T Introduction HIRTY years ago General Oliver Otis Howard founded Lincoln Memorial University at Cumberland Gap, TennesThis was in fulfillment of his promise. to President Lincoln that if he survived the Civil War he would do something for the educational opportunity of the Southern Highland see. ers. In his appeal to Howard for this help, Lincoln spoke of these mountaineers as "My people." They are the descendants of the early pioneers. In response to that entreaty Lincoln Memorial University was established. Today with a student body of one thousand, a faculty gathered from the great educational institutions of the country, a board of trustees of representative Americans, it is forging to the front as an institution permeated with the spirit of Lincoln and dedicated to his ideals. We frequently hear the exclamation: “Ah, if Lincoln were here!" True, his physical presence is no more, but he is here in an ever widening spiritual influence; in dynamic leadership; I in luminous ideals and inspiration to good citizenship. At Lincoln Memorial University an applied science is being made of the principles which Lincoln breathed into the soul of America. These principles are fundamental to our national life, the cornerstone indeed of our national stability. Lincoln is still proclaiming them; his voice vibrates in his recorded words. It rings in the inimitable style of everything he spoke and wrote. We cannot overemphasize the educational effect of his words upon the public mind, especially at a time when so many strange doctrines are in the air and when revolutionary agitators seek to list Lincoln as a radical. The answer is his own words, words that reveal his conservatism and are the beacon of orderly government and liberty under law. The hour is opportune, therefore, for a Lincoln Renaissance, a revival of his letters, a reappraisal of his words, a return to the principles for which he lived and died; the divine right of liberty in man; "Government of the people, for the people, and by the people;" law, order and Constitutional authority; religious tolerance; racial amity; the substitution of the Golden Rule for the rule of gold; "A just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations;" and the solution of every problem "With malice toward none and charity for all" and "firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right." There is nothing Utopian or obsolete in these articles of faith. They are instinct with life, applicable to conditions today and adaptable to all time. They strike at the roots of things, deal with essentials and result in mental and spiritual illumination and transformation. Ethical tinkering, psychological cobbling and socialistic white-washing will accomplish nothing. Only the spirit of Lincoln, his love of the truth, his sympathy with humanity, his devotion to liberty and his faith in the Eternal will bring the "New birth of freedom" for which he plead at Gettysburg, reinstate democracy as the invincible bodyguard of liberty and preserve representative government from the wrecking forces of ignorance and cupidity. The publication of the Works of Abraham Lincoln by Lincoln Memorial University is in response to a growing interest in what Lincoln thought and taught and wrought. It will open a fountain of Lincolniana to which all true Americans will repair to refresh their faith in, and love and zeal for, American ideals and institutions. Performing this national service it will likewise hasten the full realization of Lincoln's dream for an educational opportunity III for his people. He little thought while making this appeal that his influence would so enlarge throughout the world that the compilation of his writings and speeches would some day be utilized in providing an endowment for the educational institution which he visualized for the mental and spiritual uplift and enrichment of the underprivileged youth of the land. It is fitting that the Works of Lincoln should be published and distributed by the University which stands as his Living Memorial and that from the sale of these works there should accumulate a great and noble endowment for the education of American youth in that citizenship worthy the land of Lincoln and the flag he served and saved; and that every purchaser of this Lincolnian legacy should become a supporter of the University founded in his name, a silent partner in the ministry of this Educational Light House of the Mountains, which light, we hope, like that of Calais, shall never grow dim. Johnsorgeystiel Chancellor, Lincoln Memorial University Preface "May 30, 1893. "My dear Nicolay: As you and Colonel Hay have now brought your great work to a most successful conclusion by the publication of your life of my father, I hope and request that you and he will supplement it by collecting, editing, and publishing the speeches, letters, state papers, and miscellaneous writings of my father. You and Colonel Hay have my consent and authority to obtain for yourselves such protection by copyright, or otherwise, in respect to the whole or any part of such a collection, as I might for any reason be entitled to have. "Believe me, very sincerely yours, "JOHN G. NICOLAY." Both in fulfilment of the request contained in the foregoing letter, and in execution of a longcherished design, we present to the public this V |