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OHIO COMMANDERY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 MILITARY ORDER OF THE LOYAL LEGION 
 
 OF THE UNITED STATES 
 zAFTER- DINNER SPEECHES 
 
 Commemorating tbe Centenary of Bis Birtb 
 
 The Centenary Anniversary of the birth of President 
 Lincoh-i was celebrated by the Ohio Commandery of the Loyal 
 Legion of the United States on the evening of February 13, 
 1909, at their Headquarters. 
 
 From the walls of the banquet-room where the Com- 
 panions and their ladies and guests sat at table there looked 
 down the faces in oil of beloved Companions Grant, Sherman, 
 Sheridan, Thomas, McPherson, Hayes, Harrison, McKinley, 
 and Osterhaus; while occupying the place of honor overlook- 
 ing the Commander, Colonel Kilbourne, was a full-length 
 figure of Lincoln, adorned with a wreath of laurel. This 
 characteristic likeness of Lincoln in his palmiest days was 
 presented to the Commandery by Companion Captain Charles 
 Clinton. The excellent lighting of the pictures displayed them 
 to splendid advantage. 
 
 Seated at the speakers' table were Commander Kilbourne, 
 on his right the especial Orator of the evening, Judge F. A. 
 Henry, of Cleveland ; at his left, Ex-Commander Thompson, 
 while on either side were Chaplain Thayer. Ex-Commander 
 Cadle, Ex-Commander Lsham, Ex-Recorder Major Chamber- 
 lin, Ex-Commander Hosea and Recorder Thrall. 
 
 3 
 
Before partaking of the dinner which preceded the formal 
 exercises of the evening, Commander Kilbourne requested the 
 company to join in singing "The Star Spangl. d Banner," after 
 which grace was said by Chaplain Thayer : 
 
 INVOCATION. 
 
 Oh, Infinite Father ! In whose keeping ever we are, we 
 bless Thee for all hallowed and tender associations that draw 
 us to this hour, and especially for the gracious memory which 
 now overshadows us. 
 
 We thank Thee that in all times of trial there are loyal, 
 faithful souls who arise equal to the call of duty ; and in our 
 day and generation that light has failed not. 
 
 Hallowed be all the memories of those who have proved 
 faithful and true ; and with him who is most honored and 
 sacred to us to-night come to us in thought, and deepen all 
 the associations of this hour. 
 
 And so let Thy peace go with us always, and evermore. 
 Amen. 
 
 Mrs. Charlotte Callahan Nees sang a beautiful Scotch 
 ballad — "Over the Sea." Other selections rendered by her 
 during the evening were: "Red, Red Rose" and the "Flower 
 Song," from Faust. 
 
 COMMANDER KILBOURNE: Companions, Ladies 
 and Gentlemen, I am sure I voice the sentiments of every Com- 
 panion here in expressing pleasure at having with us so many 
 of our wives and daughters. It is an innovation here, but a 
 very delightful one, which I trust will become established cus- 
 tom in the future upon occasions of this kind. 
 
 Our rules, ladies, do not permit us to have the pleasure 
 of having you with us at our regular business meetings, but I 
 wish to say for all of us that we are extremely glad to have 
 you with us here to-night. (Applause) 
 
 The first and chief object of our Order, as named in its 
 Constitution, is "To cherish the memories and the associations 
 of the war waged in defense of the unity and indivisibility of 
 the Republic." It is, therefore, especially fitting that we should 
 
 4 
 
take an active part in commemorating the birth and reviving 
 the memories of our great Commander in that war, the guiding 
 spirit on the Union side. I say its guiding spirit, for while he 
 did not himself in person direct our armies in the field, his 
 leadership was unquestioned, and it is due mainly to him 
 under Almighty God that human slavery was swept from 
 American soil, and that the American Union was saved from 
 the wreck of war. 
 
 To-day, all over this land, in the South as well as in the 
 North, in all our larger cities and hundreds of towns and 
 villages, and in countless school-houses, this Centenary of 
 his birth is being celebrated, and the history of his life retold; 
 but nowhere more appropriately, nowhere with deeper feeling 
 nor with truer appreciation of his worth, than in the halls of 
 the Loyal Legion, where his surviving officers assemble to do 
 honor to his memory. 
 
 It is not my intention to trespass on the time of the 
 speakers, whom I shall introduce to you without further 
 words. 
 
 It is a fact of interest to us that the organization of this 
 Order occurred on the day of Lincoln's death, and very ap- 
 propriately the exercises this evening will begin with an ac- 
 count of the inception of the Order, by Companion Cornelius 
 Cadle. 
 
 Before presenting him to you, I wish to say that the 
 regular program as given to me by the Committee will be 
 observed strictly and without deviation, but if at its close time 
 permits I shall be very glad to call upon a number of the dis- 
 tinguished gentlemen who are here to whom I know we always 
 like to listen. 
 
 Colonel Cadle will now address us. 
 
 THE INCEPTION OF OUR ORDER. 
 
 (Ex-Commander Colonel Cornelius Cadle.) 
 
 Commander, Ladies and Companions : 
 
 On April 15, 1865, the day of President Lincoln's death, 
 a meeting of officers and ex-officers of the Union Army was 
 
held in the office of Colonel Thomas Ellwood Zell in Phila- 
 delphia to take action in organizing a guard of honor of the 
 remains of the President, and a resolution was passed that a 
 society should be formed to commemorate the principles and 
 events of the war for the Union, then drawing to a close. 
 
 Lieut. Colonel Samuel Brown Wylie Mitchell, Colonel 
 Thomas Ellwood Zell and Captain Peter Dirck Keyser were 
 designated as founders of the Order, and the organization was 
 completed on May 31, 1865, in Independence Hall. 
 
 On the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Order held in Phila- 
 delphia April 15, 1890, General Charles Devens, in his oration, 
 said : "It was the first Military Society which followed, or 
 rather accompanied, the close of the war." 
 
 In this General Devens was in error, for the Society of the 
 Army of the Tennessee, next to the Loyal Legion, one of the 
 most successful of Army Societies, organized in the Senate 
 Chamber of the Capital at Raleigh, N. C, the day before, that 
 is, April 14, 1865. Our Army of the Tennessee had not then, 
 and did not for several days thereafter, hear of the assassina- 
 tion of the President. 
 
 The principles of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion 
 of the United States are stated in the Constitution thus : 
 
 "True allegiance to the United States of America, 
 based upon paramount respect for and fidelity to the 
 National Constitution and laws, manifested by dis- 
 countenancing whatever may tend to weaken loyalty, 
 incite to insurrection, treason or rebellion, or impair 
 in any maner the efficiency and permanency of our 
 free institutions." 
 
 and the objects thus : 
 
 "The objects of this Order shall be to cherish the 
 memories and the associations of the war waged in 
 defense of the unity and indivisibility of the Repub- 
 lic; strengthen the ties of fraternal friendship and 
 sympathy formed by companionship-in-arms ; ad- 
 vance the best interests of the soldiers and sailors 
 of the United States, especially of those associated 
 
 6 
 
as Companions of this Order, and extend all possible 
 relief to their widows and children ; foster the cultiva- 
 tion of military and naval science ; enforce unqualified 
 allegience to the general Government ; protect the 
 rights and liberties of American citizenship, and main- 
 tain National Honor, Union and Independence." 
 
 The Order is composed of commissioned officers who 
 served with credit in the Civil War and who are good citizens, 
 and their male lineal descendants. 
 
 There are now twenty-one Commanderies in twenty-one 
 States of the Union, all north of Mason and Dixon's line. 
 
 The Insignia and Diploma are numbered from 1 on, with- 
 out reference to Commanderies. Colonel Mitchell being No. 
 1, and the last Insignia of which I have any knowledge is No. 
 15814, issued in December, 1908. The total number of mem- 
 bers of the Order on October 31, 1908, was 8,796, showing 
 a loss in the Order by death since its organization of about 
 7,000. 
 
 There are four classes of Companions : 
 
 1st Class. Original Companions are those who were 
 actively engaged in the supression of the Rebellion as com- 
 missioned oiificers, or who, as enlisted men, were subsequently 
 commissioned in Regular or Volunteer service. 
 
 2nd Class. Hereditary Companions are those w^ho are 
 the male lineal descendants of such first class original com- 
 panions, or of officers who were entitled to be such but who 
 died without joining the Order, by whose right they are ad- 
 mitted but who are deceased. 
 
 Members of the Second Class are the sons of living orig- 
 inal Campanions of the First Class. Upon the death of their 
 fathers they become Hereditary Companions of the First Class. 
 
 Companions of the Third Class "are those gentlemen who, 
 in civil life, during the Rebellion, were specially distinguished 
 for conspicuous and consistent loyalty to the National Gov- 
 ernment, and were active and eminent in maintaining the 
 supremacy of the same ; and who, prior to the fifteenth day of 
 April, 1890, were elected members of the Order pursuant to 
 
 7 
 
the then existing provisions of the Constitution, the power 
 to elect such having ceased at that date." 
 
 There were ten members of the Third Class in the Ohio 
 Commandery, as follows : 
 
 William Bingham 
 
 Robert Wallace Burnet 
 
 George Washington Crouse 
 
 William Edwards 
 James E. Murdoch 
 Aaron F. Perry 
 H. W. Pierson 
 James Speed 
 Wm. Thomas Walker 
 John Plutchins 
 
 But one is now living, George Washington Crouse, of 
 Akron, Ohio. 
 
 There are at present thirteen members of the Third Class 
 in the entire Order. 
 
 In point of numerical strength Ohio stands fifth among 
 the Commanderies with a membership of 812. 
 
 The Society of Cincinnati, organized from the commis- 
 sioned officers of the Revolution and their oldest male lineal 
 descendants, receiving the sanction and under the guidance of 
 Washington, was the prototype of our Order. 
 
 The Commandery-in-Chief is composed of the Com- 
 manders, Vice Commanders and Recorders, both present and 
 past. It meets once a year and construes constitutional ques- 
 tions. 
 
 The Congress of the Order is composed of the Com- 
 mander-in-Chief, Recorder-in-Chief and three delegates from 
 each Commandery and meets once in four years, acting only 
 upon ammendments or additions to Constitution and Bv-laws, 
 each Commandery having one vote. 
 
 The Commanders of the Ohio Commandery, organized 
 in 1883, have been as follows : 
 
 General Hayes 
 General Sherman 
 
Colonel Dawes 
 
 General Cox 
 
 General Harrison 
 
 General Hickenlooper 
 
 General Cowen 
 
 Colonel Warnock 
 
 Colonel Cadle 
 
 Major Hosea 
 
 Lieutenant Isliam 
 
 General Kiefer 
 
 Captain Markbreit 
 
 Captain Monfort 
 And the present Commander, Colonel Kilbourne. 
 Of these sixteen, eight are living. 
 
 The legend upon the Insignia of the Order is "Lex Regit, 
 Arma Tuentur" — "Law reigns, arms sustain." 
 
 The rosette, with which you are all familiar, is patterned 
 after the Rosette of the Legion of Honor of France. The 
 Order obtained permission from the French government for 
 its use. 
 
 This matter in respect to our rules is for the information 
 of our guests ; of course Companions know it. 
 
 The name of Abraham Lincoln was the first one inscribed 
 upon the annals of our Order and this was upon the day of 
 his death. 
 
 I look upon the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of 
 the United States as one of the greatest monuments erected 
 or to be erected to the memory of our greatest citizen, com- 
 posed as it is of the living and dead who fought for the Union 
 under his unparalleled leadership. 
 
 Vocal Music, Mrs. Nees, "Red, Red, Rose." 
 
 COMMANDER KILBOURNE:— Companions, we are 
 fortunate to-night in having with us a number of Companions 
 who were friends or acquaintances of Mr. Lincoln, and who 
 will speak to us about him from their personal knowledge. 
 
 The first one on the program. Captain Leopold Mark- 
 
breit, the worthy Mayor of this city, was for a time confined 
 in Libbey Prison, where he was held for some time as a host- 
 age. President Lincohi was much interested in his case, and 
 finally when Captain Markbreit was exchanged the President 
 telegraphed that fact and that he was on his way home, to 
 Colonel Markbreit's family in this city. In writing of this inci- 
 dent Colonel Markbreit feelingly says : "We keep that tele- 
 gram as we would a piece of the Holy Cross." 
 
 Companion Markbreit is unfortunately unable on account 
 of illness to be present this evening, but he has written what 
 he desired to say, and it will be read by Companion Major 
 Thrall. 
 
 RECORDER THRALL: The letter of Companion Mark- 
 breit is dated February 12, 1909, and addressed to me as fol- 
 lows : 
 
 My Beloved Companions of the Loyal Legion, and Ladies 
 and Gentlemen : 
 
 You can not know how I regret that I am to be deprived 
 of the privilege of participating in person in this program me- 
 morializing the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of 
 Abraham Lincoln. 
 
 The more keenly do I feel the illness which has seized 
 me at this time, because it was my inestimable privilege to 
 have been a beneficiary of a deed of thoughtfulness by Presi- 
 dent Lincoln during the latter part of the Civil War. 
 
 No matter how eloquent the eulogies or how lofty or in- 
 spiring thj songs which will sound throughout our country, 
 we shall yet fail to do full honor to the memory of that great 
 statesman. 
 
 Let us stop at this moment to consider what might have 
 occurred to the armies on both sides of our civil struggle, if a 
 less tender hearted man than Abraham Lincoln sat in the presi- 
 dential chair as the Chief Magistrate of the entire country. 
 
 I have reason to know that President Lincoln, by uttering 
 decrees of mercy on behalf of friend and foe alike, saved thou- 
 sands of lives which otherwise would have been sacrificed by 
 
 the demands of warfare. 
 
 10 
 
There is no doubt that the beneficent wisdom of Mr. Lin- 
 coln hastened the end of the war and brought speedily the day 
 when the men of the North and the men of the South were 
 able to meet again in the brotherhood of one national citizen- 
 ship. . 
 
 A personal anecdote as to myself: With several Union 
 soldiers, suffering the horrors of Libby prison, held as a 
 hostage whose life was liable to be taken at any time, the 
 President, taking advantage of the capture of a number of Con- 
 federates who were reconoitering within the Union hnes, ar- 
 ranged an exchange by which we poor, half-starved, emaciated 
 men were restored to the arms of our families. I hold as one 
 of the sacred mementos of the war a faded bit of paper inform- 
 ing the members of my family that I was en-route to my home 
 in Cincinnati. The telegram bore the simple name, "A. Lin- 
 coln." 
 
 I saw Mr. Lincoln but twice— one time in Cincninati, and 
 the other as he reviewed our army after the battle of Antietam 
 and South Mountain. On the latter occasion President Lin- 
 coln was surrounded by the glittering glory and manifesta- 
 tion of pageantry that attaches to the presence of the Com- 
 mander-in-Chief and his staff. The President rode between 
 our lines, a tall, solemn, unsmiling figure, mounted on a mag- 
 nificent horse— for the President was a splendid horseman. 
 It seemed entirely out of place by comparison that the Presi- 
 dent wore a suit of old clothes that plainly showed the effect 
 of wear, and which were oddly in contrast to the braid and 
 epaulets of the officers who accompanied their Commander- 
 in-Chief. But we soldiers soon forgot the mere external as we 
 gazed into the face of the great American. It was the face 
 of a patriot, lined and steeped in deepest sorrow, because 
 men whom he loved were called upon to give their lives that 
 the country might live. 
 
 I shall not at this time, my dear Companions, transgress 
 further upon your program. But tonight, in common with the 
 millions of our people who appreciate the privileges and bene- 
 fits of our glorious country I shall give thanks to the Almighty 
 God who in the hour of the nation's stress and need chose to 
 
 11 
 
work his wisdom and power through Abraham Lincohi, the 
 man who more than any other was thoroughly typical of the 
 possibilities of this country. 
 
 L. MARKBREIT. 
 
 COMMANDER KILBOURNE : We will now have "The 
 Battle Hymn of the Republic." We should like all to join in 
 the singing. 
 
 Companions F. W. Hinkle, Geo. A. Middleton, B. S. Cow- 
 en, Philip Hinkle, Max Moslcr and W. R. Collins led the sing- 
 ing, the assembly joining in the chorus. 
 
 MUSIC— Battle Hymn of the Republic. 
 
 COMMANDER KILBOURNE: We had expected to 
 hear this evening from Major George G. Lott, but on account 
 of illness he will not be here. The next Companion on the 
 program tells me that his acquaintance with Mr. Lincoln was 
 very slight, indeed ; but those of you who know Judge Thomp- 
 son are aware that he needs a very slight foundation upon 
 which to erect a structure beautiful, interesting and enduring. 
 
 We will be very glad to hear from Judge Thompson. 
 
 REMINISCENCES OF LINCOLN. 
 
 By Captain Albert C. Thompson, Judge \J. S. Courts, Cin- 
 cinnati. 
 
 I thought the Commander was better acquainted with me 
 than to indulge in eulogy which he finds to be without founda- 
 tion. I cannot claim to have a personal acquaintance with 
 Lincoln. I saw him on two different occasions, and what I 
 saw I have committed to paper, in order not to exceed the time 
 limit. 
 
 Twice I saw Lincoln. I first saw him in September, 1861, 
 leaning against one of the tall Ionic columns of the semi-circu- 
 lar colonnade on the south side of the White House. I was 
 partly hidden by the shrubbery, but had a full and distinct 
 view of his face. Apparently, he was in deep thought, con- 
 cerning, perhaps, the grave responsibilities which rested upon 
 him in the prosecution of the great war, in the beginning of 
 
 12 
 
which we had suffered omhious disaster and were then pre- 
 paring for the bloody strife of four long years, whcih ended in 
 complete victory for the Union. But I, a boy of nineteen years, 
 could not then understand and appreciate these responsibilities, 
 or the horrors of war — I only saw the President of the United 
 States. 
 
 I next saw him at Harrison's Landing, on the James River, 
 as he rode inside of the line of our intrenchments, followed by 
 McClellan and his staff. He was dressed in black and wore 
 a black silk hat, and the horse he rode seemed too small for 
 a man of his height. Through McClellan and his friends, we 
 had been led to believe that our disasters on the Peninsula 
 were due to the failure of Lincoln to properly support McClel- 
 lan, and we stood in line, silent, until McClellan himself called 
 out : "Three cheers, boys, three cheers !" But the cheers were 
 not hearty— a fact which we bitterly regretted when we after- 
 wards learned that our misfortunes were not due to any neg- 
 lect or shortcoming of Lincoln, but to the inability of McClel- 
 lan to spur himself to timely take the initiative, in bringing on 
 the fighting, instead of standing by until Lee had gathered a 
 great army in front of Richmond and had attacked us, and 
 although we had, in the main, the best of each day's fighting 
 and finally whipped them at Malvern Hill, no attempt was 
 made to take the aggressive, and, as soon as possible, we were 
 withdrawn from the Peninsula. 
 
 Previous to the "Seven Days' Battle," we had repulsed 
 them at Fair Oaks, inflicting great loss upon them, and were 
 in sight of Richmond when we were halted and put to work 
 in building entrenchments, instead of fighting. 
 
 But it is not pleasant to recall these features of the Penin- 
 sula Campaign and revive the strifes of that day. 
 
 Today, Lincoln lives in the hearts of his countrymen. 
 North and South. He was born in the South and the time has 
 come when its people have heartfelt appreciation of his appeal 
 to them in his first Inaugural Address, when he said : 
 
 "I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but 
 friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion 
 may have strained, it must not break our bonds of 
 
 13 
 
affection. The mystic chords of memory stretching 
 from every battlefield and patriot grave, to every liv- 
 ing heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, 
 will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again 
 touched — as surely they will be — by the better angels 
 of our nature." 
 
 COMMANDER KILBOURNE: Major W. H. Chamber- 
 lin met Mr. Lincoln after the time of the Lincoln and Douglass 
 debates, and will speak to us in regard to that phase of his life. 
 
 REMINISCENCES OF LINCOLN. 
 By Maj. W. H. Chamberlin. 
 Mr. Commander, Companions and Honored Guests : 
 
 Two pictures of the immortal Lincoln hang in the gallery 
 of my memory with the fadeless lustre, never to be removed. 
 
 One is a picture of Life, when, as an unconscious Knight, 
 he stood ready to enter the lists in that irrepressible conflict 
 which he, with the vision of a prophet, had discerned must be 
 met by our country. It was after that historic debate with 
 Douglas which placed Abraham Lincoln before the nation as 
 the leader of the hosts of freedom, though he was not yet 
 named for the Presidency. During the fifty years of his life 
 God's providence had led him through an experience that pre- 
 pared him for his Knighthood in that great struggle. 
 
 The scene was at Hamilton, Ohio. The time was a glori- 
 ous sunset in September, 1859. Lincoln was journeying to 
 Cincinnati, to make an address. Some of his admirers took 
 advantage of a brief stop of the train to induce him to say a 
 few words to an impromptu assemblage. He mounted a con- 
 venient wagon and casting his eyes about the horizon seemed 
 to get the inspiration for his theme from the splendid capa- 
 bilities of the beautiful Miami Valley. He spoke of the "goodly 
 heritage" of his hearers and of their obligation to unite with 
 all other portions of our favored country to strengthen and con- 
 tinue the blessings of good government. There was not a 
 note of egotism in his manner nor in his words. There was no 
 effort to win applause. The impression left was that of a 
 
 14 
 
sincere man having an honest love of his country and a high 
 purpose to devote himself to its welfare. 
 
 This is my only picture of Lincoln in life. 
 
 The other is a picture of Death. When that memorable 
 funeral march was taken from Washington to Springfield, with 
 pauses on the way to allow a sorrowing people to look on the 
 features of the slain President, I saw him for the second time 
 in the State House at Columbus, Ohio, April 30, 18G5. The 
 man who had made that brief speech at Hamilton before a 
 small company was being borne on the grief stricken hearts 
 of all the people of the North to his tomb. Who that saw it 
 can ever forget the solemn woe shown by the silent faces of 
 thousands as they passed his bier and looked on that care- 
 worn countenance so calm and majestic in death. 
 
 These two pictures of Lincoln in life and in death — of the 
 knight and of the martyr — are plain and simple, but they are 
 among my priceless treasures. 
 
 MUSIC — Marching Through Georgia. • 
 
 COMMANDER KILBOURNE: The gentleman who 
 will now speak to us was in Washington at the time of the 
 assasination of ]\Ir. Lincoln and will be able to give us a pic- 
 ture of the great excitement attendant upon the momentous 
 incidents of that time. 
 
 I have the pleasure of introducing our Companion, Dr. 
 Isham, who will' now address us. 
 
 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES OF THE ASSASSINA- 
 TION OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 
 
 By ASA B. ISHAM, Late First Lieutenant Company F, Seventh 
 Michigan Cavalry. 
 
 Commander, Ladies and Companions : 
 
 On the night of the 14th of April, 1865, a woeful tragedy 
 was enacted in Washington City, and one of the grandest 
 characters in all the ages passed from life under the seal of 
 martyrdom. There has been no event in the history of any 
 nation which effected a more striking transition of human feel- 
 ing than this. From the exaltation of victory achieved, of 
 
 15 
 
national unity and grandeur assured, from wild rejoicing, a 
 single hour brought mourning and lamentation over the leader 
 loved, the savior proved, stricken down by the hand of an 
 assasin. 
 
 The story of the ruthless deed, in all its details, is suf- 
 ficiently familiar ; yet there are some matters of personal ob- 
 servation pertaining to the melancholy occurence which it 
 may not be inappropriate here to present. Arriving at the Capi- f 
 
 tol on that fateful day, the Falstafif House, situated on Tenth 
 Street, directly opposite Ford's Theater, commended itself, for 
 valid reasons, to a soldier who had been a long time stranger 
 to a paymaster. In Washington, as everywhere else within 
 the Union lines, there was jubilation over the downfall of the 
 Rebellion. The houses were gay with their display of the 
 national colors and patriotic devices. 
 
 The day lapsed into night without cessation of festivity. 
 No stars shone through the somber curtain of cloud, and their 
 absence was compensated for by a profusion of fireworks. 
 The central sky was filled with screaming meteors, which dis- 
 solved in showers of red, white, and blue scintillations, while 
 the intervening space was irradiated by circling, flashing pyro- 
 technics, of varied hue and form. The atmosphere was murky 
 and sultry, and the expenditure of explosives had not tended 
 to lighten its oppressiveness. A fine, mistlike rain seemed to 
 hold down the sulphurous vapors in contact with the earth ; 
 it had grown heavier, warmer, until the doors of the Falstaff 
 were thrown wide open to the street, in order that the interior 
 might partake to the fullest of whatever of refreshment the 
 external air afforded. 
 
 Looking across to the theater, the semi-fluid mire inter- 
 posing in the field of vision appeared, under the transforming 
 influence of the gaslight, a sheet of burnished silver, which, as 
 the carriages drove up to unload their burdens of wealth, 
 youth, beauty and distinction, rippled and spattered under the 
 horses' hoofs like metallic mercury. 
 
 When the President and his party, consisting of Mrs. 
 Lincoln, Miss Harris and Major Rathbone, drove up and 
 passed in, there was a momentary jam of people about the 
 
 16 
 
 H 
 
entrance, and vociferous cheers. As the play went on the 
 sidewalk and the lobbies were deserted, and nothing claimed 
 the attention of eye or ear from without save murmurs of 
 applause or merriment as the audience gave appreciative vent 
 to the endeavors of the actors, until about half-past nine 
 o'clock, when a man was observed to rush from the front en- 
 trance into a passage-way at the side without, crying "Fire!" 
 This was enough to send three young men bounding across 
 the street into the thater. There a remarkable spectacle 
 was witnessed. The audience was standing upon tiptoe, bend- 
 ing forward, in breathless suspense. An awful stillness pre- 
 vailed which seemed absolutely devoid of sound. A few per- 
 sons were moving over the stage in a dazed way, and some 
 were clambering onto it and up toward the private box upon 
 the right, in which the reclining figure of a man was being 
 supported by the occupants, yet no other shovv^ of life was 
 exhibited. 
 
 But shortly ensued the greatest commotion. Mrs. Lincoln 
 shrieked. It was rapidly noised throughout the house that the 
 President was shot. Women screamed and fainted; strong 
 men wept and shouted, "The assassin is back of the stage!" 
 "Catch him!" "Kill him!" "Hang him!" The building was 
 precipitately emptied, the throng, in its anxiety to know the 
 condition of the chief magistrate, hanging about the exterior, 
 its numbers being continually augmented by new accessions, 
 until the whole street, to the limit of vision in either direction, 
 was filled with a compact, jostling mass of humanity. Ten- 
 derly the unconscious form was borne out to the plain, old- 
 fashioned brick house of one Peterson, across the way, the 
 crowd respectfully making room with the most touching 
 manifestations of solicitude and affection. Mrs. Lincoln, fran- 
 tic, swung her escort of two army officers here and there as 
 lightly as though they were feathers. Her expressions, such 
 as were intelligle, as she struggled wildly to free herself, indi- 
 cated an idea in her mind of a design to separate her from her 
 husband. A flight of steps, surmounted by an iron railing, 
 led up to the door, and the railing served as a point of fixation 
 from which could be viewed the prostrate head of the nation 
 
 17 
 
as he was carried in. He moaned faintly, and the brow was 
 sHghtly contracted, as though a bare perception of pain yet 
 existed. Hemorrhage from the death-wound had blanched 
 the rugged, homely, honest features and finely fashioned fore- 
 head, furrowed with thought and care, and as the light brought 
 out in full relief of deathly white the sad, benignant visage, 
 tinged with pain, the conception of both saint and martyr 
 was forced at once. 
 
 The President expired at twenty-two minutes after seven 
 o'clock on the morning of the fifteenth, announcement of which 
 was immediately made by a general and continued tolling of 
 bells. Well might the Secretary of War, in anguish, wring the 
 cold hand of his departed friend, and deplore the loss of the 
 only one capable of fully testifying to the immense debt the 
 country owed him. Between them, in the conduct of the war, 
 they had borne a terrible weight of responsibility, had leaned 
 upon each other, and the frigid, unyielding man, already break- 
 ing under the awful pressure put upon him, doubtless felt that 
 his chief sustaining prop was gone. The body remained at 
 the Peterson mansion until about ten o'clock, when it was re- 
 moved to the White House and embalmed. The corpse vv^as 
 hardly out of the house before the death chamber was filled 
 with sight-seers and relic hunters. The room was about twelve 
 by fourteen feet in size, with low ceiling, plainly but comforta- 
 bly furnished, and certainly did not justify the comments of 
 the papers at the time that it was disgraceful that Mr. Lincoln 
 should have been taken to such an apartment to die. While 
 there was nothing of luxury in the apartments, they were re- 
 spectable, and one thus situated under the dark shadow, 
 whether sensible or insensible, might pass from earth no less 
 favorably than though lodged in a palace and surrounded by 
 all that wealth and art could supply. 
 
 The inanimate figure of President Lincoln resting beneath 
 the dome of the stateliest edifice in America, guarded by trusty 
 veterans in blue, made up a picture which has fixed itself in 
 the mind's eye far more clearly than those great creations of 
 art adorning the grand rotunda. It seemed to be a tableau 
 placed before the historical characters so strikingly represent- 
 
 18 
 
ed by the painter's skill upon the surrounding walls. There, 
 last seen, the impression remains it still is, in fitting entomb- 
 ment, the face looking up to the statue of Liberty surmounting 
 the dome, and beyond to the eternal Light; while the faces 
 of the great Discoverer, the one "First in the hearts of his 
 countrymen," and the others renowned in American history, 
 gazed down upon the form of him who had liberated four mil- 
 lions from bondage. It was history looking downward through 
 the centuries to the latest illustrious actor retired from the 
 stage; it was the individual man looking upward, without 
 regard to time or association, to eternity. 
 
 COMMANDER KILBOURNE: Colonel Allen and the 
 other members of his Committee, who labored so assiduously 
 and so efficiently for the success of this dinner, decided very 
 happily the principal question that came before them ; that is, 
 who should be the orator on this occasion. Remebering, as 
 every one does who had the pleasure of listening to the beauti- 
 ful address he made to the Commandery some years ago, they 
 unanimously voted to again call upon Companion Judge Fred- 
 erick A. Henry, of Cleveland. He has accepted, and is here 
 present. I have the pleasure of presenting him to you. 
 
 AN APPRECIATION OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 
 
 By COMPANION FREDERICK A. HENRY, Judge Eighth Circuit 
 Court, Cleveland, O. 
 
 To you, who served under the Great Emancipator as your 
 Commander-in-Chief, and who are met tonight, in this Queen 
 City of the region of his birth, to observe the centenary of that 
 humble event, I bear greetings from your Companions of the 
 Western Reserve, that nursery of abolitionism, whence came 
 Wade, Giddings and John Brown, like John the Baptist of old, 
 to prepare the way for captivity's captor. 
 
 From log cabin to the White House is a far cry, and the 
 fact that several presidents have spanned it vindicates the 
 nation's dedication to the proposition that all men are created 
 equal. But to be born in the pioneer's log cabin by no means 
 
 19 
 
compels the inference of squalid origin. As Blaine, in his 
 Eulogy of Garfield, has pointed out, "The poverty of the fron- 
 tier is indeed no poverty. It is but the beginning of wealth, 
 and has the boundless possibilities of the future always open- 
 ing before it." 
 
 Of Lincoln, however, the truth must be confessed that he 
 was born in a greater depth of poverty than any other presi- 
 dent. Seventh in descent from Samuel Lincoln, of Hingham, 
 Massachusetts, he came from a long line of pioneer ancestors : 
 first, in New England ; next on the Pennsylvania frontier ; 
 then in the wilds of Virginia ; and finally, with Daniel Boone, 
 in the forests of Kentucky. Staying not to reap what their 
 fathers had sown, the children wandered unwarily out of the 
 pathway of progress. 
 
 The Kentucky frontiersman, grandfather of the president, 
 fell victim to an Indian's arrow, and his youngest child, 
 Thomas, orphaned in infanc}^ and disinherited by the local law 
 of primogeniture, was cast adrift upon a life of illiteracy and 
 privation. But there was power latent in the Lincoln blood, 
 with its Puritan and Quaker strains, and a like strength, com- 
 pounded of New England and \^irginia, showed clearly in that 
 of Nancy Hanks, whom Thomas Lincoln married. To this 
 couple was born, one hundred years ago today, in a cabin in 
 Central Kentucky, a son who should share the primacy of the 
 Father of his Country in war and peace as in the hearts of his 
 countrymen. But none then noted the fateful star, which 
 shone on this nativity more humble than that of Bethlehem's 
 manger. 
 
 Thomas Lincoln inherited the roving instinct, which now 
 led the family from one wild creek bottom to another, first in 
 Kentucky, and then, in 1816, away from slavery's blight on 
 portionless whites, across the Ohio River into the woods of 
 southwestern Indiana. In the hazard of new fortunes here, 
 his wife yielded up her spirit, leaving a birthright of mingled 
 aspirations and melancholy to her immortal child. 
 
 The lad's first habitable home came, as he neared eleven, 
 with the advent of his second mother, the widow Sarah Bush 
 Johnston, Thomas Lincoln's new wife, who, with a welcome 
 
 20 
 
dowry of household goods, now happily united her fatherless 
 brood with the motherless twain of her husband. 
 
 The first wife had taught both husband and son the rudi- 
 ments of reading and writing, and the boy had had also the 
 merest taste of schooling, on two occasions, when teachers 
 chanced to ply their calling near his Kentucky home. Besides 
 the Bible tales and other stories, drunk in at his mother's knee, 
 his only books were then The Pilgrim's Progress, Aesop's 
 Fables and Robinson Crusoe. These he both read and, later, 
 lived, struggling forward with Christian, enforcing truths 
 through apt tales by the way, and finally, in supreme rulership, 
 isolated and distraught, as one upon a desert isle. 
 
 After the removal to Indiana he read the Arabian Nights, 
 a History of the United States, Weem's Life of Washington 
 and the Indiana Statutes, which, save in literary worth, were 
 also fit to direct and sustain his dawning ambitions. Plere, 
 too, he attended school again ; but his schooling did not exceed 
 a year from first to last. His father, never valuing education, 
 was but reluctantly persuaded by the new mother, who saw 
 that the boy was promising, to spare him from work at all. 
 Strength and skill to use the woodman's tools were now 
 rapidly acquired, till the good natured young giant of the 
 backwoods, who towered above his father in stature and 
 learning, could also sink an ax deeper in the wood than he. 
 Seldom was he outdone by such as vied with him in feats of 
 bodily or mental strength. He spelled the room down at 
 spelling school ; read all the books and newspapers for miles 
 around ; set fair copies in penmanship for the boys and girls 
 to follow; explained with quaint illustration the difficulties 
 in their tasks: wrote rhymes and essays satirical and serious; 
 copied and conned what others had written ; spouted declama- 
 tions and impromptu speeches from stumps and logs whenever 
 he could attract listeners ; talked politics and swapped yarns 
 with loungers at the cross-roads store ; explored the forest, and 
 fished and hunted, less for sport than for food and raiment ; 
 listened often to backwoods preaching and, rarely, to the ar- 
 guments of good lawyers in criminal trials at the county seat ; 
 debated with disputants, real or imaginary, on every occasion ; 
 
 21 
 
and acquired, withal, the reputation of indolence, among his 
 kinfolk and others, for whom both work and play were es- 
 sentially ph3^sical. Yet such were his attainments in their 
 line also that these critics were inclined, as a rule, to hold their 
 peace. 
 
 Ungainly, sinewy, eager in rivalry, and prone to leader- 
 ship, yet always gentle, good humored, unselfish, he had at- 
 tained by his seventeenth year to six feet four inches of bodily 
 height, and to a mental and moral stature hardly less remarka- 
 ble in his crude and superstitious environment. Though his 
 father still controlled his earnings, he was sought after as a 
 hired hand, who accomplished what he was set to do, despite 
 his oratorical diversions. A welcome visitor, moreover, in 
 every pioneer household where tired mothers had cross babies 
 to quiet, or chores to be done, he was also the life of every 
 corn-shucking, wedding, or log-rolling in the growing neigh- 
 borhood abut Gentryville. At nineteen he first glimsed the 
 great world, when hired out by his father to go on a flat-boat 
 trip to New Orleans. 
 
 Thomas Lincoln's migratory bent, after fourteen years' 
 repression, finally reasserted itself in the removal of his family 
 to Decatur, Illinois, about the time his son arrived at mojority. 
 Though now his own master, the young man tarried to help 
 build the new log house and to fence fifteen acres of plowland 
 with rails which he and his cousin, Dennis Hanks, split, and 
 two of which the latter exhibited, thirty years later, amid 
 tumultuous applause, before the Republican State Convention 
 of 1860, in session at Decatur. 
 
 Shifting for himself, the young man now worked around 
 the neigborhood for a year, and then, with his step-brother 
 and cousin, hired out to a hustling, irresponsible trader, named 
 Ofifut, for another flat-boat trip to New Orleans. Here he 
 first saw a slave auction, and, beholding for sale a comely 
 octaroon, with cowering shoulders Ijared, for appraisal and 
 handling by bidders and lecherous onlookers, he turned away, 
 muttering, "If I ever get a chance to hit that thing, I'll hit 
 it hard." 
 
 Soon after his return, he left his father's home and went 
 
fifty miles westward, clown the Sangamon valley, to New 
 Salem, Sangamon County, where, after working at odd jobs, 
 he shortly became "a sort of clerk," as he phrased it, in a store 
 opened by Ofifut. Straightway a favorite, he gained the so- 
 briquet, Honest Abe, by his conscientious dealing, whereof 
 one illustration was his walking sorno miles to deliver a few 
 ounces of tea to a woman whom he had inadvertently de- 
 frauded. Here, too, he vanquished and made friends of the 
 Clary's Grove boys, who terrorized that community, and the 
 son of whose bullying leader he, long afterwards, in the midst 
 of the Lincoln-Douglass debates, freed from a charge of mur- 
 der by impeaching with an almanac the prosecuting witness' 
 story of a fatal quarrel in the moon-light. Here, also, en- 
 couraged by the village school-master. Mentor Graham, he 
 mastered the English Grammar and, later, the elements of 
 surveying. 
 
 Upon the fordoomed failure of Ofifut's store, Lincoln, now 
 twenty-three, announced himself for the legislature in a 
 modest, dryly humorous address to the voters of Sangamon 
 County. But his canvass was interrupted by the Black Hawk 
 War, wherein he enlisted and, to his great satisfaction, was 
 elected captain of his company, in competition with a former 
 employer, Kirkpatrick, who had misused him. 
 
 Their five weeks' campaign was bloodless, but the men so 
 thirsted for Indian gore, that, but for Lincoln's interposition 
 at the peril of his life, they would have killed in cold blood a 
 decrepit redskin, who strayed into their camp for alms. Good- 
 humored and masterful though he was, it constantly required 
 all the young captain's tact to hold his unruly men in even 
 the semblance of subordination, recalling the frontier soldier's 
 democratic scorn of discipline in the Continental army half a 
 century before. On the disbandment of his company, Lincoln 
 re-enlisted as a private, and, three weeks afterward, was 
 mustered out by Lieutenant Robert Anderson, who, twenty- 
 nine years later, became the hero of Fort Sumter. 
 
 Returning home, Lincoln sufifered his first and only de- 
 feat at the hands of the people ; though nearly all the New 
 Salem voters supported him, and, throughout the county, his 
 
 23 
 
run for representative was far from discouraging. Not yet 
 convinced of his mercantile inaptitude, Lincoln again essayed 
 store-keeping; but the firm of Berry and Lincoln quickly 
 "winked out," as he expressed it, leaving him only the fourteen 
 years" burden of what he called his "national debt," together 
 with a set of Blackstone's Commentaries found in a barrel of 
 junk, which the firm had bought for fifty cents. 
 
 Law and politics henceforth absorbed his interest. His 
 living came, meanwhile, from appointments as postmaster and 
 deputy surveyor at the hands of democrats, with whom his 
 fitness overrode his Whig leanings. He read the newspapers, 
 which he handled as postmaster, and, as deputy surveyor, he 
 so extended his acquaintance throughout the county ,that he 
 was easily elected and re-elected to the legislature, from 1834 
 to 1840. There, in 1836, he fell in with the popular frenzy of 
 pledging the State's credit by wholesale in aid of canal and 
 railroad construction, a bubble which soon burst disastrously. 
 But, aside from protesting, upon the House journal, with one 
 colleague, against c rtain pro-slavery resolutions, which were 
 overwelmingly carried about the time of Lovejoy's martyr- 
 dom, he chiefly distinguished himself as leader of the Long 
 Nine, from Sangamon, who secured for Springfield, in their 
 own county, the coveted prize of the State capitol, transferred, 
 in 1837, from Vandalia. 
 
 Thereupon, having just been admitted to the bar, he re- 
 moved to Springfield, and began his twenty-four years' prac- 
 tice of the law, in partnership with his preceptor, John T. 
 Stewart, in the firm of Stewart and Lincoln. 
 
 Meanwhile, two events occurred, which influenced his 
 whole life. When his afifianced bride, Ann Rutledge, died, 
 in 1835, his grief verged on insanity, and ever afterwards the 
 hue of melancholy tinged even his mirth. "Oh, Why Should 
 the Spirit of Mortal be Proud" became then and always re- 
 mained his favorite poem. The other event was the coming of 
 Stephen A. Douglas into Lincoln's life. A Vcrmonter by 
 birth, and four years younger than Lincoln, Douglas came to 
 Illinois at about the same age, and, like Lincoln, made his 
 own way. Possessed of a better education, a shiftier mind, 
 
 24 
 
and a less exacting conscience than Lincoln, he resembled him 
 in ambition and the taste for law and politics. Opposites 
 
 in party allegiance as in physique, they were both members 
 of the legislature in 1836 ; both removed to Springfield in 1837; 
 both were suitors, in 1840, for the hand of Mary Todd, whom 
 Lincoln, after a season of mysterious melancholy, married in 
 1842; both were in Congress in 1847-49, though Douglas had 
 then forged ahead into the upper house ; both were candidates 
 for the Senate in 1858, when, in their famous debate, they 
 reduced to singleness of issue almost every shade of Northern 
 opinion on slavery ; and, finally, both were candidats for presi- 
 dent in 1860. 
 
 But between Lincoln's marriage, in 1842, and the great 
 contest of 1858, Douglas' star mounted far above Lincoln's 
 into the political zenith. Twice during that period, Douglas 
 was a formidable candidate for the democratic presidential 
 nomination, and he was long the acknowledged leader of his 
 party in Congress. Meanwhile Lincoln practiced law in the 
 famous Eighth Circuit of Illinois. After his one term in Con- 
 gress, memorable only for his Spot Resolutions exposing the 
 Polk administration's pretense that the Mexican War was 
 due not to pro-slavery plotting but to Mexican aggression, 
 and also for his bill to provide for the compensated emancipa- 
 tion of slaves in the District of Columbia, he subordinated 
 politics to his profession for a decade. True, he made speeches 
 for General Taylor in 1848 ; delivered a eulogy on Henry Clay 
 in 1852 ; spoke, in 1854, for the Anti-Nebraska amendment, 
 and defeated General Shields re-election to the United States 
 Senate, only to yield the prize, for party's sake, to Lyman 
 Trumbull, in 1855 ; declined a gubernatorial nomination the 
 same year; and headed the republican electoral ticket of Illi- 
 nois, for Fremont, in 1856. 
 
 But all this time his real vocation was the law. His con- 
 nection with Stewart had lasted four years, when Judge Ste- 
 phen T. Logan, probably the best lawyer in the State, resigned 
 from the bench, in 1841, and ofifered Lincoln a partnership, 
 thereby afifording as Frederick Trevor Hill, in his Lincoln 
 ihe Lawyer, points out, the most convincing proof possible of 
 
 25 
 
Lincoln's early eminence at the bar, among such lawyers as 
 Edward D. Baker, Stephen A. Douglas, James A. McDougall, 
 Lyman Trumbull and David Davis, all of whom afterwards 
 became senators of the Linited States. 
 
 The firm of Logan and Lincoln lasted three years, being 
 dissolved in 1844, because of their rivalry for Congress. Lin- 
 coln then ofifered a partnership to William H. Herndon, who, 
 though nine years his junior, was a young man of promise 
 and well connected in the State. The firm of Lincoln and 
 Herndon continued till the senior partner's death. 
 
 Lincoln's practice, no less than his proficiency, as a lawyer, 
 has been perfectly appreciated. The Illinois Supreme Court 
 Reports, from the third to the twenty-fifth volume, inclusive, 
 show an average of over seven cases per volume, wherein Lin- 
 coln was of counsel. Less than half way down the list, his 
 railroad retainers begin to appear, and, all in all, it is doubtful 
 if any other American lawyer could show so extensive and 
 varied a practice in a court of last resort. Lincoln's income, 
 however, was never great, for his fees were modest. One of 
 the largest was $5,000, and he had to sue the Illinois Central 
 Railroad Company for that, well earned though it was. But 
 Lincoln's persistent itineracy through all the fourteen, mostly 
 rural, counties of the Eighth Circuit, for several months of 
 every year, explains not only the world's underestimate of his 
 professional career, but also his own marvelous understanding 
 of the plain people, and his all-sided mastery of men and issues 
 during his presidency. 
 
 In the joyous cavalcade of indulgent judge and keen, 
 ready-witted lawyers, who, at first on horseback, later in bug- 
 gies, and finally by rail, set forth, each spring, to tour the 
 county seats, the most candid and generous, the shrewdest 
 and most dangerous foeman of thi m all was Abraham Lincoln. 
 In every town, he was likewise the most sought after, both 
 professionally and socially ; though, in everything but intellect, 
 he was the most provincial. Lincoln's story-telling has been 
 quite as much misapprehended as his practice. His anecdotes 
 were illustrative. They were not told at random. His conver- 
 sation and arguments abounded in logical analogies, both ser- 
 
 26 
 
ions and humorous. Like Jesus of Nazareth, "he spake in 
 parables" to those about him; and it might ahnost be added 
 that "without a parable spake he not unto them." 
 
 Not primarily as a teller of good stories, however, was 
 Lincoln esteemed by his professional brethren. It was rather 
 the Lincoln so long and intimately known to them as a lawyer 
 and a man, whom Leonard Swett, Judge Logan and especially 
 Judge David Davis, with others of his group of circuit riders, 
 by masterful strategy, compelled the Republican National Con- 
 vention of 1860 to nominate and make the pillar of a people's 
 hope. 
 
 The clue to Lincoln's availability, over such national char- 
 acters as Seward and Chase, is mainly the story of the Lincoln- 
 Douglas debates, two years before. Douglas, as a Northern 
 democrat, had sought the presidency through cajolery of the 
 slave power by whatever comprimises he could make, without 
 disaffecting his northern constituency. Slavery in the terri- 
 tories was the vexed question, which the Compromise of 1850 
 had failed to settle, though Douglas insisted that the law left 
 it to the people of each territory to settle the question for them- 
 selves, in accordance with his great principle of popular sover- 
 eignty. Solemnly reaffirming then the old Missouri Compro- 
 mise of 1820, he, four years later, caused its repeal, in the Kan- 
 sas-Nebraska Act of 1854, thus extending his doctrine of popu- 
 lar sovereignty, as applied to slavery, to the organization of the 
 States as well as the government of territories. 
 
 Douglas had almost succeeded in reconciling to these en- 
 actments his disturbed constituents in the North, when the 
 Dred Scott decision by the United States Supreme Court, in 
 1856, proclaimed the impossibility, under the federal constitu- 
 tion, of excluding slaves from the territories. Not only was 
 popular sovereignty apparently lost to the territories, but the 
 Buchanan administration was determined to recognize the 
 Lecompton pro-slavery constitution of Kansas, in admitting 
 that state, though the majority of its inhabitants were opposed 
 to slavery. Douglas locked horns with the administration on 
 this betrayal of his great principle ; whereupon Greeley and 
 other eastern republicans advised their brethren in Illinois to 
 
 27 
 
return Douglas to the Senate, in 1858, as Buchanan's foe and 
 freedom's friend. 
 
 This Lincoln and his friends knew better than to do. Un- 
 like Douglas, they thought slavery a wrong to be repressed. 
 They opposed the whole popular sovereignty delusion, de- 
 clared against further extension of slavery, and nominated 
 Lincoln as their candidate for the senate against Douglas. 
 Lincoln himself disquieted his adherents by elaborating his 
 solemn comment of four years before, on the repeal of the 
 Missouri Compromise, that this nation could not permanently 
 endure half slavery and half free. Having more to gain than 
 to lose by discussion with so distinguished an opponent, Lin- 
 coln challenged Douglas to a series of debates. The latter re- 
 luctantly accepted, and seven meetings were held in different 
 parts of the State. Douglas still stood on his popular sover- 
 eignty platform and defended it most adroitly, seeking by 
 arguments and questions to put Lincoln on the defensive as 
 to the charges that he was a disunionist, with his "house divid- 
 ed against itself;" that he was an abolitionist, courting po- 
 litical and social equality with the negroes ; and that he was 
 law-defying in declining to accept the results of the Dred 
 Scott decision. It was a veritable battle of giants. The crux 
 came at Freeport, near the Wisconsin line, where Lincoln, 
 agains his friends' advice, turned the tables on Douglas, by 
 putting to him this question, among others : "Can the people 
 of a United States territory, in any lawful way, against the 
 vv^ish of any citizen of the United States, exclude slavery from 
 its limits?" 
 
 In conference, Lincoln's friends had correctly predicted 
 that Douglas would in substance answer, "Yes ; since slavery 
 can nowhere exist without the support locally of favorable 
 police regulations, which the people of a territory may lawfully 
 withhold." 
 
 "If he does that," said Lincoln, "he will never be presi- 
 dent." 
 
 "But," objected the friends, "he may be senator." 
 
 "Perhaps," replied Lincoln, "but I am after larger game; 
 the battle of 18G0 is worth a hundred of this." 
 
 28 
 
Though Lincoln exposed the manifest constitutional fal- 
 lacy of Douglas' answer, the latter, temporarily triumphing, 
 had indeed bartered presidency for senatorship ; for Judah P. 
 Benjamin and Jefferson Davis straightway denounced his re- 
 creancy and left him the leader of only a rump democracy. 
 
 When Lincoln, at his first inauguration as president, 
 looked awkwardly around the platform for a place to put his 
 hat, Douglas, the vanquished champion of squatter sover- 
 eignty, courteously took and held it through the proceedings, 
 till Chief Justice Taney, author of the Dred Scott doctrine, had 
 administered the oath and held the book to Lincoln's lips. 
 Slavery extension now lay prostrate under Lincoln's feet, while 
 Douglas and Taney, its two most mighty, subtile knights, 
 were thus waiting on the victor, as squires upon their master. 
 
 To Lincoln's life thus far, the momentous events, which 
 now crowded thick and fast about him, form a sequel of far 
 more thrilling interest than those already recounted. But it is 
 not meet that I should try to enlighten you concerning events 
 which you not only saw, but a great part of which you were. 
 And they are, moreover, writ large in the chronicles of our 
 country's history. It would indeed be a grateful task, were 
 there time to-night to analyze the characters of the great men 
 whom Lincoln called into his war cabinet. 
 
 At the outset, they all underestimated him. Each thought 
 himself greater than his chief. Seward, foremost of the "ego 
 et rex mens" ministers, in a memorandum entitled "Some 
 Thoughts for the President's Consideration, April 1, 1861" 
 (note the date), urged the adoption of a general policy, therein 
 outlined to be directed by some one person absolutely; and 
 added, "It is not in my especial province, but I neither seek 
 to evade nor assume responsibility." 
 
 Ignoring the insult of this hint to abdicate in Seward's 
 favor, Lincoln replied at once with a patient clarification of 
 his counsellor's "thoughts," and with his decision as to the 
 proposed directorship : "I remark if this must be done, I must 
 do it." 
 
 So he, who, on accepting the offer of the portfolio of 
 State had written his wife, "I will try to save freedom and 
 
 29 
 
my country," soon afterward wrote her, "Executive skill and 
 vigor are rare qualities. The President is the best of us." 
 
 The Secretary of the Treasury, too, who so brilliantly con- 
 ducted his own department, complained incessantly, in his 
 wide correspondence, that he had no proper voice in the gov- 
 ernment as a whole. Criticising constantly the administration 
 of which he was a part, he sought diligently to supplant his 
 chief. When the movement, which he countenanced against 
 Seward, forced the latter to tender his resignation, Lincoln, 
 by adroitly compelling Chase to show his hand, drew forth 
 that officer's resignation also. Thus equipped to "ride on," 
 having, as he said, "got a pumpkin in each end of the bag," 
 the wise president requested both secretaries to resume their 
 duties ; and they meekly did so. Later, when Secretary Chase 
 acquired the habit of resigning, to alarm the president into 
 letting him dispose of all the Treasury patronage as he pleased, 
 Lincoln surprised him finally by accepting his resignation, 
 to the sacrifice of his place and ambition alike. Yet the 
 president heaped coals of fire upon his adversary's head by 
 appointing Chase to the Chief Justiceship, whereby it fell to 
 him, at Lincoln's second inauguration, as four years before it 
 had fallen to Taney, to hold the sacred volume to the victor's 
 lips. 
 
 Alonzo Rothschild, in his Lincoln, Master of Men, mar- 
 shalling these examples of the president's mastery, cites also 
 the "curbing of Stanton," who, before he came into the War 
 Office, called Lincoln "a low, cunning clown," and the "original 
 gorilla," that DuChaillu might have found in Springfield in- 
 stead of going to Africa to seek. Yet, four years later, at 
 Lincoln's death bed, Stanton confessed, "There lies the most 
 perfect ruler of men the world has ever seen." 
 
 Tales w^ell worth retelling also are Lincoln's masterful 
 yet patient subjugation of those insubordinate popular idols 
 Fremont and McClellan, in his military family. But of these 
 and scores of other tempting topics in the life of Lincoln, 
 including especially his conduct of the war, his freeing of the 
 slaves, his wit and humor, his patience and compassion, and 
 the miracle of his literary style, I must forbear to speak. 
 
 30 
 
Let me now conclude by applying the sublimest counsel of 
 perfection in all literature to this one of all mankind whom 
 it best fits: 
 
 "Charity sufifereth long, and is kind ; charity envieth not ; 
 charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up ; doth not behave 
 itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, 
 thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in 
 the truth ; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all 
 things, endureth all things." 
 
 COMMANDER KILBOURNE: I am going to ask 
 Colonel Allen, Chairman of Committee of Arrangements for 
 this banquet, to say a few words to us, and then we will close 
 the exercises of the evening by all joining in singing "America.'' 
 
 COMPANION ALLEN : "The Committee is very proud 
 of our success this evening, and we ascribe the reason for 
 that success to the co-operation we have" had. The Com- 
 mitee does not congratulate iself so very much, except upon 
 the fact that we have had every member working with us. 
 That is all we have to say." 
 
 The members of this Committee of Arrangements 
 were: Colonel Theodore F. Allen, Chairman; Colonel Cor- 
 nelius Cadle, Major L. ^L Hosea, Major W. R. McComas, 
 and Companion Charles C. Benedict. 
 
 After singing "America" in unison, the company dis- 
 persed. 
 
 31 
 
4 
 
 'Y 
 
LB S '12