The training of his mind, the awakening of his imagination, the formation of his taste and style, the humorous dramatizing of his experience,--all this discipline had failed to pervert his character, narrow his sympathies, or undermine his purposes.
His intelligence served to enlighten his will, and his will, to establish the mature decisions of his intelligence.

Late in life the two faculties became in their exercise almost indistinguishable.

His judgments, in so far as they were decisive, were charged with momentum, and his actions were instinct with sympathy and understanding.
Just because his actions were instinct with sympathy and understanding, Lincoln was certainly the most humane statesman who ever guided a nation through a great crisis.

He always regarded other men and acted towards them, not merely as the embodiment of an erroneous or harmful idea, but as human beings, capable of better things; and consequently all of his thoughts and actions looked in the direction of a higher level of human association.

It is this characteristic which makes him a better and, be it hoped, a more prophetic democrat than any other national American leader.