Qass. Book. erie Dctttf) of JJrc8iheat Ciiicofn. M. 5©. (Sixmtx. THE TsTATIOlST'S LOSS A DISCOURSE THE LIFE, SERVICES, Aj^D DEATH ABRAHAM LINCOLN, L^TE DPIiESIDENT OE THE XJDSTITED STATES. HIRAM P. CROZIER Delivered at Huntington, L. J,, Aj^ril 19th, 1S65. SECOND ED.;TI0N JOHN A. GRAY & GREEN, PRINTERS, 16 & 18 JACOB STREET. 1800. THE NATION'S LOSS. My Friends : Less thau one slioii: week ago we were gatliered in tins liall, to rejoice and congratulate one another for the signal victory of onr national arms, boding the brighter victory of peace. Even while we were then speaking and pleading for forgiveness to- ward the South whenever she shall lay down her arms, the assassin was doing his work of death. The chief head of a great nation has been laid low. An insig- nificant man, inspired by the passions of a flying fiend, shoots the President of thirty millions of people, when this people, seemingly, most need his great wisdom, justness, mercifulness, goodness of heart, to direct them through the perils that beset the state. We were all looking at the rainbow of a near peace, and behold ! the dagger of the assassin. A mine is sprung beneath us, the earth upheaves, swallows up our leader, and threatens to engulf, with him, the first statesman of the age ; and henceforth we tremble at the possibil- ities around us. We know no limit to evil plots and traps after the gigantic evil consummation of the last 4 THE NATION S LOSS. week. Patient investigation has sliown tliat tlie plot, if not wide-spread, was deep-laid, and uAvful beyond parallel in its infoniy. It contemplated the assassin- ation of every chief head of the National Government, hoping thereby to bewikler and stun the intellect and heart of the great American people — to palsy its great arm lifted in ^\-ar, and during the syncope of the na- tion, the jiaralysis of its Avar-power, to revive the stag- gering fortunes of the rebellion, and compel a f\ilse peace by recognition and se2:)aration. Tlie ])lot so awful has signally failed, although in part so mourn- fully successful. The saviour of the country has fallen that the avenger may arise ! Tlie ])eople, already be- lieving that they had seen the bottom of the rebellion, are suddenly called upon to look lower down into the frightful cup of liorrors given them in the murder of their President and the attempted murder of their Sec- retary of State ; and as the first shot of the rel)ellion against Sumter aroused the North nnd fused the North, so this last stroke of rebellion, tliroiiLih the bloody Land of ilie assassin, will sleel e\-ery lu-art, n('i'\-e eveiy arm, l>race every \\\\\. <|iiickcii Into life every t)un('e o\' Mond, and make arliculatc (lie demand tlial (liis icbcjlidii, \\i{\\ slavery, i(s lirst eausi', ils con- tinued ins])ii'al ii»n, and it-^ last llentli--li instigator, shall ut telly and lnre\-ei' peii^h, and that the |>iiiiei])al and conspicuous leaders in llii^ ei'inie *>\' all crimes in his- THE NATION S LOSS. tory shall liave condign punishment. Wl^en before was a man in public life assassinated for his goodness, his impartial sense of right, and truth, and justice, his love of clemency ? William of Orange, " the father of his country," fell by the hand of the assassin, Baltha- zar Gerard, in 1584, while the little States of Holland were in the midst of their a-vesxt struf>:2:le with the (A- gantic power of Spain. But that was almost three hundred years ago. That was the middle and last of the sixteenth century. That was in the days of the Inquisition, the days of intolerance, the days of in- trigue, when court-lying, bribery, and assassination were the rule, not the exception. When we look into the history of the Roman Empire, that great cauldron of social forces, boiling with feculent scum, we are not surprised that civil war should break out between Ca3sar and Pompey ; that Pomj)ey should be assassin- ated ; that Ctesar should fall by the hand of Brutus and Cassius ; that men, palsied w^ith fear, should league together, form triumvirates, and, calling their league the government, brand all theii' opposers as public enemies, and mark them for execution. So Cicero and many of the best citizens of Kome fell vic- tims to Octavius, Anthony, and Lepidus. We do not wonder that monsters like Tiberius, Caligula, Nero, drunk with crime ^^^^d blood, should be born amid these pestilent social vapors. We see that the times b THE NATIONS LOSS. fitted the. men, and tlie men the times. The cruci- fixion of Christ, coming into a province of Rome, ceases to astonish ns. The imprisonment of some of his apostles, the beheading of John and Paul, the ten ^persecutions, were all natural growths upon the poisoned soil of a false religion, a false state, / bound to shut out the new and maintain the old. That the new and true should come and conquer the old and the false, with such ti'emendous odds to over, come, is proof of the amazing forces of the higher faculties of human nature, and of the immortal spir- itual powers with which they are leagued, and from which a deathless inspiration comes to irj^lift and save mankind. The whole history and character of this war, beginning in bloody revolt against benignant and, republican autliority, and growing into the barbarism of making relics and charms out of the bones of loyal soldiers, starving to death loyal prisoners, massacring colored soldiers, and culminating in tlie assassination of President Lincohi, while aiming to strike down every liead and ])aralyze every ai'in of I lie (un'ern- ment, sho\vs us, wlint every ])ag(' of past liistory I'e- peats, that evil, lal^iiy, crinic, ojipi'cssion, entlironed A\ roiiLj,' ol' aii\' Jvind, iKmc ol' tlicsc demons vwv ai'c cdU out of a people witlit'Ut tearing and rending them. No great ti'utli lliiows its disinfecting light into the depdis of ;i ii;ilioir< dnikiiess and 1 mi'l laiisni, A\itliout THE NATION S LOSS. i intensifying that light witli the halo of martyrdom. Half a million of brave men, and the head man of the nation, crown the offering we have already paid to the demon of slavery and false conservatism, in Church and State, not yet fully cast out ! As we, my friends, in sympathy gather around the lifeless corpse of our beloved President, let us try to patiently look at his life, weigh his character and offi- cial acts, and see what Avas the " gift of God " in this man to us, and what is the nation's loss. 1. We are not to be curious about all the little inci- • dents of his early and unofficial life at this time. This is the province of history. It seems proper to say that he was born obscure, poor, and struggled in early life and early manhood for support and social recognition. This is said, not that this is the only country in which poor and obscure men can and do rise to great useful- ness and eminence, but because it seems a universal law, with very few exceptions, that the prophets, lead- ers, sages, heroes, martyrs, saviours of the race shall spring from the humble classes. The scholars, kings, and conservatives spring from the wealthier classes. All the prophets of the Hebrew nation Imt one sprang up from the soil of the common people. But one, Jeremiah alone, was of the sacerdotal race. He wept with his people, and perished in their captivity. Jesus was born of a peasant-girl and cradled in a man- 8 THE nation's loss. ger. MoliainmecVs patriiiioiiy was only five camels and one slave, and his earl}' life was serving in a store at Mecca. Luther ^vas the son of a poor miner of Mansfeld, and in his poverty sang for his bread from door to door ! Calvin's Mher ^vas neither rich nor learned, but an obscure man in Picardy. Wesley was the son of an English clergyman having only the living at E2)\vorth. It is no rare or exceptional thing that providential great men should arise from humble conditi(ms. "God hath chosen the weak thinijs of this Avorld to confound the mighty, .... and things that are not, to bring to naught things that are." If any extraordinary mission of a beneficent character has been given of God to Abraham Lincoln, for the deliverance of this nation from the demon that has scourged it, and torn it, and driven it into the fury and flame of ci\ il Mar, then the early poverty, struggle, embarrassment, obscurity of th(^ great leadei" whom the nation mourns to-day, are all in keeping willi the line ol' di'seent from a\ hich like-minded men usually spi'iug. Abi-aham Lincoln was born in llaidin County, Ken- tucks , h'ebruar\ 1"J, bSO'.). lie early renioxcd to San- L^amoii Count \, Illinois. In ls,".()-;;i, as lie was altain- iuLi' liis majol•il^•, the whole region was covered l)reast- hi'jli with a snow-sloiin ; wiiitei- wheal jteii>hed, i-attle and liois's died, the sett lers' nu'agi'c stock of ]iro\i- THE nation's loss. 9 sions ran out. " For tliree months," the old , settlers said, "not a warm sun shone upon the surface of the snow." Communication from house to house by teams was cut off. Many wealthy settlers came near starv- ing ; poorer ones actually did starve. Supplies were sent from house to house, and exchanges made by brave and stout young men on foot, able to l^ear the perils of the snow. In these labors of simple human- ity, that prove the really true and great-hearted man young Lincoln was active. The good Samaritan, that helps his fellow-man in trouble, is the all of practical Christianity. " This is more than all burnt-oiferings and sacrifices." " This do, and thou shalt live." In 1836-7, Mr. Lincoln was elected a member of the Illinois Legislature. The State was radically pro-slave- ry, and in both branches of the General Assembly res- olutions of a strong pro-slavery character having been passed, you will find a protest against them on the journals of the House, dated March 3, 1837 : " The undersigned hereby protest agamst the passage of the same. They believe that the^ institution of slavery is founded on both injustice and bad policy; but that the promulgation of abolition doctrines tends rather to increase than abate its evils. (Signed) " Dax. STON:i, " A. Lincoln", " Representatives from the County of Sangamon." Here gleam the moral courage and the 2:)olitical 10 THE NATIONS LOSS. prudence wliicli both together illustrated Mr. Lincoln's life. To say the slave-trade is piracy cost Garrison his liberty and a fine of fifty dollars in Baltimore, in 1832. To discuss slavery in Boston, in 1830, cost him a mob. To call slavery a sin and a crime in 183G, in Utica, cost Gerrit Smith and hundreds a violent mob, Avhich followed them thirty miles, to Peterboro, hooting, and yelling, and throwing missiles and odorous eggs along the way. To arraign slavery in 184G-7, during the Mexican War, cost moTjs in Central Xew-York. To arraign slavery and AVebster's and Fillmore's Fugitive Slave Law in 1850-1, cost mobs in New- York, Boston, Philadelphia, and in every considerable town in the land. To declare war against slavery, after sla\ery has declared Avar against the life of the nation, has cost riots, bloodshed, and armed resistance to the draft. To stand by the Government during these four years of bloody agony, and sweat, and almost death, has cost menace^ and misrepresentation, and moh vio- lence in this town. Then think c)f Dan. Stone and \. Lincoln, in benighted Illinois, in 1830-7, twcnty-niiic years ago, putting on the journals of the Ilnusc tlicir public protest: " AVe believe tliat the institution of slavery is founded on botli injustice and bad policy." Courage like tliat is the stull' out of wliieli (iod makes Presidents for revolutionaiy times. \n iStO-T, Mr. 1/uieoln was a nienilxr of tlie Tliir- THE nation's loss. 11 tietli Congress. This was, perliaps, the ablest and stormiest Congress that ever assembled in our conn- try. Debates ran high, between Whigs and Democrats on Tariifs, River and Harbor Improvements, the Rights of Petition, the Abolition of Slavery in the District of Columbia, and that great piece of national wickedness, the Mexican War. ]Mr. Lincoln's first vote was in favor of the Harbor and River Improvement Bill. The vote was given in favor of these resolutions : '■'• Resolved, That if, in the judgment of Congress, it be neces- sary to improve the navigation of a river, to expedite and render secure the movements of our army, and save from dehiy and loss our arms and munitions of war, Congress has the power to im- prove such river, '■'"Resolved, That if it be necessary to the preservation of the lives of our seamen, rej^airs, safety, or maintenance of our ves- sels of war, to improve a harbor or inlet, either on our Atlantic or Lake coast, Congi-ess has the power to make such improve- ment." These resolutions, the very essence of wise states- manship, were laid upon the table, Mr. Lincoln voting for th.em. The next day Mr. Giddings presented a memoiial from certain persons in the District of Columbia, ask- ing Congress to repeal all laws upholding the slave, trade in the District. Mr. Giddings moved to refer the memorial to the Judiciary Committee, with instruc- 12 THE nation's loss. tlons to inquire into the constitutionality of all laws by ^\l]icli slaves are held as property in the District of Columbia. ]\Ir. Lincoln voted for the I'esolution. The Mexican "Waii, Mr, Lincoln was opposed to the IMexican "War from principle — opposed to the declaration of war against Mexico by the President of the L^nited States, and on December 22, 1847, he introduced an elaborate j^et concise j)reamble and set of resolutions of inquir}', crit- icising the Messages of President Polk, and throwing the responsibility for the first aggressions upon the administration, for sending a hostile force across the boundary-line in opposition to the advice of General Taylor, "who said to the President: "That, in his opin ion, no such movement was necessary to the defense or protection of Texas." The ^viir was a Democratic war; but, nevertheless, after the President had com- menced the war, a Whig House of Representatives, by a vote of 102 to 14, voted sixteen million dollars for sui)i)lies, Mv. Lincoln voting for the l»ill. When the war w as over, and new teiritory ^\■a^• ac- (juii'cd IVom >Ab'.\ico for intK'iiiuityj Mv. Lincoln \()ted, with Clay, Corwiii, W'cltstcr, and the gical liglits of tlic WlTiL!' Jiaih', («> shut slaxci'v from ;ill I lie new (cr- riloiics. So, in Augnst, 1S47, when tlie Kill cinu' u]> lop (lie (»rgani/,:i(ion of the 'I'enitoiy of Ovojon^ a nio- THE nation's loss. 13 tion was made to stiike out that part of the bill which extended the Jeffersonian proviso, known as the ordi- nance of lYST, over Oregon Territory. That ordinance excluded slavery from all the then North- Western Ter- ritories. Mr. Lincoln voted, with one hundred and thirteen other members, to I'etain the ordinance. The Gott Kesolution. On the 21st of December, 1848, Mr. Gott offered in the House the following resolution : " Whereas, The traffic now prosecuted in this metroj)olis of the Republic, in human beings as chattels, is contrary to natural justice and the fundamental principles of our political system, and is notoriously a reproach to our country throughout Christ- endom, and a serious hindrance to the progress of republican liberty among the nations of the eartli ; therefore, '■^ Mesolvecl, That the Committee for the District of Columbia be instructed to report a bill, as soon as practicable, prohibiting the slave-trade in said District." Here Mr. Lincoln's policy ruled him for once — not the hitherto uniform principle of his life. He forsook his party — forsook men like Ashmun, Bingham, Dick- inson, Giddings, Greeley, Hale, and voted with the op- position — with such men as Botts, Crozier of Tennes- see, Pendleton, Stephens, and Toomljs. He voted against the abolition of the slave-trade in the capital where he was assassinated. Aaron and Moses, that 14 THE nation's loss. Lad led the cliilclren of- Israel for years in the wilder- ness and tlirou2;li tlieir various vicissitudes, both died on the borders of the promised land — one on Mount Hor, the other on Mount Nebo. Keither were allowed to enter it for one sin against God. But the peo- ple went forward under new leaders and possessed it. I am not superstitious — not given to believe in special pro\ddences, only as all providences are special. But certainly I l^elieve this great j^eople are going for^vard to i^ossess a free land, and certainly we know that he who has visibly led us thus far leads us no more. The ways of God are past finding out. The bill passed the House by a vote of OS to 88, Mr. Lincoln having no part nor lot in voting to free the capital of the nation from the sin and crime of the slave-trade. Said the National lira : " ]\rt'ii will Avoiulcr, twoiity-tive years lienco, liow ciglily-ciglit iiu'ii, in an Anuiican Congress, could .'ital ul" the loreniost lu'puhlic in the AVorld." It is l(.'ss tlian twenty ycai-s siiu'c lliis vote was ifivcii, and lo I a\ hat hath God wroiiLrlit ! On tlic Mill .biiiiiniy, 1n4'.», tlie (iott resolution acrainst tin- >la\ c-trath' in the District of Goluiiil>ia was airaiii Ix'Tnic the House, a iimtidii t<» rccniividci- liaNiiiir been prcvioii>ly «'iit( rtaiind. .Mr. Liiieohi now, l»y tlie THE nation's loss. 15 courtesy of liis colleague, Mr. Went worth, who had the floor, oifered a substitute for the Gott resolution. It provided : " 1. That no person not then in the District of Columbia, nor owned there, nor hereafter born there, should be held in slavery there. " 2. That no person so held, or owned, or born a slave in the District, shall be held as a slave out of the District ; save that officers of the United States Government there, on government duties, might bring their servants as slaves with them, and re- turn without impairing their rights. " 3. That all children born of slave mothers, within said Dis- trict, on or after January 1, 1850, shall be free, and shall be rea- sonably supported and educated by their respective owners until they arrive at — age, when they shall be entirely free. " 4. That all persons then held as slaves in the District of Co- lumbia shall so remain at the will of their owners, provided said owners do not elect to sell said persons, for their full value, to the United States. The President, Secretary of State, and Sec- retary of the Treasury Avere made a board for determining such value. " 5. The municipal authorities in Washington and Georgetown were required to arrest and deliver up all fugitive slaves escap- ing into the District. " 6. This act was to take effect only on condition that it was approved by a majority of the electors of the District." You will see that policy predominates over princi- ple in this bill — that expediency is put before right. It is not a bill at all, in any of the ordinary features 16 THE nation's loss. of legislation. It is simply an eiiaLling act for tlie electors of the District of ColumLia, to enal)le tliem, if they 6-0 voted^ to sell out, for the full value, their slaves to the Government of the United States. So late as 1858, in his great debate with Mr. Douglas, which placed Mr. Lincoln in the veiy front rank as a leader, a ready debater, a statesman, and a patriot, he frankly put himself on record before the ^vorld as " not pledged to the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, and not in favor of the unconditional re])eal of the Fugitive Slave Law." I have been patient and particular on this ])oint for two reasons; first, it i.s fitting that the truth should be spoken; second, this bondage of Mr. Lincoln to ^\hat he honestly deemed constitutional oldigations, an ill (lisanii his enemies when they charge him with abolitionism, and also serve as a landmark from -w liieli we may trace the growth of liis convictions and cliaraeter. No man but the ■\va\'eriiig man, the unstable man, the insincei'c man, is ever injured by the comparison of his j»i'(seiit wilh his past life. T]i(\u'(><»tl mau gro^\■s ; tlie Itad man staiuls still, or, alleiiiptiiig to, " like a ei'ab goes backw ai'd." Tlie true man sees the new light, and sees oM things in llie new rdaticiis wliich new light always discovers, '^riie false man, " ha\ in^- eves, sees not ; ha\ ing eai's, hears not."' siin])ly because lie has cho-eii not to see and In-ai- ! Tliiswa^ the sin of the .b-ws — not that they THE nation's loss. 17 did not see Christ hefore lie came, but they would not see him after he came. The very works which he wrought they charged to Beelzebub, the prince of devils. This is the sin of the South, and of the mis- guided opponents of the Government all over the South and North at this hour. And for this sin alone the whole land is blasted with war and shrouded with mourning ! Public Lands. Before leaving Congress, Mr. Lincoln put himself on record in favor of the Homestead Bill. He voted for Mr. McClellan's Land Bill, crude as it was, because, he said, he was willing to give the pul)lic lands to the people rather than to speculators. Li Congress he was true, as lie believed then, to his anti-slaveiy prin- ciples, always voting against the extension of slavery in the Territories, standing with such statesmen as Webster and Clay. On the Mexican war he acted with the Whig party, refusing^ to justify the war itself, but voting supplies for it that the war debt might be liquidated. He steadily and earnestly opposed the annexation of Texas, and labored with all his j^owers in behalf of the " Wilmot Proviso." Ten years in so-called juivate life. Li the National Convention of 1848, Mr. Lincoln was a member, and advocated the nomination of General Zachary Taylor, 18 THE nation's loss. and sustnined the nomination l)y an active canvass in Illinois and Indiana. He sought no rewards from the Government for his Labors, bnt settled down to the hard work of his profession of hxw from 1840 to 1854, losing his interest in jjolitics, when the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, and the Kansas and Nebraska vilLiinies brought him before the jDublic, and roused all the slundjering energies of his great nature. Cir- cumstan(;es don't make men. God makes them ; 1 >ut circumstances discover them. Georoe Washino-ton woukl have been Geori^-e Washington had there been no American Revolution. He would have been known, however, only as a practical surveyor, a large and thrifty farmer, a good neighbor, a true husband and friend. All his qualities of command, of patience, of hope, of patriotism, that have nuuk' him, like William of Orange, his great prototype, " the father of his country," were Tn-ought out in the furnace oi' the American lievolutioii. Wlicn there is need of great men they ai'e sure to be ])ro(hu-('cl. Tlic jiolltical con. vulsions of l.S.j()-r)4 made Abraham Lln<'o]n ^\ iddy known a^ cinphadcally one of the very ablf'^t (h'baters in the land; and opened up (lie ^\ ay i'or his llr^t ucnu- natlon for tlie l're->ideiic\- in lsil>le in ever\' |>;u't oi" tlie (iineoIii (ook llie iiins. Secession Avas ali-ead\- aeeoni|)lislialtiinoi'c, inciiaciiig I lie xciy capital, and threaten in-'- to oveirun and eniiiill" the wlitde hind ! THE nation's loss. 25 The Issue Accepted. On tlie fifteenth of April, 1861, proclamation and call for seventy-five tlioiisand men was made, " to sup- press treasonable comljinations, and cause the laws to be duly executed." Tliis proclamation, and the immi- nent danger of the Government, united the North. The very first day after the call, Massachusetts had her Sixth regiment completely equipped, on the road to the national capital. Those troops were fired npon by a mob in Baltimore. Governor Hicks, of Maryland, and Mayor Brown, of Baltimore, asked that no more troops be sent through Baltimore. President Lincoln yielded, and sent them by way of Annapolis. On the nineteenth of April, a temperate proclama- tion of blockade was made, and the nation stood calmly on the defensive, while the South was making the most vigorous preparations for war. Seeino" this, President Lincoln convened Cono-ress on the fourth of July, 1861, and asked for four hundred thousand men and four hundred million dollars. Con- gress acted with the utmost promptness and liberality. They passed acts approving and legalizing all that President Lincoln had done on his own responsibility to save the Government. They passed the Confisca- tion Act by a vote of ninety-three to fifty-five, although John C. Breckinridge, and such men, since open trai- 26 THE nation's loss. tors, were in their seats. They passed a resolution de- claring it to be " no part of tlie duty of the soldiers of the United States to capture and return fugitive slaves." They voted five hundred thousand men and five hundred million dollars for the war for the Union. Thus was President Lincoln not only indorsed L}' tlie people, hut commended, justified, and more than sustained. One hundred thousand more men and one hundred million dollars more money than he called for were promptly given him by tlie people. On the sixth of March, 18G2, President Lincoln sent a special message to Congress recommending a joint i*esolution to compensate all States for their abo- lition of slavery, as a war measure and a measure of public safety. The resolution to compensate was passed in both houses and signed by the President ; and in President Lincoln's correspondence Avith both Generals Hunter and Fremont, who had both declared martial-law and the abolition of slavciy, he gives as the reason for the revocation of the cinancijtatitMi jnirt of their military proclamations tlie f;u't thnt tlu y had transcended the laws of Congress, a\ hlcli lie, as l-^xecu- tive, was t(^ execute and not to obstruct. lie iiad not yet madi; up his uiiiid as to his j)(»\\cr, un(h-r the Con- stitution, to free tin- slaves, and he lluretore revolted the jii'oeh-unations df ( Jciierals iiuiitrr and Fremont, and hild out the oli\c lnaneli of coinj>m ■sated cnuincl- THE nation's loss. 27 pation. Next to the fatal mistake of commencing war at all, the refusal of the slave States to accept of this proposition was their awful blunder. In August twenty-second, 1862, President Lincoln wrote his brief and pertinent letter to Horace Greeley, defining his policy, of which Mr. Greeley and many others were hitherto uncertain. In that letter he said : " My paramount object is to save the Union, and not either to save or destroy slavery. If I coiihl save the Union without freeing any slave, I vrould do it. If I could do it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it. And if I could do it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would do that I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors ; and I shall adopt new views as fast as they shall appear to be true views. " I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish, that all men, everywhere, could be free." On the twenty-second September, 1862, one month from the date of his letter to Mr. Greeley, the Presi- dent issued the conditional " Proclamation of Emanci- pation," which, by being rejected by the rebels, sealed the fate of human slavery on this continent, and ren- ders its speedy extinction by the war power of the Government certain. On the first day of January, 1863, the supplemental ^proclamation came, naming all those States and parts of States in rebellion where the emancipation proclamation should take effect. It pledged the executive, military, and naval power of 28 THE XATIOX'S LOSS. the Government to maintain tlieir freedom. It en- joined the freedmen to abstain from all violence, un- less in necessary self defense. It recommended them to labor for wages wherever allowed. It informed them that they would be received into the armed service of the United States, and closed Avith this solemn appeal : "And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice warranted by the Constitution, ui)on military necessity, I in- voke the considerate judgment of mankind and the gracious favor of Almighty God," My friends, it is no })art of my intention, or of the duty of this hour, to enter into a minute or critical histor}^ of President Lincoln's conduct of the Avar. Your judgments are as well informed as mine on this su])ject. His re-nomination and reelection by one of the largest joopular majorities ever given a candidate in this country, sweeping every thing, from Maine to California, excej^t three States, is proof that the great body of the American people a])])ro\e of his conduct of the M'ai- ; and the deliberate, impartial judgment of liistory will he, that the nation has suH'ered more from his clemency than his severit\' ; more tVom his good- ness of heart, and sinijile lailli in lii^ kind, than tVom any fancied strain of powci'; more fi'oin the al>sence of niai'tial law than from its almiidaiit pi'csence; more THE nation's loss. 29 from the lack of arbitrary arrests, than from tlie multi- plication of them ; more from traitors all over the North, and all along the war-path to the South, who have been unmolested, than from the denial of the great writ of habeas cor])\is to the few who have been imprisoned. " In war, laws are silent," is a proverb of Roman history. The safety of the Republic is the supreme law. The Constitution itself provides for all the ex- traordinary measures which President Lincoln saw needful for the public welfare ; and history will mar- vel that in a civil war which marshaled two millions of men in the field — which lasted four years, at least — which overran more territory than half of all Europe^ so little excess was committed, and so little severity was dealt out. President Lincoln took up into his long arms — his capacious mind — his great heart, all the jarring ele- ments of factions, all the differences of his friends, all the necessities of his enemies. He was patient with all congressional differences, silent under all attacks, forgiving to a fault as a child. He was approachable by the humblest citizen in the Republic. You not only approached his bodily frame, he allowed you to approach his interior personality. You could not fail to believe in his sympathy for all that is just, and good and true. He, more than any other man we have 30 THE KATIOX'S LOSS. ever raised, Avas the Cliief Magistrate of tlie people, and not of a _pavty. He found time to receive and listen to all sorts of delegations, from all sorts of people and societies — ministers, laymen, Quakers, col- ored people — all were taken into liis kindly considera- tion. Like William of Orange, " lie bore the sorrows of Lis peo])l(^ witli a smiling face." He Lad not only time to visit tLe poor, sick soldiers in tlie camps and hospitals around AYasLington, but lie Lad time to write hopeful and thankful letters to the Avorkingmen of Lancashire and London, thanking them for their genuine sympathy in our cause, and returning tlie sym2:)athy of a great human heart for tlieir distresses, occasioned by our strict blockade and the stoj^page of tlieir cotton-mills. He was a laboriuo- man. He had no patrimony but lionesty, industry, frugality. When a l)oy only eight years of age, he helped to cut the road for the ox-team that was transporting his father's earthly all into the Avilds of Indiana. From the lowest social (■(•lulitioii to the hiirhest social condition of the world he arose, by the jmrity of his jmrposc, the dis- cildiiu' of his mind, and the majesty of his \\ill. Ele- vation (o jiowiT had no intoxication foi' Liiii. lie Avas no i»ait\' man. lb' ncillicr ]>unish('d his jtoliiii-al ene- mies, noi- I'cwarilcd Lis jiolitical friends, as siieli. He sought Ibi- tlie ri-lit man in the ri-lit place, Witli all tlie lioiTois of WAV ai'onml liini, lie ne\cr l>ecanie intol- THE nation's loss, 31 erant, revengeful, or bloodthirsty. He drove through the pickets of the army of the Potomac to pardon a boy condemned to death for sleeping on his post. "With the smoke of battle around him, and the roar of hostile cannon in his ear, he all the time kept an open ear for peace. He went to meet the enemy, and tell him peace, by cessation of' hostilities on the part of the rebellion, would be followed by a liberal construc- tion of the pardoning power. After victory brought thousands of his proud enemies at his feet he exulted in no hope of personal revenge, but exulted in the hope of a near peace for his distracted country. He died with forgiveness on his tongue, and forgiveness in his heart. He was simple as a child in his habits, temperate, chaste, devout, religious. Though no sec- tarian, he was a firm believer in God, and a great be- liever in man. He died a martyr to his country, and a martyr to his faith in human kind. He did not believe that even slavery could educate a man up to the depravity of killing him. Such my friends, very imperfectly and hastily told, is the man this nation mourns to-day as it never mourned a loss before. Such is the friend of the high and the low, the rich and the poor, the white and the black, the learned and the ignorant, the free and the bond, who Avill be mourned by the struggling millions of Europe and the world, when they shall hear of his 32' THE nation's loss. untimely death. AVlieu the despair of our grief is over, and the jianoply of nionrning ^vhieh hangs over the hmd is hiid aside, may we Letter mourn him by emuhxting his simjde, homely virtues and his lofty patriotism ! May God bless the memory of Abkaiiam Lincoln, and grant that his blood, shed by imnatural and wicked hands, may cement the union of these States, founded upon equal libei-ty for all men, and may that union and his memory live togetlier long as the stars shall endure !