Class Book 2^c <* UccjtfLjUru. _£U EULOGY ABRAHAM LINCOLN, LATE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, •Jt- DELIVERED BEFORE THE CITIZENS OF BANGOR, OX THE DAY OF THE NATIONAL FAST, JUNE 1st, 1SG5. By CHARLES CARROLL EVERETT. BANGOR: PRINTED BY SAMUEL S. SMITH 1865. 403 - ' '3j ) EULOGY ABRAHAM LINCOLN LATE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, DELIVERED BEFOUE THE CITIZENS OF BANGOR, ON THE DAY OP THE NATIONAL EAST, .TTJjNTH: lwt, 1SGJ3. By CHARLES CARROLL EVERETT. B A'-N GOR: PRINTED BY SAMUEL S. SMITH 1 8 (5 5*. Bangor, June 1, 1865. r.i.v. am> Dbab Sib : Will vou do us the favor to furnish a copy for publication, of the Eulogy mi the life ami character of Abraham Lincoln, pronounced by you, tlii- day, before our citizens. Respectfully Yours, Samuel II. Dale, } Wm. U. Mills, > Committee. John L. Crosby, ) Rev. C. C. Evebett. Third Street, June 2d, 1865. Gentlemen :— I have the pleasure to hand you a copy of the Eulogy lelivered the day of our National Fast, as asked for in your communica- tion of the l>t inst. Respectfully Yours, C. C Everett. Samuel II. Dale, and others, Committee. EULOGY. " Our popular Government has often been called an experiment. Two points in it our people have already settled : the successful establishing and the successful administering of it. One still remains — its successful maintenance againt a formidable internal attempt to overthrow it." Such was the language of President Lincoln in his first message to Congress. The third and last experiment, of which he spoke, has been fairly and successfully tried. It has been demonstated to the world, to use again his prophetic words — " that those who can fairly carry an election can also sup- press a rebellion ; that ballots are the rightful and peaceful successors of bullets ; and that when ballots have fairly and constitutionally decided, there can be no successful appeal back to bullets ; that there can be no successful appeal except to ballots themselves at succeeding elections." For the triumphant success of this grand experiment the nation is indebted to no one so much as to Abraham Lincoln. I do not forget his wise counselors. I do not forget the Generals, who in this prolonged struggle have gained glory for them- selves and for their country. J do not forget the sol- diers, whose steadfast courage took now the form of patience in suffering, now of firmness in resistance, and now of irresistible and overwhelming impetuosity in attack ; of whom Lincoln, at the opening of the war, could say with an honest pride, that " no common sol- dier or common sailor is known to have deserted his flag," and who maintained unbroken fidelity to the end. I do not forget those who have given so freely of their money, or those who have given treasures infinitely dearer, the very pride and joy of their lives, to their country. I do not forget those who have toiled with loving patience to supply the needs of the sick and the suffering. I do not forget that the entire nation gave itself and all its energies, with a hearti- ness almost without precedent, to the great work. But yet to Abraham Lincoln, more than to any other power under God, I believe it is indebted for its success. It was his integrity and his wisdom, his firmness and his tact, that, more than any other single influence, united the North, and crushed the South. It is to do honor to his memory that we come together to-day. Alas, that we can pay honor to his memory alone ! Alas, that he is not with us to share the brightest honors of the nation's triumph ! This triumph should not be, and least of all in his heart would it have been, a par- tisan exultation over the defeat of Southern armies, however much we might have rejoiced together, that the sacriligious hands lifted against our country have been smitten down. These armies were also American. Even the bloody Sulla and Marius, even Crcsar and Augustus, would not celebrate a triumph at the end of a civil war, for thereby the Republic had not been advanced. But though ours has been a civil war, we have cause for a triumph, grander than any that ever glorified the streets of Home. The nation is not only one as it was before, it is free as it never was before. The Republic has been advanced. It has reached the grand height of universal liberty. Well may it tri- umph though its leader has fallen in the strife. Well may it make him, though unseen, a sharer in the vic- tory. As at every pause in the sad journey, in which the slain President was borne back to his home in Illi- nois, the mourning crowd brought flowers wrought into sweet garlands and sacred crosses, to lay upon his bier, * so may we bring our fairest offerings of love and rev- erence, of praise, and of sorrow which is greater praise, trusting that all may not fail to reach him, even where he is. For if any love and sorrow have power to force their way into the unseen world, pressing on after the departed, shall not the loving sorrow of a bereaved nation have such might. A change has passed over us, indeed, since we stood in the sudden bewilderment of grief, and strove to utter his greatness and our loss. Then our best words were little more than articulate sobs. In the crowded events of these weeks, that moment seems now remote. We are again calm, cheerful and hopeful. In these last years we have, indeed, almost lost the sense of time. Hope and fear, exultatioD, and despondency which was half despair, have so chased one another through our hearts, that sometimes the sense of our own identity has seemed confused. Are we the generation that wept over that first terrible defeat ? Are we the gen- eration that was wild with a delirious joy, which knew no check or abatement, when Richmond fell ? And since the death of Lincoln, surrender has so rapidly 6 followed surrender, retribution has so terribly followed in the steps of crime, the very last vestige of the rebel- lion lias been so thoroughly uprooted, that we might almost think that years had passed instead of weeks. It is almost as if we stood in the place of our own posterity. We can look back calmly and impartially. We can judge of acts and of actors. We can speak of Lincoln with the soberness of historic truth. We can recount, as we could not before, the story of his life. We can survey and estimate, as we could not then, his character and his work. We can even smile at the good-humored play of his ready wit But as we thus strive to take in with impartial estimate the full measure of the man, we find that our tears did not magnify the greatness which we lost in him. We find that our calmest thought was not outrun by the strong- est emotion of the heart. Nay, the coolest judgment brings back with it something of that first sorrow, for it shows us, in clear and unmistakable outline, how good and how great he was. Abraham Lincoln sprang of Quaker stock. We first recognize his ancestors in Pennsylvania. It is conjectured that the family came to America in connec- tion with the colonies of Penn, though from a similarity of family names, some have supposed that it was con- nected with the Massachusetts family of Lincolns, a connection which would do honor to either branch. About the year 1750, which is the first date which appears with any distinctness in its history, the family removed to Virginia, plunging into the heart of what was then a wilderness. About 1780, Abraham Lincoln, the grand-father of the President, removed to Ken- tucky, following in the track, and sharing the labors and perils, of Daniel Boone, the story of whose adven- tures made up so much of the romance of our early years. In 1784, he w r as slain by an Indian, who ap- proached him while he was at his work and unsuspi- cious of danger. He left a w T idow, and a family of children, among whom was Thomas Lincoln, the father of the President, then only six years old. Thomas Lincoln grew up amid labor and poverty ; and this is all the record that remains of his life. Of the mother of the President, also, little is known save the name. We can indeed draw out, in our mind, the picture of that frontier life, and put into it the sterling sense and integrity, which the son doubtless inherited from his parents. This son, who was to make their name and memory precious to us, was born on the 12th of Feb- ruary, 1809. When he had reached the age of seven years, the family removed into Indiana, wmich was only to take a step deeper into the wilderness, but into an atmosphere unpolluted by the presence of slavery. In Indiana, Lincoln lived 13 years. They were years full of all the labor that makes up the boyhood of a poor youth in the far wilderness. It was during these years, that he made his first trip down the Mississippi, as one of the hands on a flat-boat. In 1830, when Lincoln was about attaining his majority, the family removed into Illinois. It was soon after this removal, that the future President, by hard labor, all unprophetic of its future fame, earned for himself the historic title of the Rail Splitter. The new rich land must be fenced in, and Lincoln with the help of one man, a relative, split three thousand rails. After this exploit, he left his 8 father's house, and exchanged a laborious youth for a laborious manhood. As we look back upon the boyhood and the youth of Lincoln, we find little place for schools and for the study of books. Indeed, his schooling, all told, ;i mounted to about a year. He was, however, a dili- gent reader of whatever book chanced in his way. Every child knows the story of Washington and his hatchet. The early honesty of the second Washington has a like illustration, lie had borrowed of his teacher, Mr. Crawford, a copy of Weem's life of Washington. By chance, it was left near an open window and drenched by a sudden rain. He took the damaged book to its owner, explained the accident, lamented that he had no money to pay for it, but offered to work out its value. " Well, Abe," said Crawford, " as it is you, I won't be hard on you ; come over and pull fodder with me a couple of days, and we will call it square." I need not add that Lincoln faithfully per- formed his share in the agreement. Such was the boyhood and youth of our President. To us, it would have seemed a poor preparation for his great work. Perhaps it was the best. He carried from it a sturdy constitution, having in it the vitality of generations of backwoods life. He carried senses trained to truthfulness. He earned habits of untiring industry and an unfailing patience. He carried a reverence for labor, and a confidence in the working people, the people of the country, of whom he was one. Moreover, he carried with him all the individual lessons that the wilderness had taught him. Much of the wit, as well as of the wisdom of his after years, was the carrying back of the events of his new life, and comparing them with the events of the old. In the Psalms of David, it is sweet and touching to see how the King carried the shepherd in his heart. ft The Lord is my Shepherd," was his tenderest song. So Lincoln carried his youth with him. It did not break out into song, for that was not the nature of the man. It did take shape in manifold words, sportive without, but true within. The world need not undertake to surprise him with its parades and its sophistries. He had seen it all on the farm and in the wilderness. He had looked at the heart of nature, and had thus learned to read the heart of man. Many of his best sayings are touches of the old familiar experience of his youth. The politician, restive yet obedient, he had known before, in the shape of an uneasy ox on his father's farm. "He sought to be in advance," he says, of Gen. Cass, " but soon he began to see glimpses of the great democratic ox-gad waving in his face, and to hear, indistinctly, a voice sajdng : " Back ! back, sir ; back a little !" He shakes his head and bats his eyes, and blunders back to his position of March, 1847. But still the gad waves, and the voice grows more distinct and sharper still, " Back sir, back I say, further back !" and back he goes to the position of December, 1847 ; at which the gad is still, and the voice sooth- ingly says, " So ! stand still at that." Another instance of the same kind is that witty and modest comparison about " swapping horses while crossing a stream," which expressed in a single sentence a more perfect and sensi- ble self-depreciation and self-appreciation, than pages of courtly Rhetoric could have done. When the two 10 parties of Emancipationists in Missouri were quarrel- instead of helping one another, Lincoln's single year of Western schools furnished him with a prece- i for the discipline they needed, lie said the two parties " ought to have their heads knocked together." Thus did outward nature and the humblest experi- ence of life furnish him with illustration for the grand- est questions of policy and State-craft. Who taught him thus to interpret nature by life, and life by nature ? In his boyhood, there were three books which consti- tuted his principal study. Over these he pored, read- ing them again and again. One of theso was the life of Washington, of which I have already spoken. When Lincoln paused at Trenton, on his way to assume the duties of the Presidency, he told us the effect that this life of Washington produced upon his mind ; how the events described there, especially those that occur- red near Trenton, fixed themselves indelibly in his heart, and how he drew his great lessons of patriotism from this history, as he thought that it could liave been no common object for which these men so suffered and fought. The two other books were Bunyan's " Pil- grim's progress," andiEsop's Fables. I have no doubt that the quaint poetry and shrewd symbolism of these books, controlled the habit of his mind. He studied vEsop till he became a second iEsop. A little story, a playful illustration, became his natural and favorite argument. Indeed, in literary annals there is hardly anything more curious than the relation of these three books to the history of Lincoln. One furnished the model of his life — the others, the habit of his thought. Here I will say a word of warning against the misuse 11 * of a life like that of Lincoln's, partially understood. It is sometimes said, in relation to such stories of self- made men, so common in our annals,— There you see the uselessness of books ; experience and hard work, these are all that a man needs. Lincoln was a student, a hard student, of books. In his boyhood he had little opportunity to use them. He made up for it in his manhood. When he was studying law, he became bewildered with the word " demonstrate." He traced it to mathematics. He broke off his law studies, went home to his father's house and studied Euclid, to learn what it was to demonstrate. Ever after " to demon- strate as Euclid demonstrates," was a favorite expres- sion with him. a It would be no answer to one of Euclid's demonstrations," he said once to Judge Doug- las, u to call Euclid a liar." The writings and speeches of Lincoln show the marks and the habits of hard study. His famous speech in New York was a wonderful example of this. No man could have writ- ten it without the most careful research ; and no one could have written it who was not used to research. Books without experience, are lumber. Experience without books is one man instead of the universe. When Lincoln left his youth, we find that he carried with him all its lessons, forgetting nothing, though always ready for new truth. The fortune he went to seek seemed at first not very promising. We find him again on the flat-boat, sailing down the Missis- sippi; then as agent and clerk, over-seeing a mill and store, and perhaps a distillery; then as a volunteer in the "Blackkawk war," chosen captain by his company; then, when that expedition broke up, enlisting again, 12 and serving as a private, without regard to former dignity. Then we find him studying law, and breaking off to see what it is "to demonstrate." Before his law studies were completed, we find him running for the Legislature, and being whipped, in a way that showed his marvelous popularity, even at that time, his own town giving him, a Whig, all its votes save seven ; while to the Democratic candidate for the Presidency, it gave shortly after a majority of 155 votes. Then we find him eight years in the Legislature ; then, we meet him in Congress, refusing to vote that the war began by act of Mexico, though voting for the army all the supplies that he could, without a falsehood for a preamble. And finally, in 1858, we find him the acknowledged leader of his party in Illinois, its " first, last, and only candidate," for the Senatorship, contest- ing that high office before the State, with Judge Doug- las, the " Little Giant." As this struggle, in which the two combatants held public discussions through the State, is a marked epoch in the life of Lincoln, since it first showed the nation his strength, we will pause and contemplate it for a moment. Judge Douglas was at this time at the very height of his fame and of his strength. He had by the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, which the North had slowly learned to prize, startled into sudden rage the whole anti-slavery sentiment of the country ; then turning against the Democratic party, he had, with the same weapon, Popular Sovereignty, smitten it in twain, and now stood, as if alone, calling upon the American people to rally around the time-honored war cry of self-government. Pie was short, florid, full 13 favored, with something of a swell about him, fond of telling what " I did," and what " I said," making you feel that this " I" had been the great mover of all great events, with an appearance, and I think the real- ity, of consistency, with a great show of fair play for everybody, fluent and ready, the most plausible of haranguers, the smoothest of politicians, one of the keenest of debaters, the only man who had gathered a party at his call, the only man who was the leader and not the instrument of his party, the only man in fact who had a party. Such was the antagonist which Lincoln came forth to meet, himself unknown to the nation, an unpolished son of the West, a very tall David, to meet a rather diminutive Goliah. For Lin- coln tall and meagre, with a certain homely simplicity of speech and manner, and a quiet modesty, by which he forgot himself in the principles for which he fought, was in all respects the opposite of his antagonist. He had sometimes even a Socratic self-depreciation, with which he loved, slyly, to bring out and play upon the importance of the Judge — "Senator Douglas," he says, " is of world-wide renown. All the anxious pol- iticians of his party, or who have been of his party for years past, have been looking upon him, as certainly, at no distant day, to be the President of the United States. They have seen in his round, jolly, fruitful face, post-offices, land-offices, marshalships and cabinet appointments, charge-ships and foreign missions, burst- ing and sprouting out in wonderful exuberance, ready to be laid hold of by their greedy hands. * * * On the contrary, nobody has ever expected me to be 14 President. In my poor, lean, lank face, nobody has ever seen that any cabbages were sprouting out." There you have the parties in this renowned contest — a contest which attracted the gaze of the country, itself convulsed by political excitement, as, in the Homeric battle, the encounter of two mighty heroes would draw the gaze of both armies upon itself. In Illinois, the excitement must have been tremendous. The printed speeches show evidence of this. Crowds are referred to, so vast, that no single voice could reach their outmost edge ; and once, it appears, at the close of the debate, Lincoln was actually carried from the ground in triumph, upon the shoulders of his friends. The printed speeches are undoubtedly genu- ine. Lincoln's, bear unmistakable evidence of his com- position. They must have lost more than they have gained by the transcript. I have chanced to hear one little incident, that is not in the printed form, which may illustrate this, — Douglas had referred to the fact, that Lincoln in his youth sold liquor for a time. Lincoln admitted that for a short time this was one of the required duties of his position. u But," he added, " the Judge need not say anything, though, for he dealt in the same article — only on the other side of the counter." I may remark in passing, as an instance of the manner in which the moral nature of Lincoln was purified, where others would have been corrupted, that doubtless this brief experience of his youth in the liquor traffic, did much to make of him that total abstinence man, which he was known to be through all his later life. I have described to you the personal excitement of 15 this great debate. To Lincoln it was something more than a personal struggle. With him it was a battlo for principle. His clear gaze looked through and be} r ond the excitement of the moment. It was a struggle for the right against the wrong, for liberty against slavery. Even in ihe question of slavery itself he saw only one form of the great struggle for popular right. " This," he says, " is the real issue." This is the issue that will continue in this country, when these poor tongues of Judge Douglas and myself shall be silent. It is the eternal struggle between these two principles — right and wrong — throughout the world. They are the two principles that have stood face to face, from the beginning of time ; and will ever continue to struggle. 'The one is the com- mon right of humanity, and the other the divine right of kings. It is the same principle in whatever shape it developes itself. It is the same principle that says, " You work and toil and earn bread, and I'll eat it." No matter in what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a king, who seeks to bestride the people of his nation, and live by the fruit of their labor ; or from one race of men as an apology for enslaving another race ; it is the same tyrannical principle." — Judge Douglas brought down the slavery laws of the South to the same level with the " Cranberry laws" of Indi- ana and the " Oyster laws" of Virginia. He would leave the territories to settle these matters of domes- tic policy for themselves. — Lincoln answered, first, that the " Dred Scott Decision," which Douglas upheld as final, took away from the territories the right of set- tling this matter : and secondly, that the question of 16 slavery brought in a new element, that of right and wrong. Judge Douglas, ho said, would be logical in his argument, if slavery were not morally wrong. His popular sovereignty, he said, is the right of one man to enslave another, without the interference of a third. The debate involved side issues and personal issues, but this was its central point. Through Illinois these strong spirits went, the one dragging down the ques- tion of liberty to the level of that of " oysters" and a cranberries," the other piercing his sophistries with the clear light of principle and of right. Even the darkness of "Egypt" was for a moment illuminated by this unwonted brightness. These words of Lincoln, uttered before the famous sentence of Seward in regard to the irrepressible conflict between liberty and slavery, furnished the centre of the battle ground. " A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half-slave and half-free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved. I do not expect the house to fall. I do expect it will cease to be divided." — The position of Lincoln, was not, indeed, free from contradictions. • He was, at once, a conservative and a radical. A conservative is a man who recognizes existing institutions. A radical is a man who takes his stand upon extreme principle. Lincoln took his stand on the Declaration of Inde- pendence, yet he found a Constitution that recognized slavery. lie had prejudices against the negroes. It is human to have prejudices ; it is the divine element of humanity that conquors them. Later the line that separated the races grew faint to his view. He had learned the degredation that can bo covered by a 17 white skin, and the nobility that can dwell in a dark one. In the light of that fuller experience he could say, " There will be some black men who can remem- ber, that with silent tongue, and clinched teeth, and steady eye, and well poised bayonet, they have helped mankind on to this great consummation ; while I fear there will be some white ones, unable to forget, that with malignant heart and deceitful speech, they have striven to oppose it." The result of this discussion, between Lincoln and Douglas, was that the State was revolutionized. Douglas indeed gained the immediate prize, the United States Senatorship, owing to the fact that enough of the State Senators of the previous year remained over to secure his election. But though Lincoln lost the Senatorship, he won the Presidency. This discussion introduced him to the country. Henceforth his history was to become more and more identified with that of the nation, until the two were one. The little forest, stream, whose source we could hardly trace, is already swell- ing and broadening before our gaze, soon to be lost in the ocean. The history of these later years is familiar. The nomination at Chicago, which caused us here at the North such disappointment — a disappointment for which, as for so many others, we have learned to thank God — the stormy canvass, the triumphant election; the journey from Springfield; the speeches on the way, the making of which, I doubt not, was one of the most difficult things Lincoln was ever called upon to do, for he had to speak and yet say nothing ; that hasty transit across Baltimore; which the chivalrous 2 is ;h and their friends at the North, not gifted with prophesy, thoughi so undignified and bo ungraceful ; the Inauguration, after which the nation breathed ni< freely; the firsl call for armies, after which it breathed more freely still; all the and changes of th stormy years are familiar to us, written upon our mem- sinlettersof lire ami of blood. And yet, had I space, I should l.»vc to follow the personal history of our President through them. It would be interesting to see the growth of his spirit, to which no lesson of thai stern teacher experience, was lost. We should find him attaining, at every stop, now comprehension of the great crisis. We should find the sense of freedom which he felt, when the greal contradiction, of which I have spoken, was solved for himself and for the nation ; when his conservatism became one with his radicalism, the Constitution one with the Declaration of Independence. We should find him becoming more and more at ease, more confident of himself and more confident of the people. We should find his nature mellowing; or at least showing itself more clearly amid the formalities of his official station. He, the tenderest of fathers, began to regard the people his children. His public speech began to show more and more of that freedom and charm, that marked his private intercourse. The deep sentiments of his soul began to express themselves with less constraint, until his public and official utterances culminated in that last " Inaugural." But all the while, we should find .•mother element, overshadowing the rest. The powers of darkness began their work as he began his. From the \^ry first there were the plots of assassination, as 19 it would appear concocted in part by the same plotters, who at last accomplished their terrible design. Death lurked about him in all secret forms. The dagger, the pistol, the poisoned cup sought the life of him, the unsuspicious and the fearless. But a secret spell seemed to guard him. Unharmed he trod the perilous path. But at last the spell was broken, for his work was done. Amid the shouts of triumph, the ball of the assassin, held back no longer, did its fearful work. I have said that his life became one with the nation's history — his life, but not his death. There, the two parted. The mourning people followed his poor remains, with tears and praises, to their last resting place ; the nation trod, with unfaltering foot, the path of peace and of victory. In regard to Lincoln, as in regard to Washington, and others of kindred nature, the question arises, whether or not he should be called great. The line, where common sense and integrity pass into greatness and genius, is a difficult one to trace. We are used to a certain extravagance in those whom we call great. We are used to seeing a selfish ambition kindle their faculties to intense and glowing heat. A mind that takes things as they are, and does the best with them, adding to them no selfish or peculiar shape or tinge, seems almost too natural to be called great. The mind of Lincoln had so beautiful an equipoise, it was so sym- metrical, that we have to study it, to feel how great it was. When you enter St. Peters at Rome, you are not at first struck by its vastness. All parts and all adornments are in such symmetrical proportion, that you hardly perceive the great difference between this 20 and ordinary structures. It is only -when you let the eye travel over its immensity, wandering up, — up, from the strong foundation, up across the colossal figures in mosaic, thai seem only of common stature on the vastness of the wall, — up to the spring of the mighty dome, up along its majestic sweep, to the very summit, that you feel how sublime it is. It is thus with the character of Lincoln. We have to study it in detail to learn its greatness. More than once I have seen him spoken of as "an average American." What a country we should have if this were only true ! Like Saul he was higher than the people from his shoulders upward, and he overtopped them more by his character than by his stature. Posterity, looking back upon us, will not perpetuate this error. This one fact will show his greatness, that in the administration of the Government he stood, and was willing to stand, alone. For two years, he held no regular and formal meeting of his Cabinet. Even when he laid his Emancipation Proclamation before the Cabinet, he stated that he wished to take advice in regard to its form merely. In regard to its substance, he had already made up his mind. At the same time, there was nothing of what in the days of Jackson was called a " Kitchen cabinet," that is, no circle of managing politicians, controlling the Government, though inform- ally. Lincoln shrank from no responsibility. When his Secretary of Avar was threatened with prosecution for illegal arrests, Lincoln promptly took the whole responsibility and burden of the matter upon himself Thus he stood alone; alone with the people, with no third but God. Every official line of his bears the 21 stamp of his individuality. The whole movement of the nation, cautious, steadfast, and unfaltering, was the very embodiment of his character. It may he said, indeed, that Lincoln was too observ- ant of the popular will, that he followed where he should have led. But this in itself, if it were so, shows a rare and wonderful power. If in the midst of the clamor of parties, of the intrigues of politicians, of the pressure of speculators, he could, through all, discover what the great heart of the people really and honestly wished, it shows a genius for control. His theory of government was, that the ruler is the peo- ple's servant, bound, in all right things and right ways, to do their will and not his own. He had, moreover, wisdom enough to see that he was nothing without the people. — Take for instance the Proclamation of Eman- cipation. He knew that this was not his act, and could not be enforced by him alone. Two things were needed for its success. — Its endorsement by the people at the North, the victory of the armies at the South. The Proclamation, without these, would have been like a cannon ball thrown by the strength of the artillery- man alone. Let him wait till the cannon is loaded, till the ball is rammed home. Thus Lincoln waited till the great Columbiad was charged. Then he applied the match, and the missive sped its way, hurled by the might of the nation, falling with this immeasurable force, upon the very central citadel of Southern strength, and crushing it into annihilation. It was because Lincoln had such a genius for his work, and went about it so naturally, that it looked so easy, and it seemed as if any average American of us could 99 have done as well. — The works of Genius always look ■ till we try to do them. For this genius I think he has nol had sufficient credit We read his messa- . as the telegraph broughl them to us. and call them ungrammatical. We read some "1' his popular speech- eSj and pronounce them awkward. Posterity will re- verse in pari this decision. Ii is impossible for us, even now, to read connectedly his public words, and nol feel the genius that is in them, and was in him. Eis administration was so broad, the war did not ex- haust it. The war was only one of its incidents. The Pacific raihoad, the Department of Agriculture, all the foreign and domestic interests of the Republic, received the same attention as if it had been a time of peace. His writings themselves are so full, so clear, so rich, so earnest, — so reliant upon the Nation and upon Cod, — that now, that the strife is over, wo cannot read them without a thrill of enthusiasm. His ^tyle is sometimes harsh, hut almost always pure. It is peculiar. You can tell a line of it any where that you meet it, but it is as you can tell a line of Robert Browning's. It is the peculiarity of genius. This may sound extravagant, but I challenge any one to make a study of his writings and not feel that it is true. Lincoln was in popular address, as I have said, often awkward. The nature of his mind was logical. He had a marvelous power of stating a case. This was from no oratorical trick, but because he saw its points in their true logical relation. From this Logical faculty he could not escape. Even his wit was condensed Logic. If he talked, he must say something. He must get hold of a thread of reasoning or he was at a loss. The argu- ment seemed sometimes dragged in. lie used ideas for their truth, not for their beauty. The jeweler shows you his precious stones all radiant with the glitter of cut facets. The mineralogist shows them to you, rough from the mountain side, the native rock yet clinging to them. Lincoln did not use thoughts as the jeweler does stones, for ornament. lie showed them rough against the background of fact, from which they sprang. He used them for their truth. He was no polished speaker then, but he had some- thing infinitely better than polish. Lincoln was, above all things, an American. He was the type of whatever is best and most peculiar to us. His very aspect was American. The physiog- nomy, which, it is said, this western nature is model- ing for us on the type of the Indians, those older children of the West, he possessed in a marked degree. The caricatures of Brother Jonathan might be taken as caricatures of himself. His method was American. The American is said to exaggerate. His wit and his declamation consists of exaggeration ; but American earnest understates. The true Yankee will tell you that he rather guesses — that is about all he can clo about a matter. You will find that his * Guess" is as strong as another man's oath. His * About all" is a line as sharp as if drawn by the diamond. Thus Lincoln seemed to be guessing his way, but his guesses were Yankee guesses. He understated his purposes, but none the less they were fixed and unconquerable. He was the type of what our civilization was meant to produce. He stands as the grand result and exam- ple, as well as defender, of American institutions. 24 If we would analyze si ill further his character, I should Bay that the people hit upon its mosi marked feature, when they called him honest, u honesl old Abe. M I will not speak of financial honesty. Every act and word of his was sincere, lie loved popularity, hut he was no demagogue. Ue never Haltered the people, lie never even sought merely to amuse them with his humor. His popular harangues were as earnest and as clear, as a lawyer's argument before the court. I told you of the great excitement of his campaign with Douglas. What do yoi think of the fact, that, with that eager crowd before him, he ■would sometimes sit down leaving ten minutes of his time unoccupied. This was not because he had nothing more to say, but because if he took up another point, he could not get through with it. He could not talk to the people without taking up points, and when he had done with one, he had to sit down or take up another. "When you see in his words something -which, coming from another man, you would take to be good rhetoric, you may be sure that from his lips, it had special meaning. At Philadelphia, he said he would rather be assassi- nated, than give up the principles of the Declaration of Independence. Good Rhetoric, was it ? The words were spoken just as he learned of the plot to assassi- nate him, in his passage through Baltimore. Of Get- tysburg, he said, — "We cannot consecrate it, but we c;m consecrate ourselves." Very well put. you say. But, afterwards, we learn, that it was on that Aery spot that he had consecrated himself, with a fresh devotion to th' 1 service of God as well as that of* man. Jle loved the people with an honest love. He gave 25 open audience to all, that he might not forget that he was one of the people, that like Antaeus, he might be strengthened by the touch of the earth, from which he sprung. If I should add one more word to this scanty por- trayal of his character, I should say that he was chiv- alrous. I use the word, because it has been so much misused. Seek what is best in chivalry, sum up its noblest lessons, and you have in theory what Abraham Lincoln was. Chivalry enjoined courage. Was he not brave ? He lived so long in an atmosphere charged with death, that the peril became a jest. He walked alone save for the presence of his little boy, whom he led by the hand without guard or guide through the very heart of captured Richmond. At Washington he made sport of the military escort that was sometimes forced upon him. If to know no fear be bravery, he was brave. Chivalry bade its followers be chaste. Lincoln was without a vice, — without reproach as well as without fear. Chivalry taught respect to the hum- ble and care for the oppressed. Lincoln never saw a person too humble to be treated with his best cour- tesy. Once when a little ragged boy pressed in with two honorable Senators, to speak with him, he took the poor boy's hand, and heard his story before he had greeted his distinguished guests. You remember the story of the mother with her infant waiting in the ante-room, and how " it was the baby that did it," He succored the oppressed ; he struck off the fetters from a race of bondmen. He was merciful and courteous to prisoners. He rode ten miles, you remember, in the hot sun, to make sure that a reprieve he had issued 3 did no! fail of i tination. You remember how - mercy of his blossomed in while flowers upon his bier. Even the rebel prisoners felt themselves safe in his firm yet gentle hand. Ik- was the very Prince of Chivalry. His nation stood exposed to a mom more terrible than any the old legends dreamed of. She summoned him to fight her battle. Though he l'cll in the conflict, the monster had received its death wound, and the nation, saved and honored, will bring to him praise and thanks forever. Would you heighten the beauty of tin- picture by a dark and terrible contrast. Sum up the besl teach- ings of chivalry, and you speak u hat Abraham Lincoln was. ami in the same breath, what the so-called chivalry of the South was not. — Chastity? You mock Truth'.' You forget their broken oaths. — Mercy for the oppressed ? What irony. — Fair and honorable war- fare ? Their weapons were poison and pestilence and the dagger's stroke. — Courtesy to prisoners! — Their courtesy was torture and starvation. I tell you, that in the pure gaze of infinite justici . the death of the President himself, terrible as it was. is not to he com- pared lor infamy of crime, with the long-drawn anguish of one of those tortun d soldiers, in the Southern prisons. Prisons, do I say, when they had not even the shelter of a prison, when they lay exposed to all the chances of sun and of tempest ; exposed to the taunts of the Southern — ladies. — I will not call them women, who rode out to make a mock of their suffer- ings : while Southern women were lashed on the hare back for ministering to their necessities. Southern soldiers were brave ; to deny it would be to take from 21 the laurels of our own brave boys. They had good Generals ; to deny it would be to strip the laurels from our own ; but the Chivalry of the " Confederacy " as such, was made up of a brag and a whine. Davis stands as the representative of Southern, as Lincoln docs of the true Chivalry. You read the messages of Davis, and you wonder where are our victories and their defeats. You wonder if we were such barbarians indeed. But when you see him in his last disguise, nourishing his elegant dagger, and complaining that he thought we were "too magnaimous to pursue women," you have a revelation of the whole. It was a long disguise. It pretended to liberty. It placed the sacred cap of Freedom on its brow, and while it held down, with one iron hand, the white, and with the other crushed the black, it boasted the terrors it was to bring to pass, and whined that we did not let it alone with its freedom. But, from beneath each disguise, the cloven foot was seen, and through all pierced the stern stroke of Justice. Thus have we, together, traced in poor and imperfect outline, the history and the character of Abraham Lincoln. — He reached the place toward which, while America is worthy of her name, her sons will aspire with honorable ambition. Will any envy him this great advancement ? " His face was the saddest I have ever seen," said one long used to study faces. Men heard his playful jest and merry laughter, and thought he had no sense of the stern realities about him. They did not know that these sparkling jests were the springs to which he stooped for refreshment, as he trod the path of the nation's sorrow. Where 28 others would have paused, their physical capacity for endurance ■_ •■■-. b • stooped, and drank of these bub- bling rills, and went forward, thus strengthened, to tread with full consciousness the whole length of the allotted way. And surely there "will be none to e] him thai last silent majesty of hit death. Will any then pity him? He had a joy thai would scorn pity. For him was uttered the greai promise, u Thou hast been faithful over a few things, 1 will make thee ruler over many things. Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord," — tlic joy of the Lord, that joy full upon whose path rises the cross, yet none the Less a joy. Will any look down upon him for his lack of culture, his lack of enthusiasm for ideas, and of faith in them? He had learned the great lesson of his age. He had an enthusiasm for ideas that scorned the tricks of Rhetoric. He had a faith in them, by which he knew that their bare presentation to the people, in their simplest and clearest shape, would kindle and quicken, would strengthen and guide them. lie had a faith in princi- ple, which, secure of the result, could leave unused the hurrying goad of a doubtful policy. Will any rever- ence him with distant and humble awe ? His hearty laugh, his sportive speech, the grasp of his honest hand, the ready kindness of his heart, would draw them to his side. We can love him and that is the tribute he would love the best. As we look hack upon his history, we see that all is right. It was well that his ancestors and himself Bhould have conquered the land he was to rule, con- quered it in»t by the weapons of war. hut by the nobler weapons of peace, by the plough and the axe, the 20 wedge and the maul. It is well that he brought from the wilderness, into politics, a heart that could not be made corrupt, and into war, a heart that could not he made hard. It is well that he opened his mouth in proverbs, and spoke that universal language, most common to the wisest and to the simplest. It is well that he was the child of his country, the child of his century ; that he had faith in the people, faith in him- self, faith in principle, and faith in God. It is well that his administration culminated in one act of Eman- cipation, which shall make his memory immortal ; and well for him that he departed in the full flush and glory of victory, leaving his fame to ripen in a day. Well for him, and for us what remains. For us remains the victory he won ; but for us remains also the struggle to be completed. The time, which his prophetic heart foresaw, has come. The tongues of Douglas and himself are silent. The first lived long enough to bring his talent and his influence, as a free offering to his country, even though it was also an offering to his successful rival. Both lived long enough to fight side by side, for a common cause. Both are now silent ; but the great principles still wage their eternal strife. We have to learn what justice is. In the hour of passion we call vengeance justice. When the passion has passed we call justice vengeance. We must learn what the national good faith and honor are ; even though under its plighted troth, the guiltiest of the rebel Generals may escape all punishment but eternal infamy. We must learn what liberty is, liberty for those whom our martyred President made free. We 30 must learn thai those who fought for us should tri- umph with us ; that also in their dusky hands •• ballots should be the rightful and peaceful successors of bul- lets." We must learn thus to trust principle, to follow the right, to serve with steadfast purpose God and our Country. " And," as Abraham Lincoln said four years ago, " having thus chosen our course, without guile and with pure purpose, let us renew our trust in God, and go forward without Tear and with manly hearts."