Yale Universily Library

39002064227607

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YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

APR 29 1927

LIBKAiiy

Ithe promises of the declaration of independence.
P ' EULOGY' ON
ABRAHAM LINCOLN,

DELIVERED BEFORE

THE MUNICIPAL AUTHORITIES OF THE CITY OF BOSTON.

JTJJiTK 1, 1863,

CHARLES SUMNEE.

BOSTON :
TIOKlSrpR & FIELDS,
18 65.
 :  ' "1, - - -

EULOGY.

THE PROMISES OF THE DECIMATION OF INDEPEIIDENCE.

EULOGY

ABRAHAM LINCOLN,

bEttVESEll 6EFORE

THE MUNICIPAL AUTHORITIES Of THE CITY OF BOSTON.

JxnsnE X, 1865,

CHARLES SUMNER,

BOSTON:
TIOKN^OH & FIELDS,
1865.

Printed by
J. E. FARWKLL & COMl'A.NY,
37 COSORKSS 8TRKF.T.

EULOGY.

In the universe of God there are no accidents. From
the fall of a sparrow to the fall of an empire, or the
sweep of a planet, all is according to Divine Providence,
whose laws are everlasting. It was no accident which
gave to his country the patriot whom we now honor. It
was no accident which, snatched this patriot, so suddenly
and so cruelly, from his sublime duties. The Lord giveth
and the Lord taketh away ; blessed be the name of the
Lord. Perhaps never in history has this Providence been
more conspicuous than in that recent procession of
events, where the final triumph was wrapt in the gloom
of tragedy. It will be our duty to catch the moral of
this stupendous drama.
For the second time in our history, the country has
been summoned by the President to unite, on an appoint
ed day, in commemorating the character and services of
the dead. The first was on the death of George Wash
ington, when, as now, a day was set apart for simul
taneous eulogy throughout the land, and cities, towns,
and villages all vied in tribute. More than half a century
has passed since this early service in memory of the

Father of his country, and now it is repeated in memory
of Abraham Lincoln.
Thus are Washington and Lincoln associated in the
grandeur of their obsequies. But this association is noi
accidental. It is from the nature of the case, and be
cause the part which Lincoln was called to perfori'
resembled in character the part which was performed by
Washington. The work left undone by Washington was
continued by Lincoln. Kindred in service, kindred in
patriotism, each was naturally surrounded at death by
kindred homage. One sleeps in the East, and the other
sleeps in the West ; and thus, in death, as in life, one
is the complement of the other.
The two might be compared after the manner of Plu
tarch ; but it will be enough for tKe present if we glance
only at certain points of resemblance and of contrast, so
as to recall the part which each performed.
Each was at the head of the Republic during a period
of surpassing trial ; and each thought only of the public
good, simply, purely, constantly, so that single-hearted
devotion to country will always find a synonyme in their
names. Each was the national chief during a time of
successful war. Each was 'the representative of his coun
try at a great epoch of history. But here, perhaps, the
resemblance ends and the contrast begins. Unlike in
origin, conversation, and character, they were unlike also
ia the ideas which they served, except so far as each was
the servant of his country. The war conducted by
Washington was unlike the war conducted by Lincoln —
as the peace which crowned the arms of the dne was

unlike the peace which began to smile upon the other.
The two wars did not differ in the scale of operations,
ir;nd in the tramp of mustered hosts, mpre than in the
ideas involved. The first was for National Indepen
dence ; the second was to make the Republic one and in
divisible, on the indestructible foundations of Liberty and
Equality. The first only cut the connexion with the
mother country, and opened the way to the duties and
advantages of Popular Government. The second will have
failed unless it performs all the original promises of that
Declaration which our fathers took upon their lips -whe-n they
became a -nation. In the relation of cause and eff'ect the
first was the natural precursor and herald of the second.
National Independence was the first epoch in our history,
and such was its importance that Lafayette boasted to the
First Consul of France that, though its battles were but
skirmishes, they decided the fate of the world.
The Declaration of our fathers, which was entitled
simply " the unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen
United States of America," is known familiarly as the
Declaration of Independence, because the remarkable
words with which it concludes made independence the
absorbing idea, to which all else was tributary. Thus did
the representatives of the United States of America in
General Congress assembled, solemnly publish and
declare " that these United Colonies are, and of right
ought to be, free and independent States ; that they
are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and
that all political connexion between them and the State of
Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved . . .

and for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reli
ance in the protection of Divine Providence, we mu
tually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and
our sacred honor." To sustain this mutual pledge Wash
ington drew his sword, and led the national armies, until
at last, by the Treaty of Peace in 1783, Independence was
acknowledged. Had the Declaration been confined to tbis pledge, it
would have been less important than it was. Much as it
might have been to us, it would have been less of a
warning and trumpet-note to the world. There were two
other pledges which it made. One was proclaimed in the
designation " United States of America," which it adopted
as the national name, and the other was proclaimed in
those great words, fit for the baptismal vows of a Republic :
" We hold these truths to be self-evident ; that all men
are created equal ; that they are endowed by their Creator
with certain inalienable rights ; that among these are
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness ; that to secure
these rights governments are instituted among men, deriv
ing their just po-wer s from the consent of the governed."
By the sword of Washington Independence was secured ;
but the Unity of the Republic and the principles of the
Declaration were left exposed to question. From that
day to this, through various chances, they have been
questioned, and openly assailed, — until at last the Re
public was constrained to take' up arras in their defence.
And yet, since enmity to the Union proceeded entirely
Irom enmity to the great ideas of the Declaration, history
must record that the question of the Union itself was

9

orbed in • the grander conflict to maintain those primal
iuuhs which our fathers had solemnly proclaimed.
uch are these two great wars in which these two
.'liiefs bore such part. Washington fought for National
Independence and triumphed, — making his country an
example to mankind. Lincoln drew his reluctant sword
to save those great ideas, essential to the character of the
Republic, which unhappily the sword of Washington had
failed to place beyond the reach of assault.
It was by no accident that these two great men became
the representatives of their country at these two different
epochs, so alike in peril, and yet so unlike in the princi
ples involved. Washington was the natural representa
tive of National Independence. He might also have
represented national Unity, had this principle been chal
lenged to bloody battle during his life ; for nothing was
nearer his heart than the consolidation of our Union,
which, in his letter to Congress transmitting the Consti
tution, he declared to be " the greatest interest of every
true American." Then again, in a remarkable letter to
John Jay, he plainly said that he did not conceive " we
can exist long as a nation without lodging somewhere
a power which will pervade the Union in as energetic
a manner as the authority of the State governments
extends over the several States." But another person
was needed of diff'erent birth and simpler life to rep
resent the ideas which were now assailed.
Washington was of a family which may be traced in
English heraldry. Some of his ancestors sleep in close
companionship with the noble name of Spencer. By

10

inheritance and marriage he was rich in lands, and, let it
be said in respectful sorrow, rich also in slaves, so far as
slaves breed riches rather than curses. At the age of
fourteen he refused a commission as a midshipman in the
British Navy. At the age of nineteen he was military
inspector with the rank of major. At the age of twenty-
one he was selected by the British Governor of Virginia
as Commissioner to the French ports. At the age of
twenty-two he was colonel of a regiment, and was thanked
by the House of Burgesses in Virginia. Early in life he
became an observer of form and ceremony. Always
strictly just, according to prevailing principles, and order
ing at his death the emancipation of his slaves, he was
a general and a statesman rather than a philanthropist ;
nor did he seem to be inspired, beyond the duties of patri
otism, to any active sympathy with Human Rights. In
the ample record of what he wrote or said there is no word
of adhesion to the great ideas of the Declaration. Such
an origin — such an early life — such opportunities — such
a condition^ such a character, were all in contrast with
the origin, the early life, the opportunities, the condition,
and the character of him whom we commemorate to-day.
Abraham Lincoln was born, and until he became Presi
dent, always lived in a part of the country which at the
period of the Declaration of Independence was a savage
wilderness. Strange but happy Providence, that a voice
from that savage wilderness, now fertile in men, was
inspired to uphold the pledges and promises of the
Declaration ! The Unity of the Republic on the inde
structible foundation of Liberty and Equality was vindi-

11

d by the citizen of a community, which had no exist-
; t >; when the Republic was formed.
is family may be traced to a Quaker stock in Penn-
s/i vania, but it removed first to Virginia, and then, as
early as 1780, to the wilds of Kentucky, which at that
time was only an outlying territory belonging to Virginia.
His grandfather and father both lived in peril from the
Indians, and the former perished by their hands. The
futui-e President was born in a log-house of Kentucky.
His mother could read but not write. His father could
do neither, except so far as to sign his name rudely, like
a noble of Charlemagne. Trial, privation, and labor
entered into his early life. Only at seven years of age
was he able to go to school for a very brief period, carry
ing with him Dilworth's Spelling Book, which was one of
the three books that formed the family library. Shortly
afterwards his father turned his back upon that slavery
which disfigured Kentucky, and placing his poor effects
on a raft which his son had helped him construct, set his
face towards Indiana, which was guarded against slavery
by the famous Ordinance for the Northwestern Terri
tory. In this painful journey the son, who was only
eight years old, bore his share of the burdens. On reach
ing the chosen home in a land of Liberty, the son aided
the father in building the cabin, composed of logs fast
ened together by notches, and filled in with mud, where
for twelve years afterwards he grew in character and in
knowledge, as in stature, learning to write as well as to
read, and especially enjoying Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress,
..Jlsop's Fables, Weems's Life of Washington, and the Life

12
of Clay. At the age of twelve he lost his mother. At the
ao^e of nineteen he became a hired hand at $10 a month
to
on a flatboat, laden with stores for the plantations on the
Mississippi, and in this way he floated doAvn that lordly
river to New Orleans, little dreaming that only a few
years later, iron-clad navies would float on that same
lordly river at his command.
In 1830, the father removed to Illinois, transporting his
effects in wagons drawn by oxen, and the future President,
who was then twenty-one years of age, drove one of the
teams. Another cabin was built in primitive rudeness,
and the future President split the rails for the fence to
enclose the lot. These rails have become classical in our
history, and the name of rail-splitter has been more than
the degree of a college. Not that the splitter of rails is
especially meritorious, but because the people' are proud
to trace aspiring talent to humble beginnings, and because
they found in this tribute a new opportunity of vindicating
the dignity of free labor, and of repelling the insolent
pretensions of Slavery.
His youth was now spent, and at the age of twenty-one,
he left his father's house to begin the world for himself. A
small bundle, a laughing face, and an honest heart; these
were his visible possessions, together with that unconscious
character and intelligence, which his country afterwards
learned to prize. In the long history of " worth de
pressed," there is no instance of such a contrast between
the depression and the triumph — unless, perhaps, his
successor as President may share with him this distinction.
No Academy, no University, no Alma Mater of science or

13

irarning had nourished him. No government had taken
him by the hand and given to him the gift of opportunity.
No inheritance of land or money had fallen to him. No
friend stood by his side. He Avas alone in poverty ; and
yet not all alone. There was God above, who watches
all, and does not desert the lowly. Simple in life and
manners, and knowing nothing of form or .ceremony, with
a village schoolmaster for six months as his only teacher,
he had grown up in companionship with the people, with
nature, with trees, with the fruitful corn, and with the
stars. While yet a child, his father had borne him away
from a soil wasted by Slavery, and he was now the citizeTi
of a Free State, where Free Labor had been placed under
the safeguard of irreversible compact and fundamental
law. And thus closed the youth of the future President,
happy at least that he could go forth under the day-star
of Liberty.
The hardships of youth were still continued in early
manhood. He labored as a hired hand on a farm, and
then a second time he measured the winding Mississippi
to New Orleans in a flatboat. At the call of the Gov
ernor of Illinois for troops against the Indian Chief Black
Hawk, he sprang forward with patriotic ardor, and was
the first to enlist at the recruiting station in his neighbor
hood. The choice of his associates made him captain.
After the war he became a surveyor, and down to his
death retained a practical and scientific knowledge of this
business. In 1834, he was elected to the Legislature of
Illinois, and two years later he was admitted to the practice
of the law. He was now twenty-seven years old, and, under
3

14

the benignant influence of Republican Institutions, he had
already entered upon the double career of a lawyer and a
legislator, with the gates of the Future opening on their
hinges before him.
How well he served in these two characters I need
not stop to tell. It is enough if I exhibit the stages
of his advance; that you may understand how he became
the representative of his country at so grand a moment
of history. It is needless to say that his opportunities
of study as a lawyer must have been small, but he
was industrious in each individual case, and thus daily
added to his stores of professional experience. Faithful
in all things, most conscientious in his conduct at the
bar, so that he could not be unfair to the other side,
and admirably sensitive to the behests of justice, so that
he could not argue on the wrong side, he acquired
a name for honesty, which, beginning with the com
munity in which he lived, became proverbial through
out his State ; while his genial, mirthful, overflowing
nature, apt at anecdote and story, made him a favor
ite companion where he was personally known. His
opinions on public questions were early fixed, under the
example and teachings of Henry Clay, and he never
departed from them, though constantly tempted, or
pressed by local majorities, speaking in the name of
a false democracy. It is interesting to know that thus
early he espoused those two ideas, which entered so
largely into the terrible responsibilities of his latter
years, — I mean the Unity of the Republic, and the
supreme value of Liberty. He did not believe that

15

a State had a right, at its own mad will, to break up
this Union. As a reader of congressional speeches, and
a student of what was said by the political teachers
of that day, he was no stranger to those marvellous
eff'orts of Daniel Webster, when in reply to the treas
onable pretensions of nullification, that great orator of
Massachusetts asserted the indestructibility of the Union,
and the folly of those who would assail it. On the
subject of Slavery, he drew from the experience of his
own family and the warnings of his own conscience.
It was natural, therefore, that one of his earliest acts
in the legislature of Illinois should have been a protest
in the name of Liberty.
At a later day, he became a representative in Congress
for a single term, beginning in December 1847, being
the only Whig representative from Illinois. His speeches
during this brief period have many of the characteristics
of his later productions. They are argumentative, logical,
and spirited, with that quaint humor and sinewy senten-
tiousness which belonged to his nature. His votes were
constant against Slavery. For the Wilmot Proviso, he had
voted, according to his own statement, " in one way and
another about forty times." His vote is recorded against
the pretence that slaves were property under the constitu-
ion. From Congress he again passed to his profession.
The day was at hand, when all his powers, enlarged by
experience and quickened to their highest activity, would
be needed to repel that haughty domination which was
already so menacing to the Republic,
The first field of conflict was in his own State, with no

16

less an antagonist than Stephen A. Douglas, unhappily at
that time in alliance with the " Slave JPower. The too
famous Kansas and Nebraska bill, introduced by him
into the Senate, assumed to set aside the venerable safe
guard of freedom in the territory west of Missouri, under
the pretence of allowing the inhabitants " to vote Slavery
up or to vote it down " according to their pleasure, and
this barbarous privilege was called by the fancy name
of Popular Sovereignty. The future President did not
hesitate to denounce this most baleful measure in a series
of popular addresses, where truth, sentiment, humor, and
argument all were blended. As the conflict continued, he
was brought forward as a candidate for the Senate against
the able author of this measure. The debate that ensued
is one of the most memorable in our political history,
whether we consider the principles involved, or the way
in which it was conducted.
It commenced with a close, well-woven speech from
the future President, in w"hich he used words which
showed his insight i'nto the actual condition of things,
as follows : " A house divided against itself cannot stand.
I believe this Government cannot endure permanently
half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union
to be dissolved, — I do not expect the house to fall, —
but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will
become all one thing, or all the other." Only a few
days before his death, when I asked him if at the time
he had any doubt about this remark, he replied, " Not
in the least. It was plainly true, and time has justified
me." With like plainness he exposed the Douglas pre-

17
tence of Popular Sovereignty as meaning simply " that
if any one man shall choose to enslave another, no
third man shall be aUowed to object," and he an
nounced his belief in " the existence of a conspiracy
to perpetuate and nationalize Slavery," of which the
Kansas and Nebraska bill, and the Dred Scott decision
were essential parts. Such was the character of this
debate at the beginning, and so it continued on the
lips of our champion to the end.
But the topic to which the future President returned
with the most frequency, and to which he clung with
all the grasp of his soul, was the practical character
of the Declaration of Independence in an7iouncing the
Liberty and Equality of all men. These were no idle
words, but substantial truth binding on the conscience
of mankind. I know not if this grand pertinacity has
been noticed before ; but I deem it my duty to say,
that to my mind it is by far the most important feature
of that controversy, and one of the most interesting
incidents in the biography of the speaker. The words
which he then uttered live after him, and nobody can
hear of that championship without feeling a new motive
to fidelity in the cause of Liberty and Equality.
As early as 1854, in a speech at Peoria, against the
Kansas and Nebraska Bill, after denouncing Slavery as a
" monstrous injustice," which enables the enemies of free
institutions to taunt us as hypocrites, and causes the real
friends of freedom to doubt our sincerity, he complains
especially that " it forces so many really good men
amongst ourselves into an open -war ivith the very funda-

18
mental principles of civil liberty, criticising the Declaration
of Independence." Thus, according to him, was criticism
of the Declaration of Independence the climax of infidel
ity as a citizen.
Mr. Douglas opened the debate, on his side July 9,
1858, at Chicago, by a speech, in which he said, among
other things, " I am opposed to negro equality. I repeat,
that this nation is a white people. I am opposed to tak
ing any step that recognizes the negro man or the Indian
as the equal of the white man. I am opposed to giving
him a voice in the administration of the Government."
Thus was the case stated on the side of Slavery.
To this speech the future President replied the next
evening, and he did not forget his championship of the
Declaration. After quoting the words " we hold these
truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,"
he proceeds to say : —
" That is the electric cord in the Declaration that links the
hearts of patriotic and liberty-loving men together, that will link
those patriotic and liberty-loving men together as long as the love
of freedom exists in the minds of men throughout the world. * * *
I should like to know if taking this old Declaration of Indepen
dence, which declares that all men are equal upon principle, and
making exceptions, where will it stop ? If one man says it does
not mean the negro, why not. another say it does not mean some
other man? If that Declaration is not the truth, let us get the
Statute-book in which we find it and tear it out ! Who is so bold
as to do it? If it is not true, let us tear it out [cries of "no,
no " ] ; let us stick to it then; let us stand firmly b-y it then."

19
Noble words ! worthy of perpetual memory. And he
finished his speech on this occasion by saying : —
?' I leave you, hoping that the lamp of Liberty will burn in
your bosoms until there shall no longer be a doubt that all men
are created free and equal."
He has left us now, and for the last tirae, and I catch
the closing benediction of that speech, already sounding
through the ages, like a choral harmony.
The debate continued from place to place in Illinois.
At Bloomington, July 16, 1858, Mr. Douglas again de
nied that colored persons could be citizens, and then
broke forth upon the champion of the Declaration of
Independence : —
"I will not quarrel with Mr. Lincoln for his views on that
subject. I have no doubt he is conscientious in them. I have not
the slightest idea but that he conscientiously believes that a negro
ought to enjoy and exercise all the rights and privileges given to
white men ; but I do not agree with him. I believe that this Gov
ernment of ours was founded on the white basis. I believe that it was
established by white men. I do not believe that it was the design
of the signers of the Declaration of Independpnce or the framers
of the Constitution to include negroes, Indians, or other inferior
races, with white men as citizens. * * * He wants them to
vote. I am opposed to it. If they had a vote, I reckon they woidd
all vote for him in preference to me, entertaining the views I do ! "
Then again, in another speech at Springfield, the next
day, Mr. Douglas repeated his denial that the colored

20

man was embraced by the Declaration of Independence,
and thus argued for the exclusion : —
"Eemember that at the time the Declaration was put forth,
every one of the thirteen colonies were slave-holding colonies —
every man who signed that Declaration represented slave-holding
constitu tents. Did these signers mean by that act to charge them
selves and all their constitutents with having violated the law of
God in holding the negro in an inferior condition to the white
man ? And yet, if they included negroes in that term, they were
bound, as conscientious men, that day and that hour, not only to
have abolished Slavery throughout the land, but to 'have conferred
political rights and privileges on the negro and elevated him to an
equaUty, with the white man. * * « The Declaration of Inde
pendence only included the white people of the United States."
On the same evening, at Springfield, the champion of
the Declaration, while admitting that negroes are not
" our equals in color," thus again spoke for the compre
hensive humanity of the Declaration : —
" I adiiere to the Declaration. If Judge Douglas and his friends
are not wilUng to stand by it, let them come up and amend it. Let
them make it read that all men are created equal except negroes.
Let us have it decided, whether the Declaration of Independence,
in this blessed year of 1858, shaH be thus amended. In his con
struction of the Declaration last year, he said it only meant that
Americans in America were equal to Englishmen in England.
Then when I pointed out to him that by that rule he excludes the
Germans, the Irish, the Portuguese, and all the other people who
have come among us since the Eevolution, he reconstructs his con
struction. In his last speech he teUs us it meant Europeans. I
press him a little further, and ask him if it meant to include

21

the Eussians in Asia ! Or does he mean to exclude that vast
population from the principles of the Declaration ? I expect ere
long he will introduce another amendment to his definition. He is
not at all particular. It may draw white 7nen down, but it must not
lift negroes up."
Words like these must be gratefully remembered.
They make the Declaration, what the fathers intended it,
no mean proclamation of oligarchic egotism, but a charter
and freehold for all mankind.
Again, at Ottawa, August 21, 1858, Mr. Douglas, still
wishing to exclude the colored men from the Declaration
of Independence, exclaimed as follows : —
" I believe this Government was made on the white basis. I
believe it was made by white men, for the benefit of white men and
their posterity forever."
The future President again took up the strain, as
follows : —
" Henry Clay once said of a class of men who would repress all
tendencies to liberty and ultimate emancipation, that they must
if they would do this, go back to the era of our hidependence, and
muzzle the cannon, which thunders its annual joyous return ; they
must blow out the moral lights around us ; they must penetrate the
human soul, and eradicate there the love of liberty : and then, and
not till then, can they perpetuate Slavery in this country ! To my
thinkino', Judge Douglas is, by his example and vast influence,
doing that very thing in this community, when he says that the
neoTo has nothing inthe Declaration of Independence."
At Jonesboro, September 15, 1858, Mr. Douglas made

22
another eff'ort against the rights of the colored race, in
the course of which he said : —
"I am aware that aH the abolition lecturers that you find
travelling through the country, are in the habit of reading the
Declaration of Independence to prove that all men were created
equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights,
among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Mr.
Lincoln is very much in the habit of following in the track of Love
joy in this particular, by reading that part of the Declaration
of Independence, to prove that the negro was endowed by the
Almighty with the inalienable right of equality with white men.
Now, I say to you, my fellow-citizens, that, in my opinion, the
signers of the Declaration had no reference to the negro whatever,
when they declared all men to be created equal."
At Galesborough, October 7, 1858, the future President
thus again upheld the Declaration : —
" The Judge has alluded to the Declaration of Independence,
and insisted that negroes are not included in that Declaration ; and
that it is a slander upon the framers of that instrument, to suppose
that negroes were meant therein ; and he asks you, is it possible
to believe that Mr. Jefferson, who penned the immortal paper,
could have supposed himself applying the language of that instru
ment to the negro race, and yet held a portion of that race in
slavery? Would he not at once have freed them? I only have
to remark upon this part of the Judge's speech, that I believe the
entire record of the world, from the date of the Declaration of
Independence up to within three years ago, may be searched in
vain for one single affirmation from one single man, that the
negro was not included in the Declaration. And I will remind

23

Judge Douglas and this audience, that while Mr. Jefferson was
the owner of slaves, as undoubtedly he was, in speaking upon this
very subject, he used the strong language, that " he trembled for
his country when he remembered that God was just."
And at Alton, October 15, 1858, he renewed this same
testimony : —
' ' I assert that Judge Douglas and all his friends may search the
whole record of the country, and it will be a matter of great aston
ishment to me if they shall be able to find that one human being
three years ago had ever uttered the astounding sentiment that the
term "all raen" in the Declaration did not include the negro.
Do not let me be misunderstood. I know that more than three
years ago, there were men who, finding this assertion constantly
in the way of their schemes to bring about the ascendancy and
perpetuation of Slavery, denied the truth of it. I know that Mr.
Calhoun, and all the politicians of his school, denied the truth of
the Declaration, ending at last in that shameful declaration of Petit
of Indiana, upon the floor of the United States Senate, that the
Declaration was, in that respect, a " self-evident lie" rather than a
self-evident truth. But I say, with a perfect knowledge of all this
hawking at the Declaration without directly attacking it, that three
years ago there never had lived a man who had ventured to assail
it in the sneaking way of pretending to believe it, and then asserting
that it did not include the -negro."
Lifted by the cause in which he was engaged, he
appealed to his fellow-countrymen in tones of pathetic
eloquence : —
"Think nothing of me; take no thought forthe political fate
of any man whatsoever, but come back to the truths that are in

24
the Declaration of Independence. You may do anything with me
you choose if you will but heed these saered principles. You may
not only defeat me for the Senate, but you may take me and put me
to death. Wliile pretending no indifference to earthly honors, I do
claim to be actuated in this contest by something higher than an
anxiety for office. I charge you to drop every paltry, insignificant
thought for any man's success. It is nothing. I am nothing.
Judge Douglas Is nothing. But do not destroy that immortal emblem
of humanity — the Declaration of Independence."
Thus, at that early day, before war had overshadowed
the land, was he ready for the sacrifice. " Take me and
put rae to death," said he, " but do not destroy that
iramortal emblera of humanity — the Declaration of Inde
pendence." He has been put to death by the enemies of
the Declaration. But though dead, he will continue to
guard that great title-deed of the human race.
The debate ended. An immense vote was cast. There
were 126,084 votes for the republican candidates, 121,540
for the Douglas candidates, and 5,091 for the Lecompton
candidates, another class of democrats ; but the support
ers of Mr. Douglas had a raajority of eight on joint ballot
in the legislature, and he was reelected to the Senate.
Again returned to his profession, the future President
did not forget the Declaration of Independence. In
answer to the Republicans of Boston, who had invited
hira to unite with thera in the celebration of the birthday
of Thomas Jefferson, he wrote a letter, under date of
April, 1859, which is a gem in political literature, where
he again asserted the supremacy of those truths for

25
which he had battled so well. In him the West thus
spoke to the East : —
" But soberly, it is now no child's play to save the principles
of Jefferson from total overthrow in this nation.
" One would state with great confidence that he could convince
any sane child that the simpler propositions of Euclid are true ;
but, nevertheless, he would fail with one who should deny the
definitions and axioms. The principles of Jefferson are the defi
nitions and axioms of free society. And yet they are denied and
evaded with no small show of success. One dashingly calls them
' glittering generalities.' Another bluntly styles them ' self-evident
lies.' And others insidiously argue that they apply only to ' su
perior races.'
" These expressions, differing In form, are Identical in object
and effect — the supplanting the principles of free government,
and restoring those of classification, caste, and legitimacy. They
would delight a convocation of crowned heads plotting against
the people. They are the vanguard, the sappers and miners of
returning despotism. We must repulse them, or they will sub
jugate us.
"This is a world of compensation; and he who would 6e no
slave must consent to have no slave. Those who deny freedom
to others deserve It not for themselves ; and, under a just God,
cannot long retain It.
" All honor to Jefferson — the man who, in the concrete pres
sure of a struggle for national Independence by a single people,
had the coolness, forecast, and capacity to introduce into a merely
revolutionary document an abstract truth, applicable to all men atid
all times, and so to embalm It there, that to-day, and in all com
ing days, it shall be a rebuke and a stumbling-block to the har
bingers of reappearing tyranny and oppression ! "

26

In the winter of next year the Western champion ap
peared at New York ; and, in a remarkable address at the
Cooper Institute, February 27, 1860, vindicated the policy
of the Fathers of the Republic and the principles of the
Republican party. After showing with curious skill and
minuteness the original understanding on the power of
Congress over Slavery in the territories, he demonstrated
that the Republican party was not in any just sense sec
tional ; and he proceeded to expose the perils frora the
pretensions of slave-raasters, who, not content with requir
ing that " we raust arrest and return their slaves with
greedy pleasure," insisted that the Constitution must be
so interpreted as to uphold the idea of property in man.
The whole address was in a subdued and argumentative
style, while each sentence was like a driven nail, with a
concluding rally that was a bugle-call to the lovers of
right. " Let us have faith," said he, " that right makes
raight, and in that faith, let us to the end dare to do
our duty as we understand it."
A few months later this champion, who would not
see the colored raan shut out from the promises of the
Declaration of Independence, and who insisted upon the
exclusion of Slavery from the territories, after summon
ing his countrymen to dare to do their duty, was nomi
nated by a great political party as their candidate for
President of the United States. Local considerations,
securing to him the support of certain States beyond any
other candidate, exercised a final influence in deter
mining his selection; but -it is easy to see how, from
position, character, and origin, he was at that moment

27

pre-eminently the representative of his country. The
Unity of the Republic was menaced. He was from that
vast controlling Northwest, which would never renounce
its communications with the sea, whether by the Missis
sippi or by eastern avenues. The Declaration of Inde
pendence was dishonored, in the denial of its primal
truths. He had already become known as a volunteer
in its defense. Republican Institutions were in jeopardy.
He was the child of humble life, through whom Repub
lican Institutions would stand confest. These things
which are so obvious now, in the light of history, were
less apparent then in the turmoil of party. But that
Providence, in whose hands are the destinies of nations,
which had found out Washington to conduct his country
through the war of Independence, now found out Lin
coln to wage the new battle for the Unity of the Re
public on the foundations of Liberty and Equality.
The election took place. Of the popular vote, Abra
ham Lincoln received 1,857,610, represented by 180
electoral ballots ; Stephen A. Douglas received 1,365,-
976, represented by 12 electoral ballots ; John C. Breck
enridge received 847,953, represented by 72 electoral
ballots; and John Bell received 590,631, represented by
39 electoral ballots. By this vote Abraham Lincoln be
came President. The triumph at the ballot-box was
flashed by the telegraph over the whole country, from
north to south, from east to west; but itwas answered
by defiance frora the slavemasters, speaking in the name
of State Rights and for the sake of Slavery. The declared
will of the American people, registered at the ballot-

28
box, was set at naught. The conspiracy of years blazed
into day. The National Government, which Alexander
H. Stephens characterized as " the best and freest gov
ernment, the most equal in its rights, the most just in
its decisions, the most lenient in its measures, the most
aspiring in its principles to elevate the race of man that
the sun of heaven ever shone upon ; " and which Jeff'er
son Davis himself pronounced " the best government
that has ever been instituted by man," — that National
Government, whose portrait is thus drawn by its ene
mies, was menaced. South Carolina was the first in
crirae, and before the new President had turned his face
frora the beautiful prairies of the West to enter upon his
perilous duties, State after State had undertaken to aban
don its place in the Union — senator after senator had
dropped frora his seat, — fort after fort had been lost
— and the raulterings of war had begun to "fill the air,
while the actual President, besotted by Slavery, tranquilly
witnessed the gigantic treason, as he sat at ease in the
Executive Mansion — and did nothing.
It was tirae for another to corae upon the scene. You
do not forget how the new President left his village horae,
never to return except under the escort of death. In
words of farewell to the friendly multitude who sur
rounded him, he dedicated himself to his country and
solemnly invoked the aid of Divine Providence. "I
know not," he said, "how soon I shall see you again";
and then, with a prophetic voice he announced that a
duty devolved upon him " greater than that which has
devolved upon any other man since the days of Washing-

29
ton," and he asked his friends to pray that he might
receive that Divine assistance, without which he could not
succeed, but with which success was certain. Others
have gone forth to power and fame with gladness and
with song. He went forth prayerfully as to a sacrifice.
You do not forget how at each resting-place on the
road he renewed his vows, and when at Philadelphia,
visiting Independence Hall, his soul broke forth in
homage to the vital truths which were there declared.
Of all his utterances on the way to the national capital,
after his farewell to his neighbors, there is nothing so
prophetic as these unpremeditated words : —
" All the political sentiments I entertain have been drawn, so
far as I have been able to draw them, from the sentiments which
originated, and were given to the world from this hall. I have
never had a feeling politically that did not spring from the senti
ments embodied in the Declaration of Independence." 
" Now, my friends, can this country be saved on this basis? If It
can, I shall consider myself one of the happiest men In the world if
I can help to save it. If It cannot be saved upon that principle, it
will be truly awful. But If this country cannot be saved without
giving up that principle, I was about to say I would rather be
assassinated on the spot."
And then, after adding that he had not expected to say
a word, he repeated again the consecration of his life, ex
claiming, " I have said nothing but what I am willing to
live byj and, if it be the pleasure of Almighty God, to
die by."
He was about to raise the national banner over the old
1

80
hall. But before this service, he took up the strain which
he loved so well, saying : —
" It is on such an occasion as this that we can reason
together, reaffirm our 4evotion to the country and the prin
ciples ofthe Declaration of Independence."
Thus constantly did he bear his testimony.
Slavery was already pursuing his life. An atterapt was
ipade to throw from the track a train in which he was
journeying, and a hand grenade was found secreted in
another. Baltimore, which lay directly on his way, was
the seat of a raurderous plot against hira. Avoiding the
conspirators of Slavery, he carae from Philadelphia to
Washington unexpectedly in the night ; and thus, for the
moment, cheating assassination of its victim, he entered
the National capital.
From this time forward his career broadens into the
history of his country and of the age. You all know it
by heart. Therefore a few glimpses will be enough, that
I may exhibit its moral rather than its story.
The Inaugural Address — the formation of his cabinet
— his earliest acts — his daily conversation — all attested
the spirit of moderation with which he approached his
perilous position. At the same time he declared openly,
that in the contemplation of universal law and of the Con
stitution, the Union of these States is perpetual ; that no
State, upon its own mere motion, can lawfully get out
of the Union ; that resolves and ordinances to that effect
are legally void ; that acts of violence within any State
are insurrectionary or revolutionary ; and that, to the
extent of his .ability, he should take care, according to

31

the express injunction of the Constitution, that the laws
of the Union should be faithfully executed in all the
States. But, while thus, positive in upholding the Unity
of the Republic, he was deterrained that on his part there
should be no act of offense ; that there should be no blood
shed or violence unless forced upon the country ; that it
was his duty to hold, occupy, and possess the property
and places belonging to the Governraent, but beyond what
was necessary for this object, there would be no exercise
of force, and the people everywhere would be left in that
perfect security which is most favorable to calm thought
and reflection.
But the madness of Slavery knew no bounds. It had
been determined froin the beginning that the Union should
be broken, and no moderation could change this wicked
purpose. A pretended power was organized, in the form
of a Confederacy, with Slavery as the declared corner
stone. You know what ensued. Fort Sumter was
attacked, and, after a fiery storm of shot and shell for
thirty-three hours, the national flag fell. This was 14th
April, 1861. War had commenced.
War is always a scourge, and it never can be regarded
without sadness. It is one of the mysteries of Provi
dence, that it is still allowed to vex mankind. There
were few who deprecated it more than President Lincoln.
From his Quaker blood and from reflection, he was essen
tially a man of peace. In one of his speeches during his
short service in Congress, he arraigned military glory as
" that rainbow that rises in showers of blodd — that ser
pent eye that, charms but to destroy;" and now that he

32

was charged with the terrible responsibility of govern
ment, he was none the less earnest for peace. He was
not willing to see his beloved 'country torn by bloody
battle, and fellow-citizens striking at each other. But
after the criminal assault on Fort Surater, there was no
alternative. The Republic was in danger, and every man
from President to citizen was sumraoned to the defense.
Nor was this aU. An atterapt was made to invest Slavery
with national Independence, and the President, who dis
liked both slavery and war, described, perhaps, his own
condition, when, in a letter to one of the Society of
Friends, he said, " Your people have had and are having
very great trials on principles and faith. Opposed to
both war and oppression, they can only practically oppose
oppression by -war." In these few words the whole case
is stated ; inasmuch as, whatever might be the pre
tension of State Rights, the war was made necessary
to put down the hideous ambition of Slavery.
The slave-masters simply put in execution a conspiracy
long pending, for which they had already prepared the
way : first, by teaching that any State might, at its own
will, break frora the Union, and, secondly, by teaching
that colored persons were so far inferior as not to be
embraced in the promises of the Declaration of Indepen
dence, but were justly held as slaves in defiance of the
declared principles of Liberty and Equality. Mr. Cal
houn, the Mephistopheles of Slavery, had, for years, in
culcated both these pretensions. But State Rights were
merely a cover for Slavery.
Therefore, when it was determined that the slave-

33

masters should be encountered, two things were resolved :
first, that this Republic should live, and, secondly, that no
hideous power, with Slavery blazoned on its front, should
be created on our soil. In accepting the challenge at
Fort Sumter, the President became the voice of the coun
try, which, with a stern deterraination, insisted that rebel
Slavery should be put down by war. The people were in
eamest, and would not brook hesitation ; and they were
right. If ever in history war was necessary, — if ever in
history war was holy, — it was the war then and there
begun for the overthrow of rebel Slavery.
From the first cannon shot, it was plain that the rebel
lion was nothing but Slavery in arms ; but such was the
power of Slavery, even in the Free States, that raonths
elapsed before this giant criminal was directly attacked.
Generals in the field were tender with regard to it,
as if it were a church, or a work of the fine arts.
It was only under the teaching of disaster that the
country was aroused. The first step was taken in Con
gress after the defeat at Bull Run. But still the Pres
ident hesitated. Disaster thickened and graves opened,
until at last the country saw that only by justice could
we hope for Divine favor, and the President, who leaned
so closely upon the popular heart, pronounced that great
word, by which all slaves in the Rebel States were
set free. Let it be named forever to *his glory, that he
grasped the thunderbolt, even though tardily, under
which the rebeUion staggered to its fall ; that, following
up the blow, he enlisted colored citizens as soldiers in the
national array ; and, that he declared his final purpose

34

never to retract or modify the Emancipation Proclamation,
nor to return int6 Slavery any person free by the terins of
that instrument, or by any of the acts of Congress, saying,
loftily, "If the people should, by whatever mode or
means, make it an executive duty to re-enslave such
persons, another and not I must be the instrument to
perform it."
It was soraetimes said that the Proclamation was of
doubtful constitutionality. If this criticism did not pro
ceed from syrapathy with Slavery, it evidently proceeded
from the prevailing superstition with regard to this idol.
Future jurists will read with astonishment that such a
flagrant wrong could be considered at any time as having
any rights which a court was bound to respect, and
especially that rebels in arms could be considered as
having any title to the services of people whose allegi
ance was primarily due to the United States. But, turn
ing from these conclusions, it seems to be plain, that
Slavery, which stood exclusively on local law without any
support in natural law, must have fallen with the local
government, both legally and constitutionally; legully,
inasmuch as it ceased to have any valid legal support ;
and constitutionally, inasmuch as it came at once within
the exclusive jurisdiction of the Constitution, where
Liberty is the prevailing law. The President did not act
upon these printftples, but, speaking with the voice of
authority, he said " Let the slaves be free." What Court
and Congress hesitated to declare, he proclaimed, and
thus enrolled himself among the world's Emancipators.
Passing from the Proclaraation of Eraancipation, which

35

places its author so far above human approach that
human envy cannot reach him, I carry you for one
moment to our Foreign Relations. The convulsion here
was felt in the most distant places — as at the great earth
quake of Lisbon, when that capital seemed about to be
submerged, there was a coraraotion of the waters in our
Northern Lakes. All Europe was stirred. There, too,
was the Slavery Question in another forra. England, in an
unhappy moraent, under an ill-considered plea of " neces
sity" — which Milton tells us was the plea by which the
fiend " excused a devilish deed " — accorded to rebel
Slavery the rights of belligerency on the ocean, and then
proceeded to open her ports, to surrender her workshops
and to let loose her raerchant ships in aid of this wicked
ness;. — forgetting all the relations of alliance and amity
with the United States — forgetting all the logic of
English history — forgetting all the distinctions of right
and wrong — and forgetting also that a new Power
founded on Slavery was a moral monster with which a
just nation could have nothing to do. To appreciate the
character of this concession, we must appreciate clearly
the whole vast unprecedented crime of the Rebellion,
taking its coraplexion frora Slavery. Undoubtedly it was
crirainal to assail the Unity of this Republic, and thus
destroy its peace and impair its example in the world ;
but the attempt to build a new Power on Slavery as a
corner-stone, and with no other declared object of sep
arate existence, was more than criminal, or rather it was
a crime of that untold, unspeakable guilt, which no
language can depict and which no judgment can be

36
too swift to condemn. The associates in this terrible
apostasy might rebuke each other in the words of an old
dramatist : — Thou must do, then,
What no malevolent star will dare to look on,
It is so wicked ; for whioh men will curse thee
For being the instrument, and the blest angels
Forsake me at my need, for being the author ;
Por 't is a deed of night, of night, Francisco !
In which the memory of all good actions
We can pretend t'o, shall be buried quick ;
Or, if we be remembered, it shall be
To fright posterity by an example
That have outgone all precedents of villains
That were before us. {Masdnger. Jhike of Milan. Aot L
To recognize such a Power; — to enter into semi-
alliance with it ; — to invest it with rights ; — to open
ports to it ; — to surrender workshops to it ; — to build
ships for it; — all this, or any part of this, is positive and
plain complicity with the original ^uilt, and must be
judged as we judge any other complicity with Slavery.
England led in the concession of belligerent rights to
rebel Slavery. No event of the war has been comparable
to this concession in encourageraent to this transcendant
crirae or in prejudice to the United States. It was out of
English ports and English workshops that rebel Slavery
drew its supplies. It was in English ship yards that the
cruisers of rebel Slavery were built and equipped. It was
England that gave to rebel Slavery belligerent po-wer on the
ocean. The early legend was verified in our day. King
Arthur was without a sword, when suddenly one appear-

37

ed, thrust out from a lake. " Lo ! " said Merlin, the
enchanter, " yonder is a sword ; it belongeth to the Lady
of the Lake ; if she will, thou mayest take it ; but if she
will not, it will not be in thy power to take it." And the
Lady of the Lake yielded the sword, so says the legend
— even as England has since yielded the sword to rebel
Slavery. The President saw the painful consequences of this
concession, and especially that it was a first step towards
the acknowledgment of rebel Slavery as an Independent
Power. Clearly, if it were proper for a Foreign Power
to acknowledge Belligerency, it raight, at a later stage, be
proper to acknowledge Independence ; and any objection
vital to Independence, would, if applicable, be equally
vital to Belligerency. Soleran resolutions, by Congress,
on this subject were coraraunicated to Foreign Powers ;
but the unanswerable arguraent against any possible
recognition of a new Power founded on Slavery was
stated by the President, in a paper which I novv hold in
my hand, and which has never before seen the light. It
is a copy of a resolution drawn by hiraself, which he
gave to rae, in his own autograph, for transraission to one
of our valued friends abroad, as an expression of his
opinion on the great question involved, and a guide to
public duty. It is in these words : —
" Whereas, while heretofore States and Nations have tolerated
Slavery, recently, for the first [time] in the world, an attempt has
been made to construct a new nation upon the basis of Human
Slavery, and with the primary and fundamental object to maintain,
enlarge, and perpetuate the same, therefore

38

" Resolved, that no such embryo State should ever be recognized
by, or admitted into, the family of Christian and civilized nations ;
and that all Christian and civilized men everywhere should, by all
lawful means, resist to the utmost such recognition or admission,"
You will see how directly any recognition of rebel
Slavery as an Independent Power is assailed, and how
"all Christian and civilized men everywhere" are sum
moned " to resist to the utraost such recognition." Of
course, had such a benign spirit entered into the counsels
of England when Slavery first took up arras against
the Republic, this great historic nation would have
shrunk at every hazard from that fatal concession of
belligerent rights, which was in itself a plain contribution
to its early strength, and opened the way to infinite con
tributions, without which the criminal pretender must
have speedily succumbed. But Divine Providence willed
it otherwise. Perhaps it was necessary to the recognition
of its boundless capacities, that the Republic should
stand forth alone, in sublime solitude, warring for Liberty
and Equality, and thus become an example to mankind.
Meanwhile the war continued with the proverbial
vicissitudes of this arbitrament. Battles were fought
and lost. Other battles were fought and won. Rebel
Slavery stood face to face in deadly conflict with the
.Declaration of Independence, when the President, with
unconscious power, dealt it another blow, second only
to the Proclamation of Emancipation, This was at the
blood-soaked field of Gettysburg, where a year before
the armies of the Republic had encountered the armies of
Slavery, and, after a conflict of three days, had driven

39

them back with destructive slaughter — as at that de
cisive battle of Tours, on which hung the destinies of
Christianity in Western Europe, the invading Mahome
dans, after a conflict of three days, were driven back by
Charles Martel. No battle of the present war was more
important. Few battles in history can compare with it.
A year later, on the anniversary of this day, there
was another meeting on that same field. It was of grate
ful fellow-citizens, gathered from all parts of the Union
to dedicate it to the memory of those who had fallen
there. Among these were eminent men from our own
country and from foreign lands. There too was your
classic orator, whose finished address was a model of
literary exceUence, The President spoke very briefly ;
but his few words will live as long as time. Since Simo-
nides wrote the epitaph for those who died at Therrao-
pylae, nothing equal to them has ever been breathed over
the fallen dead. Thus he began : " Fourscore and seven
years ago our fathers brought forth upon this continent
a new nation, conceived in Liberty and dedicated to the
pr(^osition that all men are created equal." The truth
which he had so often vindicated and for which he was
wiUing to die, is thus heralded, and the country is again
called to carry it forward, that our duty may not be left
undone, "Itis for us the living, rather to be dedicated here to the
unfinished -work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly
advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task
remaining before us, that from these honored dead we take in-
creased devotion to tbat cause for which they gaviS the last measure

40
of devotion ; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not
have died in vain ; that this nation under God shall have a new
birth of Freedom, and that government of the people, by the
people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth."
That speech, uttered at the field of Gettysburg, and
now sanctified by the martyrdom of its author, is a mon-
limental act. In the modesty of his nature he said :
" the world wiU little note, nor long remeraber what we
say here ; but it can never forget what they did here."
He was mistaken. The world noted at once what he said,
and will never cease to remember it. The battle itself
was less iraportant than the speech. Ideas are always
more than battles.
Among the events which secured to him the assured
confidence of the country against all party clamor and
prejudice, you cannot place this speech too high. To
some who had doubted his earnestness, here was touching
proof of their error. Others who had followed hira with
indifference, were warraed with grateful syrapathy. There
were none to criticise.
He was re-elected President ; and here was not only a
personal triuraph, but a triuraph of the» Republic. For
himself personally, it was much to find his administration
thus ratified ; but for republican ideas it was of incal
culable value, that, at such a time, the plume of the
soldier had not prevailed. In the midst of war, the
people at the ballot-box deliberately selected a civilian.
Ye, who doubt the destinies of the Republic — who
fear the. ambition of a military chief, — or who suspect the
popular will — . do not forget, that, at this moment, when

41
the voice of battle filled the whole land, the country
quietly appointed for its ruler this man of peace.
The Inaugural Address which signalized his entry for
a second time upon his great duties, was briefer than any
similar address in our history; but it has already gone
farther, and will live longer, than any other. It was
a continuation of the Gettysburg speech, with the same
sublimity and gentleness. Its concluding words were like
an angelic benediction.
Meanwhile there was a surfeit of battle and of victory.
Calmly he saw the land of Slavery enveloped by the
national forces ; saw the great coil bent by his generals
about it ; saw the infinite garrotte as it tightened against
the neck of the rebellion. Good news came from all
quarters. Everywhere the array was doing its duty.
One was conquering in Tennessee ; another was march
ing in Georgia and Carolina ; another was watching at
Richmond. The navy echoed back the thunders of the
army. Place after place was falling — Savannah, Charles
ton, Fort Fisher, Wilmington. The President left his
home to be near the Lieutenant-General. Then came the
capture of Petersburg and Richihond, with the fiight of
Jefferson Davis and his cabinet. Without pomp or
military escort, the President entered the Capital of the
rebellion and walked its streets, from which Slavery had
fled forever. Then came the surrender of Lee. The
surrender of Johnston was at hand. The military power
of rebel Slavery had been broken like a Prince Rupert
drop, and everywhere within its confines the bjirbarous
government it had set up was tumbling in crash aud ruin.

42

The country was in ecstasy. All this he watched without
elation, while his soul was brooding on thoughts of peace
and clemency. His youthful son, who had been on the staff
of the Lieutenant-General, returned on the morning of
Friday, 13th April, to resume his interrupted studies. The
father was happy in the sound of his footsteps, and felt the
augury of peace. On the same day the Lieutenant-General,
returned. In the intimacy of his family the President said
that this day the war was over. In the evening he sought
relaxation, and you know the rest, Alas ! the war was
not over. The agents of Slavery were dogging him, and
that night he became a martyr.
The country rose at once in an agony . of grief, and-
strong men everywhere wept. City, town, and village!
was darkened by the obsequies, as they swept by with
more than " sceptred pall." Every street was draped
with the ensigns of woe. He had become, as it were,
the inmate of every house, and the famiUes of the. land
were in mourning. Not only in the Executive mansion,
but in innumerable homes, was his vacant chair. Never
before was such universal sorrow ; and already the voice
of lamentation is returning to us from Europe, where
candor towards him had begun even before death. Only
a short time ago, he was unknown, except in his own
State. Only a short time ago, he had visited New York.
as a stranger, and was shown about its streets by youthful
companions. Five years later, he was borne through
these streets with funeral pomp, such as the world never
before ¦yyitnessed.
At the first moment it was hard to comprehend, this

43

blow, and many cried in despair. But the rule of God
has been too visible of late to allow any doubt of his con
stant presence. Did not our martyr reraind us in his last
address, that the judgments of the Lord are true and
righteous altogether 1 And who will say that his death
was not a judgment of the Lord 1 Perhaps it was needed
to Uft the country to a more perfect justice and to inspire
it with a subliraer faith. Perhaps it was sent in mercy to
set a sacred irreversible seal upon the good he had done,
and to put Emancipation beyond all mortal question-
Perhaps it was the sacrificial consecration of those primal
truths, embodied in the Declaration of Independence,
which he had so often vindicated, and for which he had
announced his willingness to die. He is gone, and he
has been mourned sincerely. It is only private sorrow
that could wish to recall the dead. He is now removed
beyond human vicissitudes. Life and death are both past.
He had been happy in life. He was not less happy in
death. In death, as in life, he was still under the guar
dianship of that Divine Providence, which took him early
by the hand and led him from obscurity to power and
fame. Only on the Sunday preceding his assassination,
while coming from the front on the steamer, and with a
quarto Shakespeare in his hands, he read aloud the well-
known words of Macbeth : —
Duncan is in his grave ;
After life's fitful fever, he sleeps well.
Treason has done his worst ; nor steel, nor poison,
Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing
Can touch him further.

44

Impressed by its beauty or by something else, he read it a
second tirae. As the friends who then surrounded hira list
ened to his reading, they little thought how, in a few days,
what was said of the murdered Duncan would be said of
him. Nothing can touch him further. He is saved from
the trials that were gathering about him. He had fought
the good fight of Eraancipation. He had borne the brunt of
war with embattled hosts against him, and had conquered.
He had made the name of Republic a triumph and a joy
in foreign lands. Now that the strife of blood was ended,
it remained to be seen how he could confront those machi
nations, which are only a prolongation ofthe war, and more
dangerous because more subtle, where recent rebels, with
professions of Union on the lips, but still defying the
principles of the Declaration of Independence, vainly seek
to organize peace on another OUgarchy of the skin. From
all these trials he was saved. But his testimony lives and
will live forever, quickened by the undying echoes of his
tomb. Dead, he will speak with more than living voice.
But the author of Emancipation cannot die. His immor
tality on earth has begun. His country and his agp are
already enshrined in his example, as if he were its great
poet gathered to his fathers : —
Back to the living hath he tumed him,
And all of death has past away ;
The age that thought him (Jead and moumed him,
Itself now lives but in his lay.
If the President were alive, he would protest against
any monotony of panegyric. He never exaggerated. He
was always cautious in praise, as in censure. In endeav-

45

oring to estiraate his character, we shall be nearer to him
in proportion as we cultivate the same spirit.
In person he was taU and rugged, with little resemblance
to any historic portrait, unless he might seem in one respect
to justify the epithet which was given to an early English
monarch. His countenance had even more of rugged
strength than his person. Perhaps the quality which
struck the raost at first sight was his siraplicity of raanners
and conversation, without forra or ceremony of any kind,
beyond that among neighbors. His handwriting had the
same simplicity. It was as clear as that of Washington,
but less florid. Each had been a surveyor, and was per
haps, indebted to this experience. But the son of the
Western pioneer was more simple in nature, and the man
appeared in the autograph. That integrity which has
become a proverb, belonged to the same quality. The
most perfect honesty must be the most perfect simplicity.
The words by which an ancient Roman was described
belong to him : Vita, innocentissimus, proposito sanctissimus.
He was naturally humane, inclined to pardon, and never
remembering the hard things said against him. He was
always good to the poor, and in his dealings with them
was fuU of those "kind little words which are of the sarae
blood as great and holy deeds." Such a character
awakened instinctively the sympathy of the people. They
saw his fellow-feeling with them and felt the kinship.
With him as President, the idea of RepubUcan Institu
tions, where no place is too high for the humblest, was
perpetually manifest, so that his simple presence was like
a Proclamation of the Equality of aU men.

46

While social in nature and enjoying the flow of conver
sation, he was often singularly reticent. Modesty was'
natural to such a character. As he was without affecta
tion, so he was without pretense or jealousy. No person
civil or military can complain that he appropriated to
himself any honor that belonged to another. To each
and all he anxiously gave the credit that was due. And
this sarae spirit was apparent in smaller things. On one
occasion, in a sally of Congressional debate, he said that a
fiery slave-master of Georgia, to whom he was replying,
" was an eloquent man, and a raan of learning ; — so far as
he could judge of learning, not being learned hiraself."
(Congress. Globe, Appendix, 1st session, SOth Congress, p.
1042.) His huraor has also become a proverb. He insisted
sometimes that he had no invention, but only a memory.
He did not forget the good things that he heard, and
was never without a faraiUar story to Ulustrate his raean
ing. When he spoke, the recent West seemed to vie with
the ancient East in apologue and fable. His ideas moved,
as the beasts entered Noah's ark, in pairs. At times his
illustrations had a horaely felicity, and with him they
seemed to be not less iraportant than the arguraent,
which he always enforced with a certain intensity of
manner and voice. , But this sarae huraor was often dis
played where there was no story. I know not how the
indifference, which many persons showed with regard to
Slavery, could be exposed more effectively than when
he said of a poUtical antagonist, who was thus in
different, "I suppose the institution of Slavery reaUy

47

looks sraall to him. He is so put up by nature that a lash
upon his back would hurt him, but a lash upon any body
else's back does not hurt him." And then, again, there
is a bit of reply to Mr. Douglas, which is characteristic
not only for its huraor, but as showing how little at that
tirae he was looking to the great place which he reached
so soon afterwards. " Senator Douglas," said he, " is of
world-wide renown. All the anxious politicians of his
party, or who have been of his na'-'-y for years past, have
been looking upon hira as certamly, at no distant day, to
be the President of the United States. They have seen
in his round, jolly, fruitful face, post offices, land offices,
m^rshalships, and cabinet appointraents, chargeships and
foreign raissions, bursting and sprouting out in a won
derful exuberance, ready to be laid hold of by their
greedy hands. * * On the contrary, nobody has ever ex
pected me to be President. In ray poor, lean, lank face
nobody has ever seen that any cabbages were sprout
ing out. These are disadvantages that the Repub
licans labor under. We have to fight the battle upon
principle, and upon principle alone." (Debate with Douglas,
p. 55.) Here is a revelation with regard to hiraself,
which is as honorable as it is curious.
He was original in mind as in character. His style
was his own ; forraed on no raodel, and springing directly
frora hiraself. While failing often in correctness, it is
soraetimes unique in beauty and in sentiment. There are
passages which will live always. It is no exaggeration to
say, that, in weight and pith, suffused in a certain poetical
color, they call to mind Bacon's Essays. Such passages

48
make an epoch in State Papers. No Presidential mes
sage or speech from a throne ever had any thing of such
touchiug reaUty. They are harbingers of the great era
of Humanity. While uttered from the heights of power,
they reveal a simple, unaffected trust in Alraighty God,
and speak to the people as equal to equal.
He was placed by Providence at the head of his coun
try during an unprecedented crisis, when the fountains
of the great deep were broken up, and men turned for
protection to military power. Multitudinous armies were
mustered. Great navies were set on foot. Of all these
he was the constitutional Coraraander-in-Chief. As the
war proceeded, all his prerogatives enlarged and others
sprang into being, until the sway of a Republican Presi
dent becarae imperatorial and iraperial. But not for one
moment did the modesty of his nature desert him. His
constant thought was his country and how to serve it.
Personal ambition at the expense of patriotism was as far
removed frora the siraple purity of his nature as poison
frora a strawberry. And thus with equal courage in the
darkest hours he continued on, heeding as little the
warnings of danger as the temptations of power. " It
would not do for a President," he said, " to have guards
with drawn sabres at his door, as if he fancied he were, or
were trying to be, or were assuraing to be an emperor."
And in the sarae simplicity he spoke of his return at
morning to his daily duties as " opening shop,"
When be became President he was without any con
siderable experience in public affairs ; nor was he much
versed in history, whose lessons would have been most

49
valuable. As he became more famiUar with the jjlace,
his faciUty evidently increased. He had " learned the
ropes," so he said. But his habits of business were
irregular, and they were never those of despatch. He
did not see at once the just proportions of things, and
allowed himself to be too much occupied by details.
Even in small things, as well as in great, there was in
hira a certain resistance to be overcome. There were
moments when this delay caused irapatience, and ira
portant questions seemed to suffer. But when the blow
was struck there was nothing but gratitude, and all
¦confessed the singleness with which he had sought the
public good. There was also a conviction, that, though
slow to reach his conclusion, he was inflexible in raain
taining it. Porapey boasted that by the stamp of his foot
he might raise an army. The President might have done
the same ; but, according to his own words, he " put his
foot down," and saved a principle.
In the stateraent of raoral truth and the exposure of
wrong, he was at times singularly cogent. There was
fire as well as light in his words. Nobody exhibited
Slavery in its enormity more clearly. On one occasion
he blasted it as "a monstrous injustice"; on another
he pictured the slave-master as " wringing his bread
from the sweat of other men's faces " ; and then, on
still another he said, with exquisite simplicity of diction,
" If Slavery is not wrong, then nothing is wrong."
Would you find any conderanation of Slavery more com
plete, you must go to the sayings of John Brown or to
those famous words of John Wesley, when the great

50
Methodist held it up as " the sura of aU villanies."
Another mind, more submissive to the truth which he
recognized, and less disposed to take counsel, of to-raorrow,
would not have hesitated in carrying forward this judg
ment to its natural conclusion. Perhaps, his courage to
apply truth was not always equal to his clearness in
seeing it. Perhaps|, the heights that he gained in con
science were not always sustained in conduct. And
have we not been told that the soul can gain heights
which it cannot keep ] Thus even Avhile blasting Slavery,
he still waited, till many feared that his judgment would
" lose the narae of action." Thus even while vindicating
the EquaUty of all men, against the assaults of one of the
ablest debaters of the country, and insisting, with admi
rable constancy, that colored persons were embraced
Avithin the proraises of the Declaration of Independence,
he yet allowed hiraself to be pressed by his adversary to
an iUogical liraitation of this selfevident truth, so that
colored persons raight be excluded frora political rights.
But he was at all tiraes willing to learn and not asharaed
to change. Before death he had already expressed his
desire that the suffrage should be extended to colored
persons in certain cases ; but here again he failed to
apply that very principle of Equality for which he so
often Contended. If the suffrage be given to colored
persons only in certain cases, then, of course, it can be
given to whites only in the sarae cases ; or Equality ceases
to exist.
It was his own frank confession that he had not con
troUed events, but that they had controlled him. At all

51

the great stages of the waif, he followed rather than led.
The people, under God, were raasters. Let it not be for
gotten that the triumphs of this war, and even Emanci
pation itself, sprang from the great heart of the Amer
ican people. Individual services have been important;
but there is no man who has been necessary.
There was one theme in which latterly he was dis
posed to conduct the public mind. It was in the treat
ment of the rebel leaders. His policy was never an
nounced, and of course it would always have been
subject to modification, in the light of experience. But
it is well known that, at the very moment of his assas-
.sination, he was much occupied by thoughts of lenity
and pardon. He was never harsh, even in speaking of
Jefferson Davis ; and, only a few days before his end,
when one who was privileged to speak to hira in that
way, said, "Do not allow hira to escape the law, — he
must be hanged," the President replied calmly, in the
words which he had adopted in his last Inaugural Ad
dress, " Judge not, that ye be not judged." And when
pressed again by the remark that the sight of Libby
Prison made it impossible to pardon him, the President
repeated twice over these same words, revealing unmis
takably the generous sentiments of his heart. The ques
tion of clemency here is the very therae so ably debated
between Ceesar and Cato, while the Roman Senate was
considering the punishraent of the confederates of Cati
line. Csesar consented to confiscation and iraprisonraent,
but pleaded for the lives of the crirainals. Cato was
sterner. It is probable that the President, who was a

52

Cato in heart, would on this . occasion have followed the
counsels of Ctesar.
His place in history may be seen from the great events
with which his name is forever associated. The Procla
mation of Emancipation, — the miUtary suppression of
the Rebellion — his Republican example — and character
istic speeches are in Jheraselves a broad foundation of
fame. By the association of a common death he will
pass into the same historic galaxy with Caesar, William
of Orange, and Henry IV. of France, all of whom were
assassinated, and his star will not pale by the side of theirs.
Csesar was a contrast to hira in every thing, unless it be
in cleraency, and in the coincidence that each was fifty-.
six years of age at the tirae of his death. But how
unlike in all else. Csesar was of a brilliant lineage,
wliich he traced on one side to the iramortal gods, and on
the other to one of the recent chiefs of Rome ; of com
pletest education ; of amplest means ; of rarest experi
ence ; of acknowledged genius as soldier, orator, and
writer ; — being in himself the most finished man of
antiquity ; but he was the enslaver of his country, whose
personal ambition took the place of patriotism, and
whose name has since become the synonyme of imperial
power. William of Orange was of princely origin, and in
early life was a page in the palace of Charles V. In the
long contest of Holland with Spain, he became the liber
ator of his country, which he conducted wisely, surely, and
greatly, — anticipating the exaraple of Washington. The.
narae of « Silent " which he bore raay suggest the reti
cence of another. Henry IV, memorable for mirth,

53

anecdote, and pregnant wit, represented the idea of
National Unity in France as the Supreme condition of
national safety ; and his career has been illustrated by
the popular epic of his country. La Henriade, of Voltaire.
These are illustrious names ; but there is nothing in them
which can eclipse the simple life of our President, whose
exaraple will be an epoch in the history of Humanity, and
a rebuke to every usurper — to be commemorated forever
by history and by song. " I called thee from the sheep-
cote to be ruler over Israel " said the Lord to David ; and
whoever is thus called is more than Csesar. Such an
appointment was his ; and his simple devotion to Human
Rights was more than genius or power.
There is another character, who, like him, was taken
away at the age of fifty-six, with whom the President raay
be more properly corapared. It is St. Louis of 1 ranee;
and yet here the reserablance is only in certain kindred
features, and the common consecration of their lives.
The French monarch, though at the head of a military
power, was a lover of peace, and cultivated justice to
wards his neighbors. Under his influence, a barbarous
institution was overthrown, and France was Ufted in the
career of civilization. Though in an age of privUege, and
wearing a crown, he was moved to the practice of Equal
ity. History recalls, with undisguised deUght, the simple
justice which he adrainistered to his people, as he sat
under an oak in the park of Vincennes. Our President
struck too at a barbarism, and lifted his country. He too
practised EquaUty. And he too had his oak of Vin
cennes. It was that plain room, where he was always

54
so accessible, as to make his example difiicult for future
Presidents. But there were stated times when he was
open to all who carae with their petitions, and they flocked
across the continent. The transactions of that siraple
court of last resort would show how much was done to
temper the law, to assuage sorrow, and to care for the
widow and orphan ; but its only record is in heaven.
Such, feUow-citizens, is the Life and Character of
Abrahara Lincoln. You have discerned his simple
beginnings ; — have watched his early struggles ; —
have gratefully followed his consecration to those truths
which our fathers declared ; — have hailed him as the
twice-elected head of the Republic, through whom it was
known in foreign lands ; — have recognized hira at a
period of national trial as the representative of the
unfulfilled promises of our Fathers, even as Washington
was the representative of National Independence ; and
you have beheld him struck down, at the moraent of
victory when rebel Slavery was everywhere succurabing.
Reverently we acknowledge the flnger of the Alraighty,
and pray that all 'our trials raay not fail ; but that the
promises of the Fathers may be fulfilled, so that all men
shall be equal before the law, and government shall stand
only on the consent of the governed, — two self-evident
truths which the Declaration of Independence has
announced. Traitorous assassination struck him down. But do not
be too vindictive in heart towards the poor atom that
held the weapon. Reserve your rage for the responsible

55

Power, which not content with assailing the life of the
Republic by atrocious RebeUion, has outraged all laws
huraan and divine; has organized Barbarisra as a prin
ciple of conduct; has taken the lives of Unionists at
horae ; has prepared robbery and murder on the northern
borders ; has fired hotels, fiUed with women and children;
has plotted to scatter infection and yellow fever ; has
starved American citizens, held as prisoners ; has
menaced assassiiiation always ; and now at last, true
to itself, has assassinated our President ; and this
responsible Power is none other than Slavery. It is
Slavery that has taken the life of our beloved Chief
Magistrate, and here is another triumph of its Barbarism.
On Slavery let vengeance fall. I care not what you do
with the worms it employs ; but do not — I entreat
you — yield any indulgence to this raurderous wickedness.
RavaUlac, the assassin of Henry IV. of France, was torn
in pieces on the public square in front of the City Hall,
by four powerful horses, each of them attached to one of
his limbs, and pulling in opposite directions, until at last,
after a fearful struggle, nothing of the wretched assassin
remained in the hands of the executioner, except his
erapty shirt — which was at once handed over to be
burned. Such be our vengeance ; and let Slavery be the .
victira. But not only Slavery, which is another narae for
property in man, but so also that other pretension, which
is not less irrational, that Human Rights can depend on
color. This is the shirt of the assassin ; and it raust be
handed over to be burned.

56

Such a vengeance will be like a kiss of reconciliation ;
for it will remove every obstacle to peace and harmony.
The people where Slavery once ruled will bless the
blow which destroyed it. They.will yet confess that it
was dealt in no harshness to them, in no unkindness, in
no desire to humiliate, but simply and solemnly, in the
name of the Republic, and of Human Nature ; for their
good as well as ours ; ay, for their good more than ours.
It is by ideas that we have conquered, more than by
arraies. The sword of the Archangel was less mighty
than the mission which he bore from the Lord. But if
the ideas which have given us the victory are now neg
lected ; if the promises of the Declaration, which the
Rebellion openly assailed, are still left unfulfilled, then
will our blood and treasure have been lavrehed in vain.
Alas ! for the dead who have given themselves so bravely
to their country ; alas ! for the living who have been left
to mourn the dead ; — if any relic of Slavery is allowed
to continue ; especially if this bloody impostor, defeated
in the pretension of property in raan, is allowed to per
petuate an Oligarchy of the skin !
And how shall these ideas be saved ] At this raoment
aU turns on the colored suffrage in the rebel states. This
¦ is now the pivot of national safety. A mistake on this point
is worse than the loss of a battle.
The argumeiit for the colored suffrage is overwhelming.
It springs from the necessity of the case, as weU as from
the rights of man. This suffrage is needed for the secur
ity of the colored people ; for the stabiUty of the local
government ; and for the strength of the Union. Without

57

it there is nothing but insecurity for the colored people,
instabUity for the local government, and weakness for the
Union, involving of course the national credit. Without
it the Rebellion will break forth under a new alias,
unarmed it may be, but with white votes to take pos-
.session of the local government and wield it at will,
whether at home or in the national counsels. If it be
said that the colored people are unfit, then do I say
that they are more fit than their recent masters, or even
than many araong the " poor whites." They have been
loyal always, and who are you, that, under any pretence,
exalts the prejudices of the disloyal above the rights of
the loyal % Their suffrage is now needed. An English
statesman, after the acknowledgment of the Spanish Colo
nies as Independent States, boasted that he had called a
new world into existence to redress the balance of the
old. In sirailar spirit, we too must call a new ballot into
existence in order to overcome the preponderance of
those who have not yet learned the duty of justice to the
colored race.
The same National authority that struck down Slavery
must see that this other pretension is not permitted to
survive ; nor can there be any doubt that the authority
which struck down Slavery is competent to this kindred
duty. Each is a part of that great policy of justice
through which alone can peace be made permanent and
irarautable. Nor can the Republic shirk this reraaining
duty, without leaving Eraancipation unfinished and the
proraises of the Declaration of Independence unfulfilled.
Vain is the gift of Liberty, if you surrender the rights of

58

the freedman to be judged by the recent assertors of
property in man. Burke, in his day, saw the flagrant
inconsistency and denounced it, saying, that, whatever
such people did on this subject was " arrant trifling," and,
notwithstanding its plausible form, always wanted what
he aptly called " the executive principle." These words
of warning have been adopted and repeated by two later
statesmen, George Canning and Henry Brougham ; but
they are so "plain as not to need the support of names.
The infant raust not be handed over to be suckled by the
wolf, but carefully nursed by its parent ; and since the
Republic is the parent of Eraancipation, the Republic
must nurse the imraortal infant into maturity and
strength. It is the Republic which at the beginning
took up this great work. The Republic must finish what
it began ; and it cannot err on this occasion, if, in anxious
care, it holds nothing done so long as anything remains
undone. It is the Republic, which, with matchless
energy, hurled forward its armies until it conquered..
The Republic must exact that " security for the future,"
without which this unparalleled war will have been
waged in vain. It is the Republic, which to-day, with
one consenting voice, coraraeraorates the murdered dead.
The same Republic, prompt to honor him, must require
that his promises to an oppressed race be raaintained in
all their integrity and corapleteness, in letter and in spirit,
so that the great cause for which he became a sacrifice,
may not fail. His martyrdom was a new pledge beyond
any even in life.
There can be no question here, whether a State is in

59
the Union or out of it. This is but a phrase on which
discussion is useless. Look at the actual fact. Here all
wiU agree. The old governments are vacated, and this
is enough. UntU the whole body of loyal people have set
up a government, aU is under the National authority, act
ing by the Executive or by Congress ; and, since the Con
stitution, even without the injunction of the Declaration
of Independence, knows nothing of color, it is the obvious
duty of the National authority to protect aU loyal people
against any denial of rights on this pretention. Already
it has undertaken to say that certain persons shall not
vote. Surely the same authority which may lirait the
electoral law of Slavery, may enlarge it. If the National
authority can do anything about elections ; if it can order
an election ; if it can regulate an election ; if it can ex
clude a traitor who is still at large, it can admit a loyalist,
whose only incapacity is his skin.
The colored suffrage is now a necessity. But beyond
this, in making it an essential condition of the restoration
of rebel States to the Union, we follow, first, the law of
reason and of nature, and secondly, the Constitution, not
only in its text, but as interpreted by the Declaration of
Independence. By reason and nature there can be no
denial of rights on account of color ; and we can do
nothing which is thus irrational and unnatural. By
the Constitution it is stipulated that the " United States
shall guarantee to every State a repnblican form of
government ; " but the meaning of this guaranty must
be found in the Declaration of Independence, which is
the controlling preamble of the Constitution. Beyond

60
all question the United States, when called to enforce
this guaranty, must insist on the Equality of all Men
before the law, and the consent of the governed. Such is
the true idea of a Republican government according
to American institutions.
The slave-masters, driven frora their first intrench
ments, already occupy inner defences. Property in man
is abandoned ; but they now insist that colored persons
shall not enjoy political rights. Liberty has been won.
The battle for Equality is still pending. And now a new
compromise is proposed, by which colored persons are to
be sacrificed in the name of State Rights. It is sad that
it should be so. But I do not despair. The cause
may be delayed; but it cannot be lost; and all who
set themselves against it will be overborne ; for it is the
cause of Humanity. Not the rich and proud, but the
poor and lowly, will be the favorites of an enfranchised
RepubUc. The words of the prophet wiU be fulfiUed ;
" and I wUl punish the people for their evil, and the
wipked for their iniquity, and I will cause the arrogance
of »the proud to cease, and will lay low the haughtiness
of the terrible. I WILL MAKE A MAN MORE
PRECIOUS THAN FINE GOLD, EVEN A MAN,
THAN THE GOLDEN WEDGE OF OPHIR." I
catch these sublime words of prophecy, and echo them
back as the assurance of triuraph.
FeUow-citizens, your task is before you. Mourn not the
dead, but rejoice in his life and exaraple. Rejoice as you
point to this chUd of the people who was lifted so high, that

61

Republican Institutions becarae manifest in him. Rejoice
that through him Emancipation was proclaimed. Above
all, see to it that his constant vows are fulfilled, and that
the promises of the Fathers are raaintained, so that no
person in the upright form of raan can be shut out from
their protection. Then will the Unity of the Republic be
fixed on a foundation that cannot fail, and other nations
will enjoy its security. The corner-stone of National
Independence is already in its place, and on it is in
scribed the name of George Washington. There is an
other stone which must have its place at the corner
also. This is the Declaration of Independence, with aU
its promises fulfilled. On this stone we will gratefully
inscribe the name of Abraham Lincoln.

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YRLE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

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