroke, gave utterance, in yet another form, to his faith that the national idea was the one constant issue for which he had asked his countrymen, and would continue to ask them, to die.  It was at Gettysburg, November 19, 1863, in consecration of a military burying-ground, that he delivered, perhaps, his greatest utterance: 

“But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—­we can not consecrate—­we can not hallow—­this ground.  The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract.  The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.  It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.  It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—­that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, for the people, by the people, shall not perish from the earth."(31)

XXVIII.  APPARENT ASCENDENCY

Toward the end of 1863, Lowell prepared an essay on “The President’s Policy.”  It might almost be regarded as a manifesto of the Intellectuals.  That there was now a prospect of winning the war “was mainly due to the good sense, the good humor, the sagacity, the large-mindedness, and the unselfish honesty of the unknown man whom a blind fortune, as it seemed, had lifted from the crowd to the most dangerous and difficult eminence of modern times.”  When the essay appeared in print, Lincoln was greatly pleased.  He wrote to the editors of the North American Review, “I am not the most impartial judge; yet with due allowance for this, I venture to hope that the article entitled ‘The President’s Policy’ will be of value to the country.  I fear I am not quite worthy of all which is therein so kindly said of me personally."(1)