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ADDRESS 
 
 DELIVERED ON THE 
 
 SABBATH FOLLOWING THE ASSASSLXATIO]^ 
 
 PRESIDENT LINCOLN, 
 
 GREENWICH, CONN. 
 
 BY 
 
 KEY. WILLIAM H. H. MUEKAY. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 JOHN" F. TROW, PRINTER, 50 GREENE ST, 
 
 1865. 
 

 t ifiGolnl wa 
 
 Rev. Wm. H. H. Mukray, 
 
 Dear Sie : — At a full meeting of members of the Second Con- 
 gregational Society and other citizens, held this day, the undersigned 
 were appointed a Committee to request of you a copy of your address 
 delivered on the Sabbath following the assassination of Abraham Lin- 
 coln, our beloved Chief Magistrate, at Washington. "We take pleasure 
 in presenting this request, for we believe the dissemination of the 
 sentiments uttered on that occasion will aid in suppressing the spirit 
 of rebellion in our land, furthering the ends of justice and securing 
 permanent peace for our suffering nation. 
 
 P. BUTTON, 
 
 SANFOKD MEAD, 
 
 WM. SMITH. 
 Geeenwich, April 19, 18G5. 
 
 P. BuTTOiT, S. Mead, ^Y. Smith, 
 
 Gentlemex : — In reply to your note, requesting a copy of my ad- 
 dress of the 16th, for publication, I would say that if there is a gen- 
 eral desire on the part of the public to have what was then said put 
 in such a shape as to be preserved, I know of no reason why it should 
 not be granted. You are pleased to express the belief that its sen- 
 timents recommend it to loyal men, and are such as to influence for 
 good the reader. I trust such is the case. Nevertheless, it is but due 
 to the writer to observe that he regards it not so much in the light of 
 an argument as of a tribute. In it I aimed simply to give expression, 
 in suitable language, to popular grief as it then was. The logical co- 
 herence of argument, needed to convince men's judgments on other 
 occasions, is not to be found or expected here. Looking at it from 
 this standpoint, I have not felt at liberty to remodel it, even when by 
 so doing it might have been improved. The people arc aware under 
 what circumstances it was composed, and I preferred to leave it as it 
 was delivered. I have deemed thus much due both to the people and 
 myself, to whom, as to you, gentlemen, I am 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 • W. II. n. MURRAY. 
 
 ^^S^^/S 
 
ADDRESS. 
 
 To-day the wicked trinmpli and the good are brought 
 low. Two days ago and the Eepiiblic stood erect, strong 
 and reliant, her foot advanced and countenance radiant 
 with hope. To-day she lies prostrate upon the ground, 
 her features stained with the traces of recent grief, and 
 her voice lifted in lamentation. 
 
 "The beauty of Israel is slain upon the high places : How are the 
 mighty fallen ! " 
 
 President Lincoln is dead. The Chief Magistrate of 
 the nation is departed. A good man has left us, and the 
 hearts of the people are sad. 
 
 The nation grieves to-day as it has not grieved since 
 the first President died. Nay, with a grief more poign- 
 ant yet, for Washington lived till he could serve his 
 country in public no longer ; but Lincoln is removed at 
 a time when it seems impossible to spare him. It is well, 
 my friends, that ye have draped* your place of worship ; 
 for by so doing, ye sympathize with the public grief, and 
 deprecate the judgments of Grod. Let these solemn em- 
 blems testify to all, that you obey the Apostolic injunction, 
 to "weep with those that w-eep." Let the symbol of 
 our nation's glory, as you behold it, crossed with mourn- 
 ful black, express, beyond the powers of speech, our sense 
 of that nation's loss. Let the unwonted silence of this 
 crowded and hushed assembly, the mournful cadence of 
 the anthem's solemn voice, the grave expression of every 
 thoughtful face, the tears that dim our eyes, be to-day 
 
 * The church had been draped in heavy mourning on Saturday. 
 
our grief's interpreter, and say wliat words may not; nor 
 lips express. For there are times when feelings exceed 
 utterance, and spoken syllables, however gently word- 
 ed, sound harshly on the ear. 
 
 This is no time to recount the history of the past. Its 
 failures and successes call not for recital to-day ; and yet, 
 some retrospect is needed to teach us the lessons of the hour. 
 
 On the 4th of March, 1861, Abraham Lincoln took 
 the oath of office, at Washington, and was inaugurated 
 Chief Magistrate of the country. ' I need not rehearse the 
 condition in which the nation then stood. The difficulties 
 and embarrassments of the new President's position are 
 known to all. On whatever side he turned, he met du- 
 plicity and treason. The Capitol stood as on a mine 
 ready to be exploded. The train was laid, the match 
 was lighted, and all the wicked enginery prepared. 
 
 What chance was there to foil the plotters ? Thirty 
 years of corrupt administration, adherence to false prin- 
 ciples, and subserviency to designing men, had brought 
 the Government to the brink of ruin. An unpardonable 
 blindness had fallen on the people. The nation refused 
 to credit the danger, though beneath them, as under the 
 • crust of a crater, might be heard the rumblings of the 
 coming eruption. Though the air was thick with the 
 cinders of gathering conflagration, our statesmen refused 
 to believe there was peril. Thus, with a traitor at the 
 head of every bureau, ajiplying all the resources of the 
 nation to forward their base designs, with an incredulity 
 in his cabinet, and an apathy among the people, which 
 deserved, as they received, the contempt of the world 
 — U|,)on the eve of such a tempest, and while the ship was 
 already entering the breakers, Abraham Lincoln took the 
 helm, and after four years of unremitting effort, with 
 the blessing of God upon his endeavors, he had succeeded 
 in rescuing it from inuncdiate danger, and was directing 
 its course to a safe and permanent haven. 
 
 At the close of the term of his first administration, he 
 was again elected to the Presidential office, with a popu- 
 lar unanimity which gave an almost unprecedented en- 
 dorsement both to his character and the wisdom of his 
 policy. 
 
During all these years, and amid all his trials, he 
 bore himself with such becoming dignity, exhibiting such 
 steadfast faithfulness, such sincerity of purpose, such free- 
 .dom from passion, such reliance on the Divine will, such 
 sympathy with the oppressed, that the world grew to re- 
 spect and the nation to revere him. His conduct silenced 
 his opposers and conciliated his enemies, and the name 
 of Abraham Lincoln will pass into history, with a popu- 
 lar, unanimity rare to behold, as that of a sincere patriot, 
 a wise ruler, and a noble man. 
 
 Alas, that we must proceed ! Why may we not here 
 pause ! Why is so hard a duty imposed on me as to de- 
 clare, or so painful a task on you as to hear, the awful 
 recital of his death ! Last Friday evening, by the hand 
 of an assassin, this man, so much beloved, whose life 
 seemed so essential to the public weal, was cruelly mur- 
 dered — murdered by the very men for whom his voice had 
 always pleaded forgiveness. 
 
 There have been assassinations of public men before 
 this, but never one so useless. What end was there to 
 gain by murdering Lincoln ? What reason can be given 
 for this woful waste of precious blood ? I answer, none. 
 It was the act of devilish spite^ of blind and fiendish 
 hate against the loyal North. The man was nothing save 
 as a representative. He was our agent, and as our agent 
 he was slain. The selfsame spirit that fired on Sumter 
 four years ago, last Friday shot our President. The lesson 
 of this event is therefore plain.. None but a knave who will 
 not, or a fool who cannot, need fail to understand it. It 
 reveals to us the deep depravity and devilish perseverance of 
 the men waging war upon the nation's life. Theirs is no 
 ordinary hostility — no common enmity. Their hate re- 
 sembles the hatred of devils ; it does not reason ; it can- 
 not be propitiated. Its motto is " rule or ruin." As a 
 people, we have been slow to realize this. Cherishing no 
 hatred toward the South, we have refused to be persuad- 
 ed that it were otherwise with them. The least reflection 
 will show us our error. Remember how surroundings 
 make the man. Cruelty comes first by habit, afterward 
 by blood. The circumstances of the Southern people have 
 made them tyrants. The upas of secession was planted 
 
6 
 
 by Oalhoun. Assassination is the natural mode of expres- 
 sion to uncontrolled yet cowardly passion. To beat wom- 
 en and kill men has been the pastime of gentlemen at 
 the South for forty years. State statute guaranteed this 
 privilege to every man of property and standing. The 
 boys were taught to despise the hoe and use the whip. 
 Disregard of human life became universal. To stab a 
 man was nothing, especially if he was black. Picture 
 now such a people, educated into cruelty and revenge by 
 years of uncontrolled indulgence ; vain, conceited, malig- 
 nant, hating whoever opposed them ; and then picture 
 that same people, thwarted as they have been by us at 
 the North, beaten by the very ones whose prowess they 
 despised, and their bitterness appears at once not only 
 possible but natural. We cease to wonder, when we re- 
 member these things, at the cruelty practised upon our 
 soldiers taken by them in battle. From Jefferson Davis 
 down to the hyenas that guarded the pens at Anderson- 
 ville, all were filled with fiendish rancor. 
 
 Each soldier in blue was a rejDresentative of that 
 North they hated, and on him they wreaked their ven- 
 geance. The leaders at Eichmond experienced keen delight, 
 as week by week last summer, commandants at the Southern 
 prisons forwarded their weeldy reports, how, in obedience 
 to orders received from headquarters, the Yankee prisoners 
 were being starved to death by the thousand. Ah, what 
 a spectacle will heaven and earth behold, when, in obe- 
 dience to their last summons, those forty thousand skele- 
 ton fonns shall rise from out the trenches where rebel 
 hands flung them with cursino- and stand marshalled in 
 dread array — an army of witnesses against their mur- 
 derers ! Will men in view of this dare say that mercy, 
 human or divine, can plead for those who not only did 
 this deed, but who, instead of showing repentance, openly 
 boast and glory in their guilt ? 
 
 Does the impenitent and boastful sinner find pardon 
 at God's hand ? Does He whose throne is built on 
 adamantine justice greet with sweet complacency and 
 loving favor the men who live to kill ? Is there in 
 heavenly judgments no difterence between the innocent 
 and the guilty ? Are the rebellious and the loyal re- 
 
garded in the same light by Him who rewarded Abdiel 
 with everlasting glory, hnt bound with chains of fire the 
 rebel angels in hell ? And will men so blaspheme and 
 wickedly misquote His holy word as to claim that God 
 enjoins on men a mercy that He could never practise him- 
 self ? Such are not my views of heaven and God. My 
 Bible teaches me there is a place of torment for the wicked ; 
 and for the good, reward. I believe there is on earth 
 a needed imitation of that justice which is above, by 
 which society is protected and government upheld. I 
 believe that the prison and the scaffold are not cruel, but 
 humane establishments, because within their shadow only 
 can innocence and unprotected wealth be secure from the 
 lawlessness of lust and robbery. And, moreover, I believe, 
 and were I alone in the belief, I would maintain it against 
 the world — I believe, I say, there is a perceptible difference 
 between a law-abiding citizen and a lawless rebel, between 
 the man who defends the liberties of his fatherland, and 
 those who plot and kill to overthrow them. Pardon I 
 plead in God's name for every truly penitent rebel. For- 
 giveness for the ignorant masses who knew not what they 
 did. But exile or the gibbet for the boastful, persevering 
 scoundrels who enjoyed the honors of our Government for 
 thirty years, and then turned round and, unjjrovcked, 
 waged war upon it. 
 
 If now what I have said, in reference to the leaders of 
 this rebellion, be true — and that it is let this draped altar 
 and the adornments of solemn black bear witness — what 
 is our duty, or the lesson of this death ? Is it not this ? 
 That, if our President, thus slain by treason, is removed, 
 each man must constitute himself his country's guard. 
 Each child of the Kepublic must be her sentinel, and keep 
 strict watch and ward. Each citizen must lay aside his 
 prejudices, and stand the firmer for the Right. 
 
 But do not so far err as to mistake the author of this 
 crime. Do not launch your anger, hissing hot, out on the 
 renegade who laced the peril that others dared not face. 
 What, pray, is he but the tool of others ? A ivilling tool 
 admit, but yet a tool. Think you this poor conspirator, 
 who for nearly two long months has been watching his 
 opportunity to do this deed, think you he had no backers ? 
 
AVerc there no other hands to dig the mine his hold act 
 fired ? Did this third-rate actor take the destiny of na- 
 tions in his hands, and plot a plot to shake the world ? 
 Kay, history will not so write it. Behind this miserable 
 assassin, this mad agent of cooler heads, stand a throng 
 of sympathizers. Over his shoulder you can see a crowd 
 of old familiar faces. Davis, BreckiD ridge, Bragg, Lee, 
 these are the true assassinators. These are they who 
 bribed this hanger-on at theatres to kill the man by 
 whose consistent counsels their schemes were steadily 
 baffled, and their dream of power delayed. The men who 
 sat at Kichmond, and starved our boys at Andersonville 
 and Salisbury, have struck the life out of your Presi- 
 dent. Months ago, when Davis reigned in Virginia, and 
 Lee held his own at Petersburg, this plot was laid.* 
 Lincoln and his Cabinet were to be murdered on the 4th 
 of March, the country left without a government, and 
 inspired by our calamity the Southern leaders were to 
 begin the spring campaign. 
 
 Thank God they then were foiled, and he who had 
 so nobly borne the cares of office, and watched, through 
 all our night of war, with sleepless eye our liberties, was 
 spared until the clouds had parted, and the harbor seemed 
 not far away. 
 
 But, alas ! the man we love is gone. The Kepublic 
 stands as a mother who mourns her eldest son. Others 
 she has as brave, others as wise, others perchance as 
 true, but of them all what one can fill his place ? — the 
 one on whom she leaned in her first trial, who warded oflt' 
 the blows rained at her by a savage mob when she lay 
 prostrate, who raised her up, built her a fortress, and at 
 the portal kept evermore his sleepless watch to thwart the 
 throng of Catilines who sought her life, the simple-hearted, 
 faithful man. Who can make good her loss .^ Well may 
 she be bewildered. The blow came with a suddenness 
 that stunned her. She had not dreamed to dress his bier ; 
 her thoughts were on his laurels. She asked not where to 
 bury, but how to crown him. 
 
 * It should be remembered that this \vas written before any of the 
 facts of the conspiracy since ascertained were publi,shed. 
 
But tliis is not simply a national loss. General terms 
 of grief fail to express our feelings. So well was the de- 
 parted known, so familiar had his face become to us all, so 
 strong was the hold which his honest words and bearing 
 had taken on the popular heart, that we each feel a per- 
 sonal bereavement. Never before did a President receive 
 such an outgoing of confidence and affection from the 
 masses. To the rich and poor, to the high and low, he 
 was " our President." Never before has our country been 
 so profoundly moved. Eyes unused, to weep, were wet as 
 at the tidings of a brother's death. Faces unknown to 
 grief grew grave. Men met and spoke as men may speak 
 beside a bier. Women went to Grod in jn-ayer, and chil- 
 dren cried. " How is the mighty fallen, and the weapons 
 of war perished ! " 
 
 The universality and sincerity of this grief on the part 
 of the people are not to be wondered at ; for he was of 
 them. He was no professed statesman. He had not been 
 educated into the mysteries and intrigues of statecraft. 
 He climbed not to office through the slow and often dubi- 
 ous processes of party emolument. He neither intrigued 
 for nor expected his nomination. He was not rich. He 
 drew no support from the prestige of ancient families or 
 renowned names. The nation took him from his village 
 home as simple Abraham Lincoln, and placed him in the 
 highest seat of power. How well he did fidfil his duty, 
 let liistory tell. There have been larger minds than his, 
 but few so evenly balanced. There have been greater 
 orators than he, but few whose words were more convin- 
 cing. There have been men of higher polish, but none so 
 thoroughly American. 
 
 He was the child of our free institutions. Born in 
 poverty where to be poor was degradation, he climbed to 
 knowledge by his own unaided efforts and over obstacles 
 which to others would have been insurmountable. In him, 
 as in a flower blossomed before its time, do you behold the 
 type of a character yet to become national. In no other 
 country could he have been what he was. In no other 
 country could he have had the experiences and the oppor- 
 tunities which fitted him by middle age to be what he has 
 been. The Kepublic may justly, therefore, be regarded 
 
.10 
 
 as botli Ms mother and his patron. She gave him his 
 chance to rise. Her institutions^ her maxims, nay her 
 rivers, hills, and mighty plains contributed influences 
 needed for his growth. In turn he loved her as his dearest 
 friend. That love to-day is proven and the greatness of 
 it. " For greater love hath no man than this, that a man 
 lay down his life for his friend." This hath he done. To 
 him the Rep»ublic gave all that was worthy in his life, and 
 with that life his debt of gratitude is paid. 
 
 His advent upon the public stage was an era in our 
 history. He brought to our councils firmness without 
 bigotry and progression without license. The clearness of 
 his judgments and the correctness of his conclusions were 
 remarkable. By no labored deductions from the past did 
 he arrive at the truths of the present. 
 
 Original and unique, he was wise beyond the wisdom of 
 the schools. Born and bred among the masses, he could 
 perceive and interpret the movement of the masses. 
 
 He risked nothing on bold inventions of his own. In 
 every sense a representative of the people, he advanced no 
 faster than the people. The exhibition of personal promi- 
 nence he never courted. To others he was always ready 
 to ascribe that honor without any reservation, which justly, 
 in part, might be claimed by him. If he erred at all, it 
 was in a direction in which a leader of parties is not apt 
 to err, for such was the goodness of his heart that it is 
 doubtful that any consideration, save detriment to the 
 public interest, could cause him to refuse a favor though 
 solicited by the ill-deserving ; and perchance no public man 
 in America has been so maligned and yet so free from bit- 
 terness. 
 
 One point there was upon which friend and foe, cham- 
 pion and opponent agreed, — the purity of his charac- 
 ter and the blamelessness of his private life. These 
 passed through the ordeal of two political campaigns 
 fiercely contested, not only unscathed, but unattached. 
 In the j)lates of this harness there was no flaw. On the 
 surface of this shield the keenest scrutiny could detect no 
 stain. A faithful husband, an affectionate father, and an 
 honest man. 
 
 He was a strong advocate of temperance. No liquor 
 
11 
 
 touclied liis lips. ToLacco lie never tasted. Of what 
 other public man can these things be said ? Who stands 
 so free from blemish amid the vices of this age ? Who has 
 so long a list of virtues ? I do not doubt he had his 
 failings. I do not doubt that he made blunders. To err 
 is human. He may have failed to act at times as quickly 
 as the people wished or as was best. We do not claim 
 for him perfection. But consider against what he had to 
 contend, the difficulties of his station, the character of his 
 agents, the confusion of the times. Kun back in memory 
 along the line of history for the past -four years, and see 
 how seldom he has erred, how few have been his extrava- 
 gancies, how successful, judged by popular indorsement, 
 have been his measures, how he has grown not only in our 
 confidence, but in the respect of foreign nations. Within 
 the past two months, orators of the Old World have pro- 
 nounced him " the wonderful man of the New." Their 
 hostile press at last has recognized i\\Q greatness of 
 one whose magnanimity disarmed their prejudice and 
 broke the weapons of their enmity ; and even the council 
 chambers of Europe, where sit the haughty managers of 
 empires, have spoken with respect the name of him whose 
 o;reatness was not derived " from loins enthroned or rulers 
 of the earth."' 
 
 But neither at home or abroad, by friend or foe, will 
 his name be spoken again save as of one departed. In 
 the prime of life, in the midst of his honors, in the full 
 measure of health, he is snatched away. The means and 
 manner of his death are known to all. I need not repeat 
 the fearful story. Many of us have feared that the bur- 
 den of public care would prove too much for his strength 
 and that his health would break down under it, but none 
 of us anticipated what has occurred. Could he have gone 
 to his grave in the order of nature, could friends have 
 watched beside his bed and soothed the pains of dissolving 
 mortality, could he have breathed his life away in peace 
 and left before he departed tokens of love to friends and 
 words of counsel to his country, how different would have 
 been our feeling ! Then had we been to some degree pre- 
 pared. Or could he have lived yet for a little while, until 
 by his wise management the troubles of our country had 
 
12 
 
 been quieted, and that liappy hour arrived for which he 
 lon2;ed and labored, when the authority of the Government 
 shall be everywhere respected and peace secured, then 
 might w^e have surrendered him, as one who lived his time 
 and finished his full course. But that he should be 
 stricken dowm in his full vigor, without a moment's warn- 
 ing, while in the midst of his labors, depriving him of that 
 reward so richly deserved, the gratitude of an united and 
 grateful people, this indeed is hard. This is the bitter- 
 ness of our bitter grief. But God is wise. He orders all, 
 and He orders what is best. The wicked deed of wicked 
 men He shall overrule for their confusion and our good. 
 Let us not, therefore, too deeply mourn that Lincoln is 
 departed. He might have gone with more, but never with 
 greener laurels, to the grave. His wreath is woven, and 
 well w^oven too, both flower and leaf. He lived at least 
 lonor enouo;h to know that his labors were not in vain or 
 unappreciated. He lived to see our arms victorious and 
 the cause of liberty secure. He lived to make his peace 
 with God, and leave to a stricken people the sweetest of 
 all consolations. 
 
 Nor is he wholly gone. He lives ; not in bodily pres- 
 ence, but yet he lives — in the history of his times — in the 
 memory of his age — in the aftections of us all. His is a 
 name that will not be forgotten. The living of to-day will 
 tell it to the unborn, and they in turn w^ill rejieat it to the 
 remotest age. 
 
 Amid the doings of the great of every clime will his 
 deeds be recorded. Among the teachings of the wise will 
 his sayings be written. In galleries, wdiere wealth gathers 
 the faces of the loved and the renowned, will his portrait 
 be suspended, and in humbler homes and in lowlier hearts 
 will his face and his memory be retained till the present 
 has become the past, and the children cease to be moved 
 by the traditions of the fathers. We cannot measure him 
 to-day. Years must pass before his influence on his age can 
 be estimated. It needs the contrast of history to reveal 
 his greatness. It is only when some future Tacitus shall 
 compare him, as the Roman did Agricola, with the 
 emperors and kings of his day, that his meed can be 
 awarded. Beside the Napoleons and Victorias of his age 
 
13 
 
 will lie not stand colossal ? In native vigor of intellect, 
 in tlie sincerity of his purpose, in the originality of his 
 views, in the simplicity of his faith, and in his sympathy 
 for the oppressed, what potentate of his time will bear a 
 comparison with this backwoodsman of America ? Un- 
 taught in the formalities of courts, he aped not their cus- 
 toms. Unostentatious, he aspired to nothing beyond his 
 reach, and seemed to reach more than he aspired after. 
 He was incapable of bitterness, and in this doth his great- 
 ness most appear, that having defamers he heeded them 
 not, persecuted by enemies he hated them not, reviled by 
 inferiors he retorted not. 
 
 But here I feel as though I must pause. Our grief, 
 great as it is, is lost beside a larger woe. A million 
 dusky faces rise up before me aghast with terror. The 
 poor down-trodden slave, the lone and wretched bondman, 
 upon whose swarthy 1 ips, whether quivering beneath the 
 torture of the lash or parted in the ecstasy of prayer, one 
 name was ever found — that name, the man's that's gone. 
 Who shall make good his place to him ? The freedmen 
 too — who shall be Abraham Lincoln unto them ? Through 
 all this weary struggle that name has been treasured in 
 their hearts. To these abused and cheated ones, whose 
 only crime has been their color, he seemed a saviour". An 
 undefined yet holy sympathy has linked them unto the 
 sympathetic man. In him, with faith that may prove 
 prophecy, they thought they saw the " Coming of the 
 Lord." And now their Friend is gone. Their star, while 
 yet in full meridian, is suddenly extinguished in the 
 heavens. What lamentations will ascend o'er all the 
 South as this news liies ! The white aud the black will 
 mourn together for once. Their long-lost brotherhood 
 is found at last in grief. 
 
 My friends, here will we pause. I have attempted to ex- 
 press the public grief, but I have found it beyond ex- 
 pression. The solemn-sounding organ, the mournful 
 tolling of the bell, this funeral drapery, these outward 
 badges of an inward woe can alone make known our sor- 
 row. Dumb and mute though they be, yet by such 
 
14 
 
 manifestations does the o'erburdened heart declare its 
 bereavement, and find relief. 
 
 From this house, impressed by these surroundings, let 
 us go forth relying on God for strength and guidance in 
 the days to come. Do not despair. Be not despondent. 
 The Kepublic must never fall into the hands of traitors. 
 Concession avails not in times like these, and with despe- 
 rate men. 
 
 Act your part like men, too brave to be subdued, too 
 wise to be cajoled. 
 
 By the memory of your fathers, with whose blood 
 American liberty was first purchased, by the sufferings of 
 your sons, slain while fighting that it might be preserved, 
 by the lifeless body of your murdered President, killed by 
 the instigations of public enemies, I charge you not to give 
 o'er this contest till you have vindicated your right to 
 manhood, and fenced the future round and secured it 
 against treason and assassination in all time to come, if it 
 must needs be, with a wall of gibbets. May God stay the 
 necessity of the further shedding of blood ! I pray to-day 
 as I always have, that the mind of our enemy may be 
 changed, that remorse may visit their hearts, that they 
 may see their errors and repent. But if this is hot to be, 
 if they persist and yield only when successful resistance is 
 no longer jiossible, if their repentance is that of a captured 
 assassin and not of a returning prodigal, then, I say, let 
 justice, with face like granite and sword of fire, have full 
 and freest sweep. Leave not a single man to break the 
 laws or murder Presidents hereafter. And those proud 
 palaces and broad plantations, builded and tilled by the 
 unrequited toil of those who since have died in our behalf, 
 let these, I say, be taken from their unworthy owners and 
 given to men and the children of men who have fought 
 and laid down their lives for liberty and law. Mercy to a 
 few is at this time cruelty to the many. Anarchy must 
 not be risked to gratify a questionable charity. 
 
 Let us therefore give unto him .who by this death has 
 legally become the nation's head, not merely obedience, 
 which is our bounden duty, but our sympathies and our 
 prayers. Like Lincoln when he was first inaugurated, he 
 is an untried man. Like him, he is a self-made man. 
 
15 
 
 Like him, he may become the honored man. Let us not 
 forget, in the remembrance of how he once did fall, how 
 much the nation owes him for long years of loyal service. 
 Let us heed the advice of him whose lips will never more 
 utter their homely wisdom, when he said, after his inaugu- 
 ration, to a gentleman who was alluding to the Vice- 
 President's painful condition ! " Sir, Andrew Johnson is 
 too much of a man for the American people to throW' 
 overboard for one error." 
 
 God grant his estimation of the man may be the true 
 one, and unto us may He give wisdom to know and hearts 
 to do our duty, and in the fulness of time unto the rulers 
 purity, and to the nation peace. 
 
 Farewell, thou martyred hero. The days will pass, 
 these tokens of our grief will be removed ; but never from 
 our history will the memory of him we mourn be taken. 
 His name will grow in honor with the years. The future 
 will bring their garlands to his grave and garnish his sep~. 
 ulchre. Of him will songs be written and eulogies be 
 made. A grateful people shall testify their gratitude in 
 fnarble o'er his mound, and on it carve his greatness and 
 their love. The fashion of his features, faithfully shaped 
 in bronze, shall endure unto all ages : 
 
 " For thoii art Freedom's now, and Fame's ; 
 One of the few, the immortal names 
 That were not born to die." 
 
 But while we mourn our loss, let us not forget those 
 who mourn a greater. The wife, the mother of his boys 
 — what is our grief to hers ? Or those who bear his name, 
 and found in him their guide — who to them shall fill a 
 father's place ? 
 
 Pray, ye who love the Lord and pity the bereaved, 
 pray that God will be a husband to the widow, and a 
 father to the fatherless. For them v;e plead the consola- 
 tions of the Gospels. For them our prayers ascend. God 
 grant them peace beyond the giving of the world, and 
 teach them in faith to bow with us and say, " the Lord 
 gave, and the Lord taketh away ; blessed be the name of 
 the Lord." 
 
APR 15 1907 
 
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