THE UNITED STATES' PRESIDENT ELECT (From the "Evening Mail")

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XVII, Issue 1380, 5 March 1861, Page 4

THE UNITED STATES' PRESIDENT ELECT (From the "Evening Mail")

The race of life is so interesting a subject, both to those who have succeeded in it and those who have been disappointed in it, that the adventurous career of the President Elect of the United States, as the New York pi ess describes it, is sure to attract much notice it is put forward as a remarkable instance of what a man can do "under the influence of Amei wan institutions," and so undoubtidly it is. "We will only alter the phrase a little, and say that it is a remarkable instance of what a man can do in America in the 'absence' of all institutions to check him The iavourable peculiarity of American institutions m Mr Lincoln's case has been that they did not exist, that it lias been the great institution of America not to have institutions m the sense in which we of the old v, orld have them. It is plain that our institutions, if they aie a great assistance to society, are at the same tune a gieat check to individuals. Our strongly and clearly marked professions entirely put it out ot anybody's head that he should enter into them after a certain time of life and without a certain education. The barrier is almost insuperable which an adventurer who approaches by a short cut lias to cross. In America it is quite different. Mr. Lincoln was first a farmer, then a trader down the Mississippi, then a surveyor, then a lawyer, upon which last platfoim has risen the statesman and the Pi evident of the United States. Now take a man of Mr. Lincoln's veisatde and fertile mind, and this liberty of piofessional ascent is an enormous gain. It is evcrtning to him. In Mr. Lincoln we have not your man of one talent. Your man of one talent may po<.«e->s it to perfection, but he may spare himself the labour*, of ambition, he maybe quite suie that he is born, to be a drudge. Mr. Lincoln can do anything ho sots his mind to, partly from natural pliability^ jwrtly by an immense power of fixing his attention on whatever is before him. He starts without even the common education of a village schoolboy , six weeks of a loghouse school when he was 16 was his fiiat and last experience of a schoolmaster, but he is seen afterwards giving 50 minutes of fixed and absorbed attention out of his midday hour of relaxation after some hastily swallowed mouthfuls, to his book. The consciousness of this power gives him confidence He knows he can get up anything he likes. -'The 1 boys ' catch him by the arm " and make lum a militia captain out of a momentaiy freak, because he is the most popular and pleasant fellow in the "New Salem ," an ordinary man woidd beg to be excused a campaign against the "Black Hawks," but the storekeeper in an instant accepts the command. It is with the same self-confidence that when his storehouse, owmg to a fraudulent partner, fails him and leaves him eleven hundred dollars in debt, he follows the hint which an accidental look into a book on surveying gives him. He knows he can make himself a sui veyor mno time. Again, he knows he can make himself a lawyer, and accoidmgly a lawyer he becomes We must add to this a striking countenance, a commanding person, a good manner, properly combining self-possession and heartiness, and we see at once a man who has prodigious powers of making his way. Now, as we say, it is obvious what a clear gain " American institutions " are to a man of this aspiring mould of mind joined to such antecedents. Mr. Such antecedents must have been a fatal drag upon Mr. Lincoln in any country of the old world, at least in its normal condition, and without a l evolution to distiub it. Would the profession of the Lvw, for example, have been practically open to an ex farmer, ex-bargeman, ex-storehousekeoper, ex-land suivoyor in this country ? It would not have been The idea would never have entered into Mr. Lincoln's head. ITio venerable looks of the sages of the law, their wigs, their eimine, the divinity which hedges in a judge, the proud traditions of the profession, would have forbidden the aspiration. At a certain time it isitoo lata to begin. A man does not leap into prac-

tice at once with us, however clever he may be. Tradition dictates the patronage of solicitors, and vetos experiments. In a country, however, where a successful professional ascent is open to a man after trying ever so many previous lines, where thore is no barrier to keop out sudden visitors, where it is not necessary to make your choice before you are twenty, but where you have the option of turning experience and growth of intellect, through whatever previous channels derived, at once, when you like, into the most dignified and elevating channel, — where all this is sanctioned and encouiaged by public opinion, and a man cieates no piejudico against himself as a pushing and presumptuous aspiiant by such course, but lather a feeling m Ms favour as a man of pioper spirit who is only turning to account the advantages of tho state of society in which he lives, — where this is tho order of things in a country, a powerful and extiaordinary stimulus to exertion is offered to one class of men which is not offered elsewhere — we mean to that class which is conscious of great powers, but has the drawback of an unfavourable start and a bad introduction to life. These men do not hear the woids " Too late " sounding in their ears ; within a moderate compass it is never "too late " for them. They are in time long after the clock older institutions has struck. Time .and tide wait for them. They have then* chance when it would have gone under another sun. The prospect, then, is an enormous impulse to them, because, if it is never too late to succsed, it is never too late to exert themselves. This 1 , indeed, produces a restlessness m the activity of American bociety Avhich we have not in our own. Society with us is active, but with tho consciousness at the same time of certain bounds which cannot bo passed. Theie is a tendency to men resting on their oars m all piofessions, in this way,— that, inasmuch as theie is no way out of a profession when a man is once in, he contents himself with an advance in the arts and facilities of that one piofesbion. It is haid work at first, because eveiy new material is difficult, as being new ; but as soon as aptitude is acquired the piofessional man has tolerably straight sailing, and then comes the disposition to lepose in the pleasant exercise and command of aits and knowledge already acquned. The leal activity of mmd is more on the smface than below, because the main struggle with the obstructive matter is over. But American active life is lestless, because, as now matenal to be mastered comes in with every new profession, wheie a man can go on dialling from one profession, to another he multiplies the necessity for conquest, and keeps up the struggle for life, and the most arduous part of that struggle, fai longer. In fact, the American never lets himself rest- Theie is no harbour of refuge which receives the accomplished pi ofessional man at a certain time of life, where he simply occupies himself in the use of tools which he has. alieady masteied ; no, he must migiate from his professional home to another untried soil. Everybody migrates in America and the early lemoval of the Lincoln family f rom Kentucky toSpencerCounty.fromSpencerCounty to Hlmois, from Illinois to Coles County and from Coles County to Macon County, only typify the transplantations of American intellect, the constant breaking of new piofessional ground, and the uninterrupted succession of new positions and opportunities winch convey the Missisbipi boatman to the dignity of the White House If the new system has its advantages, however, the old one has its points of superiority too. It would requue a long d'squisition to enter into them all, but it may be mentioned as one advantage that lite should not cousist wholly of motion, but that I there should be a little ies>t in it as well. Such a modified system may not pioduce the most prominent instances of individual elevation, but it pioduces a laige amount of modeiate distinction, which is thoioughly enjoyed because the man has time and rest to enjoy it, whereas the American plan, for one great lestless intellect which attains its complete object, has thousands which go thiough the whole caieer of lestlessness and never reach the goal.