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THE NEW YORK PUBUC LIBRARY

aRCULATlON DEPARTMENT

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in the City may borrow booki (or home uie.
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For booki kept over time a fine of one oeat j
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rctaroed promptly, nil) be tent for AT THB \
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charged on the borrower'* card for two week*. >

A fine of one oent a day ia incurred for eaoh \

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The Library houn tor the delivery and re- ^

turn of booka are from 9 a. m. to 9 p. m. V

on week dayt; on all holiday*, branohe* in
Carnegie buildings and Centra] Circulation are
open full hours; other branches olosed on
boUdayi and Chriitmai Eve. Sob-bronohe*
■re open certain afternoon* and evanings and
^hjmbia mornings also.

* f

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\c\ '-v: ■' ''■'■■

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Vbe Vtibnte o( a Oentntv

Colo.i^l tlcni) of Lincoln.

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ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Zbe ZCtibute of a Centuti?

NATHAN VnUAAM. MacCHESNEY

CHICAGO
C. McCLPBG A CO.

S Hin»Iy-Si»lh St. Br'nch, "f^

112 fj-.i <)6th StrMt.

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COPT&IOHT, 1910, BY

A. C. McCluko & Co.
Published May U, 1910

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POEEWOBD

THIS book hsM grown out of a desire which the editor
had while Secretary of the Lincoln Cehtennial Memo-
rial Committee of One Hundred, appointed by the Mayor
of CSiicagOy for a memorial volume which should give per-
manent form to the many masterly tributes to Lincoln by
noted men which marked this unique Centenary, and should
preserve to history the remarkable spirit of the occasion.

The editor imdertook the work, anticipating that it would
be a considerable task, but with no real conception of its
magnitude. There are in his library hundreds of unused
speeches and over sixty thousand clippings with reference
to the celebration* It has been literally impossible to exam-
ine the entire material at hand in the few months which
have elapsed since the Centenary, but the principal ad-
dresses have been gone through, and while the limits of this
volume have excluded many of great value which it was
hoped to bring within the coQection, it is believed that those
published are thoroughly representative of the celebration.

The editor wishes to give credit to the Lincoln Centennial
Memorial Committee of Chicago, which, under the guidance of
Hon. William J. Calhoun as chairman, did such magnificent
work in the Centenary celebration and whose existence and
initiative have made the publication of this book possible.

To the committees, throughout the country and abroad,
monieipal or the result of private enthusiasm and patriotism,
whidi have been of notable aid in the work of securing the de-
sired material for this volume, grateful acknowledgment is due.

The editor is indebted to the Trustees of the Crerar Fund
for permission to use the photograph of the yet unveiled
Saint-Gaudens statue of Lincohi; to President Henry O.
Foreman of the South Park Commissioners for the photograph
used; to Adolph Alexander Weinman, sculptor of the Hod-

▼iii FOREWORD

genville statue of Lincoln, for a photograph of the statue for
use as an illustration; to his brother sculptor, John Qutson
Borglum, for an autograph photograph of the famous "Borg-
lum bust" unveiled in the Senate February 11, 1909; to the
Bt. Hon. Jean Adrien Jusserand, the Fr^ich Ambassador,
for the loan from his private collection of the photographio
reproductions of the letters of Mrs. Lincoln and Victor Hugo ;
to Hon. Bobert T. Lincoln for the photograph of the French
medal ; to Mr. N. Y. Dallman, Managing Editor of The lUinais
State Begiiter of Springfield, for the picture of distinguished
guests at the Lincoln Tomb; to Mr. Brainard Piatt, Acting
Managing Editor of The LouisvUle Courier-Journal for his
courteous assistance in securing photographs of the presi-
dential party at the Hodgenville celebration ; to The Uptown
Kodackery of Denver, for their prompt courtegy in securing
for us some exceptionally fine photographs of the Denver cel^
bration ; to Collier's Weekly, for permission to use President
Boosevelt's Lincoln speech at Hodgenville; to The Chicago
Tribune for permission to use the McCutcheon cartoons, and
to reprint Booker T. Washington's ''An Ex-Slave's Tribute
to Lincoln,'' and for other courtesies; to the other Chicago
newspapers, and the newspapers throughout the country, and
to The Literary Digeet, Review of Reviews, and other maga-
zines, for copies of special issues containing information im-
portant to the purpose of this work.

The editor here expresses his sense of obligation to Ida
wife for her help and suggestions, and to his friend and
associate, Herbert E. Bradley.

The editor will be glad to receive from readers of this
book, copies of any speeches delivered during the Centenary,
or interesting facts connected with its Commemoration; and
would be especially interested in personal reeollectiona of
Lincoln, or of Lincoln's associates and time.

Nathan Wujam MAoCHmixr.

Union League Club, Chiqago,
February, 12, 1910.

CONTENTS

THE GHIGAGO COMMEMORATION . . . . ' 3

The Unity of the Nation {A Bp^^th tif IntrodnMim)

Hon. William J. Calhoun 11

Abraham Uneoln: A Man of the Paopla

Freaident Woodrow Wiyon 14

A Citiien of No Mean Conntry (A Bp^et^ of IntrodiwAiwi)

Hon. F^i;^ Hamlin 31

The BignMonce of lincoln

Hon. J. A. Maodonald 33

A Mainory of Lincoln (A Bpeeehnf lntroiuoii<m)

Hon. Charles H. Wacker • . 68

Abraham linecdn of Illinoia

President Edwin &le Sparks 69

Ih^ Figure of ah Age (A Bpoenh of IiUrodmcUom)

Hon. Stephen S. Gregory 70

The Great Commoner

Br. Etaiil G. Hirseh 77

Th* Gteaieet Apostle of Human liberty (A Bpoeeh of Inirodmo-
turn)
CoL John R. Marshall 88

The UnHnished Task (A Bpooek of IntroditcHon)

Rer. A. J. Carey 89

The liberation of the Negro

Rev. J. W. E. Bowen 91

lineoln: The Friend of All Men

Nathan William MaeChesncy 99

The Negro's Place in National life

Hon. William J. Calhoun 102

The Other Side of the Question (A reply to the Bpeeek of W. /.
Oalkomn)
Rer. A. J. Carey Ill

The Cathedral Utterance of Lincoln

Dr. Charles J. Little 113

The literary Side of Lincohi

Dr. Bernard J. Cigrand 130

CONTENTS

THE CHIGAQO COMMEMORATION (contiDued)

The Freeport Debate

Gen. Smith D. Atkins 140

Two Momentous Meetings

Maj.-Gen. Frederick Dent Grant 143

A Voice from the South

Hon. J. M. Dickinson • • . 14S

Abraham Lincoln at the Bar of Illinois

John T. Richards 154

The Evolution of the Gettysburg Address

Hon. John C. Richberg ••••• 165

The Merit of a Mighty Name

Judge W. G. Ewing 171

Power in Loneliness

Judge Peter Stenger Grosscup 175

THE SPRINGFIELD COMMEMORATION 183

Lincoln as an Orator *

Hon. William J. Bryan 185

Lincoln as France saw him

Hon. Jean Adrien Jusseraad 190

THE ILLINOIS SUPREME COURT COMMEMORATION ... 199

The Centraiary of Lincoln

Nathan William M^icChesney 200

Lincoln's Preparation for the Presidency

Justice Hand • . 203

THE BLOOMINGTON COMMEMORATION 215

Lincoln the Statesman

Hon. Adlai E. Stevenson 216

Lincoln the Lawyer, and his Bloomington Speeches

R. M. Benjamin 226

THE PEORIA COMMEMORATION 241

Lincoln's Diploma<*y

Eogoro Takahira 242

Lincoln, the Man of the People {Poem)

Edwin Markham 247

THE HODGENVILLE COMMEMORATION 251

A Son of Kentucky

Augustus E. Willson 253

CONTENTS

THE HODQENVILLE COMMEMORATION (continued) p^oE

Abraham Lincoln

Hon. Theodore Rooaerelt 256

Unooln and the Lost Cause

Hon. Luke £. Wright 261

Abraham Lincoln, Leader 'and Master of Men

Gen. James Grant Wilson 267

The Lincoln Memorial

Hon. Joseph W. Folk 271

THE NEW YORK COMMEMORATION 275

Alirah^wi Lincoln at Cooper Institute

Hon. Joseph Hodges Choate 277

linooln as a Labor Leader

Rey. Lyman Abbott 280

Dim of the Plain People

Hon. Chauncey M. Depew 294

THE BOSTON COMMEMORATION 315

A Vision (Poein)

Julia Ward Howe 317

The Great Pacificator

Hon. John D. Long 318

Linooln: "Valiant for Truth"

Hon. Henry Cabot Lodge 343

THE CINCINNATI COMMEMORATION 361

Abraham Lincoln — ^An Appreciation

Bishop William F. McDowell 362

THE ROCHESTER COMMEMORATION 375

Lincoln: The True American

Hon. Charles Evans Hughes 375

THE MADISON COMMEMORATION 385

The Great Stone Face

President C. R. Van Hise 386

The Great Debate; or, The Prophet on the Stump

Rer. Jenkin Lloyd Jenes 389

DENVER COMMEMORATION 417

Abraham Linooln: The Perfect Ruler of Men

Joseph Farrand Tuttle, Jr. .... * 418

CONTENTS

THE WASHINGTON COMMEMORATION 438

Lincoln and the Character of American Civilization

Hon. Joaquim Nabuco 480

THE PHILADELPHIA COMMEMORATION . 441

Presenrer of the Union — Saviour of the Republic: Reminiioeiioes
of Abraham Lincoln
Major WUUam H. Lambert 442

THE CORNELL UNIVERSITY COMMEMORATION .... 461

Abraham Lincoln: Master of Time

Hon. Frank S. Black 461

THE PITTSBURG COMMEMORATION 471

Lincoln: The Greatest American

Hon. James Schoolcraft Sherman 472

THE JANESVILLE COMMEMORATION 481

The Apostle of Opportunity

Hon. George R. Peck 481

An Ez-Slave's Tribute to the Emancipator

Dr. Booker T. Washington 492

Lincoln and His Relations with Congress

Hon. Shelby M. Cullom 600

THE COMMEMORATION ABROAD 609

Manchester, England 611

Berlin, Germany 618

Lincoln's Hundredth Birthday (Poem)
William Morris Davis 682

The Man for the Hour
Alexander Montgomery Thackara 624

Paris, France 627

From Washington to Lincoln
Dr. Henry van I^ke 627

Rome, Italy

The American Union and Italy
Hon. Lloyd C. Griscom 682

The Man Lincoln (Poem)
Wilbur D. Nesbit 635

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 630

INDEX 651

ILLUSTRATIONS

FAOS

Cblonal Head of lincoln* by Qutnm Borglum . . . FroniiBpieoe

Albmnfl containing the Newspaper Clippings concernbig tbe Lin-
coln Centenary, in the Library of the Editor xzii

The Lincoln Stamp and Penny and the Lincoln Medal struck for
the Orand Army of the Republic xxiii

Faesimfle of Mayor Boise's Proclamation 6

The Two Bromse Tablets erected during the Centenary upon the
site of the Old Tremont House 18, 19

Bronze Tablet placed on the Site of the ''Wigwam," Chicago, by
the Chicago Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution . 34

Republican "Wigwam," in which Lincoln was nominated, 1800 . 35

Fusimile of Manuscript Tribute from Edwin E. Sparks, President
of the PennsylTania State College 60

fiusiniile of Manuscript Tribute from Gen. Smith D. Atkins, of
niinois 61

Two Lineoln Centenary Cartoons by John T. McCutcheon ... 68

The (Md Tremont House, Chicago 69

Piriog of Presidential Salute by the Illinois Kaval Reserve, Feb.
12, 1909, at the South Ehd of Lincoln Park, Chicago . . .84

Tomb of Stephen A. Douglas, Chicago 85

Bnmae Tablet Inscribed with the Gettysburg Address . . . .116

Fscsimile of Manuscript THbute from Dr. Charles J. Little, Presi-
dent of Garrett Biblical Institute, Chicago 117

Statue of Abraham Lincoln, by Augustus Saint<3audens, 1887 . 136

Statue of Abraham Lincoln, by Augustus Saint-Gaudens, 1907 . . 137

of Manuscript Tribute from Hon. John M. Dickinson,
of War 150, 151

Bronie Baa-Relief of Lincoln, by C. Piduti 186

ILLUSTRATIONS

PAOB

Portrait of Hon. C. S. Deneen, Governor of Illinois .... 204

Facsimile of Governor Deneen's Proclamation 205

Facsimile of the Last Page of Manuscript of Speech made l^

Ambassador Jusserand at Springfield 218

Facsimile of Manuscript Tribute from Hon. Adlai £. Stevenson
of Illinois, Ex- Vice-President of the United States .... 219

Facsimiles of Manuscript Tribute from Hon. Clark E. Carr, of
Galeeburg, Illinois 232, 233

Distinguished Guests on Centenary Daj at the Tomb of Lincoln

in Springfield, Illinois 244

Thomas Lincoln's Home in Illinois, where he died in 1861 . . . 245

Statue of Abraham Lincoln by Adolph Alexander Weinman, erected
in the Public Square of Hodgenville, Kentucky, by the State
of Kentucky and the Lincoln Farm Association .... 258

The Lincoln Log Cabin near Hodgenville, Kentucky, where Abra-
ham Lincoln was bom 262

Interior of Lincoln Cabin at Hodgenville, Kentucky 263

Birthplace of Abraham Lincoln near Hodgenville, Kentudcy . . 264

Autographed Portrait of Theodore Roosevelt 265

The Hodgenville Commemoration: Arrival of President Roose-
velt^-<}athering about the Lincoln Cabin 268

Laying the Comer Stone of the Lincoln Memorial Building at
Hodgenville, Kentucky 269

Facsimiles of Mrs. Lincoln's Letter of Acknowledgment of the
Medal presented by the Citizens of France .... 286, 287

Facsimiles of Victor Hugo's Letter accepting Membership on the
Committee of the French Democracy 298, 299

Facsimile of Manuscript Tribute from James B. Angell, Presi-
dent Emeritus of the University of Michigan 320

Facsimile of Manuscript Tribute from Hon. Henry Cabot Lodge,
United States Senator from Massachusetts 346

Facsimile of Manuscript Tribute from Rev. Lyman T. Abbott,
Editor of "The Outlook" 347

Autographed Portrait of Hon. J. G. Cannon 366

The Peterson House, in which Lincoln died, Washington, D. C. . 367

ILLUSTRATIONS

FA0I

Chwlm IL Van Hlse, President of the University of Wisconsin,
reading his Address at the Madison Commemoration . . . 392

Unveiling of the Bronze Replica of the Statue of Lincoln hy
Weinman at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Com-
mencement Day, 1909 893

Veterans of the Grand Army of the Republic in the Denver Cen-
tenary Parade 420

Scene in the Colorado Senate Chamber during the Lincoln Cen-
tenary Commemoration 426

Scene in the Denver Auditorium during the Lincoln Centenaiy
Commemoration 427

FacBimile of Manuscript Tribute from Sefior Joaquim Nabuco,
Brazilian Ambassador to the United States 444

Taesimile of Manuscript Tribute from Wendell Phillips Stafford,
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the District of
Columbia 445

Antogrsphed Portrait of President William H. Taft 460

Facsimile of Tribute from President Taft 451

FMBimile of Manuscript Tribute from Dr. Henry van Dyke . . 482

Medal presented to the Widow of Abraham Lincoln by a Com-
mittee representing Forty Thousand French Citizens; now in
the Possession of Hon. Robert T. Lincoln 488

The Town Hall of Manchester, England 516

The American Kmbas^ in Berlin, Germany 617

PROPERTY OF THE
CITY OF NEW YORK.

"ABRAHAM LINCOLN : THE TRIBUTE

OF A CENTURY"

NATHAN WIIiUAU XAOCHBSNET

ABRAHAM LINCOLN is essentiallj the product of Amer-
ica. For that very reason he makes a peculiar ap-
peal to the American people, and, so far as American ideas
and American ideals represent the aspirations and hopes
of democracy everywhere^ he inspires those who believe in
these things, wherever they may be found.

He is the concrete embodiment of the visions of our fore-
fathers expressed in the Declaration of Independence. A
product of this country which made that document possible,
and which was made possible by it, he saved the nation from
permauent hypocri^, and democratic institutions from dis-
aster. He made the performance of the nation square with
ita promises, in the eyes ot the 'world; * •

Lincoln, as the produet^.oCf.tbe typiel4 , American environ-
ment of his period, ' se^-^Vle ki InosV'jof 'Ins fellows were,
imbued with the ideaW'.of the f oref ath^ 'and willing to
fight for them, was the* personification of. the spirit of the
nation. Everywhere he attracted men who .were filled with
a kindred spirit ; aA^^lii^ is loved and revered- t&^clay wherever
that spirit is fouBd:\jBe is Americanism* as'*ihterpreted by
Americans. • * ;' > • *\ ' ' '•

Hia Tery heredity Utt^d him -foe tbiSfoMxm. Of Southern
uicestry originally f rom'the North, he V a^T bom in the South,
ttid brought up among people of /'^oifthem birth; yet he
fi^ hia youth, grew to manhood, and reached his maturity
ia a Northern community. He knew and sympathized with
tte Sonth as a Northern man, bom and bred, could not have
^e; he grasped the earnestness- and the temper of the
Ninth aa it was- impossible for a Southern man then to do*

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Andy as both North and Sonth came to see, when he had been
takers away, in his hopes and plans he represented the nation.
He was and is the great national figure of the century. The
recognition of this fact has been growing year by year since
the tragic ending of his great life. It is less than half a
century since his career was ended; yet to-day he stands
forth as one of the great historical figures of the world.
Time makes many changes, but none have been more striking
than the growth of appreciation of Lincoln on the part of
the South. His mighty passion was for the Union and Hb
preservation as the fathers had given it to us, and in this
love for the Union he included the South as well as the
North. Differing radically from the Sonth in his view of
the slavery question, and of the other vital political questions
of that day, he recognised that he, and the people whose
convictions he represented, if placed in similar circumstances,
would in all probability have championed the views held by
his opponents. He had, therefore, only the kindliest feel-
ing for the South and for the problems it had to face.

President Boosevelt has recently said that one of the most
wonderful of the chaor^cteristiint .of Lincoln was ''the ex*
traordinary way. in: which he :.o0idl^' fight valiantly against
what he deemed. S^ng,'- and yofe-^VIsseWe undiminished hia
love and resp'e6t^for the brotiier i^tjni whom he differed."
To-day, as never before, this is recognized "by the South, and
we find its .press- and people saying, that lie cared for fhe
South not less tEan for the North;* tir4**&id the Southern
people at one ;:vitl^ the rest of the nation on paying tribute
to his memory^' all . joining as one\i:ieople in his eulogy.
Nothing shows 430- ^mieli' as. tbis' fa<M^ hoW. completely sectional
feeling has been obfiteifat^d since his-l^mie.

''Not less than the jt^orth has the 'South reason to canonise

' - . . • •

him," recently said Colonel Watterson in his LouisvUlB
Caurier-Jaumal^ "for he was the one friend we had at court
— aside from Grant and Sherman — ^when friends were most
in need."
We are told, too, in the South, that his death was a calamity

THE TRIBUTE OF A CENTURY jad

to it — ^'the direfit misfortune that ever darkened the calendar
of her woes" — and it seems now to be generally recognised
that much of the bitterness and humiliation of the recon-
struction period would have been avoided, had he lived to
guide the nation through those stormy days.

This attitude of the South, as expressed by the Southern
press^ is typically illustrate^ by a recent editorial in The
Post of Houston, Texas:

"All men BtAiid ready to concede that in a great cruis he was loyal
to his convictions of duty, that he bore his great responiibllities with
infinite patience, and that in all things he was free from eeetional
hatred and personal malice.

The people of the South have always felt that his untimely and
tragic end was one of the severest catastrophes of the war period.
They believed after the capitulation at Appomattox, that Mr. Lincoln
would, in his second administration, bend all his energies toward
reconciliation and binding up the wounds of war. All his utter-
SBoes respecting the South were broadly patriotic, sympathetic, and
expressive of a desire to restore peace, prosperity, and self-govern-
ment. He sounded no note of exultation or vindictiveness over a
prostrate country. He seemed to comprehend the woe and hardship
which rested so heavily on every portion of our devastated domain,
sad he evinced a determination to resist the efforts of those who
were anxious to put the people under the bed of the conqueror. It
was no fault of his that the South, crushed and bleeding, was sub-
jected to the brutalities and vandalism of reconstruction. We know
now that when he fell, the barrier that protected us from that reign
of terror waa swept away; we know that if he had lived we shoiUd
have been spared the multiplied sorrows which were visited upon
Si. ... In the Bepnblic's oneness, the Americans of all sections
ihtred in the heritage he bequeathed to the nation, and Americans of
tU flections honor and revere his memory."

The South does not forget that Lincoln was a Southerner
bjr birth, transplanted to the soil of the West. She takes
pride in him as the son of the South. There is not throughout
fhe South that deep affection for Lincoln which is every-
ivb^e eyidenced in the North; but there is a very real ap*
preeistion and a profound respect. Here and there dis-
cordant notes and utterances are sounded in the Southern
preas, but their very rarity marks them as anachronisms of

zxii ABRAHAM LINCOLN

a bygone day, which have long since ceased to represent the
true sentiments of this great section of our common country.
Not only, then, has Lincoln come to be a truly national figure
and to represent, in his hopes and ideals for America and
American institutions, the North and South, the East and
West, alike, but wherever thoughtful men or hopeful men
turn to American institutions as the hope of democracy, he
stands forth as the heroic figure on the horizon of time.

Abraham Lincoln holds this place to-day in the minds and
hearts of all his countrymen and men of similar aspirations
everywhere, not alone because of his public utterances, his
keen insight into the problems of a democratic State, his
emancipation of millions of slaves, his even-hailded justice to
friend and foe alike, or any one or all of the things that go
to make up his public career, but also because of his per-
sonality and life history. In his own day there were those
who sneered because his training and manner were not con-
ventional. These very facts, and the opposition which the^
cfiused, endeared him to the people as a whole, for they repre-
sented their joys and sorrows, their aspirations and hopes,
their ideals and beliefs, their struggles for self-expression in
all the varied activities of life.

It is sometimes commented upon as remarkable that a man
like Lincoln should have risen from conditions such as marked
his youth and early career. Americans then, and Americans
now, have been among those who raise the question. It may
be excusable for men brought up in other civilizations, to
wonder at the possibility, but for an American to do so is
to doubt his own institutions, and to question the power of
democracy. It is out of such conditions, modified from decade
to decade in accordance with the development of the country,
away from the deadening level of the schools and the crush-
ing conventionality of a settled society in our great cities,
that we are most apt to draw our truly great men.

lilUcoln had a fine mind and a splendid physique, both
developed to great i>erfection. He was a natural student,
trained largely by his contact with men, but not neglecting
every opportunity to master the books that he had at hand.

t'l

^ ■

The Lincoln Stamp aud Penny

The Lincoln Medal Struck for the Grand Army

of the Republic

THE TRIBUTE OF A CENTURY zxiii

He struggled for what he attained, but the resnlt was a
mastership of English style — ^two or three of his utterlmees
rank with the finest in the world — ^a statesmanship as wide
as the problem of the nation itself, a humanity as broad as
the needs of men.

The feeling about Lincoln being what it is, it is not sur-
prising that, with the approach of the Centenary of his birth,
the suitable celebration of it began to be agitated throughout
the country — ^not alone by the people who knew him, or the
thousands still living who had come in contact with him,
hazarded property or life or loved ones to sustain him, or
come- to recognize him as their far-seeing friend in the time
of stress and trouble — ^but even more by the millions who
had been brought up under the inspiration of his memory
and with reverence for his name.

Centenary celebrations are not altogether unusual, but are
generally of great national events. Never before did a whole
people approach the centenary of the birth of a man with
such interest and unanimity, or carry out its celebration with
such enthusiasm. It was the spontaneous tribute of the na-
tion to him who had justified its existence, given vitality to
its utterances, preserved it for its destinies, and given promise
of its future.

It is hard to traee the origin of the Centenary celebration.
Plans for it seemed to spring into existence simultaneously
in various parts of the country : in the action of the Congress
of the United States ; in the appointment of State commissions,
by the Oovemors of all the States in the Union, to represent
their States in the preparation for the national celebration at
the Lincoln Farm; and — to stimulate celebrations within their
own States — ^in the organization of municipal celebrations;
and the activities of various associations and patriotic so-
cieties.

The American Federation of Labor paid tribute to the day
by the adoption, by its Executive Council, as part of its Report
for the Denver Convention, th^ following recommendation,
wistten by Samuel Qompers, President of the Federation :

zxiv ABRAHAM LINCOLN

"On Friday, the twelfth of Fdmiary, 1909, will tMsar iht
hundredth annivenary of the Mrth of Abraham Lincoln. In all the
hiBtorj of our Kepublic, no man lived who, in himself and in his work,
more completely embodied and typified the ennobling aspirations and
ideals of human justioo and human freedom. No man ever loved hla
fellow men more than he. None had a better knowledge of, or a
deeper sympathy with, the struggles and hopes of the toilers.

"We were asked, and gladly gave, our support to a movement to niiake
df his birthplace a perpetual Mecca of all who loved liberty and hu-
manity. It is expected that a country-wide, fitting celebration be .had
upon the centennial anniversary of Lhiooln'a birth. The celebration ia
yet in indefinite form.

''We recommend that Friday, February 12, 1909, the centennial
of the birth of the revered and martyred lincoln, wherever possible, be
made a holiday by all labor.

"That we urge upon Congress and the several States that that day be
declared a legal holiday.

"That the officers of the American Federation of Labor be authorised
to be duly represented In ai^ national celebratian which may be in-
augurated, or whidi they may initiate, so that the day, and the mem-
ory of the advent and services of this great and good man, may be
fittingly observed and impressed upon the hearts and consciences of
our people."

The Qrand Army of the Bepnblic iagned, through its
national Commander^ a formal Proclamation to all its Poats,
requesting ^'that every Post recognize the day in some fitting
manner, either in special meeting, or in attendance, as a body,
where a public celebration was held.'' The Proclamation also
urged united observances of the day, where there was more
than one Post in a city, and the invitation of other patriotic
societies to participate in all functions arranged for this oc-
casion. The organisation, naturally, had a large part in the
national commemoration of the Centenary, and its every Post,
throughout the country, actively participated, often initiating
the local celebrations, always taking part in them, and always
the honored guests of the general committees where organist
In this celebration, they were joined many times hy their
brethren of the South, who wore the grey, and whose valor
and sacrifices, although rendered to the Lost Cause, con-
tribute so much to the glory of the Union to which Lincoln was
martyr.

THE TRIBUTE OF A CENTURY

Throaglioat the Genteimial, the Mason and Dixon line— -
kmg obliterated— was forgotten, and the singing of "Dixie*'
was received with enthnsiasin in Northern church, and school,
and meeting, while Lincoln was landed in the South. A
joint memorial service of this kind, typical of the spirit of
the oceasion, was arranged by the Union and Confederate
yeteraos in Atlanta, Georgia.

A movement which found its origin and inspiration in
New York Cily, under the direction of the Lincoln Centennial
Endowment Committee, was for the purpose of raising five
hundred thouaand dollars oidowment for Linoohi Memorial
Univendty. This committee had, as President, Frederick T«
Martin, and as Secretary, Major-Qa^ral Oliver Otis Howard,
who gave much of his time to the promotion of this great
enterprise, and made an effective campaign for subscriptions.
It is desired to have a living memorial to Lincohi in this
TJmw&nity for the people of the Blue Bidge and Cumberhmd
Momitains. It is located on the slopes of the mountain at
Cofflberland Qap, with magnificent grounds, including fertile
lowland fields and sloping pastures offering a field for work
to the students and producing supplies for their use.

The country at lai^ was much interested in the general
plans of Congress for a permanent memorial, and, although
none of them have yet taken tangible form, it is hoped that
before long some of these will be realized. Among the me*
morials discussed, was a Lincoln road, or highway, from Wash-
ington to Gettysburg, and a manorial building to be erected
between the Capitol and the new Union Bailway Station in
'Washington. The latter plan was strongly supported in
Ckmgress. The general plan of a memorial which is recom-
laeiided by the American Institute of Architects, is in accord-
ance with designs prepared under the direction of a com-
noanon consisting of Daniel H. Bumham, Charles F. Mc-
Eim, Augustus Saint-Oaudens, and Frederick Law 01m-
stead, Jr., which provide for a treatment of the Mall, from
the base of the Capitol, past the Washington monument, to
a memorial bridge, commemorating American valor, which
diall lead directly across the Potonuic to Arlington. Near

zzTi ABRAHAM LINCOLN

fhe end of this bridge, the commission proposed that a Lincoln
memorial be erected, which should have a character dis-
tinctively its own— one suggestion being that of a great
portico of Doric columns. This plan had the support of
President Roosevelt.

The question of a permanent Linoohi museum was also
discussed, and in order that the priceless collections of Lin-
cohi relics now in private hands may some time be brought
together as the property of the government, it is hoped that
such a plan may be realized. When that time comes, it is
to be hoped that the great Gunther Lincoln collection, now
stored in Chicago, may become thus once more available to
the public, unless Chicago itself shall have sooner provided
a suitable building for its preservaticm and display.

In the meantime, while these plans for a great national
memorial were being canvassed and discussed in and out of
Congress, and through the press of the country — cities, towns,
and villages all over the United States, colleges, universitieB»
schools, churches, fraternal organizations, and private eiti-
zens were dedicating permanent memorials of their own, not
so pretentious as the vast projects proposed in Congress, but
equally commemorative of the Man they had thoi:^ht so to
honor, and perhaps even more vital in influence by reason of
being set in the busy ways of town and market place, where
the people go about their daily tasks.

Hundreds of memorial tablets were placed on walls and
buildings; monuments were dedicated; busts of Lincoln
placed in public halls, schools, libraries, and other places of
congregation; new municipal parks named for Lincoln and
thrown open to the public; while many of the sites where
Lincoln once made history, were permanently marked, for
the information of future generations, by tablets commemo-
rating his connection with the events which had there taken
place.

The Grand Army of the Republic had struck off, at the
United States Mint at Philadelphia, a Lincoln Centenary
medal in bronze, as '^an everlasting token of respect to the
Commander in Chief of the Union Army and Navy of the

THE TRIBUTE OF A CENTURY xxvii

Civil War, and an heirloom to be handed down from genera-
tion to generation as a tribute to the loyalty of those who
served under his command/'

The government, in commemoration of the Centenary, issued
' a Memorial stamp and a Memorial penny. The postage stamp
was a two-cent one, of the size and color of the regular two-
cent stamp, and bore a profile of Lincoln, facing to the right,
with the inscriptions: *'U. S. Postage,'' and "1809— Feb. 12—
1909,'' "Two Cents." The penny, on its obverse side, bean
a profile relief of Lincoln facing the right, with the inscrip-
tions: "In God we Trust," "Liberty," "1909," while on the
reverse side are the words, '*J? Pluribus Unum,'^ "One Cent,"
"United States of America." When the distribution of these
coins was made at the sub-treasuries, hundreds of people stood
for hours in line for the opportunity of buying them, and
soon they were sold at a premium on the street.

The uniyersal interest in the celebration of the Centenary
is perhaps most clearly evidenced by the newspaper comment
upon the life and services of Lincoln, and the celebrations
of the week. The collection of clippings gathered for Chi-
cago's Committee of One Hundred during the celebration,
numbers over sixty thousand separate items, and fills
more than thirty volumes the size of the "Encyclopedia
Britanniea." These clippings are an inexhaustible mine of
anecdotes and reminiscences of Lincoln which could never
again be duplicated. Many of them have been included, of
course, in works already published, but others are new and
of vital interest. Some day it is hoped that this new ma-
terial may be made available for the lovers of Lincoln, through
the historical societies or otherwise. The newspapers of the
country printed Centennial editions, reviewing Lincoln 's life,
character, and the times which gave him birth ; bringing into
the least-lettered homes of the land intimate knowledge, not
only of the sad, patient, kindly, wonderful man who held the
nation intact, against all pressure from within and without,
but of the conditions which confronted him — of the inner his-
tory of the Civil War, and what preceded and came after.

It has been my plan here to give a brief indication of the

xxvili ABRAHAM LINCOLN

marveUom interest expreeeed in the Centenary by the people
of our country, and to preserve in permanent form some, at
least, of the best addresses delivered on that occasion. It is
hoped that the perusal of these addresses may kindle anew
the already wide interest in the life and works of Abraham
Lincoln, and, by showing the uniqueness of his place in the
life of the nation, cause many who have never been so before,
to become studoits of the life, words, character, and achieve-
ments of the most typical of all Americans. The tribute of
a century, paid to him within the lifetime of his contempo-
raries, shows that Lincoln lives in the hearts of his country-
men, immortal.

THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

THE TRIBUTE OP A CENTURY

THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION

OF the hnndreds of oelebrstioiifl held throughout the land
in commemoration of Lincoln's Centenary, the Chicago
commemoration was one of the largest^ most enthusiastic, and
the broadest in conception of any in the country. The inti-
mate relation of Chicago to the career of Lincoln made this
commemoration one of national interest.

The Chicago Commemoration was initiated by a Resolution

introduced by Alderman Albert J. Fisher in the City Council,

which provided for an official committee to be appointed by

the Mayor. Acting upon this resolution, Honorable Fred A.

Busse, Mayor of Chicago, appointed the Lincoln Centennial

Memorial Committee of One Hundred, which organized with

Honorable William J. Calhoun as Chairman, and Nathan

William MacChesney as Secretary: The Committee was a

thoroughly representative one, and great enthusiasm was shown

for the work it was to undertake. It was divided into various

sab-committees — a Committee on Speakers, Halls, and Schools,

mider the direction of Edgar A. Bancroft, Esq. ; a Committee

on Iffilitary Participation, with Colonel Joseph Rosenbaum

as Chairman; a Committee on Music, Art, and Decorations,

Alexander H. Bevell, Chairman ; a Publicity Committee, with

T. Edward Wilder and Joseph Basch as Chairmen, and Shailer

Mathews as Vice-chairman ; a Committee on Church and Li-

stitntional Observance, Hon. C. C. Eohlsaat, Chairman; a

Finance Committee, Arthur Meeker, Chairman; and a Com-

niittee on Conference and Unification of Celebration, with

Frank Hamlin, Esq., as Chairman.

4 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

These, together with the other committeeBy mapped out a
comprehensive plan for the celebration. Besolntions were
passed by the Board of Cook County Commissioners, and a
Proclamation was issued by the Mayor and posted tbrooghoat
the city, calling attention to the Lincoln celebration, and urg-
ing upon the people a study of the life and words of Lincoln.

The plans of the Committee of One Hundred provided for
an entire Lincoln week to be given to the commemoration of
the Centenary, starting with exercises in the churches of the
city on Sunday evening, February 7, and continuing through-
out the week; with readings from the life and speeches of
Lincoln in the schools of the city for three or four days pre-
ceding Friday, February 12, and with public exercises in the
class-rooms of all the public and parochial schools on Thurs-
day, February 11. The celebration was planned to be educa-
tional in its scope, and included meetings not only in all of the
public, parochial, and private schools of the city, but in other
educational institutions, and in public and private libraries.
Speakers were furnished for these meetings under the direc-
tion of the general Committee; and the fraternal organiza-
tions, and various societies and clubs of the city, were stimu-
lated to hold meetings of their own, with the result that there
were held during the week considerably over a thousand meet-
ings with which the Committee came in touch. A more re-
markable example of the interest taken could not have been
given.

The five largest meetings of the day — at the Auditorium,
on the morning of the Centenary; at the Seventh Regiment
Armory, on the afternoon and evening; at the Second Regi-
ment Armory and at Battery B Armory, in the afternoon —
were held directly under the auspices of the Committee of One
Hundred, and were presided over by the Committee through
its designated representatives.

Woodrow Wilson, President of Princeton University, spoke
at the Auditorium meeting, in the forenoon of February 12 —
a meeting which was remarkable in many respects, and pre-
sided over by Hon. William J. Calhoun, Chairman of the Com-
mittee of One Hundred, who made, of course, the speech of

THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 5

introdiMtioii. The hall itself has been the scene of many great
addresses, and many interesting civic events, in Chicago, start-
ing with the nomination of President Harrison in 1888. It
seats about forty-five hundred people, but the application for
seats exceeded the capacity some two or three times. Sec-
tions were reserved for the City Council, the County Com-
missianers, the Orand Army of the Republic, the Women's
Belief Corps, the various patriotic societies, the Consular Corps
of Chicago, and the Committee of One Hundred, which at-
tended in a body. The boxes were occupied by the various
ofBcers of the Army and Navy, and of the Illinois National
Ouard; and by representatives of the Legislature, the Su-
preme Court, and the Executive branch of the Government.
The setting was perfect for a great meeting, and the speaker
rose to the occasion, earrying his audience with him in waves
of enthusiasm. When Chairman Calhoun requested that the
veterans of the Grand Army of the Bepublio be allowed to
march out prior to the dismissal of the meeting — ^which they
did, carrying their banners and flags, and dipping their colors
as they passed in review before General Grant, the son of
thehr old eommander — ^there was scarcely a diy eye in the
house.

At the meeting in the Seventh Regiment Armory, on the
afternoon of February 12, over three thousand people lis-
tened to the inspiring speech of Hon. J. A. Maedonald, editor
of The Toronto Olohe, receiving its masterly periods with
rounds of applause. The meeting was appropriately pre-
sided over, and the speech of introduction made, by Hon.
Frank Hamlin, a son of Hannibal Hamlin, Vice-President
mider Lincoln.

No less enthusiastic was the appreciation accorded Edwin
Erie Sparks, President of the Pennsylvania State College,
who spoke on the afternoon of the twelfth, in Battery B
Armory, under the auspices of the First Cavalry and Bat-
tery B, Illinois National Guard. Hon. Charles H. Wacker
was Chairman of the meeting, and introduced the speaker.
President Sparks was formerly Professor of American His-
tory in the University of Chicago, and has edited an edition

6 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

of ''The Linooln-Doiiglas Debates'' for the Illinoia Historical
Society.

Dr. Emil Q. Hinch, Minister of Sinai Congregation,
Chicago^ and Professor of Rabbinical Literatore and Philos-
ophy at the University of Chicago, gave an eloquent address
to an overflowing and appreciative audience at the Second
Begiment Armory, under the auspices of the Second Infantry,
Illinois National Ouard. He was introduced by Hon. Stephen
S. Gregory, who acted as Chairman.

Perhaps the most remarkable meeting of the week was that
held for the colored people on the evening of the twelfth, in
the Seventh Begiment Armory under the auspices of the
Eighth Infantry (colored), Illinois National Ouard, and the
Colored Citixens' Committee. Ten or twelve thousand col*
ored people gathered there to celebrate the one hundredth
anniversary of the birth of their emancipator. Although the
meeting was set for eight o'clock, the people began to arrive
in the afternoon, and, long before the hour set, the crowds
were massed in the street Colonel 'John B. Marshall, of the
Eighth Infantry, made a short speech as Chairman pro tern.,
followed by Bev. A. J. Carey, who made the speech of intro-
duction. The three other speakers at this meeting were the
Bev. J. W. E. Bowen, President of Gammon Theological
Seminary, Atlanta, Georgia; the Hon. William J. Calhoun,
President of the Lincoln Memorial Committee of One Hun-
dred, and now Ambassador to China; and Nathan William
MacChesney, Secretary of the Lincoln Memorial Committee,
present to extend the greetings of the City of Chicago to its
colored citizens. The meeting was a most unusual one, and
perhaps nowhere in the limite of the city was the Lincohi
Centenary observed with such feeling, such enthusiasm, such
exaltation and homage.

In addition to this meeting, there were hundreds of othas
throughout the dty, of vivid interest and far-reaching influ-
ence.

Dr. Charles J. Little, President of Garrett Biblical Insti-
tute, spoke at the Northwestern University Building, which
stands upon the site of the old Tremont House. From the

._. /u/f/<r/'j

lU THE NAME OF THE CITY OF CHICAGO
A PROCLAlfATIOlir.

WHEREAS, Tebruary 12, 1909, is the On« Hundredth Anniversary
of the birth of ABRAHAM LIVCOIiT; and

WHEREAS, There IB a universea desire that on that day his
■eaory should he honored hy the nation which he helped preserve, and
especially by that State in which he livedo

VOW 7HERF.F0RE, I, Pred A. Busss , Mayor of the City of Chicago,
by virtue of a resolution passed by the Honorable, the City Council of
Chicago, do hereby proclaim the week February 7*14, 1909, the
LIVCOLH CENTENNIAL WE£K,

In order that this anniversary shall be appropriately observed,
I do Bost earnestly urge the citizens of Chicago to dedicate that week
to the study of the life and words of President Lincoln.

In particular do I call upon the citizens of Chicago to assenble
on February 12th in such places as shall be designated, to celebrate
Lincoln's character, sacrifice and service to the Republic, to the end
that a deepened sens* of his loyalty to the Constitution, of his faith
In the principles of deaocracy, and of his devotion to moral Ideals
€tm\\ inspire anew our own civic life.

iiit/o. Z^.-^^*^

II A Y 0 R.

Facsimile of Mayor Basse's Proclamation

THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 7

telcony of this old hotel, Lmooln delivered his flnt reply to
Douglas ; and it was here that the Linooln delegation had its
headquarters, and did the tireless planning which resulted in
his nomination. It was here, too, that Yioe-President Hamlin
first met Lincoln, on November twenty-third, 1860, in response
to a letter from him, after their election. In the Northwestern
University Law School, located in this building, the General
Committee held most of its meetings.

The President of the Chicago Public Library Board, Bernard
7. Cigrand, spoke at a meeting held at Memorial Hall, Chicago
Public Library Building. It was through his untiring efforts
as a member of the general Committee, that meetings were
held in practically every public and private library of Chicago.

In addition to these meetings, the Illinois Naval Beserves
marched through the streets to Lincoln Park, where the statue
of Lincoln hy Saint-Gaudens is located ; and, at twelve o'clock,
noon, a presidential salute of twenty-one guns was fired, in
the pres^ice of a great throng of school children, who sang
patriotic songs.

No banquet was included in the programme of the general
Committee, but many dinners were given in honor of the
Centenary. The leading one, on the Centennial day itself, was
that under the auspices of the Industrial Club in the ''gold
room'' of the Congress HoteL Mason B. Sterring, President
of the Club, acted as toastmaster. Among those who re-
sponded to toasts with brief speeches in honor of Lincoln, were
Msj.-Gen. Frederick Dent Grant, TT. S. A., son of Gen.
Ulyases S. Grant, who carried out, in the field, the policies
Lincoln planned in the White House, proving the strongest
bulwark of the administration ; and Gen. Smith D. Atkins, the
efiter of The Freeport Daily Journal, and a contemporary
and personal acquaintance of Linooln.

The Chicago Bar Association gave a banquet in honor of
As Centenary, on the preceding evening, at which there were
a number of speakers who gave personal reminiscences of
Lincoln. Three of the important speeches of the evening were
delivered by Hon. John C. Bichberg, John T. Bichards, Esq.,
and Hon. William G. Ewing, fellow-members of the Illinois

8 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

bar. The speeehes given are ineluded in fhia volume beeanse
it is believed they give interesting material on a aide of Lin-
coln which has only recently come to be appreciated. It should
not be forgotten, eiflier, that if the ideals of Lincoln are to be
preserved for our children, they will only be continued through
the thought and vision of the American bar of to-day.

At a luncheon of The Irish Fellowship Club during Lincoln
week, an impressive speech was delivered by Judge Peter Sten-
ger Qrosscup, of the United States Circuit Court of Appeals.
The statue of Lincoln by Saint-Oaudens, to which Judge Gross-
cup refers, is a sitting figure, and has been procured by the
Crerar Fund Trustees, of whom iTudge Orosscup is one, to be
placed in Qrant Park, Chicago.

The Abraham Lincoln Center, a community house, held a
celebration, lasting throughout the week, under the direction
of Rev. Jenkin Lloyd Jones. Here was exhibited the famous
Fay collection of pictures of Lincoln, numbering more than
one thousand portraits.

One of the most unique meetings of the week was that hdd
on the evening of the Centenary at Dexter Park Pavilion,
with Arthur Meeker as Chairman, to whose unstinted efforts
and able generalship is due the unusual interest it created.
It was a great patriotic song meeting, with a chorus of a thou-
sand voices, and orchestra, leading the great audience in the
singing of the patriotic songs of the country. One of the
features of the evening was an illustrated lecture by Bev.
Jenkin Lloyd Jones. More than fifteen thousand people
crowded into the building to hear and join in the exercises, and
as many more were turned away from the doors, the building
being packed to suffocation.

At the Chicago Historical Society, on Friday evening, Feb-
ruary 12, Col. Clark E. Carr, of Oalesburg, Illinois, delegate
to the Dedication of the National Cemetery at Gettysburg, in
1863, delivered an address on ^* Lincoln at Gettysburg'^; while
during the entire Centenary week, the Society exhibited a q>e-
cial collection of Lincolniana, consisting of original manu-
scripts, portraits, and relics, which the public was cordially
to view.

THE CHICAGO COMlfEMOKATION 9

Countless other meetings were hdd during Centenary week,
imder the anspioes of similar soeieties, of fraternal organiza-
tioDs, and through private imtiative ; and of the many meet-
ings thus held in the city during Lincoln week, more than one
thousand were the outgrowth of the work of the Committee of
One Hundred.

Ceremonies in the Jewish churches of the dty were held on
Saturday morning, February 13, and at the various residential
clubs in the evening. The week's celebration closed on Sun*
day, February 14, with the churches of the city, of all de-
nominations, devoting the morning services to ceremonies and
sermons commemorative of the life of Lincoln.

The Committee secured a very general interest in the decora^
tion of the city ; the streets, every public building, and all of
the important private buildings were appropriately and beau-
tifuUy decorated. Of the nearly forty thousand business
houses in Chicago having show windows for display, it is safe
to say that few, if any, were without some tokens of the sig-
nificance of the week. The Prodamation issued by the Mayor
was posted everywhere, on the streets, in the show windows,
and in the street cars; and for three weeks previous, the
programmes of all the playhouses of the city had cuts of Lin-
coln, with announcements of the impending celebration. Fost-
ers, too, were used in all of the surface, elevated, and suburban
trains of the city. These had a picture of the Saint-Oaudens
statue of Lincoln, and carried announcements of the celebra-
tion, with the location of the various meetings.

Beautiful bronze tablets were prepared by the Committee,
containing the Gettysburg Address, which were placed on the
walls of the two hundred and sixty-seven public schools, and
one hundred and eighty-four parochial schools of the city, that
the four hundred thousand school children of Chicago, and
their successors through the coming years, might have ever be-
fore them the words of the greatest of American utterances.
These tablets were presented, also, to numerous other private
and public educational institutions, on the Centennial Day;
while memorial tablets were placed on the site of the Wigwam
where Lincoln was nominated, and on the Tremont House,

10 ABBAHAM LINCOLN

where Lincolii gave his fixst qieech in reply to Douglas— a
speech whieh led to the famous Linooln-Dotiglas Debates — and
where Judge Donglas afterward died.

Thousands of copies of a very interesting and instructive
pamphlet on the ''One Hundredth Anniversaiy of Lincoln,''
were distributed throughout the city and the State, by the Hod.
Francis G. Blair, the Superintendent of Public Listruction of
Illinois; the book stores and libraries had on special exhibit
books and pictures relating to Lincoln and his time ; the Chi-
cago Public Library, upon the suggestion of the Lin<$oIn Com-
mittee, prepared, and issued to the public a "Lincoln Bibliog-
raphy," with a very complete classification of aU published
works relating to the different periods of Lincoln's life. This
was widely distributed, and proved of great interest and value
in connection with the plans of the general Committee. The
compilation of the Bibliography was the wori: of Mr. Charies
A. Larson.

The editors of all the foreign papers of the cily took an
active interest in the celebration. The Oettysburg Speech,
and the Mayor's Proclamation were translated into the va-
rious foreign languages, printed in foreign papers puUiahed
in the city, and posted in the foreign quarters, in order that
the life and work of Lincoln might be brought home to every
man, woman, and child in the community, whether thqr read
the English language or not.

Chicago remembered with pride that it was within her
boundaries that Lincoln received his nomination for the Pres*
ideney; and her celebration, starting on Sunday with exer-
cises in the churches of every denomination, lasted throughout
the week with a sustained interest that the most experienced
observer of public celebrations would have in advance declared
utterly impossible. The city in which Lincoln was nominated
and in which he spent much of his time, showed by every evi-
dence, that it thoroughly appreciated the honor which had been
conferred upon it by that association.

THE UNITY OP THE NATION
(A Speech of Introduction)

HON. WILLIAM J. CALHOVK

THE progran of natioiift towards a more perfect eiyiliaa-
tioQ is often attended with great social conyulsions, with
revolatioDs^ and wars. It is in sach times, when the need
of the people is the soresty when their cry for leadership is
the loudest, that the great man appears. From obsenrity he
sometunes comes, and to the wondering eyes of mm, seems
divinely commissioned for the needs of the hour and for tfie
work he has to do.

Such a time in the history of this oonntry was the Oivil
War, and such a man was Abraham Lincoln. The time vnm
one of great excitement and of intense passion. The air re-
aomided with the clamor of angry yoices, with the tramp of
armed men, and with the thunder of the great gone of war.

Lincoln, when called to the head of the Nation, was
eomparatively unknown and inexperienced. Many doubted
his capacity for the emergency, and questioned the wisdon^
of hii policies^ but he continued to be the central figure of
that great struggle. Around him men, strong men, fought
and died, while women and children wq;>t. Through it all^
he was masterful in control, resolute and inflexible in pur-
pose. But his resolution was always tempered with patience,
with moderation, and with pity.

I lived in that time ; I was but a boy, and vaguely under-
stood the things I saw and heard, but I remember well the
angry passion of the hour, the abuse and the epithets that
were heaped upon him. But just as the bugles were blowing
the sweet notes of victory, just as the sunshine of peace was
breaking through the clouds of war, he too fell dead — the
War's last and most precious victim. It was then the Amer-
ican people. North and South, seemed to awake to the realiia-

11 -

12 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

tion that a great and good man had fallen. A wave of
(Bfympathy and love swept over the land^ and removed every
trace of bitterness. Friends and former foes alike crowded
aronnd his grave and covered it with laurels of fame and
with flowers of praise.

The War bore heavily upon him. Its responsibilities were
great. His rugged cheeks were furrowed with care. His
heart was wrenched with the misery, the suffering, and the
pity of it But all through that dark and dei^rate night,
his greatest hope, his greatest aspiration was to save the
Union ; for it he prayed and labored and suffered. Regard-
less of every cost and every sacrifice, his hope, his trust, his
faith, was in and for the Union.

I do not know whether the immortals look down up^Hi
the earth and remember us as we remember them. I do not
know whether Abraham Lincoln takes note of what is said
and done here to-day. If he does, the fact that the Union
which he loved is safe ; that the warring sections which threat-
ened its perpetuity are now closer together in personal re-
lations, in common sympathies, and in purpose, than ever

before, must gratify him. |

The War is long since over. Its battle flags, blood-stained {
and tear-stained, have been furled and laid away, never again i
to wave in the battle front Its forts are dismantled and
levelled. Its guns and swords have turned to rust. Its dead
quietly sleep in grass-covered graves. But the blessing of
a profound peace rests upon the Republic. The prayer of
Abraham Lincoln has been answered; the Union is saved. I
If I may be allowed the figure of speech, the North and the
South now stand, as it were, side by side, with clasped handi,
the heart of each full of sacred memories of the past, of
courageous endeavor and heroic sacrifice. But their backs
are turned upon the past; their uplifted faces are turned
to the future, illuminated with a love of country that knows
no North and no South, no East and no West. Their a»-
pirations for the future are the same. Their common pnr-
pose is, tiiat the American people shall meet the emergencies
of the future with the same high resolve that distinguished

THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION

their past And their cominon hope is, that this Union shall
be maintained as a demonstration of the permanent^ of de-
mocracy ; that its influence shall be for the betterment of the
life of the world, for the uplift of humanity, and lor the
advancement of civilization*

'.•..1.1 '

ABRAHAM LINCOLN: A MAN OF THE PEOPLE

PRESIDENT WOODBOW WILSON

MY earliest recollection is of standing at my father's
gateway in Angusta, Georgia, when I was four years
old, and hearing some one pass and say that Mr. Lineohi
was elected and there was to be war. Catching the intense
tones of his excited voice, I remember rtinning in to ask my
father what it meant. What it meant, you need not be told.
What it meant, we shall not here to-day dwell upon. We shall
rather turn away from those scenes of struggle and of un-
happy fraternal strife, and recall what has happened since to
restore our balance, to remind us of the permanent issues of
history, to make us single-hearted in our love of America,
and united in our purpose for her advancement. We are met
here to-day to recall the character and achievanents of a
man who did not stand for strife, but for peace, and whose
glory it was to win the affection alike of those whom he led
and of those whom he opposed, as indeed a man and a king
among those who mean the right.

It is not necessary that I should rehearse for you the life
of Abraham Lincoln. It has been written in every school
book. It has been rehearsed in every family. It were to
impeach your intelligence if I were to tell you the story of his
life. I would rather attempt to expound for you the meaning
of his life, the significance of his singular and unique career.

It is a very long century that separates us from the 3rear
of his birth. The nineteenth century was crowded with many
significant events, — ^it seems to us in America as if it were
more crowded with significant events for us than for any
other nation of the world, — and that far year 1809 stands
very near its opening, when men were only beginning to un-
derstand what was in store for them. It was a significant

THE CHICAGO COMMEMOBATION W

tmtary, n<yt only in the field of politios bat in the field of
fhonght Do yon realize that modem seience is not older
than the middle of the last eentoiyt Modem seienee came
into the world to revolutionize our thinlriTig and our material
enterprises jnst abont the time that Mr. Lincoln was uttering
those remarkable debates with Mr. Douglas. The straggle
which determined the life of the Union came just at the time
when a new issue was joined in the field of thought, and men
began to reconstruct their conceptions of the uniyerse and of
their relation to nature, and even of their relation to God.
There is^ I beUevei no more significant century in the his-
tory of man than the nineteenth century, and its whole sweep
is behind us.

That year 1809 produced, as you know, a whole groiq> of
men who were to give distinction to its annals in many fields
of thought and of endeayor. To mention only some of the
great men who were bom in 1809: the poet Tennyson was
bom in that year, oxxr own poet Edgar Allan Poe, the great
Sherman, tiie great Mendelssohn, Chopin, Charles Darwin,
William E. Oladstone, and Abraham Lincoln. Merely read
that list and you are aware of the singular variely of gifts
and purposes represented. Tennyson was^ to my thinking,
something more than a poet We are apt to be so beguiled
by the music of his verse as to suppose that its charm and
power lie in its music ; but there is something about the poet
which makes him the best interpreter, not only of life, but of
national purpose, and there is to be found in Termymm a
great body of interpretation which utters the very voice
of Ang^o-Saxon liberty. That fine line in which he speaks
of how English liberty has ^'broadened down from precedent
to precedent" embodies the noble slowness, the very process
and the very certainty, of the forces which made men po-*
litieally free in the great century in which he wrote. He
was a master who saw into the heart of affairs, as well as a
great musician who seemed to give them the symphony of
sound.

And then there was our own Poe, that exquisite workman
in the human language, that exquisite artisan in all the nice

16 ABBAHAM LINCOLN

effects of speech, the man who dreamed all the odd dreami
of the human imagination, and who quickened ua with all
the singular stories that the mind can invent^ and did ik
all with the nicety and certainly of touch of the oonsonunate
artist.

And then there were Chopin and Mendelssohn, whose mnne
constantly rings in our ears and lifts our spirits to new
sources of delight. And there was Charlea Darwin, with
an insight into nature next to Newton ^s own; and Gladstone,
who knew how to rule men by those subtle forces of oratoiy
which shape the history of the world and determine tlie re-
lations of nations to each other.

And then our Lincoln. When you read that name you are
at once aware of something that distinguishes it from all
the rest. There was in each of those other men some special
gift, but not in Lincoln. Tou cannot pick Lincoln out for
any special characteristic. He did not have any one of those
peculiar gifts that the other men on this list possessed. He
does not seem to belong in a list at all; he seems to stand
unique and singular and complete in himself. The name
makes the same impression upon the ear that the n«ne of
Shakespeare makes, because it is as if he contained a worid
within himself. And that is the thing which marks the
singular stature and nature of this great — and, we would
fain believe, typical — ^American. Because when you try to
describe the character of Lincoln you seem to be trsring to
describe a great process of nature. Lincoln seems to hsifo
been of general human use and not of particular and limited
human use. There was no point at which life touched him
that he did not speak back to it instantly its meaning. There
was no affair that touched him to which he did not give back
life, as if he had communicated a spark of fire to kindle iL
The man seemed to have, slumbering in him, powers whiish
he did not exert of his own choice, but which woke the mo-
ment they were challenged, and for which no challenge was
too great or comprehensive.

You know how slow, how almost sluggish the development
of the man was. You know how those who consorted with him

THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 17

in his yonfh noted the very thing of which I speak. They
would have told yon that Abraham Lincoln was good for
nothing in particular; and the singolar fact is he was good
for nothing in particnlar — ^he was good for everything in
generaL He did not narrow and concentrate his power, be-
cause it was meant to be diffused as the sun itself. And so
he went through his youth like a man who has nothing to do,
like a man whose mind is never halted at any point where
it becomes serious, to seize upon the particular endeavor or
occupation for which it is intended. He went from one sort
of partial success to another sort of partial success, or, as
his contemporaries would have said, from failure to failure,
untQ — ^not until he found himself, but until, so to say, af-
fairs found him, and the crisis of a country seemed suddenly
to match the universal gift of his nature ; until a great nature
was summed up, not in any particular business or activity,
bat in the affairs of a whole country. It was characteristio
of the man.

Have you ever looked at some of those singular statues of
the great French sculptor Bodin — those pieces of marble in
which only some part of a figure is revealed and the rest is
left in the hidden lines of the marble itself; where there
emerges the arm and the bust and the eager face, it may be,
of a man, but his body disappears in the general bulk of the
sfame, and the lines fall off vaguely t I have often been
made to think, in looking at those statues, of Abraham Lincoln.
There was a little disclosed in him, but not all. You feel
that he was so far from being exhausted by the demands of
his life that more remained unrevealed than was disclosed
to Qfur view. The lines run off into infinity and lead the
imagination into every great conjecture. We wonder what
tte man might have done, what he might have been, and we
leel that there was more promise in him when he died than
when he was bom ; that the force was so far from being ex-
hausted that it had only begun to display itself in its splendor
and perfection. No man can think of the life of Lincoln
without feeling that the man was cut off almost at his be-
ginning.

16 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

And flo it is with every genius of this kind, not mngnilmr
but umyenuily because there were nses to which it was not ^
challenged. You feel that there is no telling what it mi^
have done in days to come, when there would haye been neir
demands made upon its strength* and upon its versatility. He
is like some great reservoir of living water which yoa csn
freely quaff but can never exhaust. There is something ab-
solutely endless about the lines of such a life.

And you will see that that very fact renders it difficult
indeed to point out the characteristics of a man like lin-
ooln. How shall you describe general human nature brought
to its finest development! — ^for such was this man. We ssy
that he was honest; men used to call him ''Honest Abe."
Bnt honesty is not a qualily. Honesty is the manifestation
of character. Lincoln was honest because there was nothing
small or petty about him, and only smaUness and pettineai
in a nature can produce dishonesty. Such honesty is a qual-
ity of largeness. It is that openness of nature which will
not condescend to subterfuge, which is too big to coneesl
itself. Little men run to cover and deceive you. Big men
cannot and will not run to cover, and do not deceive you.
Of course, Lincoln was honest But that wss not a peculiar
characteristic of him; that is a general description of him.
He wss not small or mean, and his honesty wss not produced
by any calculation, but was tiie genial eipression of the great
nature that was behind it.

Then we also say of Lincoln that he saw things witii his
own eyes. And it is very interesting that we can pick out
individual men to say that of them. The opposite of the
proposition is, that most men see things, with other men's
eyes. And that is the pity of the whole business of the world.
Most men do not see things with their own ^es. If th^
did they would not be so inconspicuous as they consent to be.
What most persons do is to live up to formulas and opinions
and believe them, and never give themselves the trooUe
to ask whether they are true or not; so that there is a great
deal of truth in saying that the trouble is, that men beUere
so many things that are not so, because they have taken tbeoi

THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 19

at second hand; they have accepted them in the form ihey
were given to them. They have not reexamined thent Th^
have not seen the world with their own eyes. Bnt Lincoln
saw it with his own eyes. And he not only saw the sorface
of ity bnt saw beneath the surface of it ; for the characteristic
of the seeing eye is that it is a discerning eye, seeing also
that which is not caught by the surface ; it x>enetrates to the
heart of the subjects it looks upon. Not only did this man
look upon life with a discerning eye. If you read of his
youth and of his early manhood, it would seem that these
were his only and sufficient pleasures. Lincoln seemed to
covet nothing from his business except that it would give
him leisure enough to do this very thing — ^to look at other
people; to talk about them; to sit by the stove in the evening
and discuss politics with them; to talk about all the things
that were going on, to make shrewd, penetrating comments
upon them, to speak his penetrating jests.

I had a friend once who said he seriously thought that
the business of life was conversation. There is a good deal
of Mr. Lincoln's early life which would indicate that he was of
the same opinion. He believed that, at any rate, the most
attractive business of life was conversation ; and conversation,
with Lincoln, was an important part of the business of life,
because it was conversation which uncovered the meanings of
things and illuminated the hidden places where nobody but
Uncoln had ever thought of looking.

You remember the very interesting story told about Mr. Lin-
coln in his early practice as a lawyer. Some business firm
at a distance wrote to him and asked him to look into the
credit of a certain man who had asked to have credit ex-
tended to him by the firm. Mr. Lincoln went around to see
the man at his place of business, and reported to this effect :
that he had found the man in an office which contained one
table and two chairs, ''But,'' he added, ''there is a hole in
the comer that would bear looking into." That anecdote,
alight as it is, is typical of Mr. Lincoln. He sometimes found
/ the character of the man lurking in a hole; and when his
speech touched that character it was illuminated; you could

20 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

not frame otherwise a better characterization. That seemed
to be the business of the man's life; to look at things and
to comment upon them; and his comment upon them was
just as fearless and just as direct as it was shrewd and pene-
trating.

I know some men can see anything they choose to see,
but they won't say anything; who are dried up at the source
by that enemy of mankind which we call Caution. God save
a free country from cautious men, — ^men, I mean, cautious for
themselves, — ^f or cautious men are men who will not speak the
truth if the speaking of it threatens to damage them. Cau-
tion is the confidential agent of selfishness.

This man had no caution. He was absolutely direct and
fearless. You will say that he had very little worldly goods
to lose. He did not allow himself to be encumbered by riches,
therefore he could say what he pleased. You know that men
who are encumbered by riches are apt to be more silent than
others. They have given hostages to fortune, and for them it
is very necessary to maintain the statiis quo. Now, Mr. Lincoln
was not embarrassed in this way. A change of circumstances
would suit him just as well as the permanency of existing
circumstances. But I am confident that if Mr. Lincoln had
had the gift of making money, he nevertheless would not have
restrained his gift for saying things; that he nevertheless
would have ignored the trammels and despised caution and
said what he thought. But one interesting thing about Mr.
Lincoln is that no matter how shrewd or penetrating his com-
ment, he never seemed to allow a matter to grip him. He
seemed so directly in contact with it that he could define
things other men could not define ; and yet he was detached.
He did not look upon it as if he were part of it. And he
was constantly salting all the delightful things that he said,
with the salt of wit and humor.

I would not trust a saturnine man, but I would trust a wit;
because a wit is a man who can deta(^ himself, and not
get so buried in the matter he is de^ifng with as to lose that
sure and free movement which a m^ can have only when he is
detached. If a man can comment upon his own misfortunes

THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 21

with a toueh of humor, you know that his misfortunes are
not going to subdue or kill him. You should try to instill
mto every distressed friend the inclination to hold himself
off at arm's length, and should assure him that, after all,
there have been worse cases on record. Mr. Lincoln was not
under the impression that his own misfortunes were unique,
and he was not under the impression that the misfortunes of
his fellow-men were unique or unalterable. Therefore he
was detached; therefore he was a wit; therefore he told
you a story to show that he was not so intense upon a matter
that he could not recognize the f uimy side of it.

Not only that, but Lincoln was a singularly studious man
— ^not studious in the ordinary conventional sense. To be
studious in the ordinary, conventional sense, if I may judge
by my observation at a xmiversity, is to do the things you
have to do and not understand them particularly. But to
be studious, in the sense in which Mr. Lincoln was studious, is
to follow eagerly and fearlessly the curiosity of a mind which
will not be satisfied unless it understands. That is a deep
studiousness; that is the thing which lays bare the map of
life and enables men to understand the circumstances in which
they live, as nothing else can do.

And what commends Mr. Lincoln's studiousness to me is
that the result of it was he did not have any theories at all.
life is a very complex thing. No theory that I ever heard pro- ^
pounded will match its varied pattern; and the men who
are dangerous are the men who are not content with under-
standing, but go on to propound theories, things which will
make a new pattern for society and a new model for the
universe. Those are the men who are not to be trusted.
Because, although you steer by the North Star, when you
have lost the bearings of your compass, you nevertheless
must steer in a pathway on the sea, — ^you are not bound for
the North Star. The man who insists upon his theory insists
that there is a way to the North Star, and I know, and every
one knows, that there is not — at least none yet discovered,
lineoln was one of those delightful students who do not seek
to tie you up in the meshes of any theory.

28 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Stioh was Mr. Lineoln, — ^aot a ain^ar man ; a very nomial I
man, but nonnal in gigantic proportions, — the whole charae-
ter of him is on as great a scale — and yet so delightfollj in-
formal in the way it was put together — as was the great !
frame in which he lived. That great, loose- jointed, angolar
frame that Mr. Lincoln inhabited was a yeiy fine qnnbol of i
the big, loose- jointed, genial, angular nature that was inside;
angular, not in the sense of having sharp corners upon which
men might wound themselves, but angular as nature is an-
gular. Nature is not symmetrical like the Benaiasance arefai-
teeture. Nature is an architect who does not, in the least,
mind putting a very different thing on one side from what it
has put on the other. Your average architect wants to
balance his windows; to have consistency and balance in the
parts. But nature is not interested in that. Nature does
what it pleases, and so did the nature of Lincoln. It did
what it pleased, and was no more conventionalized and symr
metrical than the body of the man himself.

Mr. Lincoln belonged to a type which is fast disappearing,
the type of the frontiersman. And he belonged to a process
which has almost disappeared from this country. Mr. Lincoln {
seemed slow in his development^ but when you think of the
really short span of his life and the distance he traversed in
the process of maturing, you will see that it can not be said
to have been a slow process. Mr. Lincoln was bred in that
part of the country — this part, though we can hardly conceive
it now — ^where States were made as fast as men. Lincoln was
made along with the States that were growing as fast as
men were. States were bom and came to their maturity, in
that day, within the legal limit of twenty-one years, and the
very pressure of that rapid change, the very imperious ne-
cessity of that quick process of maturing, was what made
and moulded men with a speed and in a sort which have
never since been matched. Here were the processes of civ-
ilisation and of the building up of polities crowded into a
single generation; and where such processes are crowded,
men grow. Men could be picked out in the crude, and, if
put in that crucible, could be refined out in a single gmera-

THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 28

tion into pure metaL That wag the proeeaa whieh made Mr.
LmeoliL We could not do it that way again, becaiuae that
period has passed forever with ns.

Mr. Lincoln could not have been bom at any other time and
he eoold not have been made in any other way. I took the
liberty of saying in New York the other day that it was incon-
ceivable that Mr. Lincoln could have been bom in New York.
I did not intend thereby any disparagement of New York,
but simply to point the moral that he could not have been
i)om in a finished community. He had to be produced in a
community that was on the make, in the making. New
York is on the make, but it is not in the making.

Mr. Lineolny in other words, was produced by processes
which no longer exist anywhere in America, and therefore we
are solemnized by this question : Can we have other Lincolnsf
We cannot do without them. This eountty is going to have
crisis after crisis. Ood send they may not be bloody crises,
but they will be intense and acute. No body politic so
abounding in life and so puzzled by problems as ours is can
avoid moving from crisis to crisis. We must have the leader-
ship of sane, genial men of universal use like Lincoln, to
aave us from mistakes and give us the necessary leadership
in such days of struggle and of difficulty. And yet, saeh
men will hereafter have to be produced among us by pro-
ceases which are not characteristically American, but which
betong to the whole world.

There was scnnething essentially native, American, about
lineoln; and there will, no doubt, be something American
about every man produced by the processes of America ; but
no such distinguished process as the process, unique and
separate, of 'that early age can be repeated for us.

It seems to me serviceable, therefore, to ask ourselves what
It is that we must reproduce in order not to lose the breed,
the splendid breed, of men of this calibre. Mr. Lincoln we
describe as '^a man of the people,^' and he was a man of
the people, essentially. But what do we mean by a ''man of
the people''t We mean a man, of course, who has his root-
age deep in the experiences and the consciousness of the

M ABBAHAM LINCOLN

ordinary mass of his fellow-men ; bnt we do not mean a man
whose rootage is holding him at their leveL We mean a man
who, drawing his sap from such sources, has, neverthelesB,
risen above the level of the rest of mankind and has got an
outlook over their heads, seeing horizons which they are too
submerged to see; a man who finds and draws his inspira-
tion from the common plane, but nevertheless has lifted him-
self to a new place of outlook and of insight; who has oome
out from the people and is their leader, not because he speaks
from their ranks, but because he speaks for them and for
their interests.
Browning has said :

'fA nation is but the attempt of many
To rise to the completer life of one;

And they who live as models for the mass
Are singly of more value than they alL'

Lincoln was of the mass, but he was so lifted and big
that all men could look upon him, until he became the
'* model for the mass'' and was '^singly of more value than
they all."

It was in that sense that Lincoln was ^'a man of the peo-
ple." His sources were where all the pure springs are, but
his streams flowed down into other country and fertilized
other plains, where men had become sophisticated with the
life of an older age.

A great nation is not led by a man who simply repeats
the talk of the street-comers or the opinions of the news-
papers. A nation is led by a man who hears more than
those things; or who, rather, hearing those things, under-
stands them better, unites them, puts them into a common
meaning; speaks, not the rumors of the street, but a new
principle for a new age; a man in whose ears the voieei
of the nation do not sound like the accidental and discordant
notes that come from the voice of a mob, but concurrent
and concordant like the united voices of a chorus, whose
many meanings, spoken by melodious tongues, unite in his
understanding in a single meaning and reveal to

THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 25

siiigle vision, so that he can speak what no man else knows,
the common meaning of the common voice. Such is the man
who leads a great, free, democratic nation.

We mnst always be led hy ''men of the people," and there-
fore it behooves us to know them when we see them. How
shall we distinguish them t Judged by this man, interpreted
by this life, what is a ''man of the people"! How shall we
know him when he emerges to our viewf

Well, in the first place, it seems to me that a man of the
people is a man who sees affairs as the people see them, and
not as a man of particular classes or the profe&Bions sees ^
them. You cannot afford to take the advice of a man who
has been too long submerged in a particular profession, — ^not
because you cannot trust him to be honest and candid, but
because he has been too long immersed and submerged, and
through the inevitable pressure and circumstances of his life
has come to look upon the nation from a particular point
of view. The man of the people is a man who looks far
and wide upon the nation, and is not limited by a profes-
sional i)oint of view. That may be a hard doctrine ; it may
exclude some gentlemen ambitious to lead; but I am not
trying to exclude them by any arbitrary dictum of my own ;
I am trying to interpret so much as I understand of human
history, and if human history has excluded them, you cannot
blame me. Human history has excluded them, as far as I
understand it, and that is the end of the matter. I am not
excluding them. In communities like ours, governed by gen-
eral opinion and not led by classes, not dictated to by special
interests, they are of necessity excluded. You will see that
it follows that a man of the people is not subdued by any
stuff of life that he has happened to work in ; that he is free
to move in any direction his spirit prompts. Are you not >j
glad that Mr. Lincoln did not succeed too deeply in any par-
ticular calling; that he was sufficiently detached to be lifted
to a place of leadership and to be used by the whole country t
Are you not glad that he had not narrowed his view and
understanding to any particular interest, — did not think in
the terms of interest but in the terms of life t Are you not

26 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

C^ad that he had a myriad of contacts with the growing and
vehement life of this country, and that, because of that mul-
tiple contact, he was, more than any one else of his genera-
tion, the spokesman of the general opinion of this country t

Why was it that Mr. Lincoln was wiser than the professional
politicians? Because the professional politicians had bur-
rowed into particular burrows and Mr. Lincoln walked on the
surface and saw his fellow-men.

Why could Mr. Lincoln smile at lawyers and turn away
from ministers t Because he had not had his contact with life
as a lawyer has^ and he had not lectured his fellow-men as a
minister has. He was detached from every point of view
and therefore superior, — at any rate in a position to becom-
ing superior, — ^to every point of view. You must have a man
of this detachable sort

Moreover, you must not have a man, if he is to be a man
-^ of the people, who is standardized and conventionalized.
Look to it that your communities, your great cities, do not
impose too arbitrary standards upon the men whom you wish
to use. Do not reduce men to standards. Let them be free.
Do not compel them by conventions. Let them wear any
clothes they please and look like anything they choose; let
them do anything that a decent and an honest man may do
without criticism ; do not laugh at them because they do not
look like you, or talk like you, or think like you. They are
freer for that circumstance, because, as an English writer
has said: ''You may talk of the tyranny of Nero and Ti-
berius, but the real tyranny is the tyranny of your next-
door neighbor. There is no tyranny like the tyranny of
being obliged to be like him,"— of being consddered a very
singular person if you are not; of having men shrug their
shoulders and say, ''Singular young man, sir, singular young
man; very gifted, but not to be trusted." Not to be trusted
because unlike your own trustworthy self I You must take
your leaders in every time of difficulty from among abso-
lutely free men who are not standardized and convention-
alized, who are at liberty to do what they think right and

THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION S7

flay what they think trae ; that is the only kind of leadenhip
you can afford to have.

And then, last and greatest eharacteristic of all, a man
of the people is a man who has felt that unspoken, that in-
tense, that almost terri^^ing straggle of humanity, that strag-
gle whose objeet is, not to get forms of government, not to
realize particolar formulas or make for any definite goal, V
but simply to lire and be free. He has participated in that
straggle; he has felt the blood stream against the tissue;
he has known anxiety; he has felt that life contained for
him nothing but effort, effort from the rising of the sun
to the going down of it He has, therefore, felt beat in him,
if he had any heart, a universal qrmpathy for those who
struggle^ a universal understanding of the unutterable
things that were in their hearts and the unbearable burdens
that were upon thdr backs. A man who has that vision, of
how—

"Now touehing good, now bsokward hturUd,
Toils the indomitable world"—

a man like Lincoln — ^understands. His was part of the toil ;
he had part and lot in the struggle; he Imew the uncer-
tainty of the goal mankind had but just touched and from
which they had been hurled back; knew that the price of
life is blood, and that no man who goes jauntily and com-
placently through the world will ever touch the crprings of
human action. Such a man with such a consciousness, such
a universal human sympathy, such a universal comprehension
of what life means, is your man of the people, and no one
else can be.

What shall we dot It always seems to me a poor tribute
to a great man who has been great in action, to spend the
hours of his praise by merely remembering what he was;
and there is no more futile eulogy than attempted imitation.
It is impossible to imitate Lincoln, without being Lincoln;
and then it would not be an imitation. It is impossible to
reproduce the characters, as it is impossible to reproduce the

28 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

ciromnstanceBy of a past age. That ought to be a truism;
that ought to be evident. We live^ and we have no other
choice, in this age, and the tasks of this age are the only
tasks to which we are asked to address ourselves. We are
not asked to apply our belated wisdom to the problems and
perplexities of an age that is gone. We must have timely
remedies, suitable for the existing moment. If that be true,
the only way in which we can worthily celebrate a great
man is by showing to-day that we have not lost the tradition
of force which made former ages great, that we can repro-
duce them continuously in a kind of our own. You elevate
the character of a man like Lincoln for his fellow-men to
gaze upon, not as if it were an unattainable height, but as
one of those conspicuous objects which men erect to maik
the long lines of a survey, so that when they top the next
hiU they shall see that mark standing there where they have
passed, not as something to daunt them, but as a high point
by which they can lengthen and complete their measurements
and make sure of their ultimate goal and achievement. That
is the reason we erect the figures of men like this to be ad-
mired and looked upon, not as if we were men who walk
backward and deplore the loss of such figures and of sndi
ages, but as men who keep such heights in mind and walk
forward, knowing that the goal of the age is to scale new
heights and to do things of which their work was a mere
foundation, so that we shall live, like every other living thing,
by renewal. We shall not live by recollection, we shall not
live by trying to recall the strength of the old tissue, but 1^
producing new tissue. The process of life is a process of
growth, and the process of growth is a process of renewal;
and it is only in this wise that we shall face the tasks of the
future.

The tasks of the future call for men like Lincoln more
audibly, more imperatively, than did the tasks of the time
when civil war was brewing and the very existence of the
Nation was in the scale of destiny. For the things that
perplex us at this moment are the things which mark, I will
not say a warfare, but a division among classes; and when

THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 39

a nation begins to be divided into nvsl and contestant inteif-
ests by the score, the time is much more dangerons than when
it is divided into only two perfectly distinguishable interests
which you can discriminate and deal with. If there are only
two sides I can easily make up my mind which side to take,
but if there are a score of sides then I must say to some man
who is not immersed, not submerged, not caught in this
struggle, '* Where shall I got What do you seet What is
the movement of the mass t Where are we going f Where do
you propose you should gof '* It is then I need a man of the
people, detached from this struggle yet cognizant of it all,
sympathetic with it all, saturated with it all, to whom I can
say, ''How do you sum it up, what are the signs of the day,
what does the morning say, what are the tasks that we must
set our hands to T" We should pray, not only that we should
be led by such men, but also that they should be men of the
particular sweetness that Lincoln possessed.

The most dangerous thing yon can have m an age like
this is a man who is intense and hot. We have heat enough ;
what we want is light. Anybody can stir up emotions, but
who is master of men enough to take the saddle and guide
those awakened emotions? Anybody can cry a nation awake
to the necessities of reform, but who shall frame the reform
but a man who is cool, who takes his time, who will draw
you aside for a jest, who will say: **Yes, but not to-day, to-
morrow ; let us see the other man and see what he has to say ;
let us hear everybody, let us know what we are to do. In
the meantime I have a capital story for your private ear.
Let me take the strain off, let me unbend the steel. Don't
let us settle this thing by fire but let us settle it by those
cool, incandescent lights which show its real nature and
color.''

The most valuable thing about Mr. Lincoln was that in the
midst of the strain of war, in the midst of the crash of arms,
he could sit quietly in his room and enjoy a book that led
his thoughts off from everything American, could wander in
fields of dreams, while every other man was hot with the im-
mediate contest. Always set your faith in a man who can

80 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

withdraw himself, because only the man who can withdnw
himself can see the stage; only the man who can withdraw
himself can see affairs as they are.

And so the lesson of this day is faith in the common product
of the nation; the lesson of this day is the futore as well
as the past leadership of men, wise men, who have come
from the people. We should not be Americans deserving
to call ourselves the fellow-countrymen of Lincoln if we did
not feel the compulsion that his example lays ui>on ua — the
compulsion, not to heed him merely but to look to our own
duty, to live every day as if that were the day upon which
America was to be reborn and remade; to attack every task
as if we had something here that was new and virginal and
original, out of which we could make the very stuff of life,
l^ integrity, faith in our fellow-men, wherever it is deserved,
absolute ignorance of any obstacle that is insuperable, par
tience, indomitable courage, insight, universal sjrmpathy,—
with that programme opening our hearts to every candid sug-
gestion, listening to aU the voices of the nation, trying to
s^ bring in a new day of vision and of achievement

A CITIZEN OP NO MEAN COUNTRY
(A Speech of Introduction)

HON. FR4NK HAHLIN

THE ancient knew no prouder boast than to be a Soman
dtusen, and Saul of Tarsna obtained permiaaion to
q>eak to the captain of the guard when he said, ^'I am a
dtizen of Silesia, which is a Boman proyinoe, a citizen of no
mean country."

We are met to celebrate the one hundredth anniversary
of the birth of the great Commoner of Illinois. As citizens
of no mean country, we rejoice in this opportunity to pay our
measure of respect to the memory of one of the greatest of
our leaders. It is eminently appropriate and fitting that we
should do this. But in the proper sense, following the words
of President Lincoln's great Gettysburg speech, it is rather
for us to be dedicated to those great purposes for which the
martyred President gave his life, for liberty, for righteous-
ness, for the preservation of the American Republic. We
cannot honor him more than by following his example in
the material essentials of life. The striking characteristio
of Abraham Lincoln was his simplicity, his rugged honesty.
It has been well said by an eloquent orator of the present
day, it has been aptly said, that a college is the place where
pebbles are brightened and where diamonds are dimmed.
While I cannot say that I thoroughly agree with this, it is
probably true that Abraham Lincoln's development was
broader and stronger than it ever could have been under
the mere conventional trainings of life, and I am sure, at
least, that to be eminently great, to be sublime in the sense
in which Abraham Lincoln was sublime, it is essential that one
should be absolutely simple, as he was simple in mind and
character alike.

Abraham Lincoln was an optimist; he was a believer in

32 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

men, because his character was a touchstone which drew
the best from every one with whom he came in contact
But, perhaps, after all, the most inspiring thought which is
associated with this commemoration, is the fact that we see
one great united nation, forgetful of any sectional prejudice,
joining in affectionate regard to offer its tribute to the mem-
ory of our martyred President. Is it not, in fact, aa if the
great American Commonwealth here highly resolved that
those ideals which Abraham Lincoln advocated all his life,
that government ^'by the people, of the people, and for the
people/^ should not perish from the earth t

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF LINCOLN

HON. J. A. HAGDONALD

AMONG the men bom of American women, there has not
arisen a greater than Abraham Lincoln. It is fitting
that thronghont this BepnbliCy from the capital to the re-
motest pioneer hamlet, his name should this day be lifted
high in loring memory. The honor of that name is the price- (T
leas heritage of every State in this great Union, whose in- . ^
tegrity he maintained and whose flag he saved from shame. ' * t ^

But if the people of other States raise their voices in this
centennial celebration with pride and grateful praise, how
much more you — ^you people of Illinois, whose State gave
him tiie nation ; you citizens of Chicago, whose city witnessed
his first nomination to the Presidency — how much more
should you cherish the name of Lincoln as the honorable
birthright of yourselves and your children ; and —

^or many and many an age proclaim
At eivio rerel and pomp and game.
With honor, honor, honor to him,
Eternal honor to hid name I "

The smoke of war has long since cleared away. Even the
darker clouds of ignorance and selfishness and suspicion that
blinded the eyes and hardened the hearts of men on both
sides, and made not only the Revolution, but the Civil War
inevitable, have been shot through with the straight white
light of reason and charity and truth. The men of the
South to-day appreciate the work and venerate the memory
of Abraham Lincoln, even as the men of the North are
coming to honor the heroism and courage and personal worth
of those genuine patriots and noble leaders, Robert E. Lee
and "Stonewall" Jaclraon. Wetneet as the reconciled mem-
ben of one great family, all enrtched by the memories of each,
a 38

54 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

the heirlooms of one being the treasores of alL We comey
all you of the blue, and you, too, of the gray, and we of the
red-coat and kilted tartan, heritors of the same history,
sharers in the same freedom, sons of the same blood; and in
the speech that sways from the Gulf to the Arctic Sea we
pay our tribute of honor, and reverence, and love to the
memory of that greatest world-citizen this continent has
known. For among the men bom of American women, there
has not arisen a greater than Abraham Lincoln.

It is not for me to tell the story of Lincoln's life, the inci-
dents of his great career, or the traditions that gather around
his name. All of that has been done again and again in
every Lincdn renascence that has marked each decade since
his day. It is being done to-day by those who knew him
face to face. It is not for me to come from Canada to
Illinois to recite Lincoln anecdotes, or to pronounce a Lincoln
eulogy. Not as a neighbor, not as an acquaintance, not as
a citizen of the same State or of the same nation, may I
speak of him as many might speak. To me he stands out,
not in the softened light of personal friendship, not even
with the glorifying halo of patriotic devotion on his brow.
From the long range of another land, from under the shadow
of another flag, I see him stand in the great perspective of
world-history, not merely the citizen of your State, or the
saviour of your Bepublic, but Lincoln, the world-citizen ; Lin-
coln, the man whose name spells freedom in every land. And
for that Lincoln, one of the few immortals of his age and
land, I profess the reverence which the nobleness of his char-
acter and the heroism of his life must ever command from
you of this Republic and from us, too, of the Canadian Do-
minion. Into our Canadian lives he came as a mighty inspi-
ration, and our childhood's lips were taught to speak his
name with that respect we paid our own good and gracious
Queen.

I recall as vividly as if it were yesterday the night in
that fateful week of April, 1865, when into my childhood's
home, on a pioneer farm cut out of the primeval forest of
Middle^x County, in Upper Canada, The Toronto Olohe came,

THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION S6

bordered in black. Its story read aloud in the family circle
brought pain and grief to Canadian hearts. So it came that
my very earliest knowledge of your country and its history
was in that tragic martyrdom at Washington, and the very
first name outside that backwQods settlement in Canada to
be inscribed indelibly on my boyhood's honor roll was the
name of your own illustrious Lincoln.

The theme which I choose is this: The Significance of
Lincoln. I would have you stand with me for a little, not so
dose to that life as to lose the sense of its great proportions,
but not so far away as to miss the meaning and the majesty
of its radiating power. If I express some things with which
some may not agree — and that must be so — ^it is because I
am free to voice honest convictions with unreserve in the
presence of free and honest men.

I would have you consider the significance of Lincoln, the
meaning of his life, and the reach of his influence, in the
century to which he belonged, and in this larger century that
reaps the harvests which he sowed.

First, consider the significance of Lincoln to democracy in
^ North America. I mean Canada as well as the United States.
And by democracy I mean, not any party form or political
organization, but, in the words made immortal by Lincoln
at Gettysburg, *' government of the people, by the people, for
the people. ' '

On this continent, democracy is being worked out through
republican forms in the United States, and through forms
adapted to monarchical institutions in Canada. In both
eountries it is democracy. The democratic spirit takes little
account of mere names and forms.

Take the situation presented in your own United States.
What is the significance of Lincoln in relation to the main-
tenance and the extension of ** government of the people, by
the people, for the people" in this Republic T What con-
tribution did he maket What did he save that might have
been lost?

For one thing, he served democracy by the very fact of his
life, by the potency of his teaching, by the force of his ex-

S6 ABBAHAM LINCOLN

ample. He was Yjj Nature's law a man of the people. He
gloried in his kinship with the ''plain people.'' Not because
he was bom in a rude Kentucky cabin ; not because his early '
life in Lidiana and Illinois was spent in sordid poverty—
democracy on the one hand, like aristocracy on the other,
is not a thing of external eondition% but of the very spirit
and purpose and essence of a man's life. By birth and
instinct and personal equation George Washington was an
aristocrat to his finger-tips. Abraham Lincoln, in the mar-
row of his bones and through all the texture of his thinking,
was a man of the people.

Lincoln knew the people's problem from within. By in-
tuition he understood their case and took their side. In those
early Sangamon County days he knew nothing of the teach-
ing of the schools on political economy, or the social problem,
or the ethical standard, but by unerring instinct he made
his choice. It was the spirit of inbor&;'*^ti^ democracy that
spoke through him, when, a raw youth injhis teens, thirty
years before he saw the "White HouseJia^K$oked for the first
time on the hard and ugly fact of slavery, and in the slave-
market of New Orleans swore: ^* If ever I get a chance m
to hit that thing, I 'U hit it hard, by the Eternal Qod!" It
was his incurable sense of the rights of man that impelled i
him in early manhood to declare himself the champion of the \
unprivileged and the voiceless, ''until," as he foretold,
"everywhere in this broad land the sun shall shine, and the
rain shall fall, and the wind shall blow upon no man that
goes forth to unrequited toiL" As the sinewy arrow goes
straight to its aim, so his mind struck home to the heart
of the age-long problem of capital and labor in all lands when
he protested that "no man shall eat bread by the sweat of
another man's brow." He had not studied constitutional
history, or traced the rise and fall of world kingdoms and
conmionwealths, but he put the essential wisdom of all the
centuries of government into that memorable saying in his
senatorial campaign in Chicago in 1858: "A house 'divided
against itself cannot stand. This government cannot per-
manently endure half slave and half free. ' ' By such teaching,

THE CHICAGO COMMEMOBATION 87

1^ the example that enfaroed it, hy the life that inspired it,
Lineoln gave proof of his ingrained democracy while he waa,
as yet, unknown outside the State of Illinois^ and before
the dream of the White House shaped his way.

Lincoln was significant and his life told for good to de-
mocracy in the United States hy reason of his steadfastness
in the cause of union against the fallacies of Seoessionists
in the South and the impatience of Abolitionists in the
North.

No man ever faced a task more tremendous at a time more
critical than did Abraham Lincoln when he was nominated
for the President of the United States in Chicago in 1860.
No man ever put his hand to an undertaking fraught with
peril to interests so vast as did Lincoln on the day of his
inauguration at Washington in 1861. No man ever found the
way of duty more beset with disappointment and seeming
defeat than did Lincoln during those four awful years of
power, with their cabal and conflict and unspeakable carnage.
With the ruler of a nation it is not a question of monarchy
or of democrat. Coronation by the crowd secures no im-
f munity from the sorrows of the king. Lincoln, as surely and
as sadly as any throned monarch, had to pay the price and
drink the cup.

He was called to be the chief exeeutiye of the nation, only
to find the nation divided; to be President of the United
States, only to find those States no longer united. Secession
had already sown the seeds of disunion. State after
State had broken away. Long before the first gun was
fired on Fort Sumter, Lincoln saw the foreshadow of
coming events. Other men might deceive themselves and
might deceive the people with cries of ' 'Peace, Peace!"
when there could be no i>eace. Other men in the North
as well • as in the South, among the Abolitionists as
well as among the planters, might be ready and even eager
to let secession have its way and to give to the slave States
confederate autonomy as a new Republic. But with Lincoln
it could not be so. He saw too deeply into the current of
events to dream of i)eace for a nation half slave and half

88 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

tree. He took too serioualj his own responsibilities as the
constitutional President of the American BepuUic to stand
idly by while disonion and disint^pration were destroying
that Republic and frustrating every pledge of freedom that
George Washington and Thomas 'Jefferson and Alexander
Hamilton had given to the world. In the midst of all those
cross-currents of opinion and that confusion of tongues and
that panic of public feeling Lincoln alone stood erect, master
of the situation, his nerve steady, his head dear, his heart
unmoved.

Lincoln did for democnu^ in the United States what
needed to be done, what had not been done at the beginning,
and what sooner or later had to be done, when he stood for
that ideal of the Republic which involved federal sovereignty
over the uniting States and made secession mean treason
and civil war. The limitation of State sovereignty was not
setUed by the Constitution. The question was obscured: it
was evaded. Had it been pressed to the forefront, some of
the States might not have come in, — ^had they known they
could not go out There was, at least, an arguable case for
secession in the equivocal language of the Constitution, as
well as in the fact and the fortunes of the Revolution. Time
might have solved the problem had the aggressions of slavery
not raised the issue. But once raised, it had to be faced.
Lincoln faced it. And in facing it and settling it, he estab-
Ushed the fabric of democracy in tiie United States on caa^
stitutional foundations that cannot be moved.

And the statesmanship of Lincoln saved democracy when
he stood first of all for the Union, for its honor, for its
integrity, for its supreme claim uppn the loyalty of every
citizen in every State. He refused, as surely as the Seoea-
sionists refused, to make slavery the issue of the War. Lin*
coin and his Cabinet and the leaders of the Nor^ said they
fought to save the Union, ffefferson Davis and the leaders
of the South said thqr fought for State rights. They all
said it was not slavery. Botii sides gave assurances to Bng-
land that it was not slavery. Lincoln knew too well that,
notwithstanding the fiery propagandism of the aposUea ol

THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 89

abolition, the time had not yet oome when even the North
would pay the awful and inescapable price that the slayes
might be free. The shame and sin of the slave traffic had
indeed entered as an iron into many a soul. The cup of its
iniquity was indeed full. But there waa a pause before the
blow fell. There had to come a crisis and a challenge. Be-
fore the war-doud had spent itself, the ultimatum of the
South, making the rights of slavery the supreme and irre-
versible issue, flashed a revealing light in tbe faces of the
North. In that light the slave power showed its true visage,
stripped, unmistakable, the relentless enemy not of the negro
alone but of the nation as well.

To save the Union, not to destroy slavery, was the burden
of Lincoln's first inauguration message. When the first guns
of rebellion were fired on Fort Sumter, to save the Union,
not to free the slaves, was the burden of Lincoln's call to
arms. That call was answered by the men of Massachusetts,
who marched through Maryland to the Potomac, blazing the
way for that mighty host that never returned. After long
months of humiliation and havoc and slaughter, Lincoln's
call for men, for four hundred thousand men, to save the
Union had a new note of urgency. But his trust in the
plain i>eople was abundantiy rewarded. Their answer echoed
from every hilltop and through every valley of your North-
em States, from Maine to California, —

'^e are coming. Father Abraham,
Six. hundred thoiuand strong.*'

But Lincoln did more for democracy in the United States
than to save the Union. Union was not enough. There must
be freedom as well. And to be bom free must mean more
than the Declaration of Independence had as yet made it
mean. It must mean freedom, not for some of the people,
not even for a majority of the people, but for all the people.
Democracy and slavery cannot join hands. Between them
there must be an 'irrepressible conflict."

It was the old story. That conflict belongs to all the ages
of human progress. The struggle between South and North

-»*

40 ABBAHAM LINCOLN

in this Bepnblie was not an accident. Lincoln was not
sponsible for it. Southern slavery was the occasion of it, not
the cause. Its roots ran far back into that old-world civili-
zation from which North and South alike drew their ideals
and their life. It was the struggle of the seventeenth century
in England over again. It was the Cavalier against the
Roundhead, as of old. The high-born royalists of Kin^
I Charles left behind them the forms of monarchy, but they
j brought with them to Virginia the aristocratic spirit and the
1 social ideal that made negro servitude in the South not only
\ a privilege, but a right. The men of the Mayflower brou^t
; to New England the Puritan impulse, and it was that inex-
\ tinguishable spark of democracy that disturbed the soul of
I the North. Between these two, sooner or later, conflict had to
come in America, as it came two centuries before in England.
Slavery was the occasion, human rights against class-privilege
was the issue.

When the time was ripe, Lincoln struck the blow. The
men who signed the Declaration' and who framed the Ood-
stitution blinked the slave question. Had it been possible
to save the Union and to retain slavery, Lincoln might have
\ blinked it, too. But it could not be. The nature of things
i was against it. The democracy that declared all men to
i be '^bom free and equal'' gave the lie to the defiant fallaqr
of the slave-holding aristocracy that man can hold property
in man. The Puritan conscience of New England saved the
ideals of the Republic until the rail-splitter from Tllinoia
drove the wedge of truth into the heart of the problem and
split off the planter oligarchy from the life-trunk of Ameri-
can democracy.

The time had surely come when democracy in the United
States must needs justify itself alike to its own children
and to the world. It was not enough to point to an academic
and speculative declaration that ''all men are bom free and
equal,'' when, under the Stars and Stripes, three milliomi
of human beings went out to ''unrequited toiL" It was
V not enough to talk loftily of "the land of the free," and to
echo Jefferson's tirades against monarchy, when, nearly a

THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 41

eentnry after the ngning of the Decluratioii of Independeneey
the only land on all ibis eontinent of North America in
which in very troth all men were bom free was nnder mon-
archial goyemment; and the only flag that gave protection
to all claasesy wilftont reepeet of race or color, was the Union
Jack. It coat treaaore and it coat blood to wipe out that
stain, bnt in wiping it out Lineoln justified American de-
mocrat before the nations of the world.

Bat Lincoln was more than a leader of hia people. He
was their diplomal One of his greatest services to democ-
racy in the United States waa in the strength and steadiness
with which he withstood the clamant pressure of the crowd,
even of the crowd that made him President In mattera
of diplomacy he gave democracy worthy groimds for en-
dmiDg self-respect at home and he added permanently to its
prestige abroad. In his relationa with other nationa he so
eonducted himself that the Crowd, almost in spite of itself,
was given dignity in the presence of the Crown.

This meant much for the credit of democracy, for it was in
matters of diplomacy that its enemies said democracy would
be disproved. It would not have been strange had Lincoln
failed. He was himself a man of the crowd. The crowd
is notoriously the victim of impulse and emotion ; the crowd-
ipirit knows no law and brooks no check. Again and again
the tmnult of the people surged about Lincoln on the slavery
question, on the management of the War, on problems of
pcdides, and on the delicate and critical affairs of foreign
rdations. It would not have been strange had he been stam-
peded ; others have been, before hia day and since. That he,
a man of the people, the incarnation of the powers and
instinct and genius of the plain people — ^that he stood erect, ^
worthy of his nation's honor, commanding respect from for-
eign nations and recognition from their monarchs, was a
service to government by the people which the people them-
selves at first resented in anger and even yet are slow to ap-
preciate and understand.

Conspicuously true was this early in the War when relations
with the British Government were uncertain, if not strained.

M ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Had Secretary of State Seward's despatch been sent nn-
revised by Lincoln, those relations might have been not
only strained, but broken. Had Lincoln not withstood the
lawless indignation of the whole North, and released the two
Cionfederate envoys, Mason and Slidell, taken prisoners from
aboard the British mail-packet Trent, war would have been
inevitable. On the other hand, had the offensive message of
Lord Falmerston been sent unrevised by Queen Victoria,
war, — ^war that, in German's phrase, would indeed have
been ''hell" for the world,— could not have been averted.
By the strength, and wisdom, and humanity of the President
on the one side, and of the Queen on the other, peace was
maintained. Bepublicanism and Royalty at their summits
joined hands. In that dread hour of crisis, Lincoln, the
people's man from Illinois, took his place in world diplomacy,
not beside the Prime Minister of Britain, but beside Her Im-
perial Majesty, the Queen. Then was democracy justified
of her childroi.

Turn now to the Canadian situation. What is the signifi-
cance of Lincoln for democracy in the Dominion! Was
government of the people, by the people, for the people, in
Canada served in any significant way by the life he lived and
the service he rendered to democracy in the United States f

It is quite true Lincoln knew almost nothing at all about
Canada. He never set foot on Canadian soiL He had no
direct interest in Canadian problems. But a life so vital
as his could not be lived to itself or to the people of his
own country alone. Sovereignty stops at the Great Lakes
and the international boundary line, but the masterful life
overleaps all such limitations. The man is greater than the
ruler. In Abraham Lincoln, Canada has had an inheritance
that through a half-century has made for the enrichment of
public life and the redemption of public service.

The Canadian situation cannot be understood, and the
significance of Lincoln for Canadian democracy cannot be
appreciated, unless there is kept in mind the Canadian strug-
gle for government of the people, by the people, for the
people. That struc^le was not an isolated case in history.

THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 4S

It was only one of a long series of conflicts characteristic of
Anglo-Saxon civilization. It bore the unmistakable marks
of the Bevolntion in England under Cromwell, and the Bevo-
Intion in America nnder Washington. The conflict in your
Civil War between the oligarchy of the South and the
democratic ideals of the North had its counterpart in Canada.
We, too, had the seed of the Cavalier of King Charles, and
from your own South, as well as from England, Canada re-
ceived her share of the high-bred aristocracy. That seed
grew into dass-privilege, and ripened into an autocracy as
exclusive and insolent as anything Southern aristocracy or
old-world Toryism could show. And over against it, with
us as with you, there was set the restless, new-bom democ-
TBcj of the Puritan, and the Non-conformist, and the rugged
Cameronian. Conflict was inevitable.

In Canada, the conflict came a generation earlier than in
the United States. It was in 1837, the first year of the reign
of Queen Victoria, that the seething discontent of the people
against injustice and tjrranny found expression in the re-
bellion of Louis Papineau in Lower Canada, and of William
Lyon Mackenzie in Upper Canada. That rebellion was sup*
pressed with little bloodshed, but the power of the oligarchy
was broken. The rights for which the people fought were
abundantly granted in 1840, when Canada was given, not
merely representative government, but, what we prize far
more, government directly and immediately responsible to
Parliament. What was won for democracy in the United
States on the battlefields of the Bevolution, and more truly
in the Civil War, was secured for democracy in Canada in
the Parliament of the nation. But at bottom the struggle
was the same.

Now, the fact of that Canadian struggle, the dements rep-
resented in it, and the issues of it, must be kept in mind by
those who would understand the attitude of Canadians to
linooln and the Civil War. Of course, Canada was not a
unit on that question, even as England was not a unit, and
the North itself not a unit. In all these countries there was,
and still is, the contending of opposite types and tendencies.

44 ABBAHAM LINCOLN

There were in Canada and among Canadians those who i^ym-
pathized with the South, whose affinities were with the South,
and who wished the South to win. There were those, too,
who believed then, and still believe, that the logic of Ccuisti-
tution was with the Secessionists of the South, but who, for
humanity's sake, desired, unreservedly, passionately, that the
logic of the War should make good the cause of the North.
For the people of Canada, from the very b^^inning of the
century, longed and prayed, and when the time came not a
few of them fought and died, that the accursed mountain of
human slavery might be dug away forever from the face of
this American continent.

Canada once had a taste of negro slavery. When the
Loyalists of the Revolution chose the old flag rather than
the new, they were permitted to bring their property with
Ihem to Canada. That was before the days of parliamentary
institutions in the Canadian colonies. By a special Act of
the British Parliament slaves as slaves were brought to Can-
ada from the slave States* But the ^'peculiar institution"
of the South was shortlived in Canada. The first Parlia-
ment of Upper Canada was established in 1792, and in 1793,
in the Navy Hall, Niagara, the first act of that first Parlia-
ment made for the total abolition of slavery. That act was
drawn by the newly appointed Chief Justice Osgoode, and
was signed by Governor Simcoe, with a grateful heart. It
forbade the importation of slaves, and their sale under process
of law. The relation between master and slave, a mild,
patriarchal relationship, was allowed to continue, tp the slave's
very great advantage; but the children of the slave were
free.

From the passing of that Act in 1793 until Lincoln's Eman-
cipation Proclamation in 1863, Canada was the sanctuary for
the hunted runaways from the slave States. It is a story f uU
of pathos, of infinite tragedy, and of heroism forever honor-
ing to human nature.

At first Canada was far away, and there was safety in the
free States of the North. But m 1861, the shive power was
enthroned at Washington, and enforce the Fugitive SUve

THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 45

AJct. From that time on there was no safe plaoe, not in
Chicago, not eveai in Boston itself, for the fngitive from
slayery. It was on to Canada, or back with Legree and the
lash. Between ttie Ohio Biver and the shores of Lake Erie
there stretched a vast and tracUess forest, but the thonght
of freedom was sweet even to the ignorant negro slave, and
many hnnted refogees took the biased trail that led to liber^.
It is one of your own American writers of the slave history
who says: ^^Early in the eentnry the romor gradually
spread among the negroes of the Southern States that there
was, far away, under the North Star, a land where the flag
of the Union did not float; where the law declared all men
free and equal; where the people respected the law, and the
government, if need be, enforced it ' '

It is estimated that more than siz^ thousand negro slaves
found freedom when they touched Canadian soil. The cel-
ebrated ''Underground Railroad'' traversed the Northern
States with its network of secret trails, its southern terminals
far-flung from Kansas to the Atlantic along the Missouri,
the Ohio, and the Chesapeake, its couriers in the cottonfidds
and the plantations of the South, and its northern terminals
at CoUingwood and Samia and Windsor and Amherstburg
and Pelee and Port Stanley and Port Burwell and Niagara
and Hamilton and Toronto and Kingston and Montreal and
Halifax. None of your modem railroad kings has so grid-
ironed the land or shown greater enterprise or downright
courage. John Brown, of immortal memory, constructed his
own branch line of that ''Underground Railroad,'' from Mis-
souri through Iowa and Illinois and Michigan, and nuide many
a trip to Canada before "he died at Harper's Ferry on the
fourteenth day of June"; and, though his body was left
"mouldering in the grave," over those mysterious lines by
which the slave might be free, "his soul went marching on."

To the slaves Canada was Goshen, not Canaan. Many of
them grew to comfort and prospered. But Emancipation
Day was the day of their deliverance. From that time they
began to set their faces again to the warm southland. Can-
ada never would have had the negro or a negro problem had

46 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

it not been for slaveiy. It is ndt a matter of law, but of lati-
tude. In the northern zone the thermometer is on the aide of
the white man.

Until Lincoln broke the slave power in the United States^
slavery was a disturbing factor in Canadian life. The solid
body of Canadian opinion was opposed to slavery. With the
repeal of the Missouri CompromiaCy and the passing of the
Fugitive Slave Act in 1851, abolitionist feeling in Canada
became intensely strong. This was due to one man and his
work more than all other influences— excluding, jierhap^
^' Uncle Tom's Cabin." That man was the Hon. George
Brown. No man knows anything of Canadian life and his-
tory who does not know of George Brown, the founder and
first editor of the Globe. A giant Scot of the sturdiest type,
from the day he arrived in Toronto in 1843 until the day in
1880 when in the Olobe ofSce he fell by the bullet of a
frenzied assassin, George Brown, like Abraham Lincoln, was
the great tribune of the people. He was the strong voice and
the right arm of the common people. More than any other
man, he left his impress on Canadian democracy, and made
immovable the foundations of responsible government.

George Brown was a Liberal of the genuine Scottish type.
He could not but abhor slavery. He saw it at close range in
the slave States. He spoke against it, and he made the
Olobe ring out against it, long before Lincoln's voice was
heard. He felt American slavery to be a personal wrong, a
Canadian burden. Here are some words of his from a speech
against the Fugitive Slave Act, delivered in Toronto in
March, 1852:

"The question is aaked: What hare we in Canada to do with
American slaveiy? We have ererything to do with it. • It is a ques-
tion of humanity. It is a question of Christianity. We haye to do
with it on the score of self-protection. The l^rosy of the atrodons
system affects all around it; it leavens the thoughts, the feelingSy the
institutions of the people who touch it. It is a barrier to liberal prin-
ciples. We are alongside this great evil; our people mingle with it;
we are affected by it now. In self-protection we are bound to use
every effort for its abolition. And there is another reaaoa. We aie
in the habit of calling the people of the United States * the AnMrieam ';

THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 47

but we, ioo^ are Amerieaiu. On us, m well as oa them, lies tbt dul^
of preserviiig the honor of the continent. On ns, aa on them, rests the
noble trust of shielding free institutions from the reproach of modem
tyrants. Who that looks at Europe given over to the despots, and
with but one little island yet left to uphold the flag of freedom, can
reflect without emotion that the great Bepublic of this continent nur-
tures a despotism more debasing than them allt How emshingly the
upholders of tyranny in other lands must turn on the friends of
liberty! 'Behold your free institutions,' they must say. 'Look at the
American Republic,' th^ must sneer, 'proclaiming all men to be bom
free and equal, and keeping nearly four millions of slaves in the most
eruel bondager"

The man who spoke those words in 1852 was the dominant
force in Canadian pnblic opinion, the potent voice in the
Canadian Parliament. His sentiments on slavery became the
strong convictions of the Canadian people. With what eager-
ness, therefore, was the rise of Lincoln, the new star on your
western horizon, watched by the people of Canada. From
the day of his nomination in 1860 until his tragic death,
the name of Abraham Lincoln was as highly honored, and
his course was as intelligently and as anxiously followed, by
the people of the Dominion as by you of the Bepublic. His
success was not only yours ; it was ours as well.

When the War broke out, feeling in Canada became acute.
The original elements of strife were augmented by the inrush
of Southerners. Many of the best families in Virginia and
Kentucky came for safety to Toronto, while their men went
with Bobert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. The planter
and the preacher came. Their runaway slaves had been there
already. Then came the ''skedaddler" from the South and
the '* bounty jumper'* from the North. The agent of the
Confederate Government at Richmond had his headquarters
in Toronto, and many an escapade is told of how despatches
and orders were carried to and fro through the Northern
lines. We had also the recruiting sergeants of the North and
the conspirators from the South. John Wilkes Booth and his
allies developed their schemes in Montreal. Bennett Bur-
leigh, now the famous London war correspondent, was then a
daredevil young filibuster operating between Montreal and

48 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Detroit in the Southern flerviee^ and was ringleader in an
attempt to release twenty-five thousand prisoners jErom under
the Northern grms on an island in Lake Erie. His trial
for extradition in Toronto was equalled in public interest
only by the great trial of William Anderson^ the negro nm-
away, in 1860.

At the dose of the War many of the Southern leaders found
in Toronto and about Niagara their temporary homes, and
their dignity, courte^, and fine culture made them welcome
citizens. Mr. 'Jefferson Davis himself visited Toronto im-
mediately after his release from prison, and his wife made
her home on the Canadian shore of Lake Erie, and there she
died n6t long ago.

All these conflicting forces, social as well as commercial,
were at work in Canadian public opinion during the four
years of the War. A small group remained stout supporters
of the Southern cause, but the great body of Canadian senti-
ment was with the North. While the Southern sympathizers
were welcoming with cheers the poor old President of the
overthrown Confederacy, at the wharf in Toronto in 1867,
the children of the schools throughout the country, as I very
well remember, were singing on their playgrounds, —

''We 11 hang Jeff Dayis on a sour apple tree^
As we go marching on.'

Li a book by a professor of Harvard University, published
only a few months ago, I read the statement that, '^ feeling
in the United States was greatly incensed because of the
sympathy of Canada with the South in the Civil War." My
comment on that statement is that more than forty-eight
thousand Canadians fought in the armies of the North, and
eighteen thousand of them died for the Union cause. Th^
were in the Army of the Potomac, in the Army of the James,
in the Army of the Cumberland, in the Army of the Tennes-
see, and in the Army of the Bio Grande. They were with
Grant at Yicksburg. They were with Thomas at Chicka-
mauga. They were with Custer in the West. They were with
Meade at Gettysburg. They went through the Shenandoah

THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 49

with Sheridan. They marched with Sherman to the sea.
On every great battlefield between the Mississippi and Po-
tomac the sons of Canada stood shotdders together with the
men of the Union. They languished in Libbey Prison. They
died in the Andersonville Camp. They answered your Lin-
coln's call; they followed your Stars and Stripes; th^ died
for your country *s honor; but, in death and in life, the flag
of their hearts was the Union Jack.

But Lincoln's life was significant for Canada in directions
other than those suggested by slavery and the Civil War.
His stand for Federal authority as against State sovereignty
had its effect on political opinion in Canada. During the
years of Lincoln's regime the question of the union of the
Provinces of British North America was under discussion,
and the Act of Confederation was passed in 1867. The ex-
perience in the United States was influential in Canada. The
uncertainty in the Constitution of the Republic, of which
the Secessionists took advantage, was avowedly and deliber-
ately guarded against by the Fathers of the Canadian Con-
federation. They left not a shadow of a doubt as to Federal
sovereignty.

And Lincoln's work in preserving the Union and deter-
mining that there would be but one Bepublic, even though
he may have strained the terms of the Constitution, was ap-
proved by the best Canadian opinion. I quote again from
the Hon. George Brown. In a speech of unreserved congrat-
ulations on Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, in Toronto
in February, 1863, Mr. Brown said : ^

'^o man who loves human freedom and desires the elevation of
mankind could contemplate without the deepest regret a failure of that
great experiment of self-goyemment in the United States. Had Mr.
Lincoln consented to the secession of the Southern States, had he ad-
mitted that each State could at any moment, and on any plea, take
its departure from the Union, he would simplj have given his consent
to the complete rupture of the federation. The Southern States and
the horder States would have gone. The Western States might soon
have followed. The States on the Pacific would not have been long
bdiind. Where the practice of secession, once commenced, would have
ended, would be difficult to Bay. Petty Republics would have covered

50 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

■

the eontiiMot; Midi would bave bad its itanding vtmj and its alaad-
ipg feuds; and we, too, in Oanada, were it only in self-defence, mnst
have been eompeUed to arm. I for one cannot look bade on tba his-
tory of the American Republic without feeling that all this would
have been a world-wide misfortune. How can we OTor loiget that tbe
United States territory has, for nearly a century, been an ever-open
asylum for the poor and persecuted from every land? llillions hava
fled from sufTering and destitution in eyery comer of Europe to And
happy homes and overflowing prosperity in the Republic. Is there a
human being could rejoice that all this should be endedf

That was the yiew of the soundert and best-inf onned Cana>
dian public opinion in Lincoln's own day. The yean that
have intervened have confirmed that opinion. Canadians of
to-day rise up and bless the name of Abraham Lincoln, be-
cause by him it was determined that the Canadian Dominion,
now stretching from ocean to ocean, would have to do on
this continent not with two Republics, as seemed inevitable,
not with four as seemed possible, but with one great Nation,
along the four thousand miles of international boundary, and
holding sovereign sway from the Great Lakes to the Gulf.

For that great fact in our international relationships we
in Canada give thanks with you on this Lincoln Centennial
day. All that Lincoln did in the cause of human freedom
and guarding the sacredness of human rights, he did for us
as for you. And his own great life is our inheritance as
well as yours. Under his strong hand democra<gr in the
United States survived the utmost strain, and because of that,
we in Canada are being heartened in our great task of lay-
ing the foundations and erecting the structure of another
democracy on the north half of this continent, in which all
men shall be bom free and equal, and where government of
the people, by the people, for the people, shall have another
chance.

The struggle of democracy in the United States could not
but be significant for Britain. Democracy was the organizing
struggle of Anglo-Saxon civilization. Its progress was
marked by the great monuments of civil and religious liberty,
from the Magna Charta of King John to the Reform Bill of
Queen Victoria. When your Civil War broke out, the

THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION $l

and fhe aiemies of demoeraoy in Britain took aides.
The aristocracy of England and the distinetive institations
of aristocracy in State and in Church were on the side of the
South* The great masses of the people were for the cause
of the North. The Qovemment of the day was Liberal, and,
notwithstanding what STustin McCarthy calls ^'Lord Palmer-
sUm's heedless, unthinking way/' was really in aympathy
with the Northern side.

This division of opinion in England was not generally un-
derstood in the United States at the time, and is sometimes
misrepresented even yet It was a perfectly natural situa-
tion. Nothing could be mote natural than that the territorial
aristocnuqr of England shotdd take sides with its own off-
spring, the aristocracy of Virginia, that had transplanted
to America the same social and ecclesiastical institutions —
the great family estate and the established Church— and
had adopted the same cavalier ideals of life that distinguished
the ariatooratio dasses in England for centuries. That nat-
ural affinity was made to yield pronounced sympathy by the
representatives of the Confederacy, who cultivated the friend-
ship of English aristocrats for the ''gentlemen'* of the South
•as against the ''merchants and mechanics and manufaetur*
ers" of the North.

The commercial aristocracy of England was also favorable
to the Confederacy; not that it eared for the men of the
South or for secession, or for slavery, but because of its de-
pendence on "King Cotton." When the North Uockaded
the ports of the Southern States, the entire supply of raw
cotton for the mills was cut off, and that greatest of all idf
England's industries was \M&rfy paralyzed Thousands of
mdOs were cksedL The cotton freor India could not be workedl
in fhe "B^g^^ht BEiflls. Men saw fheir entire iortunes swept.
away because of the interference' of the North with the ex-
port trade of the South. What wondev if the commercial
aristocrats, like the aristocrats of Vtood^ were out of qrmpaK
tibiy with the Northern causef

But the people of England, the great common' people,,
not witbi the aristocracy. Their leadeia and spolceimeni

52 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

were not the bishops of the Church, or the lords of the manors,
or newspapers like the Times. Once the people knew that the
real issue was slavery, their old-time and undying love of
liberty asserted itself, and to a man they stood for the Union.
The true leaders of the people were statesmen like Cobden
and Bright — Gladstone had not yet shaken himself free from
the entanglements of class-privilege in which he was bom —
and scholars like John Stuart Mill and Goldwin Smith and the
most eminent preachers in the Free Churches of both Eng-
land and Scotland. George Brown went over from Canada
in 1862 and spent more than six months in a campaign in
all sections of the United Kingdom. His influence was pow-
erful, not only with the masses of the people, but also with
the great Liberal leaders then in control in Parliament.

Let the people of the United States who rejoice to-day in
Lincoln's victory never forget how much they owe to the
common people of England for the final and complete tri-
umph of Lincoln's cause. It was by no turn of eye, or wave
of hand, that your kith beyond the sea joined in your issue
in the conflict. Within thirty miles round about Manchester,
two and a half millions suffered for your cause. The spin-
dles and looms of Lancashire and the other cotton-miU coun-
ties were silent, and the operatives day after day were within
sight of starvation. They had no work because the cotton
was unshipped in the ports of the South. They and their
families were without bread. But not one of them made comr
plaint. One cry, and there might have been a riot. One
riot, and public opinion might have been swung irresistibly
to the side of the aristocracy, and either have stampeded the
Government or driven it from office. A change of Govern-
ment would have meant Britain's interference to raise the
cotton blockade. And, with France eager for Britain to lead
the way, the appearance of the British navy before the
blockaded ports of the South at that crisis-time in the for-
tunes of the North would have meant — ^what?

And why did the people of England care so much for the
success of the Union? It was because they understood the
issue of the struggle to be life or death for human rights.

THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 6S

The democraey of Britain, that had won its own place
against the heavy odds- of entrenebed power and privilege,
was eagerly, vitally interested in the struggle of government
by the people in Ameriea. They knew what was involved
not for America alone, but for Britain as welL It was the
life-struggle of Anglo-Saxon civilization. The common peo-
ple of England had long heard the scoffs of the aristocracy
against popular self-government. In those days, before the
great Befor^L Bill of 1866, they heard the enemies of the
people's rights sneer at your free Republic. They knew how
much would be lost not for you alone, but for them and for
the Anglo-Saxon world, were this great experiment of democ-
racy in America to fail. That it should not fail they gladly
endured suffering and loss and hunger rather than give occa-
sion for their own Qoveroment and the European powers
to interfere against the Union. In ways he knew not of,
lincoln's triumph heartened Anglo-Saxon democracy and
brought one stage nearer the enfranchisement of the common

^jeople.

^^ Think for a moment of the world-significance of Lincoln.
Think what his life meant for the long, dark struggle of
the people of Europe agunst tyranny and oppression. AU
down the century they had been coming by thousands from
under the despotic i^ystems of the Old World to find freedom
and opportunity on this new continent. From France, from
Austria, from Prussia, from Italy, from Russia, from Turkey,
thqr came* Some of them were refugees from political ty-
rants. Some of them sought freedom to worship God. Here
fh^ found an open door. They learned the new language
of liberty. They sent back to their suffering brethren in
Europe great words of cheer from the land of the free.
Brave ones among them went back, and, in secret, sowed
the seeds of democracy even in the valleys of despotism.
Had Lincoln failed, had the^ Union been destroyed, had the
Bepublic proved unequal to tke strain and burden of main-
taiuing free rights for a free people, how the tyrant-mon-
arehs of Europe would have laughed ! How the forerunners
of European liberty would have been staggered! On the

54 ABBAHAM LINCOLN

sneeeBB or fhe fnutratiaii of Lmcoln's task fhe fate of de-
mocracy in Europe was trembling in the balance. But Lin-
coln did not fail. His yentnre for Union and Liberty tri-
nmphed — ^triumphed gloriously. The reflex of that trinmph
meant new hope for government of the people, by the people,
for the people, in Germany, in BruBria^ even in Torkey itaell
A handfol of seed on the tops of the mountains, and lo I the
fruit thereof shakes like Lebanon.

And not Europe alone, but Asia as welL In our day the
Orient, mysterious, vast, potential, heaves into sight above
the skyline. It means something for this Bepublic this veiy
day that Lincoln stood for the Union, and for supremacy of
national integrity over local interests. It means something
for world-peace that this Bepublic presents a united front
to the Pacific, behind it a united nation, the Stars and Stripes
over every State, and to the North the Union Jack. It means
mudi for the world-brotherhood that this Bepublie has not
only discovered its own power, but is learning its own duty,
taking its large share of the great human burden, and playing
its part for peace and good-will to the world.

And this — ^this service to democracy in America, to An^o-
Saxon civilization, to the peace and progress of the world —
is what I mean by the Signiflcance of Lincoln.

What was it in this man that gave his life so great sig-
nificancet What was his secret t How came he to speak witii
such authority? Questions such as these have been asked by
every serious student of Lincoln's career. But no answer, no
final answer, has been given.

Lincoln's life does not lend itself to the ordinary prooeases
of analysis and appreciation. A catalogue of his qualities
does not explain his life. Other men even among bis asso-
ciates were gifted beyond him in cultured intellect and elo-
quence of speech. Other men touched life at a score of
points where he touched it at one. The horizons of life
and of history for other men were wide where for him they
were near. The study of heredity does not explain Linooln,
and his environment offers no clue. Blood may tdl^ and

THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 56

types may persist, bnt not with him. No one went before.
No one followed after. He flonrished alone, as a root out
of a dry ground. In the mysterious laboratory of Nature
he was touched with the magie wand. That touch gave him
of the fire of fires. In the murky night of his early years
there glowed that invisible flame within. In the quiet of the
night-time, through the silence that is in the starry sky,
there came to him that long, far call. He was not disobedient
to the heavenly vision. He went out not knowing whither
he went

"A Hand la •treiehed to him from out the dark.
Which graaping without question, he is led
Where there ia work that he must do lor Qod.**

And he went through life as one impelled, haunted by a
sense of Destiny, shadowed by a Presence that would not be
put by. Men did not know him who heard only his ready
story and his ringing laugh. All that was but the phos-
phorescence playing on the surface ; the depths beneath were
dark and touched with gloom. He was called to go by the
sorrowful way, bearing the awful burden of his people's
woe, the cry of the uncomf orted in his ears, the bitterness
of their passion on his heart. Misunderstood, misjudged, he
was the most solitary man of his time. He had to tread
the winepress alone, and of the people none went with him.
And he turned not back. He never faltered. As one up-
held, sustained by the unseen Hand, he set his face stead-
fastly, undaunted, unafraid, until in Death's black minute
he paid glad Life's arrears : the slaves free 1 the Union saved !
himself immortall

Who that reads the Lincoln story can miss the sublime
significance of his lifet Bom in obscurity, nurtured in igno-
rance, he grew to the stature of national heroism. He wrote
the decree of Emancipation for his own Bepublic, changed
from war to peace the royal message of the mightiest Empire
of the world, and shines to-day a peerless name the world
not let die. lineoln rather than any other might have

56 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

stood as the original of Tennyson's master-statesman, for
almost as with prophetic vision the great Laureate foresaw
the rise of Abraham Lincoln, —

"Ab some divinely gifted man.

Whose life in low estate began.
And on a simple village green;

"Who breaks his birth's invidious bar.
And grasps the skirts of happy chance,
And breasts the blows of circumstance.
And grapples with his evil star;

"Who makes bj force his merit known.
And lives to clutch the golden kejs,
To mould a mighty State's decrees.
And shape the whisper of the throne;

"And, moving up from high to higher.
Becomes on Fortune's crowning slope
The pillar of a people's hope,
The centre of a world's desire."

This centennial celebration will have failed of its high pur-
pose if it ends in eulogy of the dead. Our w'ords of praise
will vanish into thin air and be forgotten. We ourselves shall
turn again to the common ways of men. The tumult and the
shouting shall die. And all this acclaim of the mighty dead
shall be but a foolish boast unless there comes to us from
out the Unseen where they abide the enduring strength and
the victorious faith by which they went up to die.

It is but vanity for us to profess honor for the name of
Lincoln if we refuse to give ourselves to carry on the work
for which he gave his life. That work is not yet done. It
cries aloud for strong hands and brave hearts. Slavery, as
he knew it, is no more, but the struggle of human rights and
social wrongs is not yet ended. The planter autocracy is
overthrown, with none to mourn for its defeat, but the sordid
and selfish autocracy of wealth and privilege and power is
insolent as ever. In the darkness of your terrible streets,
they still languish and die, by the sweat of whose faoes the
privileged and the proud still eat bread. In high place and

THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 57

in low, in this nation and in all nations, there ia still the
bondage to ignorance and selfishness and sin. Out of the
silence there comes back to ns this day the voice of him who
being dead yet speaketh: ^'A house divided against itself
cannot stand/' If indeed we would do honor to the memory
of Lincoln, let us hear his great appeal, learn his great lan-
guage of truth, catch his clear accents of love ; and here and
now let us, the living, consecrate ourselves to the unfinished
work of the dead, —

''It IS for as to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before
08, — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that
cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion, — ^that we
here highly resolve that these dead shaU 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, for the people, shall not
perish from the earth.''

A MEMORY OP LINCOLN
(A Speech of Introduction)

HON. CHABIiES H. WACKEB

THE call to preside at this meeting I consider a great
honor; and I was particularly gratified to be assigned
to this part of the city in which I was bom and reared. I
remember well when this district was barren of honses, and
I remember well the gallant soldiers returning from the
battlefields of the Civil War, footsore, weary, and careworn,
with uniforms tattered and torn, marcl^ng north in Clark
Street to Camp Fry, between Fullerton and Diversey Aven-
ues, west of Clark Street — a locality to-day solidly built np.
Well do I remember, also, the old Court House in which the
remains of Abraham Lincoln lay in state, in order to give the
people, dumb with sorrow, an opportunity of paying his
mortal remains a last tribute of love, gratitude, and respect.

No one, able to recall vividly to his mind the stirring events
of those days, can feel otherwise than I do ; happy and proud
to be permitted to assist in rendering tribute to the man
who so firmly held the rudder of the Ship of State in those
troublous times.

I wais deeply impressed by a cartoon which recently ax>-
peared in a morning paper, entitled: ''The Lincoln Forty
Years from Now," showing a boy deeply absorbed in read-
ing the story of Lincoln; with an inscription: ''There is
somewhere in this country to-day an unknown boy who will
be the country's greatest man forty years from now." May
not that boy be in this audience; may he not be inspired
by the knowledge that ours is a patriotic people, and that
we, as a people, honor and revere those who serve us wellf

Therefore I believe it to be the duty of every good Ameri-
can man and woman to do honor to those who have set lofty
examples of high patriotism, sterling citizenship, and con-
scientious discharge of every public and private duty — ex-
amples which will serve as guiding stars for the aspiratioiis
of generations to come.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN OF ILLINOIS

PRESIDENT EDWIN ERLB SPABKS

''Bom to thine own and every coming age.
Original American, emancipator, sage,
Thj oountry's aarionr, posterity's joy,
We hail thy birthday, noble son of Illinota."

IN all the annals of American history, perhaps I might say
in the fall page of time itself, there is written no stranger
case than that of the man whose birthday is celebrated to-day
thron^hont the length and breadth of these United States;
indeed, throughout aU the world, wherever American citizens
may gather together nnder the Stars and Stripes. Flung
into life in the midst of the most abject poverty, he closed
life's fitful fever the peer of kings and the heir of all the ages.
Hearing in youth the most common errors in English speech,
lie yet trained himself by his own efforts to write English
which in his Second Inaugural Address and his Gettysburg
Address may well be compared for purity to any composition
in the English language.

He was a Western President, coming from the State of
niinois, then the westernmost point reached in the choice of
a President for the United States. Bom in Kentucky, reared
in southern Indiana and Illinois, among Southern people,
he loved the South; yet, in the Providence of €k>d, he was
destined to deal the South a blow, economically and com-
mercially, from which she has not fully recovered to the
present time. Such is the strange case of Abraham Lincoln
of Illinois. '

You and I believe that Abraham Lincoln was destined by
God to perform a definite action. If there ever was an agent
created for a given purpose, we believe that was Abraham
Lincoln. How shaU we account for him t

Some say that Lincoln was a miracle. I am not willing to

60 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

let it rest at that. What is a miracle? A miracle is God
moving in such a way as to confuse human understanding.
Lincoln was not a miracle. I believe it ia your duty and my
duty, in order to ascertain why he was the man for the occa-
sion, to try to examine Lincoln by some of the great laws ol
creation which have been formulated for us.

We know that ''there is a tide in the affairs of men,
'Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune"; and there is
a tide in the affairs of the individual man which, taken at
the flood, leads on to fortune. Yet we often say that the
man and the occasion rarely meet. Sometimes opportunity
seems never to come to a man, and sometimes when the oppor-
tunity comes the man is not prepared for it. You and I will
agree that in the case of Abraham Lincoln the opportunity
came, and the man was ready, and success followed.

In the brief time I have at my disposal, I can take only
one or two of those ''great laws of creation" and apply them
to Abraham Lincohi. First, consider the law of environment
We are all familiar with the workings of that law, — ^the law
of surroundings. We have utilized it constantly in many
ways ; both in our families and in our schools. We ornament
our houses and we decorate the walls of our school buildings.
Whyt Because we believe in the influence of environment,
of surroundings. What was the environment of Abraham
Lincoln in his formative days? It was the environment of
the American frontier.

As the mass of people have moved across this continent
from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, there has always been
a front line of hardy spirits — ^the pioneers; those who felled
the forests; those who built the log cabins; those who culti-
vated the fields. We call them the frontier of the American
people, the vanguard of the onward march. Abraham Lin-
coln lived during all his formative days on what was then the
frontier, in Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois. Many charac-
teristics marked this front line of people. For one thing,
it '^wmtributed largely to American democracy. It did not
make mu^i difference out on the frontier who your grand-
father was, but it did make a great deal of difference what

THC rCNNSVLVAMIA STATE COLLCCC
orricc or tmc pkcsiocnt

Xl-x^a-fe;^ (d. ./iAxJ-4i^h<^^a , ~U>^ o^><.avuaJxt7^ imam-
AjtuCtrd -^1 (id-tCt^ tL^i^ yO^-uA J^yy^^^^d^^ a>i^

y^UA/h^ vuv4 — Oaa^ l^if-iXi ^tn^ft- /OMyMrt^^^X. ,

Facsimile of Manuscript Tribute from Edwin E. Sparks, Ei»0fl^^^\ic^J5^

of the Pennsylvania State College J^C^ ^^ • ""

?V-"^

UR^KRAL COMMITTER.

SMITH D »TKI''». «•»<•••
L H kCRnCLL. S*rtf**rt
« H WAOI«C'
C W BaKDE"
H fOrrE'VBEROER
K P EI.KBRT

w C MiL;<eR

M R MARVIN

f 858- 1908

Fiftieth Anniversary

Lincoln and Douglas Debate

Thursday, August 27th. 1908.

Free|»or!. IIIin<»is.

I'j4/f

^^r-^^

■ •'.•■■.■•,.•■ ■

-J

<«< ■^»

upt Tribute from Gen. Smith D. Atkins, of Illinois

THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 61

you could do. It was an aristocracy of worth, not of birth.
They had to do things out on the frontier, and Abraham Lin-
coln was trained in that compelling environment.

What did this frontier do for the man t In the first place,
it taught him to investigate. We do little investigating now.
Why! Because we have so many books. **What is the use,"
we say, "of spending time investigating, when we can read
it in the books t" Abraham Lincoln had very few books.
In all his youthful life he had to look into things himself.
The lawyers who travelled with him around the circuit told
that frequently when he would see a tree of unusual dimen-
sions or some peculiarity of growth, he would dismount from
his horse and examine the tree. When his little son received
a mechanical toy, the father was not satisfied until he took
it to pieces. He wanted to see how it worked — ^investigating
always. When he came back from serving his second session
in Congress, a number of members came with him. They
came over the Great Lakes, around by Niagara Falls. Most
of the party stayed on deck, talking politics, smoking, and
telling stories; but Lincoln was always down in the engine-
room, even amongst the stokers, examining everything, find-
ing out how it worked. He showed a natural talent for in-
vestigating.

Soon after this Lincoln took out his patent. How many
of our Presidents have taken out a patent t I must sometime
try to ascertain the answer to that question by looking over
the records in the Patent Office, which is a task of no small
dimensions. Lincoln took out a patent. What was that
patent T Was it applicable to Europe? Was it applicable
to the Atlantic coast, or the plains! No, it was something
needed over here, in the valley, on the frontier. It was a
scheme for navigating the Western waters at times when the
rivers were low. During the Summer season, the rivers di-
vided and sandbars appeared. Lincoln's plan was to put
buoys under the keels of vessels, and when the vessels came
to obstructions, like sandbars in the river, they would inflate
these buoys with air, which would lift the vessel over the bar.
and take it on. That was Lincoln's patent. 'He never sold

62 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

one, so far as I know, but it serves to illustrate my pointy
that he was an investigator. And, all daring the Civil War,
diplomats, financiers, ambassadors and others testified to the
wonderful way in which Lincoln investigated every matter
brought before him. He investigated it in advance. That
was what the frontier environment had taught him.

This frontier environment also taught the man extreme
caution. One man never went alone to plough in the field;
two men always went together, and while one man ploughed,
the other man watched against the Lidians. And it was said
in later times, after the country was settled, if two of these
frontiersmen met in town, that, remembering the old habit,
when they talked together they stood with their backs to each
other, on the lookout for danger. I am not sure, in these
automobile days, whether we will not return to that habit.

The frontiersman, when ploughing, had to plough so care-
fully that he would not break his plough, because he could^
not probably buy another plough within twenty miles, or find
a blacksmith within a ten miles' journey. The thing which
characterized Abraham Lincoln as President, if there was one
characteristic above another, was his extreme caution. He
moved so slowly in the Civil War that he never had occasion
to wish to retrace his steps.

I see, scattered in the audience, some people who per-
chance remember the days of the Civil War, and they will
bear me witness that Horace Greeley and other hot-headed
men constantly urged Lincoln to more haste. Mr. Greeley
called him, ''Mr. Ready-to-Wait"; ''Mr. Faint-Heart'*; "Mr.
Man-Afraid-of-His-Shadow.'' They said, "Why don't you
do something f Free the slaves! Close the War! Do some-
thing I Do something I ' ' No, Lincoln, from his frontiers-
man training, was moving so slowly that he never had occar-
sion to retrace his steps. He even: gave- a hundred day^*^
warning in advance before he issued his Emancipation Proc-
lamation. His slow motion saved the Union from breaking
its plough 1

All this frontier training taught a man to be an all-round
man. Think, what- an. alL-ronnd man* Lincoln, was. TherA

THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 65

was no pieoe-woriE on the frontier. Yon had to make the
whole machine ont there. A shoemaker made a whole shoe;
he did not pnneh a hole in a partly made shoe and then paw
it on to another man to pnneh the next hole. The blacksmith
made a whole plough. That was frontier work ; they had to
be all-ronnd men — and of such was Lincoln. He was a rail-
splitter; he was a farmer; in a small way, he was a soldier;
he was a miller ; he was a flat-boat man ; he was a lawyer —
he was an all-ronnd man. And in that crucial time, when he
became President of the United States, it needed a man who
was an all-round man. It needed a general; it needed a
financier; it needed a diplomat* The enyironment of the
frontier made Lincoln equal to the demands of the position —
for he was an all-round man.

The frontier taught him self-help. The education of the
frontier was something different from our education now-a-
days, when we frequently seek first aid to the injured in our
schools; where we can have pre-digested food, and a crutch
under each ann to try to help us along. What facilities for
education did Lincoln have on the frontier t He had to teach
himself for the most part. He was in the school of Nature.
Nature was the teacher, and Lincoln was the only student in
the

"Then Nature, the dear old nurse, took the child upon her knee.
Saying: "Here is a story book Thy father has written for thee.'"

The frontier life also taught him self-reliance. When he
floated his flat-boat down the Sangamon Biver; taking his
flour to market, he had no chart of that river. The Sangamon
was so small and insignificant that it had never been sur-
veyed by the United States Government. The navigator had
to meet each sand-bar, snag, and stump as he came to it.
Likewise, when he took hold of the helm of the great Ship of
State, whatever charts preceding pilots had used were useless
to him, because the vessel was in danger of wreck. He had
to meet each obstacle as he came to it. He was self-reliant
and confident always, because he had been taught self-
One time when some general said to him, ''Now,

64 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Mr. President, if we do thus and so now, what is going to
happen next year?" what did Lincoln answer? Lincoln said,
"You know, my friend, out in Illinois we never cross the
Sangamon River until we come to it." And that was true.
Self-reliant always — "We never cross the Sangamon until
we come to it.'*

His environment taught the man also to speak very simple
language. They had no time out on the frontier for sesqui-
pedalian words. You must say what you had to say in abort
words, of one syllable mostly. I wonder what Mark Antony
would have done with an audience of frontiersmen? He
could not have held them for hours by his subterfuge. They
would have said, " Here, Mark, show us the body or shut up;
one of the two."

But the frontiersmen spoke simple language, and that was
the most marked trait of this great American. His language
was simple. Many times the language he used was so plain,
so original, so American, that it distressed those learned
gentlemen with whom he surrounded himself in his Cabinet.
After his second election, the election which occurred in the
midst of the War, what should he have said ? A man drawn
from ordinary life would have said: "The people have de-
cided by an appeal to the ballot box that it would be extremely
hazardous to chance a change of executive in a time of great
national peril." Did Lincoln say that? No. What did he
say? He said, "The people have decided not to swap horses
in the middle of the stream." Everybody could understand
that ; they all knew what that meant.

I see here, lying upon the table, a tablet bearing Lincoln's
Grettysburg Address ; and that reminds me of another evidence
of his simplicity of composition. What were the circum-
stances of its delivery? The Oovemment had purchased
some^ of the ground on which was fought, at Gettysburg,
Pennsylvania, the high-tide battle of that great four years'
contest. A committee was appointed to make preparations
for its dedication. Of course they must have an orator, and
they asked the Honorable Edward Everett of Massachusetts^

THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 65

a Harvard graduate, a master of the English language, a
great orator, to give the oration. But there was one member
of that committee from Illinois, Colonel Clark E. Carr, and
he said, '^Qentlemen, I am from Illinois; Illinois must have
a speech there. You must have President Lincoln." The
rest of the committee said, ''He is not an orator; he cannot
shine with Edward Everett/' ''But," said the persistent
Colonel, "Illinois has got to be heard." And they finally
decided to ask Lincoln to give the dedication address — ^al-
though nobody knew just what that was ; but it was something
important. You know the story. They postponed the cele-
bration for three months to allow the great orator, Edward
Everett, to write his oration. Lincoln had three months'
notice also; but think what tasks he had to do during those
three months in the midst of the War I He had ten thousand
things to distract his attention; a thousand griefs gnawing
at his heart. Even when he started to Gettysburg he had
written only a dozen lines; and on the road there, or after
he reached there (the testimony varies), he added a few more
lines. When the great day came, what a crowd was there!
Colonel Carr sat on the platform, and testifies that Edward
Everett held those people spellbound for three hours by his
oratory. Beginning with a description of how the Greeks
buried their dead, he proceeded to discuss secession, and the
rights of the North, ending with a magnificent peroration.
When Lincoln arose to give the dedication address, there was
a great movement in the crowd. Every one wanted to see
the President. There were cries of "Order, order, order!"
"Down in front!" and before order was restored, Lincoln
had finished reading his address and sat down, amidst uni-
versal disappointment, as Colonel Clark testifies. There was
no applause at that time — ^the "tremendous applause" was
inserted by the reporters, so Colonel Carr insists. Then
Edward Everett walked across the stage to Mr. Lincoln,
reached out his hand, and said: "Mr. Lincoln, if I could
have come as near striking the keynote of this occasion in
three hours as you did in three minutes, I should be better
s

66 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

with my performance. " That was true. Whatliad
the way the Greeks buried their dead to do with the dedieat-
ing of that fieldt What had the rights of the seeession to do
with the consecration of the battleground t Nothing. Lin-
coln struck this keynote when he said: ^^We cannot dedicate
— ^we cannot consecrate — ^we cannot hallow — ^this ground. The
brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have conse-
crated it far above our power to add or detract. ... It
is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remain-
ing before us;"<— that was the point The War was not half
over — ^''that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not
have died in vain; . . • and that government of the
people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from
the earth.'' That was the very essence of the occasion. And
yet, if I take this tablet containing that immortal address and
look it over, I shall find only two hundred and aevenly-two
words in the whole address. Who reads Edward Everett's
oration nowt Nobody. But Lincoln's little speech of two
hundred and seventy-two words has become a classic^ recited
in all the schools, and will probably endure as long as the
English language endures. Whyt Because Edward Ever-
ett's speech is lofty, high, full of dassical allusions; and
Abraham Lincoln's address is in the plain language of the
people — ^the plain language of the frontier. Of those two
hundred and seventy-two words, only twenty-two are longer
than two syllables, and the rest of the words are two qrllables
or under. To get simpler language than Lincoln used on
that occasion, I am informed that you must go to the King
James version of the Bible.

Simple language ! The frontier taught him to use it The
result was that all through the Civil War the people trusted
him, because they understood him. They knew just what he
was trying to tell them ; and no ruler, ancient or modem, was
ever intrusted with the power that Abraham Lincoln used
during those four years.

Do you realize what he didt Do you realise he had at
one time five thousand editors imprisoned in the United
Statest The Constitution says that free speech and a free

THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 67

presB shall never be violated Yet Lineoln did that Whyf
In order to snppresB insurrection in certain States of tiie
Union.

Do yon realize that when the Chief Justice of the United
States, the highest judicial power in the land, issued a writ
of habeas carpus to get Merryman out of jail at Baltimore,
Lincohi refused to allow the writf Whyt In order to sup-
press the rebellion in the Southern States.

Do you realize that he confiscated hundreds and thousands
of dollars' worth of Southern slave property, when he had
no right under the Constitution to free the cheapest, meanest
slave that ever breathed t Why did he do thist In order
to suppress insurrection, and save the Union that our fathers
had given to us. The people allowed him to do this — ^the
people allowed him to use these extraneous powers, because
they knew that at the end of the War, when it was all over,
he would hand back the government to them. He would not
usurp their power. They understood him; they knew him;
they trusted him; and all because he used simple language
within the public comprehension.

Lincoln was reared in the Mississippi Valley ; he knew little
about the Old World ; he never visited Europe ; he was purely
an American. By contrast with him, George Washington
was nothing more than an English gentleman living over here
in America. I do not do injustice to the shade of Oeorge
Washington if I say that by contrast with Lincoln, he simply
reflected England. For instance, Oeorge Washington sent
to England to get his coat of arms. He had the Washington
arms in silver on the harness of his horses ; he also had it on
the coach which he used as President. You are sure to see
that coach because it is preserved in three different places
in the United States at the present time I Did Abraham Lin-
coln have any coat of armst I never saw it. If he did, the
device must have been two rails, a maul, and a wedge.
George Washington sent to England to get his family tree.
He traced the beginning of his family back to the Conquerors ;
it is just as good a family tree as you can buy now«a-days.
Did Abraham Lincoln have any family tree traced out t No.

68 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Over here <m the frontier the settlers were too hosy with the
other kind of* trees to pay much attention to family trees.
Even when Lincoln went to Congress he wrote to a man
named Linooln, living in Yirginia, trying to find ont some-
thing more abont his own grandfather*

George Washington had his clothes made in England up
to the time of the Revolutionary War. Were Abraham Lin-
cohi 's clothes made in England t It makes you smile to think
of it. As a young boy the wool for his clothes was grown in
Kentucky and spun there, and was there dyed with the juice
of the butternut tree.

The result was that Abraham Lincoln reflected the American
environment^ and Oeorge Washington reflected the Old World
environment. They were nearly one hundred years apart.
Oeorge Washington was President eight years and had one
task) and that was a foreign problem — how to keep from going
to war with England on the one side, or with France on the
other. He set the pattern for neutrality for America, which,
thank God, we have not departed from in aU the years that
have followed. He set the pattern that we should be free
at Washington from entangling alliances with other nations.
Abraham Lincoln was President a little over four years, and
what was his task? To save the American Union; a task
peculiarly American. And his. American environment, in
the Providence of God, had fitted him to meet that problem.

Lincoln was the most original American who ever reached
the presidency, and was also the most misunderstood. We
have never had a man in all American history who, in his
life, was as much vituperated and blamed, and, in his death,
as praised and deified as was Abraham Lincoln.

I wish I could show to you a collection of cartoons I pos-
sess showing how Lincoln was caricatured, how he was vilified
during the Civil War ; misunderstood always, both before and
after he was elected President. Lincoln suffered such dis-
advantage as few men have suffered when coming into that
high office. He lacked nearly half a million votes of having
a majority for President — ^nearly half a million popular votes.
Then how could he be elected t Only by means of our elect-

The Lincoln of Forty Ycara from Now

THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 69

oral qrstem^ voting by States. If the eboioe had demanded
a majority of the popular vote, Linooln would not haye been
elected. Fnrthermore, he never could have been 'elected if
there had not been a split in the Democratic party. ^Aii^|till
further, he never could have got the nomination away from
William H. Seward, of New York, if the eonvmtion had not
been held in Chicago.

The comer of Lake and Market Streets was occupied in
1860 by a great wooden structure which they called the
"Wigwam." Horace Greeley came on from New York to
report the convention, and he wrote back to his paper, ''The
Republicans have built a great structure which they call the
Wigwam. Ood help the Indians if they ever lived in as ugly
a building as this I" The second day he wrote, "The Seward
people have made a mistake in allowing the convention to
come to Chicago, because they are all Lincoln men out here."
Greeley also wrote in his correspondence to the Tribune,
"Yesterday the Seward men began the shouting, but to-day
the Linooln men had the best of it." Thereby hangs a tale
as told by David Davis, one of the Lincoln managers. Seward
had chartered a whole railroad train and sent it on to Chi-
cago full of New York supporters to shout for Seward in the
convention. They were headed by Tom Hyers, a celebrated
pme fighter, and the first day they filled the galleries of the
"Wigwam," and the Lincoln men could not get in. That
night the Linooln men went out to Evanston and secured a
man who said he was the mate, or the captain, of a vessel.
Whatever he was^ all agreed that he had a voice that could
drown any fog horn on the Great Lakes. They brought that
man in that night, and when the Seward men went out to
serenade the Seward headquarters at two o 'dock in the morn-
ing, the Lincoln men stuffed the galleries full of their own
followers, under the leadership of this captain. When the
Seward men came back the following morning, they could
not get into the building. The result was, as Greeley said,
"The Lincoln men to-day have the best of the shouting."
In the balloting they gradually won State after State, until
finally a man sitting on the toot, and drawing up by a string

70 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

the resaltB of eadi ballot as it was oast, shouted the news down
to the crowds in the street that Seward had been defeated
and that Lineoln was the nominee. The friends of Seward
ratified the nomination with tears of anguish rolling down
their eonntenances. ' ' Why, ' ' they said, ' ' we don 't doubt that
old Abe Lineoln is an honest man, but look at him I Why,
nobody ever saw such a homely man I What will his picture
look like in the campaignT Furthermore, with such a well-
known man as Seward. we could have swept the country."

I say that Lincoln was misunderstood always, both before
and after his election* You will remember that Horace
Oreeley supported Lincoln in the Tribune, and that it was
the great Republican paper. Oreeley sent a reporter to ac-
company Lincoln from Springfield to Washington, where he
was to be inaugurated. On the road down there an incident
occurred, of which the reporter sent in a description to the
Tribune, and the despatch appeared with the undignified
headline: ''Old Abe Kissed by a Pretty Girl.'' Yet it was
a beautiful and touching incident.

From a little village in New York State during the cam-
paign, a little girl wrote a letter to Mr. Lincoln. She was
only thirteen years old. The letter ran, —

'Iffr Dbab Mb. LnrcoLir: I think if you had whiaken on 7011T Imm
yott would look more like my psps; yon would b# a better looking

I suppose her father had one of the Lincoln lithographs
hanging in the house. Now, it is purely a coincidence, but
every picture of Abraham Lincoln showing him with a smooth
face was made before 1860; and every picture showing him
after he was elected President shows that he had grown a
beard during that Summer — ^perhaps to cover up his face to
some extent — that is what he said, at least. When he started
for Washington to be inaugurated, he passed through the
town where his young critic Uved. The train halted for a
few moments. In the midst of the excitement he was stand-
ing out on the rear platform of the train, and this man from
Illinois, this apparently crude, rough-exteriored man tram

THE CHICAGO COMMEMOEATION 71

the West, remembered this little girl and ealled ont to the
crowdy ^'Is there a little girl by the name of Grace Bedell in
the crowdf ''Yes," said her father, and he handed her up
to the platform. ''Well, Grace, do yon think I am any better-
looking with the whiskers than beforef Then he kissed her
and handed her back to her father. like the Master of Men,
the President-elect of these United States took the little child
in his arms and kissed her. How did it appear in the
Tribune?— '* Old Abe Kissed by a Pretty Girl"— a sneer-
ing tone. The Eastern papers saw nothing bnt the crude
appearance of the man. They knew he was the tallest man
in Illinois; they knew he was the homeliest man in Illinois;
they knew that he could wrap one 1^ about the other in a
way that no man could hope to imitate; they knew all these
things about him, but th^ did not know his good qualities.

In Albany, New York, on the road to be inaugurated, the
committee from New York came to meet him in the car in
which he was travelling. What did he do f The most natural
thing in the world. There was the committee from New
Yorl^ and he should have been overwhelmed with the honor
and the courtesy of their reception. But it did n't make any
di£Ference to lincoln, any more than if it had been a com-
mittee from E^alamazoo or Podtink. He took Mrs. Lincoln
by the arms and lifted her up to the seat, and said, "Mother,
the committee from New York is here to meet me. Tidy me
up a little bif Mrs. Lincoln arranged his tie and smoothed
his hair. The committee said, " Look at that! There is the
uncouth man who is going to the White House instead of our
polished Seward. Look at that, — * Mother, tidy me up a little
bit!"' They did not see the unusual man beneath that ordi-
nary exterior.

I am thinking of that first recq^tion after the inauguration,
and what this original President did. In those da3rs it was
customary in the White House to throw open the doors and
have all the people gather in one room to receive the Presi-
dent. The President and his wife would th^i come in
tiirough the folding doors, and go about shaking hands with
the people. By and by the company was all gathered; the

72 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

diplomats and the repreaentatiYes and all were there; th^
wanted to see what this untrained man would do in the White
House. The usher threw open the folding doors and said,
^'The Pi^ident and Mrs. Lincoln.'' In came Mr. and Mrs.
Lincoln, and, you remember, Mrs. Lincoln was much shorter
than her husband. As they came up to the first group, he
wanted to say something to put eyerybody at his ease. Every-
body expected him to say something relating to the Consti-
tution, or some other mighty subject But what did he sayt
He said, ^^ Gentlemen, here comes the long and the short of
it." Original American I What does the poet sayt

''l^ature, they say, doth dote.
And can not make a man,
Saye on some worn*OQt plan,
Bepeating ua by rote;

For him her Old- World moulds aside she thrvir.
And, choosing sweet clay from the breast
Of the unexhausted West,
With stuff untainted shaped a hero new.**

If sufficient time were at my disposal, I should like nothing
better than to take the reverse of what I have said thus far,
and show that while in the White House the training of his
Western environment never deserted him; nor did his orig-
inality. Seward might have made a better Union than
Lincoln, but Seward could never have saved the Union as
did Lincoln. Seward's policy was to get up a foreign war;
to bring in something from the outside ; to throw dust in the
eyes of the people. But you could not fool the people all
the time. Lincoln's originality solved the problem. If he
had done as Horace Greeley demanded, freed the slaves early
in the War, and if he had recognized the Confederacy from
the beginning, as many wanted him to, what would have been
the result? We should have had two governments on the
same soil in the South. But he never recognized the Con-
federate States ; he never recognized them as other than States
in rebellion. He gave us back our Southland as pure, un-
polluted, virgin-like in its character, as when it was intmstad
to his hands.

THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 73

He never eompromiaed. "Why t Becaiuie he was tanfl^ in
the Behool of Nature in the West, and Nature never oompto-
miaes. Yon have to pay the penalty of Nature every time.
And if he had lived, I believe he would have spared us that
awful period whieh we call '' reconstruction." Take the
Southern people to-day. Have they lost the bitterness of the
Civil Warf Yes, but th^ cannot forget the reconstruction.
That was a bitter period, when the '^carpet-bagger" plun-
dered the South and placed the negro in the saddle. I believe
Lincoln would have saved us that exparience. WhyT Be-
cause he was by birth a Southerner. If there is a Southerner
here, he has a right to claim Lincohi. Lincoln was bom in
the slave State of Kentucky, and he was surrounded by
Southern people when he moved over into Indiana in the
early days. Then he moved to the southern part of Illinois,
which was settled by Southern people. He loved the South.
He never wanted to take away their slaves, and to the day
of his death he snpi>orted the theory of compensated emanci-
pation. ''Let us buy their slaves, and not take their slaves
away," he said. In the midst of the War he secured the
passage of a bill by Congress offering to buy the slaves of
any State not in rebellion ; that was his theoiy. He was a
Southern man and he loved the South. One day he threw his
great long arms around Senator Speed of Kentucky, whom
he had known in boyhood. ''Oh, £^)eed," he said, "if we
could get one State, if we could only get Kentucky, to accept
our offer to buy their skves rather than take them away,
then you and I would not have lived in vain." Th^y would
not do it, and he had to take away the slaves in some of the
States, and allow the peo]^ by an amendment to the Con-
stitution to take than away in all the States.

I believe, also, on the basis of the last speech that he ever
made, that he would have saved us reconstruction. Lee had
surrendered. Great crowds flocked into the White House
grounds and called for Lincoln, who stepped out on the
south portico. His long, gaunt figure and homely face ap-
pealed to the crowd in the flaring light of the many torches.
He got the crowd quiet and then he said, "Now, my friends,"

74 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

— raising his voice to a thrilling f aketto, as he always did
when he was anxious to make everybody hear, — ^'^Now, my
friends, the good news which has reached ns, that Lee has sor-
rendered, bids ns fair to think that the end of the War is at
hand. Now will oome the great task of reconstmcting the
Union/'

^'Whether the Sonthem States have been out of the Union,
or whether they have not been out of the Union/' was the
question which Congress and President Johnston fought over
for three years. What did Lincoln sayt ''As to whether
th^ have been out of the Union or have not been out of the
Union, I consider all that merely a pernicious abstraction.
They have not been in their proper relations, and it is your
duty to get them back into their proper relations as soon as
possible."

That was his simple plan; that is the way he would have
done it. But it was not to be. Walt Whitman, the poet,
said there were three days when it seemed to him the world
had come to an end. The first was the day when he heard
that Fort Sumter was fired upon; the second was the day
he heard of the fearful loss of the Northern forces at Manas-
sas Junction ; and the third was the dawn of the April morn-
ing when he heard the newsboys crying through the streets
of Washington that Abraham Lincoln had been assassinated.
Soon after, Walt Whitman heard how Lincoln told his dream
to his Cabinet three days before his death. What other
President has ever gone before his Cabinet and professed his
reliance in dreams T But Lincoln always depended upon his
dreams. He said to his Cabinet, ''Don't worry; we shall
have another victory." Th^ said, "Have you had some
newst" "No, but I have had my dream, and just as sure
as I have that dream, we shall have a victory." What was
the significant dream f He dreamed of a ship coming in
under full sail, every mast and sail and rope in its place.
He believed that whenever he dreamed that dream, we had
a victory. Walt Whitman, after Lincoln's death, only three
days later, said, "I can interpret that dream. The ship is
the ship of state. It has come in und^r full sail; every

THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 75

and mast and rope in its place. It is the Union. The Union
is savedy but the Captain of the vessel lies dead on the deck."
And with this thonght in mind, Walt Whitman wrote these
beantifnl lines with which I dose:

"O ORptaint my Gsptftin! our Inrfiil trip is done.
The ship has weathered ereiy rode, the prixe we 10111^1 is won.
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all ezultii^
Whils follow eyes the steady ked» the Teuel grim and daring;
Bnt 0 hearti hearti heartl
O the bleeding drops of red.
Where on the deck my Captain Ues,
lUlen eokd and dead.

'*0 Captain] my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up— for you the flag is flung — ^for you the bugle trills,
For you bouquets and rlbbon'd wreaths — for you the shores a-erowdlng.
For you they call, the swayiiig mass, their eager faoes turning;
S^re, Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head!

It is some dream that on the dedk,
YouVe fallen cold and dead.

"Uj Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,
Hy father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;
The ship is anohor'd safe and sound, its ▼qyags dosed and doos^
From fearful trip the Tietor ship eomes in with object won.
Exult O shores, and ring O bells!
But I, with mournful tread.
Walk the deck my Captain Um,
JWen oohl and dea4"

THE FIOmtE OF AN AGE
. {A Speech of Jntroduciian)

RON. STEPHEN S. GSEGOBT

IT is well in this great Republic that we do not forget her
distingnished sons. B7 studying the lessons of their lives,
by frequently recalling their virtues and their excellencies^
national ideals are elevated and national character strength-
ened and developed.

We are met to oommemorate upon thig oenteonial anni-
versary, the birth and the life of a great American.

Bom in obsciurity and of humble parentage, reared in want
and poverty, denied almost all educational advantages, the
plainest of the plain people, he stands to-day, secure in the
Pantheon of Nations, the great colossal figure of his age and
time.

Disappointed and embittered, as he sometimes seems to have
been by his earlier political experiences^ he lived to witness
that great triumph of human freedom, to the struggle for
which his life was consecrated, and to which he was desig-
nated by a higher than any earthly power.

In a peculiar sense Abraham Lincoln belongs to Dlinois.
Here in this city, amid the gathering clouds of civil strife
and discord, he was selected to bear the banner of freedom.
From his humble home at our capital he went forth to his
stupendous career, to his glorious martyrdom. Thither he
was borne after the last sad tragedy, and there upon our soil
he sleeps until the earth shall give up its dead.

We knew him when we gave him to mankind. The world
knows him now ; and to the last qrllable of recorded time he
can not be forgotten.

THE GREAT COMMONER

DB. EHIL O. HIR8CH

GREAT men are like towering motmtain peaks. They
stand out in bold and sharp loneliness above the low-
lands of the many-companied mnltitade of the xmdistin-
goished and the nnf amed. And yet they are, for all their
grandeur^ of one formation with the deeper levels. But they
eateh the first flash of the morning son, and the expiring day's
regretful good*night kiss is imprinted upon their brow. And
when thus the breaking dawn's blnsh is npon them and. the
glow of the retreating twilight weaves around them its golden
halo, they loom up veritable torches kindled to light the path
fcHT the wayfarers in the valleys beneath. Like mountains,
their magnitude escapes the beholder from too near a i>oint
of observation. While tiiey live they jostle agaiiist the throng
in the market and the street Their voice rings out from the
platform, indeed, but its peculiar note is not detected because
o&ers of lesser quality have aroused the echo as well. And
they who in heated debate heard their appeal and argument
or touched elbows with them as they hurried to their daily
task, cannot but carry from the contact and concourse the
feeling that even giants are kneaded of the day that mothers
all mortality. Only when time has raised a screen between
the days in which it was theim to act their part, and sub-
sequent years — ^when what was a burning issue around whieh
flamed passion and flowered intrigue has grown to be the
eheriflSied conviction of the later bom — ^they who in the days
of their vigorous manhood were rated and berated partisans
are summoned from their graves, exemplars of patriotic de-
votion, monuments of human greatness. When they and their
generation have entered into rest, their fame leaps to the
welcoming ddes. It is hailed a talisman for the nation —

78 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

their grave a Mecca, where the f aifhf nl seek and find inqiira-
tion. The old prophets of Israel had power to break the
shackles of death even after their mortality had been laid
away in the rock-hewn tomb. This marvdloos gift u shared
by the memory of the truly glorioos.

And herein lies the deeper significance of a day like this.
The ancient Greeks fabled about a spring with magic to re-
store youth to them that courted the embrace of its waters.
It is said that as nations grow old their memorial days increase.
This is one way of stating the truth. The other is that Uiose
nations retain their youth who cherish the memory of their
great. This anniversary hour visits us to bestow upon us
new strength. It challenges inquiry whether we have prov^i
worthy heirs of the fathers. For every memory is also a
monitor. One hundred years have run their circling rounds
since the incarnation of Abraham Lincoln — ^forty and four
links of this chain mark the number of solar circuits since his
ascensiosi to immortality. What is he for ust What mes-
sage for us comes on the wing of this centenary?

Lincoln types for us the best and the noblest American.
The mountain peaks are of one formation with the lower
levels. The best that is within us had body and soul in him.
America spells opportunity. His life illustrates the verity
of this observation. In other lands birth and descent too
often decide the place where the late comer shall live his lifo.
Destiny does not signify future; it signifies past Not so
in this blessed country. The upward path to distinction is
not closed in by barbed wire. Character and capacity^ not
coronets, are the credmtials which admit to the company of
the leaders. By strange coincidence Lincoln shared one birth-
day with Charles Darwin. The name of this great naturalist
is forever, but not altogether rightfully, associated with the
theory that environment and heredity are the decisive factors
of the equation of life. It is as though Providence has in-
tended to bring out the supremacy of personality over en-
vironment, and theref<Mre called into being <m one and the
same day these two great pathfinders. If ever drcumstanees
prognosticated obscurity, those did into which Lincoln was

THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 79

inhered in the hour of his birth. He was of good stoek.
Thisy in the light of inquiry into the anteeedenti of his par*-
ents, cannot be denied. Bnt they from whoae loins he sprang
had bnt little to give him of this earth's goods. The saying
of old sages of Israel comes to mind: ''Have ye heed of the
children of poverty, for from them shall go forth glory.''
Our colonial and national history is replete with examples
yeri^ying the philosophy of this obsorvaticm, a% indeed, the
pages telling the story of Biblical times are a ronniog com-
mentary thereon. He who was to become the savionr of his
nation was welcomed to life by snrronndings like those that
witnessed the advent of another babe acclaimed by millions
the Saviour of mankind. Whatever star may have shone over
the birth-chamber of Lincoln, none in that Eientucky Betiile-
hem was aware of its prophetic brilliancy. Pover^ was a
permanent lodger in that household. It bent over the child's
cradle and dogged the faltering step of his brief years of play.
It denied him access to books and schooling. It hurried him
on to work at a time when his frame was but little equal to
the burden. It laid reeponsibilities on his shoulders when
he should have been given counsel and guidance. But all
this contrived to bring out in vigor his dower of conquering
and masterful will-power. Steel is won when cruel blows
or searching blasts stir the iron to fight. Life, too, is a Bes-
semer process. For the Lincolns, the men of genuine
American mould, every blow and every blast is provocation
to self-development. Circumstance for them is a negative
quantity. Their character, the will to attain unto manhood,
is the positive factor assuring them the victory. The booUesB
bpy dies companicm of the masters of his native tongue, and
his writings stand forth patterns of classic diction. The boy
who was denied the privilege of entering the halls of learning
and to drink his fill at the horn of wisdom which Plato and
Aristotle had brimmed, or to wing his tongue under emulation
of Demosthenes and Cicero, as a man astonishes the world with
the penetration of his insight into the ruling principles of
statecraft, the eloquence of his pleading, the acumen and
venatilily of his argument He, the awkward backwoods

80 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

lawyer, thiowi down the gatmilet to the Little Giant of the
rostrum and shows that his blade is indeed of Saracen keen-
ness and elasticity, and in attack and defence worthy of the
opponent's oft tried sword. Lincoln personalized the grit of
the American people. In him came to fullest flower and real
presence, that combination of vesonreefoInesB and stnbbom
pluck which crowned the American conqueror of the prairies'
rolling tracts, the primeval forests' tangles, the mountaina'
rocky ramparts, the riyers' raging wrath. The persistencs
and perseyerance which the nation as a whole applied to the
building of the great emporia, and the exploitation of mines,
and the erection of mills, and the spreading of markets, he
energised in making himself.

He himself throughout his rising years which lifted him
np from lowliness and set him among the princes yea, the
princes of his people — ^remained the plain, modest, rugged,
strong American. Because the genius of his people had be-
come flesh in him, he nerer lost contact with the plain folk —
after all, the supporting pillar of the great nation's greatneasy
the Gibraltar of its protection and power. Never did he at-
tempt to put them away from him. He, indeed, was the
mountain peak, in its own elevation proclaiming the prowess
of the strata out of which it rises to nearer communion with
the clouds. This kinship of his with the plain folk comes to
gratifying light in that gift of his, in his own lifetime, and
still more eacpressively after his death, the centre of an evw-
widening circle of legend. Legend always is tribute paid to
genuine greatness by neighborhood and posterity consckras
of their spiritual afbiity to the distinguished and elect, bone
of their bone and flesh of their flesh. Around neither the
ordinary nor the supercilious, is web of legend spun. In at-
tributing to Lincoln the authorship of so many stories, many
of which are doubtless apocryphal, the sound sense of the
people that has given currency to the anecdotes has for very
truth picked out the one quality in the mental equipment of
their hero which sets into bold relief his sound AmericanisuL
Irony and satire are exotics. They are bacteria incidental
to putrefaction and dissolution. Humor is indigenous to onr

THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 81

8oiL It 18 the fiaving grace of our ihtenfle predisposition to
practical realism. One might even advance the opinion that
hmnor is the yehide of expression of onr nation's poetry.
For such humor as appeals to ns has all the elements of true
poetic apprehension of great principles. It reads nniversal
facts in the gnise of individual occurrence. Our humor is
our philosophic vocabulary. Of this humor Lincoln had
abundance. It was the patrimony of his profound American-
ism. In drawing ui>on this fund he struck a note which,
coming out of the very heart of his people, found its way
into the very heart of the people. He knew his power. It
served him for a safety valve. With it he laid storms of
passion ; he disarmed suspicion. Its copious use brought him
all the nearer to the affections and respect and confidence
of the toilers, the humble men and women whose sacrifice
was all the greater in the years when the hurricane blew,
because fame held out no promise of compensation to them —
as, indeed, hope of recognition was not the magnet that drew
them on.

The typical Americanism of Lincohi is manifested also in
his genuine religiosity. For our nation is religious. The
solicitude for playing fair, so characteristic of the temper
of the American people— what is it, if not the religion of
the Golden Bulet That religion was Lincoln's. He waa
not attached to the externalities of cult. He had little pa^
tienee for the frills and f ealhers of the ritual But he had
an abounding childlike faith in Providence. This faith sus-
tained him throughout. He felt his own insufficiency. He
knew that human force is limited. In the floodtides and ebbs
of human happenings he humb^ beheld the working out of
a divine plan and purpose. His simple faith askied for no
creed. It brooked no cant. Overpowering in their simplicity
and inspiring in their honesty and earnestness are the words
with which he bade his townsmen of Springfield adieu when
he set out to take the helm of the Ship of State in the stormy
days when the war clouds were thickening: '^ Without the
assistance of that Divine Being who ever attended him [Wash-
ington] , I cannot succeed. With that assistance^ I cannot fail*

82 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

in Him who can go with me and remain with yon,
and be eyerywhere for good, let os confidently hope that all
will yet be well." These sentiments were his parting bene-
diotion to his neighbors among whom he had ^^lived for a
quarter of a centory, passing from a yoong to an old man."
No prophet ever consecrated himself to his duty more rever-
ently than did he in the sad moment of leayetaldngy wbeai
the shadow of the premonition that he was neyer to return
was, as his words show, even then upon him.

But we revere in him also the American statesman. This
term has cheapened by misapplication in these times. Were
it not that in recent years some men of light and leading
have taken their seat in the council of the nation, the plaint
of the Biblical writer would be in place, ''In those dajya
the giants were on earth." Liberty-baptised, the American
people is withal conservative and cautious. In this it is of
other fibre than the Gkillic devotees of liberty, equality, and
fraternity on the banks of the Seine. The strong strain of
Teutonic Anglo-Saxon in our blood, and the Puritan — almost
Hebraic — reverence for law as the proclamation of Divine
Will, accounts for this bent of ours. We are not mercurial.
We do not boil over. Our revolutions have not been cradled
in the cavern of the hurricane and tornado.

Our institutions do not encourage Titanic uprisings under
the discbntent of an evil hour. Th^ take away all pre-
tence of justification for indulgence in violent methods.
Freedom of speech and press afford outlet for pent-up indig-
nation, and offer a forum for just criticism. Our i)olitical
institutions correspond to the temperament of this nation,
freedom's elect. They are preventive of revolution because
they are adaptable to the growing needs and deepening wis-
dom which evolution brings in its quiet course. Our Con-
stitution is a conservative document. Discriminating and
keeping distinct, but interdependent, the various functions of
organized government, it is as justly balanced as the rock which
takes from it its name, and which may be swayed by a dcBd,
yet has all the elements of strength and endurance. In cre-
ating the Supreme Court, this instrument provided an agency

THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 88

throngli which the growing life of the nation eonld be incor-
porated into this bill of rights. It may be said that the
Convention which framed the charter of American liberty and
devised the means for legislation^ adjudication, and adminis^
tration to make liberty effective as law, merely modelled
the dead materiaL It was the Supreme Court that breathed
into it the spirit of life. That instrument, like all that
comes from the hand of man, was not perfect It was tiie
child of compromise and concession. It left unsettled a very
imi>ortant issue. Was the United States a mere federation
of sovereign States or did the States derive their sovereignty
from that of the Nation t

This i>erplexity would not have been fraught with grave
peril, had not, at the same time, the legacy of slavery been left
to the young Bepublic. Soon after the birth of the United
States, the harvest of this original sin began to ripoi. Forty
years of wandering in the wilderness, compromise, and tem-
porizing retarded the entrance into the Promised Land of
peace. Passions and distrusts, not the cloud of Qod nor the
pillar of divine light by night, decided the route. In New
England first, the old Puritan found its voice of protest. It
woke a ready echo in the young West When Lincoln made
his bow on the stage of public and political life, slavery and
its extension into new territory was dividing the people, and
keeping the public mind at fever heat His elevation to the
presidency sent the nation into the valley of decision, a valley
which at times took on the terrible aspect of the "valley of
the shadow of death.'' Statesman |Ljncoln had defined his
position clearly in the historic debatSTwith Douglas. ^Not a
politician of the modem cast, but one of the old mould,
knowing that party is a means to an end and patriotism
must sanctify partisanship, he spoke out when silence and
^ambiguity might have been personally more profitable for
^him. '4^ house divided against itself cannot stand" — ^this
^prediction cost him the senatorship, but won him the presi-
den<7. ^nd yet when the responsibility of the high trust
was lai^on him, to many he seemed, all of a sudden, to be
stmek with hesitating indecision. The Abolitionists were not

84 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

fdow to utter their bitter impatience. In his biding his time
he displayed his mastership as a statesman. The deliberate-
nesB of his executive action reflects the sterling conservatism
of his Americanism.

No other man ever ascended throne, or assumed the pilot's
diarge of the Ship of State, under more disheartening dr-
eumstances — ^the nation cleft into two — ^the North, not a
united band, to support him — ^the enemy prepared, the Union
unequipped 1 Armies had to be created, navies had to be
built, the treasury had to be filled, the finances put on a work-
able basis, the jealousy of the European nations to be dis-
armed and thwarted. Lincoln had loyal helpers, men of
genius and of eminent power of organization. Yet his was
the supreme responsibility. He, the man of tender, Bympsr
thetic heart, had to give the word that sent thousands to
their death, millions into the furnace of fire. No wonder that
his face assumed an expression of deep sadness. It seemed as
though in the lines of his brow, in the look of his eyes, were
symbolized all the pathos of those four years of doubt and
daring, of suffering and striving. Bqsublics are never so well
armored for the bloody business of war as are autocracies.
Where the king's will is the supreme law, the petly bickerings
among the chieftains are soon hushed. Not so in a Republic
Cooperation among the various commanders is much more
difficult to secure. With all this and worse, Lincoln had to
contend. He bore his cross cheerfully, for he had an abiding
faith in the destiny of his nation, a wonderful confidence in
the loyalty of the common people. What share he had in
directing to final and glorious victory the engine of war, what
his part in the financing of the gigantic combat, what inspira-
tion came from him in the work of keeping the European
detractors of our liberty at bay, we know better than they that
lived through those terrible years of suspense and darkness.
Latest memoirs of the chief actors in this stupendous drama
have thrown onto the screen the astounding certainty that
this country-bred, lank, lean lawyer proved to be a strategist
of no mean calibre, a financier of high resourcefulness, a
diplomat of wide outiook. He was a statesman who has had,

*i.

THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 85

and will have, bat few peen and no superior in the annals of
the onflowing centuries.

We sons of Illinois particnlariy rejoice that he was ours.
We gave him to the Union. Among ns he spent his years of
preparation. It is significant that the President that sa^ed
the nation was a Western man. The issues around which the
War was fought had indeed become acute in measure as the
West became a factor in the destiny of the nation. Wa?e
the new States to be kept clean of the blight of sla^ryt
That was the pith of the dispute. The wheat and com belt
would not pay homage to King Cotton. It seemed to be in
the order of things that the leader should hail from the West
Western regiments, in sober truth, composed the 61ite of the
army, as the West had been the most pronounced adversary
of State rights and secession. This West was peopled by im-
migrants. They had pilgrimed with the sun from New Eng«
land, the classic home of Pilgrim civilization ; and then from
Germany, lovers of freedom, idealists, and dreamers, yet
sturdy farmers and clear thinkers withal; and also from
Ireland, carrying with them the hatred of despotism and the
flaming courage to dare and to do. These new wheat fields
furnished sustenance to the fighting nation. Their wealth
made good the deficiency caused by the blockaded shore line
of the cotton-raising States, for cotton had been the nation's
means of exchange for Europe's advances in money and am**
munition.

The ways of Providence are strange. Three days after
Lincoln's birth, another American was laid into his mother's
arms, who was to revolutionize the patriarchal methods of
bringing into the granary the fruit of the field-^jrrus
McCormick, the inventor of the reaper. His invention, per-
fected shortly before the outbreak of the War, multiplied
every arm on the field, and in the bam, and on the threshing
floor, tenfold. The time element was reduced most mar-
vellously in the equation of harvesting. Thus the rich acres
of the West could spare the sturdy men that enlisted in the
Union's battalions, and yet their blessing, the staff of life,,
which they offered so abundantly, could be milled and mar-

B6 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

keted* The Wert was made available for the defense of the
flag by MeCormiok's mechanical substitate for human hands.
The President from the Wert, when the firrt victories also
were those won by the Western army corps under generals
from the Wert, saw the dawn of peace light up the Ay with
new hope, but then — another Moses, vouchsafed merely a
prophetic vision of the realization — ^he had to lay down his
life that the new covenant of love might be finnly sealed Iqr
his blood.

When he fell, the world wept They that but yesterday
had carried the musket for the defense of what they believed
to be their rights, the men who wore the battle-tattered gray,
felt that in him they lort their truert friend. Monarchs shed
a tear at his bier. The noblert of rulers had ascended to
glory. They knew none to the purple bom who bore es-
cutcheon more lurtrous than was his, the great commoner '&

But we at this hour murt not f orgrt that memory spells
also monition. How do we measure up againrt himt He
laid tribute on the graves of those that died that the govern-
ment of the people, for the people, and by the people might
not perish. No enemy from without, indeed, is threatening
the permanence of our institutions, the independence of our
State, the prosperity of our people. We have been garnering
the harvert of the day of Appomattox. Ours is now a world
empire. But is ours, for all this, a government of the peo-
ple! Is it not a government of politicians, for politicians!
Serious quertion this, inviting searching of the heart Has
increase in wealth tended to undemocratize our manners,
our ambitions! Has it obscured our ideals, placed near the
altar new, strange deities wrought of gold! Are these the
Qods that have led us forth out of Egypt, out of the crucible
of trial and distress! Has there been profounder reverence
for law among us, the heirs of the men that were giants in
those gigantic days!

Great men are mountain peaks. As we look up toward the
peak named the Martyr-Saviour-President, shall the lifted
finger, tipped with the gold of glorious sunshine, not be for
ua sign and symbol that our way shall lead upwards! The

THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 87

mountam range of which he is the highest point embraces
many crests. Orant, Seward, Stanton, Sherman, Sheridan,
Liogan, Schurz, Sumner, Morton, Yates, Curtis, and a host of
other names tell their significance. Yet high as they are,
their height is worthily crowned and completed in the one
that stands oat above all in superb majesty — ^Abraham Lin-
csobi.

THE GREATEST APOSTLE &P HUMAN LIBEBTT

{A Speech of Introduction)^

GOL. JOHN B. MARRHATiTi

^TONE of the many exercises held to commemorate the
i one hnndredth anniversary of the world's greatest cit-
izen, is more significant and fitting than the one we are
about to begin. I say this : No race of people within the
•borders of our common country can appreciate so much the
greatest apostle of human liberty as can the negro race.
The name of Abraham Lincoln will live always, wherever
Isbe 'cause of liberty and freedom is revered. His name was
near and dear to the hearts of every negro in the darkest
and most perilous hour of the nation. The time was when
our faith in him was strained and taxed to the utmost; but
it never failed, for he felt, in spite of the dark clouds that
hovered around and about us, that the hour and the instru-
ment of our redemption had met in the person of Abraham
Lincoln.

And so we are here to express our gratitude for the vast
preeminent services rendered to our race and to the nation
by that great emancipator, Abraham Lincoln.

On behalf of the Lincoln Memorial Centennial Committee
appointed by the Mayor of our city, I take great pleasure in
introducing as the chairman of the evening, Dr. A. J. Carey.

* Delivered before the meeting of the Eighth Infantry (Colored), tnd
the Colored CitizenB' Committee.

THE UNFINISHED TASK
{A Speech of Introduction)^

BXV. A. J. OAK»r

ONE hundred years ago to-day the wilds «I l^BtitaAj
gave to America an Amerieazi, nigged as his surround-
mgs in all save his kindliness of spirit, unprepossessing in
all save his beauty of soul. The world saw him while he
lived, as through a glass, darkly. To-day the vision becomes
more distinct, although not altogether clear.

The heroie effort made this week by old America in mem-
ory, by new America in prophecy, to find itself, to know
itself, is worthy of so noble an occasion. From church, from
sehoolhouse, from college, and from public hall one and the
same strain floats forth: ^'Lincoln, Liberty, and Love.''
The quiet of the private home, the noises of the busy mart,
are lost in one great anthem, one mighty paean of praise.

That marvel of the twentieth century, the daily press, has
labored overtime that none may be ignorant, that even the
humblest may know and receive inspiration from Lincoln's life
and times. fThe minor strain, the note of regret, is, that the
life then just beginning should have been laid so untimely
as a sacrifice on its country's altar, leaving its task un-
finished.

The unfinished task, who wiU assume itt The task of
loving the nation — ^not the sections simply but the nation —
into one ; the task of throwing himself with Qod, and count- (/
ing a majority on the side of the oppressed ; the task of doing
the right as Gk>d gives him to see the right

If the spirit world haa interest in this material world,
how depressed must be the spirit of Lincoln at the backward
swinging of the pendulum, at the retreat of American senti-

*DaliTered before the meeting of the Bighth Infaiitry (Colored),
ftnd the Colored Cttkens' Committee.

92 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

looked forward to as the outcome of the emancipation of
the Blave.

We have come to a period in the discnssion of this question
when we must regard truth and not sentiment; when we
must see fact and logic, and not be driven by whim. No
race can be fully set free by shot and shell. Gunpowder
cannot liberate a man in the truest and fullest sense of
^ term. Shot and shell make a beginning; but freedom
is not ''of the earth, earthy." Abraham Lincoln repre>
sented the American nationality — ^the American nationalism,
— a mighty thought

We have the proudest Bepublic under the sun. It is a
Republic not composed of white men nor of black men, but
of men, free men. Freedmen do not make a Bepublie.
This is a Republic of men — ^free men, in the broadest sense
of the term. The removal of the shackles is only the be-
ginning of the mighty battle in life wherein the slave is to
be ultimately redeemed and incorporated into the body politic
as a factor in the life of the American nation. This period
is one in which the battle is of thought and ideas; it is a
battle for the supremacy in thought-products, in the mas-
tery of the forces of nature in producing those elements that
contribute to the advancement of civilization, and only the
man who contributes to this desired end should be incorpo-
rated ultimately into this body politic. It is time that we
should face this great question that fundamentally affects
oitiienship.

I am not afraid to use a term here which I can explain
satisfactorily to any thinking man. Lincoln's idea and the
idea of the broadest statesman was that the liberated slave
should ultimately become amalgamated with the American
Republic and become a member of this great nation. For,
as he said, ''The nation cannot long survive, permanently
survive, one half free and one half slave." Even so, like-
wise, it cannot permanently survive with a great body of
freedmen that have no right and title in the Republic as
citizens to help direct its life and establish its destiny.

The American negro must understand that he must enter the

THE CHICAiOO COMMEMOBATION 9S

battle of life and fight to-day the mightiest battle on the face
of the globe. No man in the flesh has ever had such a oon-
fliet before him. It is the most difficult and the most danger-
ons nndertaking on this footstool. For, look at the conditions
that have snrronnded him. He came from between the
plough handles, with only a kiiLowledge of ploughing. He
was thrown into the lap of this mighty Christian civilization,
and he was given the right of citizenship — a fearfol boon
to confer upon any unprepared man in any Republic For
the man who has the right to vote, has the right to be voted
for.

I have no hesitancy in saying that it was hazardous at
the time to place in the hands of these ignorant ex-slaves
the ballot. Hear me through upon this dangerous question.
I recognize that I am now walking upon eggs. I also recog-
nize that there are some eggs that should be walked upon.

Look, if you please, at the pedigree of the ancient black
slave. What did he have behind himt The stoiy is a
pathetic one. It is one that is full of sorrow and of intense
interest From the mud puddles of Africa, in the Provi-
dence of God he was dragged, as it were, with hooks of
steel, and transplanted upon this American continent.
There was nothing back of him of which be could be proud —
no illustrious pedigree. His firmament was a starless firma-
ment; his history was unproductive of great men or great
women. When I think of what he came from, the story of
the young son of the Orand Marshal of Paris comes to my
mind. This young man was walking in the streets of Paris
one day, when a company of young Frenchman gathered
around him and began to taunt him. One of them said,
'^I have the blood of a duke in me. What blood is in you,
sirf Another said, ^'I can trace my ancestry back to a
queen. How far back can you go, sirt" And a third one
piped up and said, ''I can go back, back, back to the mighty
days of Charlemagne. How far back can you go, sirf"
Finally the last one lifted his voice and said, ''I can trace
my ancestry back, back, back, away beyond the mythological
d^ys of Julius Cesar when the Druids drank the blood o£

94 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

their victims ont of the dralls of the dead. How far baek
can yoQ go, sirV* Then the yonng man rose, his eye as
the wing of the raven nnder the blaze of the son, and shouted
back to them and said, '^Gentlemen, you are descendants; I
am an ancestor. Your history has been written ; I am going
to write one. Yon have been made; I am going to make
somebody ! ' '

I look about me upon this platform and I see representa-
tives of the mighty race that lived in the days when the great
Irish bishop drove the snakes out of Ireland. I see here at
my left, and at my right, and just behind me, and all throng
the audience, representatives of that mighty yeomanry that
stood in the presence of the weakling King John, and com-
pelled him to sign ''Magna Charta,'' to assure the rights of
the people of England. I look at others. Who are these
men T These are the descendants of the men who followed in
the wake of the mighty Oustavus, who, singing the battle
hymn of Martin Luther, bit the dust and died for the liber-
ties of his people. These men had ancestors who were kings
and queens, who were the writers and wreckers of constitu-
tions and of governments ; ancestors who vnrote books of law
and laid the foundations of nations; ancestors who were
mighty with pen and sword, who dominated the forces of
sky and earflL These white men who sit here in the pride
of American citiasenship are the descendants of an illustrious
ancestry. But who am I f Where did I come ^f rom t

I dare not step back one foot lest I fall into the pit from
which God Almighty, through Abraham Lincoln, digged me.
Even now, with the memory of my ancestors illuminating my
brain, I can hear the pathetic wail of the bloodhound that
tracked them through the South. I have no kings and proph-
ets back of me. No queens illuminate the firmament of my
history. No men who wrote constitutions and laid the foun-
dations of a government are back of me.

Who am I f The blue-eyed Saxon had his history written ;
the black-eyed Hamite will write his. He has been made; I
am going to make somebody. ''He is a descendant; I am
an ancestor!'' It is my business since the Proclamation has

THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 95

been written, to take hold of the num of my ignorant people
of the Sonth-Hlocile, tractable, easily monlded and easily
guided — and monld them, and make a mighty people out
of them. Once upon a time I used to be disturbed when it
was said that the negro came from the monkey, the baboon,
the chimpanzee, and the gorilla of Africa. I can remember
attending a white Sunday-school where the superintendent,
an old shouting Methodist, once made my boyish teeth
chatter and my knees smite each other by saying, ''Boys,
I don't know where you came from; it is said you came
from the monkeys of Africa.'' And I can remember how I
trembled. To this day, with certain people, if you want
to throw a wet blanket over the meeting, mention monkeys.
Now it does not trouble me one whit. If any man can show
by history, Bible, logic, or fact that I am a descendant from
the baboon of Africa, I will prove that a baboon can have a
respectable son. I don't care for a past. I ask to-day,
''Where are you going!" "What are you?" not "Where
did you come from T " I don 't care whether I had any grand-
fathers or not I don't want to be an angel ; I want to be a
man — ^not a black man, but a man though black.

In this mighty country we have a Republic that is based,
not upon the color of the skin but upon a national idea.
Nationalism makes a Republic, and not blood or color. In
the ancient days of Greece and in the present days of Italy,
China, and Japan, blood makes a nation. Blood may make a
race or an ancient nation, but blood does not make a Democ-
racy ; it does not make a nation in the broadest sense of the
term. In this country we have all races, all types of man-
kind to make the American Republic. You sang here this
evening "The Star-Spangled Banner." You doubtless have
sung already to-day or will sing, "My country, 'Tis of
Thee." That spirit of sentiment makes a citizen of a Re-
public— ^the sentiment of loyalty to the flag, to the Consti-
tution, and to the institutions of the land. But you must
understand that the conditions of life favor you in the
battle and in the struggle for existence. We must struggle
for the preservation of the nation, the building up of one

96 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

homogeneoTU natioii; not homogeneoiii in its blood bat ho-
mogeneous in its Nationaligm. I want to iay I have no f ean
as to the twaddle and superficial talk about the destruetion
of the bloods of mankind^ for down underneath all of this
frothy discussion there is but one race and it is homogeneous
in its divine endowments.

It is not my place to discuss a theory of the library, but to
face the facts of life ; namely, just as you are, just where you
are, in the station of life you are in, you must fight the battle
of life. And it is a fight in which superiority will nuinifest
itself in the ultimate development of character.

Finally, the character of the individual, in his mind power,
his heart power, his hand power, and in the production of
those elements that are the best, constitutes the superiority
of man. In this development and in this tremendous strug-
gle we have a part and lot. Starting with very little to un-
learn, with everything to learn, with all the benefits of a
western civilization within hand-reach, the American negro,
in the face of untoward circumstances has made tremendous
strides towards victory. I grant that there are obstacles, and
I don't weep over obstacles. Though he is crowded back
at times, I am not discouraged.

I come from a section where, if a black man gets anything,
he gets it upon sheer merit. He has to struggle in the face
of opposition; and yet, after all, he is winning his way in
the accumulation of properly, in the estimation of good men
and good women; he is making character, and we believe
down in (Georgia — down there where occasionally we string
a man up— we believe, we black men and white men, that
down there in Qeorgia, we will fight this battle out and win
it. All around us representative white men rise up and
say to us: ''Stand your ground, we will stand with you.'^
Some of the best men are fighting with us and are standing
at our side.

This celebration of the hundredth anniversary of the birth-
day of the great, martyred War President is observed all over
the country, and we believe that ultimately we shall have
a nation in this country that is united in its faith, in its

THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 97

zeal, in ito abeolate eqiudily of political prerogatavw, in its
great purpose to make this the proudest nation on the face
of the earth.

Just one other thought and then I am through. You must
remember that in the City of Chicago, in the great State of
Illinois^ you have your part to do in this great battle. You
have greater privileges than we have in the black belt of
Alabama. Every door is oi>en to you. You have yet to
show in the years to come that you can wring out of your
privileges the large good that we have wrung out of our
disadvantages. In university life, in trades, in the aeoumu*
lation of wealth, in the building of an honest character, in
the making of men in face of dificulty without being dis-
couraged, in meeting opposition without taking to the woods,
you have yet to show that you can surpass your brethren
on the plains of Texa&
v* I believe that we shall ultimately conquer in this great
^ battle of life. We have great problems before us — great
r[ questions are under discussion. The negro should become
^ a participant in the discussions and contribute to the life
of the nation. I am glad of this privilege to bring this word
of encouragement to you from the far South, from the land
where you think it is extremely hard. Yes, it is hard, in
some places. You have opportunities here that I sometimes
covet, but I would prefer to ride in a box car in the South
as a man doing something, fighting a battle, to riding in
a palace car up here and generally doing nothing else.

You must liberate yourselves ; you must not have anything
more done for you. Legislation cannot make men, it can
only prepare the way for the development of men. Law
never makes one man equal to another man ; there is no such
thing as equality of manhood, and the American nation does
not believe in this figment. You cannot make me believe
that a certain black man is equal to a certain white man ; and
you would have a hard job to persuade me that a certain
white man is equal to a certain black man.

Baces differ, like individuals. They differ in their apti-
tudes, in their intellectual wpaf^::\^i^, Baigbty German

7 y^' *'. ^ *'^*

()«'

98 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

race is philowipliie in its temper; the versatile Frenchman is
mathematical in his make-up; the nnconqnered Anglo-Saxon
is the scientist and the moralist of the world ; and the negro is
the musician of the world.

I belieye that a man must himself make himself superior.
You must make yourselves^ you must liberate yourselves.
Brain, cultivated brain, educated brain, skilled hands, a
divine hearty a noble purpose, lofty ideals, the vision that
reaches to the White Throne, make men — ^nothing else. Ton
must not measure the man by the color of his skin. Great
as Abraham Lincoln was, he was not great because he was
white. He was great because he had a great soul in him.

The man of backbone has heart and will and courage and
skill. The race is yours. Enter the battle. Don't ask to
be given a chance. Don^t plead for a chance. Enter the
race. Make a chance. Take a chance. Fight the battle of
life, and the time will come when the gray mom shall usher
in that beautiful day when we shall be able to say, ''It it
daybreak eveiywhere. "

LINGOLN: THE FBIEND OF ALL MEN •

KATHAK WIULUK lUO

•»:i J.

IT 18 peeoliarly fitting that in the oelebiaticNi of the Oenten-
ary of Linooln yon should have a eonapienoiui part Surdy
no one has a larger intereet in Abraham lineoln, his life
and his serviees. As a hoy I was bronght up with a venera-
tion for him second only to that for the great Master himself.
My father had the priyilege of knowing him intimately^ and I
have, theref ore, in connection with this celebration, felt, in
sddition to the great interest in Lincoln which every American
dtizen mnst have, a little of that personal interest which one
may sometimes fed becanse of his father's frienddiip for
the man himself .

Lincoln stood, as no other man has ever stood, for the ideals
of the entire nation. He was the embodiment of American-
um. It is seldom that a man can be looked to as Lincoln was
by all classes of society, by all sections, by all nationalities.
Yet it has been the privilege of Lincoln within a smgle gen-
eration to come to the position where tribute to him knows
no aectional lines — ^no North, no South; no East, no West; no
rich, no poor; no Jew, no OentUe; no white, no black; all turn
to him in homage.

It matters not from what direetioii we view Lincoln, he
appears equally great Most men, as you look at them, seem
to have a narrow side. Not so with him. He looms as large,
in our estimate of him, regardless of the angle of approach.
He stood for the equal rights of man, for equal opportunities
for all men. He stood for freedom of labor and an oppor-
tonity on the part of every man to earn an honest living,
uninterrupted by economic conditions or political restrictions.

*Ab tMrmB deUrered More the Sighth Infuitiy (Colored), sad
the Colored Cttiaois' Comiiiittee.

27C962B

100 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Would that his spirit might inspire this nation, as never before,
as the result of this celebration. Lincoln was indeed, as I
have said, the very apotheosis of citizenship. We bave deified
him — and vesy justly so^-^as no other man in public lite, until
to-day we turn to him with very worship, because he stands
for our ideals, for our aspiraitions, for all that is best in us
and in our nation, and as the hope for the future.

We can only hope that this observance of Lincoln and hm
life and deeds will not end with' this night, nor with the cele-
bration itself, but may take lasting form in an increase in
appreciation of the principles for which he stood ; in a deeper
inculcation of those principles in the hearts of all the people
North and South, in order that his ideas and ideals may be
worked out through the political institutions of this countiy,
as he desired them to be.

There are some who think Lincoln did not have a special
interest in the people I have the honor of addressing to-night.
I think they are very poor students of history. They have
failed to catch even a spark of the genius of the man whose
anniversary they are celebrating. They have failed to see
that heart, kindled for the interest of all the races, as was
that of no other man of his time. It is true he refused to
sacrifice the Union and to precipitate a crisis, but awaited the
strategic moment in order that he might fulfil a life-long
purpose and prove to all the peoples of the earth that the fore-
fathers knew what they were about, and that the Declaration
of Independence means what it says.

I have no patience with the man who takes the view that
emancipation was a mere question of war expediency, who
thinks that Lincoln was en narrow in his view, and who re-
gards with prejudice and alarm any other interpretation of
that culmination of Lincoln's hopes and purposes. I have
no use for the man who cannot see in history that Lincoln
stood for things he said he believed. As is the case with any
great man, if we acknowledge him to be great, we must be-
lieve him to be sincere, and Lincoln has said in substance, he
has said in his words, in his deeds, that he meant that all men

THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 101

should be equally free, with equal privileges and equal op-
portunities before the law.

Abraham Lincoln was a man of the people. He stood for
Americanism. He was, as has been said, '^the first Ameri-
can/' because he was a product of all the forces that had
gone to make America, and in him were all the elements which
make America great and differentiate it from the older civ-
ilizations and the old world. He was the friend of all man.
In Lincoln the hopes and aspirations of us all find expression,
and I pray that he may be followed in these latter days as an
example, for political action, for the highest and best citizen-
ship, for the type of manhood that makes for progress in the
democracy of the world.

I would like to take occasion here to say that the city of
Chicago is proud, I am sore, of this great mass meeting here
to-night. The general Committee has found the ofScers of the
Eighth Infantry and of your Committee ever ready to co-
oi>erate with it and an admirable desire on their part to for-
ward the purposes of the cent wary which has inspired us to
give much time to it, and to go forward with an enthusiasm
to which the prospect of such a celebration as you have heee
to-night in no small degree contributed.

On behalf of the Committee of One Hundred, it gives me
great pleasure to-night to present to the Eighth Begiment,
to place upon the walls of its regknental armory, a bronze
tablet containing the Gettysburg Address of Abraham Lin-
coln, that lofty statement of patriotism which has never been
excelled. I trust that it may be an inspiration to the men of
that regim^t, as it was to the men of the regiments of Lin-
coln's time, and has been to all American citizens who have
taken the trouble to read its lines and observe its lessons.

I deem it a high honor to be here as a representative of my
city upon this memorable Centenary, which will long live in
the annals of our metropolis, and to speak here on behalf of
that city in commemoration of the man who has stood, as no
other man has ever stood, for Americanism and everything it
represents to all of us who strive to make justice and equity
between men the guiding principle of our laws and their en-
forcement.

THE NEOBO'S PLACE IN NATIONAL LIFE*

HON. ynuuAU j«.oai4HOuk

I DID net know until a few days ago that I was e:qpeeted
to speak at this meeting, and I have not had time to give
mueh thought to what I shall say to yon. Indeed, I am
very much in the same frame of mind as was the colored
minister of whom I once heard. He belonged to a ministerial
assooiationy where ministers were wont to come together to
discnss questions afFeeting the church and their professional
work. One afternoon they had up for discussion the suh-
ject of the preparation of sermons. One of the brethren
said he always selected his text on Monday morning for the
following Sunday's sermon. He thought of it all through
the week; subdivided it into its various heads; and filled
in the skeleton or outline thus made, by reflections from day
to day throughout the week ; so that when Sunday came, he
had his sermon complete in his mind. The colored brother
said he did not like this plan; that it was not the way in
which he prepared his sermons. He did not like the proposed
plan for the reason that it is well known that the Devil is
always loose in the land, sometimes roaring like a Uon, some-
times bleating like a lamb; that he is very smart; that he
knows everything going on; and he would know the text
selected so far in advance, and would be folly informed
as to idmt the sermon was to be. He would thoa go to
work on the minds of the members of the congregation,
and get them in a mental condition which would prompt
them to resist the influence of the sermon; so that when
it was delivered, it would do no good whatever. So, he said,
his way was, when he went into the pulpit, to open the

*An addrew delivored before the meeting of the Eighth InlRAtiy
(Colored)^ and the Colored Citiienfl' Committee.

THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION lOS

Bible and take for bia text the first vene his eye fell upon ;
and then neither the Devil, himself^ nor anyone else would
know what he was going to say.

Speaking of preachers, it reminds me of another story I
heard of an old Scotch Presbyterian minister, who was very
fond of theological or dogmatic discussions. He prided him-
self on his familiarity with the Scriptures. He never had
to open the Bible to quote a verse or cite a passage ; but, like
everyone else, he sometimes made mistakes, only he was never
willing to admit it. He had in his congregaticm a very
critical deacon by the name of Sandy McPherson, who was
also fond of dogma ; he always listened closely to the minis-
ter's sermon, to see if he could find any slip or misstate-
ment of doctrine; if he did he was very quick to express
his dissait, and to argue the question with the minister.
He sometimes spoke right out in meeting, and expressed his
objections. One Sunday the minister went into the pulpit
and said, ^'My brethren, I will take for my text this momii^
the miracle of our Saviour wherein he fed five men on five
thousand loaves and fishes. ' ' And Sandy McPherson said out
loud, '*HuhI I could do that myself.'' The minister did not
notice the mistake or the interruption, but went on with his
sermon. Afterwards his attention was called to the mistake
he had made, but he said nothing. The next Sunday he went
into the pulpit and said, **My brethren, I will preach this
morning on the miracle of our Saviour wherein he fed five
ikouiond men on five loaves and fishes"; and then looldng
down, he said, ''Sandy, could you do thatt" And Sandy
promptly rq[>lied, ''Aye, I cud.'' "Well, how cud yout"
said the minister, and Sandy said, "I would feed them with
what was left over from last Simday."

Speaking seriously, I wish I could utter the thoughts that
are struggling in my mind for expression. I would bring
a mesnge to you, one that would help and comfort you.
In the celebration of Abraham Lincoln's birth, we naturally
^liiiTifc- of you. No such celebration would be complete unless
you had a part in it. The shadow of the great tragedy in
which he died hangs over you.

104 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

The Civil War was a contest in which life and blood and
treasure were spent without stint. Men — strong men — ^were
fighting and dying, and women were weeping everywhere.
It was a terrible straggle. And your race was the cause,
the helpless and innocent cause, of it all. For men may
talk about the Constitution, the relation of the States to the
federal government, and of the right or wrong of secession
or coercion — ^the fact remains, that you, the negro, were the
innocent cause of the whole trouble.

I know of no race which has had so much to contend with,
so many obstacles to overcome, so many limitations to endure,
as your race has had. In the first place, your ancestors were
hunted down in the forests of Africa, bound hand and foot,
thrown into the foul and sweltering hold of the slave ship,
brought to America, and there sold into slavery like beasts of
burden. Your people toiled for long years in the develop-
ment of a country, in the blessings of which they had no
share. When the moral sense of the country was aroused,
and the agitation against slavery arose, the War was inev-
itable, it had to be. God's balances of right and wrong for-
ever hang across the skies. In those balances our country
was weighed and found wanting. It was written that every
groan from the breast of a slave should find an echoing
response in the groans of a nation's misery; that eveiy drop
of blood that trickled from the back of a slave, under the
lash, was to be weighed against the richest and most precious
blood of the nation; that every cry of the slave mother,
mourning for her lost child, should be answered back by
the cry of other mothers, mourning for their children dead
upon the field of battle; and that every dollar made in the
slave traffic should be lost in the devastation of a great war.
Such was the penalty, that this nation paid for the wrong
done your race.

But now that slavery is gone, that the shackles have been
removed from your limbs, and you are free, what have yon
done with your liberty, for yourselves, for your children, and
for your country T It is true, you are circumscribed in your
effprts by social limitations, by racial prejudices and by tra-

THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 105

ditions of the past But the quoBtion remaiiuiy How have
yon used the liber^ jon have! Have you made the beet of
the opportnnitieB giyen yot^ limited as they are! These
questions everyone of yon shonld ask of himself; they can
only be answered by the voice of yonr own conscience. These
qnestions are applicable to the white man also, but there are
special reasons why th^ shonld be addressed to the colored
man. The conditions under which he lives are pecnliar. He
is more dependent on himself; he has to make the greatest
stmggle to keep a hold on life.

I know that mnch allowance must be made for the negro.
He has more to contend with, more to endure, and the longest
and hardest hill to climb. His ancestors were slaves. They
never had to care for themselves. Their clothing and shelter
were provided by their masters. They were not trained to
depend on themselves. Th^ were not educated to assume
any responnbility. And suddenly, in the convulsions of a
great war, they found themselves free, but forced to care for
themselves. They were like children, turned loose in a desert,
they did not know what to do or where to ga

They made, I think, one serious mistake. Too many of
them drifted into the cities. Th^y gathered t}iere in large
numbers. Untrained and inexperienced, thqr were exposed
to the corrupting influence of poverty and all of its attendant
vices. I think it would have been better had they remained
in the country. The country, with its green fields and for-
ests, its babbling brooks, its warm sunshine and pure air, is
the best place for any man, white or black, but especially
for the black man. The city is attractive. It allures men
of all races from the farm or the village. But the struggle
for existence is harder in the city ; the temptations are greater,
and vice is more seductive and destructive. It is a serious
question for your race to consider whether you shall adopt
the virtues of the white man, making them a part of your life,
or whether you will yield to the white man 's vices which poison
the blood, vitiate character, and which, in the end, will not only
destroy individuals but will impair the moral force of the
entire raoe. It must always be remembered that the future

106 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

of anj race depends upon the life and character of its indi-
vidual members. Yon have much to contend with, and it
may be natural for you to go in the direction in which you
find the least resistance. But the greater the obstacles to
one ^8 advancement, the greater is the effort to be made to
overcome them. Despite what yotir enemies say, it is un-
doubtedly true that the negro has in his nature, elements of
character upon which to build a higher and better life. This
was displayed by him in the OivU War. It was the liberty
of the slave that was at stake for which this terrible game
of war was played. The slave knew it; perhaps in a dim
and uncertain way, but he knew it Neverttieless, throughout
that great struggle the master expressed the greatest con-
fidence in the slave. The master went to the War, and the
slave remained at home and took ciu:e of his master's family
and property. Herein was an expression of trust which,
judged by tke ordinary laws of human nature, was really
wonderful.

Sometimes the slave followed the master to the battlefield,
waited on him, and took care of him. Oftentimes, when
the master was killed or wounded, it was the slave who
crawled amid the dead and dying, amid the storm of shot
and shell, until he found the stricken body and carried it
away in his arms. No race, under the most trying circum-
stances, ever manifested greater kindness of heart and &ith-
fulness, than was shown l^ the slave in the Civil War.

A Southern gentleman, an ex-Confederate soldier, told ma
not long ago of an incident in his own family history. When
the Union army advanced into the neighborhood where a rela-
tive lived, the latter fled further south. He had a quantity of
gold coin, too heavy to carry, and he had no safe place wherein
to deposit it He called one of his slaves to lum, gave him
the gold, told him to bury it, and to guard it until the mas-
ter's return. The amount was large — some twenty thousand
dollars. The slave took the money and buried it in a secret
place. The Union army came in. The slave was free to
go where he pleased. He could have taken the money and
fled. But he remained true to the trust reposed in him.

THE CHICAGO COMMEMOBATION 107

He leeognked it as a tniat; it appealed to hSm aenae of h<mor
and duty ; he would not piove f alae. He ranained there and
looked after hia maater'a family. When the War waa over
the maater returned He called upon the slave for the money.
The latter reqKmded Iqr taking a shovel and grading the master
to a remote place in a forest, where the money waa fonnd and
delivered. I tell yon, a race which breeds men of such fidelity^
to a tmst and of sach honesty of character aa thia black man
ahowedy haa thoae qnalitiea ont of which good and nseful
citizenship can be made.

It is becanse of the limitationa put upon yon, because of
the hostility and prejudice with which you have to contend,
that I call attention to the possibilities you have for good
eitizenahip and for a growing influence in the life of the
world. And for your sake, for your children's sake, and for
the future of your race, I admonish you to hold to those
influences which make men honest, industrious, faithful to
dnty, and which make character. In thia way, you will make
yourselves respected by even those who oppose you.

Let me say further, every vicious, evil-minded negro is an
enemy to your race. Men who go wrong, who gamble, drink,
and commit theft, who commit those grosser crimes which
excite mobs, are your enemies. They do you infinite harm,
because the blame is imposed upon the race. You above all
others ought to stand for law and order, for the honor of
your people; and you ought not to encourage, protect or
afaield these men who injure society and bring discredit upon
your race.

Do not be misled by politics or by the art of the politician.
I aometimea think a mistake was made right after the War
in giving the ballot to the negro too soon. He waa not ready
for it He had been kept in subjection, in ignorance and pov-
erty for so long a time, that he did not know how to use
the liberty that came to him so suddenly. He did not under-
stand the use of the ballot or the responsibilities of citizenship.
He became the unwilling tool of an unscrupulous class of
politieiana called '^carpet baggers, '^ who used him for their
own selfish purposes. The result waa a bitter racial war,

108 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

whieh has retarded the adYancement of the negro in the
South, and has resulted in depriving him of the ballot

In this State you have the right to vote, but I put the
question to you. How do you use the right t Do you always
use it for the best interest of society and for tkte elevation
of the standard of citizenship t Or do you throw the ballot
away, or use it indifferently, or use it so as to degrade it and
injure society and weaken the moral force of your own i>eo-
ple f Do you realize what the ballot has cost, how many lives
have been sacrificed, how much blood and tears have been
shed, on the battlefield and on the scaffold, through long years
of strife and struggle, in order that men might have the
privilege of the ballot t It requires little imagination to
enable one to see that the ballot is red with blood and wet
with tears, which were shed that you and I might have it.
Shall we sell it for a dollar, for a drink of beert Shall we
give it away, or shall we consider it a priceless heritage, and
use it only for the advancement of society, and for the infu-
sion of the spirit of righteousness in the hearts of the people,
both white and blackT

Do not trouble yourselves too much about politics. Don't
be diseouraged if you are not allowed to hold office. Do
not be discouraged if you are oftentimes made the victims
of racial hatred and jealousy. Do not grow faint hearted
There are many other ways in which you can worii: for the
upbuilding of your race. I do not know what you think of
Booker T. Washington; but, if you have read his stoxy
''Up from Slavery," you have read a story more thrilling
than anything in fiction. When the War was going on he
was a little ''pickaninny," living in a cabin without floors or
windows, in Virginia. When the War closed, he, with others,
was cast adrift to make lus own way. He was without
friends, influence or educaticm. He belonged to a race much
hated in the part of the country in which he lived. But he
was not discouraged. He worked wherever he found work to
do. He worked in coal mines, as a house servant, and in the
fields. He was industrious, sober, and faithfuL Then the
came to him for an education. He started for the

THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 109

Hampton Iturtitnte. He walked all the way^ over monntams
and plains, by day and by night. He worked for food; he
slept in the fields, in bams, and under railroad platforms.
He finally arrived at Hampton. He worked his way throngh
college, and then went oat into the heart of the South and
conuneneed his great work of education* He is to-day not
only a great teaeher, but one of the greatest orators in the
United States, barring none. His life, his struggles, and his
triumphs should be an encouragement to all of you. The de-
votion to duty, the high resolve, the industry, which charac-
terize his life, should be considered as evidence of the pos-
sibilities of your race.

Let honesty, industry, and economy be your watchwords.
Try to get ahead in the material things of life. When you
can go to a bank and borrow money on your own note, when
you own and manage farms, when your word is as good as
the white man's bond, then you will have achieved a place
in the community in which you live, which commands confi-
dence, respect, and good treatment. Life will then be easier,
justioe will be more free, and the promise of the future will
be greater.

The message I bring to you is to be true to those high
by which the white man has been brought from bar-
to civilization. I know there is a large class of white
men who do not live up to this standard. But they are in
the minority. The hearts of the majority of this great people
are true to high convictions of duty. You can advance in
the same line of progress by devotion to the same ideals.
The hope of your race, as I see it, is in industry, economy,
and honesty.

To-day we celebrate the birth of Abraham Lincoln. Keep
his memory sacred in your hearts. Devote yourselves to the
study of the principles which controlled his life. Remember
his great career. He was bom in a log cabin, reared in
poverty, and dedicated to toil. He spent his early years
toiling in the forest, in the fields, on the flat-boat, in the
country store, and finally he became a great political leader.
By birth and ancestry he belonged to the poorer classes

no ABRAHAM LINCOLN

of the South. But he raised hinuielf from the lowest level
to the highest pinnacle of fame. Though long since dead,
men still speak of him as one of deathless memory. His life,
his straggles, and triumphs, serve as a lesson to us alL

I may have said some things you do not like. But, remem-
ber, I speak from the heart, with an interest in your race,
with a hope for its future, and with a desire to see you have
better opportunities for self-development.

You are part of this nation ; you cannot be ignored in the
consideration of its future. But jrour place in the national
life is more or less in dispute. It presents what is called
a ''problem"^ it involves your political, economic, and social
rights, your duties and responsibilities. It is a problem
which will take time to solve. I want to see it solved on
right lines, in a spirit of justice, and in the interest of both
races. The responsibility rests in part upon you. Will you
help to solve the problem? You can only do it by bringing
your race up to the high standards of citizenship. Will yon
prove to the white race that you have virtues which make
you worthy of trust and confidence t Let us all help to bring
to the solution of this and all other problems the highest
measure of good sense, and let us cultivate a high resolve to
do our duty as Qod gives us light to see it. Such is the mes-
sage I bring you. Such is the hope I have for you.

THE OTHEB SIDE OF THE QUESTION
{A reply to the Speech of Hon. W. J. Calkoun)

WB7. ▲. J. OAKBT

ICOITLD not help feeling as I listened to llie boming
words of eloqaenee as they fell from the lips of Judge
Calhoun, that if all the negroes in the Civil War had been
as the one, deseribed hy the Judge, who made his way to his
wounded master and brought him baek to home and slavery,
we would have been unworthy a part in the celebration of
this splendid week. But when I looked on my right, as I
sat here to-night, and saw those old veterans, who were a part
and parcel of that two hundred thousand black men who
answered to the call of Father Abraham, I felt in my
heart of hearts we have just right to be here. Ah, my
friends, I want our good Judge to see the other side of the
question. When thirteen stars from yonder flag were falling
into the dust of secession two hundred thousand negro sol-
diers caught them on the points of bristling bayonets, pinned
them back in the folds of Old Qlory, sealed them with their
Uood, singing meanwhile,—

John Brown's body Ues a-mouldeiing in the gn,y%
But hifl soul goes marching on."

And when the good Judge speaks of the ballot — ^Ah, Judge,
had you lived where I lived, had you lived in that Southland
yonder where I was bom and reared, had you seen a helpless
people treated as my people were, thrown into the conflict
with no weapon of defence, you would have said, ''Though
the Fifteenth Amendment seem a mistake, give it a trial and
let the negro have the ballot. It is his only weapon of de-
fence, his only means of protection against injustice and

oppression.

It may be that some of us have proven unworthy. It may

111

112 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

be that some have bartered their ballot for money or beer.
But, sir, more contemptible, more blamable in the sight of
honest men and in the sight of Qod, than the black man who
sells his ballot, is the white man who purchases or canses him
to sell it

One word, and I am done. When the good Jndge q>eak8
of black men ovming property and being able to give their
n^^otiable notes to the bank, I rejoice that in the State in
which I was bom, the old State of Georgia, n^;roes pay taxes
to-day on twenty-five milli(m dollars' worth of real estate and
personal property. And in that self-same State, some of the
very homes in which their former masters liyed are now owned
by those black ex-slaves, many of whom have given their
former masters bread, since the Emancipation Proclamation
set them free.

What is true in Qeorgia, is true in Alabama, true in Ten-
nessee, true in Texas, proportionately true in every State of
the South, and under God we are beginning to make it true
even in grand old Illinois, for here our people have begun
the purchasing of many homes. Yes, Judge, in all that makes
for righteousness, in all that makes for that which is best for
the American people, these black men and these black women
have consecrated themselves heart and soul to Qod and his
truth, and to their fask. We will help you make this nation
the mightiest nation on the globe, or we will report to (3od
the reason why.

'k..4i

THE CATHBDEAL UTTERANCE OF LINCOLN

DB. 0HABLB8 J. UTTLB

ON the twentieth of March, 1811, two yean after the birth
of Abraham Lincohi, an enormona crowd gathered be-
fore the Palace of the Tuileriefl in Paris at the booming of
the cannon that announced the birth of an expected prince.
As volley sncceeded volley the sospenge became unbearable,
until the twenty-second report shook earth and sky, when this
assurance that the child bom to Napoleon was the wished-for
son, evoked from the impatient multitude shouts and screams
of wild delight. The imperial babe was proclaimed immedi-
ately the King of Borne, decorated witii the grand Eagle of
the Legion of Honor, with the great Cross of the Iron Crown,
and with the Golden Fleece. The guns that told of his birth
were repeated northward to the Russian frontier and south-
ward to the straits of Gibraltar. Poets broke into obsequious
songs; churches resounded with chants of praise; Paris
brought to the child a magnificent silvered vessel, the emblem
of the city ; the Senate and Council of State hailed in ecstatic
strains ''this new star which," they exclaimed, ''had risen on
fhe horizon of France, and whose first gleams dispersed the
smallest diadows remaining of the darkness of the future."
One year later a portrait of this baby King of Rome, plsying
in his cradle with the sceptre of the Empire and the globe of
fhe world, was shown by Napcdeon to his staff as his army was
approaching Moscow. "But the hitherto unvanquished con-
queror could not pluck to-morrow from the hands of the
Eternal." Few and evil were the days appointed to the lad.
"When four years old a fugitive with his frightened mother
and his treacherous uncle ; afterward a prisoner in the palace
of his imi>erial grandfather; an uneducated or miseducated
s ns

114 ABRAHAM LIN€X)LN

yonth dying at twenty-one, his last entreaty, the bitter eaela-
mation, ''Let me die in peaee!'' — ^finally a q)lendid funeral
in Vienna, a tomb in the great cathedral, and a twilic^ song
chanted by Victor Hngo to his memoiy. This completes the
melancholy annals of the King of Borne, descendant of the
Hapsbnrgs and Napoleon Bonaparte.

How strange bnt how instraotiye the story of this imperial
eaglet when contrasted with the childhood and the career of
Abraham Lincoln I No sound save the moaning of his mother
greeted his coming to a mde Kentucky cabin. No poet sang
his praises; no legislators prophesied his future splendor; no
artist cared to limn his homely features; no famous father
showed him to his comrades as the coming ruler of miUions
and the idol of posterity. But while the foredoomed ofEq)ring
of Napoleon was watehing the fountains in the gardens of
his palace prison, the son of Nancy Lincoln was following his
mother to her lonely grsTC in a wild region, among bean and
untamed creatures. No private tutors shaped or qpoiled his
mind. No college made or marred his character. ''Somehow
he learned to read and cipher'' — that was all, "save what he
picked up in after life under,'' as he termed it modestly, "the
pressure of necessity.''' For this ungainly, dark-skinned,
melancholy lad felt quite early the urging of a mightier force,
a force compounded of intelligence and ambition, of the abili^
to think and the longing to aehiere.

America is opportunity indeed, but not for evexybody.
Many children were bom in E^itucky in 1809, but only one
Abraham Lincoln. Many settlers found their way to Indiana
when the Territory became a Stete, but not many future
statesmen; many clerks handled the goods and chatted with
the customers in the country stores of Illinois, but very few
among them rose to eminence.

Lincoln, the farm boy, the store derk, the sunrqror, beeame
Lincoln the lawyer and Lincoln the stetomian, not because
of his environment and its difficulties, but because he saw and
seized his opportunities. Defecte he had indeed; defeete of
character and defects contracted from vulgar and mean sox^
roundings ; but he had great powers, together with a capaeitj

THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 115

for Belf-developmeKit and adf-eonqiMrty wUoh is the aaeret of
all endaring greatneas.

Abraham Lincoln was alwayv nobler than hia anrroondingB
and wiser than his oHnpanions; but there has been in many
places, and not seldcnn here in this great state to whieh hia
name and that of Orant have given imperishable Instrei a
somewhat gradging recognition of his nobiUty and wisdom.
His image has been obsoored by the breath of men who thoni^t
that he was altogether saeh an one as themselyes, and who
fastened upon the defects of his massiye nature as thongh
ihey were the sabstance of his being; men who were fain to
magnify their own pettiness by creeping into some crevice of
his character*

You will permit me, therefore, to recall a paragraph from
one of his early speeches, a paragraph that lives in my mind
as the cathedral ntterance of Abraham Lincoln, because I can
never recall it without the vision of some mighty stmeture
soaring upwards like the dome of St. Peter's or the spires of
Cologne's beautiful temple into that ampler ether where a
sublime human achievement is made glorious by the greeting
of the radiant skies.

Speaking of the slave power, he ezdaimed:

*3Tokfla fay it, I, too, may be; bow to It, I nerer wilL Ths prob-
abflitj that ws may laU la the ftruggle ought not to deter w from
the rapport of a oauae whieh we deem to be Juet It ehall not deler
■M. If I ever feel the eonl within me elerate aad expand to those
4i|wMifi«inma not wholly uiiworthj its Almighty Arehitect, it ii when I
eoniemplaie the eauie of mj eoontiy deserted by all the world besides,
and I, stending np boldly and alone aad hurling defUnee at her Tic-
torioos eppreesors. Here, without eontemplatlag consequenoeb before
hi|^ heavan, and in the f aee of the world, I swear eternal fidrtitj to
the just eanse, as I deem it, of the land of aiy lif«, n^ liberty, aad
my kfve/'

Here is the key to the peculiar character of Abraham Lin-
coln. Hia soul was capable of infinite expansion ; and under
the inspiration of great opportunity and tremendous respon-
sibility his soul did expand to dimensions not wholly unworthy
of its Almighty Architect; but it was a soul whose final mig-
eaty, whose ultimate harmonious proportions were never quite

116 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

comprehended by men who boasted that fhey, too, were hewn
from the same rough quarry and who flattered themaelyea that
theyy too, might haTe e:q[>anded to the same grandeur.

Yety evra these could not hide the fact that Linooln had been
always a being apart — friendly, sociable, kindly, helpful ; but
angularly, although not offensively, unlike his neighbors. The
strength of a giant was the servant of ^'a heart as big as his
arms w^e long/' Like Garibaldi, the hero of United Italy,
he could not. bear tiie sight or sound of needless suffering.
Bigger and stronger than any of his companions, he was the
gentlest of them alL But the quality of his mind was wholly
different from theirs; indeed it was of a quality exceedingly
rare in the whole world. Lincoln had marvellous mental eye-
sight. He looked not so much at things as into them. His
vision was not only accurate, but penetrating. It was a vision
unblurred by his own hasty fancies or his own wishes; and a
vision undimmed by prevalent misstatements or current mis*
conceptions ; a vision never long perturbed by the sophistries
of men skilled to make '^the worse appear the better reason."

Referring once to the declaration of Galileo that a ball
dropped and a ball shot from the mouth of a cannon would
strike the ground at the same instant, Lincoln said that
long before he knew the reasons for it, it seemed to him that
it must be so. Like Galileo, he saw the thing before and not
merely after it was proved. He saw that the downward pull
on both balls must be the same, and that the outward drive
of the one had nothing whatever to do with the time of its
fall. We may indeed wonder what might have been his career,
if, like Michael Faraday, he had first read books of science
instead of the Revised Statutes of Illinois or the Commentaries
of Blackstone that he found in a pile of rubbish. Fate de-
creed, however, that this rare quality of i>enetrative vision
should be applied to law and to statecraft— especially to the
problems then challenging the thought of the AiQierican people.
This vision, moreover, was not only penetrative; it was pro-
phetic. He could foresee c(msequences ,a^^ distinctly jA^te
could discern realities. It was not pure guessing, when he
exclaimed^ ''This government cannot endfire permanently half

:'/'

ti-'^*-«/L' ^ ^^^ut- /lyy^c/K^ ^jt>o S irtA^ ^■«-«'-t- /«.<^«,.^* C^^-Cjt'

yv^^ f>^ p^4- u^^xji^ t^ a^,.^ ^>,_-<»c v*vtA.

' vjr/-

'V .

"^6

■nV

'/<> /^%/,^ Pa^sunC^of Manuscript Tribute from Dr. Charles J. Little,
^^''^ ^ ' ^ Pr^iaent of Garrett Biblical Institute, Chicago

THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 117

free and half dave. " It was a prediction derired from steady
and eonsecutiye vision. For genuine logic, like the logic of
Euclid which fascinated him, is, after all, a continuous seeing.
Given the elements of a situation, the mind watches them as
consequence follows consequence in sure and certain revelation.
Never to befool oneself about an actual situation and never
to befool oneself in reasoning upon it — these are the bases of
science, physical and political. And science is the modem
almanac, the handbook of prediction. When men like Doug-
las were attempting to manipulate and thwart the laws of
God which determine national destiny, Abraham Lincoln was
humbly studying them in the spirit of Galileo and of Frands
Bacon.

Daniel Webster once declared that it is wholly unnecessary
to re-enact the laws of God. The saying, strictly construed,
is true enough, but the implications of it, as Lincoln saw,
are utterly false. We need not, indeed, re-enact the laws of
Gk>d, but our statutes, if they shall work benefit and not
disaster, must recognize and conform to them. The laws of
God, left to themselves, leave us in impotence, and exposed to
hunger, disease and disaster. All our mastery of the physical
world depends upon our actively using, not upon our pas-
sively submitting to, the laws of the material universe. In
this sense every flying locomotive is a re-enactment of the laws
of God ; so is every telescope that opens to mortal vision the
splendors of immensity, and every microscope with which we
track to their hiding places the mysteries of life and death.
So is every temple that we rear, every bridge that we build,
every steamship that we construct, every mill that we erect,'
and every machine into which we conduct the energy of steam
or electricity. The whole progress of civilized man may be
measured by the extent to which he has learned in his activi-
ties to obey and to employ the laws of God. So, too, in the
political world, the great structures that we call common-
wealths must, in this sense, be re-enactments of eternal prin*
ciples. If they are to be beneficent and not malignant, those
who create and control them must learn the laws by which
alone benign results can be obtained. Constitutions can en-

118 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

dure and statutes inoreaae the welfare of the people only as
they realisse and do not eontravene the principles of righteous-
ness and progress. Penetrating to this simple but tremendous
truth, Lincoln obtained his vision of the future ; his prophetic
gaze swept the political horizon and discerned the inevitable.
And this foresight was both profound and far-reaching. In
learned information his horizon might be termed a narrow
one; but in his grasp of principles and of their ultimate and
universal consequences he was broader and deeper than any
statesman of his age. The only time I ever saw him was at
the flag-raising in Philadelphia, on Washington's birthday, in
186L I could not hear his voice, so great was the intervening
crowd, but the words that I could not hear I have read and
pondered often since:

^ aevsr hsTS had a feelinf politioally,'' said th^ pndwtiiied nartjr
lor whom siwimIiii wnn thai were lying in wait, ^'that did not apring
from tlM Mtttimaata ambodied in the Declaration of Independence . . .
that Mtttiment • • • which gave liberty not alone to the people of
this oountiy, but hope to an the world, for aU fatnre time. It wma
that which gave promiie that in dne time tho weighta would be lifted
from tho ehoulden of all man, and that all should have an equal chanee.
Now, my friends, can thie country be saved on that baslsr ... If
it cannot be saved without giving up that principle, I was about to
say I would rather be assassinsted on this spot than suircndsr it."

If this be narrowness of vision, then may Qod contract the
eyes of American statesmen to a similar horizon I

Such was the mind of Abraham Lincoln — a mind that grav*
itated gladly to the truth of things ; a mind that loved light
and hated darkness; a mind that found rest only in eternal
principles^ and inspiration in prophetic visions and exalted
political ideals.

Possibly under different surroundings he might have be-
come a renowned scientist; more probably his radiant and
steady intellect, united to his great heart would have made
him even under other conditions a supreme statesman. For
the scientist seeks chiefly for causes and is satisfied to find
and to show them; if he concerns himself for beneficent re-
sults, as he often does, these are not his principal quest.

THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 119

He Bearchefl for the seeds of things and delights to see them
grow. The statesman, on the other hand, seeks first, last, and
always the welfare of the people. And Lincoln loved the
people, eraving their happiness and hating oppression even
when it assumed the form of law. Monarehs and oligarchs
strive mainly to perpetuate their privileges and to increase
their power ; even in Bepublics there be those who usurp free
institutions in order to enlarge their wealth and to entrench
their tyranny. Lincoln perceived too clearly and felt too
keenly the burdens of the common man, ever to become the
active or the passive instrument of any power that would
abridge his liberties or diminish the opportunities of his chil*
dren. The Declaration of Independence, so often mentioned
in his speeches, he recognized as the embodiment of the prin*
eiples that determine all political progress. Human govern-
ments are sanetioned and favored by Almighty Ood, so long,
and so long only, as th^ promote the welfare of the people
and further the progress of mankind. Directly they become
instruments of oppression, or strongholds of tyranny, they
provc^e the judgments which are righteous altogether, when
''the wealth piled up by unrequited toil" shall be sunk in the
divine wrath ''and every drop of blood drawn with the lash
shall be paid by another drawn with the sword."

And he recognised himself, humbly and gladly, as a prod-
uct of the principles that he defended. Freedom had made
it possible for his own soul to expand to dimensions not un-
worthy of its Almighty Architect One needs only to read
the story of modem ItaJy, of her esdles and her patriots dying
in dungeons and upon the scaffold, to see how impossible
would have been such a career under the Italian skies. It is
enough to make one weep tears of blood to know the tremen-
dous price that the descendants of Dante and of Qalileo paid
for unity and liberty* And her Garibaldi grew strong in the
shelter of our Declaration of Independence. But a poor lad
like Abraham Lincoln, even though capable of penetrative,
prophetic, and profound vision — ^a poor lad, awkward in body,
homely in features, and unaggressive in disposition, with no
Mpital but his stnmg arms, his big hearty and his luminous

1£0 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

brain — oould expand to proportions worthy of his
Creator only in the bracing air of freedom and social equality.
Nay, he could not have reached these splendid dimensions
except in a free State of the American Union — ^not even in
the Kentucky of Henry Clay, or in the Virginia that had
ceased to think the thoughts of Thomas Jefferson,

Combined with these rare qualities of mind, Lincoln pos-
sessed a gift of exact expression that bordered on the mar-
velous. His fidelity of speech matched his fidelity of vision.
He could say what he saw and make others see what he said.
''Well! Speed! I'm moved!" he exclaimed with laconie
humor after canying his saddle-bags upstairs to his friend's
room. ^' Judge Douglas has the high distinction of never
having said, either that slavery is right, or that slayery is
wrong; almost everybody else says one or the other, but the
Judge never does." Such was the sentence with which he
transfixed his dodging rival before the astonished people of
Illinois.

''Has Douglas the exclusive right to be on all sides of all
questions t" he demanded with mock surprise. ''Until Judge
Douglas gives a better reason than he has offered against the
evidence in this case, I suggest to him it will not avail at all
that he swells himself up, takes on dignity, and calls people
liars. Would you prove a proposition in Euclid false by
calling Euclid a Uart" This was his grim reply to his cun-
ning antagonist trying to convert a question of logic into a
question of veracity.

To a man exclaiming, "I believe in God Almighty and in
Abraham Lincoln," he gave the instant and inimitable re-
joinder, "You 're more than half right!" And what could
surpass the laconic severity of his telegram to Gkneral Me-
Clellan, "I have just read your despatch about sore-tongued
and fatigued horses. Will you pardon me for asking what the
horses of your army have done since the battle of Antietam,
that fatigues anything t"

"If one man enslaves another, no third man has the right
to object!" Into those thirteen words he distilled the malig-
nant meaning of the Dred Scott decisioill

THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 181

€1.

'The central idea oi Beceenon is the eneaee of aaarehy'' —
such is the tene statemait of the First Inaugural, followed by
a demonstration as lucid as the proposition.

Galileo used to say that God had written the laws of nature
in geometrical characters; Lincoln believed that political
principles could be stated with geometrical deamessy and he
confronted his adversaries whenever great issues were in-
volved, not by denimciation but by illumination. If he could
not show them, he could at least show other people just where
ihey stood and just what they meant.

It is to the enduring honor of the people of Illinois that
they were large enough to recognise the expanding dimensions
of this strong soul; that when this dear-eyed defender of
liberty and union appeared among them their sight was sharp
enough to see above him the beckoning hand of Destiny. How
long is the tradition to endure that handsome presence and
sonorous voice, swollen periods, glittering platitudes, reddess
assertions, ddusive epigrams^ and the sneers of the sophist
suffice for popular leadership t They suffice only whan the
people are imworthy of great statesmen, or when inferior and
selfish leaders are unopposed by dear thinking, plain speaking,
and intrepid action. They suffice never when a soul expanded
by the inspiration of great prindples grapples with a spirit
so swollen and heated with ambition that it has grown indif-
ferent to the dignity of its Almighty Architect Douglaa was
dolled in the arts of plausible address, adroit, audadous,
evadve, self-assertive, denundatory ; full of the forms of logic,
yet not too careful of the truth. How shrivelled and shrunken
he appeared when illuminated by the ever expanding mind of
his conqueror 1 Stripped of his pride, of his sdf-ddudons,
of the garments of party leaderdiip for which he had surren-
dered the cardinal prindples of democracy, how small the
remnant looked I His antagonist's soul had expanded to a
temple of light ; his own brain had dwindled to a tabemada
of bewildering inconsistendes. ^'He bargained with us and
then under the stress of a local election his knees gave way;
his whole person trembled. ' ' Such was the railing accusation
m 1880 of his aecuser and fellow bargainer, 9udah P. Benja*

122 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

min. How the aeeoaation degrades tfaem bofh, eyen after
more than forty years, ^'He bargained with ns and then be-
trayed us!"

But let ns who are assembled here, so near the spot where
the dying Douglas gave his parting injunction to his sons,
'* Defend the Constitution and obey the laws/' remember to
be just The charge of Benjamin drips with the bitterness
of disappointment and the hatred of a yanquished faetion.
There was probably no bargain and no betrayal, but as often
happens in diplomacy and in politieal struggles, each faetion
tried to beat the other and both succeeded. Let us remember,
toa, the brief but glorious period in which the defeated Doug-
las, forgetting the past with patriotic magnanimity, ralliel
promptly and boldly to the support of his former rival, de-
claring to the whole country that there were left two parties
only — the party for, and the party against the Union — ^thus,
like a glorious but beclouded sun, emerging from a darkenini^
storm to flood the horueon with the last rays of his powerful
and loyal spirit

Not Lmcoln's mind alone expanded to dimensions worthy
of its Ahnighty Architect, but his whole being took on majesty
as he assumed responsibilities and set about a task which to
him seemed even greater than that of Washington. His en-
tire administration was a protracted magnanimity. He was
great in his forbearance as he was great in his performance.
Often tempted to use his strength against men who, like
Oreeley, assumed an impatient and dictatorial tone; his en-
durance strained to the breaking point by schemers and place-
seekers and the cormorants that batten and fatten in war times
upon the miseries* of the people ; peering anxiously into the
skies aboYC him for some token of hope dropped from the
hand of God ; the Lincoln that once carried the village poot-
office in his hat bore the destinies of millions upon his mighty
heart and expanded to the stature of the suffering saviour of
the nation* He mastered his Cabinet with serene self-control;
he sustained with matchless generosity the successive com-
manders of the several armies. Slow to change but smft to
praise, with patient vigilance he studied the movements of

THE CHICAGO COMMEHOEATION 1»

tlie pnUio mind, waitiiig for it to become the fbotrtool of his
great purpoee of emaneipatioiiy while with the diplomatic skill
of an imperturbable wisdom, he averted the perils of a foreign
war.
Carl Sehnrz, in his ^* Beminiscences," tells ns that in 1864:

"It WM publidy ukl that Mr. Linooln had only one iteadlMt friend
ia the Lower Hoote of CongreM and few moro in the Senate. Tki(f
aife wb/ he eaid to Sdinn, *with almoat yiolcat language to withdraw
front tha oonteety although I hare been nnanimouBly nominated, In
order to make room for a better man. I wieh I oould. Perhape tome
other man might do the bueineee better than L But I am here and
the better man is not herOi And if I ihould itep aside to make room
tor him, it ia not at aU eure— perhape not even probable that he
would get here. It le mueh more likelj that the laotioni oppoeed to
me would fall to lighting among themielTee, and that th^ would get
a man whom moat of them would not want. God knowi I have at
leaat tried very hard to do mj duty, to do right to everybody and
wrong to nobody. HaTe the men who aeenee me of a luat for power
and of doing unaompuloua thinga to keep myeelf in ofllee thought of
the ecmmoa eanae when trying to break me downt I hope they have/
— Meanwhile, the dude of evening had let in and when the room waa
liglited, I thoufl^ I law his tad eyea moiet and hia rugged features
workfttf strangely, as if under a very strong and painful amotion."

Oh, most wonderful and all-wise Congress, so ready always
to proclaim its own integrity and spotless virtue I Oh, long-
Bofferjag leader of the people, writhing from the taunts and
follies of congressional phsrisees and disappointed seekers
after the spoils of office and the spoils of war 1

Bnt let me recall two dates that illuminate each other won-
derfully, disclosing the rare quality of Lincoln's magnanimity.
On the fifth of August, 1864, when his re-election seemed
doubtful and almost hopeless to himself, there appeared in
The New York Tribune a three-columned manifesto signed by
Benjamin F. Wade and H. Winter Davis, two notable leaders
of the Bepnblican Party. They had read, ''without surprise
but not without indignation, the Proclamation of July 8. A
more studied outrage on the legislative authority of the peo-
ple,'' they continued, ^'has neyer been perpetrated." They
sueeringly inquired '^upon what do the President's hopes of
tbAiiffyiffg slavery throughout the nation restt" If he wishes

124 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

the sapport of CongresB he mtut oanfine hinunlf to hk ezeei»-
tive duties, and tiiey conelude with iU-eoncealed malignity,
''the sapportera of the government should eonsider the remedy
for these usurpations, and having found it, fearlessly execute
it * ' White as my hair has grown, there is blood enough in my
heart to heat it with anger, even now, as I recall the gloomy
August day of 1864 on which I first read these cruel wordsL
They oufl^t, as we knew long since, never to have been written.
Th^ were wrong, utterly wrong, and it was unspeakably
mean to publish them when the destiny of the country was
trembling in the balance.

Contrast now these self-righteous statesmen — ^f or statesmen
they were of no small stature — ^with the man that tiiey assailed.
They were imperilling the nation to satisfy their wotmded
pride. Lincoln's one thought was to save, to save, to save the
Union.

On the twenly-third of August he gave to the members of
his Cabinet, sealed, to be opened only after the election, the
following memorandum :

'^riiis wandfBg, as for sobm days past, it seems ezeeediac^j probable
that this administration will not be reSlected. Then it will be my
duty to BO ooGperate with the President-elect as to save the Unkm
between the election and the inaugnratloB; as he will have seenred his
election on sneh fronad that ha euinot poeaibfy save it alterwaxd.''

O, gloriously expanded soul I O, temple of the Living God
not unworthy of its Almighty Ardiitect I Happy the people
whose destinies, in the hour of impending disaster, are en-
trusted to a heart so big, a mind so dear, a soul so patient and
a will so unyielding I

Just forty-eight years ago yesterday, Abraham Linooltt
parted from his friends and neighbors, ''not knowing,'' he
said, ''when or whether ever I may return, with a task
before me greater than that which rested upon Washington*"
And then he added : ^'Without the assistance of that Divine
Being who ever attended him, I cannot succeed. With that
assistance, I cannot fail.'' He never returned ; only the shat-
tered tenement of him was given back to the people of Spring-
field. The man himself —his mind, his magnanimous soul, hie

THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 1S5

patieniy resolute, indomitable will, the indestraetible Abraham
lincoln — ^had entered into the hearts of his oonntrymen and
into the memory of the civilized world, there to abide, an
energy for political righteousness, so long as freedom and
fratemily remain emblazoned upon the banners of human
progress.

Bemembering this humble reference to ^' the assistance of
that Divine Being who ever attended '* Washington, is it too
much to say that Abraham Lincoln's soul expanded until it
became a temple for Almighty God to dwell int Much haa
been written, and for the most part foolishly, about the re-
ligion of this martyred man. There be those who are ready
to affirm his piety with solemn oaths, and those also who deny
it most profanely. Let ub consider the matter calmly and
with candor. The enduring elements of piety, cerUdnly the
esBentials of Christian piety, are these — on the one hand, an
mioonquei-able belief in the righteousness of God, united with
a steady desire to know and obey his will ; on the other hand,
an unfaltering belief in sacrifice for others as the only witness
of the faith that works by love. Touching these essentials,
the prophets of all ages are agreed, Jew and Gentile, Catholic
and Protestant, orthodox and heterodox. Tried by this stand-
ard, Lincoln will appear for all time in word and in deed
as a ruler clothed with the beauty of rare and lustrous good-
ness. And note carefully how his soul '' expanded to dimen-
sions worthy of his Almighty Architect.'' In 1851, unable
to be present with his dying father, he wrote, —

. . . "^U him to rememb«r to esU upon sad eonflde in oor great and
aood and merdfol Maker, who wUl not turn away from him in any
citramity. He notes the fall of a sparrow, and numhera the haira of
our heads, and he wiU not forget the dying man who puts hia trust
faihim."

Writing to his friend Speed, then anxioua about the health
of his wife, he tells Mm with a courage possible only to per-
fect friendship :

"These horrid douhta of her affection for yon can be forever removed,
tnd I ahnoet feel that the Almi^^tj has sent your present aflttotion
nprtssly for that object"

186 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Writing of Jefferson's prineiples» he deeUred, ^'Thoea lAo
deny freedom to others deserve it not for thfianseLves, and,
nnder a just God, cannot long retain it.'' To Mrs. Oumqr
he replied in 1862 :

"in the very responsible position in wbieh I happen to be plseed,
being a humble inetrument in the hands of our Heayenly nith«r» as
I am» and as we all are, to work out his great purposes, I ha^e desired
that all my works and acts may be according to ffis will, and that H
mig^t be so, I have sought His aid; but if, after endeaToring to do ny
best in the light which He affords me^ I find my efforts ftifl, I must
believe that for some purpose unknown to me. He wills it otherwise."

The second day succeeding, he wrote>

'The will of God prevails. In great contests each parly dalns to art
in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one nvst bs^
wrong. God cannot be for and against the same thing at the same
time. In the present Civil War it is quite possible that God's purposs
is something different from the purpose of either party, and yet the
human instrumentalities, working just as they do, are of the best
adaptation to effect His purpose. I am almost ready to say that tUs
is probably true; that God wills this contest, and wills that it ahaU not
end yet''

To the preachers exhorting him ''to get God on his side,"
he replied with sublime rebuke that he was trying to get on
God's side. Upon his Emancipation Proclamation he invoked
the considerate judgment of mankind and the gracious finror
of Almighty God. To the workingmen of Manchester, Eng-
land, he wrote that ''their decisive utterances under the trying
circumstances were an instance of Christian heroism not sur-
passed in any age or in any country." "Let us," he says,
in another letter, "diligently apply the means for a speedy,
final triumph, never doubting that a just God in His own
good time> will give us the rightful result.'' "Under God"
is the phrase that gleams from the final sentence in the Gettys-
burg Address. "Duly grateful to Almighty God for having
directed my countrymen to a right conclusion" — so he spoke
of his second election — "it adds nothing to my satisfaction
that any other man may be disappointed or pained by the
result." And to the widow whose five sons died gloriously
on the field of battle, he wrote:

THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 1S7

^ 'pnij tbat oor HmtoiIj Itlber nuij awvage tlM aagolah of four
1)eraftTeiiieat and leaye 70a 00I7 th« ohcrithed ncauiry of tli# lorad
and krt, and the solemn pride that mnet be jooxs to have laid 10
ooeilj a iacrifloe upon the altar of freedom.'

Nor did he serve Gbd in words onl^. Not until fhe books
of fhe Becording Angel shall be opened can we know the
vigils, the agonies of this sympathetic heart and tireless mind.
▲ man is what he is when alone. And in the solemn agonies
of fhe intervals when politicians ceased to trouble him — ^his
''Qethsemanes" he called them — sprayer and meditation
strengthened fhe high resolves that made it possible to fnlflll
his destiny. The fierce light that beats npon a living mler
blinds fhe observer's eyes. There is a nobler splendor, the
light fhat follows after death, when falsehoods vanish and fhe
truth comes forth; then the noble deeds performed in secret
are openly proclaimed, and the motives that guided the hero
in the crises of a sablime career shine ont in perfect revelation ;
then the waUs of fhe inner chamber become tranq;)arent and
the patriot wrestiing with his Qod is seen npon his knees;
fhen fh^ donds of criticism and of calumny are dispersed and
the dawning judgment of posterity makes the path of the just
to shine brighter and brighter unto the perfect day. So when
lincoln fell and shook the whole earth in his falling, that
which he hoped for in his First Inaugural came to pass in
larger meaning, for then indeed ''the better angels of our
nature" touched ''the mystic ishords of memory stretching
from every battiefidd and patriot grave to every living heart
and hearthstone all over this broad land'' of which this
martyred President was God's chosen saviour and his ac-
cepted sacrifice. Then the defeated sections even began to
understand him and to embrace the form and figure of his
mind. For fhe clouds which had obscured his image in the
smoke of battie now faded away forever in the revelation of
the meaning and motives of his conduct.

No wonder, therefore, fhat his final utterances fall upon us
with such benignity; that they seem more like the solemn
music of infinite wisdom, and of infinite tenderness, than like
the speech of mortal man. Did some still, small voice within

128 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

him tell him thai he, too, mart be a vietim of tiiit partimi
malignity whieh he had never shared and never fortered, tiiat
it wDtdd be a part of the punishment allotted to his people
that he should be taken from them, even before the mighty
work was done and when as yet the need of him was very
greatt Brother Amerieans, we can repair that great loss only
by entering into his spirit — not 1^ stataes of marble or brcmxe;
not, God help ns, by reshaping the image of him until it dwin-
dles into something like onraelves; bat by reshaping onndves,
oar own soul% ontil thej resemble his in its expansire power
and ultimate nobility.

If he eonld return from that bourne— from whieh, alas!
the sages come not back to bring us wisdom — and frequent
for a while the Union that he saved, how we should erowd
around him 1 What honors and what eulogies would we not
heap upon his transfigured form I But after we had told him
proudly of our territorial expansion, of our enormous wealth,
of our splendid cities with their monumental buildings soaring
towards the skies, of our flag, the symbol everywhere of a new
world-power, of our great industries and our colossal fortunes,
I think I hear him ask. But what of your ment Do their
''souls expand to dimensions not imworthy of their Almighty
Architect t" Are they inspired by principles that enlarge
them to divine proiK)rtion8f What about the Declaration of
Independence t Are its principles denied and evaded as they
used to be, or are they oherishcMl and lived up to and exaltedt
Are its ideas of free government applied, or are th^ being
supplanted by those of class and caste and special privilege!
Are you deceived by forms and sonorous phrases f By men
who talk liberty and mean slavery t By men who adore the
Constitution with their lips while their hearts are far from
itf Do you fancy, I hear him ask, that because you call no
man duke or king, you are, therefore, free and independent
owners of yourselves f That because you offer no man openly
a crown, you are sovereign citizens and self-governing com-
munities! Have you not yet learned the difference between
the forms and the power of self -government t What about
your worship of the Constitution! There were men in n^y

THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 1S9

time who adored it in their speech and who were yet doing
their utmost to pervert it and to destroy its value. Have the
enemies of soeial justice reviTed the old diabolioal trick of
interpreting it to defend oppression, or have the people mas-
tered the divine art of reading it in the light of its sublime
intention ''to form a more perfect Union and to promote the
general welfare!'* And what about your Legislatures, State
and national! Have they improved with your material prog-
ress t Are statutes carefully prepared and wisely considered t
Do they enact the laws of God or the Will of some powerful
interest t Do they conform to immutable principles of politi-
cal wisdom, or are hirelings and demagogues, misguided incom-
petents and ambitious leaders, all wearing the livety of
freedom, still telling you that you can evade and thwart and
even nullify with impunity tiie principles of righteousness
and equity! Have your political leaders eyes, and can they
see! Have they brains and can they reason! Or do they
darken counsel with a multitude of words ! Or shelter them-
selves in cowardly silence! Have ihey principles for which
they are ready to be assassinated, or have they principles only
for platforms or parade or purchase !

Fixing upon us those piercing and melancholy ^es, he
would warn us to learn wisdom in the time of our power and
our wealth and our opportunity, lest we, too, provoke the
righteous judgment of Qod upon ourselves and our posterity.
He would remind us with pathetic solemnity that all the
miseries of those terrible years in which he suffered for us
came from judicial blindness, from the sacrifice of conscience
and truth and freedom of speech, to avarice and ambition and
the lust of power; ania, lifting his hand to the ''Almighty Ar-
chitect" of his own expanded and transfigured soul, he would
call upon us all ''to here highly resolve that these dead shall
not have died in vain ; that this nation , . . shall have a
new birth of freedom ; and that government of the people, by
the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

THE LITERAKT SIDE OF LINCOLN

Uk BERNARD J. aOBAKD

WHEN the celebration of the hundredth anniyersary of
Abraham Lincoln 's birth was brought to the attention
of our citizens, the idea of having other than a mere one-day
celebration was thought impossible ; experience had taught the
great dailies that a week's festival would result in failure.
Some ventured to suggest that two days, if carefully planned,
might meet with hearty response, and others referred to the
hundredth anniversary of the inauguration of Washington as
a safe guide in the Lincoln memorial occasion — ^the Washing-
ton exercises lasting two days and only then having received
impetus from exhibition of tokens and relics of the Revolution.
Your presence here attests, after seven days' and nights' cele-
bration, that the editors, too, can be mistaken and fail to ac-
cturately judge the public feeling. Hundreds of exercises dur-
ing these hours have been rendered, and tlus august assem-
blage, crowding every available space, standing throughout a
long programme, showing no tedium after listening to a
lengthy discourse— one long to be remembered for its brilliant
and poetic elements — ^all this demonstrates in a most emphatic
manner that the American love of patriotism, and the rev-
erence for her distinguished heroes, has not faltered. No!
For this gathering witnesses that our regard for our founders
and our esteem for our defenders grows stronger and more
sturdy as the years creep on ; that we of this day have awak-
ened to a higher appreciation of him who led the citizens on
to victory ; that we more eagerly attest our love for the great
loyalty of the adopted son of the Prairie State — ^Abraham
Lincoln.

Abraham Lincoln was so greats so noble, so grand, and so
peerless a man that no man living, no matter how eloquent may
be his tongue — ^no man living, no matter how gifted with the

ISO

THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION ISl

pen — no artist, regardleas of his dezterity with the biniib—iio
flcnlptor, notwithstanding the genios of his handieraft— will
be able to portray, deseribe, paint or dhisel that lif e-likeneas
of Lincoln, which his diverse and varied featnres and chang-
ing countenance evolyed It is not in the power of this genera
tion — ^it is not within the scope of a now living individual, to
give the correct and proper face or figore of this Oiant of the
West Some day in the distant fatore, when we of this day are
all gone, a child will be bom — ^perhaps a boy, maybe a girl —
who will brash away the prejudices of to-day's history, sweep
aside the severe criticisms of the press, cast to the winds the
jealousies of geographical sections, and with the unfailing lamp
of Truth and the unerring pen of Justice bring from out
of this mingled darkness a beautiful, clear, and truly living
soul, of which the world in its calm judgment will proclaim,
''It is our Lincoln I"

All has not been told of Lincoln. There yet remain some
few trijBing elements untouched — ^here and there a fibre of
his kindness and a stray thought of his literary evolution is
left untold. While Shakespeare and the Bible were the liter-
ary treasures of his frugal home, he also possessed a copy of
Bobert Bums — ^the poetic singer of nature — ^the ''Longfellow
of the British Isles''; but the volume which contributed patri-
otic fervor to the youth Lincoln, a book which, while it may not
be the equal of Shakespeare for English, nor of the Bible for
philosophy, yet is without equal in the portrayal of our form
of liberty and our understanding of government — ^the "Life
of General George Washington. ' ' Let me relate how Lincoln
came to have this splendid work. A neighboring farmer had
this great treasure, and Lincoln who had early read all the
bocdcs within the meagrely supplied vicinity, gathered courage
and asked the privilege of reading this copy. It was a Weems's
' ' Washington. ' ' With what eagerness he mastered its pages —
with what studiousness he learned the meanings of the difficult
words! Our imagination only can supply this picture. It
may be of interest to know that hardly had he finished the read-
ing when, by an tmforeseen element, the book was practically
destroyed. The Lincoln home, as we all know, was a mere

1S2 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

cabin — ^the naked earth aa its floor— with a roof so poorly eon-
structed that both the aanahine and the rain vidted the inmates
at pleasure. Well, one night when yonng Abraham was asleep,
a terrible rainstorm came on, and its watery elements
dripped, drove, and drizzled through the roof and completely
soaked the favorite volume, the Weems's ''Washington*''
When Abe arose he beheld what the storm had done, and
with a heavy heart and eyes filled with tears he called to see
the neighbor to explain how unforeseen and terrible the storm
had been. When he came to the farmer he approached him
with fear and trembling, but with a candid manner related his
sorrow. The farmer could well see that the storm had been
severe; he also knew the frailty of the Lincoln cabin, and
everywhere were the symbols of storm visitation. ''But,"
said the farmer, "that is not the condition in which I gave
you the book and I will not accept it in that ruined and
dilapidated form.'' Immediately the embarrassed lad spoke
up, "Well, what can I do to adjust this injury t In what way
can I right this wrong, and how am I able to show you I mean
to do right t" Abraham stood expectant. The farmer gazed
into his tear-fiUed eyes, and then came the farmer's re-
ply, "That book is worth six bits"— or seventy-five cents —
"and if you will come and work for me for five or more
days, you can keep the book ; it 's of no account to me in
that ugly shape.'' Eagerly and with inspiration the youth
spoke up, "Oh! you are so kindl You can have me a wedc
or ten days. I will be very glad to repay you with my labor,"
The next day at sunrise young Abe stood at the farmer's door.
He toiled for him four days from the break of day till dark-
ness stopped his hands—eagerly, anxiously, and willingly.
He worked, dreaming of his great and unexpected conquest
He would own that "Life of Washington." He could then
follow more closely its true purpose. The farmer, seeing
with what joyful and happy tenor he prosecuted the task, said,
on the fourth night, "You have labored faithfully; you have
done the work satisfactorily and you need not come any
more. I feel you have fully paid for the 'Washington.' "
The terrible storm had left in its wake a treasure, the "Life

THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 1S8

of Washingtbii/' and with renewed effort the student linooln
resiuned the happy opportunity of getting still dooer to the
great life of the leader of the colonial patriots.

Another feature in the life of Lincoln which influenced
his literary taste and shaped his destiny as a God-fearing cit-
izen was the death of his beloved mother. While he was yet
a lad of less than ten, she lay ill at the poorly furnished home
— ^no doctor to minister to her needs, no neighbors to jccanf ort
or care for her. One day as the close of her life was ap-
proaching, she called the dear son to her side and said, '' Abnh
ham, your mother will never rise from this cot. I am going
to leave you. I am about to die." Clasping her slender
arms about his childish form she continued, ^'Be kind to
your little sister Sarah and take the Bible as your guide
through life, and God will watch over your dear souL'' The
mother died and the stricken boy was beyond comforting.
He sobbed, he cried, and in anguish resigned himself to the
loss of this tender mother. He and his father went into the
deep woods, chopped down a tree, and prepared a rude
cofSn for her dead form. They alone-^without neighbors,
without ceremony, and without sympathizing relatives — ^laid
her tenderly in her grave at the foot of a tall sycamore tree.
The winds moaned the dirge, the birds sang the requiem, and
the heart of the lad felt the solemnity of the sermon of
Nature. Oh! he loved his mother dearly; he revered her
memory daily; and in sunshine revery, or in midnight
dreams he saw that beautiful mother's face. He pined that
no sacred hymns were chanted at her grave. He regretted
that their poverty forbade even the presence of a minister,
and he could not forget that she had deserved so much and
received so little. In the height of childish resolution he
prepared to have a minister come from some distant part
to preach a sermon, or say at least o'er her dead body the
"Lord's Prayer."

Finally, after considerable trials and hardship, he man-
aged to induce a clergyman who lived something over a
hundred miles away to come and pay this final tribute to the
departed mother. New life came to him after this debt of

IM ABRAHAM LINCOLN

reipeet was- paid. He read the Bible, and £rom it, especially
from the New Tesiamenty he drank in with unquenchable
thirst the new philosophy of the Scriptures. These wordfl»
and in this beautifully clothed form, lent new ideals to him,
a^d here he found the essence of so much which he so freely
referred to in later years. This new drift — ^this biblical lit-
erature-Hsame into his life as a request of a dying mother.
That he held her advice dear and that he profited by it, let
us take his own words as the best of proof. For when he had
reached the zenith of his career he paid motherhood the
highest, most sublime and eloquent tribute to be found in
our language, when he said, ''All I am or erer hope to be I
owe to my angel mother."

The boy possessed, too, a copy of ''Pilgrim's Progress," and
from its splendid English he learned the smooth and sooth-
fol diction of the great 'John Bunyan ; in these writings he
learned to appreciate the truth of the supremacy of justice and
the everywhere-applicable principles of moderation coupled
with righteousness.

Lincoln was indeed a remarkable combination of literary
influences, and it must not, on an occasion like this, seem
the glory of the North alone, that he lived. Lincohi was in
truth a Southerner by both birth and training, but a North-
erner by both sentiment and principle. His parents, both
paternal and maternal, were of Southern extraction and he
was shaped in his love for liberty by Southern writers,
Southern orators, and Southern statesmen, who possessed the
broad and patriotic national love. He read Washington,
and there learned of the evolution of American freedom ; he
studied and admired Thomas Jefferson, whose unanswerable
statement that "All men are bom equal" became the very
foundation stone of our national fabric, the very substance of
the Lincoln campaign. This eminent advocate of universal
privilege, waa a Virginian. The master-mind of the Cionstitu-
tional Convention, James Madison, was one of his ideals,
and he too came from Virginia. Then there was Patrick
Henry who preceded all others in his defiance of tyranny
for liberty. He too came from the old Dominion, and when

THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION IM

the National Constitution was put into operation witk all
its uncertain oonstractions and its innumerable undefined
meanings^ it was a Virginian of unequalled legal sagaeity
and remarkable disoemment^ who gave direction to that in*
stnunent This man, who more than any other living states-
man stamped the correct seal upon our national destiny, was
the scholar, patriot, and ever-famed John Marshall of Vir-
ginia. Thus Southerners of a national spirit practically
shaped our Lincoln for the superhuman task of saving the
Union of States. Their writings, their eloquent words, and
clear documents of state prepared Lincohi to appreciate the
oratorical efforts of Webster and Hayne in their fiery con-
tests for their respective sections ; and, when the great cloud
of secession came on the horizon, none in the broad land
was more capable of seeing hope or seeing light in the
scenes of war about to take effect We have just celebrated
his matchless debates with the '^ Little Oiant,'' Stephen A.
Douglas, and we are still filled with admiration for his cool,
collected, and logical arguments in fkvor of the Constitution
and Union of the forefathers. He demonstrated to an ex-
pectant general public that while he might not be generally
known, he nevertheless was generally informed. The Doug-
las defeat which brought to the surface the literary ability
of Lincoln was the beginning of much distress for him.
He was sought as the presidential candidate, and to permit
the far East to enjoy itself, some editors proposed to invite
Lincoln to New York ''and let us hear what this backwoods-
man knows of the Constitution." Every one was asked to
come to the Cooper Union speech. ''It will be a rare treat,"
they wrote. "Lincoln is a* queer fellow; his clothes are
shabl^, iU-fitting, and his long hair unkempt. But come out
to see him ; this ungainly lawyer when he walks down Broad-
way in his unstyled suit, will bring hysteria to all New
York."

Yes, he brought hysteria to old New York, but of a far
different kind than they had expected. He came to the gath-
ering. He was introduced to a curiously interested audi-
ence. He stood in an ungainly manner; his face seemed

130 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

all bonai, and homely; hia hair did hang cardeaB^ about
hia head, and hia deeply aunken eyea hid behind ahaggy eye-
bniwa. The crowda aeanned him oritieally. The editora had
painted him in proper hnea^ and in tmth they would be en-
tertained in a novel and moat odd faahion. Lincoln, from
the firat aentence, aeemed to aronae langhter; he gained their
attention, and aa he progreaaed in the vivid deacription of
the evolution, conatmctioo, and meaning of the Dedaratioa
of Independence, anpplemented by hia graphic analyaia of the
baaic law of the land— <rar Conatitation — he awakmed hear^
reaponae. The hearera were amazed at hia language; th^y
were apellbonnd 1^ hia cUnehing argomenta; they eagerly
drank in the doqaenee and all forgot hia physical poae. Th^
now saw the reid man. With flnah of cheek, the brow qrm-
bolizing intelligence, the eyea aglow with firea of truth, and
in all a giant of the rostrum, amid storms of applause he stood
defending the heritage of from Lexington to Yorktown.

The Qettysburg Address, this day presented to the Chicago
Public Library, ia on copper, and, like the metal upon which
it is embossed, will not corrode in our memory. It is doubt-
less one of our truly American literary pearls. The occaaion.
upon which lineoln gave it, has features which appeal to us
all. The terrible Battles of Gettysburg — ^fought on 'July 1,
2, and 3, of '63 — ^brought sorrow to more homes than any
battle in modem timea. Thirty-four thousand wearing the
gray and twenty-three thouaand clothed in the blue died in
the struggle to rear their beloved colors — ^in anguish, in mad-
ness, and in superhuman defiance, died in defence of their
flag. About a hundred daya later the nation dedicated on
thia battlefield a cemetery. The occasion waa memorable;
hundreds of thousands of the admiring living would be there
to witness the event, and the most distinguished orator in aU
the land was invited to deliver the address of the day. The

^orator, Edward Everett, waa chosen, and the day of dedicatiom
at hand, when one of the Committee perdiance thought of
inviting Abraham Lincoln to be preaent; some other ven-
turous committeemen ventured the suggestion that Lincoln

'be aaked to make a talk. Thia fell on approving ears. The

THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION IS?

objeetion quickly eame^ '^He will hardly expect that, and
moreover, before saeh an august andienee he wiU not be
heard, and we want this to be the oooasion of master-effort
oratory." The people gathered. The great and eminent
were present Lincoln had finally been invited; but he was
allowed to nnderstand that the eminent, the distingnisbed
and flowery Bdward Everett, would be expected to consume
Bueh time aa he desired. The far*famed orator from New
England was introduoed. He proceeded with all the knowl-
edge of oratory to gather the auditory admiration; he was
painting beautiful soenes ; he was designing carefully studied
equations of eloquence; he was delving into ancient history,
bringing to the surface the beauties of the ruins of the old
world, and seemed in a serene atmosphere of all that was
rhetorical — Gleamed, scholarly, and poetic. His discourse
lasted one hour and a half, and the assemblage had truly
heard a great man. Then the humble, the somewhat shunned
President of the United States was introduced. He calmly,
yet with a depth of sadness never equalled, came forward.
His bowed head was weary of the strife ; his eyes had wept
bitter tears of sorrow; his noble soul had suffered untold
agonies during the days that Gettysburg resounded with
cannonading. He stood erect, and, in a mftjestio and almost
divine attitude, began that grand sunmiary of our history.
His Address la^d just four minutes, during which time he
pictured plainly the settlement period, then the Revolu-
tionary epoch, then the Constitutional career of this great
nati<m. He followed up with the struggle at Gettysburg;
reassured the living and the martyred that the dead had not
died in vain; climaxed the scene with renewed devotion
to liberty, and proclaimed the everlasting reign of our free-
dom. Tlie world little remembers what Everett, said that
day. His logic, his conclusions, and all the bright colors of
that cimvaa have darkened and almost faded away; but the
living shades from the eloquent lips of Lincoln — they live —
fhey will continue to grow more clearly and take on their
true harmonies as the days enter the portals of our eastern
ahores, the youth of the land eagerly drink in their meaning ;

188 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

and the best and most nnselflsh history of the United States
can be seen in the words of the Oettysbnrg Address.

This one Address stamps Lincoln as a master of our lan-
guage— ^makes him a part of the literary galaxy of onr land.
His constant faith in books and his eyer-willingness to make
them his companions lends reason for my classing him as
a literary product. He had no teachers and his greatness
rested on his book foundations. He believed in books and
loved them ; he pronounced them his ^'unfailing and unfalter-
ing friends.'' When all was dark and gloomy and even hope
seemed madness; when senators could not be trusted; when
representatives deceived him; when generals deserted the
cause; when diplomats in the foreign lands traitorously lent
the Confederacy aid; and when even his own Cabinet was
disloyal to him personally — ^then he would steal into the
library of the White House and bury himself in the depths
of some favorite prose or poetry. His poetic nature naturally
sought relief in quietude, and his choice lines from Knox
were thoroughly expressive of his broad and democratic nar
ture. The lines he most loved were :

''The leaves of the oak and the willow shall fade^
Be scattered around and together be laid;
And the young and the old and the low and the high.
Shall moulder to dust yet together shall lie."

Then he would emerge from the book-world with new
hopes, with new life, and with renewed fortitude, and assume
his stem and oath-bound duty.

Lincoln was the happy embodiment of the lypically national
American ; he seemed to possess that peculiar requisite which
the times demanded, and was well equipped and thoroughly
prepared mentally and physically to endure those hardships,
and triumph over almost unsurmountable obstacles. We all
love Abraham Lincoln. His very name brings warmth to
our hearts. His life was exemplary of loyalty and his name
is inscribed high on the rolls of fame. While he was a farmer,
he does not belong to them ; though a lawyer, yet the attorneys
can not claim him ; though he fought with the North, yet he

THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 189

does not seem our own. He can not be claimed a full pos-
session by even the entire Union. Lincoln has grown, and
endeared himself, and now belongs to the entire liberty-lov-
ing world.

THE FBEEPOBT DEBATE

OOf • SMITH O. ATKINB

I AM to q>eak about tliat whieh it appears to me happened
only yesterday — the joint detwte between Abraham Lin-
coln and Stephen A. Donglas, at Freeport, August 27, 1858.

I want you to remember these two things: The MisBOuri
Compromise of 1820, that excluded slavery by an Act of
CongresB from the Territories, was repealed in 1854; the Dred
Scott case was decided I^ the Supreme Court in 1856, and
that Court decided that slavery was recognized in the Consti-
tution of the United States, and went into all the Territories,
and everywhere that the Constitution was supreme, there
being no power that could exclude it, legislative, executive or
judicial; and that therefore the Northwest Ordinance of
1787, the Free State Constitution of Illinois of 1818, the Mia-
Bouri Compromise of 1820, were null and void so far as the
question of slavery was concerned These were the burning
questions discussed^

Mr. Lincoln arrived in Freeport from Mendota about nine
o'clock in the morning, and went to his room in the Brewster
House. There was no conference of leading Bepublicana aa
to the course Mr. Lincoln should pursue, nothing of the kind«
All discussion appeared to come about purely by accident —
the door of Mr. Lincoln 's room wide open, people coming and
going as they chose.

The subject under discussion when I entered the room
was the solemn manner of Mr. Lincoln's oratory in the first of
the series of joint debates at Ottawa, on August 21, all present
Who engaged in the conversation urging Lincoln to drop
his solemn style of argument and tell stories, as did Tom
Corwin, of Ohio, and ^^ catch the crowd.''

Mr. Lincoln appeared greatly amused, and said very litfle,

140

THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 141

but after a while he drew frcxm his i>oeket a lift of quetttons
that he had carefully prepared and which he propoied to
aik Mr. Dooc^aa. The reading of those qneetiona created a
storm of opposition on the part of nearly everyone present, es- n
peeially the second question J^Can the people of a United ^
States Territory, in any lawftlTway, against the wish of any
citizen of -the United States, exclude slayery from its limits
prior to the formation of a State Constitution f^ Nearly^all
present iffged that Mr. Douglas would answer that under his
doctrine of 'Topular Sovereignty/^any Territory could by
'^unfriendly legislation*' exclude slavery, and Abr. Douglss
would ''catch the crowd'' and beat Mr. Lincoln as a candidate
for United States Senator from Illinois.

Mr. Lincoln listened attentively, and with wonderful pa-
tience, while those arguments were urged against the course he
proposed to pursue, but flnal^, he slovdy and deliberately
replied in substance — and in his own words as nearly ss I can
now remember them — ^"Well, as to my changing my style of
argument, I will not do that— the subject is too solemn and
imiwrtant. That is settled. Now as to the other point —
I don't know how Mr. Douglas will answer; if he answers that
the people of a Territory cannot exclude slavery, I will beat
him; but if he answers as you say he will, and as I believe
he will, he may beat me for Senator, but he will never be
President."

Mr. Lincoln did, in the joint debate in the afternoon, ask
iJudge Douglas the question that had been the subject of so
much discussion, and Douglas did answer, as all said that he
would, and as Lincoln believed that he would, and Douglas did
beat Lincoln as a candidate for Senator from Illinois. Bi^^
making that answer Douglas put himself in direct opi)08ition
to the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States
in the Dred Scott case, and he so offended the Democrats
of the South that they instantly denounced him. That an-
swer made by Douglas to Liocoln's question in Freeport, on
August 27, 1858, split the Democratic National Convention
at Charleston, South Carolina, in 1860, and as Lincoln had pre-
made the election of Douglas as President impossible.

r^J^^U UJ^r- L

148 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

The popular opinicm was and is, that it made Lmooln so well
known throughout the eountry as to result in his own noin-
ination and election as President of the United Ststes.

Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Douglas had long been riTals, bat^ hy
his superior ability as a debater, Mr. Lincoln at Freeport^ Aug-
ust 27, 1858, passed his rival and went onward to the pred-
denc^y the goal of political ambition which Mr« Douglas never
reached.

And when Mr. Lincoln became President and read his won-
derful Inaugural Address, it was Stephen A. Douglas who
stood by his side and held his hat I heard Senator Douglas
say in Springfield, in April, 1861, ''lie time has come when
there can be but two parties in this country, patriots and
traitors." He was as loyal as was Mr. Lincoln. And, better
still, the Douglas Democrats of Illinois— and, better than that,
the Douglas Democrats throughout all the loyal North — were
as loyal as their loyal leader. Shortly afterward the great
Senator died. Mr. Lincoln lived longer — ^lived to conduct sac-
cessfully the suppression of the greatest rebellion in history,
and when the sunlight of complete victory filled all the land
with joy, Mr. Lincoln was assassinated.

Sometimes I almost despair of the Bepublic. Three of the
Presidents in my short lifetime have so met death by assas-
sination. Why it was that the good Lord God Almighty
permitted it, I do not understand. Ood's ways are not our
ways. We dare not criticise. We must submit. Standing
by the bedside of Mr. Lincoln when he died was his great War
Secretary, Stanton, who said, ^^Now he belongs to the ages.
Name his name once more — ^Abraham Lincoln — ^then leave it
in undying glory forever shining on in »-•-*— "

TWO MOMENTOUS MEETINGS

HAJ.-OBN. FBEDEBICK DENT ORANT

I FEEL deeply honored that you have called upon me on
this interesting occasion, but I have great modesty in
speaking to you here, in the presence of these many distin-
guished and gifted orators, and while I appreciate the compli-
ment you pay me, I fully realize that it is not myself
I>er8onally whom you wish to hear, but that I am being wel-
comed as the son of Ulysses S. Grant, who served his country
faithfully, with Abraham Lincoln, and who loyally loved our
martyred President, revering his memory throughout his life ;
it is the descendant of Lincoln 's friend and compatriot whom
you call upon for a few words.

This hundredth anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lin-
coln is an occasion which the people of the United States
honor themselves in celebrating, and they should, in my opin-
ion, keep forever green the memory of this great American
statesman and patriot by making the annual anniversary of
his birth a national holiday.

It was my great good fortune to be with my father, close
at his side, much of the time during the Civil War, when I
bad the opportunity of seeing and listening to many of the
noble and distinguished men who were loyally serving their
country during that great struggle; thus I had the honor
and happiness of seeing and meeting our revered and mar-
tyred President, Abraham Lincoln.

In looking back to those dark days of the Civil War, I have
distinct personal recollections of the first two meetings be-
tween President Lincoln and my father. General U. S. Grant.
These two occasions seem to my mind the most momentous and
memorable in the history of our nation, as these meetings

14$

144 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

marked the beginning of the end of onr great struggle for
the existence of our nation.

The principal and determined efforts of President Lincoln's
administration were directed to the preservation of the Union,
which, naturally, could not be accomplished without the suc-
cess of the Union armies in the field. Up to the Spring of
1864 the progress of the Civil War had not been satisfactory
to the people of the North, and little success had been accom-
plished except in the victories at Donelson, Yicksburg, and
Chattanooga.

After the Campaign of Chattanooga, the President and the
people of the United States turned impulsively to General
Orant as the leader of the Union Armies, and a bill was intro-
duced in Congress reviving for him the grade of Lieutenant-
Oeneral, which grade had died with Washington (though
Scott had held it by brevet). The enthusiastic membera of
the House of Representatives received the bill with applause.
They made no concealment of their wishes^ and recommended
Grant by name for the appointment of Lieutenant-GkoeraL
The bill passed the House by a two-thirds majority ; and the
Senate, with only six dissenting votes.

President Lincoln seemed impatient to put Grant in this
high grade, and said he desired to do so to relieve hinmelf
from the responsibilities of managing the military forces. He
sent the nomination to the Senate, and General Grants idio
was at Nashville, received an order from the Secretary of
War, to report in person at Washington* In eomplianoe
with this order, he left Chattanooga on March 5, for Washing-
ton, taking with him some members of his staff. My fatliar
allowed me to accompany him there, I having been with
him during the Yicksburg campaign and at Donelson. We
reached Washington in the afternoon of March 7, and went
direct to Willard's Hotel. After making our toilets, my
father took me with him to the hotel dining-room. There I
remember seeing at the table next to where we were seated,
some persons who seemed curious, and who began to whisper
to eacJi other. After several moments one of the gentlemen
present attracted attention by pounding on the table with

THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 145

his knife, and when silenee was leeured, aitMe and announced
to the aasembled dinera that he had ''the honor to inform them,
that General Grant was present in the room with them/' A
shont arose, ''Grant I Grant I Grant 1" People sprang to their
feet wild with excitement, and three cheers were proposed,
which were given with wild enthnsiasm. My father arose
and bowed, and the crowd began to soi^e aroond him; after
that, dining became impossible and an informal reception was
held for perhaps three-quarters of an hour, but as there
seemed to be no end to the crowd assembling, my father left
the dining-room and retired to his apartments. All this
scene was most vividly impressed upon my youthful mind.

Senator Simon Cameron of Pennsylvania, ex-Secretary of
War, soon called at Willard's Hotel for my father, and ac-
companied him, with his staff, to the White House, where
President and Mrs. Lincoln were holding a reception.

As my father entered the drawing-room door at the White
House, the other visitors fell back in silence, and President
Lincoln received my father most cordially, taking both his
hands, and saying, "I am most delighted to see you, GeneraL"
I myself shall never forget this first meeting of Lincoln and
Grant. It was an impressive affair, for there stood the Ex*
ecutive of this great nation, welcoming the Commander of
itB armies. I see them now before me — ^Lincoln, tall, thin, and
impressive, with deeply lined face, and his strong sad ey^a-^
Grant, compact, of good size, but lookiug small beside th#
President, with his broad, square head and oempvessed lipsy
dedA^e and resolute. This was a thrilling mcnnent, for in
the hands of these two mem was the destiny of our country.
Their work was in cooperation, fbr the preservation of our
great nation> and for the liberty of men. They remained
talking together for a few momei^ts, and then General Grant
passed on Into the East Boom with the crowd which sur-
rounded and cheered him wildly, and all present were eager
to press his hand. The guests xNresent forced him to stand
upcm a sofa, insisting that he could be better seen by aQ. I
remember that my father, of whom they wished to make a
hero, blushed most modestly at these mthusiastic sftteations^

146 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

all present joining in expressions of affection and applanse.
Soon a messenger reached my father calling him back to the
side of Mrs. Lincdn, and with her he made a tonr of the recep-
tion rooms, followed by President Lincoln, whose noble, ragged
face beamed with pleasure and gratification*

When an opportunity presented itself for them to speak
privately, President Lincoln said to my father, ''I am to
formally present yon your commission to-morrow morning at
ten o'clock, and bowing, General, your dread of speaking, I
have written out what I have to say, and will read it; it will
only be four or five sentences. I would like you to say some-
thing in reply which will soothe the feeling of jealousy among
the officers, and be encouraging to the nation/' Thus spoke
this greatand noble peacemaker to the general who so heartily
coincided with him in sentiments and work for union and
peace.

When the reception was over at the White House, my father
returned to Willard's Hotel, where a great crowd was again
assembled to greet him and remained with him until a late
hour of the night. After the crowd had dispersed, my father
sat down and wrote what he intended to say the following
day in receiving his commission promoting him to the Lieu-
tenant-Oeneralcy and to the command of the Union armies.

Father proceeded to the White House a few minutes before
ten o'clock the next morning, permitting me to accompany him.
Upon arriving there, Oeneral Orant and his staff were ushered
into the President's office, which I remember was the room
immediately above what is now known as the Red Room of
the Executive Mansion. There the President and his Cabinet
were assembled, and after a short and informal greeting, all
standing, the President faced Oeneral Grant, and from a
sheet of paper read the following :

''OmiRAL ChunTs The nation's appndation of what you hsTS doae,
and its relianoe upon jou for what renudnf to do in the cristing grett
etruggle, are now preeented with thii commiesion, constituting yoa
lieutenant-general in the Arm/ of the United States.

''With this high honor derolyes upon you also a corresponding re-
spoasibilitgr. A» the oountfy herein trusts you, so, under God, it will

THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 147

■ustaiii you. I scarcely need add, that with what I here speak lor the
natioii, goes my own hearty personal concurrence."

My father, taking from his pocket a sheet of paper contain-
ing the words that he had written the night before, read
qnietly and modestly, to the President and his Cabinet :

"Mb. PBBsmBNT: I accept the commission with gratitude for the high
honor conferred. With the aid of the noble armies that have fought
in so many fields for our common country, it will be my earnest ea-
deayor not to disappoint your expectations. I feel the full weight of
the responsibilities now devoMng upon me, and I know that if they
are met, it will be due to those armies, and, aboTe all, to the favor of
that Providence which leads both nations and men."

President Lincoln seemed to be profoundly happy, and
General Orant deeply gratified. It was a supreme moment
when these two patriots shook hands, in confirming the com-
pact that was to finish our terrible Civil War and to save onr
united country, and to give us a nation without master and
without a slave.

From the time of these meetings, the friendship between
the President and my father was most close and loyal. Pres-
ident Lincoln seemed to have absolute confidence in Oeneral
Grant, and my father always spoke of the President with the
deepest admiration and affection. This affection and loyal
confidence was maintained between them until their lives
ended.

I feel deeply grateful to have been present when these two
patriots met, on the occasion when they loyally promised one
another to preserve the Union at all costs. I preserve al-
ways, as a treasure in my home, a large bronze medallion
which was designed by a distinguished artist at the request
of the loyal citizens of Philadelphia, upon the happy termina-
tion of our great Civil War, and which is a beautiful work of
art. Upon this bronze medallion are three faces, in relief,
with the superscription : *' Washington the Father, Lincoln the
Saviour, and Grant the Preserver''-— emblematic of a great
and patriotic trinity.

A VOICE PROM THE SOUTH

HON. J. M. DICEINSON

"1 X THAT I say will carry no significance^ if I Toice merely
VV my personal sentiments, though they accord entirely
with the spirit that prompted this memorial, and pervades
this assembly. But in what esteem the South holds the name
and fame of Abraham Lincoln is of national interest All
present should with sincere solemnity unite in honoring him,
who is and always will be regarded as one of the world's
immortals, and there should be no note of discord in the
grand diapason which swells up from a grateful people in
this Centennial Celebration. I would have stayed away, if I
could not heartily respond to the spirit of the occasion ; and
would not speak in the representative character implied by an
introduction as a ''Voice from the South," if I did not believe
that what I will say is a true reflection of the feelings and
judgment of those who have the best right to be regarded as
sponsors for the South. I recall as vividly as if it were to-day,
when, in 1860, a messenger, with passionate excitement, dashed
up to our school in Mississippi, the State of Jefferson Davis,
and proclaimed that Abraham Lincoln was elected. The
Brides of Enderby did not ring out in more dismal tones, or
carry a greater shock to the hearts of the i>eople. We had
passed through a political campaign unsurpassed in bitterness.
The true Lincoln had not been fuUy revealed, and had been
transfonned in the South — as the great protagonist of the
South was transformed in the North — ^by the heat of the
fiercest controversy that our country had ever experienced.

In the youthful imagination stirred to its highest pitch by
the explosive sentiment of the times, without the corrective of
mature judgment, Lincoln's name was invested with sucb.
terrors as the Chinuera inspired in the children of Lycia. A

148

THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 149

wave of emotions, feelings of indignation, commingled with a
vague sense of impending evil, swept over ns. Onr sonls mir-
rored the spirit of the times and its environment. From that
day to the surrender at Appomattox, we would not have
regretted the death of Lincoln any more than did the people
of the North the fall of Stonewall Jackson. The War was
protracted. There was time for revision of impressions.
Sorrow in Protean forms, that pervaded every household, and, J

like the croaking raven, seemed as if it would never more da-
part, attuned their souls to an appreciation that those in the
high tide of happiness and prosperity can never fully have, of
facts that revealed a gentle spirit and a heart that was wom-
anly in its tenderness, and in its sympathies commensurate
with human suffering. Amid the pieans of victory, sorrows
over defeat, the times of hope, the periods of despair, con-
gratulations to the victorious living, dirges for the dead; in
the gloomy intervals, all too short, when they were not sus-
tained by the excitemCTit of battle, there drifted in stories of
generous acts, soft words, and brotherly sentiments from him
whom they had regarded as their most implacable enemy.
They came to know that his heart was a stranger to hatred,
that he was willing to efface himself if his country might be
exalted, and that his love for the Union surpassed all other
considerations.

They were profoundly impressed, when, at his Second Inau-
gural— ^a time when it was apparent that the Confederacy was
doomed — ^he said :

'^ith malice toward none; with charity for all; with linnnew in
the right, as Qod givei us to see the right, let ns strive on to finish
the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him
who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan —
to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace
among ourselves, and with all nations."

With this favorable condition for responsive sentiment, the
scene changed. Appomattox came, and then in quick sequence
a total surrender. A civilization which developed some qual-
ities of splendor and worth never surpassed — a civilization
allied with an institution which all other Christian countries

150 ABRAHAM LINCOLN .

had freed thenuelves of, and subaequently oondemnedy bat
which the South, with its conditions and environments, oould
not at once, without precipitating an immeasurable catas-
trophe, abolish— fell into financial, social, and political ruin
as complete as that which overwhelmed the people of Messina.

The world did not spontaneously comfort them with tender
words and overwhelm them with generous aid. Foreign na-
tions dared not offend the triumphant flag. Potential voices
at the North rang out fiercely for a bloody assize. Then it
was that the great patriot, undazzled by success^ untouched by
the spirit of revenge, moved by generous flympathies, with the
eye of a seer, looked beyond the passions of the times, saw
the surest way for consolidating this people into a Union of
hearts as well as of States, and, stretching out his command-
ing arm over the turbulent waters, said, ''Peace, be stiU."

The magnanimous terms granted to their surrendered soldiers
convinced the Southern people that Lincoln, having accom-
plished by force of aims the great work of saving the union
of the States, would consecrate himself with equal devotion
to the no less arduous and important wor)^ for the endurance
of our national life, of rehabilitating the seceding States^ re-
storing to effective citizenship those who had sought to estab*
lish an independent government, and bringing them back to
the allegiance which they had disavowed. There was a new
estimate by the Southern people of his character and motives.
They learned that he was not inspired by personal ambition,
that he was full of the spirit of abnegation, even to the point
of self-abasement, that he did not exult over them in victory,
but sorrowed with those in affliction, that his heart was always
responsive to distress, his soul full of magnanimity, and that
he was filled with a patriotism which held in its loving em-
brace our entire country. With this new aspect in which he
was regarded by our people, I well remember where I stood,
and the consternation that filled aU faces, when his assassina-
tion was announced. I will not say that some fierce natures,
that some of the thotightiess, did not exult But, as a witness
of the times, I testify that there was general manifestation
of sorrow and indignation. I woxdd not convey the im-

WAR OCPARTMCNT

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THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 151

preadon fhat it was an exponent of such feeling for lineoln
as went out from the people of the Nortlt That would have
been as tmnatoral at that time, as it would have been ignoble
to rejoice over his suffering, or approve the dastardly act that
laid him low. It came partly from such chiyalrie spirit as
that which evoked the lament of Percy over the fallen
Douglas at Chevy Chase. It came also from a realisation of
their own condition — ^the sense of an impending storm,
charged with destructive thunderbolts forged by political
hatred, and launched by those who would humiliate them,
grind their very faces to the earth, make their slaves task-
masters over them, and if possible expatriate them and divide
their substance — and the belief that Abraham Lincoln, who
had been the leader in the fierce contest between the States,
alone so held the affections and confidence of the Northern
people that he could qpeedily ''bind up the nation's wounds''
and ' ' achieve and cherish a just and lasting i>eace among our-
selves."

Nearly forty-four years have passed since that woeful event.
I.8tood on Decoration Day by the monument erected in Oak-
woods Cemetery — ^mainly by the contributions of Northern
people — ^to the memory of tiie unknown Confederate soldiers
who yielded up their lives as prisoners of war at Camp Doug-
las, and saw the Illinois soldiery fire over those who fought
for the Stars and Bars the same salute that was fired over
those who fought for the Stars and Stripes. Within a short
time there will be unveiled on the capitol grounds at Nashvillef
a monument to Sam Davis, the hero boy of Tennessee, who was
himg as a rebel spy. General O. M. Dodge, who ordered his
execution, and many other people of the North, were foremost
among the contributors. The voice of Wheeler that had urged
on the sons of the South in a hundred battles against the
Union, rang out with equal devotbn while leading our soldiers
from North and South under the flag: of our common country.
In the same uniform, a son of a Grant, and a son of a Lee,
ride side by side. Am I not right, here in the North, and in
this assembly, in saying that the American people, reunited
— ^with no contest, except in generous rivalry to advance their

152 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

eountry'fl welfare, cherishing, bat without bittemesi, flie
proud memories of their eonflict — ^have long since realked
the prophecy of Lincoln at his First Inaugural that :

"The niTBtio chords of memory, Btretching from every battlefield and
patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad
huid, will yet swell the chorus of the Union when again toaehed, as
surely thij will be, by the better angds of our nature.''

The death of Lincoln postponed for a dreary time that
happy era. How much humiliation, sorrow, wretchedness, and
hate, what an Iliad of woes to white and black came through
his untimely end, no tongue or pen can ever portray.

Am far as the human mind can estimate and compare what
was with what might have been, it was for the entire nation,
but especially for the South, the most lamentable tragedy in
history. My judgment, based upon years of observation and
study, is that it was, in the light of subsequent events, more
regretted by the Southern people than was the fall of the
Confederacy.

What conflicts, what ingratitude, what disappointments in
his great purposes, he may have been spared, we do not know.
But we know that at the height of his fame, at the triumphant
close of the great conflict which he had led, he was, by a
tragedy that shocked the world, caught up from the stage of
human action and its vicissitudes, and fixed forever as one of
the greatest luminaries in that galaxy of illustrious men who
will shine throughout the ages.

He passed out of view like tropic sun that —

^'With disc like battle target red
Rushes to his burning bed,
Dyes the wide wave with ruddy light,
Then sinks at once and all is night."

Southem-bom — ^with mind, heart, and soul loyal to its tra-
ditions, believing that the South was within its constitutional
rights as the Constitution then stood, that her leaders were
patriotic, that her people showed a devotion to principles
without a touch of sordidness, that such action as theirs could
only come from a deep conviction that counted not the cost

THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 15$

of sacrifice, cheriflhing as a glorious legacy the renown of her
armies and leaders, whose purity of life and heroism were
unsurpassed by those of any people at any one time — ^yet I
say in all sincerity and without reservation, that I rejoice as
much as any of you that our country produced Abraham Lin-
coln, who will, as long as great intellect, patriotism, sincerity,
self-denial, magnanimity, leadership, heroism, and those
graces of the mind and heart which reflect the gentle spirit
are cherished, shed lustre, not only upon hia countrymen,
but upon all humanity.

1&6 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

that required great skill or nraeb learning in the law. Th»
interests invoWed were for the most part trivial, measured i^
a monetary standard — ^but they involved the same questions
of right and justice ^liiich invite our professional attention
in these latter days.

In the mn prius Courts, Abraham Inncoln was called upon
to try cases of every class, both civil and criminal, and he
entered upon the trial of cases involving but a few dollars
with as much zeal as those involving thousands ; but no crim-
inal case in which Lincoln appeared as an attorney is to be
found in the reports of the decisions of the Supreme Court
of Illinois. Whether this fact is due to his great ability as
an advocate before a jury or to some other cause, I am unable
to state, but, as his contemporaries inform us that he tried
very many criminal cases, none of which appear in the Stale
Reports, it seems safe to assume that his clients in such cases
were acquitted hy the jury.

Some of Lincoln's biographers have sought to make it ap*
pear that Inncoln refused to take advantage of a so-called
tedmicality in order to win his case. This view is not borne
out by the record, for— while he possessed many attributes
which all admit are above and beyond those possessed by
ordinary mortals — ^as a lawyer he seems to have been no leas
human than other members of the profession, and while it
may be truthfully said that he took no mean advantage of
his professional brethren, he did not hesitate to press upon
the attention of iht Court any legitimate advantage which
the record of the case might furnish.

The first case in connection with which his name appears
in the Supreme Court, furnishes evidence of this, being the
case of J. Y. Scammon — afterwards Supreme Court Reporter
— plaintifll in error t;^ Oomriius Cline. Scammon had
brought the suit before a Justice of the Peace in Boone
County, and the STustice having rradered judgment in favor
of the defendant, Scammon appealed to the Circuit Court of
Boone County. At the time the appeal from the Justice was
perfected, Boone County was still a part of Jo Daviess
County, for judicial purposes, and no Court having been

THE CHICAGO COMMEMOBATION 157

appointed to be held in Boone Covaityj it was contended by
the defendant's eotmsel that the appeal shoidd have been
taken to Jo Dayien Oonntj. The defendant's motion to
dismiss the appeal presented to the Cirenit Gonrt of Boone
County at its first term, was sustained^ and the ease was
taken to the Snpreme Court on error, Lincoln appearing for
defendant in error, and resulted in a reversal of the decision
of the Circuit Court.

Another case which was decided upon a technical point
raised by Lincoln, was the case of Maus vs. Whitney, which
was an appeal from the Circuit Court of Tazewell County.
Lincoln represented the appellee and moved the Court to dis*
miss the appeal on the technical ground that the bond was
signed on behalf of the surety by his agent, whose authority,
while in writing, was not under seal, and the motion was
sustained. From this decision Justice Breese dissented in
a short but very vigorous Opinion in which he took occasion
to say that he could not yield up his judgment in any case
because others had decided a point in a particular manner
unless he could see the reason of the decision ; that he could
see none in that case ; and, believing as he did that the pur-*
poses of justice ''are not at all subserved by an adherence
to such antiquated rules and unmeaning technicalities," he
refused to concur with the majority of the Court, and then
proceeded to say that several of hii brother judges coincided
in the views which he expressed, but believing the rule laid
down in the majority opinion to be the law, they considered
themselves bound by it, notwithstanding its unreasonableness.
He, however, expressed the opinion that if the alleged reason
is absurd, it should not bind the Court

It is possible that Lincoln may have appeared as counsel
in some case prior to his appearance in the case of Scsmmon
vs. dine already referred to, as the reporter in the preface
in the first volume of Scammon's Reports says, ''that the
practice of the Court, which required an abstract to be filed
by counsel for apx>ellant or plaintiff in error, while none was
required of appellee or defendant in error, had the effect to
cause a brief to be filed by the fonnar^ while the counsel for

15$ ABRAHAM LINCOLN

the latter nmmlly contented themaelTeB with making
points and citing their anthorities on the hearing." The re-
porter complains also of the neglect of comuel in many cases
to sign their names to their abstracts and declares that on
account of the manner in which the docket was kept it was
difficult to ascertain with precision who appeared as counseL

The case of Scammon vs. Cline was decided at the December
Term, 1840. Lincoln had been a member of the bar at that
time about three years^ and was then thirty-one years of age.

The case of Bailey vs. Cromwell, reported in the third of
Scammon, in which Lincoln appeared for the appellant, is of
peculiar interest to us. It was decided at the July Term,
1841. The case was an action of assumpsit on a promiasoiy
note and was tried in the Circuit Court of Tazewell County,
where Lincoln represented the defendant Lincoln had
pleaded the general issue, and filed among other special
pleas, a plea of total failure of consideration, in which
he set out that the note was given for the purchase of
a negro girl, sold by Cromwell to Bailey and who was
represented to Bailey at the time of the purchase, to be a
slaye and servant, when in fact she was free ; that Cromwell
agreed to furnish Bailey with proof that the girl was a slave,
which he had failed to do, and that, therefore, the considera-
tion had wholly failed. A finding and judgment was ren-
dered in the Circuit Court, for four hundred, thirty*one dol-
lars, ninety- seven cents on the note, which was reversed by
the Supreme Court, where it was held that the defendant,
having shown that the girl was the consideration for the note,
and the presumption of law being that she was free, and the
sale of a free person being illegal, in the absence of proof
to rebut the presumption that she was free, there was no valid
consideration for the note.

All the sessions of the Supreme Court, beginning wiUi the
July Term, 1839, to and including the December Term, 1847,
were held at Springfield.

The organization of the Court was changed by the adoption
of the Constitution of 1848, the State being divided into three
divisions, in each of irtddi a term of Court was required to

THE CHICAGO COMMEMOBATION 159

be held annually, and the Court thereafter eonsiated of three
Jndgea eleeted by the people, one from each Division, who
were not required to perform Circuit duty. The first Supreme
Court Judges elected under the Constitution of 1848, were
Samuel H. Treat, John D. Caton, and Lyman Trumbull, and
the first cases decided by the Court, as thus constituted, ap-
pear in the fifth of Oilman's Reports. The ninth and tenth
Tolume of the Reports, contain no cases in which the name of
Lincoln appears as counseL This is no doubt due to the fact
fhat during the two years, 1847 and 1848, he was a member
of the National House of Representatives, for his name ap-
pears as Counsel in seyenteen cases in Volume 8 of the
Reports, in six cases in Volume 11 of the Reports, and in
thirteen cases in the twelfth Volume. Again, Volume 20 of
the Reports contains no case in which Lincoln appears as
counsel The Volume contains opinions in cases submitted
in 1858, which was the year of the great debate with Douglas.
This would seem to indicate that whateyer Lincoln under-
took received his undivided attention.

It is said by some of Lincoln's associates at the bar, that
he was not well grounded in the principles of the law, and
that he was not a well-read lawyer, but all admit that he
possessed a logical mind. It is doubtless true that he was not
what is called a '^case lawyer.'' He did not rely wholly upon
precedent. To him the law was indeed the perfection of
reason and he cited few authorities in support of his views,
but depended upon the presentation of the reasons for the rule
for which he contended. His strong common sense enabled
him to see what the law ought to be, and with all the force
of his great mind, he endeavored, with invincible logic, to win
the Court to his view of the law, and had it not been for the
fact that in many cases the Court found itself hampered by
precedents, the record of his successes would have been greater
still. The only branch of the law which seems to have escaped
the activities of Lincoln, in the Supreme Court, is the
criminal law. There is no record of any case involving a
felony in which Lincoln appeared as counsel in that Court,
but in every other branch of the law he was active, and there

160 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

seemB to have been no f onn of proeedtire witii which he wu
not familiar; in applications for irrits of mandamui and
quo warranto, he freqnoitlj appeared; in chancery proceed-
ingSy as well as the ordinary cases at common law, and cases
involving the election laws and revenue laws of the State,
he was equally at home.

In his career at the bar, he crossed swords in the arena of
his profession with the greatest lawyers of his time, among
whom may be mentioned Jesse B. Thomas, 0. EL Browningi
Leonard Swett, Stephen T. Logan, Edward D. Baker, Elihn
B. Washbume, Stephen A. Douglas, J. T. Stuart, Burton G.
Cook, James A. McDougall — afterwards a U. S« Senator from
California — ^liyman Trumbull, B. S. Edwards, Isaac G. Wil-
son, U. F. lander, Thomas Campbell, Isaac N. Arnold, and
many others whose names are impressed upon the jurispru-
deuce of the State, ai^d with all of whom he held the moat
cordial relations.

It must not be forgotten that for the greater part of the
time between the years 1837 and 1861, the State of niinoia
was chiefly an agricultural country. There were then no
great commercial or manufacturing interests to call into play
the talents of the skilful lawyer, and the value of the prop-
erty or rights involved by comparison with the matters
requiring the attention of the Courts at the present time, sink
into insignificance, and yet Lincoln and other men who trav«
elled the Circuit in those days, laid for us the foundation of
the system of jurisprudence, which is the common law of
Illinois to-day.

While it must be admitted that he did not pursue his Urn
studies under the guidance of an instructor,, it is nevertbelefla
true that Lincoln was self taught,, and his comprehenave mind
grasped the principles of the law as fully as if he had sat at
the feet of the most learned of the profession. He read thor-
oughly the standard works of his time, upon every branch of
jurisprudence. While in attendance upon the courts, he lis-
tened to the arguments of others learned in the law, and the
crumbs of legal knowledge gleaned in this manner,, fouBil

THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION l6l

lodgment in his fertile mind, to be tiied by him when ooeasion
required.

Lincoln appeared alone in the Supreme Court in sixty-three
eases; of these, the decision was in his favor in thirty-eight
eases, and he was defeated in twenty-five.

He appeared as an associate counsel in the Supreme Court
in one hundred and ten other cases, in which the parties rep-
resented by him were successful in sixty-seven, and were de-
feated in forty-three cases. What lawyer of this generation
can show a greater record of suocesses t

His entire career at tiie bar covers a period of only twenty-
four years, during three years of which we have seen, he was
not engaged actively in the practice, and yet during that time
he appeared in the Supreme Court in one hundred and seventy-
three cases; of these, the cases of Miller vb. Whitaker, and
Young V8, Miller, were consolidated on the hearing and one
opinion covers both cases (23 III., 453) , the same is true of the
cases of Columbus Machine Manufacturing Co. v$. Dorwin, and
the same vs. Ulrich (25 III., 153) ; also Rose vm. Irving and
Pryor vs. Irving (14 111., 171) ; also two cases of Myers vs.
Turner (17 IlL, 179) and also the cases of Moor vs. Vail, and
Moore vs. Dodd (17 III., 185).

A review of Lincoln's cases in the Supreme Court of Illi-
nois added to an examination of his State papers and the
debate with Douglas, will convince the most skeptical that
Abraham Lincoln was one of the ablest lawyers of his time.

Lincoln often appeared before the Supreme Court of Illi-
nois while Judges Caton and Breese were members of the
Court, and they had ample opportunity to judge of his stand-
ing as a lawyer, for cases were argued orally at that time
more frequently than at the present; the estimate of tiiese
men as to his standing and ability is therefore of great value.

7udge Caton said of him, ^'The most punctilious honor ever
marked his professional life. His frankness and candor were
two great elements in his character, which contributed to his
professional success. If he discovered a weak point in his
cause, he frankly admitted it, and thereby prepared the miad

162 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

to accept the more readily his mode of avoiding it. He was
equally potent before the jury as with the Court." Judge
Breese said of him, "Mr. Lincoln was never found delScient
in all the knowledge requisite to present the strong points of
his case to the best advantage, and by his searching analysis
make clear the most intricate controvert. There was that
within him, glowing in his mind, which enabled him to im-
press with the force of his logic, his own clear peroeptioD
upon the nunds of those he sought to influence. * '

Stephen A. Douglas declared that Lincoln had no equal
as an advocate in the trial of a case before a jury. Leonard
Swett, who knew him as well, if not better, than any other
of his associates on the Circuit, has said that if Lincoln ever
had a superior before a jury — and the more intelligent the
jury the better he was pleased — ^he, Swett, never knew him.
Mr. Swett went further and declared that in his younger days,
he had listened to Tom Corwin, Kufus Choate, and many
others of equal standing at the bar in the trial of cases, but
that Lincoln at his best, was more sincere and impressive than
any of them, and that what Lincoln could not accomplish with
a jury no man need try. Judge David Davis — afterwards
appointed by President Lincoln a Justice of the Supreme
Court of the United States, and who was the presiding judge
in the old Eighth Judicial Circuit of Illinois during the
greater part of the time while Lincoln travelled that Circuit
from County to County, trying cases — continually said that,
''in all the elements that constitute the great lawyer, he had
few equals. He was great botk at nisi prius and before an
appellate tribunal."

Thomas Drummond, than whom no greater trial ju^e ever
sat upon the bench, declared Lincoln to be one of the ablest
lawyers he had ever known. The testimony of these distin-
guished men is convincing, and with the record of his pro-
fessional career in Illinois, to which might be added a
creditable though not very extended practice in the Federal
Courts, should set at rest forever the statement sometimes
made that Lincoln's standing as a lawyer was not of a hif^
Qj^er—toT in all which constitutes the really great lawyer, he

THE CHICAGO COMMEMOBATION 168

stood in the front Tank of the profenion at a time when
many men of renown battled for ntpremaQr at the bar; and
he who by common consent was claased as the eqnal, if not
the superior of Leonard Swett, and the other distinguished
lawyers whom I have named^ must be given high plaoe among
the leaders of the bar of onr State.

Had it not been that his great abilities were demanded by
the Republic, in the turbulent times following 1857, there is
no reason to doubt that the name of Abraham Lincoln, the
lawyer, would have been known from the Atlantic to the
Pacific and from the Oreat Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico.

His whole career shows that failure was a word unknown
to his vocabulary; and prior to the repeal of the Missouri
Compromise he was mating most wonderful progress in his
professional career; but when his country demanded his
services in that trying hour, when he saw that the iron heel
of the slave power of the South was about to be planted upon
the free soil of the nation, he left to others the pursuit of
the calling of his choice at a time when that calling seemed
more than ever inviting, and when greater professional re-
nown was easily within his grasp, to become more than ever
before, an advocate of the rights of the people against an
aristocracy founded upon human slavery.

What followed is a matter of familiar history. Abraham
Lincoln, the lawyer of Illinois, became the great restorer of
the Union of the States, and the work of the lawyer was over-
shadowed by the greater labors and accomplishments of Abra-
ham Lincoln, the emancipator of a race, and the saviour of
his country. Had he lived to witness the realization of the
vision which he saw and so beautifully expressed in his First
Inaugural Address, when ''The mystic chords of memory,
stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every
living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will
yet swell the Chorus of the Union, when touched again, as they
surely will be, by the better angels of our nature," Abraham
liincoln would have proven himself to be the greatest consti-
tutional lawyer of the nineteenth century, and many of the
mistakes and horrors of the reconstruction period, I firmly

IM ABBAHAM UNOOLN

beUere, would haTe been unknown to oar ooontiy's hutoiy.
He would hxft proeaeded ''with nudioa toward none, bat
eharity for all," to ''bind np the nation '• woonds"; and by
eonstitutional government many of the eraflicts which haTo
left a blot apon the eeeateheon of oar national honor, woold
have been avoided and jewels of still greater brilliancj woold
have been thereby placed upon the brow of the greatest nder
of modem ttmes, if not the greatest of the ages.

THE BVOLUTION OF THB OBTTTSBUBO ADDBBS8

HON. JOHK 0. UOl

PIOM Abraham lincoln'a entrance into pnUie life to Us
sacrifleial exit was probably the stormiest period of the
Republic, during all of which time the slsTeiy question was
uppermost. But uoderlTing this eontroverqr lay the great
question of State's rights, the extremists insisting that the
Union was a mere confederacy of States, that the States were
absolutely sovereign and any State had a right to withdraw
from the Union at any time its people saw fit so to do. Lin-
ooln was opposed both to slayeiy and the doctrine of State's
rights, as enunciated, belieying in an inseparable and inde-
structible Union; and it may be intenesting to trace the
gradual growth and strengthening of his belief which cul-
minated in that mighty appeal to the spirit of nationality
known as the Qettysburg Address.

It will be borne in mind that Lincoln had been a member
of the Illinois Legislature for four suecessiTe terms and
entered upon the scene of national politics in 184T, at the
age of thirty-eight, as a member of Congress. Although a
new member, he was not a silent member, and took part in
the debates affecting the leading questions of the day. He
had been practising law for some ten years, and his speeches
in Congress, especially the one against granting appropria-
tions for internal improvemente on constitutional grounds,
showed that he had studied the works of Kent and Storey and
the leading cases of the Supreme Court of the United States,
notably those delivered by Mr. Chief Justice Marshall. He
had taken an active part in polities during the administration
of Andrew Jackson and especially in the great controversy
then raging with reference to the Charter of the United Stetes
Bank. That Charter had been upheld in 1819 by the Supreme

165

166 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Court of the United States in the opinion delivered hj Chief
Justice Marshall in the celebrated case of M'CuUoch v. State
of Maryland. The question involved as to whether Congress
had power to incorporate a bank, and the holding of the Court
that the government of the Union is supreme within its sphere
of afction, and that its laws, when made in pursuance of the
Constitution, are the supreme law of the land, are of conrae
familiar to all here present.

Lincoln said, in a speech delivered in Congress, July 27,
1848;

''When the bill chartering the first Bank of the United SUtes
Congress, its constitutionaliiy was questioned. Mr. Madison, then in
the House ol RepresentatiTes, as well as others, had opposed it on
that ground. Gen. Washington, as President, was ealled on to ap-
prove or reject it. He sought and obtained, on the oonstitutloiial
question, the separate written opinions ol Jefferson, Hamilton, and Ed-
mund Randolph, they then being respectively Secretaiy of State, See-
rotary of the Treasury, and Attom^-General. Hamilton's opinion was
for the power; while Randolph's and Jefferson's were both against it.**

In a reply to Douglas, delivered at Springfield, Illi-
nois, June 26, 1857, he again showed how familiar he was
with the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States
wherein the question of the constitutionalily of the Act esttab*
lishing the Bank of the United States was involved ; that he
had not only read, but studied that decision. He

"Why, this same Supreme Court onoe decided a national bank to be
constitutional; but General Jackson, as President of the United 8ttttM»
disregarded the decision, and vetoed a biU f6r a re-charter, partly ca
constitutional grounds, dedaring that each publie functionary must
support the Constitution, ^as he understands it.' But hear the Qea-
eral's own words. Here th^ are, taken from his reto message:

** 'It is maintained by the adyocates of the Bank, that its consUtutioii-
ality, in all its features, ought to be considered as settled by ptree-
edent, and by the decision of the fihipreme ConrL To this eondvaftoa
I cannot assent. Mere preoedent is a dangerous source of anthotitj;
and should not be regarded as deciding questions of constitntioiial
power, except where the acquiescence of the people and the States
can be considered as well settled. So far from this being the case on
this subject, an argument against the bank might be based on prec*
edent. One Congress, in 1791, decided in fiiTor of a bank;

THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION l67

In 1811, dedded agaiait it. One CoBgress, in 1816, decided againfit a
bnnk; another, in 1810, dedded in ita favor. Prior to the present
GongreBfl, therefore, the precedenta drawn from that aouree were equal.
If we reaort to the States the expreaaiona of l^gialatiTe, judicial, and
ezecutiTe opiniona againat the bank have been, probably, to those in
ita favor aa four to one. There ia nothing in precedent, therefore,
which, if ita authority were adndtted, ought to weigh in favor of the
act before me.'

**! drop the quotationa merely to remarle, that all there cnrer was,
in the way of precedent, up to the Dred Scott decision, on the points
therein decided, had been against that decision. . . .

''Again and again have I heard Judge Douglas denounce that bank
deciaion, and applaud General Jackson for disregarding it. It would
be interesting for him to look over his recent speech and see how
exactly his fierce philippics against us for resisting the Supreme
Court decisions, fall upon hia own head. It will call to mind a long
and fierce political war in this country, upon an issue which, in his
own language, and, of course, in hia own changeless estimation, was
'a distinct issue between the friends and the enemies of the Constitu-
tion,' and in which war he fought in the ranka of the enemiea of the
Constitution.''

It is evident that the doctrine of national unity as laid
down in the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United
States, and particularly in the opinion of Marshall, had either
awakened or found a responsive chord within the keen, logical,
lawyer's mind of the martyred President. How early this
conviction obtained is shown in a lecture delivered at the
Springfield Lyceum in 1837, where Lincoln said :

**li destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and fin-
isher. Aa a nation of freemen, we must Uve through all time, or die
by snieide.''

At Indianapolis, on his way to the Capital in 1861, refer-
ring to South Carolinians, he said :

'Hln their view, the Union aa a family relation would seem to be
no regular marriage, but rather a sort of 'free-love* arrangement, to
be maintained only on 'paaaional attraction.'

At Trenton, New STersey :

'T am exceedingly anzioua that this Union, the Constitution and the
libertiea of the people ahaU be perpetuated in accordance with the
original idea for which that struggle [the Bevolution] was made.''

I6t ABRAHAM LINCOLN

At Philadelphia, at the '^Old Independenoe Hall/' hmong
other things, in responding to an address of welcome :

"I oaa say in retam, nr, that all the politioal aaiitiiiienta I cntar-
tain hara been drawn, so far as I hare been able to draw them, frosi
the aentimente whieh originated in and were giTWi to the world from
thia halL''

In his First Inaugural Address, he said :

*'I hold that, in oontemplation of univeraal law and the Ckmstitotion,
the Union of these States is perpetuaL Perpetuity is implied, if not
expressed, in the fundamental law of all national goyemments. It ia
safe to assert that no government proper ever had a provision in ita
oiganio law for its own termination. Continue to execute aU the ex-
press provisions of our national Constitution and the Union wiU endura
forever — ^it being impoasible to destroy it except by some action not pro-
vided for in the instrument itself."

On August 22, 1862, in a letter to Horace Oreeley, he said :

*Vy paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and ia
not either to save or destroy slavery. If I eould save the Union with-
out freeing any slave, I would do it; if I could save it by freeing aU
the slaves, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and
leaving others alone, I would also do tliat.''

''What I do about slavery and the colored taoe^ I do because I ba-
Ueva it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear ba>
cause I do not believe it would help to save the Union."*

Since, then, the national spirit shown in the foregoing quo-
tations seems to have been founded so much more on the law*
yer's view of the Constitution as a sacred compact that the
descendants of the framers must fulfil, rather than on a mere
emotional ideal, it may be worth while to examine the language
of that great decision in M'CuUoch i;. Maryland, referred to
before, wherein is found the bgic and reasoning which, har-
monizing with Lincoln's fidelity to obligations and the ideal-
ism of a mighty dreamer, may have played its part in the
evolution of the Oettysburg masterpiece.

Beginning with page 403, Volume 4^ Wheaton's Beporta^
the opinion reads as follows :

"The Convention which framed the Constitution was indeed elected
1^ the State Legislatures. But the instrument, when it came from

THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION l69

their baadi, wu a ntro ftopomlg witbovt obUgatkm, or pntttBikms
to it. It WAB reported to tbe then existing OongreM of the United
States, with a request that it mi^^t 'be submitted to a OouTention of
Delegates, ehosen in eaeh State by the people thereof under the
reoommendalioii of its Lcgislatare, for their assent and ratification*'
This mode of proceeding was adopted; and by the CouTention, by
Congress^ and by the State Legiilatttres, the instrument was submitted
to the people. They acted upon it in the only manner in which they
can act saf dy, etfeetiyely, and wisely, on such a subject, by assembling
in CouTentkn. It is true, they assembled in their sereral State***
and where else should they have assembled t Ko political dreamer
waa erer wild enough to think of breaking down the lines which
aeparate the States, and of compounding the American people into one
common mass. Of oonsequence, when they act, they act in their
States. But the measures they adopt do not, on that account, cease to
be the measures of the people tbemselTss, or become the measures of
the State governments.

'^rom these Conventions the Constitution derives its whole authority.
The government proceeds directly from the people; is 'ordained and
eatabUshed' in the name of the people; and is declared to be ordained,
In order to form a more perfect union^ establish justice, ensure domee-
iie tranquillity, and seeure the blessings of liberty to themselves and
to their posterity.' The assent of the States, in their sovereign ca-
pacity, is implied in calling a Convention, and thus submitting that
instrument to the people. But the people were at perfect liberty to
accept m reject it; and their act was final. It required not the af-
flrmance, and could not be negatived, by the State governments. The
Constitution, when thus adopted, was of complete obligation, and
bound the State sovereignties. But when, 'in order to form a more
perfect union,' it was deemed necessary to change this alliance into
an effective government, possessing great and sovereign powers, and
acting directly on the people, the necessity of referring it to the peo-
ple, and of deriving its powers from them, was felt and acknowledged
byalL

"The government of the Union, then (whatever may be the in-
lluence of this fact on the case), ii, emphatically, and truly, a govern-
ment of ^he people. In form and in substance it emanates from them.
Its powers are granted by them, and are to be exercised directly on
them, and for their benefit. But the question respecting the extent of
the powers actually granted, is perpetuaUy arising, and will probably
continue to arise, as long as our system shall exist."

''If any one proposition could command the universal assent of
mankind, we might expect it would be tUs — ^that the government of
the Union, though limited in its powers, is supreme within its sphere
of action. This would seem to result necessarily from its nature. It

170 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

ia the goreriiBieiii of aU; iti powen an dfllegated bgr all; it nprwtii
all, and aoU for all/'

Such was the opinion of the greatest nationalist Judge,
laying down the law of what should be, to make a nation.
Following up his steps and passing far beyond, came the great-
est nationalist Ezecutiye, with a finn hand, holding together
warring elements with power, wisdom, and patience, welding
them strongly together, so that in a day when his eyes had
long been closed, that which the great Judge had said shotUd
be, should be made to be. Oyer the silent forms of those fallen
in the most terrible conflict of the long struggle for the per-
petuation of the nation, the great Executive carried forward
the reasoning of the great Judge — away from the bloodlesa
language of law into words filled with the ichor of the love of
mankind, into words immortal with unquestioning faith :

''It it rather f or tu to be here dedicated to the great task remafaiitg
before ut— that from theie honored dead we take increased devotion
to that cause for which they gave the last foil measure of derotion —
that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain;
that the nation, under Qod, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that
a government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not
perish from the tarth.'*

THE MEEIT OP A MIGHTY NAME

7UIM3B W. Q. SWING

THE i>eqple of America exalt themselves in the estimation
of all civilization by honoring the memory of Abraham
Lincoln, for even now, scarce half a centnry distant from the
Titanic straggle in which his splendor dawned, there is more
of honest merit in hia mighty name than ever bore the burdens
of a crown, or through slaughter won a throne. Martin Luther
waited nearly three centuries for the full recognition of his
mighty achievement ; and Shakespeare nearly a century longer
for the universal acclaim of his splendid genius ; and so with
scores of others whose great names now belong to the rich
heritage of the world. The rule through all history seems to
be that it is ''Time that sets all things even/' and gives to
every man his own, but in the instance of the great Lincoln,
an awakened sense of justice superseded Time, and wrote his
name high on the scroll of the immortals, even while the
Nation in tears, followed him to the grave.

Few persons realize the brevity of Lincoln's public career,
or at least his public life in any national sens6. It is limited
to seven brief years. There are several men in this audience
to-night who have a larger inter-State acquaintance, a more
extensive law practice and as much professional reputation
as Lincoln had at the time of his debate with Douglas. That
debate gave him a national reputation; his Cooper Union
speech a year later, gave an international reputation; the
year following came the presidency, and four years later, his
assassination — ^thus in seven short years this marvellous man
passed from the seclusion of a private citizen in a frontier
town, to imperishable renown.

I have been much impressed with Lincoln's uniqueness
in this— he was the only occupant of the presidential office

171

17« ABRAHAM LINCOLN

to whom the praridency gave lasting diitiiiction. The reillj
great men who have held that office, such as Washington,
John Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Jackson, Grant, all had
achieved enduring fame before the presidency came to them,
and would have lived as long in history and the grateful
memory of men without the presidency, as with it Bat
that office was Lincoln's opportunity; he went to it from,
comparative obscurity, and in four short years, by virtue of
the power of his position, achieved immortality. The pres-
idential office did not make him great ; it found him great —
as great in his humble Springfield home as in the Nation's
capital — ^but the presidency gave to him the opportunity to
demonstrate his greatness — ^inherent greatness. It is notice-
able to us all that the magnet which attracts the world to
Lincoln to-day, is exactly the qualities of mind and heart —
intelligence, gentleness, humanity, and sincerity — ^which he
manifested among his associates, from his flat-boat experience
to his residence in the White House.

On the annual recurrence of this day, the youth of America
should be taught the beautiful story of a life begun in i>ov-
erty, sustained by constant struggle, and yet inseparably in-
terwoven with the most heroic efforts of men, for men — a life
replete with lessons of industry, economy, sobriety, and in-
tegrity, illustrating in the fullest degree the possibilities
that are open under republican government to every earnest,
honest child, to rise from the lowliest walks of life to the very
palisades of enduring fame.

No young man can study the life of Lincoln from child-
hood to his assassination, without being impressed with its
beauty, simplicity, and moral grandeur and feeling the
promptings of a laudable ambition to so order his own life
that he may leave the world wiser and happier and better for
having lived in it.

Lincoln's character was many sided, and every phase of it
was a manifestation of strength, if not of absolute greatness ;
that peculiarity which at one time some people thought weak
and frivolous in his heroic combination, namely, the love of
the humorous, the ''baiting place of wit," is now, I believe^

THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 17$

regarded by all thoughtful and eaadid men, as the only aur-
oease from axudous, troubling thought that visited his sad and
earnest life. To my mind it is clear, that the humorous
phase of Lincoln's character was one of the secrets of his
marvellous power— was the ready, and possibly the best, means
of securing for his most serious thought and real purpose,
the consideration of the common i>eople ; for it must be con-
stantly borne in mind that he was in fact not only a very
Mrious and thoughtful, but sometimes a much depressed man ;
and if he sometimes caused the people to laugh, it was that
he might compel them to think. His object was not mirth,
but thought; and thousands of times I doubt not, he has said
to his own sad heart, —

**ll 1 laugh «t aaj mortal thiag^
Tis that I may not weep.**

Genius never needs an introduction to itself. Lincoln could
not have been unconscious of his wonderful talent and power
as a leader of men. When in 1858 he applied to the un-
fortunate condition of American institutions the scriptural
flaying, ''A house divided against itself cannot stand," he
heard, even then, the distant rumble of Freedom's gathering
hosts, and when, a moment later, he added, ^'I do not expect
fhe house to fall, but I do e3q>ect it will cease to be di-
vided," who can question that his prophetic soul foresaw
the end from the beginning, and possibly his own great part
in the gigantic struggle that was to enthrone Freedom, and
mark the dawn of a splendid era in the dvilixation of the
woridt

His life was cast in a crucial period of the world's histcny,
during a time when a great moral principle — greater than
any man, as great as all men— was struggling for universal
recognition, the principle of the equal right of all men to life
and liberty, he became involved in the struggle, gave to it
his best thought, his highest endeavor, and finally the prin-
ciple took possession of him and dominated his life. Taken
for all in all, tested by the highest standard of true greatness,
history must accord to Abraham Lincoln a place second to

174 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

that of no one of the eentiuy that gave him birth — an era
without parallel in the development of art and aeienoe; rieh
in invention, statesmanship, philosophy , oratory, and song;
the era of Yon Moltke, Humboldt, Bismarck, Hugo, Browning,
Carlyle, Oladstone, Sumner, Douglas, Beeeher, Emerscm,
Grant. Surely, for one to attract with a splendor all his
own, in such a galaxy of learning and genius, is an absolute
demonstration of greatness.

We cannot, however, contemplate the life' and chiffacter of
Lincoln without realizing the fact that his greatness could
not have been made manifest to the world, but for the unre-
mitting discussion of human rights by the Garrisons and
Greeleys and Sumners and Lovejoys and John Browns.

The old line Abolitionists of fifty years ago, were the
marked and masterful men of their time ; once hated, derided,
and shunned as ''the pestilence that walketh in darkness and
the destruction that wasteth at noonday, ' ' these faithful van-
guardsmen of freedom patiently bided their time; with faith
in God and faith in humanity, th^ ''bore the cross, endured
the shame," and through threatening and slaughter "pressed
forward to the mark of the prize" of their high calling, and
now dwell serenely in the world's abiding gratitude and love.

In the presence of these great names, I bend my heart to
its knees. They were men of but one idea ; but that idea en-
compassed a whole race then in bondage ; it was as broad as the
universe of God; it comprehended the spirit of universal
liberty; it gilded with a fadeless splendor American man-
hood ; it gave as a heritage to immortality that transcendent
composite of greatness and goodness, of genius and gentle-
ness, of sublimity and simplicity— Abraham Linedn.

POWER IN LONELINESS

JUDCDB PBTEB STENGEB QB0680UP

THEBE has been no narratiye of Lincoln *b life yet written
that one feels to be adequate; no adequate portrayal of
his character ; no adequate portrayal of his face. Behind the
lif Cy and the character, and the face that we associate with
Lincoln, as behind the stars that stand out in the depths of
the night, a vaster depth extends that makes of what we see
a faint impression only of what we feel must be behind —
that links that figure into the mysterious order of the universe.
And yet, '^bom in Kentucky, February 12, 1809; reared in
Indiana; practised law in Illinois; was in Legislature and
in Congress one term" — such would have been the mention
of the name, ^'Abraham Lincoln," in any short ''History of
Illinois," and no mention at all in any other '^History," haid
Lincoln died at the present age of President Roosevelt.

Slavery was the nation's inherited disease. It had crept
into our national life as disease sometimes creeps into health,
firmly fastened before alarm is created. From the beginning,
of course, it was a wrong — a deep injustice done by men to
other men — ^and as such, aroused the conscience of thinking
men. But from the beginning, also, it was an institution of
the land, grown up under the law, and as such claimed the
toleration that thinking men give, out of respect to the law.
And for the early period of the Bepublie, this conscience of
thinking men and this respect for law that thinking men
are never without, compromised on a line that divided between
them the continent of America.

But as the Western half of the continent opened for settle-
ment, the line of compromise vanished. This Western half
was a domain belonging to the nation — ^to the South as well
as to the North — and into it, carrying all that the law aUowed
ihem to possess at home, even as the people of the North

175

176 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

might carry all that the law allowed them to pcmem at home,
the people of the South claimed access. ''Can this be right t"
asked conscience. ''It is the law/' said a majority of the
Supreme Court, when given a chance to speak upon the mat-
ter. The crisis had come. The public mind was brought to. a
standstill, to take a new survey of the changed situation that
lay before it ; and upon the result of that new survey, in the
realm of decided law in conflict with eternal human right,
turned the destiny of America, the destiny of free govern-
ment the world over.

It was here that Lincoln came into the public view. For
the mission that lay before him, his life, instead of being
poor, had been rich in helpful circumstance. Bom in the
midst of slavery, he knew the institution on its human side,
as the North did not know it. Beared among those who were
poor, in the free States of Indiana and Illinois, he realized
by experience how deeply human, also, was the consciousness
of every man that he had a right to the bread he earned in
the sweat of his brow. Living his life among the plain people,
he knew that on any great matter of human right, the mind
and the heart of the plain people the country over, being
once aroused, were almost as one. This was the equipment
given him hy his heritage and his environment. It gave him
what, in the preparation for a great part, is of infinitely
more consequence than mere education or culture — a knowl-
edge of the conditions and forces that were to be put at
his command. And to this equipment, through circum-
stance, he brought a self -trained intellect, honest with itself,
that, like the work of the self -trained carpenter building his
own house, instead of going by rote, inspects and tests, and
carefully measures every piece before it goes finally into
the structure — an intellect that never accepted a condusion
that had not been tested with the hammer of honest inquiry,
to see if it rang true; and that never offered an argument
to the people that was not tested in the same way, and in
their presence, that they, too, might see and hear that it rang
exactly true. Indeed, the debates with Douglas, and the
Cooper Union speech, are the highest examples in our his-

THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 177

tory, of political diflctmsion put upon the plane of pains-
taking, scientific, truth-seeking inquiry. And^ finally^ to all
these qualities of intellect and environmenty he joined an
imagination that places him by the side of the Prophets
of Israel; a steadfastness of purpose that showed, even
before the time came for its showing, that he could become
a martyr ; and a heart for mankind, second only to the heart
of the Saviour of mankind.

How came that Convention in May, 1860, to find this Lin-
coln, and then name him as the country's deliverer f Partly
because, more than any other man living, this plain Lincoln
of the West, in the Lincoln-Douglas debates and in the
Cooper Union speech, had taken hold upon the public mind.
The public convictions that are really potential, often lie
obscured for long reaches of time, under the repressive in-
fluences of politics or commercial interests. But let some
one once truthfully and courageously proclaim them — give
voice to what, in their inner thoughts, the people themselves
are thinking — ^and that man at once becomes the people's
spokesman. It was this Western Lmcoln who thus spoke.
He stood forth the one man of his time whose intellectual
vision accurately sized up the crisis; the one man whose
painstaking, honest logic brought the crisis, in all its in-
evitability, within the comprehension of the people; the
one man who had found clear ground on which, at one and
the same time, to stand for the right and for the law. And
thus it was that a troubled nation, groping its way on this
slavery question toward the light, came to feel at last that
it had laid hold of the hand that knew in what direction
the light lay.

But beyond this, Lincoln had been raised up, I believe
providentially, for the work that awaited him ; it is the con-
sciousness, latent in us all, that this is true, that makes any
human portrayal of him seem inadequate — ^that makes what
you see of him only an impression of what you feel must
lie behind. I have spoken of the conditions tiiiat, before he
was bom, sowing the seeds from which his character was

to spring, fore-ordered a man equipped for the work that
IS

178 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

awaited him. That was not mere ehanee. I have spoken
of his self -trained intellect — an intellect that, trained in the
schools, would have lost the necessity of testing, in its own
wsy and for its own consdence, everything that came within
its range; and in that loss would have been lost the strange
power that gave to Lincoln his hold on the puUie mind.
That was not mere chance. I have qpoken of his love of
Truth — ^his willingness always to abide by it, his fixed de-
termination that others should be obliged to abide by it.
That was not mere chance. There was one thing more in
the preparation of this man for a crisis that was not mere
chance.

When God was raising up a leader to bring the children of
Abraham out of the land where thqr were bondsmen, he
led Moses, first as a waif into the house of the King, and
then as a fugitive into the land of Midian, where, as a tender
of flocks, he dwelt on the far side of the desert up against
Mount Horeb. How long Moses was there, the desert on one
side and the wilderness of the mountain on the other, en-
veloped in as great a loneliness as if the whole earth were
void of life save him and his flock, we are not told. It is
enough to know that it was not into the King's palace, but
into this loneliness of desert and mountain, that the divine
spark i>enetrated, lighting that flsme in the midst of the
bush.

From beginning to end, in the preparation of Lincoln for
the work that awaited him — and then again when the work
was actually upon him, that he might be kept equal to its
exactions — ^he, too, was kept deeply enveloped in an atmos-
phere of Aloneness. Alone as a boy, separated by tragedy
from his father's companionship, and by poverty from the
companionship of those who would have interested him ; alone
as a young man in an Indiana clearing, hearing no voice of
neighbor for weeks at a time, except the distant axe as it
fell in muffled notes in the woodland beyond; alone as a
grown man, pathetically out of place between the barrels
and the counter of a countiy store, patiently striving to
find his place, as, buried in the grasses of the wide and lonely

THE CHICAGO COMMEMORATION 179

pniiie, he lapped up every pool of knowledge on which he
chanced — Enclid's Geometry, Clay's Speeches, Blaekstone
—devouring every book that came his way, simply from thirst
for knowledge, without settled purpose, or settled order ; alone
as President — ^that one brain and that one heart charged
with responsibility for each recurring phase of a mighty war,
and for each recurring problem of the nation's peace,
charged with responsibility to God and all mankind that free
government should not perish from the earth — Oh, the lone-
liness of Lincoln, the tragic loneliness of that great life I
Destined, in the very nature of his burden, to walk alone
always — ^wherever he was, on frontier or in the Capital, the
world pushed back — ^that into the stillness of the one life,
upon whom such destiny depended, no influence should enter
that came not laden with the wisdom of the Eternal One I

Sahit-Gaudens has caught this phase of this great life
in the statue shortly to be erected here in Grant Park.
Seated in the chair of state, one of his long hands reaching
well out on one of the long legs, the furrowed homely face
drawn into itself in deep meditation, is the figure of the
President; and at effective distance on either side, to mark
off the isolation of this figure from the world, rise two tall
marble columns. To those of us who have seen the monu-
ment set up, in its entirety, at Saint-Gaudens's home at
Cornish, the portrayal is complete— Lincoln living in bronze,
as Lincoln lived his life, Power in LonelinesB.

And here, as long as this city stands, will this figure of
Lincoln endure. He is no longer alone. Before him stretches
the city. Around him is the nation. Above him are the
skies. Behind him an inland sea, stretching away to the
iky. Around him play the winds. On his brow alight mes-
aengers from the sun. The waves speak to him from the
deep, the birds from the air. On every side, as in the flame
of fire out of the bush, God speaks. He is not alone. Lin-
CDln, living, was ixot i^one. Where. God. is,, mm. ifi npt ^ne^..

THE SPBINGFIELD COMMEMORATION

THE SPBINGFIELD OOMMEMOBATION

184 ABBAHAM LINCOLN

In the afternoon, a majnmoth meeting was held in the big
tabernacle, into which crowded eight thousand people, while
thousands more were turned away. Addresses were delivered
by Hon. William J. Bryan, and by Senator Jonathan P.
DoUiver, with informal speeches by the French and English
Ambeasadors.

The main celebration of the Centennial day took form in a
great banquet under State auspioes, held in tiie State Arsenal
on the evening of the Centenary. Oathered there were the
Governor, various State officers, and representative organiza-
tionSy not only from all parts of the State, but from the eon-
fines of the country. Over seven hundred men sat down to
the beautifully decorated tables, beneath waving flags and
bunting, while the galleries above were made gay with groups
of notable qpectators. Sludge X Otis Humphrey acted as
toastmaster of the evening ; Qovemor Deneen spoke on behalf
oi the 9tate of Illinois. The formal addresses of the evening
were by H. E. the British Ambassador, Honorable James
Bryee, and H. E. the French Ambassador, Jean A. A. J.
UusBerand; while informal speeches were delivered by Sensr
tor Dolliver of Iowa, and by Mr. Bryan.

A unique feature of the day's exercises was the reception
given in the old Lineohi home by the Springfield Chapter
of The Daughters of the American Bevolution, in honor of
Mrs. Donald McLean of New York, President-Qeneral of the
national orgttiization ; Mrs. E. S. Walker, Chapter-Begent»
being the liostsss in charge. The appointments of the dining-
room in which refreshments were served were entirely in
keeping with the period in which Lincoln lived, and the silver-
ware, table linen, glass, and china-ware were those used by
Lincoln, being now the property of either the Lincoln or
Edwards family, or of their most intimate friends. The
doth used on the table was the one used at the wedding sup-
per of Abraham Lincoln and his bride, while the various
dishes, urns, trays, and epergnes each claimed some historical
significance. Many distinguished guests were present, in-
cluding our old War President's son, Robert T. Lincoln. The
reception was followed by a banquet for the members of The

THE SPKINGFI£LD COMMEMORATION 185

Daughters of the American Bevolution and their gneits of
honor, at the Y. M. C. A. building.

Tm the rooms of the Illinois Historical Sociefy, an imposing
exhibit of lincolniana was opened to the public. The negroes
of the city held a separate meeting of their own in honor of
the day, while at the yarious churches and schools the Oen-
tenary was reverently observed The Springfield GommsoDbO-
ration was an achievement and a tribute, of most signifleant
proportions.

LINGOLN AS AN ORATOR

HON. ymSLiAM J. BBYAN

LINCOLN'S fame as a statesman and as the nation's
chief executive during its most cruoial period, has lo
overshadowed his fame as an orator that his merits as a
public speaker have not been sufficiently emphasised. When
it is remembered that his nomination was directly due to
the prominence which he won upon the stump; that in a
most remarkable series of debates he held his own against
one of the most brilliant orators America has produeed;
and that to his speeches, more than to the arguments of any
other one man, or in fact of aU other public men combined,
Was due the success of his party — when all these facts are
borne in mind, it wiU appear plain, even to the oaanal ob-
server, that too little attenticm has been given to the extraor-
dinary power which he exercised as a speaker. That his
nomination was due to the effect that his speeches produced,
can not be disputed. When he began his fight against slavery
in 1854, he was but little known outside of the counties in
which he attended court It is true that he had been a mem-
ber of Congress some years before, but at that time he was
not stirred by any great emotion or ccmnected with the dia-
cussion of any important theme, and he made but little im-
pression upon national politics. The threatened extension
of riavery, however, aroused him, and with a cause which

1S6 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

justified his bert efforts he threw his whole soul into the
fight. The debates with Douglas have never had a parallel
ia this, or, so far as history shows, in any other country.

In ^gaging in this contest with Douglas he met a foe-
man worthy of his steel, for Douglas had gained a deserved
reputation as a great debater, and recognized that his future
depended upon the success with which he met the attacks
of Lincoln. On one side an institution supported by history
and tradition, and on the other a growing sentiment against
the holding of a human being in bondage — ^these presented
a supreme issue. Douglas won the senatorial seat for which
the two at that time Jiad contested, but Lincoln won a larger
victory — ^he helped to mould the sentiment that was dividing
parties and re-arranging the political map of the country.
When the debates were concluded, every one recognised
him as the leader of the cause which he had espoused; and
it was a recognition of this leadership which he had secured
through his public speeches, that enabled him, a Western
man, to be nominated over the Eastern candidates — ^not only
a Western man, but a man lacking in book learning and the
polish of the schools. No other American President has ever
so clearly owed his elevation to his oratory. Washington,
Jefferson, and Jackson, the Pi^dents usually mentioned in
connection with him, were all poor speakers.
0n analyzing Lincoln ^s characteristics as a speaker, one
is impressed with the completeness of his equipment. He
possessed the two things that are absolutely essential to
effective speaking — ^namely, information and eamestnessj If
one can be called eloquent who knows what he is talking
about and means what he says — and I know of no better
definition — ^Lincoln's Q>eecheB were eloquent. (He was thor-
oughly informed upon the subject ; he was prepared to meet
his opponent upon the general proposition discussed, and
upon any deductions which could be drawn from it There
was no unexplored field into which his adversary could lead
faimnhe had carefully examined every foot of the ground
and was not afraid of pitfall or ambush, and, what was
equally important, he spoke tram his own heart to the liearts

THE SPRINGFIELD COMMEMORATION 187

of those who lirtened. While the printed page can not tuOj
reproduce the impreedonB made by a voice trembling with
emotion or tender with pathos, one can not read the reports
of the debates without feeling that Lincoln regarded the sub-
ject as far transcending the ambitions or the personal in-
terests of the debaters. It was of little moment, he said,
whether they voted him or STudge Douglas up or down, but
it was tremendously important that the question should be
deeided rightly. His reputation may hare suffered in the
opinion of some, because he made them think so deeply upon
what he said, that they, for the moment, forgot him alto-
gether, and yet is this not the very perfection of speech!
It is the purpose of the orator to persuade and, to do this,
he presents not himself but his subject Someone in de-
scribing the difference between Demosthenes and Cicero said
that ''when Cicero spoke, people said, 'How well Cicero
speaks,' but when Demosthenes spoke, they said, 'Let us go
against Philip \'' In proportion as one can forget himself
and become wholly absorbed in the cause which he is present-
ing, does he measure up to the requirements of oratory.

In addition to the two essentiiJs, Lincoln possessed what
may be called the secondary aids to oratory.QHe was a mas-
ter of statement, JFew have equalled him in the ability to
strip a truth of surplus verbiage and present it in its naked
strength, ^n the Declaration of Independence we read that
there are certain self-evident truths, which are therein enu-
merated. If I were going to amend the proposition, I would
say that all truth is self-evident Not that any truth will
be universally accepted, for not all are in a position or in
an attitude to accept any given truth. In the interpretation
of the "Parable of the Sower," we are told that "the cares
of this world and the deceitfniness of riches choke the
truth,'' and it must be acknowledged that every truth has
these or other difftculties to contend with. But a truth may
be so clearly stated that it will commend itself to anyone
who has not some special reason for rejecting it.

1^0 one has more clearly stated the fundamental objections
to slavery than Lincoln stated them, and he had a great ad-

188 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

yantage over his opponent in being able to state those ob-
jeetions frankly, for Judge Douglas neither denounoed nor
defended davery as an institution — his plan embodied a com-
promise, and he could not discuss slavery upon its merits
without alienating either the slave-owner or the abolitionist
Brevity is the soul of wit, and a part of Lincoln's reputa*
tion for wit lies in his ability to condense a great deal into
a few words. He was epigrammatic. A moulder of thought
is not neoeasarily an originator of the thought moulded. Just
as lead, moulded into the form of bullets, has its effectiveness
increased, so thought may have its propagating power enor-
mously increased by being moulded into a form that the eye
eatehes and the memory holds. Lincoln was the spokesman
of his party— he gave felicitous e3g;>res8ion to the thoughts
of his followers.

]QeBs Gettysburg qpeech is not surpassed, if equalled, in
beauty, simplicity, force, and appropriateness by any speech
of the same length of any language. It is the world 's model
in eloquence, elegance, and condenaation. He might safely
rest his reputation as an orator on that speech alone.

Qie was apt in illustration — no one more so. A simple
story or simile drawn from everyday life flashed before his
hearers the argument that he wanted to present He did
not q>eak over the heads of his hearers, and yet his language
was never commonplace. There is strength in simplidty,
and Lincoln's style was simplicity itself.^

QSe understood the power of the interrogatory, for some
of his most powerful arguments were condensed into ques-
tional Of all those who discussed the evils of separation
and the advantages to be derived from the preservation of
the Union, no one ever put the matter more forcibly than
Lincoln did when, referring to the possibility of war and the
certainly of peace some time, even if the Union was divided,
he called attention to the fact that the same question would
have to be dealt with, and then asked, ''Can enemies make
treaties easier than friends can make lawst"

He made frequent use of Bible language and of iUustnt-
tiona drawn from Holy Writ It is said that when he was

THE SPRINGFIELD COMMEMORATION 189

preparing his Springfield speech of 1858 he spent hours try-
ing to find language that would express the idea that dom-
inated his entire career^ namely, that a Republic could not
permanently endure half free and half date ; and that finally
a Bible passage flashed through his mind, and he exclaimed,
''I have found it" — ^''If a house be divided against itself,
that house can not stand," and probably no other Bible
passage ever exerted as much influence as this one in the
settlement of a great controversy.

I have enumerated some — ^not all, but the more important
—of his characteristics as an orator, and on this day I venture
for the moment to turn the thoughts of this audience away
from the great work that he accomplished as a patriot, away
from his achievements in the line of statecraft, to the means
employed by him to bring before the public the ideas which
attracted attention to him^ His power as a public speaker
was the foundation of his success,^ and while it is obscured
by the superstructure that was reared upon it, it can not be
entirely overlooked as the returning anniversary of his birth
calls increasing attention to the widening influence of his
work, (j^ith no military career to dazzle the eye or excite
the imagination; with no public service to make his name
familiar to the reading public, his elevation to the presidency
would have been impossible without his orator]^ The elo-
quence of Demosthenes and Cicero were no more necessary
to their work, and Lincoln deserves to h$,ve his name written
on the scroll with theirs.

LINGOLN AS FRANCE SAW HIM

HON. JBAN ADBDBN JVBBBRAND

ON two tragic occasions, at a century ^s distance, the fate
of this country has trembled in the balance — ^woxdd it be
a free nation f would it continue to be one nation t A leader
was wanted on both occasions, a very different one in each
case. This boon from above was granted to the American
people, who had a Washington when a Washington was
needed, and a Lincoln when a Lincoln could save them* Both
had enemies, both had doubters, but both were rec<^;nized Iqr
all open-minded people, and above all by the nation at large,
as the men to shape the nation's destinies.

When the Marquis de Chastelluz came to America as ddef
of the staff in the Army of Bochambeau, his first thought was
to go to see his friend La Fayette^ and at the same time
Washington. He has noted in his ''M&noires" what were,
on first sight, his imprc^ons of the not yet victorious, not
yet triumphant, not yet universally admired American patriot
''I saw,'' he said, ''M. de La Fayette talking in the yard with
a tall man of five feet nine inches, of noble mien and sweet
face. It was the General himself. I dismounted and soon
felt myself at my ease by the side of the greatest and best of
all men. All who meet him trust him ; but no one is familiar
with him, because the sentiment he inspires in all has ever
the same cause — a profound esteem for his virtues, and the
highest opinion of his talents." So wrote a foreigner who
was not La Fayette, who suddenly found himself face to face
with the great man. Any chance comer, any passer-by would
have been similarly impressed. He inspired confidence, and
those who saw him felt that the fate of the country was in
safe hands.

Nearly a century of gradually increasing prosperit^^ hacL

190

THE SPRINGFIELD COMMEMORATION 191

elajMed when came the hour of the nation's aeeond
Though it may seem to ns a small matter compared with what
we have seen since, the development had been considerable;
the scattered colonies of yore had become a great nation ; yet
now it seemed as if all was again in doubt The nation was
young, wealthy, powerful, prosperous; it had immense do-
mains and resources ; yet it seemed that her fate was doomed
to parallel those of the old empires described by Tacitus, and
by Baleigh after him, which, without foes, crumble to pieces
under their own weight Within her own frontiers, elements
of destruction or disruption had been growing ; hatreds were
engendered between people equally brave, bold, and sure of
their rights. The edifice raised by Washington -was shaking
on its base ; a catastrophe was at hand. Then it was that in
a middle-sized, not yet world-famous town — Chicago by name
— the Republican Convention, called there for the first time,
met to choose a candidate for the presidency. It has met
there again since and has made, each time, a remarkable
choice. In 1860 it chose a man whom my predecessor of
those days, announcing the news to his Government, described
as '^a man almost unknown, Mr. Abraham Lincoln." Almost
unknown was he indeed, at home as well as abroad, and the
news of his election was received with anxiety.

My country, France, was then governed by Napoleon III;
aU liberals had their eyes fixed on America. Your example
was the great example which gave heart to our most progres-
sive men. Tou had proved that Republican government was
possible, by having one. If it broke to pieces, so would the
hopes of all those among us who expected that one day we
should have done the same. And the partisans of autocracy
were loud in their assertion that a Republic was well and
good for a country without enemies or neighbors ; but that if
a storm arose, it would be shattered. A storm had arisen,
and the helm had been placed in the hands of that "man al-
most unknown, Mr. Abraham Lincoln."

''We still Tcmember," wrote yean later the illnttrious Freneh writer,
Prevost-Psradol, '^he mieasiiien with which we awaited the ftnt werde
of that President^ then unknown, upon whom a heavy taik had faUea,

192 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

•od from whete adtuit to power mii^ be dated the inia or
tion of hie ooimtxy. All we knew was that he had spniiig from tha
hiunblest walks of life, that his youth had been spent in manual labor;
that he had risen by degrees in his town, in his county, and in his
State. What was this favorite of the people? Democratic soeietaea
are liable to errors which are fatal to them. But as soon as Mr.
Lincoln arrived in Washington, as soon as he spoke, all our donbto
and fears were dissipated; and it seemed to us that fate itself had
pronounced in favor of the good cause, since, in such an emergency,
it had given to the oountiy an honest man.''

For Pr^YOst-Paradol and for miUioDB of others^ the first
words — ^the now famous Inaagaral Address — had been what
a first glanee at Washington was for Ghastellux, a reyelation
that the man was a Man, a great and honest one, and that
once more the fate of the country, at an awful period, had
been placed in safe hands.

Well indeed might people have wondered and felt anxious
when they remembered how little training in great affairs
the new ruler had had, and the incredible difficulty of the
problems he would have to solve — ^to solve, his heart bleeding
at the very thought, for he had to fight — ^not enemies^ but
friends. C ' We must not be enemies. ' ')

No romance of adventure reads more like a romance than
the true story of Lincoln's youth, and of the wanderings of
his family from Virginia to Kentucky, from E[entucky to
Indiana, from Indiana to the newly^formed State of niinok;
having first to clear a part of the forest, then to build a door-
less, windowless cabin, with one room for all the uses of them
all ; the whole family leading the sort of a life in compariaon
with which that of Robinson Crusoe was one of sybaritic en-
joyment That in those trackless, neighborless, bookless parts
of the country, und^ such conditions, Lincoln— the grandson
of a man killed by the Indians, the son of a father who never
succeeded in an3rthing, and whose utmost literary accomplish-
ment consisted in signing with the greatest difficulty his own
name (an accomplishment he had in common with the father
of Shakespeare) — could learn, could educate himself, was the
first great wonder of his life. It showed once more that leam-

THE SPRINGFIELD COMMEMORATION 198

ing does not so mneh depend upon the master's teadung as
upon the pupfl's desire.

Bnt no book, no sehool, no talk with refined men, wonld
have taught him what his rough life <£d. Confronted erery
day, and every hour of the day, with problems which had to
be solved, he got the habit of seeing, deciding, and acting by
himself, Aoctistomed, from childhood, to live snrroonded by
the nnknown and to meet the nnexpected, his sonl learnt to
be astonished at nothing, and, instead of losing any time in
wondering, to seek at once the way out of the diftcnlly. What
the forest, what the swamp, what the river taught Lincoln
cannot be overestimated* After long years of it, and shorter
years at long-vanished New Salem; here at Springfield; at
Yandalia, the former capital, where he met some descendants
of his precursors in the forest, the French c&ureurs de boif—
almost suddenly he found himself transferred to the post of
greatest honor and greatest danger. And what then would
say the ''man almost unknown,'' the backwoodsman of yester-
day T What would he sayf What did he sayt The right
thing!

He was accustomed not to be surprised, but to decide and
act. And so, confronted with circumstances which were so
extraordinary as to be new to all, he was the man least aston-
ished in the government. His rough and shrewd instinct
proved of better avail than the clever minds of his more re-
fined and better instructed seconds. It was Lincoln's instinct
which checked Seward ^l complicated schemes and dangerous
calculations. Lincoln could not calculate so cleverly, but he
could guess better.

His instinct, his good sense, his personal disinterestedness,
his warmth of heart for friend or foe, his high aim, led him
through the awful years of anguish and bloodshed during
which the number of fields decked with tombs ceaselessly in-
creased, and no one knew whether there would be one powerful
nation or two weaker ones, the odds were so great. They
led him through the worst and through the best hours; and
that of triumph found him none other than what he had ever
been before, a man of dutyi the devoted servant of his eoun-

194 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

try, with deeper furrows on his face and more melancholy
in his heart. And so, after having saved the nation, he went
to his doom and, as he had long foreseen, fell a victim to the
cause for which he had fought

The emotion caused by the event was immense. Among my
compatriots, part were for the South, part for the North.
They should not be blamed ; it was the same among Americans.
But the whole of those who had liberal ideas, the bulk of my
nation, considered neither North nor South, and thought only
whether the Bepublio would survive and continue a great
Bepublic, or be shattered to pieces. The efforts of Linooln
to preserve the Union were followed with keen anxiety, and
with the fervent hope that he would succeed.

When the catastrophe happened, there were no more differ*
ences, and the whole French nation was united in feeling.
From the Emperor and the Empress, who telegraphed to Mrs^
Lincoln, to the humblest workman, the emotion was the same ;
a wave of qrmpathy covered the country, such an one as was
never before seen. A subscription was opened to have a
medal struck and a copy in gold presented to Mrs. Lincoln.
Li order that it might be a truly national offering, it was
decided that no one would be permitted to subscribe more than
two cents. The necessaiy money was collected in an instant,
and the medal was struck, bearing these memorable words:
'' Dedicated by French democracy to Lincoln, honest man, who
abolished slavery, reestablished the Union, saved the Bepnblicy
without unveiling the statue of Liberty."

The French press was unanimous ; from the Boyalist OfusetU
de France, to the liberal Journal des DSbats, came forth the
same expression of admiration and sorrow. *'A Christian,"
said the Gazette de France, ''has just ascended before the
throne of the Final Judge, accompanied by the souls of four
millions of slaves, created like ours in the image of God, and
who have been endowed with freedom by a word from him." :
Pr6voet-Paradol, a member of the French Academy, and a
prominent liberal, wrote :

'The political instinct which made enlightened Frenchmen intemted
in the maintensnoe of the American power, more and more neetmuj

THE SPRINGFIELD COMMEMORATION 195

to tkt eqiiilibriiiiii of tha world, the desire to tee a great democratio
State surmouiit terrible trials and continue to give an example of the
most perfect liberty united with the most absolute equality, assured
the cause of the North a number of friends among us. . . . Lin-
coln was indeed an honest man, giving to the word its full meaning,
or rsther the sublime sense which belongs tq it, when honesty was
to contend with the severest trials which can agitate States and with
erents which have an influence on the fate of the world. • . • Mr.
Lincoln had but one object in view, from the day of his election to
that of his death, namely, the fulfilment of his duty, and his imagina-
tion never carried him beyond it. He has fallen at the very foot
of the altar, covering it with his blood. But his work was done,
and the spectacle of a rescued Republic was what he oould look upon
with consolation when his eyes were closing in death. Moreover he
has not lived for his oountry alone, since he leaves to everyone in the
world to whom liberty and justice are dear, a great remembrance and
a pore example.''

When, in a log cabin of Kentucky, a hundred years ago
this day, that child was bom who was named, after his grand-
father lolled by the Indians — ^Abraham Lincoln — ^Napoleon I.
swayed Europe, Jefferson was President of the United States,
and the second War of Independence had not yet come to
pass. It seems all very remote, but the memory of the great
man whom we try to honor to-day is as fresh as if he had only
just left us. *'It is,*' says Plutarch, ''the fortune of all good
men. that their virtue rises in glory after their death, and that
the envy which any evil man may have conceived against
them never survives the envious." Such was the fate of
lincohu

THE ILLINOIS SUPREME COUBT
COMMEMORATION

^'orW P"b»?^^^

•—>!«- *lt._.

p Ninety-Sixfh St. BmocIi, -f
^ '12 Esst 9Cth Str..*.' *

THE ILLINOIS SUPREME COUBT
COMMEMORATION

THE oyerghadowing importance of the serrices whioh Lin-
coln rendered as President has caused many people to
overlook, until recently, that Lincoln was prepared for that
great oflSce by a long and saooessf nl career at the bar. It was
before the Illinois Supreme Court, of which Stephen A.
Douglas was a member from 1841 to 1843, that he achieved
many of his forensic triumphs, and that Court, following his
assassination, held commemorative exercises.

On February 11, the Lincoln Centenary was observed in
an impressive manner by commemorative exercises held in
the Supreme Court of Illinois in the Judiciary Building at
Springfield, particularly reviewing the services of Lincoln as
a member of the Illinois bar. A record of these proceedings
has been published in Volume 238, IlUnois Supreme Court
Reports. Upon this occasion the Court was addressed by
Mr. MacChesney, representing the city of Chicago ; Mr. Jus<
tioe Hand, responding for the Court, and giving a scholarly
review of Lincoln's place in the profession of the law, and
of his work before that Court ; while the Court was addressed
on behalf of the Illinois State Bar Association, by Hon.
James H. Matheny, and on behalf of the Sangamon County
Bar Association, by Major James A. Connolly.

Upon adjournment after these exercises, the Supreme Court
went in a body to attend a joint celebration under the aus-
pices of the House imd Senate of the Qeneral Assembly of
Illinois, in the Chamber of that House of Bepresentatives, of
which both Lincoln and Douglas had been members, and
for the Speakership of which Lincoln was twice a candidate.
The exercises there were presided over by Hon. Edward D.
Shurtleff, Speaker of the House of Bepresentatives, and ad-
dresses were made by the Hon. Charles S. Deneen, Oovemor
of Illinois; by the Hon. Frank P. Schmitt, Hon. Frank W.

199

200 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Burton, Hon. W. Tudor Ap Madoe, Hon. John Hraby, Hon.
A. E. Steams, Hon. A. M. Foster, and Hon. Henry D. Fulton ;
while Lincoln 'a Gettysburg Address was given by Hon. Oliver
SoUett.

THE CENTENARY OF LINCOLN

VATXaK mUUAM XiiCCXISMSr

IT ift deemed toitaUe that upon this ooeasiDii sonie reoogni-
tioft ahoold be giten to the fact that this State, aa a whole,
ia abofut to oekbrate the ona hundredth anniversary of the
Urth of Abraham LtDoohiL The sigmfieanoe of the ev^oit
has been recognised by the ciseeotiva proelamaticMi and by a
joint resolation of the Oeneral AssemMy* It would be fittiiig
if this Court, also, as the representative of the other great
branch of the government, might take oflbial reoognitiMi of
this great cemtenniaL

The State of niinoia has been aroused aa never before. Ilia
people throughout the State realise the service that Abraham
Linooln rendered to Ihem and to the nation. The citiaena of
Chicago have planned the greatest odebration which that cky
has ever had in its history*«HKimmnnity->wide in its aapeet and
educational in its nature. The ^ttunna of Springfldd have
planned a unique and eomprehenaive programme, reviewing
the life and services of Abraham Linik>tn, to be partieipated in
hy diatinguidied repmmntatiTsa of foreign eooittries, thus
typifying the world-wide appeal of liw man whom thqr honor.
It ia peculiarly appropriate that these two fuimmunltisfl diould
do this, for in Springfield was his life aa a lawyer apent
It was here that many of his greatest addresses were made,
and it was from here that he went, with a sense of sadneasi
to take upon him the eath of office of Preaident of the United
States. On the other hand, it #aa in Chicago that he waa
nominated for the preaiden^. It was there that he issued
the challenge to Judge Douglaa for the series of f amoua joist
debate!^ and it was there that he mnde hia first reply to Judge

ILLINOIS SUPRSMB COURT COMMEMORATION Ml

DongUw in liuit attiei whfadi mad* kit candidacy for the pren^
dency poaiible^ nay, inevitaUe.

Chicago is to observe the oentenary of the birth of this great
niinoisan, not Iqr a meeting for the favored few, bnt by a
great civic celebration, in order that all the people may realize
the spirit that animated Lincoln, and periiaps catch it in
their own lives» so that they, too, may render something of
the service that he rendered to the State that he kved and
served so welL It is, therefore, appn^riate that Chicago
shonld come here, r^resentod by one of her bar, and, in the
presence of this distinguished tribunal, pay a brief tribute to
the memory of Abraham Lincoln, the lawyer. And on behalf
of the Mayor of Chicago and the Citizens' Committee, I de-
sire to present to this Court a bronse tablet on which is
inscribed the Oettysborg Address of Lincoln, which is the
creed of American patriotism, in order that some enduring
memorial may be erected in this building in commemoration
of this event.

The services of Lincoln are so wide and so varied that it
would be impossible to review them, by&x were I able to
do so. In this presence it would be both nnneeessary and
presumptuous to attempt it. The life of Lincohi attracts us
from whatever direction we q^proach him. As a man he waa
all-ccmprehensive in his sympathies and in his apical to the
people. BefcHw he was admitted to the bar, as a business man
be ezampled the highest commercial inteigrity— so much §0^
that it was thought at the time that he was almost finical in
his ideas on the subject ; but to-day is realized the inspiration
his sterling honesty has been to thousands of young men enter-
ing xxfoa eommercial careers.

As a lawyer we know that he stood for the highest standards
of the profession. He was a constant advocate before this
Court during the years preceding his entrance upon the larger
duties of national life. His name frequently appears in the
vtdnmes of this Court from the December term, 1840, to the
January term, 1860. The judgment of the bar which knew
him was eloquently expressed in an address before the full
bench of the Supreme Court at Ottawa, on May 3, 1865, by

sot ABRAHAM LINCOLN

the Hon« J. D. Caton, f ormeriy Chief Jnttiee, wlio presented
a Memorial which waa spread upon your reoords and which
appears in the thirty-seventh of Illinois.

Lincohi as a man, I repeat, was all-comprehensive in his
appeal. As between man and man he stood for equality of
rights. He knew no chorch, he knew no faction, he knew no
section — ^nos North, no South, no East, no West. He knew
only the Union. He had no racial antipathies. His life was
given to the working out of justice so far as he knew it, and
we can only marvel that he knew it so well. It is, therefore,
especially appropriate that this Court should take fitting
recognition of his life.

Lincoln, perhaps as no other man, made his appeal to the
I>eople as a whole. He is, in fact, the protolype of Ammcan
citizenship— -the ideal of tiie nation realized. It has been said
that he is ^'the first American,'' and truly so, for in him for
the first time were embodied the ideals which we all believe
should go to make up American manhood, and to him we look
for inspiration for the upbuilding of that manhood and the
inculcation of those ideals in the citizenship of the future.

What better tribute could be paid to Lincoln and the
spirit that guided and directed his private life and professional
and public career, than to spread upon the records of this
Court that immortal definition which he gave at Alton of
the eternal issue in life's struggle and to recognize the trulii
that he ever chose the right f He there said :

"That Ib the real inue. That ia the issue that will continue in thin
country when these poor tongues of Judge Douglas and myself shall be
silent. It is the eternal struggle between these principles — right and
wrong— throughout the world. Thqr are the two principles that have
stood face to face from the beginning of time and wiU ever continue to
struggle. The one is the common right of humanity, and the other the
'divine right of kings.* It is the same principle in whatever shape it
develops itself.**

Let these words stand as our tribute to thctlife of this man,
—citizen of Illinois, lawyer of this bar, greatest son of the
State and Nation, the apotheosis of American manhood

LINCOLN'S PEEPARATION FOR THE PEESIDENCY

JUSnCB HAND

IN the public mind the fame of Lincoln has in the past
rested, and will in the fntnre largely rest, upon his conr
duct of the War of the Rebellion, the liberation of the black
men from bondage, and the preservation of the union of the
States ; and by reason of the great height to whieh, as a patriot
and statesman, he attained, the fact that he was a great law-
yer when elected President has been largely overlooked ; and
the further fact that the training and development which
enabled him to meet and solve the great questions which con-
fronted him during the years that intervened between the
firing upon Fort Sumter and the surrender at Richmond had
been acquired while he was practising law in the courts of
Illinois has generally been lost sight of by the people.
Some of his biographers, even, have passed over, with but little
note, the great work of preparation in which he was engaged
in his law ofBce and in the courts where he practised from
1837 to 1860. I quote from one of his biographers, who sa3ni,
''He had had no experience in diplomacy and statesmanship.
As an attorney he had dealt only with local and State statutes.
He had never argued a case in the Supreme Court and he had
never studied international law." And we often hear it said
1^ his eulogists, that without training in statecraft or in the
law, he was called from his- humble surroundings by his fellow-
countrymen to assume responsibilities which well might have
deterred the wisest, the most experienced, and the bravest man
who had ever been called to rule over the destinies of men or ol
nations. It has been said that, in some mysterious way, without
any previous preparation either by study or experience, within
a few weeks — at most within a few months — after his election
as President he developed into the foremost man in modem

«0S

^r'

S04 ABBAHAM LINCOLN

history. That view of the life of linooln is baaed upon a total
misappreheiuion of his history. Lincoln, at the time he took
the oath of office as President of the United States, was a
great lawyer and a statesman of broad views, and while in all
his undertakings for the preservation of the Union he recog-
nised an all-wise overruling Providence, he was thoronghly
trained, prepared, and amply qualified by a long course of
study and by much reflection to perform the great wo^ to
which he had been called, and which preparation and reflee-
tion gave him, throughout his turbulent administration, the
forbearance and wisdom which were necessary to enable him
to accomplish with a brave and steadfast purpose the great
undertaking to which he had consecrated his life.

It must not be supposed, however, that Lincoln reached tbe
high poaitioii which he occupied, at once or without the moat
persistent and painstaking labort which extended over maoj
years of his eventful life. He came from good New England
stock. He was lieoised as an attorney, September 9, 1836,
enrolled March 1, 1837, and commenced practice April 21,
1837. Prior to that time he had been a farmhand, a river
boatman, a soldier in the Blade Hawk War, a Depulgr Goua^
Surveyor, a Postmaster, and a membw of the State Legislature^
and while he then had but little knowledge of books, he knew
well the motavea which control the actions of men.

During his professiimal career Lincoln had three law part«
ners^Ma jw John T. Stuart, Judge Stephen T. Logan, and
William H. Hemdon. When he entered upon the praetiee
of the law the country was new and the people were poor.
The Conrte were held in log houses. There were few law
books to be had and the litigation involved but little in amount
—the civil cases being mainly actions of auumpit based upon
promissory notes and accounts, and actions of tort for the
recovery of damages for assaults^ slanders, ete., and the crim-
inal cases generally involving aome form of personal vioLenoe
— and most of the lawyers of that day divided their time be-
tween the law and politics.

When Lincoln, in the Spring of 1837, came to Springfield
to commence his professional career he rode a borrowed horse

ibtsitt 0f 3llltrtiytr«.

re'bruary 5, 1909

The cele"brations which throughout the
country are to znark the One Hundredth Anniversary
of the hirth of Lincoln are an expression of the
esteem and affection in which his nane and
character are universally held by the American
people »

In this memorial occasion, the people of
Illinois have a special and peculiar interest.
Here Lincoln passed his mature yeaxs and here
he "began that marvelous public career which
has earned the admiration of his countrymen
and the world .

It is gratifying, therefore, to witness
the extensile preparations tvhich are "being
made "by the citizens of Illinois to observe this
great day in a mann-^r worthy of its significance
in the history of our State and country and of
the movement for liberty throurrhout the world.
And I urge the citizens of Illinois to partic-
ipate in these celebrations in their various
communities. In Lincoln's life every citizen
may find an incentive to patriotism and the
earnestness with which we join in this tribute
to his memory will attest the measure of our
devotion to the great principles of liberty
and nationality with which his name will be
forever associated.

pat>nc Lib

<v. ' ... '^V

.••-

oei!!-^^''^ ' Q,xttt^' ^,)] Governor.

" {^'^ ■;y^\ics[m\\c of (lovernor Deneen's Proclamation

ILLINOIS SUPREME COUBT COMMEMORATION f M

and carried his goods and chattels in a pair of aaddle^baga.
Lincoln remained in partnership with Major Btnart, with
whom he had served in the Black Hawk War, nntil IMl, dor-
ing the most of which time Mr. Btoart was in Congress and
Mr. Lincoln in the State Legislature, and he made hut little
progress in a financial or professional way dnring that period.
He, however, had dnring that time a nnmber of eases of soma
importance in the Circuit Court and a few in this Court
The first case he had in this Court was at the Deoember term,
1840, and was that of Scammon v. Cline, 2 Seam. 456, in
which he was defeated. That ease involved a question of
practice in taking an appeal from a {Tustice of the Peaee in
the Circuit Court, and established no principle of any im-»
portance. At the July term, 1841, however, he did have in
this Court a most important case, the decision of which was
f ar*reaching in its results ; and the manner in wUeh he han<»
died it, showed that the future held in store for him a great
professional career. It was brought in the Tasewell County
Circuit Court by the administrators of Nathan Cromwell
against David Bailey, upon a promissoiy note made to Crom-
well in his lifetime for the purchase of a negro girl named
Nance, sold by Cromwell to Bailey. The plaintiff was rep<*
resented by Judge Stephen T. Logan, who at the time of the
War was at the zenith of his professional career as a lawyer.
Judgment was rendered upon the note by Judge William
Thomas, who presided at the trial, in faror of the plaintiff
for four hundred thirty-one dollars, ninety-seven cents. The
defendant prosecuted an appeal to this Court, where it was
contended the note was without consideration and void, as it
was given as the purchase price of a human being, who, the
evidence showed, as it was claimed, was free and therefore
not the subject of sale This Court reversed the trial Court,
the opinion being written by Judge Breese (S Scam. 71), who
held, contrary to the established rule in many of the Southern
States, that the presumption in Illinois was that a negro was.
free and not the subject of sale. Under the old rule the
hurden was upon the negro to establish that he was fr^, as
the presumption obtained that a black man was a dave; under

906 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

the new nde established by the opinion of Judge Breese the
presumption obtained that a Uaek man in this State was free,
and a penon who asserted he was a slave was required to
bring forward his proof , which often it was impossible to do.

It was a fortunate circumstance in the life of Idnooln that
in 1841 he allied himself with Judge Logan. The judge, like
Lincoln, was from Kentucky and was a very great lawyer;
not only a great lawyer, but a good lawyer*— one thoroughly
grounded in all the principles and technicalities of the com*
mon law, which at that time Lincoln was not, and during the
next four years, and throughout his association with Judge
Logan, Lincoln grew as a lawyer very rapidly. At that period
there lived in Illinois a great number of very able lawyers-—
Logan,; Stuart, Baker, Douglas, Trumbull, Davis, Treat,
Breese, Hardin, Shields, Linder, Manney, Purple, Enox, and
others — many of whom would have graced the bar of any
court, even that of the Supreme Court at Washington or the
courts at Westminster, in England, and a number of whom
subsequently attained high distinction upon the bench or in
other walks of public life. The United States Courts and the
State Supreme Court of Illinois were then held in Spring-
field. Lincoln was immediately thrown into contact and com*
petition with those great men, and his contemporaries all
attest the fact that at the time he was elected to Congress
from the Springfield district, in the Fall of 1846, he was the
peer, as a lawyer, of any of them. Upon the dissolution of
the firm of Logan and Lincoln, the firm of Lincoln and Hem-
don was formed, which lasted until Lincoln was elected Pres-
ident.

Lincoln was, during the time that he was in partnership
with Judge Logan, and up to the time this ambition was
satisfied, anxious to go to Congress. There were then living
in that district, also, J. J. Hardin, E. D. Baker, and Judge
Logan, all of whom had the same ambition, and it has beoi
charged, but perhaps without foundation, that the ''Big
Four," as these men were called, formed a coalition, whereby
Hardin, Baker, Lincoln, and Logan were each to have a term
in Congress in the order in which they are named. Hardin,

ILLINOIS SUPREME COURT COMMEMORATION 807

Baker, and Lmcoln each served a tenn in GoogresBi and Logaa
received the nomination, but was defeated at the polls.

There is another strange coincidence with three of those
great men. Hardin fell at Buena Vista while leading his
men in a charge dnring the Mexican War; Baker fell while
leading his men at Ball's Bluff, during the War of the Rebel-
lion ; and Lincoln, just at the close of the War, lost his life at
the hands of an assassin.

Lincoln was not a candidate for reelection to Congress, and
upon his return to Springfield, in 1849, he resumed the prac-
tice of the law ; and, it may be said, for the next eleven years
he devoted all his energy to his profession, and his develop-
ment during that period was such that when he stepped from
his law office in Springfield into the executive office at Wash-
ington, no man since the time of Washington was more
thoroughly equipped and prepared to fill wisely that exalted
position than was he.

During that eleven years preceding the election of Lincoln
as President, he not only rode the old Eighth Judicial Circuit,
but he had a large practice in this Court and in the United
States Circuit and District Courts of Illinois, and was often
called to represent large interests in foreign States. During
the twenty-three years that Lincoln practised law he had one
hundred and seventy-three cases in this Court — a most re-
markable record — and I have found two cases (and perhaps
there are others) which he had during that period in the
Supreme Court of the United States.

Lincoln was a great jury lawyer, as is attested by his
efforts in the Armstrong case and the Harrison case— both
murder eases — and in many other cases. He was also equally
strong with the Court. For many years he represented some
of the great corporations of the State, such as the Illinois
Central Railroad Company and the Chicago, Rock Island and
Pacific Railrpad Company, and when he became a candidate
for President, the lawyers of the State, recognizing his eminent
ability, almost to a man gave him their earnest and warm
support, and his nomination was largely secured through the
influence of Judge David Davis, Qen. John M. Palmer,

MS ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Leonard Swett, Biohard J. Oglest^, Riehard Tates, and ottor
well known lawyers of lUinoia with whom he had tnTdled
the old Eighth Judicial Circuit and with whom he had tried
eases in ditf erent sections of the State.

If it were necessary to quote authority to prove the great-
ness of Lincoln as a lawyer, the testiniony of innmnerable
members of the bench and bar who knew hnn might be cited.
I will only refer to that of one-~Judge David Davis, of the
old Eighth Judicial Circuit, who afterwards graced with dig-
nity and learning, a seat upon the Supreme Bench of the
United States. He said:

"I enjoyed for over twenty years the personal friendship of Mr.
Lincoln. We were admitted to the bar about the same time and
trsTelled for many years what is known in lUinofa as the Eightli
Judicial Olrcnit. In ia4§, when I Arst went ea the bench, the elreiiit
embraced fourteen Geuntiea, and Mr. Lincoln went with tiie Conrt te
eirery County. Railroads were not then in use and our mode of traTel
was either on horseback or in buggies. • . • Mr. Lincoln was trans-
ferred from the bar of that Circuit to the office of the President of
the United States, having been without oiicial position sinee he left
Oongftas, in 1S49. In all the elements that eonetltnte the great lawyor
^ had few equals. He was great both at m$i prt«cf and befeie •«
appellate tribunal. He seiced the strong points of » cause and pre-
sented them with clearness and great compactness. His mind wme
logical and direct and he did not indulge in extraneous discussioii.
His power of comparison was large, and he rarely failed in a legal
diS4»isaion to use that mode of reasoning. The fhaneworic ai Ids
mental and moral being was honesty, and a wrong cause was peor^
defended by him. In order to bring into luU activity his grestt
powers it was necessary - that he should be convinced of the right
and justice of the matter which he advocated. When so convinced^
whether the cause was great or small, he was usually suoeeaafitL
He hated wrong and oppression everywhere^ and many a nan
fraudulent conduct was undergoing review in a court of justiee
writhed under his terrific indignation and xeSMikes.''

One of the most important cases vrhich Lincoln ever tried
was that of the Illinois Central Railroad Company against the
Connty of McLean (17 HI. 291), which case involved the
right of McLean Connty to tax lands of the Illinois Central
Railroad Company in that Connty. Ifr. lineoln reprcaeaied

ILLINOIS SUPREME COUBT COMMEMORATION 809

tile company and was defeated in the Trial Court The case
was carried to this Gonrty where it was argaed orally twice Iqr
Lincoln^ and the judgment of the lower Court was reversed.
Lincoln received a fee of five thousand dollars for his services
in that case — ^the largest fee which he ever received. There
was some controveny over its payment^ and it was finally paid
after it had been put into judgment. A lawyer at the present
day, of equal prominence with Lincoln, would doubtless have
charged twenty-five thousand dollars for the same service.

Lincoln, in about 1856, was retained by Mr. Manney in the
famous case of McCormick i;. Manney, tried in the United
States Court at Cincinnati, which involved the validity of
the patents under which the McCormick reapers were manu-
factured, and a claim of four hundred tiiiousand dollars
for infringement. Governor William H. Seward and Hon.
Edwin M. Stanton were also retained in that case — ^Mr.
Seward for the plaintifiF, Mr. Stanton for the defendant. Lin-
eoln went to Cincinnati to assist in the trial of the case but
did not argue the case orally. It has been said that during
the trial Stanton ignored him and that Seward was supposed
to have far out-ranked him as a lawyer. Lincoln, however^
lived long enough to demonstrate to the world that intellectu-
ally he towered above each of those great men as does the
■now-capped peak above the foothills.

Lincoln, a little later, appeared in the United States Court
in Chicago in the Bock Island Bridge case — a case whidi in-
volved the right to bridge the Mississippi Biver, It waa really
m Gontest between the railroads and the steamboats; Judgt
Bledgett of Chieagov -who was at the time of the trial a young
■um^ farter in his eventful life told me he listened to Lincoln's
arguments in that case, and he said to me it waa the greatest
forensic effort that he had ever heard. la a nutshell^ he said
liinoofai's position was, if you have the right to go up and
down a river, you have the right to cross it. He further said
bis i>eroration was grand beyond description. All the terri-
tory west of the Mississippi was then practically unoccupied^
and he said Lincoln described the future development ot thai

no ABRAHAM LINCOLN

great territory in sach yivid terms that his language, to one
who then heard it and had now ridden through that vast terri-
tory and seen the development that had taken place, ahnost
seemed prophetic.

In the debate with Senator Douglas, in 1858, Lincoln dem-
onstrated that he was a far greater lawyer than Senator
Douglas. The answers which Senator Douglas attempted to
make to the questions propounded to him by Lincoln at Free-
port involved Douglas in a maze of contradictions and incon-
sistencies, alienated the South from him, and perhaps lost
him the presidency.

After Lincoln was inaugurated as President his adminis-
tration was inunediately beset with many great and vexatious
questions which demanded immediate answers. The South
claimed the right of secession, and the feeble administration
which surrendered the reins of government to Lincoln had
sought to compromise with the men who were attempting to
break up the government. Lincoln iSrmly denied the right of
secession. He said that one party to a contract could not
voluntarily abrogate it. He said a contract might be broken,
but that it could not be rescinded, except for fraud in its
inception, without the concurrent act of both parties. This
argument was but re-stating well-settled principles of law,
which he had heard announced and seen applied time and
again upon the old Eighth Judicial Court when he was prac-
tising law, and his clear statement of the proposition satisfied
the country and put the seceding States upon the defensive.

In the controven^ with England over the capture of Mason
and Slidell he upheld the principles for which the United
States had contended in the War of 1812, and the vexatious
problem was satisfactorily and wisely settled. When the
United States Treasury was depleted he said the issue of tiie
greenback was authorized under the Constitution as a war
measure, and when the question of emancipating the slaves
presented itself for decision he also invoked the powers of the
government in time of war as a justification for his Emancipa-
tion Proclamation.

All these questions, as well as the other great questions

ILLINOIS SUPREME COURT COMMEMORATION «11

which confronted him during the time he was President, he
met with fimmess, with wisdom, and with courage, with great
forethought and forbearance, and in each instance applied
to their solution the great principles of law and justice with
which he had stored his mind during the twenty-three years
that he had been a student of law and a practitioner in the
courts of Illinois.

I believe Abraham Lincoln to have been the greatest man
who lived during the century in which he was bom, and that
the appreciation of his greatness will increase with the re-
ceding years. I also believe the great achievements which
he accomplished and which have magnified his name until it
has filled the whole world, are due, in great measure, to the
discipline and training received by him while an active mem-
ber of the noble profession of the law.

THE BLOOMINGTON COMMEMORATION

IT was in Bloomington that the Bepubliean party in Illinoia
was given birth, on May 29, 1856, when Lincohi uni-
fied, inspired, and so stirred the Convention with his
famous ''Lost Speech/' that even the reporters failed to take
their notes, but were caught by the enthusiasm of the audience
and listened with wonderment. Ldncoln's speech on that day
was regarded as the greatest that had ever been made in the
State, and as making him a presidential possibility. There,
too, on the last sad journey of the dead President to his final
resting place, his body lay in state at the Court House, where
for years the people had been accustomed to see his lank
figure passing in and out, crowds gathering from far and near
to gaze for the last time upon his silent face.

The City of Bloomington, like Springfield and Chicago,
felt that it had a special interest in Lincoln and the Lincoln
Centenary, because of Lincohi having visited and spoken
there, and because it has as its citizens prominent men who
had personal touch with Mr. Lincoln. A large and enthusi*
astic meeting was addressed by the Hon. Adlai Stevenson,
Vice-President of the United States under Grover Cleveland ;
by Judge B. M. Benjamin, Dean of the Illinois Wesleyan
Law School there, and the author and editor of several well
known legal treatises ; and by Judge Owen T. Beeves — all
three of these speakers having known Lincoln personally, and
speaking, therefore, from a first-hand knowledge of the times
and the man.

215

218 ABSAHAM LINCOLN

and wtatever savored of popular role— even in its mildest
form— was yet in the distant future. Alexander the First
was on the throne of Busda — and her millions of serfs op-
pressed as by the iron hand of the Ciesars. The splendid
German Empire of to-day had no plaee on the map of the
world; its present powerful constituencies were antagonistie
provinces and warring independent cities. Napoleon Bonar
parte — ^''calling Fate into the lists/' — ^by a succession of
victories unparalleled in history, had overturned thrones^
compelled kings upon bended knee to sue for peace, substi-
tuted those of his own household for dynasties that reached
back the entire length of human history, and with his star still
in the ascendant, disturbed by no forecast of the horrid ni^t-
mare of the retreat from Moscow, ''with legions scattered
by the artillery of the mows and the fierce cavalry of the
winds,'' tortured by no dream of Leipsie, of Elba, of Water-
loo, of St Helena— still the ''man of destiny" was relentlessly
pursuing the ignis fatuus of universal empire.

The year tiiat witnessed the birth of Abraham Lincoln
witnessed the gathering of the disturbing elements that were
to precipitate ihe second war with the mother country.
England— with George the Third upon the throne — ^by in-
sulting and cruel search of American vessels upon the hi|^
seas, was rendering inevitable the declaration of war by Con-
gress— ^a war of humiliation upon our part by the disgraoefnl
surrender of Hull at Detroit, and the wanton burning of our
oapitol, but crowned with honor by the naval victories of
Lawrence, Decatur, and Perry, and eventually terminated
by the capture of the British army at New Orleans. As an
object lesson of the marvels of the dosing century: an inci*
dent of BO momentous consequaice to the world as the formu-
lation of the Treaty of Ghent-— by which peace was restored
between England and America — ^would to-day be known at
every fireside a few hours after its occurrence. And yet
within the now closing century*— the Treaty of Ghent coming
by slow sailing vessel across the Atlantic— twenty-three days
after it had received the signatures of our conmussioners the
Battle of New Orleans was foughti all unsettled aeeounti

AMBASSADE DE FRANCE

WASHINGTON

»
Arc •^^*f • UA^ C* { i.X^l> l^^ ^ ^^ / — /^

Facsimile of the Last Page of Manuscript of Speech Made by
Ambassador Jiisserand at Springfield

/^-^

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5- /i^-*'-^ '-^ fru'Z

A^lA^

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A^it^%:

Facsimile of Manuscript Tribute from Hon. Adlai E. Stevenson of Illinois,

Ex-Vice- President of the United States

THE BLOOMINGTON COMMEMORATION f 19

eternally squared between Ameriea and Great Britain, and
the United States, by valor no less than by diplomacy, ekaltod
to honored and enduring place among the nations.

The fifty-siz years that compassed the life of Abraham
Lincoln were years of transcendent significance to our coun-
try. While yet in his rude cradle, tiie African slave trade
had just terminated by constitutional inhibition. While Lin-
ooln was still in attendance upon ^'the old field sdiool,"
Henry Clay—yet to be known as the ''Great Pacificator"'***
was pressing the admission of Missouri into the Union un-
der the first compromise upon the question of slaveiy since
the adoption of the Federal Constitution. From the estab-
liahment of the government the question of human slaveiy
was the one perilous question — the one constant menace to
national unity, until its final extinction amid the flames of war^
Marvellous to man are the purposes of the Almighty. What
seer could have foretold that from this humblest of homes
upon the frontier was to qpring the man who at the crucial
moment should cut the Gordian knot, liberate a race, and
give to the ages enlarged and grander conception of the
deathless principles of the declaration of human rights!

''Often do tbe Bpirits of great events
Stride on before the events.
And in to-day already walki to-morrow.'*

The first inauguration of President Lincoln noted the hour
of the ''breaking with the past." It was a period of gloom,
when the very foundations were shaken, when no man could
foretell the happening of the morrow, when strong men trem-
bled at the possibility of the destruction of our government.

Pause a moment, my countrymen, and recall the man who,
under the conditions mentioned, on the fourth of March,
1861, entered upon the duties of the great ofl^e to which he
had been chosen. He came from the common walks of life —
from what in other countries would be called the great middle
elaoB. His early home was one of the humblest, where he
was a stranger to the luxuries, and to many of the ordinary
comforts of life. His opportunities for education were only

920 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

mieh as were iNnnmon in the remote habitatione of ovr Weit-
em eonntry one oentnry ago.

Under sueh eonditiona began a career that in grandenr
and achievement haa bnt a single counterpart in our history.
And what a splendid commentary this upon onr free inatitn-
ticma-Hipon the sublime underiying principle of popular gor-
emmenti How inq>iring to the youth of high aima every
incident of the pathway that led from the frontier cabin to
tiie executive mansion — ^from the humblest position to the
most exalted yet attained by man 1 In no other country than
ours could such attainment have been possible for the bqy
whose hands were inured to tofl, whose bread was eaten undiv
the hard conditions that poverty imposes, whose only heritage
was brain, integrily, loffy ambition, and indomitable purpose.
Let it never be forgotten that the man of whom I speak pos-
sessed an integrity that could know no temptation, a purity
of life that waa never questioned, a patriotism that no sec-
tional lines could limity and a fixedness of purpose that knew
no shadow of turning.

The decade extending from our first treaty of peace with
Great Britain to the inauguration of Washington has been
truly denominated the critical period of our history. The
eloquence of Adams and Henry had precipitated revolution;
the unfaltering courage o{ Washington and his comrades had
secured independence ; but the more difficult task of garnering
up the fruits of victory by stable government was yet to be
achieved. The hour for tiie ecmstmetive statesman had ar>
rived, and James Madison and his associates— equal to the
emergency — ^formulated the Federal Constitution.

No less critical was the period that bounded the active lifo
of the man whose memory we hcmor to-day. One perilous
question to national unity — for near three-quarters of a cen-
tury the subject of repeated compromise by patriotic statea-
men, the apple of discord producing sectional antagoniam,
whose shadow had darkled our national pathway from the
beginning — waa now for weal or woe to find determination.
Angry debate in senate and upon the forum was now huahed,
and iht supreme question that took hold of national

THE BLOOMINGTON COMMEMORATION Ml

to find enduring arbitrament in the dread tribunal
of war*

^ It was well in sacb an hour— with anch tremendoua ianiea
in the balance — ^that a steady hand was at the helm; that
a conservative statesman— one whose mission was to save,
not to destroy— was in the high place of reqEKmsibility and
power. It booted little, then, that he was untaught of schoolsi
unskilled in the ways of courts, but it was of supreme moment
that he could touch responsive chords in the great American
heart; all-important that his very soul yearned for the
preservation of the government established through the toil
and sacrifice of the generation that had gone. How hopeless
the Bepublic in that dark hour had its destiny hung upon
the statecraft of Tallyrand, the eloquence of Mirabeau, or the
genius of Napoleon !

Fortunate, indeed, that the ark of our covenant was then
borne by the plain brave man of conciliatoiy qnrit and kind
words, and whose heart, as Emerson aaid, ''Was as large aa
the world but nowhere had room for the memory of wrong!''

Nobler words have never fallen from human lips than the
closing sentences of his First Inaugural in one of the pivotal
days of human history — ^immediately upon taking the oath
to preserve, protect, and defend the country :

^ am loath to close. We are not enemies, Irat Mends. We must
not be enemies. Thougb passion may kSTe strained, it nnst not break
our bonds of affeetion. The mjatic ehords of memory, stietebing from
every battlefield and patriot gntTe to ereiy living beart and beartb-
stoae all over this broad land, will yet swell tbe choi^ of the Union
when again tonched, as surely they will be^ by the better angels of our
aatore.'*

In the light of what we now know so well, nothing is han-
arded in saying that the death of no man has been to this
country so irreparable a loss — one so grievous to be borne —
as that of Abraham Lincoln. When Washington died his
work was done, his life well rounded out — save one, the years
allotted had been passed. Not so with Lincoln. To him a
grander task was yet in waiting — one no other could so well
perform. The assasBin's pistol proved the veritable Paa*-

222 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

dora's box from which sprang evils untoild — ^whose conseqnen-
' ces have never been measured — ^to one-third of the States of
oxxr Unibn. But for his nntimeiy death, how the current of
history might have been changed — and many a sad ch^)ter
remained unwritten I How earnestly he desired a restored
TTnion, and that the blessings of peace and of concord diould
be the common heritage of every section, is known to all.

When in the loom of time have such words been heard
above the din of fierce conflict as his sublime utterances but a
brief time before his tragic death :

"With malioe toward none, with charity for all, with firmness for
the right as GU)d gives ns to see the right, let us strive on to finish the
work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who
shaU have home the battle and lor his widow and his orphan, to do
all which may achieve a lasting peace among ourselvea and among aU
nations."

No fitter occasion than this can ever arise in which to
ref e^ to two historical events that at a crucial moment tested
to the utmost the safe and f arnseeing statesmanship of Pres-
ident Lincoln. The first was the seizure upon the high seas
of Mason and Sliddl, the accredited representatives from the
Southern Confederacy, respectively to the Courts of England
and of France. The seizure was in November, 1861, by
Capt. Wilkes of our Navy — and the envoys named were
taken by him from the Trent, a mail-carrying steamer of the
British Government. The act of Capt. Wilkes met with
enthusiastic commendation throughout the entire country ; he
was voted the thanks of Congress and his act publicly ap-
proved by the Secretary of the Navy.

The demand by the British government for reparation upon
the part of the United States was prompt and explicit. The
perils that then environed us were such as rarely shadow the
pathway of nations. Save Russia alone, our government had
no friend among the crowned heads of Europe. Menaced
by the peril of the recognition of the Southern Confederacy
by England and Prance — ^with the very stars apparently
warring against us in their courses — ^the position of the Pres-
ident was in the last degree trying. To surrender the Con-

THE BLOOMINGTON COMMEMORATION S2S

federate envoTS was in a measure humiliating and in opposi->
tion to the popular impulse; their retention, the signal for
the probable recognition of the Sonthem Confederacy by the
European powers, and the certain and immediate declaration
of war by England.

The good genins of President Lincoln— rather his wise, just,
far-seeing statesmanship— stood him well in hand at the criti*
cal moment. Had a rash, opinionated^ impulsive man then
held the executive oflBee, what a sea of troubles might have
overwhelmed us — ^how the entire current of our history might
have been changed I

The calm, wise President in his council chamber — aided by
his closest official adviser. Secretary Seward — discerned clearly
the path of national safety and of honor. None the less was
the act of the President one of justice— one that wiU abide
the sure test of time. Upon the real ground that the seizure
of the envoys was in violation of the law of nations, they
were eventually surrendered; war with England — ^as well
as immediate danger of recognition of the Confederacy —
averted. And let it not be forgotten that this very act of
President Lincoln was a triumphant vindication of our gov-
ernment in its second war with Great Britain — a war waged
as a protest upon our part against British seizure and impress-
ment of American citizens upon the high seas.

The other incident to whidi I briefly refer was the Procla-
mation of Emancipation. As a war measure of stupendous
significance in the national defense — as well as of justice to
the enslaved — such proclamation, immediate in time, and
radical in terms, had, to greater or less degree, been urged
upon the President Ifrom the outbreak of the Rebellion. That
slavery was to perish amid the great upheaval, became in time
the solemn conviction of all thoughtful men. Meanwhile there
were divided counsels among the earnest supporters of the
President as to the time the masterful act — ''that could know
no backward steps" — should be taken. Unmoved amid di-
vided counsels — and at times fierce dissensions — the calm,
far-seeing Executive upon whom was cast the tremendous
responsibility, patiently bided his time. Events that are

SS4 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

now the nuurterfol theme of histovy erowded in rapid raobafl*
siony the opportnne moment arriTed, the hour stmck, the
Plroclamation — ^that has no eonnterpart — fell npon the ean
of the startled world, and as bj the interposition of a mightier
hand, a race was lifted out of the depths of bondage.

To the one man at the helm seems to have been given to
know '^the day and the honr." At the emcial moment in
one of the exalted days of human history, ''He sounded forth
the trumpet that has never called retreat"

My fellow-citizens, the men who knew Abraham Lincoln,
who saw him face to face, who heard his voice in public as-
semblage, have, with few exceptions, passed to the grave.
Another generation is upon the bucQr stage. The book has
forever closed upon the dread pageant of civil strife. Sec-
tional animosities, thank God, belong now only to the past
The mantle of peace is over our entire land and prosperity
within our borders.

Through the instrumentality— in no small measure— of the
man whose memory we now honor, the government established
by pur fathers, untouched by the finger of Time, has de-
scended to us. The responsibUity of its preservation and
transmission rests upon the successive goierations as they
shall come and go. To-day, at this auspicious hour — sacred to
the memory of Lincoln — ^let us, his countrymen, inspired by
the sublime lessons of his wondrous life, and grateful to Qod
for all He has vouchsafed to our fathers and to us in the
past, take courage and turn our faces resolutely, lMq[>efuIly,
trustingly to the future. I know of no words more fitting
with which to close this humble tribute to the memory of
Abraham Lincoln than those inscribed upon the monument of
Moliftre: ''Nothing was wanting to his glory; he was wanting
toounk''

LINCOLN THE LAWYER, AND HIS BLOOMINGTON

SPEECHES

B. X. BENJAMIN

MY personal aoquaintanoe with Abraliam Lincoln began
in 1856 and continued until his election to the pre8i«
dency in 1860. Accordingly, my remarks on thia occasion
will be confined to that period.

I shall first speak of Lincoln, the lawyer, and then of his two
principal Bloomington speeches— one of them in Major's Hall
on May 26, 1856, and the other in the Court House square
on September 4, 1858.

I began the study of law at the Harvard Law School in
1854, came to Bloomington in April, 1856, was admitted
to the bar on an examination certificate signed by Lin-
coln, and in October of the same year, began the prac-
tice of law in company with Oridley and Wickixer. They
were both old-time Whigs — political associates and sup-
porters of Mr. Lincoln. Qen. Gridley had served as a Bep-
resentative, and later as a Senator, in the State Legislature,
and was at the time (1856) one of the five members of the
State Central Committee of the new party just organized
and known at first as the Anti-Nebraska Party. Mr. Wickizer
had been Mayor of the city of Bloomington, and at the No-
vember election, 1856, was elected the Bepresentative of this
legislative district. During the four years between the Spring
of 1856 and the Spring of 1860, Lincoln was a regular at-
tendant at the sessions of the McLean Counly Circuit Court.

He sometimes, in important cases, assisted us, and he fre-
quently visited the office for consultation with Oridley and
Wickizer on political matters.

In 1856, there were published only sixteen volumes of the
Illinois Supreme Court Beports. There are now two hundred

15 ftU

M6 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

and thirty-five Tolumes of these Beports. Previous to that
time^ and up to 1860 — daring all the period that Lincoln was
a practising lawyer — causes were tried on principle rather
than precedent Those who followed Judge David Davis as
he went from county to county holding court on the ''Old
Eighth Circuit/' when the published reports were so few and
the jurisprudence of Illinois was in its formative state, were
naturally compelled in the trial of causes to base their argu-
ments to the Court and jury upon the solid foundation of
right and justice. Instead of citing a great number of alleged
similar cases, and spending their time in long arguments to
show the analogy between them and the one at bar, they would
apply to the transaction in controversy the test of reason,
and appeal to that faculty by which we distinguish truth
from falsehood and right from wrong.

Why is it that the people at large, the unlearned as well as
the learned, so uniformly observe the law — ^follow its man-
dates in the indefinitely varying circumstances of life t Why
is it that they are held bound to know the law! Is it not
because they know the difference between the true and the
false — ^between right and wrong — between justice and injus-
tice— ^between law and violation of lawt

The lawyer of central Illinois who '^travelled the Circuit"
fifty-six years ago, did not carry with him, and could not cite,
an array of authorities in support of the points he made, but
he had to win, if at all, by his ability to marshal the facts
in evidence and by his power of reasoning to carry convic-
tion of the righteousness of his client's cause. The school
of law in which Abraham Lincoln, John T. Stuart, Leonard
Swett, and Lawrence Weldon were trained, was a school, not
merely of oratory, but also of logic and legal ethics.

But it must not be inferred that Lincoln never consulted
authorities. Although he was on the circuit a large portion of
the year, he had access at Springfield, his home, to the State
Law Library — ^to the English, the Federal, and the State Re-
ports. And whenever any of the hundreds of cases, in the
trial of which he had taken part on the Circuit, were taken
to the Supreme Court of the State, he would reinforce hitna^lf

THE BLOOMINGTON COMMEMORATION 227

^th all the authorities he could find in the books. In thia
way he was doubly armed for the final contest. He had his
forces well in hand, with principles in the fore-front of the
battle and precedents for their support.

Lincoln was admitted to the bar in 1837. The Illinois Re-
ports show that in the twenty-three years of his practice
of law, he argued one hundred and seventy-three oases in the
Supreme Court of the State. He also had a large practice in
the United States District and Circuit Courts at Springfield
and Chicago.

The best description of Lincoln as a lawyer that I have ever
read was that of Thomas Dmmmond, who was Judge of the
United States District Court of Illinois as early as 1850,
and subsequently became Judge of the United States Circuit
Court for this, the Seventh Judicial District, comprising
the States of Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin. Judge Drum-
mond gives this characterization of Lincoln as a lawyer :

^Without any of the peraonal graces of the orator; without much
in the outer man indicating superiority of intellect; without great
quickness of perception; still, his mind was so Tigorous, his compre-
hension so exact and clear, and his judgment so sure that he easily
mastered the intricacies of his profession and became one of the ablest
reasoners and most impressive speakers at our bar. With a probity
of character known by all; with an intuitive insight into the human
heart; with a clearness of statement which was itself an argument;
with uncommon power and felicity of illustration*— often, it is true,
of a plain and homely kind — and with that sincerity and earnestness
of manner which carried conviction, he was perhaps one of the most
sueoessful lawyers we have ever had in the States''

This is a true picture of Lincoln, the lawyer. No one who
ha« ever seen and heard him at the bar can fail to recognize
the likeness.

The Bloomingtan Pantagraph of May 14, 1856, published a
call for a mass meeting of the voters of McLean County,
favorable to the Anti-Nebraska movement, to select three del-
egates to a State Convention to be held in Bloomington on the
twenty-ninth of May, 1856. This call was signed by John M.
Scott, W. C. Hobbs, J. H. Wickizer, L. Graves, J. B. McClun,
Z. Lawrence, James Yandolah, and Leonard Swett. The meet-

2£8 ABBAHAM LINCOLN

ing held in pursaanoe of that call was the first political meet-
ing I attended in this State. At that meeting, Owen T.
Beeves was one of the Committee appointed to select del-
egates. The delegates reported by the Committee and ap-
pointed by the meeting were, James Gilmore, Dr. Harrison
Noble, and William W. Orme. The alternates were, Green B.
Larrison, David Cheney, and A. T. Briscoe.

The first time I saw and heard Lincoln was at this Anti-
Nebraska Convention of May 29, 1856, held in Major's HalL
I then and there received my first and lasting impressions of
the logic and eloquence, the power and greatness of Abraham
Lincoln.

A great speech requires a righteous cause, an inspiring
occasion, and a man who measures up to the full height of
the cause and the occasion.

What was the cause in whose support former members of
all the old parties gathered together in that Convention t A
clear understanding of the cause for which Lincoln spoke
that day — ^the one cause for which he made all his political
speeches — requires a brief historic statement.

About two years before the adoption of the Constitution,
the last Congress, sitting under the Articles of Confederation,
passed what is known as the Ordinance of 1787, for the gov-
ernment of the territory northwest of the Ohio Biver and east
of the Mississippi Biver, it being all the territory then owned
by the United States. After the adoption of the Constitution,
there were formed from this Northwest Territory, the Tenri-
tories-'-and later, the States — of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michi-
gan, and Wisconsin. The sixth article of this Ordinance of
1787, provided that ''there shall be neither slavery nor invol-
untary servitude in the said territory, otherwise than in the
punishment of crime, whereof the parties shall have been duly
convicted.'' Each of the Acts of Congress for the establish-
ment of territorial governments within this region northwest
of the Ohio Biver and east of the Mississippi, required the
government to be in all req>ects similar to that provided by
the Ordinance of 1787. The Enabling Act for the admiMion

THE BLOOMINOTON COMMEMORATION 2S9

of Illinois into the Union, passed by Congress in 1818, re-
quired that the Constitution and State g6vemment to be
formed, ''shall be republican and not repugnant to the Or-
dinance of 1787/'

The Ordinance of 1787, the Aot of Congress of 1809, es-
tablishing the Territory of Illinois, and this Enabling Act of
1818, saved our own State of Illinois from beccming a slave
state; for slavery, without such barrier, had already taken
possession of the Territory directly west of us.

In 1803 we purchased from France the Province of Lou-
isiana, which extended from the Oulf of Mexico to the Britiah
IKMEHiessions and from the Mississippi Biver to the Bocky Moun-
tains. In March, 1818, the inhabitants of the Territory of
Missouri, a portion of the Louisiana Purchase, applied for
admission into the Union. Nearly all of this Territory lay
directly west of the free State of Illinois, the Southern boun-
dary being but a short distance farther south than Cairo,
and the Northern boundary being as far north as Bloom-
ington.

For two years the halls of Congress were the scenes of
angry debates as to whether Missouri should be admitted as a
free or a slave State. The bitter struggle was ended for a
time by an Act of Congress, passed March 6, 1820, which
enabled Missouri to be admitted as a slave State, and pro-
vided: ''That in all that territory ceded by France to the
United States, under the name of Louisiana^ which lies north
of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes north latitude, not
included within the limits of the State contemplated by this
Act, slavery and involuntary servitude, otherwise than in the
punishment of crimes, whereof the parties shall have been
duly convicted, shall be and is hereby forever prohibited."

This Act of Congress was known as the Missouri Compro-
mise. It was confined to the territory purchased from
France. It prohibited slavery in that portion of the Lou-
isiana Purchase which was west and north of Missouri, and
allowed it to go into the portion which was south of Missouri.

This Compromige was proposed by one of the Senators

230 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

from lUinoifl and voted for by both of them. The two
Senators were Jease B. Thomas (who proposed it) and
Ninian Edwards.

In January, 1854, the Chairman of the Committee on Ter-
ritories introduced in the Senate of the United States a Bill
for the organization, out of that territory from which slavery
had been excluded by the Missouri Compromise, of two new
Territories to be named Kansas and Nebraska. The Bill as
finally amended, declared that the Missouri Compromise was
''inoperative and void." The Bill was discussed in Congress
for four months. It was passed by the House, May 22, and by
the Senate, May 25, 1854.

The repeal of the Missouri Compromise — ^the removal of a
barrier against slavery, which had stood from 1820 to 1854 —
was attempted to be justified on two inconsistent grounds.

The Southern advocates of the repeal claimed that the
slavery restriction in the Compromise of 1820 was unconstitu-
tional— ^that the Constitution of the United States gave to the
citizens of a slave State the right to take their slaves into
any part of the common territory of the United States, and
hold them there as property — ^that their right to do this was
equal to the right of the citizens of a free State to take and
hold there their horses or any other kind of property. Said
Senator Toombs, of Georgia :

''The Bill leayeg with the people of the Territories all the power OT«r
their domestic institutions which the Constitution permits them to
exercise. The Bill repeals an Act which excluded the people of Um
slave-holding States from the equal enjoyment of the common territory
of the RepubUc."

The Northern advocates of the repeal based their arguments
on what they called **The principle of popular sovereignty."
Said Senator Cass, of Michigan :

"I haye made the doctrine of non-intervention, or, in other words,
the right of self-government of American citixena, so far as it la not
controlled by the Constitution, one of the principal reasons for tlie
adoption of this measure/'

He said that by the term, '^ popular sovereignty" he meant,

THE BLOOMINOTON COMMEMORATION Ml

"the right of the people to regolitte their local and domestio
affairs in their own way."

From the day of its introduction in the Senate, the Kansas-
Nebraska Bill had been debated almost continuously for over
four months, and then on the day of its final passage, the
leading Senators who had, throughout that long debate,
fought against the advancement of slavery into the territory
consecrated to freedom by the Missouri Compromise — ^the Sen-
ator from Ohio, Salmon P. Chase; the Senator from New
York, William H. Seward, and the Senator from Massachu-
setts, Charles Sumner — during the closing hours of that fate-
ful day, spoke unavailing^ solemn, almost prophetic words,
expressive of their intense solicitude for the great and pre-
cious interests imperiUed by that Bill — intense solicitude for
the peace and even existence of the Union.

Lincoln, in his brief Autobiography, written at the request
of Jesse Fell, here in Bloomington, "at a desk in the old court
room,'' says:

''In 1846 I was ones deeted to the Lower Hotue of Congnan^wMM
not s flandidftte for reHection. From 1840 to 1854, both induaive,
practifled law more aBsiduonaly than ever before. Always a Whig In
politics; and geDerally on the Whig electoral tickets, making active
canvasses. I was losing interest in politics when the repeal of. the
Kiasoori Compromise aronsed me again."

We are now prepared to understand fully what was the
cause that aroused and brought together, in Major's Hall on
the twenty-ninth day of May, 1856, so many of the great men
of the free State of Illinois.

The cause can be stated in one word — freedom — ^the pres-
ervation of free soil for free men in all that territory which
8(tretche8 from the west line of the State of Missouri to the
Bocky Mountains, and extends northward to the Dominion
of Canada. It was declared in the Besolution of the Con-
vention, which resdved :

"That the repeal of the Missouri Compromise was unwise, unjnst»
and injurions • . . and that we will strive by all constitutional
ins, to seenra to Kansas and Nebraska the Ugal guarantee against

M9 ABBAHAM LINCOLN

■laTeiy* of wliidi they w«re deprivM at the eoit oi the ifkMUm of
tbe plighted faith of the natioiL''

This B^solution was drawn by Lincoln. It was the text
of his i^eat speech in Major's Hall-— it was the text of all
his political speeches. No one has been able to reproduce
from memory the line of his argument^ still less his forceful
eloquence, on that occasion. This is not strange.

Some of you, now here, have heard in this city, as I haye,
able political qpeeches made by James O. Blaine, Benjamin
Harrison, Lyman Trumbull, John A. Logan, Bichard J.
Oglesby, John M. Palmer, Owen Lovejoy, Robert G. IngeraoU,
Leonard Swett, and Lawrence Weldon, yet I venture to say
that none of yott can, to-day, state the line of any one of those
speeches.

But from Lincoln's other speeches — ^always on the same
text— can be formed some idea of the clear statements of
facts and principles, the convincing logic, the impressive man-
ner, the power and eloquence of his Major's Hall speech.

Some of you, as I did, heard Lincoln speak in the Court
House Square on the afternoon of September 4, 1858. The
proceedings on that day were reported in the Weekly Panta^
graph of September 8. Let me recall to your memory the
long procession, formed under the direction of William Me-
CuUough, Chief Marshal, and Ward H. Lamon, Charles
Schneider, James O 'Donald, and Henry J. Eager, Assistant
Marshals. You saw that procession march to the residenee
of Judge Davis, there receive Lincoln, and then counter-march
down Washingtbn Street to the public square.

You saw the banners bearing these mottoes, ''Our country,
our whole country and nothing but our country"; ''The
Union — ^it must be preserved"; ''Freedom is national-Hdav-
ary is sectional"; "Honor to the honest. God defend the
right"

You then saw above the north door of the old brick Court
House the representation of a ship in a storm and underneath
the words, "Don't give up the ship— give her a new pilot. '*

The ship came safely into port, and now— this moment —

•^

ff^r^

ll^lilil J

JM^''

THE BLOOMINOTON COMMEMORATION MS

there flashes across your minds, the lines of Walt Whitman's
best poem, ' ' O, Captain, My Captain. ' '

On that day, September 4, 1858, over fifty years ago, there
were not less than seven thousand of yon in and around
the public square. The Coiurt House, Phcenix block. Union
block, and the sidewalks next the square were alive with
people. Dr. Isaac Baker was the President of the Day, and
Leonard Swett made the reception speech.

Lawrence Weldon, then of Clinton, and Samuel C. Parkq^
of Lincoln, spoke in the evening.

You who heard Lincoln then — listen again to a few of the
words he spoke in regard to the irrepressible agitation of
slavery and his own position as to slavery in the slave-holding
States and freedom in the Territories. Said he :

^It is not merely an agitation got up to help .men into office.
• • • The lame eauae baa rent asunder the great Methodist and
Presbyterian churches. • • . It wiU not cease untU a crisis has
been reached and passed. When the public mind rests in the belief
that slayeiy is in the course of ultimate extinction it will become
quiet. We hare no right to interfere with slavery in the States.
We only want to restrict it where it is. We hare never had an
agitation except when it was endeaTored to spread it. • . . The
framers of the Constitution prohibited slarery (not in the Constitu-
tion, but the same men did it) north of the Ohio River where it
did not exist, and did not prohibit it south of that River where it
did exist. • • •• I light slavery in its advancing phase, and wish
to plaoe it in the same attitude that the framers of the government
did.-

This was a dear statement that the agitation of the slavery
question, which had rent in twain the churches, would not
cease until the public mind should rest in the belief that slav-
ery was in the course of ultimate extinction — a clear statement
that we of the North had no right to interfere with slavery
in the Southern States, hut should resist its further advance-
ment into the national Territories.

Viewed from a political standpoint, this was the position
of Lineoln — ^it was the platform of his party. But from the
day he made his Major's Hall Speeeh, he never lost sight of
the moral question as to whether slavery was right or wrong.

S34 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

In his Alton speech, made on the fifteenth of October, 1858,
he said:

''That is the real issue. • • . It is the eternal struggle beti
two principles — ^right and wrong— throughout the world. They^ are tlie
two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time;
and will ever continue to struggle. The one is the common right of
humanity, and the other the 'divine right of kings/ It is the same
principle in whatever shape it develops itself. It is the same spirit
that says, 'You toil and work and earn bread, and 111 eat it.' No
matter in what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a king
who seeks to bestride the people of his own nation and live by the
fruit of their labor, or from one race of men as an apology for en-
slaving another race, it is the same tyrannical principle.'

Yon will bear in mind that Lincoln's Springfield speech
of Jnne 17, 1858, his Bloomington speech of September 4,
1858, and this Alton speech of October 15, 1858, wherein he
stated that the struggle between freedom and siayery was only
one form of the eternal struggle between right and wrong,
were all made before William H. Seward, on the twenty-fifth
of October, 1858, at Rochester, New York, made his celebrated
*' irrepressible conflict" speech.

Perhaps the strength and force of Lincoln's reasoning
powers and intense convictions is best shown by a brief extract
from his Cooper Institute speech in New York :

«i

'If slavery is right, all words, acts, laws, and oonstltutioos against
it are themselves wrong, and should be silenced and swept away. If
it is right, we (the North) cannot justly object to its nationality —
its universality; if it is wrong, they (the South) cannot justly inaist
upon its extension — ^its enlargement. All they ask we could readily
grant, if we thought slavery right; all we ask th^ could as readily
grant, if th^ thought it wrong. Their thinking it right and ow
thinking it wrong is the precise fact upon which depends the whole
controversy. . • • Wrong as we think slavery is, we can yet alTord
to let it alone where it is, because that much is due to the necessity
arising from its actual presence in the nation; but can we, while
our votes will prevent it, allow it to spread into the national Terri-
tories, and to overnm us here in these free States? If our sense of
duty forbids this, then let us stand by our duty fearlessly and effee-
tively. . . . Let us have faith that right makes might, and is
that faith let us to the end dare to do our duty as we understand it.*

THE BLOOMINGTON COMMEMORATION St$5

From these extracts from his political speeches, and from
his recorded words tittered in his two Inaugural Addresses
and at Gettysburg, you know that here was a man equal to
any occasion — a leader on all occasions.

Who were the men who were present on the twenty-ninth
of May, 1856, in Major's Hall, and heard Lincoln's speech on
that occasion t Several of them in after years received from
Illinois her highest honors : — The President of the Convention,
John M. Palmer, Governor, United States Senator; O. H.
Browning, United States Senator, Secretary of the Interior,
Acting Attorney-General of the United States ; Richard Yates,
Governor, United States Senator; Richard J. Oglesby, three
times Governor, United States Senator; David Davis, Justice
of the Supreme Court of the United States, United States
Senator, Acting Vice-President.

The Convention was called to order at ten o'clock. As
stated by General Palmer at the meeting of May 29, 1900,
commemorative of this Convention, *'The Convention was
created by the intense hostility of the American people to the
extension of human slavery into free territory.

Palmer and Cook spoke in the forenoon. Owen Lovejoy,
Lincoln, and Burton C. Cook spoke in the afternoon. Palmer
and Cook were old Democrats ; Yates and Browning were old
Whigs; and Owen Lovejoy was a Liberty Party man.

The next issue of the Weekly Paniagraph (June 4, 1856)
gives the following editorial account of the proceedings:

'^e never saw such unanimity and enthusiasm manifested in a
similar assemblage. . • . Men were here acting In counsel and
harmony, who have hitherto been antipodes in political parties. . . .
Although six candidates were nominated for State officers, not a ballot
waa cast ... all were unanimously nominated by acclamation.''

Let me stop a moment to say that all the candidates of
the. new party then and there organized were elected — ^the
gallant Colonel William H. Bissell for Governor, and, for
State Treasurer, our own James Miller, in remembrance of
whom Bloomington has named her beautiful park and lake.

Now, listen while I read the concluding part of the PantO'
graph editorial — a statement so concise, so terse, so true :

286 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

''Several most lieartnitiiTiiig and powerful epeeehea were made during
the Convention; but without being invidious, we must say that Mr.
linooln on Thursday evening surpassed all others — even himself. His
points were unanswerable, and the force and power of his appeals,
irresistible — and were received with a storm of applause.''

Some of 11% a few, heard that ''storm of applauae,'' at the
dose of Lincoln's Major's Hall Speech, and some of ns, a few,
four years later in the Wigwam at Chicago, heard the ''thnn-
derons" applause that followed the announcement of his
nomination for the presidency of the United States.

Listen again while I read the editorial correspondence of
The Defnocratic Press of Chicago, written that night at eleven
o'clock (May 29, eleven p. m.) :

''Abraham Lincoln of Springfield was next oalled out, and made the
apeeeh of the occasion. Never has it been our fortune to listen to a
more eloquent and masterly presentation of a subject. I shaU not
mar any of its proportions or brilliant passages by attempting even
a nynopsis of it. Mr. Lincoln must write it out and let it go befbre
all the people. For an hour and a half he held the assemblage spell-
bound by the power of his argument, the intense irony of his inveettve,
and the deep earnestness and fervid brilliancy of his eloquence. When
he condttded, the audience sprang to their feet, and cheer after dieer
told how deeply their hearts had been toudied, and their souls warmed
up to a generous enthusiasm.''

Listen to the testimony of John Q. Nicolay, one of the
authors of Nicolay and Hay's, ^'Abraham Lincoln: A His-
tory":

**l had the good fortune to be one of the delegates from Pike
County in the Bloomington Convention of 1856, and to hear the Im-
spiring address delivered by Abraham Lincoln at its close, which held
the. audience in such rapt attention ■ that the reporters dropped their
pencils and forgot their work.*'

Governor Palmer in his ^' Bench and Bar of Illinois" (page
538) has put on record this statement :

''At the Bloomington State Convention in 1866, where the new party
first assumed form in Illinois;' Lincoln made the greatest speeeh in
his life, in which, for the first time, he tock distinctive grounds agaiasi

THE BLOOMINGTON COMMEMORATION 837

slavery in iUell. Thenoeforth he became the leader of his party in the

SUte.''

Again, at the meeting in 1900, commemorative of the Con-
vention, Governor Palmer said :

''Mr. lincoln made a speech before the ConTeniion, which was of
manreUous power and force and fully vindicated the new movement in
opposition to the repeal of the Missouri. Compromise."

General Thomas J. Henderson was a delegate to the Conven-
tion, and afterwards for twenty years a member of Congress.
This is what he said at the commemorative meeting in 1900 :

'fThe great speech of that Convention was the speech made by
Abraham Lincoln. His speech was of such wonderful eloquence and
power that it fairly electrifled the members of the Convention and
everybody who heard it. It was a great speech, in what he said, in
the bundng eloquence of his words, and in the manner in which he
delivered it. If ever huch a speech was inspired in this world, it
has always seemed to me that that speech of Mr. Lincoln's was. It
aroused the Convention, and all who heard it sympathised with the
speaker, to the highoit pitch of enthusiasm. I have never heard any
other speech that had such a great power and influence over those
to whom it was addressed. I have always believed it to have been the
greatest speech Mr. Lincoln ever made, and the greatest speech to
which I ever listened.*'

On the twenty-eighth day of Jannary, 1865, Mr. Lincoln
signed the Joint Besolution of Congress, proposing, in almost
the very words of the Ordinance of 1787 and of the Missouri
Compromise of 1820, the Thirteenth Amendment of the Con-
stitution of the United States, whereby slavery was prohibited
in every place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States.
Then his part of the great work was done. By that Amend-
ment the one object — freedom — for which he made all his
political speeches, was fully attained.

His Bloomington Speech in Major's Hall made Lincoln the
Illinois leader of a new party which, within one year, took
possession of our State government, and four years later
placed him at the head of the nation.

The roof and walls of Major's Hall have long since disap-

S88 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

peared. The place where Lincoln stood is open to the fne
'^currents of the air/' beneath the glory of the son and the
"silent light of stars." That speech was never "lost." Its
influence and inspiration went with the great men who heard
it — ^men who had no small part in making this continental
nation an "indestructible Union" of free States.

THE PEORIA COMMEMORATION

NO feature, perhaps, of the tmiYersal celebration of the
Lincoln Centenary so well indicated the wide-spread in-
terest in the life and history of Lincoln, as the participation
of the varions foreign ministers to this country. At the cele-
bration at Peoria, Illinois, the name of Baron Takahira^ Am-
bassador from Japan, headed the list of prominent speakers
and distinguished guests.

At noon, a special train convoying the distinguished guests
from away was met by a committee of prominent Peorians,
an elaborate luncheon being served at the Country Club at
three o'clock in the afternoon, followed by a reception at the
Crdve CcBur Club from four to five o'clock. The Peoria ob-
servance took many forms (including exercises in all the
schools, and at the churches), ending, in the evening of Feb-
ruary 12, with a banquet at the Crive Coeur Club, where, in
the big Coliseum building — starred with thousands of daz-
zling dectric lights, and gay with red, white, and blue bunt-
ing— beneath a canopy of the Stars and Stripes, interwoven
with the Sun Flag of Japan, the representative of the Island
Empire spoke to seven hundred guestSi of Lincoln's inaugura-
tion of ''The American Diplomacy.'*

Among the other speakers were the Hon. Charles Magoon,
former Provisional (Governor of Cuba, the Hon. Curtis Ouild,
Jr., Ex-Governor of Massachusetts, and Professor John Clark
Freeman, formerly United States Minister to Denmark, also
Counsel-General of Copenhagen, but now of the University of
Wisconsin. Professor Freeman was a soldier and officer in
the Civil War, serving from 1862 to the close of the great
conflict.

ts Ml

LINCOLN'S DIPDOMACT

KOOOBO TAKAHIRA

1 FIRST received your invitation, if I remember right, as
long ago as March last. Yon gave me ample time to make
a good speech, but I confess I have spent the most part of it
carelessly, as I have always thought that I had plenty of time
to do it, but when I began to prepare my speech a few days
ago, I found that Lincoln's greatness as a man and as a public
servant has been exhaustively described in so many ^'livea"
and '' Biographies" that all patriotic citizens of this country
must be fully familiar with it. There is no room for any
additional remarks from such a stranger as myself. If, how-
ever, I should be required to say what has impressed me most
strongly in his life and character, I would mention that the
nobleness of his heart and the generosity of his mind, amply
verified in every detail by acts and conduct which leave no
trace of personal motives in his management of public affairs,
but abound in every proof of the sincerity of his desire for
the good of his country and fellow-beings, are fully illustrative
of the life and character of a statesman idealized by all men
of every nationality. Lincoln left in his life a great example
of a public man, not only for his own, but for all countries.
So it is no wonder that his fame is world-wide and adorns the
universal history of the modem age, as one of the greatest men
that ever lived.

Another feature of his life which appears particularly in-
teresting and instructive to me as a diplomat, was his method
of conducting the foreign affairs of this country. The Civil
War did so much to endanger the international position of the
United States as to threaten the internal solidity of the Union,
and in so great adversity it must have required extraordinaiy
power of foresight and precision, as well as an unusual com-
mand of resolution and courage, to handle such intricate

THE PEORIA COMMEMORATION 249

qnestdons of foreign affairs as the United States had to face at
that time. It is true that Lincoln had a great, able man for
his Secretary of State in the person of William H. Seward,
but if his biographies which I have read are to be depended on,
Mr. Lincoln himself had often to examine important diplomatic
documents drawn by Secretary Seward with great skill and
care, and to amend them in many particulars in order to com-
municate to the powers interested, the exact motiyes and
intentions of the American Government in those straight-
forward and forceful expressions, coupled with a sense of
moderation and dignity, which made the American diplomacy
so famous at the chancelleries of those Powers. Those who
learned to admire his method of diplomatic transaction, called
it "Lincoln's diplomacy *' — the diplomacy which upheld the
dignity and interest of the United States when she still re-
mained in a less important position and under very adverse
circumstances. Mr. John Hay, who was once President Lin-
coln's private secretary, said, in speaking of American di-
plomacy, "The briefest expression of our rule of conduct is
perhaps the Monroe Doctrine and the Oolden Rule." The
origin of the Monroe Doctrine as the policy to be observed in
the affairs of this hemisphere is too well known to everyone
to require any explanation. But Mr. Hay's expression of
the Oolden Rule as the rule of American diplomacy, attracted
the great admiration of every student of international affairs
when it was annotmced. The idea was not only plausible in
expression, but irresistible in effect, and it was considered
most adapted to this great country from the point of view of
its dignity as well as its interest. I regret I did not ask Mr.
Hay, when I had to see him so often, where he obtained that
expression. It may be the result of his own conviction of
American diplomacy. But it is possible that he conceived
snch an idea when he was so closely associated with the great
President, from his method of handling international deal-
ings with all the powers, the proudest as well as the humblest.
The history of the diplomatic relations between the United
States and Japan and other Far Eastern countries is replete
with incidents of friendly acts on the part of this country

S44 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

which might be considered as an application of the Golden
Bule ; and there is every reason to believe that such applica-
tion of the Golden Bule in yonr diplomatic dealings with those
countries is being rewarded by the adoption of the same role
in their diplomatic attitude towards yoiL

Now, let me make a few remarks here about our relationSi
in order to show you how the Golden Bule has been observed
between the two countries, and also why it must be observed.

I have necessarily to begin with the remarkable success of
Commodore Perry's mission to Japan some half century ago,
to open and introduce into the community of nations the
country which was then only terra incognita. Not speaking
of the great debt of gratitude Japan owes the United States
for her friendly introduction into the international commun-
ity, it is a noteworthy fact that the American Government
has been particularly careful in the selection of its representa-
tives in Japan in order to accomplish what has been left for
them to do by Ferry 's mission.

Townsend Harris, your first Minister to Japan, was espe-
cially remarkable as a man of large heart and broad mind.
In regard to his achievements in Japan, a certain writer says:

"It was thuB that from the very outset, American diplomacy as-
sumed in the eyes of the Japanese a distinctive aspect. They learned
to regard the Washington statesmen as their country's weU-widicrs,
whose policy no element of aggressive masterfulness disfigured or would
ever disfigure.''

The example thus set by Townsend Harris was followed by
almost all American representatives who came to Japan there-
after, and it is interesting to look back at what has character-
ized their action and attitude in all the vicissitudes of life
Japan has had to pass through since thai. She had, fronoi
time to time, to meet complications of all kinds, to face revolu-
tionary movements of her own people, to recognize the
political system of the Empire, to remodel the administrative
and judicial systems of the country, to introduce a representa-
tive foirm^of government, to revise the treaties with the
West^ ^powers, and even to fight two great foreign

THE PEORIA COMMEMORATION 245

In all these difflenlt and veaced works and undertakings the
American Minister almost always sympathized with Japan,
and often took onr side, even by isolating himMif from among
his coUeagnes. It is through such friendly attitude taken
by the American representative^ of course supported by your
Goyemment, that the American people are deeply endeared
to ours, and we want to reciprocate what has been done for
us. We have never had an idea for a moment of displeasing
your people, much less of waging war against you.

It was for this reason that when displeasure was manifested
in this country in regard to Japanese immigration, we readily
consented to the adjustment of the question under certain
eonditions, by limiting the immigration of laborers to the
minimum number. As a consequence, emigration has been
greatly reduced — ^notably since last July — and it is found that
during the latter half of 1908 the number of Japanese immi-
grants who returned to Japan from continental United States
was larger by twenty-one hundred than that of those who
arrived in this country ; and the number of those who returned
to Japan from the Hawaiian Islands was also fifteen hundred
in excess of those which arrived there from Japan.

While it is not certain how long this condition of movement
will continue, it is possible that every half year hereafter for
some years will witness the decrease of Japanese residents in
this country in about the same proportion. It is said in some
quarters that our laborers are coming to this country across
the Canadian and Mexican borders, but we have already pro-
hibited the immigration of laborers into those countries under
certain conditions, and there is no ground whatever for the
apprehension of their coming through tiiose frontiers — except
a smuggled few, if any.

Again, when there was some apprehension of a misunder-
standing arising between us in regard to trademarks, copy-
rights, and other matters of kindred nature on the Asiatic
continent, the two governments at once opened negotiations
and concluded conventions with the view of protecting our
mutual interestJ^'J^iOlis regard. We also signed a Treaty for
the general arbitration'^'tli^^^tentroversies between the two

M6 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

countries, and, lastly, as you are undoubtedly aware, we ex-
changed, a few months ago, a Declaration defining the policy
of the two goyemments in China and the Pacific Ocean, with
a yiew to encouraging the free and peaeefol development of
the commerce of the two nations, and also to preserve the
general peace in that region. Thus we have been using every
efFort not only to remove all possible causes of misunderstand-
ing and conflict, but to bring about a dear and definite under-
standing between the two countries in order to cement the
closest bond of friendship and good neighborliness. All this»
I venture to say, is the resolt of the application of the Golden
Rule in your diplomacy and of the adoption of the same rule
in ours, and I most emphatically declare that so long aa the
Golden Bule is considered the guiding principle of our di-
plomacy, we shall be enabled to enjoy the benefits of peace
and prosperity; and this must be, I dare say, in accordance
with the high ideal forever fixed by Lincoln's diplomacy, and
which is so energetically applied and propagated by anotfafir
great President, Mr. Theodore Boosevelt.

LINCOLN, THE MAN OP THE PEOPLE •

lEDWIN IfARKHAM

*1 X THEN the Nom Mother saw the Whirlwind Hour
V V Qreatening and darkening as it hurried on.
She left the Heaven of Heroes and came down
To make a man to meet the mortal need
She took the tried day of the common road —
Clay warm yet with the ancient heat of Earth —
Bashed through it all a strain of prophecy ;
Tempered the heap with thrill of human tears;
Then mixed a laughter with the serious stuff.
Ltito the shape she breathed a flame to light
That tender, tragic, ever-changing face.
Here was a man to hold against the world,
A man to match the mountains and the sea.

The color of the ground was in him, the red earth ;

The smack and tang of elemental things ;

The rectitude and patience of the cliff ;

The good-will of the rain that falls for all ;

The friendly welcome of the wayside well ;

The courage of the bird that dares the sea ;

The gladness of the wind that shakes the com ;

The mercy of the snow that hides all scars ;

The secrecy of streams that make their way

Beneath the mountain to the rifted rock ;

The undelaying justice of the light

That gives as freely to the shrinking flower

As to the great oak flaring to the wind —

To the grave 's low hill as to the Matterhom

That shoulders out the sky.

* Copyright, 1909, by Edwin Markltem.

«47

S48 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Sprang from the West,
The strength of yirgin forests braced his mind.
The hnsh of spacious prairies stilled his souL
Up from log cabin to the Oapitol,
One fire was on his spirit, one resolve —
To send the keen ax to the root of wrong.
Clearing a free way for the feet of Qod.
And evermore he burned to do his deed
With the fine stroke and gesture of a king.
He built the rail-pile as he built the State, |

Pouring his splendid strength through eveiy blow, !

The conscience of him testing every stroke,
To make his deed the measure of a man.

So eame the Captain with the thinking heart;
And when the judgment thunders split the house.
Wrenching the rafters from their ancient rest.
He held the ridgepole up, and spiked again
The rafters of the Home. He held his pla<
Held the long purpose like a growing
Held on through blame, and faltered not at praise.
And when he fell in whirlwind, he went down
As when a lordly cedar, green with boughs,
Qoes down with a great s^out upon the hills.
And leaves a lonesome place against the sky.

THE HODGENVILLE COMMEMORATION

A CELEBRATION which focused the attention of the
conntryy as a whole, perhaps more than any other,
was that at the Kentucky town of Hodgenville, within whose
outlying countiy lies the birthplace of Abraham Lincoln.
There, on the farm upon which Lincoln was bom, which has
been purchased by a National Association formed for that
purpose, largely initiated and made successful through the
untiring efforts and enthusiasm of Mr. Robert J. Collier, the
log cabin in which Lincoln first saw the light has been restored.
Here was held a celebration national in character, and show-
ing the unity, to-day, of the North and South of the Ameri-
can nation. With the President of the United States, Mr.
Roosevelt, laying the cornerstone of a memorial building be-
ing erected by popular subscription to protect the log cabin
in which Lincoln was bom, this gathering typifies, as well
as any meeting could, the significance of the day.

Exercises were conducted under an immense spreading tent
with open sides, sheltering the Lincoln cabin and the speakers'
platform ; while the cornerstone, a block of gray granite about
three feet square, crowned with flowers, hung in the grasp
of a great derrick, awaiting the signal of the President, when,
at the close of the speeches of the day, it should be lowered
into its place, and the first trowelful of mortar applied by the
President of the United States. Beneath the cornerstone had
been placed a metallic box containing copies of the Constitu-
tion of the United States and other documents of historic
value, contributed by the President, by Clarence Mackay,
Robert J. Collier, and Richard Lloyd Jones of New York.

In addition to the President, who spoke for the Nation, the
speakers were : — Gen. Luke E. Wright, the Secretary of War,
himself a soldier, who spoke on behalf of the Confederate
soldiers; Oen. James Grant Wilson of New York, representing

251

252 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

the soldiers of tbe Union Army; Oovemor Willson of Ken-
tucky, who, representing the native State of Lincoln, gave
the address of welcome to the distinguished visitors present;
and Ex-Qovemor Folk of Missouri, who made the address on
behalf of the Lincoln Farm Association.

One of the features of the day was the reading of the Eman-
cipation Proclamation by the ^^representative of ten million
grateful negro citi2ens,'' Ira T. Montgomery, who though now
of Mount Bayou, Mississippi, is nevertheless a native of Ken-
tucky, and is said to have been a slave of Jefferson Davis^
President of the Confederal.

The cabin and the Lincoln spring — over which a stone arch
had been erected — ^were decorated with the national eolora
Every visitor wanted to drink at the spring, and the crowd
had to form in line, each awaiting his turn.

That the South is not unmindful of the cause for pride
that may weU be hers in that Lincoln is one of her sona^ is
evidenced by the beautiful statue designed by the sculptor
Adolph Alexander Weinman, and erected through the action
of the State of Kentucky and the Lincoln Farm Association,
in the Court House Square of the village of Hodgenville.
Here, Lincoln is shown a man of the people; and, standing
pedestaled in the market place of the little town which gave
him birth, he looks out down the sandy roads which lead
into the simple country where nature first taught him the
lessons of his life, and where soon will arise the exquisite
marble memorial whose cornerstone has been laid by one
President, Theodore Roosevelt, and whose dedication will be
at the hands, and with the voice of a second President^ Wil-
liam H. Taft

A SON OP KENTUCKT

AUGUSTUS E. WILL80K

fTlO the Preddent of the United States, the Commonwealth
X of Kentucky— one of the first twain daughters of the
Union — and all of her people, give most cordial salute and
welcome; and not less to Theodore Boosevelt, first citizen,
loved, trusted and honored of the people. To all of the
people of the Union here splendidly represented, our distin-
guished visitors and guests, and to the men of the Lincoln
Farm Association, we give greeting, and rejoice to have you
with us in Kentucky and to join you in this endeavor and in
all the inspirations and associations of this time and place.

We have met here in memory of Abraham Lincoln, to know
for ourselves and to prove tq the world by a record made to
endure, and deep-graven on these acres, that love of country
and of its nobly useful citizens are not dreams nor idle words,
but indeed living, stirring and breathing feelings. Abraham
Lincoln is claimed by all humanity, and all time, as the type
of the race best showing forth the best in all men in all con-
ditions of life.

Our whole country claims him as the son of the whole
Union. And Illinois says, ' ' He was mine, the man of Illinois ;
here on my prairies he ripened into noble manhood and here
he made his home. ' '

Indiana, too, says, ''He was mine. In my southern hills
the little child grew strong and tall.'' And each is right and
true.

But Kentucky says, ^' I am his own mother. I nursed him
at my breast; my baby, bom of me. He is mine." Shall
any claim come before the mother's!

All over this land the people are meeting to-day to honor
the one hundredth year's return of his birthday. And we

254 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

are met in his birthplace to pledge anew the love of all the
people of our land for each other, and to show forth now, and
year by year, our love and reverence for the man, the aonl,
the life, which more than any in all the lives of all the earth
in all the ages, stands out as the very type and sight of nnman
nature in its best loved, and its noblest vision.

He came from the rugged man-making school of poverty
and hardship, with all man's lot of toU and trial, of sorrow
and storm, unto the end that he, most kindly and h<nnelike of
friendly neighbors, should stand out, grand and alone, to lead
a mighty people and a noble land safe through a storm of
mortal strife and danger to the blessings of Union and peace
under the Constitution and the law. He came to give
liberty to every soul in all our broad domain, to the glory of
Qod and all our land for all the ages.

As he said for the soldiers at Gettysburg, ''We can not
dedicate, we can not consecrate this ground." We meet here
in Kentucky on the farm where he was bom, to be consecrated
and dedicated in the grace and beauty of his great spirit, to
the work of upholding and keeping safe our Union, which he
so nobly led and helped to save.

And when we try to tell the story of his life and work and
his prophetic sayings, we find that nearly fifty years ago, as
one inspired of Ood, he foresaw all and spoke all that we can
say or think here, better and sweeter than mortal man could
ever speak again.

To him more than any other man we owe — ^and shall for all
time owe — ^the joy, the power, and the gift of grace of a mighty
people joined together as they never were before, under one
flag and one covenant of the law.

And at last all see, what only part could see at first, the
vital truth of the text to which he turned at Chicago before
the election, * * A house divided against itself can not stand, ' '
repeated on the great seal of Kentucky, "United we stand,
divided we fall. ' '

Looking back now through nearly forty-seven years of
mighty history, how strong, how wise, how clear, how pro-
phetic, and how great are his inaugural words:

THE HODGENVILLE COMMEMORATION 255

''In view of the Constitution and the laws, the Union is unbroken,
and . • . will constitutionally maintain and defend itself."

"This great country with its institutions, belongs to the people who
inhabit it."

"Why should there not be a patient conildenoe in the ultimate jus-
tice of the people? Is there any better or equal hope in the world?
In our present differences, is either party without faith of being in
the right? If the Almighty Buler of Nations, with His eternal truth
and justice, be on your side of the North, or on yours of the South, that
truth and that justice will surely prevail by the judgment of this great
tribunal of the American people."

For him there is no need of any memorial place or token.
He lives and will forever live in the hearts of all the people of
the earth as the man of the people, grand in simple, noble
dignity, almost strange in wisdom and prophetic foresight as
if it were a gift direct from Qod.

Simple and tender in life and feeling as a child, ready
to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven, yet brave as a spirit
of truth, immovable from right purpose, blessed with a humor
such as to no man else was ever given, which turned aside
wrath and softened the rigor of mortal strife, his courage and
his work breathed life and hope and faith until it came to
pass that in the fiery furnace of a mighty war, hate and strife
melted into the pure gold of Union.

Here are met to-day, with equal zeal to do him honor, sol-
diers of the War for and against the Union, heroes of the
Union and the Confederacy, Americans all, no one less pledged
than the other, not only by the bond of the covenant of our
law, but alike by the dearest feelings of his heart and fervor
of his blood, to our united country and its beautiful flag.

Oh, Qod of our fathers, look down upon our land and bless
us all, strengthen the bonds of our affection and help us for-
ever to keep the covenant of '^ peace on earth and good will to
men."

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

HON« THBOOOBB BOOSEVSLT

WE have met here to celebrate the hundredth amuTeisary
of the birth of one of the two greatest Americans ; of
one of the two or three greatest men of the nineteenth cen-
toiy; of one of the greatest men in the world's histoiy. This
railHBiplitter — ^this hoj who passed his ungainly youth in the
dire poverty of the poorest of the frontier folk, whose rise
was by weary and painful labor — ^lived to lead his people
through the burning flames of a struggle from which the
nation emerged, purified as by fire, bom anew to a loftier
life. After long years of iron effort, and of failure that came
more often than victory, he at last rose to the leadership of
the Bepublic at the moment when that leadership had become
the stupendous world-task of the time. He grew to know
greatness, but never ease. Success came to him, but never
happiness, save that which springs from doing well a painful
and a vital task. Power was his, but not pleasure. The fur-
rows deepened on his brow, but his eyes were undimmed l^
either hate or fear. His gaunt shoulders were bowed, but his
steel thews never faltered as he bore for a burden the destinies
of his people. His great and tender heart shrank from giving
pain; and the task allotted him was to pour out like water
the life blood of the young men, and to feel in his every fibre
the sorrow of the women. Disaster saddened but never dis-
mayed him. As the red years of war went by they found
him ever doing his duty in the present, ever facing the future
with fearless front — ^high of heart, and dauntless of soul.
Unbroken by hatred, unshaken by scorn, he worked and suf-
fered for the people. Triumph was his at the last ; and barely
had he tasted it before murder found him, and the kindly,
patient, fearless eyes were closed forever.

256

THE HODGENVILLE COMMEMORATION «57

As a people we are, indeed, beyond measure f orttinate in
the characters of the two greatest of our public men, Wash-
ington and Lincoln. Widely though they differed in ex-
ternals— ^the Virginia landed gentleman and the Kentucky
backswoodsman — ^they were alike in essentials ; they were alike
in the great qualities which made each able to do service to
his nation and to all mankind such as no other man of bis
generation could or did render. Each had lofty ideals^ but
each in striving to attain these lofty ideals was guided by the
soundest common sense. Each possessed inflexible courage in
adversity, and a soul wholly unspoiled by prosperity. Each
possessed all the gentler virtues commonly exhibited by good
men who lack rugged strength of character. Each possessed,
also, all the strong qualities commonly exhibited by those
towering masters of mankind who have too often shown them-
selves devoid of so much as the understanding of the words
by which we signify the qualities of duty, of mercy, of devo-
tion to the right, of lofty disinterestedness in battling for the
good of others. There have been other men as great, and other
men as good ; but in all the history of mankind there are no
other two great men as good as these, no other two good men
as great. Widely though the problems of to-day differ from
the problems set for solution to Washington when he founded
this nation, to Lincoln when he saved it and freed the slave,
yet the qualities they showed in meeting these problems are
exactly the same as those we should show in doing our work
to-day.

Lincoln saw into the future with the prophetic imagination
usually vouchsafed only to the poet and the seer. He had in
him all the lift toward greatness of the visionary, without
any of the visionary's fanaticism or egotism — ^without any of
the visionary's narrow jealousy of the practical man, and
inability to strive in practical fashion for the realization of
an ideal. He had the practical man's hard common sense
and willingness to adapt means to ends ; but there was in him
none of that morbid growth of mind and soul which blinds
so many practical men to the higher things of life. No more
practical man ever lived than this homely backwoods idealist ;

858 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

bat he had nothing in common with those practical men whose
consciences are warped nntil they fail to distinguish between
good and evil, fail to understand that strength, ability,
shrewdness, whether in the world of business or of politics,
only serve to make their possessor a more noxious, a more evil,
member of the community if they are not guided and con-
trolled by a fine and high moral sense.

We of this day must try to solve many social and industrial
problems, requiring to an especial d^^ree the combination of
indomitable resolution with cool-headed sanity. We can profit
by the way in which Lincoln used both these traits as he
strove for reform. We can learn much of value from the
very attacks which following that course brought upon his
head — attacks alike by the extremists of revolution and by the
extremists of reaction. He never wavered in devotion to hii
principles, in his love for the Union, and in his abhorrence of
slavery. Timid and lukewarm people were always denoune-
ing him because he was too extreme ; but as a matter of fact
he never went to extremes, he worked step by step ; and be-
cause of this the extremists hated and denounced him with
a fervor which now seems to us fantastic in its deification of
the unreal and the impossible. At the very time when one
side was holding him up as the apostle of social revolution
because he was against slavery, the leading abolitionist de-
nounced him as the ''slave hound of Illinois.'' When he was
the second time candidate for President, the majority of his
opponents attacked him because of what they termed his ex-
treme radicalism, while a minority threatened to bolt his
nomination because he was not radical enough. He had con-
tinually to check those who wished to go forward too fast, at
.the very time that he overrode the opposition of those who
"^^fied not to go forward at alL The goal was never dim
before his vision ; but he picked his way cautiously, without
either halt or hurry, as he strode toward it, through such a
liiorass of difficulty that no man of less courage would have
attempt^ it, while it would surely have overwhelmed any
man of judgment less serene.

THE HODGENVILLE COMMEMORATION 259

Yet perhaps the most wonderful thing of all, and, from the
standpoint of the America of to-day and of the future, the
most vitally important^ was the extraordinary way in which
Lincoln could fight valiantly against what he deemed wrong,
and yet preserve undiminished his love and respect for the
brother from whom he differed.- In the hour of a triumph that
would have turned any weaker man's head, in the heat of a
struggle which spurred many a good man to dreadful vin-
dictiveness, he said truthfully that so long as he had been in
his ofKce he had never willingly planted a thorn in any man 's
bosom, and besought his supporters to study the incidents of
the trial through which they were passing, as philosophy from
which to learn wisdom, and not as wrongs to be avenged;
ending with the solemn exhortation that, as the strife was
over, all should reunite in a common effort to save their com-
mon country.

He lived in days that were great and terrible, when brother
fought against brother for what each sincerely deemed to be
the right. In a contest so grim, the strong men who alone
can carry it through are rarely able to do justice to the deep
convictions of those with whom they grapple in mortal strife.
At such times men see through a glass darkly; to only the
rarest and loftiest spirits is vouchsafed that clear vision which
gradually comes to all, even to the lesser, as the struggle fades
into distance, and wounds are forgotten, and peace creeps
back to the hearts that were hurt. But to Lincoln was given
this supreme vision. He did not hate the man from whom he
differed. Weakness was as foreign as wickedness to his
strong, gentle nature ; but his courage was of a quality so high
that it needed no bolstering of dark passion. He saw clearly
that the same high qualities, the same courage, and willingness
for self-sacrifice and devotion to the right, as it was given
them to see the right, belonged both to the men of the North
and to the men of the South. As the years roll by, and as all
of us, wherever we dwell, grow to feel an equal pride in the
valor and self-devotion, alike of the men who wore the blue
and the men who wore the gray, so this whole nation will

260 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

grow to feel a peculiar aeiuie of pride in the mightieBt of the
mighty men who mastered the mighty days; the loTer of hit
country and of all mankind; the man whoae blood was shed
for the union of his people and for the freedom of a
Abraham LLocoln.

LINCOLN AND THE LOST CAUSE

HON. LXnOB S. WUGHT

WE are attemUed to-day upon the spot where Abraham
Lincoln was bom, to celebrate the hundredth anni-
yeraary of his birth. When we look about us and behold a
great and prosperous State, teeming with population and all
the evidences of a highly developed and complex civilization,
it requires an effort of the memory to recall how crude and
primitive were his surroundings when his eyes first saw the
light, and during his boyhood.

He was bom of humble parentage, in a rude cabin of logs.
His entry into the world was accompanied by no omens, and
no geer prognosticated his future fame. Apparently his only
heritage was to be a life of ignorance and poverty*

Still, it would be misleading to infer that the future could
hold no prize for him. The hardy adventurers who swarmed
out from the older States and crossed the Alleghenies were
the ofUhoot of that older stock of English, Scotch, and Irish
which had crossed the seas and had founded the first colonies
upon American soiL They were a simple. God-fearing people,
who lived their lives in field and forest, uncorrupted by
wealth, strengthened in body and mind by hardships and
dangers endured and overcome, with imaginations quickened
by ihe thought that a continent was theirs.

Whilst there were instances among them of men pf gentle
hirih and comparative fortune, yet all stood upon terms of
perfect equality, and opportunity for all was practically the
ttme. Any substantial distinction between the greatest and
the hmnblest man, under such circumstances, could only be
one created by individual prowess or worth.

There is perhaps in all the world no fairer land, no territory
combining more natural advantages, and none more favorable

^ I

262 . ABRAHAM LINCOLN

to the development of a virile race, than that vast area which
gradually falls away from the western side of the Allegheny
Mountains.

It is a curious fact that Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson
Davis were bom in the same State, that their parents were
almost neighbors, and equally curious that in after life, in a
great civil war, they should have been leaders on opposite
sides. They began under the same environment, and yet how
widely separated were they in their subsequent lives and
fortunes!

In the Two-Ocean Pass, in the Yellowstone Park, is found
a level spot hemmed in by surrounding hills, into which flows
a stream which there divides, one part flowing into the Paeifie
and the other into the Atlantic; and this stream is typical
of the careers of the two men. Davis in early manhood found
himself living in a community in which slavery was a recog-
nized institution, and himself became a slave-holder, as were
his neighbors and friends ; whilst Lincoln found himself in a
free-soil State, where slavery was regarded as a crime.

From the foundation of the federal government, the right
of a State to withdraw from the federal compact was more
or less discussed. It is not too much to say that the founders
purposely pretermitted any explicit declaration on the subjeet,
and thereafter it was regarded as an open question, as to
which intelligent and patriotic men might and did differ.
This difference was for many years not sectional, but grad-
ually became so after slavery became distinctly a Southern
institution, and the agitation in favor of its limitation or
abolition became a burning issue.

Yet it would be unfair to say that there was a complete
unanimity of sentiment upon this subject on either side of
Mason and Dixon's line. In the border States of the South
especially, the majority of the people were opposed to the
dogma of secession, as was demonstrated by the overwhelming
majority against the Ordinances of Secession submitted to
the people in Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky, and Ten-
nessee a few months before the outbreak of hostilities.

Moreover, in these same border States there was a dam

THE HODOENVILLE COMMEMORATIOI^ ft6i

sentiment that slavery was. morally indefensible^ and that
some means should be adopted looking to gradual emancipa^
tion. But the practical difficulty confronting those thus think-
ing was, what would be the status of the slave when freed!
coupled with the feeling that to make him a free man depend-
ent upon his own resources would, in a vast majority of in-
fltanceSy be inhumane and decree his ultimate extinction.
Even in the North there was a large element of intelligent
and conservative men who deprecated the agitation against
slavery and who had not brought themselves to consent to the
thought of coercion in the event of secession.

But the continued propaganda preached against slavery, and
the extreme utterances of partisans on either side, imques-
tionably by degrees had the effect of drawing a dear line of
demarcation between the North and the South, both as to
slavery and secession.

I do not refer to this ancient history for the purpose of re-
viving discussions long since dead and buried, but merely to
call attention to facts which have perhaps been obscured by
the overwhelming events which followed. It can only be a
matter of surmise and profitless speculation as to what would
have happened had the Southern people been left to deal
with this perplexing question in tiieir own way. Perhaps
slavery was too strongly rooted to be eradicated save by fire
and sword, and it may be that in the mysterious movings of
a Divine Providence the sins of tiie fathers were visited upon
the children, and that the South paid the penalty for the
violation of a great moral law.

But it ought to be remembered, and I believe is now being
remembered more and more, that it was not alone the sin of
the South, although its expiation fell heaviest upon her
people.

In reading the public utterances of Lincoln during this
X>eriod of bitter dissension, nothing has impressed me more
than the singular clearness of his perception that4he respon-
sibility for slavery rec(ted upon all our people and was a
burden which should be borne by all alike. There was a tem-
perance of statement, a respect for the opposite point of view.

S64 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

and a moderation in his positions, which, when tiie excite-
ment of the time is considered, is most extraordinary and
must command our admiration.

Well would it have been for all our people had they been
able to approach this burning question with the same con-
servatism and good sense. I have sometimes thought that this
was to some extent due to the fact that his birth and early
youth were in a slave-holding State, and that he understood
the attitude and feeling of its people to a degree not poasible
for one bom and reared in a community where slavery had
long been unknown.

He sincerely believed in an indissoluble Union. He sin-
oerely believed that slavery was a curse and a great moral
wrong ; and in believing thus he was right. He was oppoaed
not only to its extension, but believed the gradual emancipa>
tion was a possibility worth striving for ; and yet he respected
the Constitution and did not believe in the right to extinguish
•laveiy by force.

In all the speeches he made there can be found no word of
ill will or malice toward the Southern people, and in reading
his utterances no Southern man finds himself entertaining
the slightest sentiment of resentment toward him, or aught
save admiration for his sincerity, friendliness and broad hu-
manity.

His First Inaugural Address, delivered at a time when
passion was at its height and civil war was imminent, is
pathetic in its appeals for peace and union. His great heart
seemed rent in twain, when he finished by saying :

"I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must
not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not brask
our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memoiy, stretching from
every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearth-
stone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Unioa
when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of
our nature.**

Alas, that Jhe still, small voice of moderation and reason
was drowned in the angry cries of determined men mar-
ahalling for a conflict, the magnitude of which few, if any.

THE HODGENVILLE COMMEMORATION S65

appreciated, and the conseqiiences of which few, if any, fore-
saw. And yet there were among the combatants tens of thou-
sands of men who felt the sweet reasonableness of his dis-
passionate statements, whose hearts were touched by his pa*
thetic cry for peace, and yet who, caught up in the rising
excitement of the time, aligned themselyes under the stress
of circumstances on the one side or the other; tens of thou-
sands of men on both sides deploring war, yet when war
seemed inevitable, ranging themselves with their neighbors.

It seemed the very irony of fate that so gentle a spirit, so
sympathetic and kindly a nature, should be forced by the
stern logic of events over which he had no control and for
which he was in no way responsible, to assume the role of
Commander-in-chief in a sanguinary civil war between men
of the same blood and the same traditions.

The years of war and destruction during which he was
President, whilst they plowed deep lines of care and grief
upon his rugged face and wrung his gentle heart, provoked
no expressions of bitterness from his lips. His many acts
of personal kindness to Southern prisoners and Southern sjrm-
pathizers demonstrated how free he was from the spirit of
malice or vengeance.

As, in the progress of time, it became evident the Union
arms would triumph, he evinced no feeling of exultation or
sense of personal triumph, but only an anxious desire to
restore the Southern States to their former place in the Union,
and to heal the wounds of civil strife. He was opposed to
extreme measures against the Southern people, and was pre-
pared to stand between them and the radicals of his party
who clamored for exemplary reprisals upon a conquered peo-
ple whom the fortunes of war had delivered into their hands.

That he would have succeeded in carrying with him the
great majority of the people of the North in his beneficent
purposes does not, to my mind, admit of doubt; and that
there would have followed speedily a tmion of hearts is
equally certain. It was indeed cruel that at the moment
when he had reached the point for which he had striven,
he should have died at the hands of a hair-brained actor

266 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

who was in no way identified with the South or her people.
Still more cruel was fate to the Southern people. They shud-
dered both at the dastardly act of his assassination and at
the disastrous consequences to themselves as well, which th^
knew would follow.

The dies ira of reconstruction was the inevitable result,
and reconstruction did more to postpone reconciliation than
did war itself* It was direful in its results to both sections,
and to the negroes in greater measure, if possible, than to the
whites.

But time has brought healing on its wings. A new gen-
eration of men has been bom since Lincoln died. The ani-
mosities of the old days are ended. As we look back acroBB
the dead years we see his homdy fig^ure standing out dear
and large. He is not awesome or repellent. There is an
expression of pathos, touched with humor, upon his face,
which draws us strongly, and there is sunshine all about him.
He seems to speak, and we again hear him say, ^'We are not
enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though pas-
sion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affec-
tion.''

And thus hearing, the men of the South can not only look
back upon a lost cause without bitterness, but recognise it
was best that it did fail. And they can and do, without
bitterness and in all sincerity, join with all the people of this
nation, and all the people of all nations, in paying tribute
to Abraham Lincoln — ^the liberator, the pacificator, the great

ABRAHAM LINCOLN, LEADER AND MASTER OF

MEN

GEN, JAMES GRANT Wn^ON

WITH pride and unfeigned pleasure, I appear in this
place and in this presence, as the representative of
the survivors of ahnost three millions of Lincoln soldiers and
sailors, who served in the army and navy of the United States
during what is officially designated as the War of the Rebellion.
Of the two million seven hundred and seventy-eight thousand
three hundred and four men who, on land and sea, fought
for four fateful years that this nation should not perish from
the earth, less than one-fourth are now living. In a few
decades the last survivor who followed the dear old flag on
the fields of Shiloh, Gettysburg, Chattanooga, and Mobile
Bay, will have joined our great President in honor of whose
gracious memory we are here assembled on this hallowed
i^ot of his birth.

It is among the greatest mysteries of modem history that
the child born in annt^ mirabUis, 1809, of illiterate and im-
poverished parents, in this unpromising place, and without
any advantages whatsoever, should through life have been al-
ways a leader and master of men. For hundreds of years,
scholars have in vain searched for the sources from which
Shakespeare drew the inspiration that has placed him first
among the sons of men. Lincoln biographers have been
equally baffled in similar attempts to discover from whence
came the truly wonderful power to control and lead all sorts
and conditions of men, that was certainly possessed by the
son of ''poor whites'' of Kentucky who occupied yonder rude
log cabin.

As a youth, Abraham Lincoln's alertness, skill, and strength,
easily made him a recognized leader among his rough com-

267

£68 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

panions in their amiiflemezits and contests^ including wresUing.
When a company was raised in his Connty for the Black
Hawk War, LincohL, then but twenty-three years of age, was
unanimously elected by his seniors their Captain^ which gave
him, he asserted, greater happiness than the presideni^. At
the Illinois bar he was eaily recognized by his integrity and
ready wit, as the superior of his duller associat^^. As a
political debater, Lincoln defeated one of the ablest speakers
of the United ^tates Senate, and but a brief period passed
as President before the most gifted statesmen of his Cabinet
unhesitatingly recognized him as their master. Grant praised
Lincoln as being in military matters superior to many of his
prominent generals, and your speaker heard Sherman say that
the President was among the ablest strategists of the War.
The heau sahreur Sheridan shared the opinion of his two
seniors.

It was my peculiar privilege to hear several of the most
f^ous speeches delivered during and before the Civil War
by the great American, who stands second only to Washing-
ton. Abraham Lincoln was not only one of the wisest of
men, but the English-speaking world is now aware that he
was also among its very greatest orators. This fact was not
appreciated during his life. The flowers of rhetoric are con-
spicuous by their absence from his speeches, but it may be
doubted if Demosthenes, Burke, or Webster, could have found
equally fit words to express the broad philosophy and the
exquisite pattios of the Gettysburg Address of November,
1863.

Lincoln's Second Inaugural is among the most famous
spoken, or written, utterances in the English language. Por-
tbns of it have been compared to the lofty lines of the ancient
Hebrew prophets, and as being ''Sublime as Milton's im-
memorial theme." As your speaker was seated within a
few yards of the President when he delivered this immortal
address, possibly he may be permitted to repeat to you, as
nearly as he can, the concluding paragraph, in Mr. Lincoln's
manner:

Arrival of President Roosevelt

GaHicring about the LintBiS Cati'fi ' '■' ^'- ■■.■., ^ ',
The IIowiesville fdiuiEJKfiftMJu* "^-'■- »■- . ,.• V

it-
's a

THE HODGENVILLE COMMEMORATIONi S69

''Fbndlj do we hope — ^fenrently do we pray— fhat thii mightj ieourge
of war may speedily pass away. Yet, H Qod wills that it eoatinue
until all the wealth piled by the bondman's two hundred and fifty
years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood
drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword,
as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, that
the Judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether/ With
malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the ri|^^
as Qod gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work
that we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who
shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan — to do
all which may achieve add cherish • Just and lasting peace among
oturselves, and with all nations.'*

I well remember as a youth, the nation's grief over the
death of Kentucky's distingniaihed son, Henry Clay; the wide-
spread mourning occasioned by the departure of New Eng-
land's majestic Webster, and the sorrow caused by the pass-
ing away of famous Farragut, and the illustrious triumvirate,
Orant, Sherman, and Sheridan ; but never except in the death
of Lincoln, did the country witness such sorrow among the
plain people and the race that he had liberated, and also such
numbers of sailors and soldiers shedding tears for the great
Commander whom they never saw. Children were seen cry-
ing in our streets. Never before, it has been truthfully said
by Lowell, was funeral panegyric so eloquent as the silent
look of fifympathy which strangers exchanged when they met
on that day. Their common manhood . had lost a kinsman.
Grant said to your speaker that the day of Lincoln's death
was the saddest of his life. The great War President's was
a life that made a vast difference for all Americans ; all are
better off than if he had not lived ; and this betterment is for
always, it did not die with him— that is the true estimate of
a great life.

President Roosevelt, who is on this platform, said of his
three most illustrious predecessors:

'Washington fought in the earlier struggle, and it was his good for-
tune to win the highest renown alike as a soldier and statesman. In
the second and even greater struggle, the deeds of linooln the states*
man, were made good hy those of Grant the soldier, and later Oraat

870 ABBAHAM LINCOLN

himielf took up the work that dropped from linoohi's tired haadi
when the eeMMin'e ballet went home, and the sad, patient, kindly
cjes were doeed forever.''

What would have been the history of our conntry without
these three mighty men! It certainly may be questioned
if we could have achieved independence without Washington,
and it is equally open to doubt if the Republic could have
maintained its integrity without Lincoln and Qrant. Na-
tional unity is no longer a theory, but a condition, and we
are now united in fact> as well as name. In the words of
the greatest of poets^

'Thoee opposed ^yes
Which, like the meteors of a troubled heaTsn,
All of one nature, of one substance bred.
Did lately meet in the intestine shock,
ShaU now, in mutual well-beseeming ranks
Mardi all one way.**

It is perhaps the greatest glory of the triumvirate of un«
crowned American kings, that they were alike spotless in
all the varied relations of private life. Their countrymen
will continue to cherish their memory far on in summers that
we shall not see, and upon the adamant of their fame, the
stream of Time will beat without injury. The names of
Washington, the founder, Lincoln, the liberator, and Grant,
the saviour of our country, are enrolled in the Capitol, and
they belong to the endless and everlasting ages.

THE LINCOLN MEMOBL^

HON. JOSEPH W. rOLK

THE people of every great nation have in all times honored
their heroes with memorials. In studying the history
of other peoples we, in a large measure, judge them by these
tokens of affection for the illustrious men that led them in
some mighty crisis. This nation has had many men whose
deeds have emblazoned the pages of history, but no name is
now dearer in the hearts of the people than that of Abraham
Lincoln. Washington fought to give us this nation, guar-
anteeing to the citizen, rights never obtained nor exercised
by any other people; Lincoln struggled to keep it as a gov-
ernment ''of the people, for the people, and by the people. '^
{Jefferson taught the simple truths necessary for the happi-
ness of a democratic people; Lincoln applied these truths
to the troubles of his time and steered the Ship of State into
a peaceful harbor. 'Jackson thundered against and over-
came the evils of his day; Lincoln, with a heart ready for
any fate, breathed a new force into the doctrines of Jack-
son. We preserve Mount Vernon in memory of Washing-
ton. Monticello is still the Mecca for the followers of Jeffer-
son. The Hermitage is kept as when Old Hickory lived
and worked and wrought Save for an occasional monu-
ment there is no suitable memorial of Lincoln, whose fame
grows brighter as the years go by.

Here on this farm, one hundred years ago to-day, was
bom the strongest, strangest, gentlest character the Republic
has ever known. His work was destined to have a more far-
reaching influence than any that went before him. Until
recently, this spot, which should be hallowed by every Amer-
ican, was unnoticed and abandoned. Inspired by the idea
that a due regard for the apostle of human liberty who

«71

272 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

sprang from this soil demanded the preservation of his
birthplace, a few patriotic men organized the Lincoln Farm
Association to purchase this property and to erect upon it a
memorial to that simple but sublime life that here came into
the world. This Association is purely patriotic in its pur-
poses and the movement has met with a ready response from
every section of the nation. The Governors of nearly all the
States have appointed commissioners to cooperate in this
work. The South has responded as generously as the North.
In revering the name of Lincoln, there is now no North nor
South nor East nor West. There is but one heart in all,
and that the heart of patriotic America. So the memorial
to be erected here by Soutli as well as North will not only
be in memory of Lincoln, but it will be a testimony that
the fires of hatred, kindled by the fierce Civil conflict of
nearly half a century ago, are dead, and from the ashes has
arisen the red rose of patriotism to a common country and
loyalty to a common flag. It will be a monument in the
forward progress of a nation dedicated to the liberty and
happiness of mankind.

It is appropriate that these dedicatory exercises, partici-
pated in by representatives of every part of the nation,
should be held upon the centenary of Lincoln's birth. We
have not come so much to dedicate this ground, but to set
it apart as a gift to the American people as a lasting
memorial to the Matchless American. The man bom here
has already consecrated this place. It is for us to be here
dedicated to the great task before us, that this nation shall
not have been preserved merely to fall before the enemies
of peace, but that it shall be made free from the things that
dishonor and oppress. The inspiration of high citizenship
must ever emanate from this spot.

THE NEW YORK COMMEMORATION

i.«

THE NEW YORK COMMEMORATION

NEW YOBE, the metropolis of the nation, realized its
opportnnitj, and that much was expected of it, and
lived up to that expectation in its commemoration of the day.
The New York Commemoration was directed by the Lincoln
Centenary Committee of the City of New York, appointed
by the Honorable Qeorge B. McClellan, Mayor of the city ; of
which committee the Hon. Joseph H. Choate, former Ambas-
sador to the Court of St. cTameSy was made Chairman. This
active charge of the celebration was in the hands of an Execu-
tive Committee of which Mr. Hugh Hastings was Chairman,
and Mr. Franklin Chase Hoyt, Secretary.

At eight o'clock on the morning of the Centenary day, a
national salute was fired from all the forts in New York har-
bor, by the battleships in port, by the three National Guard
field batteries, and by the vessels of the New York Naval
Militia. In the forenoon, exercises were held in five hundred
and sixty-one public schools in Greater New York, with the
reading of the Gettysburg Address at noon precisely; while,
during the day, exercises were held in each of the forty-six
district schools of greater New York, at which prominent
speakers delivered addresses on Lincoln. In the afternoon, a
great central meeting gathered at Cooper Union, that famous
hall where, in 1860, Lincoln delivered an address which made
the people of the East realize that he had possibilities for the
presidency. His audience on that occasion had been a dis-
tinguished one, and testified to his growing national impor-
tance at that time. It included William Cullen Bryant,
Horace Greeley, David Dudley Field, and, among the younger
men present, Joseph H. Choate and Lyman T. Abbott.

On the occasion of the Centenary held in the same hall, the
Hon. Joseph H. Choate acted as Chairman; and Lyman T.
Abbott, editor of "The Outlook," gave the principal address.

S75

276 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

In the evening, exercises were held simnltaneonfily in Car-
negie Hall, in the College of the City of New York, and m
the New York State National Guard Armories of the Sev-
enth, Eighth, Ninth, Twelfth, Thirteenth, Fourteenth, Twenty-
second, Twenty-third, Forty-seventh, Sixty-ninth, knd Sev-
enty-first Regiments, the Second Battery Field Artillery, and
the Seventeenth Separate Company. The exercises at the
Seventy-first Regiment Armory were conducted hy the Grand
Army of the Republic of the City of New York, the Hon.
Chauncey M. Depew delivering the address. The exerciaeB
at the Seventeenth Separate Company Armory were also con-
ducted by the Grand Army, and the address was delivered hj
the Hon. H. Stewart McKnight of Flushing, New York. At
the American Museum of Natural History, a meeting was
held at which Dr. John H. Finley, President of the College
of the City of New York, presided ; and Mr. William Webster
Ellsworth, of ''The Century Magazine,'' delivered an illus-
trated lecture — ^''Abraham Lincoln; Boy and Man"; while
Booker T. Washington was the orator at a banquet given by
the Republican Club at the Waldorf-Astoria.

Lithographic copies of the Gettysburg Address had been
sent to eighty-five theatres in Greater New York, with the
request that the address be read at both the afternoon and
evening performances, and at a majority of the theatres this
was done, some of them having in addition a special musical
programme.

The Committee issued two hundred thousand pamphlets,
finely illustrated, and full of interesting and valuable mate-
rial concerning the life of Lincoln, which were distributed
among the pupils in the public and private schools of the
city. These were read throughout the city and kept as a re-
membrance of the Centenary.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN AT COOPEB INSTITUTE

HON. J06BSPH HODCHSS GHOATB

JUST forty-nine years ago, in this very month of February,
on this very spot, before just such an audience as this,
which filled this historic hall to overflowing, I first saw Abra-
ham Lincoln, and heard him deliver that thrilling address
which led to his nomination at Chicago three months after-
wards and to his triumphant election in November. The im-
pression of that scene and of that speech can never be effaced
from my memory.

After his great success in the West, which had excited
the keenest expectation, he came to New York to make a
political address — ^as he had supposed at Plymouth Church
in Brooklyn, and it was only when he left his hotel that he
found he was coming to Cooper Institute. He appeared in
every sense of the word like one of the plain people, among
whom he always loved to be counted.

At first sight there was nothing impressive or imposing
about him. Nothing but his great stature singled him out
from the crowd. His clothes hung awkwardly on his gaunt
and giant frame. His face was of a dark pallor, without a
tinge of color. His seamed and rugged features bore the
farrows of hardship and struggle. His deep-set eyes looked
sad and anxious. His countenance in repose gave little evi-
dence of that brain-power which had raised him from the
lowest to the highest station among his countr3anen. As he
spoke to me before the meeting opened, he seemed ill at ease,
with that sort of apprehension that a young man might feel
before facing a new and strange audience whose critical dis-
position he dreaded. Here were assembled all the noted men
of his party — all the learned and cultured men of the city,
editors, clergymen, statesmen, lawyers, merchants, critics.

277

£78 ABBAHAM LINCOLN

They were all most curious to hear him. His fame as a power-
ful speaker had come out of the West.

When Mr. Bryant presented him on this platform, a irast
sea of eager, upturned faces greeted him, full of intense
curiosity to see what this rude son of the people was like.
He was equal to the occasion. When he spoke he was trans-
figured before us. His eye kindled, his voice rang, his face
shone and seemed to light up the whole assembly as by an
electric flash. For an hour and more he held his audience
in the hollow of his hand. His style of speech and mannw
of delivery were severely simple. The grand simplicities of
the Bible, with which he was so familiar, were distinctly his.
With no attempt at ornament or rhetoric, without pretence or
parade, he spoke straight to the point It was marvellous to
see how this untutored man, by mere self -discipline and the
chastening of his own spirit, had outgrown all meretricious
arts and had found his own way to the grandeur and the
strength of absolute simplicity.

He spoke upon the theme which he had mastered so thor-
oughly. He demonstrated with irresistible force, the power
and the duty of the Federal Government to exclude slaveiy
from the Territories. In the kindliest spirit he protested
against the threat of the Southern States to destroy the Union
if a Bepubliean President were elected. He closed with an
appeal to his audience, spoken with all the fire of his aroused
and inspired conscience, with a full outpouring of his love
of justice and liberty, to maintain their political purpose on
that lofty issue of right and wrong which alone could justify
it, and not to be intimidated from their high resolve and
sacred duty, by any threats of destruction to the government
or of ruin to themselves. He concluded with that telling sen-
tence which drove the whole argument home to all our hearts,
''Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith
let us to the end dare to do our duty as we understand it."

That night the great hall, and the next day the whole city,
rang with delighted applause and congratulation, and he who
had come as a stranger, departed with the laurels of a great
triumph.

THE NEW TOBK COMMEMORATION S79

Alas! in five yean from that exulting night we saw him
again for the last time in this city, borne in his eofBn through
the draped streets. With tears and lamentations a heart-
broken people accompanied him from Washington, the scene
of his martyrdom, to his last resting place in the young city
of the West, where he had worked his way to fame.

The great events and achievements of those five years,
fleen through the perspective of the forty that have since
elapsed, have fixed his place in history forever. It is the
gupreme felicity of the American people, in the short period
of their existence as a nation, to have furnished to the world
the two greatest benefactors, not of their own time only, but
of all modem history. Washington created the nation and
is known the world over as the Father of his Country.
Lincoln came to be its saviour and redeemer — ^to save it
from self-destruction, and to redeem it from the cancer of
slavery which has been gnawing upon its vitals from the
beginning. If it had been put to the vote of the forty-four
nations assembled at the Hague for the first time in the
world's history, representing the whole of civilization, Chris'-
tian and Pagan, to name the two men who in modem times
had done the most to promote liberty, justice, civilization,
and peace, I am sure that with one voice they would have
aedaimed these two greatest of Americans. Let their names
stand together for all time to come.

LINCOLN AS A LABOR LEADER

BEY. LYMAN ABBOTT

ABRAHAM LINCOLN won his reputation and achieved
his service for the nation by the solution of the labor
problem of his time — slavery. How can we apply the prin-
ciples he inculcated and the spirit he exemplified in solving
the labor problem of our time? This is the theme to which I
ask your attention this afternoon. For it would be uaelesa
for me to attempt to repeat the story of his life, or essay
an analysis of his character. This has been so eloquently
done by the Chairman of this meeting in his address before
the Edinburgh Philosophical Institution in 1900, and by
Carl Schurz in his well-known essay, that the repetition of
their service would be needless if it were possible; and for
me would be impossible if it were needed. I might as well
attempt to reconstruct a Saint-Qaudens statue of Lincoln
with my clumsy hand, as with my faltering tongue to re-sing
the song or re-tell the story so often sung and so often told.
Instead, I shall venture to repeat, from the well-known Ode
of Lowell, his portrait of the Qreat Emancipator, and then
pass on to my chosen field :

"Nature, they bbj, doth dote.

And cannot make a man

Save on Bome worn-out plan.

Repeating ua by rote:
For him her Old-World molds aside she threw.
And, choosing sweet clay from the breast

Of the unexhausted West,
With stuff untainted shaped a hero new.
Wise, steadfast in the strength of God, and tnia.

How beautiful to see
Once more a shepherd of mankind indeed,
Who loved his charge, but never loved to lead;

280

THE NEW YORK COMMEMORATION £81

One whose meek floek the people joyed to be*
Not lured by any cheat of birth,
But by hia olear-grained human worth.
And brave old wisdom of sincerity I

. . . standing like a tower,
Our children shall bdiold his fame.
The kindly-eamflst» brave, foreseeing man,
Sagacious, patient, dretfding praise, not blame.
New birth of our new soil, the first American."

Nearly half a centniy ago, a young man just entering on
my professional career, I came to Cooper Institute to hear
the Western orator whose debate with Douglas had given him
a national reputation. Some of his friends had broached to
him the subject of a nomination to the presidency. ''What/'
he replied, ''is the use of talking of me when we have such
men as Seward and Chase, and everybody knows them^ and
scarcely anybody outside of Illinois knows met Besides, as
a matter of justice is it not due to themt" His friends,
more sanguine than he was about himself, had resolved that
he should be known, and had arranged for some Eastern
speeches by him. This Cooper Union speech was the first
given in this Eastern campaign. My recollection of the scene
is little more than a memory of a memory. The long hall
with the platform at the end, not at the side as now; the
great, expectant, but not enthusiastic crowd; the tall wor
gainly figure, the melancholy face, the clear carrying voice,
the few awkward gestures. I had been accustomed to the
dramatic and impassioned oratory of Henry Ward Beecher.
I was an admirer, not of the principles, but of the perfect
literary finish of Wendell Phillips' rapier-like conversations
with his audiences. I listened to a speech that night as pas-
sionless, but also as convincing, as a demonstration in Euclid's
Qeometry, as clear and cogent, but also as absolutely without
oratorical ornament of any description. So much, with some
eflfort, I recall. But no effort would enable me ever to for-
get the new impulse which that great personality imparted
to my youthful imagination. From that moment I, who
before that time had been a Seward Republican, became an
enthusiastic Lincoln Bepublican, and have stayed converted

MS 'ABRAHAM LINCOLN

ever since. Sabseqnent stady of hig life and writings has
enabled me to analyze the then nnanalyzed impression whieh
he produced on the young men of his generation. He was
an embodied ehall^ige to the conscience of the nation. He
takes a place in American history which belongs to Amos in
the history of the Hebrew people; like Amos, a son of the
people; like Amos, with a plumb-line of righteousness by
which he measured the institutions of his country; like Amos^
bringing every political question to the test, What is right?
and by that test insisting that all |>olitical questions should
be determined.

Vague stories are told, some historical, some legendary, to
illustrate Abraham Lincoln's faith offered to a Ood efficient
in the affairs of this world. The first expression of such
faith that I can find from Idneohi himself is in his Address
to his fellow-citizens of Springfield as he starts on his east-
ward journey to his first inauguration :

"I now leave, not knowing when or whether ever I may retom, with
a taak before me greater than that whkh rested upon WaahingtOfB.
Without the aaaistaaoe of that Divine Being who ever attended him, I
cannot aiioeeed. With that assistance, I cannot faiL Trusting in Him
who can go with me, and remain with you, and be everywhere for good,
let us confidently hope that all will yet be welL To His care com-
mending you, as I hope in your prayers yon will commend me, I bid
yott an affeetionate faTeweU.**

From this simple faith in the Gk)d who watches over na-
tions as over individuals he never departed. Subsequent
events only served to deepen and strengthen it. But in his
earlier life, before burdens too heavy for him to bear alone
had driven him to look for help to the Helper of men, Lin-
coln was an agnostic. He wrote in his youth an essay against
Christianity, which, fortunately for his reputation, a wise
friend threw into the fire. But if that is the only indication
of an anti-Christian faith, there is no indication in his youth
of any religious faith, Christian or other. Says Mr. Hem-
don, ^'Mr. Lincoln had no faith. Li order to believe, he must
see and feel and thrust his hand into the place. He must
taste, smell, or handle before he had faith or even bdief."

THE NEW YORK COMMEMORATION 885

Mr. Herndon's estimate is confiimed by that of Lincoln 'g
wife. '^Mr. Lincoln/' she saySy ^'had no faifh and no hope
in the usual acceptation of those words. He never joined a
church; but still, as I believe, he was a religious man by
nature. . • • He first seemed to think about the subject
when our Willie died, and then more than ever by the time
he went to Qettysbtirg; but it was a kind of poetry in his
nature, and he was never a technical Christian."

What profounder religious faith than was expressed in
Lincoln's Springfield Speech, Mrs. Lincoln looked for, I do
not know; and what is meant hy a ''technical Christian"
I am not quite sure. But if Lincoln had in the early part
of his life no faith and no hope, it is certain that from his
earliest years he had a conscience. Whether it was inherited
from his mother, or acquired by education, or received by a
susceptible soul from that mysterious Being in whom we have
pur life, it certainly dominated his whole nature and con-
trolled his whole conduct. From his youth up he was known
among his rough companions as ''Honest Abe." They were
accustomed to refer to him their controversies and accept
his arbitrament, generally without question. If ever there
18 a time in the life of man when his conscience takes the
second place and his passion comes to the front, it is when
he is in love. I think Abraham Lincoln's letter to Mary
Owens in 1837 a unique specimen in love literature, of love-
making by conscience :

"1 want in aU cases to do right, and most partieularly ao in aU eaaea
with women. I want at thia particolar time, more than anything die,
to do right with you; and if I knew it would be doing right, aa I
rather auspeot it would be, to let you alone, I would do it. And for
the purpose of making the matter as plain as possible, I now say that
you can now drop the subject, dismiss your thou^^ts (if you ever had
any) from me forever, and leave this letter unanswered, without caU-
ing forth one accusing murmur from me. • . . Nothing would
make me more miserable than to believe you miserable— nothing more
bappy than to know you were so."

He was a man of eager professional ambitions; but his
notes prepared for a law lecture in 1850, which was, so far

284 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

as I know, never delivered, ahow that in his innenaoat though
his professional ambitions were subordinated to his conscience.
He says:

'There is a vague popular belief that lawyers are necessarily dia-
honest. I say vague, because when we consider to what extent
confidence and honors are reposed in and conferred upon lawyers fay
the people, it appears improbable that their impression of dishon-
esty is very distinct and vivid. Yet the impression is common, al-
most universal. Let no young man choosing the law for a calling for
a moment yield to the popular belief — ^resolve to be honest at all
events; and if in your own judgment you cannot be an honest lawyer,
resolve to be honest without being a lawyer. Choose some other oeea-
pation rather than one in the choosing of which you do, in adyaaei^
consent to be a knave."

Lincoln was a man of strong political ambitions ; but from
the outset of his life his political ambitions were subordinated
to his desire for public righteousness. In 1836 he was nm-
ning for the first time for office. His defeat then would have
probably been a permanent end to his political hopes. A
Mr. Bobert Allen had said that he was in possession of taxim
which, if known to the public, would destroy Lincoln's pros-
pects, but through favor to Lincoln he would not divulge
those facts. Lincoln writes him:

''No one has needed favors more than I, and, generally, few haw
been less unwilling to accept them; but in this case favor to me would
be injustice to the public, and therefore I must beg your pardon for
declining it. . . . the candid statement of facts on your part, hofv-
ever low it may sink me, shall never break the tie of personal friend-
ship between us.*'

It would be difficult to find a more striking illustration of
the dominating power of conscience than in this declaration,
that an act just to the public and destructive to the writer's
ambitions would not sunder the ties of friendship betweoi
the writer and the man who had destroyed his political hopes.

A year later, at twenty-eight years of age, Lincoln delivers
a Lyceum address in Springfield. He warns the young men
to whom he speaks of impending national peril. He fears no
attack of foreign foe. "As a nation of freemen," he says,
'*we must live through all time, or die by suicide." The

THE NEW YORK COMMEMORATION M5

domestic peril which he fears is not intemperanee, nor gam-
bling, nor even slavery, but a lack of conscience, a disregard
of justice, ''the growing disposition to substitute the wild
and furious passions in lieu of the sober judgments of courts,
and the worse than savage mobs for the executive ministers
of justice." He is nominated by the Republicans of Illinois
against Stephen A. Douglas to be United States Senator.
He prepares with care his speech of acceptance and reads
it to his friends. It opens with these pregnant sentences,
since become famous in the political history of America :

** 'A house divided against itself cannot stand.* I believe this Gov-
ernment 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."

His cautious friends protest. One calls it a fool utterance.
Another says it is ahead of the times. A third argues that
it would drive away a good many voters fresh from the Dem-
ocratic ranks. Even his Abolition friend, Hemdon, doubts
its wisdom. ''This thing," replies Lincoln, ''has been re-
tarded long enough. The time has come when these sentences
should be heard, and if it is decreed that I should go down
because of this speech, then let me go down linked to the
truth. Let me die in the advocacy of what is just and right."
In his subsequent debate with Douglas he nails this flag to
the mast and keeps it flying there :

"The real issue in this cohtroversy • • • is the sentiment on the
part of one class that looks upon slavery as a wrong, and of another
class that does not look upon it as a wrong. . • . That is the
real issue. That is the issue that will continue in this country when
these poor tongues of Judge Douglas and myself shall be silent. It
is the eternal struggle between these two principles — right and wrong
— ^throughout the world. They are the two principles which have stood
face to face from the beginning of time; and will ever continue to
struggle."

Such was the man who came to New York, and in this hall
forty-nine years ago issued his challenge to the sleeping con*
science of the city. He was in the commercial metropolis

296 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

of the nation, the Corinth of America. AH its life was cen-
tered in and dominated by its commercial interests. Its
great religious societies and its most influential pulpits, with
a few notable exceptions, were silent respecting the wrong
of slavery. Cotton was King, and New York was his capitaL
Nowhere more than in New York was compromise popular,
and uncompromising hostility to slaveiy abhorrent to popu-
lar sentiment; nowhere more than in New York might the
woe have been pronounced against those that ''dose their
eyes that they may not see, their ears that they may not hear,
and their hearts that they may not feel, lest they should be
converted." Even the most radical anti-slavery journal in
the city damned the Western orator with faint praiae. With
a moral courage rarely exceeded, though happily not without
frequent historic parallels, Abraham Lincoln, in this city
and to this audience, reissued his challenge to the conscience
of the nation.

*'If slayery/' he said, ''is right • • • we cannot justly object to its
nationality — ^its miiversalitj; if it is wrong, they cannot justly Insist
upon its eztej^sion — its enlargement. AU they ask we could readily
grant, if we thought slayery right; all we ask they could as readily
grant, if they thought it wrong. Their thinking It right and our
thinking it wrong is the precise fact upon which depends the whole
controversy.'*

b that issue, so stated, compromise was impossible.

The slavery question seems so simple to us now; but it was
not simple to the men of that generation. Let us go back
and attempt to conceive it as it appeared to them. The year
1620, which saw the Pilgriiu Fathers landing on Plymouth
Bock, saw a vessel of slaves landing on the Virginia coast
For nearly two hundred years slavery existed in every State
in the Union except Massachusetts, and some citizens of
Massachusetts engaged in the slave trade. Partly from
moral, partly from economic reasons, it was gradually abol-
ished in the Northern States. But the invention of the
cotton-gin created a greatly increased demand for cotton, and
the greatly increased demand for cotton, created a greatly
increased demand for negro labor, and this gave slavery

Facsimile of First Pago of Mrs. Lincoln's letter of AcJvnow lodgment of

the Medal Presented by the Citizens of France

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Facsiinnc of the Second Pago of Mrs. Lincoln^s Letter

THE NEW YORK COMMEMORATION Ml

a new life in the Southern States. It was first regretted,
then excused, then justified, finally glorified. Other causes
tended to promote radical differences between North and
South, but they would easily have been overcome had
it not been that slavery existed in one section and not in
another. For a while a line was drawn across the continent,
and an agreement was reached, that south of that line, slavery
should never be interfered with, north of that line the ter-
ritory should remain forever free. The abolition of this
Compromise in 1854 opened Northern territory to slavery
and threw the whole country into a ferment of passion and
panic. In the light of subsequent history, arguments do not
seem even specious now that seemed forceful then. They
were such as these : Slave labor is necessary to cotton, and
cotton is necessary to the world. Slaves have been made
property, and interference with slavery is a violation of
vested rights. Slavery is recognized by the Constitution; to
interfere with slavery is to violate a solemn compact and to
rend asunder the most sacred document ever written by
human hands. Slavery is justified by patriarchal example,
by Old Testament laws, and by Noah's curse of Canaan and
his descendants ; to demand its abolition is to deny the Bible
and attack the foundations of religion. The continued agita-
tion of the slave question destroys business prosperity^
paralyzes industry, threatens the destruction of the Union,
the last hope of democracy upon the earth ; against such dis-
astrous consequences the imaginary 'welfare of three million
black men is not for an instant to be weighed. Thus eco-
nomics, the rights of property, the Constitution of the United
States, the Old Testament laws, the spirit of patriotism, re-
enforced by the inertia miscalled conservatism, were aU
combined in the endeavor to prohibit agitation of the slavery
question. Eloquently did Lincoln sum up the condition of
the negro in a speech delivered in Springfield a year before
his nomination to the United States Senate :

''AU the powers of the earth seem rapidly oombining against him.
Mammon is after him, ambition follows, philosophy follows, and tha
theology of the day is fast joining the cry. They have him ia his

2M ABRAHAM LINCOLN

prisOA-housd; they hav6 Bearched his perwm, and left no prying inatni-
ment with him. One after another they have olosed the heavy iron
doors upon him; and now they have him, as it were, bolted in with
a lock of a hundred keys, which can never he unlocked without the
ooncurrence of every key — the key in the hands of a hundred different
men, and they scattered to a hundred different and distant places;
and they stand musing as to what invention, in all the dominions
of mind and matter, can be produced to make the impossibility of his
escape more complete than it is."

In the confnsed and vehement conflict of passions and
opinions which only the pen of a Carlyle would be adequate
to portray, there emerged two parties, both of which justified
the abolition of the Missouri Compromise and the opening of
Northern territory to the incursion of slayery. One of these
parties in the Presidential election of 1860 was represented
by Breckinridge, the other by Douglas. The first demanded
the constitutional right to carry their slaves as proper^ into
every State in the Union. Bobert Toombs, of Georgia,
boasted that he would call the roll of his slaves at the foot of
Bunker Hill Monument. The famous Dred Scott decision,
that a slave was not converted into a free man by being car-
ried into free territoiy, gave apparent, if not real support
to the constitutional argument of the Breckinridge wing.
The other party did not claim that slaveiy mt^ go, but only
that it miglU go, into Northern territoiy. As a compromise
between North and South, Stephen A. Douglas invented the
doctrine — which his friends called ''popular sovereignty"
and his enemies ''squatter sovereignty" — ^the doctrine that
the people of any State might determine whether it should be
a free or a slave State, when they framed its Constitution.
To both these doctrines Lincoln brought the plumb-line of
practical righteousness. His answer to the Dred Scott deci-
sion was:

"It is singular that the courts would hold that a man never lost
his right to his property that had been stolen from him, but that
he instantly lost the right to himself If he was stolen***

His answer to popular sovereignty was equally terse and
equally unanswerable :

THE NEW YORK COMMEMORATION S89

The doetriM of wM'-gcfwrntrnmi ii right^-abtolatdj and etemallj
ri^L . . • WKeA the white man governa himself, that is self-
forenunent; bat when he gorerns himself and also goyerns another
man, that is more than self-goyemment — ^that is despotism."

And his answer to all the defences of slavery, economic,
phflosophic, hnmanitarian, and religions, was snnuned np in
an appeal to conseionsness that might have been derived from
Darwin's ^'Emotions in Animals and Man,'' if that book had
then been written. He says :

'TThe ant who has toiled and dragged a crumb to his nest will
fiercely defend the fruit of his labor against whaterer robber assails
Um. So plain is it that the most dumb and stupid slave that ever
toiled for a master does know that he has been wronged. So plain
is it that no one, high or low, erer does mistake it, except in a
plainly selfish way; for, although volume upon volume is written
to prove slavery a very good thing, we never hear of the man who
writes to tell the good of it, being a slave himself.*'

And yet lineoln was not an Abolitionist. Not becanse he
was less jnst, bnt because he was more jnst ; becanse he recog-
nized rights which the Abolitionists did not recognize, and
insisted upon duties which they ignored. The Abolitionists
declared that slave-holders, slave-traders, and slave-drivers
''are a race of monsters unparalleled in their assumption of
power and their despotic cruelty." Never did Lincoln utter
a word of bitterness or hate against the slave-owner. * * I think
I have," he said, ''no prejudice against the Southern people.
They are just what we would be in their situation. If slav-
ery did not now exist among them, they would not introduce
it. If it did now exist among us, we should not instantly
give it up." The Abolitionists declared that the existing
Constitution of the United States "is a covenant with death
and an agreement with hell." Lincoln believed in that Con-
stitution, honored the men who framed it, solemnly swore to
aapport it, and laid down his life in maintaining that solemn
oath. The Abolitionists demanded "immediate, unconditional
emancipation." One of Lincoln's first acts in going to Con-
gress was to propose a Bill for the gradual emancipation of

slavery in the District of Columbia, with compensation to
19

«90 ABBAHAK UNCDLN

the fllay&Kywnen; and one of bii lart acts, before relactaatiy
consenting to iasne an Emancipation Prodamation aa a fnr
measure, was to secure from Congress a pledge of national
cooperation with the slave-holders of the loyal States, if they
would eonaent to gradual emaneipation with eompensatkm.
T^e Abolitionists proclaimed as a fundamental principle,
''No union with slave-holders." Lincoln, in the midst of the
Civil War, wrote to Horace Qreeley, • • • "If I oonld
save the Union without freeing any slaves, I would do it;
• • • and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving
others alone, I would also do that." Lincoln was not an
Abolitionist: because he had charity for the slaveholder for
whom the Abolitionist had no charity ; because he honored the
Constitution which the Abolitionists denounced; because he
used every endeavor to persuade the nation to assume its ebare
of responsibility for slavery, and its share of the burden in-
volved in emancipation, from which the Abolitionists endeav-
ored in vain to escape; and because he endured four as sad
years as ever have fallen to the lot of any man in order that be
might save the Union which the Abolitionists wished to
destroy. And yet to the principle, ''No further extension
of slavery on American soU," he gave himself with uncom-
promising consecration. For that principle he hazarded his
own political fortunes, the fortunes of his party, and the life
of the nation. To all remonstrances urging compromise upon
him after his election, his answer was the same, "On the Ter-
ritorial question [that is, the question of extending slavery
under national auspices] I am inflexible."

I have said that the slavery question was one phase of the
labor question. So said Lincoln, nearly half a century ago.
"The existing rebellion," he wrote to a Committee frmn the
Working Men's Association of New York, " ... is in
fact a war upon the rights of all working people." To what
conclusion would his principles and his spirit lead upon the
Labor Question as it is presented to us in our times t

We may be sure that he who never denounced the slave-
holder, who never did anything to intensify the profound ire
of South against North or North against South, would entar

THE NEW TOBK COMMEMORATION S91

into no. efaun war, would nerer denonnee the rich to the poor
or the poor to the 'rich.' He^iMio told the ftmnere of Wieeon-
Bin that ttte reasoa why there were more 'attempts to flatter
Uiem than any other clasi was becanae they oonld cast more
irotei^ but that -to> his thinking tiiey were neither better nor
worse than other people, wonld never flatter ihe meehanio
dasB to wis for himself or his party a labcfr vote. He who,
in :1864, held. with workingmen that ^' the strongest bond of
hnman sympathy, outside of the family relation, ishonld be one
uniting all workix^ people, of all nations, and tongues, and
kindreds,'^ would notMcondemn labor unions. 'He who, at the
flame time, said to^them^^^Let not him who is hodseless piill
down Ihe house of another, but let him work diligently and
build one^or himself,' ' would* have condemned fdl la^ess
acta of rviolemse, wheliier against the employer uf 'labor br the
non^tmion laborer who is employed." He who thanked God
ihst we have a system' of fairbor ^where there can* be a strike —
a point. where 4he workingmaa may stop working— would not
deny this right to the - workingmanf of to-day. He who said,
in I860, - 'I don't'believe in -a law to preventa man from get-
ting rich, V: and who did believe iii ' -allowing the humbiebt man
an equal dianoe to get rich with any one else,'* would have
found/notinwar upon the wealthy, butin e(|ual opportunity
for all, the remedy for social and industrial ihequalities. He
who condemned the mudsill theoiy, the theory that labor and
flducation are incompatible and ihat ^'a blind horse upon a
treadmill is a perfect illustration of what a laborer should be,
all lite better for being blind, so that he oould not kick' under-
standingly, '^ would be the earnest advocate of child^labor
laws and industrial education. He who' argued that ^' As the
Author of man makes every individual with one head and
ene.pair of bamhr, it^ was probably intended that heads and
bands should cooperate as. friends,* and » that tiiat}> particular
head should direct < and control Ihat pair of hands," would
believe in cooperation between labor and capital; leading on
to the time when laborers i should become capitalists and all
eapitalist8:should become laborers: 'He'^whb Held, in 1854,
that ''the legitimate object of government is 'to do for 'the

292 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

people what needs to be done, but which fhey cannot, by in-
dividual e£Fort, do at all, or do so well, for themaelyee,' "
would neither believe in the night-watchman theory of gov-
ernment which allows it to do nothing but police duty, nor m
the socialistic theory of government which leaves nothing for
individual effort to do for itself.

Two solutions of the labor problem present themselves id
our time for our acceptance. One is capitalism, or the wages
qnstem : that a few shall always own the tools and implements
with which industry is carried on — ^these are capitalists — and
that the many shall always cany on the industry with these
tools and implements for wages paid by their owners. This
makes the mass of men always wage-laborers, dependent upon
a few. The other is State socidism: that the government
shall own all the tools and implements of industry, and allot
to the various members of the community their respective
industries and compensations. This makes all individuals
wage-earners employed by an organisation, the City, State,
or Nation, in the control of which it is asBumed all will share.
Neither of these solutions would Lincoln have accepted.
Neither of these solutions did he accept No solution would
he have accepted which made the workingman, whether he
works with brain or with hand, a perpetual wage-earner, fixed
in that condition for life, and forever dependent for his live-
lihood upon any employer, whether private or political. He
did not believe in a perpetual employment of the many 1^ a
few capitalists; he would not have believed in a perpetual
employment of all by one capitalist — ^the State or the Nation.
He believed in a fair field and an open door through which
every workingman may become a capitalist, eveiy wage-
earner may become his own employer.

In his first Annual Message, Lincoln stated with great
clearness his solution of the labor problem. To that state-
ment he attached such importance that he repeated it two
years and a half later in his letter to the Working Men's
Association of New York. The importance he attached to
this statement of his faith justifies my reading it at some
length:

THE NEW YORK COMMEMORATION %99

"Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital ia only the
fruit of labor, and could never baTO existed if labor had not first
existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the
higher consideration. Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of
protection as any other rights. Nor is it denied that there is, and
probably always will be, a relation between labor and capital, pro-
ducing mutual beneflts. The error is in assuming that the whole
labor of the community exists within that relation. . . • There
is not, of necessity, any such thing as the free hired laborer being fixed
to that condition for life. Many independent men eveiywhere in these
States, a few years bade in their lives, were hired laborers. The pru-
dent penniless beginner in the world labors for wages awhile • • •
and at length hires another new beginner to help him. This is tha
}Qst and generous and prosperous qrstem which opens the way to all-*
gives hope to all, and consequent energy and progress, and improve-
ment of condition to all/'

Many yean ago I delivered an addran to a deaf and dumb
andience. The congregation fixed their attention upon the
interpreter at my side. Th^ looked at him. Through him
thqr heard me. My ambition this afternoon has been to
efface myself and bid you listen to the invisible orator who
stands by my side with his sad face, his resolute conscience,
his human qrmpathiesy and his simple, sincere English.
What he would say, if you could hear him, would be, I think,
what he said in 1860 to the capitalists and workingmen of
New Hayen :

''I am not ashamed to confess that twenty-five years ago I was a
hired laborer, mauling rails, at work on a flatboat — ^Just what might
happen to any poor man's son. I want eveiy man to have the chance-^
and I believe a black man is entitled to it— in whidi he can better
his condition — when he may look forward and hope to be a hired
laborer this year and the next, work for himself afterward, and finally
to hire men to work for him. That is the true system. • • • Then
yoQ can better your oonditlon, and so it may go on and on in one
round so long as man exists on the face of the earth."

This is Abraham Lincoln's solution of the labor problem.

. . ;

ONE OF THE PLAIN PEOPLE

. HON. OHAUKCBT.H. DEPBW

• * *

IT u eminently fitting fliat tte birthday of Abraliaiii las^
eohk &(iauld (be celebrated,, by the Grand Army of the
Bepublie. It wa^ at( his ^^^ ,|Ui.,Fr|^ident, ^^t:;tbe fij^
leTenly-five thonaand men enliated to save the Union. After-
ward, on other appeals/ Ibe &cyy *^We are oomiiig, Fafher
Abraham, three hundred thousand morey". rang through every
city, village, and hamlet in the land; and forth from the
fields, the workshop, the faotory^ the «tooe,.and the office ivent
these followers of Abraham^ Lincoln to fight for. the presem^
tion of the Union. In every way^ in which a great rolar ^a&
alleviate the horrors of war and care for his soldiers, Abraham
Lincoln rendered to theni^ aa a body and individually, all
the service in his power. They were ever in .that. ^r|^t Jieait
of his, and an appeal on their behalf would erase .him to lay
aside every -duly^ no matter. how grefit, to, encourage,, reaeue
or save. - •■■*•••••.» ».i •-.. .

We read much in these days of the lack of opportunity for
young^men. It is daim^ that the difficulty of earning a
living or of getting abe^ad increases jei^^.by year, but to. all
who despair, all who are discouraged, 41II who. have, a aparic
of ambition, the life of Abraham Lincoln is an example and
inspiration. There is no youth in this audience to-night, and
very few, if any, in all this land, who are^ Surrounded, wita
such discouraging conditiooa fui tho^ which, w^re tjoe ^ot and
part of Abraham Lincoln fromtheMtime of hia birtti wUil
he had passed his twenty-fifth yiear. He was bom in a log
cabin of one room with a dirt floor, on a farm sb'sterile that
it was impossible for his father to make a living. When he
was seven years old the family moved upon government land
in the forests of Indiana, and at that tender age he assisted

294

THE NEW YOBK COMMEMOBATION 995

his parents in oonrtmeting another mde habitation, whieh
had neither doora nor windows, and through whieh swept the
rains of summer and the snows of winter. He worked either
with his father in an effort to make a clearing in the woods,
upon which might be raised food for the family, or else
tramped miles to work as a* farm-hand for distant neighbors,
giving his wages, which were ever so limited, into the family
fiteiJI. Sickness carried off his mother, a good #oman, but
nnedQcated, who did the best she could and probably died
from the privations of frontier life. Then, abandoning their
farm, the family moved again to Illinois. Here he once more
did his best to build a mde home for the family, and the rails
which he split for a fence were thirty years afterward car^
tied into the Illinois Convention which presented him as a
candidate for Preisddenty and in the campaign after his nom-
ination took rank with the things which captured the popular
nimd in the ''Tippecanoe and Tyler too" campaign of Gen-
eral Harrison, and the ''Mill boy of the Slashes/' which kept
the name of Henry <]!lay a household word. At twenty-one,
putting all his earthly belongings into a handkerchief tied
to a stick, he tramped to the village of Salem to make his own
way in the world. He became a derk in a country store, at
ten dollars a month. He, with other ydung men, built a flat-
boat and stocked it with soine things on credit and floated
down to New Orleans. That visit was one of the milestones
in his career. He wandered one day into the market-place,
where slaves were being publidy sold. There was a beautild;
octoroon girl on the block. The auctioneer was calling off
her physical perfections. A rough croWd of brutal men were
exchanging, with their bids, lecherous jokes about her. Lin-
coln, a tall, ungainly, ill-clad flatboat man, shook his fist at
the eihibition and said, "If I ever get a chance, I will hit
that thing hard." The remark matured subsequently in the
Proclamation of Emancipation.

He and a friend bought a grocery store upon credit. It
was sliinly stocked, and the^ were cheated in the bargain, in
gitihg ei^t hundred doUai^ for the goods. His partner took
to drink and became a confirmed drunkard, while Lincoln

996 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

n^lected customers to read and study such few books as he
could borrow. The goods disappeared and the firm became
bankrupt without any assets. Then Lincoln studied snnr^-
iag. He managed to secure the necessary instruments and
a horse and buggy, and travelled the country, fixing boundazy
lines between farmers' liinds and staking out streets of bud-
ding villages and towns. When he had paid for his outfit,
misfortune again befell him. The notes which he and his
partner gave for the store had been sold immediately at a
tremendous discount, and then bought up subsequently by
a Shylook money lender for a few dollars. This money lender
now secured judgment, levied upon and sold Lincoln's borsi^
wagon, surveying instruments, and everything which he pos-
sessed. The neighbors were so shocked that they refused to
bid, and a friend bought in the outfit, at a small price, and
loaned it to Lincoln to pursue his profession. So that, at
twenty-five, after all these sad experiences on the farm, the
flatboat, and the grocery, he found himself in debt It would
have been easy to have escaped that obligation. He was so
advised by his friends, but the answer, which was character-
istic of his life and characteristic of one of the most honest
of minds, was, ^'I promised to pay." It waa many yean
before he was able to clear o£F that obligation.

About this time a young lady of beauty, family, and cul-
ture, to whom he was engaged, contracted a fatal illness, and
died in his presence. His friends feared he would lose his
mind with grief. It was a sorrow which pursued him for
years, and from which he never entirely recovered. He now,
burdened with debt and almost crushed with this pathetic
tragedy, practically started anew at twenty-six to study law.
In these days a young man, before he can be admitted to the
bar, must have an education of the common school and high
school or academy, which means years of study and oppor-
tunity for study. Before he can be admitted to the great law
schools he must have received a degree in a college of liberal
learning, and then before he can be graduated from the law
school he must spend four years in hard work. Lincoln be-
came a great lawyer, but think of his equipment when he

THE NEW YORE COMMEMORATION ^97

began to study I He had only about four naontha of aehooling
under five different teachers, scattered over several years,
and at no period over three weeks at a time. None of these
teachers was equipped beyond reading, writing, and sunple
arithmetic. During his life on the farm he had borrowed
every book there was in those frontier neighborhoods. The
family Bible he read over and over again. A Justice of the
Peace had the ^'Revised Statutes of Indiana/' and that he
read with the same thoroughness. The family moved from
Indiana to Illinois, where the settlements were closer, and
when he came to the village of Salem, he succeeded in bor-
rowing Shakespeare, Bunyan's ''Pilgrim's Progress," ^sop's
** Fables," Weems' "Life of Washington," and a crude *'His-
toiy of the United States." He read while following the
plow — to the disgust of his employer — on moonlight nights,
lying upon his back in the fields, while going to and from his
work, while on the flatboat, while a clerk, and while a mer-
chant. He had no teacher of style or composition. There
was little paper in the wilderness, but he wrote compositions
on the wooden snow shovel with a piece of charcoal, and
rubbed it off and re-wrote, until he had secured by these
crude methods and by the teachings of the Bible, Shakespeare,
and Bunyan's ''Pilgrim's Progress," that wonderful style
in sinewy English which contributed to our literature two
of its rarest gems, the Oettysburg Speech, and the Second
Inaugural Address.

The following is an illustration of his difficulties in finding
books for which he was hungry: The rain came through
the roof of the log cabin and ruined Weems' "Life of Wash-
ington," which he had borrowed from a distant farmer.
This is the "Life" now entirely out of print, in which is
the story of the hatchet and the cherry tree — a story that has
not found its way into the regular Histories or any other
"Life of Washington." It is a story, though, which does
more to keep alive in the schools the memory of the Father
of his Country, and which has led to more humor, more or
less good, than any other incident h>.Jiiia. life. J^gcoln, with
a sad hearty returned the dt^ftMA^SkAlSM^^kb^^

298 ABBAHAM LINCOLN

who made him ivwk in the fields attwehtjr-flTe cents a day
until the pidoe which it originally cost had been paid np.

Lincoln poesessed >one of the most logical of minds and a
singular faculty of grasping all the facts, and so marshaUing
them as to he irresistible in debate. He had that rarest gift of
the lawyep^^the talent to sift vast accumulations of material^
testimony, and precedents, until he had hit upon and eluei-
dated the real point upon which rested the iducoess'or failure
of the case. He impressed these readings upon his mind fay
making speeches to the horse or the oxen he was driYiDg, to
the woods through which he was walking to his woriL, and at
the noonday hour in the fields* he would mount a fenee and
spout his refiections to his fellow-workers.

A lawyer loaned him Blackstone's ^'Conmientaries'' in four
volumes. Every odd mom^it from hard work of every kind,
necessary to secure the money for a living, was given to the
study of this and other elementary works, until he had. thor-
oughly masteied them and the principles of law. He finally
was admitted .to the bar, but in training, culture, and equip-
ment he di£Fefed from most of his associates. Not only that,
but his ethics of practice were antagonistic to those -of. all
with whom he came in contact. A case whidi he believed
wrong, he would not take. If, during the course of his in-
vestigations^ he learned that his client had deceived him, he
would decline to proceed. He cared litUe for money, and his
charges were only sufScient for his limited necessities. Much
of his practice was on behalf of the poor whom he thought
wronged and from whom he could expect no reward. With-
out the opportunities of the law school or the law uffiee,
without the readmg of a well-equipped library, he was always
deficient in ability to cite precedents and decisions upon wkiA
the bar and the bench so largely depend. But he knew Iqr
heart the principles of the common law, and, because of his
years of communion with the plain people, he was more
familiar with ordinary human nature than any man in his
Circuit. With the ability to make difficult things plain to
the humblest understanding, and to clarify the most murty
atmosphere of conflicting testimony, he added humor and a

Facsimile of First Page of Victor Hugo's Letter Ac^bptinji IMo6iber^j)

on the Committee of the French Democra^^y^

(Formed to commemorate the services of Lincoln to the cause 6f<^Ti^^t^\;i}i0 •

and of liberal ideas)

I ■ »'

/Z'P>^'Wr?<^

w* ^- ■ i V

-""•'* r;i(vsmWV6f the Socoml Pa^o of V^ictor Hugo's letter

Jr»

THE NEW vXOBK a)MBf EMORATION 999

faenltjr far apt iUastoition.ealtivated by^lik Bible, Btmyan'i
''BUgrim'a Pvogi€a%'Vtnd JCaq^'m ''Fable%'' and ho pos^
aened aa edutufitleag fond of anecdotes whieh nobody could
tdl 10 irell or apply so happily as Abraham LiacohL When
he left the ba]%. after twenty-three.years.-of practice^ to become
Pmident of the United States,' he. stood among the first- of
the legaliii^ta of the State of Blinois. • .

Bnt it was in ridingilhe .>otro8iit during that quarter of a
eentnry, that he yrtM preparing, nnconscioasly for the Presi-
dency. He tdd me: that .at the Xonnty towns when Oourt
was hdd> tiie jndge^ /lawyers, litigants, witnesses, and grand
and petit jurors would, sit up all night, at the hotel, telling
* stories of things which i had Jiappened in the lives, of an
original .frontier people, and hesaidtUy were better, more
to the point, and infinitely stronger for illustration and the
enforcement of argument,: than all the stories and anecdotes
which were ever invented* Hunian . nature is best studied,
public questions are more keenly discussed, character is better
exlribited,.in the forum of the (kmntry grocery or drug; store
than anywhere else. There gather the ^ers, more or less
wise, Ihe lawyers loolDngi for aeqn^ntanoes,. popularity and
elienls,. and the young men listening and absorbing. Lincoln,
with his wonderful gift of • humor, anecdote, and argument^
WB8 far yean the idol of timt forum; It Was there he learned
the lesson, itwaluable to him when, dealing afterwards, with
mighty problems of i^te which, required for their solution
the supp<»t.ofithe people, howtto soistate his case andmake
his appeal that it would find a respooifle-in the humblest homes
in every part of the land.

Linoobi's chaiacteristie ap a lawyer was, if possible, ta
get his client to settle,, to bring together antaganistSy and td
compose dieir difflcrences. At that early time lawyers habitu-
al^ eneoufaged litigation* Lincoln . diMonraged it,, whenever
possible. • He believed in peaceiin the Cuniiyiand good will
and good' neighborhood in the town. HetbeUeved it to be
a lawyer's^ duty, and that he was aiding the best interests
of his client, to procure la settlement without the expense qt
litigation. Hetold an amusing story in 4kis line. He' said

ABBAHAM LINCOLN

/ farmer came into his offioe one day inmHting <m divwee

fidings being commenced at once. Lincoln said, ''What

le difSoultyt" The farmer answered, ''We have got

g so well that we are now rich enough to abandon tbd

<oabin and we have bnilt a frame house. When the quea*

k came about painting, I wanted it painted white like our

ighbors, but my wife preferred brown. Our diiq>ute8 finally

icame quarrels. She has broken crockery, throwing it at

ty head, and poured scalding tea down my back, and I wmt

i divorce.'' Lincoln said, "My friend, man and wife should

live together, if possible, for their own sake and for the

children's, and endure a great deaL Now go back, keep your

temper, and compromise with your wife. You could not have

lived together all these years without learning some basis

upon which you can compromise any dificulty; and don't

eome back for a month." At the end of four weeks tiie

farmer returned and said, "Lincoln, you needn't bring that

suit. My wife and I have compromised." "What is the

oompromiset" "Well," said the farmer, "we are going to

paint the house brown."

Years of diligent study, and this habit, continued ttom
early youth, of expressing his ideas aloud and making
speeches alike to trees and to people, made him attractive to
the local leaders of his party. His speech when nominated
for the Legislature of Illinois, was a model of brevity. It was
substantially this: * "I am in favor of a protective tariff, a
national bank, and internal improvements. If you like my
principles, I should be glad to serve you." With the excep-
tion of the slavery issue, that speech, made in 1834, seventy-
five years ago, has been practically the platform of the Repub-
lican party since its formation until to-day.

Lincoln was of slow growth. There was nothing preooeious
about him. He matured along fine lines, and each year added
to his mental stature. He made little impression during his
f oiur terms in the Legislature, except for diligence and intdh-
gence. He served one term in Congress. There he disfdayed
the prevailing characteristic of his political life. He exprened
his opinions regardless of consequences. The country was

THE NEW TOBK COMMEMORATION fOl

ne for the Mexican War. Tlie American people are always
ft the President against a foreign enemy. He knew that
* had been provoked in order to take territory away from
seo for the extension of slavery. He followed in the lead
Torn Corwin and made a vigoroos speech denouncing the
dey and purpose of the war. Oorwin's speech retired him
rmanently from public life, and Lincoln was not again a
adidate for the House of Bepresentatives. This quality of
8 mind, and moral courage, were happily illustrated in the
imous joint debates between Douglas and himself. Douglas
-as the most formidable debater, either in the Senate or on
tie platform, in the country. He was superbly prepared,
quipped with every art of the orator, resourceful beyond
myone of his time, and unscrupulous in the presentation of
kis own case and the misrepresentation of that of his op-
ponent. There was at that period a passionate devotion,
among the people, to the Union, but very little sentiment
against slavery. The Union was paramount above every-
thing. There was no disposition to interfere with slavery
where it was. The only unity on anti-slavery was against
its extension into the Territories. Lincoln prepared his first
speech in this debate with great care, and then submitted it
to the party leaders who had put him forward and who con-
stituted his advisers. When he came to the sentence, ^'A
house divided against itself cannot stand. I bdiete this Gov-
ernment cannot endure permanently half slave and half free,''
they unanimously advised him to cut it out. They told him
that Douglas would take advantage of it by appealing to the
sentiment for the preservation of the Union as paramount to
anything else, and that he would charge Lincoln with being in
favor of dissolving the Union in order to free the negroes.
Lincoln said: ^'We are entering upon a great moral cam-
paign of education. I am not advocating Mr. Seward's higher
law, but I am advocating the restriction of slavery within its
present limits, and the preservation of the new Territories for
free labor. That is more than immediate success, and on that
question we will ultimately succeed." Douglas did attack
Lincoln, making this point, as the advisers thought, his main

30S ABRMIAM LINCOLN

gubjeety and it was one of tiie prinoipal ekmanti in his d»
tioli. Ooee more tha moral quality and oeiirage of LunqIb
eame ont^ when he safamitted to his adTiaeos, pmtting to Doug-
las the questioD whether the peofde ^f the TerritcHriea oocdd ex-
elude slaveiy by their territorial IdgisUtion. Dongbs- was
elaiming that it was a great chanoe for popular aovereigiEty. to
repeal the Missouri Compromise .o£ 1820 which prahifatled
slayery in the Territories^ by leaving the question to the people.
Lincoln's advisers aaid» ''He wiU answer, 'Yes.' ". ''Wall»"
said Lincoln, ''by answering 'No/ it wiU ruin Ids wkde pro-
gramme. If: he answers 'Yes/ that wiU alienate the^ Sooth,
prevait his nomination for Presidenl^ and split the Demoeratie
Pactyw" The results were as Lincoln predicted. . Douglas
waa elected Senator. The South bolted the Democratic 'Gen-
mention, the northern half nominating Douglas, the aouthem
half Breckinridge^ But what Lincoln did not anticipate, Urn
BepuhUean Party • nominated him and he> was electedi

None of our Pmaidenta have ever faced suchimiditiona ud
problems as. lincoln eneounteored when inaugurated. JPvn
States had already seceded. A Confederate government had
been formed^ and its whole machinery was in operation
with a President, Cabinet, Congress, and C<mstitiitioBL The
arsenals were stripped ,ot^ anns,i the forts* of guns^ a large
number of the ablest army ..ofkers* were deserting to the
Southern Confederacy, but his initial difficulties weve witli his
own household With the commge bom ol true gieatneasi he
aonuppned to his Cabinet^ statesmen who had been, for yean,
national leaders and who were<his contestants iuithe national
Convention. As far^as possiUe, he drew, them equally, from
those who had been Whigftsmd. Democrats prior teethe fonna-
tion of the Republican party four yeaia before, and who had
come together on the question of the extension of daTery^
though they differed upon every other matter of governmental
policy. Seward, Chase, and Cameron were household words
in the country. The President was hardly known. These
strong, cultured, ambitious, and self-centred men, veterana in
the public service, regarded with very little reqpect thii
homely, uncouth, and almost unknown frontiersman who had.

THE NEW YORK! COMMBMOBATION aO0

m ibey Acnjigkt, beoame President by accident^ wlrai: that
great honor belongied to each of thenL They tholigbt that
the President would be a cipher, and the straggle wonld
be only between them as to whidv as. the jrtrongfir, wonld so
dcminate the administraticm as ta be practieallgr President
of Jthe United States. Lincoln tmderstood - this -and them
^rfectly. Aft^r a month Mt. Sewai'd presented a written
proposition to the Pretident which miettnt praeticaUy that,
tornnite the country, war shoold. be provoked with Eng-
land and France, and that he in those difSonUiea was. quite
wiBinir to tdidertake the administration of affairs. There
IB- no President, including Washingtpn, who would not, on
such a letter have either surrendered or called, for the
teaignation. of his Cabinet Minister^ But lincoln's answer
was the perfection of confident, strength and diplomacy.
He^ wanted the services of the best equipped man in the
ODuntry for Secr^ry of State^ and the idol of nearly a
majority of his party, and so he said, fa effect, ''The Euro-
pean war will lead to their, siding with the South and dis-
solving the Union. We ure to have a civil war, and one is
enough, at onoe. You can perform invaluable service in your
great department. I have been elected. President and will
discharge, myself, the duties of that office." He knew that
CShase was diq[>araging him in conversation and trying to
prevent his nomination in order to get it for himself, but
he ignored these facts and supported Chase until his finan-
cial schemes, as Secretary of the Tre^uy, had given the
eonntry credit and money, and tiien promoted him out of
the Cabinet and out of politics by making him Chief Justice
of the Supreme Court of the United, States.

Seward early recognized the master mind of the President,
and that behind an exterior of deference and extreme amiabil-
ity was the confident judgment and giant grip of a natural
leader of men. Thenceforth this most accomplished of the
orators, rhetoricians, sind dialecticians of his - day, as well
as one of its greatest statesmen, became the devdted assistant
ol his chief. .

Mr. Qreel^, one of the greatest journalists the United

SM ABRAHAM LINCOLN

States has ever prodneed, and poaseaBing inflnenee nenr
smce wielded by a single man upon public opinion, hated
slavery and loved peace. In practical matters Mr. Oreehy
was very credulous, and some of the shrewd and unsempiiUms
Southern leaders made him believe that they were empowered
to treat for peace upon honorable terms. Lincoln knew betUst.
He suggested to Mr. Oreeley that he find out by a personal
interview, but soon discovered that the negotiations between
these alleged Confederate Conmussioners and the great
journalist were part of a scheme on their part to gain time.
He solved that problem in a characteristic way by auddeniiy
issuing a proclamation, ''to whom it may concern," saying
that anybody authorized to treat on behalf of the Confederate
Government would have safe conduct through the United
States to Washington and return, and the CommiasioneES
disappeared. The habit of tireless industry by day and
night, patient research, and clear analysis, were applied fay
the President to the problems of the war. The great wais
of Europe are carried on by the general staff—the civil
government at home forwarding recruits and furnishing aiQh
plies — ^but we had no machineiy or equipment for a great
war. We had no general staff. Officers had to be tried
at fearful loss of life upon the battle-field, and jealousies
among them embarrassed operations; but in the White
House was developed a great strategist and commander witt
neither partisanship nor prejudice. He sifted the daima of
the different generals, and one by one eliminated them until
he placed Grant in supreme conmiand. He knew the poai*
tion all over the vast region of the War, of both hia own
troops and those of the enemy. He studied the maps until
the roads for marching, and tranq>ortation facilities for con-
centrating, were better known by him than by any of the mili- ^
tary chiefs. His guiding hand and suggestive brain prevoited
many a disaster and turned many a defeat into victory.
He familiarized himself with every department of the gov-
ernment, and, while giving full credit to his Cabinet, he was
still the master in the despatches and negotiations finaUy

THE NEW YOBK COMMEMORATION 805

agreed upon hy the Secretarj of State, and in the operations
of the Treaenrj, <lie War, and the Nayjr Department.

It was vital to the BUoceM of the Union that the Confed-
eracy should not be assisted by foreign interference. He
knew that it had been the object of European statesmen,
sinoe the Holy Alliance and the Monroe Doctrine, to divide,
if possible, the United States, and prevent a great world
power growing up in the Western Hemisphere. He might
have declared war on account of the equipment of the Con-
fMerate cruiser Alahmna in British ports. England might
liave had a pretext for war when Captain Wilkes took the
Confederate Commissioners from a British vessel. But in
fhe one case he trusted to diploma<gr and delay, and in the
<yiher he promptly decided that the American officer had no
right to go upon the deck of a British ship, sailing under
the British flag, and seize its passengers, and promptly sur-
rendered the Confederate Commissioners. With the feeling
that there was in the country, at that time, of bitterness
and resentment against Great Britain^ no man but Abraham
Lincoln could have prevented a war. I have recently learned
that unknown to his Cabinet he would many an evening
drop into the house of the British Minister, and the effect
of those consultations sent direct to the other side in con-
fidence must have been of incalculable influence in causing
Britidi statesmen to keep hands off, and especially in so
advising Queen Victoria and Prince Albert that they re-
mained through all our revolution staunchly our friends.

Lincoln hated slavery, but his love for the Union was
greater. If he could save the Union by freeing all the slaves,
or part of them, or none of them, he would so save the Union.
I remember the gathering, and then the full force, of the
storm against him because he would not free the slaves.
Thaddeus Stevens, Horace Oreeley, Benjamin Wade, Henry
Winter Davis, and all the old Abolitionists like Wendell
Phillips, and William Lloyd Garrison, were the mighty lead-
ers of a fonnidable and an intelligent assault which few,
if any, but him could have resisted. He knew that at least

306 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

one-half of the TJmon Amy eared nothing about daveiy,
but were willing to die for the Union. He knew that New
Yorky Conneeticuty and New Jersey would be uncertain, if
the ianie were for alaTery. He knew that the hundreds of
thousands of soldiers fnnn Kentueky, Tennessee, Maryland,
Missouri, and Virginia— who were among the best troops he
had— might join the Confederate Army and earty with them
their States if he attempted to free the alayes before they
saw it was a neoessity of war. The f (dly of these brilliant
reformers is best exhibited by an incident which I knew,
when they answered this statement hy saying it would be
a gain to the cause if the border States were all lost and
their troops with them. When, however, with knowledge
greater than all of them, with a wisdom surer than any of
them, with a contact and understanding with the plain peo-
ple of the country such as none of them possessed, he saw
the time had come when the enemy must be deprived of the
workers of the field who were supplying their armieBy and
the servants in their camps who were attending to their
wants and relieving their fighting force, he issued the im*
mortal Proclamation of EmandpatioQ and the doom of the
Confederacy was sealed.

Justice and mer^y were Lincoln's supreme charaeteristiea.
He bore no enmities, cherished no ill will, and never exe-
cuted any revenges. While the whole North waa raging
against those who had rebelled, and millions believed tiiat
the destruction of their properties, tiie devastation of tlietr
lands, and the loss of their slaves, which were their main prop-
erty, was a just punishment for endeavoring to break np flie
Union, Lincoln appreciated thoroughly the conditiona which
had impelled them to rebel. In the early days of the War
he argued earnestly with his Cabinet and the leaders in.
Congress for authorization to offer the South four hundred
millions of dollars as a compensation for freeing their
slaves. To the answer that the country could not stand the
expense, he said, ''The War is costing four millians a day
and it will certainly last one hundred days.'' After he had
visited Bichmond when the War waa over, and returned to

THE NEW YORK COMMEMOBATION 307

Waahington, he again urged this propoaitioia, saying tiiat
the South was completely ezhauated and this four hundred
million would be the beat inyeatment the country eould
make in at onee restoring peace and good will between all
aections, and furnishing the capital to the Southern people
to restore their homes, recuperate their fortunes and start
their industries. But in the bitter passions of the hour the
proposition reoeiyed no support

A reputation for wit and humor or story-telling has been
fatal to many brilliant Americans. The people of the United
States prefer serious men, even if stupid and platitudinous
in speech, to those who, no matter how brilliant in all ways,
are nevertheless famous for humor and anecdote. Lincoln
survived because this faculty and habit did not become
known until after he waa President. I heard him tell a
great many stories and every one of them enforced and
clinched the argument stronger than hours of logic* We
must remember that there was no civil service, that there
were more appointments to office in the creation of the
internal revenue system and in the customs a hundred
fold then, than had ever been before; and that an army
of two millions of men had to be officered, and the ques-
tion of the appointment and promotion of these officers
come to the President ; and the same of a large navy. The
pressure of office-seekers who came in swarms led by their
senators and congressmen, would have crushed him, except
for his faculty of turning them off with an apt story or a
joke. A political leader in Maryland at that period ap-
peared nearly every day at the White House with a regi-
ment of hungry applicants. Baltimore was only an hour
away, and it was so little expense that they coidd descend
like an army of locusts at frequent intervals at the White
House. The President, wearied until even his patience was
exhausted, directed one day that they should all be admitted
at once. They fiUed the large room in which he stood.
He was far from well and said, ^^ Gentlemen, I at last have
something that I can give you all." With one acclaim they
commenced saying, ''Thank you, Mr, Pmid^tl Thank 70U,

SOS ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Mr. President!'' and fheir leader started to make a specdL
The President said, ''It is the smallpox. The doetor teb
me I have varioloid I'' The room was emptied in a aeeoncL
A strong body of temperance people came to him after
General Grant had won many victories and he was oonten-
plating making him Commander-in-chief, — ^protested and even
went so far as to demand Grant's dismissal on the gronnd
that he was a hard drinker. Lincoln answered, ''Ladies and
Gentlemen, I wish yon wonld kindly tell me the brand of
whiskey General Grant drinks. I would like to send a fev
bottles to my other generals." He rarely, with all his wit»
hnmor, and faculty for apt illustration, said anything wbiA
wonld hurt the feelings of his hearer.

He eared little for poetry, but in early youth he had found
in an old almanac a poem which he committed to memory and
repeated often all through his life. It was entitled "Immin^
tality," and the first verse was:

''Oh, why shoiild the spirit of mortal be proud T
Like » swift-fleeting meteor — a faat-fljing doud —
A flash of the lightnings— a break of the wave —
He passeth from life to his rest in a grame.^

He reverenced the sentiment of that poem. One day a Oon*
gressman with a delegation of constituents who wanted offieei)
came into the room very drunk, and commenced a apeeck
to the President by saying, "Ohl why should the spirit of
mortal be proud f The President answered coldly, ^'I
no reason whatever,'' and dismissed them. Probably
iniscent of the loved and lost, he often repeated thia veiaB
from Oliver Wendell Holmes:

'The mossy marbles rest
On the lips that he has prstt

In their Uoom;
And the names he loved to hear
Have been carved for manj a year

On the tomb!**

"With malice toward none, with charity for alL" TUi
line« in one of his Inaugurals, summed up the philosophy of

THE NEW YORK COMMEMORATION S09

liis life. He wiS nx feet four inehee m heiglit, with moacles
of gteely and in early life among the rough, emel, hard-
drinking youth of the neighborhood was the strongest of
them aU; but his strength was always used to protect the
weak against the strong, and to humble the bully, who is
the terror of such communities. During his youth and early
manhood he lived where drinking was so common that it
was the habit, and the young men were all addicted to
whiskqr and tobacco-chewing, bat the singalar purity of
his nature was such, that notwithstanding the ridicule of
his surroundings, he never used alcohol or tobacco. When
President, he so often reversed the sentences of court mar-
tials which condemned convicted soldiers to death, that the
generals complained bitterly. I heard General Sherman at
one of his birthday dinners, when asked by the generals
present how he got over these pardons, as the findings of
the Court had to be sent to the President for approval, an*
swer grimly, ''I shot them first."

The day before election, in 1864, when to the anxieties in
the field were added those of the canvass, he heard of a
widow whose five sons had enlisted and all been killed, and
wrote to her in his own hand one of the most pathetic letters
of condolence there is in such literature.

He is our only President who came to that great ofice
tram absolutely original Ameriean frontier conditions. Our
early Presidents were landed aristocrats or the products
of the great colleges of the country. Even the least equipped
of our chief magistrates had opportunities for culture from
the outside which amounted to a liberal education, but this
man of the log cabin and the woods, having had the ad*
vantages of neither teachers, nor schools, nor guides in the
selection of books, courses of reading, or curriculum of study,
before death removed him from the presideney towered high
among the cultured, the statesmen, and all the gifted genius
of the country, in both ideas and expression.

I first saw Lincoln when he stepped o£P his car for a few
minutes at Peekskill, while on his way to Washington f6r
his inauguration. He was cheerful and light hearted, though

510 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

lie travelled through erowdt, many of whom were enendei^
part of the time in secret^ and all the time in danger of
aasanination. I met him frequently three years afterwards,
when care, anxiety, and overwork had made him look prema-
'tnrely aged. I was one of the Committee in chai^^ of the
funeral train which was bearing his body to his home, while
<m its way through the State of New York. The hostile
hosts of four years before were now standing about the road-
way with bared head% weeping. As we sped over the raik
at nighty the icene was the most pathetic ever witneand.
At every cross-roads the glare of innumerable torches ilhh
mined the whole population, from age to infancy, kneeling
on the ground, and their clergymen leading in prayers and
hymns. The ooiBn was placed in the eapitol at Albany that
the Governor, State Officers, and Legislature might have a
farewell look at the great President. The youthful confi-
dence of my first view was gone, also the troubled and won
look of the closing years of his labors, but there rested upon
the pallid face and noble brow an expression in death of
serenity, peace, and happiness.

We are celebrating within a few months of each other the
ter-centenary of Milton and the centenaries of Poe and Dar-
win. Our current literature of the daily, weekly, and
monthly press is full of eulogy of the Puritan poet, of hk
influence upon English literature and the Englidi language,
and of hiB immortal W4»4c, '^Paradise Lost." There are not
in this vast audience twenty people who have read ''Paradiss
Lost," while there is scarcely a man, woman, or child in
the United States who has not read Lincoln's ''Speech at
Gettysburg." Few gathered to pay tribute to that remark-
able genius, Edgar Allan Poe, and yet in every school house
in the land to-day the children are reciting or hearing read
extracts from the address of Lincoln. Darwin carved out a
new era in scientific research and established the truth of
one of the most beneficent principles for the progress and
growth of the world. Yet Darwin's fame and achievements
are for the select few in the higher realms of liberal lean*
ing. But for Lincoln — ^the acclaim goes up to him to-day

THE NEW YOBK COMMEMOBATION 311

one of the few foremost men of all the ages, from states-
men and men of letters in every land, from the halls of
Congress and of the Legislatures, from the seats of justice,
from colleges and universities, and above and beyond all,
£rom the homes of the plain people of the United States.

THE BOSTON COMMEMORATION

THE city of Boston had an elaborate official celebration
under the direction of a Committee of Twenty-five, ap-
pointed by the Honorable Qeo. A. Hibbard, Mayor of Boston,
of which committee Mr. Bernard J. Rothwell was Chairman,
and Colonel J. Payson Bradley, Secretary. The Committee
was composed of the leading citizens^ and under its auspices,
special and numerous celebrations were planned and carried
out throughout the city.

On the morning of the Centenary day, commemorative ex-
ercises were held in all of the schools, well-known speakers
i^pearing upon the programmes ; the general idea of the Bos-
ton Committee being — as was the prevailing desire elsewhere —
to make the celebration not only a tribute and a memorial, but
an educational force, disseminating among the younger genera-
tion knowledge of the life, the ideals, and the deeds of Lin-
coln. One hundred and thirteen thousand school children
took part in the observances of the day.

Another feature of the morning celebration was the joint
session, at noon, of the Senate and House of Representatives
of Massachusetts, commemorative of the day — the Honorable
Henry Cabot Lodge, United States Senator from Massachu-
setts, delivering the impressive oration.

The afternoon was given over to celebrations by the Grand
Army of the Republic and the various other patriotic societies,
while in the evening a great mass-meeting gathered at Sym-
phony Hall. Here crowds stood in the streets for hours, wait-
ing for the doors to open at 7:30 o'clock; and the big edifice
was filled and overflowing in less than ten minutes, with twice
as many people unable to get into the building and being
turned away. Major Henry L. Higginson acted as permanent
chairman of the meeting. Upon the platform, in addition to
the speakers of the occasion, were seated Governor Draper,
manbers of his staflf, and representatives of practically every

S15

Bl6 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

line of City and State aotivity. Members of the Grand Amj
Posts of Boston were present, and their colors were planted on
either side of the stage. A section of the auditorium was rs-
served for these veterans of the Civil War.

Here the oration was delivered hj the Honorable Uohn D.
Long, Ex-Secretary of the Navy, a former Oovemor of Maaaa-
chusetts; and the author of the famous '* Battle Hymn of the
Bepublio, ' ' Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, read an original poem on
Lincoln. Other features of the meeting were an address by
Honorable Qeo. A. Hibbard, Mayor of Boston, and the read-
ing of the Governor's Proclamation by Colonel J. PigrsaiL
Bradley, Secretary of the Lincoln Day Committee.

The city was dotted with flags ; they hung from the iimwmi
public buildings, and waved from windows and balconies of
private homes ; while in the harbor the f oreigTi and American
vessels observed the day by flying their flags — tow-boats, fer-
ries, and fishing boats joining in this silent memorial.

A VISION

JUUA WABD HOWE

THROUQH the dim pageant of the years
A wondrous tracery appears:
A cabin of the western wild
Shelters in sleep a new-bom child.

Nor norse, nor parent dear, ean know
The way those infant feet mnst go;
And yet a nation's help and hope
Are sealed within that horoscope.

Beyond is toil for daily bread,
And thought, to noble issues led;
And courage, arming for the mom
For whose behest this man was bom.

A man of homely, rustic ways,
Tet he achieves the forum's praise.
And soon earth's highest meed has won,
The seat and sway of Washington.

No throne of honors and delights;
Distrastfal days and sleepless nights,
To strag^e, suffer, and aspire.
Like Israel, led by cloud and fire.

A treacherous shot, a sob of rest,
A martyr's palm upon his breast,
A welcome from the glorious seat
"Where blameless souls of heroes meet;

And, thrilling through unmeasured days,
A song of gratitude and praise;
A cry that all the earth shall heed.
To Ood, who gave him for our need.

517

THE GREAT PACIPICATOB

HON. JOHN D. LONG

T II 7E are here to commemorate the one hundredth birtli-
VY day of Abraham Lincohi — a great and good man in
the simple, fundamental sense of the words. We recall that
supreme life, that magnanimous soul full of charily and with-
out malice. His rugged face, his lank, homely figure, rise
before us transfigured to a beauty beyond that of the statned
Apollo in yonder niche, as the beating heart transcends the
lifeless marble.

The personal appearance of the famous men of histoiy
is always a factor in our ideal of them. In the mind's ey^
we picture Richard, the Lion Heart, riding in his coat of mafl
and swinging his ponderous battle-axe, and George Washing-
ton, in the dignified costume of a gentleman of the old sehooL
But there are no adventitious aids to the effect of the personal
appearance of Abraham Lincoln, nor did he need any. He
was six feet four inches high, a little bent in the 8honlder%
with large hands and feet, a frame of great joints and bones^
a prominent nose and mouth, a high forehead and coarse
dark hair, and was dressed, when President, in homely and
loosely fitting black. His furrowed and melaneholy face and
sad eyes were suggestiTe of a ^'man of sorrows and acquainted
with grief," yet were capable of quickest transition into an
expression of infinite humor. What depths of feeling and
tenderness lay under that rugged visage, what divine sym-
pathy with his fellow men, and an enslaved or weak and
erring brother I And beneath that proverbial wit whieh so
often lighted it, there lay also the fountain of tears. An
exquisite pathos breathed from the chords of a fitympathetic,
softly attuned nature, as if you caught from them the sensi-
tive wistful tones of Schumann's ''Traumerei."
It is an unfounded notion that the conditions of our frontier

919

THE BOSTON COMMEMORATION 819

life — alas ! we no longer have any frontier — are to be oonnted
unfayorable. On the contrary, they have been, from the
days when Maasachnsetts was herself a frontier, the best soil
for characteristic American ambition and growth. There are
those who express surprise that Lincoln was the product of
what they deem the narrow and scanty environment from
vrhich he sprang. As well wonder at the giant of the forest,
deep rooted, bathing its top in the upper air, fearless of
scorch of sun or blast of tempest, sprung from the fertile
soil and luxuriant growth of the virgin earth, and rich with
the fragrance and glory of Nature's paradise! I can hardly
think of a life more fortunate. The Lincolns settled in
Hingham, Massachusetts, a few years after the coming of
the Mayflower. The family ranks with our early Puritan^
nobility of worth and character. One branch of it migrated
to Penni^lvania and thence to Virginia. More than a hun-
dred years ago Lincoln's grandfather went thence to Ken-
tucky, built a log cabin, cleared a farm, and was killed by
Indians. Lincoln's father was of the same sort — ^pioneer,
farmer, hunter, uneducated, but in touch with the sturdy
qualities that were the mark of the Kentucky settlers. His
mother, dying in his early boyhood, was a woman of beauty,
of character, and of education enough to teach her husband
to write his name. His stepmother, saintly Christian soul,
sheltered the orphan under her loving care, and, scanty as
was her lot, allured him to brighter worlds and led the way.
Compared with the luxurious profusion of to-day, it was
wretched and hopeless poverty; but, compared with the
standard of the then neighborhood and time — ^the only right
standard — ^it was the independence of men who owned the
land, who strode masters of the soil, who were barons, not
8er&, who were equal with their associates, and among whom
the child Abraham Lincoln, eating his bread and milk from
a wooden bowl as he sat on the threshold of his father's
cabin— one side of it wide open to the weather — ^wss no more
an object of despair or pity than the babe who, cradled among
the flags by the river's brink, dreamed of the hosts of Israel
to whom he should reveal the Tables of the Law of God,

S20 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

and whom he should lead to the green pastnrea of tlie Prom-
ised Land. It is not because the same or like qoalitieB of
character do not still inhere in hnman nature, that America
— ^naj, the worid— will never again see the like of Tiinenin,
but because the circumstances of his early and later life can
never be reproduced. America, alas 1 had already grown old
—old with power, with wealth, with the exhausting ravage
and absorption of her territory, and with the infuaions of
what we used to call the Old World. The frame-setting of
Abraham Lincoln's youth is as absolutely gone aa the great
American desert, now a garden, or the buffalo and his Indian
chaser, now ghosts of a dream.

Nor is it true that Lincoln had no education in his bp^iood
He, indeed, went little to school, yet he learned to read,
write, and cipher; and what more does any school-boy learn
to-day f '' Beading,'' says Bacon, summing up edneatioii,
''maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an
exact man/' All these had the youth, Abraham LineohL
With them he stood at the gate of all treasures, key in hand,
as much master of the future as a graduate of Tale or Har-
vard. He knew the Bible thoroughly, .Ssop's ''FaUes,"
•'Pilgrim's Prepress,'' ''Bobinaon Crusoe," the "Invea" of
Washington and Henry Clay ; Bums, and later, Shakeapeareu
He not only read them with the eye, but made them a part
of his mind. The list is small, but it is a range of hiatoty
and poetry. Washington and Clay may well have been tiie
spur of Lincoln's ambitious Americanism; the Bible and
Bums, of his inspiration and sentiment and unexeelled s^e ;
JBsop's ''Fables" and "Pilgrim's Progress," of hia aptneas
of illustration.

The incidents of his early life are few, but suggestive.
At nineteen he made a trip down the Mississippi Biver on
a flatboat to New Orleans, and there sold a cargo — a trip
of larger education than Thomas Jefferson had ever taken at
the same age. A year later his father, who for fomr years
had been living in Indiana, went to Illinois; and the boy,
driving the ox-team which bore all the household goods*
helping build the home of logs, and split the rails of the farm

UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

^j^fc/'O^r-

ANN ARBOR. ^Z^ AO^ '•• C

ifrr^iyfci^^

^^ /j^

Facsimile of Manuscript Tribute from James B. Angell, President Emeritus

of the University of Michigan - ''-'^'

}

THE BOSTON COMMEHO&ATION SSI

fence — ^those raib so famous afterwards — ^was thus a resident
of three States of the Union before his majority, three States
representing the very growth of his magnificent cotmtiy.
Coming of age, he made a second flatboat descent to New
Orleans. It was there he saw for the first time the chaining,
whipping, and sale of negroes, and it may be that the im-
pression then made, inspired those immortal words in his
Second Inangnral;

^Fondlj do we hope— fervently do we pray — that tliis mighty scourge
of war may speedily pass away. Tet, if God wills that it continue
imtil aU the wealth piled hy the bondman's two hundred and fifty
years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until ereiy drop of blood
drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword,
as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said. The
judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.* "

Betnming to Illinois, he was clerk in a village store, which
meant again opportunities — ^by no means suffering — ^under
comparison with those of a college gradnate of to-day in a
lawyer's or broker's office in the city. It meant constant
discussion of political, religious, and social questions. It
meant a struggle for mastery in physical exercise and grocery-
store debate. At twenty-three, in the Black Hawk War,
Lincoln was Captain of a military company — another step
in large American life. Then he ''kept store," where his
honesty won him the name of ''Honest Abe." At twenty-
four he was Postmaster of the village— in other words, the
centre and conduit of its intelligence. All this time he was
absorbing every book he could get, learning law and mathe-
matics, and, when his store became a failure, supported him-
self by surveying. He had already engaged in political life,
often addressed his fellow-dtizens with telling effect, was
defeated as a candidate for the tllinois House of Representa-
tives when twenty-three, and elected at twenty-five.

Review this first chapter, and tell me where can be found
a better preparation for an American career. To what one
of those whom we call the favored youths of the land have
not his splendid advantages of social position and university
education sometimes seemed an obstacle rather than a help

Sn ABRAHAM LINCOLN

in the path that leads through the popular hedge to the pop-
ular servieef Hard lines! Lincoln's is rather one of the
illustriously fortunate careers of young men. The accidentB
of hard manual toil, scanty living, no money, splitting of
rails, are only the paint and pasteboard of the scene, the
tricks with which rhetoric loves to embellish the contrasts of
a eulogy. ''A man 's a man for a' that."

Lincoln was reelected three times to the Legislature, serv-
ing with Douglas and others who, like himself, became after-
wards famous. He identified himself with anti-slaveiy
measures, protesting with only one other associate, at a time
when even a protest was almost political martyrdom, against
fhe extremities of pro-slavery. Meantime he went into the
practice of the law, where again his opportunity was large.
Each County had its Court House, and this, rude as it might
be, was always, in the absence of other attractions — and there
were few otiier attractions— -the centre of popular interest
and attendance, the arena for advocacy and triaL From one
to another the lawyers rode a circuit. Among them were
some of the brightest men of the time, afterwards potent in
national councils, among whom Lincoln's genius of homely
power soon bore him to the front, a favorite alike with clients
and the bar. With this came still further prominence in aQ
public range. He delivered lectures on politics, temperance,
literature, and inventions. He was a favorite on the stump.
An Iff dent Henry Clay Whig, he was often pitted againsi
Douglas and other Democratic leaders. He was a moving
spirit in the Harrison campaign of 1840 and the Clay and
Polk campaign in 1844, being on the Illinois Whig electoral
ticket each time, the second time at its head. In 1848> as
afterwards just before the War, he spoke in New England
When, therefore, either as a matter of reproach or apotheosis,
his candidacy for the presidency in 1860 is referred to 9A
that of an unknown Illinois rail-splitter, it is well enou^ to
remember that some twenty years before that time he was
the foremost popular champion of anti-slavery principlea in
the North-west.

In 1847 he entered the Thirtieth Congress of the United

THE BOSTON COMMEMOBATION SiS

States. There he introduced, and vigorouBly advocated, pun-
gent Beaolutions concerning the Mexican War, and a
Bill to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia — ^a measure
which afterwards became law by his Presidential approvaL
For the next decade he devoted himself mainly to the law,
in which he earned a modest competence.

Had his life ended here, it would have been a fortunate
and snccessful life, indeed, but we should not be celebrating
it to-day. But it did not end here. This was only the ves-
tibule opening into the temple of the Lord, where he was
to be at once the high priest and the sacrifice.

Sincd our national independence began, there have been
three great eras : first, the adoption of the Constitution under
Madison and Hamilton; second, its construction by interpre-
tation under Marshall and Webster, which gave the Federal
Union a larger range of sovereignty than its strict letter ; and,
third, the exercise of that sovereignty, resulting in the en-
tirety of the Bepublic, the abolition of slavery, and the equality
of citizenship under Abraham Lincoln. Of this last era Lin-
coln was a typical spokesman and representative more than
any other man. Other men may have at times more bril-
liantly illuminated the path. He, by force of circumstances
and his own force, was the path itself. Seward stated, but
liincohi both stated and cut the Oordian knot of the 'Mrrepres-
aible conflict.''

The founders of our constitutional government expected
the early extinction of slavery. Side by side Northerner and
Southerner, Jefferson and Franklin, argued for its restriction.
Their anticipations were not fulfilled. The cotton interest
became identified with the possession and extension of slave
labor. The dave power was the nerve centre of the southern
half of the United States and, for a period, of our whole
political system. It infibred Northern pecuniary interests in
its mesh, and they became pro ianto sharers in the respon-
sibility for it. For years it dominated the national govern-
ment. It added new States to its circle. It fought to keep
equal pace with the institutions of freedom. It repealed
eompr<ni^i^9es that barred its loathsome efflux upon the fair

M4 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

territorial lands on which the Enmlight of liberty waa dswii-
ing. It recaptured its fngitiye slaves in Northern eapitala
It threatened the Union when the eagle of freedom «hrieke<l
And at last, under the Dred Scott decision, it daimed pro-
tection and the right of enslayement even in the Territories.
There was but one step more, and that was that the slave-
owner might marshal his slaves in the free States tfaerasdves
— aye, even under the shadow of Bunker Hill. The crisis had
come, indeed. In short, as Lincoln put it in those memorable
words:

**A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe tills gortfi-
ment cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do wA
expect the Union to be dissolved— I do not expect the hooae to fall;
but I do expect it wiU cease to be divided. It win beoanne sU om
thing or aU the other. Either the opponents of slavery wiU aneit
the further spread of it . . • or its advocates will push it forwaid
until it shall become alike lawful in aU the States, old as weU as nev.
North as weU as South."

Stephen A. Douglas^ Senator from Illinois, one of the moit
forcible men in our history, had taken the ground— -called
the Doctrine of Squatter Sovereignty — that the people of a
Territoiy should decide for themselves whether slavery should
exist there or not Plausible as it seemed, it ignored the
slave, and Lincoln exploded it with the simple formula fhst
it amounted simply to this, ^'That if any one man chocee to
enslave another, no third man shaU be allowed to object"
Grant, as he did, that slavery had a constitutional existenee
in the slave States where it was established, yet the moment
it sought to enslave any human being in the Territories of
the United States, it became there an unwarranted crime
against humanity, and the government was bound in con-
science and in duty to resirt it by every means in its power,
and to keep the national Territories for the homes and shrines
of freedom. From 1854 to 1861 the debate between these
great gladiators raged. The gory battlefields of history are
not so inspiring as this battle between conscience and crime.
Neither of the men was fifty years old, both sons of the farm,
makers of their own fortunes, leaders of the people, speaking

THE BOSTON COMMEMOBATION $%5

to miUicms of their eoimtiTmen, and standing, one of North-
em birth for the right of extension of slavery, the other,
Southern bom, for its restriction and for a Union which
should cease to be divided and thereby ultimately become all
free*

It was not a matter of chance that Lincoln was the cham-
pion of freedom. That he was so, proves the steady prepan^
tion and the commanding talents which fitted him for the
place. By the Illinois Legislature of 1856 he had come very
near to be chosen United States Senator; and at the Repub-
lican National Convention in 1856 he received one himdred
and ten votes as eimdidate for the vice*presidency on the
part of the Bepublican party, of which meantime he had
become one of the founders, and of which he was thenceforth
in the NorUi-west the undoubted leader. At its Conventions
in Illinois he was its spokesman, and in 1858 contested with
Douglas before the people the issue of the next United States
senatorship. It was in this contest that Lincoln challenged
Douglas to a series of six joint debates, which are the most
remarkable and influential of their kind in American — ^if not
in all forensic — ^history. Nor was it by any means a one-
sided contest, either in the matter of the debate or of the men
who debated it. Here, again, do not count Lincoln less than
he was. He was now a master thoroughly equipped for the
discussion. It is doubtful whether his superior for that work
could have been found in the whole country. Massachusetts,
New York, Ohio, and other States were rich in material;
but which of their orators — what Sumner or Seward or
Chase— could have brought to that arena of the plain people
the lance or mail that would have made or met the charge
like hist

It is a time in Lincoln's life to be dwelt upon, because
then was the formative process of public sentiment, of which
his administration later was the expression. In this great
debate he planted his feet on the rock of the Declaration of
Independence, which had always been and always was his
political philosophy and faith. Again and again, at this time
and forever after, he returned to it. Its imperishable inspirm-

Mfl ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Cooper Lurtitate in New Yoric City, and fherel^ won tbe
presidency of the East. It ia a picture worth recalling. Tlie
boy of the farm, the splitter of railB» the country atoie-
keeper and postmaster, the peripatetic sorveyor too poor to
own his instruments, the circuit lawyer, the stump speaknr
and lank humorist of the prairie who had recently won hk
spurs in the open-air debate with Douglas, stood before the
culture and enterprise of the metropolis of the New World.
His presiding ofEicer was Bryant, poet and patriot — our Biy-
ant. His platform was arrayed with the most eminent mer-
chants, scholars, lawyers, clergymen, business men, of the city.
His audience was the critical intelligence of America. There
was no doubt a kindly, half -patronizing curiosity to hear an
uncouth champion of the West, who had crossed swords with
the ^'little Oiant" If so, it quickly turned to the diacrim-
inating admiration which an Athenian audience might have
felt and expressed as the orator rose to his theme, and in
the pure and simple eloquence of candor, with an entire
mastery of his subject, delivered an address which planted the
Republican sentiment of the nation on an impregnable foun-
dation. Lincoln's speeches became thenceforth the ready-^t-
hand material of every New England fireside.

Under these circumstances his nomination aa the Bepnb-
lican candidate for the presidency in 1860 was the natural
evolution of events. It was the selection of the one man who^
in the popular mind, by and large, represented the national
protest against the aggression of the slave power in the
South and of the subserviency to it in the North, who could
rally alike in East and West the strongest popular vote, and
who could best hold together the patriotic sentiment of the
free States themselves when the shock of war should come,
not only rending apart North and South, but endangering
even in the North the harmony of its common all^panee*
At the Convention held in Chicago, May, 1860, lincohi waa
nominated on the third ballot, and in the following Novemb^
elected to the presidency.

Never in the history of the Union was there a more critical
and gloomy time than the interval between Lincoln 'a elee>

THE BOSTON COMMEMORATION 829

tion in November and his inangoration in March. The at-
tempted dissolution of the Repnblie had come. Webster's
prophetic nightmare was now a living horror. The helm
of state wavered in the palsied hand of Bnehanan. State
after State seceded. Faithless and dishonest Cabinet ofS*
eers were honeycombing the military and naval strength of
the federal government. Treason plotted in the capitaL
The very life of the President-eleet was in danger when he
left his home and made his way to Washington. His iiiang-
mral marked the new era of his life — a new departure, some-
times disappointing his friends, but applroved by the result
and signalizing the greatness of the man — a greatness suf-
ficient to adapt itself to new exigencies, to comprehend the
whole vast situation, and to direct the thunderbolts of the
storm. Up to this time he had been the charging and resist-
less advocate and prophet. He was now the cautious and
deliberate administrator. He had approved himself the
genius of the spoken conscience. He was now to approve him-
self the wise master of situations, responsibilities, and expedi-
encies. He had been among the foremost to court the peril
of driving the Ship of State into the angry straits. Now
at the helm, he was the careful pilot — shy of Scylla, on the
one hand, and of Charybdis, on the other. He who had
aeemed the boldest was now often censured as timid and as
withholding his hand from the plough. He had been the out-
spoken antagonist of the slave power. Now he seemed fearful
lest he shoidd invade its slightest constitutional right. For
forever in his mind was the purpose of the Declaration of
Independence — ^the Union of the States, with liberty its comer-
atone. Of this Union he remembered that he had been elected
President, and that on him— on him, perhaps, alone— was
fhe awful responsibUily of its preservation unbroken. To
this duty he seemed to feel himself bound to sacrifice all else.
The crisis that faced him was the crisis of that Union on the
point of disruption, and to avert that peril he bent everything.
Eleven States had seceded. If the border slave States, which
with good reason he believed to hold the balance of power,
should secede also, the breach would be irreparable and thii

SSO ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Union at an end. Because of this, caution and prudence^
especially in dealing with the slave problem, were the charae-
teristics of his early administration, sometimes exasper^tiiig
his warmest supporters and the enthusiastic patriots of the
North, but held to with serene and unflinching fidelity because
they were the result of profound conviction.

In the light of succeeding events, especially of the early
defeat at Bull Bun, history justifies him. Kentucky, His*
souri, Maryland, were never lost, nor Tennessee or Virginia,
except in part. The conservative element in the North, on
which the Southern leaders counted confldently, was kept in
line till that line was beyond breaking. I doubt if the world
has a nobler or a more pathetic picture than that of President
Lincohi in those days — ^that magnanimous soul, that spirit
without guile or malice, that prophet among the anti-slaveiy
crusaders, whose heart was still as loyal to their cause and
as tender of the shackled slave as was that of Garriaon <ff
Sumner or Phillips, but consecrated to his great responsibili-
ties as Gfod gave him to see them, superior to the assault of
enemies or the impatience of friends, single-eyed to the pres>
ervation of the Union, because the preservation of the Union
involved every hope he cherished for his country, its destrae-
tion every calamity which for her he feared. I love to think
that in the great providence of compensation God meantime
gave him to know that he was right, as at the end he knew it
when he walked the streets of Richmond one April day. Pre-
server of the Union, Emancipator of the Slave.

Disasters on the field came in those early months, thick and
fast, like successive overwhelming waves. The unsuecess in
command of many a soldier at the head of the army, inade-
quate to the task, seemed to waste years of agonizing suspense
in the swamps of Virginia. But, as the glacier moves, so
dowly the resistless forces of freedom moved on. From the
West came the victories of Grant, and then Grant himnplf^
who solved the riddle of war by striking the enemies' forees^
not by withdrawing his own, but by moving on his adversa-
ries' works immediately, by ^hting his campaigns through,
and by ''fighting them out on that line if it took all Summer."

THE BOSTON COMMEMOBATION $$l

Oomplications with foreign nations had been wisely avoided.
Seward, whose services as Secretary of State shonld never be
forgotten, yet had found in Lincoln a more discreet hand than
his own in the Trent negotiations, in which the United States,
though dearly justified by British precedent and doctrine,
yielded its contention hardly more to a prudent policy of con-
dliation than to its own traditional and more liberal theory
of the rights of neutrals on the high seas. The patriotic
sentiment of the North had already crystallized under lin-
eoln's wise prudence into cooperation. The border States
were secured. Slavery, surely crumbling under his policy —
more surely, it may now in his vindication be said, than if
the first blow had been straight betwixt the eyes of the mon-
ster— ^was abolished in the District of Colimibia. Colored
troops were enlisted, and the freedmen, wearing the uniform
of the country of which they were henceforth to be the equal
citizens of the Declaration of Independence, were enrolling
their names at Wagner and Olustee on the topmost scroll of
the heroic dead. Meantime the emancipation of slaves in the
loyal States, under a i^ystem of compensation, had been
considerately urged upon their owners by the President
Indeed, every step was taken to conciliate whatever interest
was at stake. And when, in September, 1862, he announced
his Emancipation Prodamation, and on the first day of Janu-
ary, 1863, gave it life, the country was ripe for its reception
and enforcement as the timely and consummate fruit of Qod's
providence and of the administration's faithful execution of
its evolving duty. Then came Gettysburg and Vicksburg
and Appomattox; and then that sight — oh, so pathetic, so
full of happy tears — ^the Illinois rail-splitter leading his little
0on by the hand, Qod's benediction on his homely face, angels
of forgiveness and mercy hovering around him as he walked
the streets of Richmond, capital again of the old State of
Yirginia, capital of the Confederacy no longer, a poor eman-
cipated slave woman kneeling at his feet and showering on
them all she had, her kisses and her tears. The Union was
preserved. Freedom was the equal right of all its children,
white or black. The Declaration of Independence was vindi*

SSf ABRAHAM LINCOLN

catecL The house had not fallen; it had ceased to be divided;
and Abraham Lincoln was forever enshrined in the heart of
the Republic.

Must it not be said that Abraham Lincoln's war policy, hii
policjr in dealing with slavery as an element in the Union
affecting its preservation, was right t When, in time of eriaifl^
Qod charges a wise man with a special responsibility above his
fellows, does he not sometimes give him special wisdom above
them akot

The Emancipation Proclamation is Abraham Lineoln's great
fame scroll To have at one stroke of the pen made four
million slaves free — to have at one cut ripped the cancer from
the Republic — ^there can be no greater glory in human histoiy.
Supplemented by the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteendi
Amendments to the Federal Constitution, which, as Mr. Mead
has said, were ^'the reduction to law of Lincoln's gospd and
Lincoln's life," it is his patent to immortality.

The colored race have every reason to cherish, as th^ do,
the memory of Abraham Lincoln. All that man oould do tor
them he did. They had unnumbered advocates, intense, de>
voted, true, but none who, in addition to all else, was so wise
as he. Qreater love hath no man than this, that he lay down
his life for his friends. But Lincoln not only laid down his
life for them, but had already given for years the very fol*
ness of it to their uplift. He struck the shackles from thor
limbs; he struck the more chafing shackles from their aools.
He gave them manhood. He made them soldiers of the Re-
public. He pointed them to the paths of education and
material thrift, and through these to the fruitions of equal
citizenship. He was no fanatic The Federal Constitatioa
was to him no ^4eague with hell," but the esqpedient inslm-
ment of a blessed union which with patience and wise pres-
sure could yet be moulded into provision for the equal ri^^
under it of all men, whatever their race or color. He did not
shut his eyes to racial differences and to the social discriminar
tions which have sprung therefrom. But from the first he
held to the faith that the negro was entitled to all the natoial
rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independenee, and

THE BOSTON COMMEMOEATION S$S

that, ''in the right to put into his month the bread that his
own hands have earned, he is the eqnal of every other man,
white or blaek.''

B^ond the first step of fre^om he was too wise to press
the negro forward too rapidly, either for his own good or
for the good of the Bepnblie. With what seems now the
pith of common sense, he would give him, as he would have
given men of any other race or color, training to fit him
for the functions of dtizenship. He would have given him
education, whether of the school of military service, or of the
primer or copy book or of industrial attainment, before con*
f erring upon him suffrage during the War, thus making it
the expression of an intelligent and responsible dtisendiip
rather than a premature agen<gr of social disorder and politi-
cal cora^ption. He would have deprecated any tidal wave
of ignorance and irresponsibility deluging the Southern
States and retarding their return, not only to national pros-
perity, but to the sentiment of national union. Had he lived,
would he not, with his rare tact, have saved us the blunder
of unfitted, and swamping, immediate universal suffrage too
early conferred f Would he not rather have laid the founda-
tions of universal suffrage in such agencies as later have found
expression in work like that of Booker Washington! Later,
and in due season, the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amend-
ments to the Federal Constitution would have followed the
Thirteenth, which was adopted during Lincoln's administra-
tion, and the three would have been the consummation of his
policy. He would have combined, as he always did, the natu-
ral rights, whether of the negro or any other citizen, with
expedient development in the use and enjoyment of th^n.
Had his policy prevailed, freedom would have meant to the
enfranchised slave, not political office or its flamboyant badges
and titles, but the bountiful fruit of the right to eat the bread
which his own hand earns, to add to his intellectual and
material acquisitions, to prove by his thrift, by his attain-
ments in scholarship, and by his accumulation of property,
as he is now so abundantly proving, his capacity for full
participation in affairs. The colored citizen would have been

88* ABRAHAM LINCOLN

saved the hmniliatioii of his early ejeotment fiom predpitaiit
political ooeupationy and would sooner have secured, as he
is now securing^ that call to political seiwiee which oomea, and
will hereafter more and more come, to whatever man stands
ont with evident fitness for it This is the troe fntnte and
tme aim for the colored race. And this is what Ltnooln,
their best friend and the best friend of their former masteia,
would have had them have. Wonld he conld have lived to
note their schools and colleges, their wide-spread indostrieSy
their men eminent in institutional, professional, and aoeial
life, their teachers and poets and novelists, their snceesifal
merchants, farmers, and manufacturers! Had he lived, is
it too much to say that this rising tide in their affairs would
have sooner set in t And, were he living, with what faith
Would they still turn to him in every contingency, sore of
justice at his hands I His legacy to us is the duty of ant
same justice at our hands. Our tributes to him are but lip
service,. if we do not see to it that no tinge of black or red
in any man's skin shall be permitted to discriminate him in
his rights under the law as a citizen from any other eitiaai
of the Union or of any State in it.

Two adjectives that seem especially to describe TiJneoln's
relation to the great work to which he was called are '^apt"
and ^'adequate." No man ever made less pretence. His
integrity and truth were structural, bom in him. His mag-
nanimity, his superiority to personal feeling, are almost
unparalleled in public Ufe. It animated every impulse. It
breathed in his repeated invitations to the Confederate gov-
ernment to personal interviews on terms of peace; in Ids
dealings with his civil and military subordinates when un-
successful or at fault; in his patience with McGleUan, his
consideration for Bumside, his wise counsel to Hooker,
his self-effacing disinterestedness towards Chase. It made
him quicker to take than to lay blame. And when, at hia
death, his record was recalled, that magnanimity the whole
world recognized. He had conquered its admiration. He
had shamed its prejudice and ridicule; and the ''scurrile
jester,'' penitent and atoning, was among the first — ^to his

THE BOSTON COMMEMORATION 885

■

honor be it remembered — ^to lay his garland on the martyr's
grave. His gentleness and tenderness of heart allied him to
the very springs of qrmpathy and opened his ear to the
humblest that sought it. A quaint humor flavored his in-
formal speech with a homely relish, and was, as he used to
suggest, his safety-valve during those exacting years of the
War. It had been exaggerated, no doubt, in the report of
ity yet it always kept him in popular rapport. More than
this, it was a keen instrument, purposely used as such, to
carve his way to essential results, either in debate or in
administration. It was the humor, not of a clown, but of a
diplomatist. In this respect, as also in respect to a seeming
waste of his attention in arranging petty details of official
patronage with Congressmen and office-seekers who hounded
him — a thing which so unfavorably impressed some men of
distinction who sought him on the higher themes of State —
I recall a remark of Mr. Root It was to the effect that all
this was largely the shrewd method, where no other would
serve, of that conciliation of interests and that winning of
congressional help, by means of which measures vitally neces-
sary to the great work in hand were secured, and which with
less tact and sacrifice would have been lost.

And with the country at large, with what consummate
divination and wisdom Lincoln now led, now met, now fol-
lowed, but always grasped and held — making it the mighty
backing of his administration — ^the public sentiment 1 Thank
Ood it never lost faith in him 1

The literature of Lincoln in his political and State papers
is of the highest order, unsurpassed, if equalled. In temper
and tone, in convincing force, with at the same time regard-
ful consideration of others' views; restrained in expression,
never extravagant or offensive, and thus making his personal
argument more effective, they are models at once of strength
and tact and taste in the discussion of questions of State.
The style of this graduate from a log cabin is consummate.
His phrasing, his neat antithesis, his clearness of statement,
his compelling argument, his choice of apt words, his telling
metaphors and illustrations, and the exquisite framework of

«36 ABBAHAM LINCOLN

his prepared speeeh— ^dways liiiiple, yet alwaja oompkto—
gave to his masterpieces the rare excdlenoe of the King JasMi
yersion of Holy Writ. David sang not with a purer odenet
or a more exalted vision.

But far above the style, is the spirit of that litentme,
the heart that inspired it beating for all his feUow men, e^m
those who reviled him and said all manner of evil against
him. His earlier public speeches, before his higher pranih
nenoe, had often the broader flavor of the stump, and were
attuned to attract and convince the popular environment to
which he appealed. But in the great debate with Dom^
and in the speeches of that time, he began to strike higher
chords. And, beginning with his Cooper Institute Addrai
and all through his State papers and formal ntteranees, he
rose to the height of the benediction and charify of the divine
Master. The State papers of no other publicist in tone and
spirit are so responsive to the pattern of Jesus. His appesb
were forever to justice and fairness. He never lost sight of
the other side. He gave full credit to its argument, its
claims, its rights, its temptations, and its eztenuations,
whether he contended with it in debate or fought it in battte
— ^yea, even in the very stress of the angry fire of treaaon and
war. You cannot read, then, that there sounds not in your
ear the sweet accompaniment of a heavmly voice saying,
^'As ye would that men should do to you, do ye alao to them
likewise," ''Judge not that ye be not judged," ''Love your
enemies, do good to them which hate you," "Father, forgife
them, for they know not what they do."

And yet this man was untutored in sehoola of divinity—
save in the great school of Nature's open providence, and the
Bible of the lowly fireside— caring for no theology save tiial
of love to God and to his fellow men. I love to think that in
one of his successors the f oree of example in this respect is
manifest — in the State papers, as also in the spirit, of the
lamented McEinley, who, as those who were in dose toueh
with him were always conscious, made himsdf a disciple of
Lincoln and patterned him — ^like him, alas! even in his
martyr's death. May the same high and inspiring ideal be

THE BOSTON COMMEMOBATION 897

always the guiding star of those who rule this our beloved
landl

In that terrible straggle which involved the ontrooting of
human slavery, Lincoln never forgot that neither side was
innocent of its existence among us, or that the people of the
South believed in their cause, and in their construction of
their rights under the Federal Constitution. To him they
were the erring, not the malevolent, brother ; and the moment
they laid down their arms their sins were forgiven them.
In the Cooper Institute Speech, in the two nobly generous
Inaugurals — and, indeed, always — ^what charity, what reach-
ing out of the welcoming hand, what appeal to eveiy senti-
ment of brotherhood,' what pleading for righteousness and
peace and good will I To^y the South knows and feels all
this. The mists and passions of half a century ago have
faded away, and the memory of Lincoln shines like a star in
the serene heaven of our Union in which it is our brightest
link.

And shall not we of this new century rise as a nation to
the ideal of that lofty time of which he became the incarna-
tion— ^the ideal of a Bepublic not lost in material interests,
great and important as they are; not blinded with the glare
of prosperity, wide and comforting as it is; not bent on be-
coming a defiant world i>ower, large as are the responsibilities
that come with it; but devoted to righteousness as a people,
to the eradication of every root of misery and wretchedness
and injustice in our soil, and to the elevation of the humblest
and poorest and weakest f Our apotheosis of Lincoln, even
if exaggerated, should lift us out of the murk and stress and
tumult of our time, and bring the jarring elements of our
social and industrial life to a better understanding.

Had he lived, who does not feel that the reunion of the
national heart would have far m(»re speedily followed the
reunion of political bands ! Beconstruction was a most dif&-
eolt problem, and the utmi)st respect is to be had for the con«
vietions of the great and patriotic men who differed as to
its solution. But I cannot doubt that the ultimate verdict of
disinterested consideration, free from the intense feeling

S$S ABBAHAM LINCOLN

of his time, will be with Lincoln. To him it was a praetieal,
not a theoretical, or sentimental question. He did not regard
it as worth while to determine nicely whether by their rebel*
lion the Confederate States had lost their statehood in the
Union, or had remained in it. If the former, it is difficult to
see why they had not accomplished all that they attempted.
We fought to keep them in, and, if the victory was oiin»
as it was, they were logically, and in fact, still States in the
Union, though their relations with the national government
were of course so disturbed and chaotic that legislation was
necessary to readjust those relations and to safeguard all the
interests involved. Such was, undoubtedly, Lincoln's view;
but he was looking to conditions, not to theories. Beginning
with Louisiana, as soon as a reasonably large portion of ila
citizens organized a State government, adopted a free Cod-
stitution, confirmed the Thirteenth National Constitutioiial
Amendment abolishing slavery, provided public schools fir
white and black, and empowered their Legislature to give the
suffrage to the colored man, he would have restored that Stale
to its harmony in the Union. The example would have bees
followed in other States. No doubt the process of such reeoiiT
struction would have been accompanied by injustices to the
freedmen; but the triumphant loyal majorities of the Hortk
would have safeguarded them, so that, whatever fheir hard-
ships in the transition, these would probably have been smdl
compared with those that came under the course adopted afler
Lincoln's death. Ten years of a reconstruction role that m
a melancholy and disastrous period in our history would have
been mitigated. The enmities of the War would have been
quieted rather than accentuated. The increased pr^udiee
against the negro, arising from the natural bittemesB of his
former masters at being made his political subject, and rank-
ling even to this day, would have been cftecked. Had Lib*
coin lived — ^with his hold on popular senliments, with the
prestige of his triumph over disunion, with his sagacity and
persuasiveness, with his knowledge of the South, and its r&>
sponding appreciation of his charity towards it — ^it is not too
much to believe that he would have made his policy the

THE BOSTON COMMEMOKATION 889

eonntry's policy of reconstruction. Where he could not have
wholly carried his point, he would have modified it without
wholly sacrificing his views to those of the leaders of the
more radical wing. But the result would have been, in the
main, the carrying out of his. We should have been saved
the bitter contentions of Congress with his successor, and the
Ship of State would have ridden into safe harbor with no
mutiny on board and the captain in command.

Indeed, could Sumner have been conciliated to Lincoln's
views, it would have been comparatively smooth sailing. Per-
sonal friends, their one main difference in the matter of
reconstruction was as to the inmiediate bestowal of suffrage
upon the negro. No plan would Sumner accept that did not
give it Any plan would Lincoln accept that would restore
peace, and the Union, and insure the rights of the negro in
due season. To utilize his own homely illustration of the egg
and the fowl, he would make sure of the fowl by hatching
the egg rather than by smashing it; while Sumner, uncom-
promising in his high sense of supreme duty, and single-eyed
to what he regarded as absolutely right, would sooner smash
the egg than have a chicken not fully fledged. It is interest-
ing to think what would have been the course and outcome
of the struggle between these two great leaders — ^the great
doctrinaire, who was contented only with the consummation
oif his convictions, though the heavens fell, and the great
pacificator, who would secure the same ultimate justice,
though he gave time to the heavens to clear. Again, it can
hardly be doubted that the same patient tact, the same hold
on the popular sentiment, the same persuasive appeal, the
same winning sympathy with the plain people which had won
the debate with Douglas — ^which, through liie War, had gath-
ered to Lincoln^ support the constantly rising volume of the
nation's faith mfi confidence — ^would have given him the
C^dance in the r^nstruction of the Union.

The juster verdict of lapsing time recogniises the honest
purpose of Lincoln's immediate successor in his views on re-
eonstmction, which were, i>erhaps, not far removed from
liincoln's own. And yet there could be no more striking

$40 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

illufltration than fhe contrnMt between the two men of ttit
marvelloTis sense and wisdom whieh Lincoln never failed ts
bring to the solution of every entanglement. Not of bim
could it be said, ''Vis congili expers nde ruU sua.*' Hia noffc
the tomahawk of Metacom, but the persoaaiyeneaB of Joka
Eliot.

You all know the story of Lincoln's death, that tragedj
of the War. The Rebellion was cruahed, the War OYer, the
slave free. The great prophet and magistrate had fought tiie
good fight and kept the faith. The pistol bullet of a drunken,
mad assassin cut the thread of life, and Abraham Lineola
was dead, a martyr on the altar of his country.

As we read history — ^thank GkHl, it is true rather of the
past than the present — what vice, what filth, what inaolenee)
what grinding of the poor, what indifference to human aoffer^
ing, what contempt of human rights, what rot and shame and
meanness, have been the personal characteristics— though aome-
times associated with great qualities and achievementa — of
most of the rulers of the world I What wonder that refvofai-
tion has so often come in riot and rivers of blood I What a
relief to turn to this chosen of the i>eople, without stain at
spot, this pure in heart and blessed of the Lord! I love to
picture in my mind's eye not more the ruler than the man.
I fancy him at the consummation of his glory — ^the crown of
ho9or lifted to his head, not only by hia country, but by the
world — ^yet simple and unaffected still. I fancy him atanding
beneath the stars on the heights of the Soldiers' Home, gaang
over the roofs of Washington and aeron the historic Potomaey
alone and lonely, dreaming not of hia fame and prestige, but
of the early pioneer days, the meagre honest home, the
mother's devotion, the early struggles, the first revelatioiia
of the printed pagd the first thrills of ambition for largv
life, the growing consciousness and exercise of natural powa%
the free, unconventional life of the prairie, the steady eleva-
tion to higher service, the people's tournament of debate, the
long four years of chief magistracy of the nation, years ta>
multuous with war and intricate with statecraft, a nation in
eonvulsion, an earthquake of rending forces, a fire sweepb^

THE BOSTON COMMBMOEATION Ml

the land, bat after and above all, the still amall voice of an
approving eonaeienee at peace with God.

Not his that saddeit of all historic destinies— the fate of
that mighty dynamo that once shook the world, but at last
stood an inert lump on a lone rock in mid-ocean — *^ caelum
nndigue, et undique pon/ia/'— his glories and principalities
and powers now only dust in his hands, and his heart
l>roken.

And how truly it may be said of Lincoln, he still lives I
He lives in bronse and marble and canvas; he lives in the
memory of a grateful country. His ssrmpathy with the plain
people, felt by him and by them, yet indescribable in words,
has given him a place in fheir hearts closer than that of any
other public man. He will stand with Washington, foremost
among our great ones. We lack discrimination when we say
of this or that man that he was the greatest. But this may
be said of Lincoln, that of all Americans, if not of all men
of the nineteenth century, he achieved the most enduring,
the greatest and purest fame. With neither the culture of
Sumner nor the might of Webster — ^yet either of them in Lin-
coln's place, you instinctively fed, would have fallen below
him in the discharge of his trust No doubt his growth up-
vrard was largely due to his presidential culture and pruning,
and that he was a greater man at its close than at its begin-
ning. And, when we speak of him as great, we mean great
in the general impressive sense. There is a greatness of pure
intellect, of pure force, independent of circumstances, like some
tall memorial shaft springing from the earth to the sky.
There is another greatness that is like some mountain-side
rich with foliage and verdure, towering above the plain and
yet a part of it. Lincoln, no doubt, in marvellous variety
of talent comes short of Franklin ; in quick fertility of genius,
of Hamilton ; in philosophic vision, of Jefferson. But in im-
pressiveness on his time, and in his stamp on history and pub-
lic sentiment, Lincoln leads. He is the great American of
his age,

^ew birth of our new soil, the First Ameriouu"

543 ABBAHAM LINCOLN

There is an element in this kind of popular greatnesB witt^
out which the title of great is nev^r at last conferred. It if
the moral element of sincerity and tmtii. There have been
men who rendered inestimable services to their country,
whose words were patriotic fire, whose shoulders upheld the
BepubliCy and yet there goes with their names the unspokn
consciousness of a lack of entire faith in them. It is tke
singular glory of Lincoln that with all his ambition we feel
he was true to the prof oundest moral instincts. God be
praised that amid all doubt, and in spite of so many cromblinf
idols, there be now and then — aye, often — a soul that mmmti
and keeps its place ! Our tributes are not more to him pe^
sonally, than to the ideal of moral character whidi we im
taught ourselves, and are teaching our children, that he standi
for. There lie the true significance and value of our eatar
tion of him.

Honor to your memory, homely rail-splitter President, tfait
no act or motive of yours has ever been counted in derogstioB
of the integrity of your life or example I Qood and hifhbi
servant, stand forever forth in the people's hall of fine,
crowned with their undying love and praise — sainted-in-
mortal!

LINCOLN: "VALIANT-POR-TEUTH"

HON. HENBT CABOT UODGE

YOU have asked me to address you upon this, tUe one
hundredth anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lin-
coln; to express for you and to you some of the thoughts
which ought to find utterance when, on the completion of the
century, we seek to pay fit homage to the memory of that
great man.

I know not how it may be with the many others, who, in
these days of commemoration, will speak of Lincoln, but to
me the dominant feeling, as I approach my subject, is a sense
of helplessness, and a sharp realization of the impossibility of
doing justice to such an occasion. To attempt here a review
of his life would be labor lost Ten stately volumes by those
who lived in closest communion with him, and who knew him
best, were not more than adequate to tell fitly the story of
his life. That story, too, in varying form, is known to all
the people, ''familiar in their mouths as household words.''
From the early days of dire poverty, from the log cabin of
the shiftless pioneer, ever moving forward in search of a
fortune which never came, from the picture of the boy work-
ing his sums, or reading his Bible and his Milton by the red
light of the fire, the marvellous tale goes onward and upward
to the solemn scene of the second inaugural, and to the burial
of the great chief amid the lamentations of a nation. We
know it all, and the story is one of the great treasures of the
American people. ^-

Still more impossible would it be in a brief moment here
to draw, even in the barest outline, a sketch of the events
in which bis was the commanding presence, for that would be
to write the history of the United States during the most
crowded and most terrible years of our existence as a nation.

8M ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Yet if Lincoln's life and deeds, by their very magnitndei
thus exdnde ns from any attempt even to enumerate them,
there is, nevertheless, something still better which we can do
upon this day, forever made memorable by his birth. We
can render to him what I venture to think is the traest hcon-
age, that which I believe he would prize most, and compared
to which any other is little more than lip service. We can
pause to-day in the hurry of daily life and contemplate that
great, lonely, tragic figure — that imagination with its toodi
of the poet, that keen, strong mind, with its humor and hs
pathos, that splendid common sense and pure character — and
then learn from the life which the possessor of all these
qualities lived, and from the deeds which he did, lesaons
which may not be without value to each one of us in our
owja lives, in teaching us the service which we should render
to our country. Let me express my meaning, with alight
variation, in his own immortal words: The world will litOe
note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never
forget what [he] did here. It is for us, the living, rather, to
be dedicated here to the unfinished work which he who f ougbl
here has thus far so nobly advanced.

In his spirit, I am about to suggest a few thoughta amooog
the many which have come to me as I have meditated upon
the life of Abraham Lincoln, and upon what, with that great
theme before me, I should say to you to-day.

I desire first, if I can, to take you back for a moment to
the living man, and thereby show you what some of his trials
were, and how he met them, for, in doing so, I believe we can
learn how to deal with our own problems. I think, too, that
if we thus look upon him with considerate eyes, we shall be
inspired to seek, in public affairs, for more charitable and
better instructed judgments upon public men and pnMie
events than are common now. We are apt, unconaeionsly
and almost inevitably, to confuse in our minds the lineoln
of to-day — ^the Lincoln of history, as he dwells in our hearts
and our imaginations — ^with the actual man who waa President
of the United States in the dark days of the Civil War, and

THE BOSTON COMMEMORATION 345

who Btrnggled forward amid difficnltiea greater, almost^ than
any ever encountered by a leader of men«

Mankind has never lost its capacity for weaving myths,
or its inborn love for them. This faculty, or rather this in-
nate need of hnman nature, is apparent in the earliest pages
of hnman history. The beantif nl and tragic myths, bom of
the Oreek imagination, which have inspired poets and
dramatists for three thousand years, come to us out of the dim
past with the light of a roseate dawn upon them. They oome
to us alike in the great verse of Homer, and veiled in the
gray mists of the north, where we descry the shadows of
fighting men, and hear the dash of swords and the wild
screams of the Valkyries. The leaders of tribes, the founders
of States, the eponjrmous and autochthonous heroes in the
infancy of civilization were all endowed by the popular imag-
ination with a divine descent and a near kinship to the gods.
We do not give our heroes godlike ancestors — ^although I
have seen a book which traces the pedigree of Washington
to Odin — but when they are great enough, we transmute the
story of their lives into a myth, just like the Greeks and the
Norsemen. Do not imagine from this that I am about to
tell you of the ''real" or the ''true" Lincoln. Nothing would
be more alien to my purpose, or more distasteful, for I
have observed that, as a rule, when these words are prefixed
to the subject of a biography it usually means that we have
spread before us a collection of petty details and unworthy
gossip which presents an utterly distorted view of a great
man, which is, in substance, entirely false, and which grati-
fies only those envious minds which like to see superiority
brought down to their own level. Such presentations are as
ignoble and base as the popular myth, however erroneous, is
loving and beautiful — ^a manifestation of that noble quality
in human nature which Carlyle has described in his "Hero
Worship." I wish merely to detach Lincoln from the myth
— ^which has possession of us all — ^that his wisdom, his purity,
and his greatness were as obvious and acknowledged in his
lifetime as they are to-day. We have this same feeling about
the one man in American history who stands beside Lincoln

946 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

in unchallenged equality of greatness. Washington, indeed,
is 80 far removed that we have lost our conception of the
fact that he was bitterly criticised, that he struggled with
many difficulties, and that his words, which to us have an
almost sacred significance, were, when they were uttered,
treated by some persons then extant with contempt. Let me
give you an idea of what certain people, now quite forgotten,
thought of Washington when he went out of office. On the
sixth of March, 1797, the leading newspaper of the opposition
spoke as follows :

^^'Lord, now lettest Thou Thy Benrant depart in peace/ was the
pioufl ejaculation of a pious man who bdield a flood of happineaa mail-
ing in upon mankind. If ever there waa a time that would Uoenae the
reiteration of the ejaculation, that time has now arrived, for the man
who ifl the source of all the misfortunes of our country is this day
reduced to a level with his fellow citizens, and is no longer possessed
of power to multiply evils upon the United States. If ever there was
a period for rejoicing, this is the moment. Every heart in unison
the freedom and happiness of the people, ought to beat high
exultation that the name of Washington ceases from this day to give
currency to political insults and to legalized corruption. A new era
is now opening upon us — an era which promises much to the people,
for public measures must now stand upon their own merits, and ne-
farious projects can no longer be supported by a name. When a
retrospect has been taken of the Washington administration for eight
years, it is a subject of the greatest astonishment that a single individ-
ual should have cankered the principles of Republicanism in an en-
lightened people just emerging from the gulf of despotism, and should
have carried his designs against the public liberty so far as to have
put in jeopardy its very eristenoe. Such, however, are the iacta^ and
with these staring us in the face^ the day ought to be a jubilee in tiis
United States.''

How strange and unreal this sounds to us who know not
merely that George Washington led the army of the United
States to victory, but that his administration established our
Union and our govemmenty which Lincoln, leading the Amer-
ican people, was destined to preserve. The myth has grown
so powerful that it is hard to comprehend that actual living
men were uttering words like these about George WashingttHU

The same feeling in regard to Lincoln began to take form

C LOOCC . Chairman

UNITED STATES SENATE

COMMITTEE ONTHC PHILIPPINES

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Facsimile of Manuscript Tribute from Hx)n. Henry Cabot Lodge,
United States Senator from Massachusetts

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Facsimile of Manuscript Tribute from Rev. Lyman T. Abbott,

Editor of "The Outlook"

THE BOSTON COMMEMORATION 847

even earlier than in the case of Washington. The manner of
his death made men see, as by a flash of lightning, what he
was and what he has done, even before the grave closed over
him. Nothing illnslarates the violent revnlsion of sentiment
which then ocearred better than the verses which appeared
in ''Punch" when the news of his death reached England.
He had been jeered at, abused, vilified, and caricatured in
England to a degree which can be understood only by those
who lived through that time, or who have turned over the
newspai>ers and magazines, or read the memoirs and diaries
of that epoch. In this chorus of abuse ''Pimch" had not
lagged behind. Then came the assassination, and then these
verses by Tom Taylor, written to accompany Tenniel's car-
toon representing England laying a wreath on Lincoln 's bier :

'^Beside thia corpse, that bean for winding sheet
The Stars and Stripes he lived to rear anew.
Between the mourners at his head and feet^
8bj, scurril jester. Is there room for yont

'HTes, he had lived to shame me from my sneer,

To lame my pencil and confute my pen;
To make me own this hind of princes peer,
This rail-splitter a true horn king of men."

How, at a glance, we see not only the greatness and nobility
of the man, forcing themselves upon the minds of men, abroad
as at home, but how keenly these remorseful verses make us
realize the storm of abuse, of criticism and defamation through
which he had passed to victory I

From that day to this the tide of feeling has swept on,
until, with Lincoln, as with Washington, we have become
unable, without a serious effort, to realize the attacks which
he met, the assaults which were made upon him or the sore
trials which he had to endure. I would fain show you how
the actual man, living in those terrible years, met one or
two of the attacks.

Lincoln believed that the first step toward the salvation of
the Union was to limit the area of secession. He wished
above all things, therefore, to hold in the Union the border

948 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

States, as they were then callecL If those States weaee added
to the Confederacy, the chances of saving the Union would
have been seriously diminished In those same States there
was a strong Union feeling, and a very weak anti-slavezy feel-
ing. If they could be convinced that the controlling purpose
of the War was to preserve the Union, the chances were that
they could be held, but if they were made to believe that the
real object of the War was the abolition of slavery, they would
probably have been lost. linooln, therefore, had eheQkBd
Fremont in issuing orders for the liberation of the slaves, and
in the first year of the War had done nothing in that diree-
tion, for reasons which seemed to him good, and which, to
all men to-day, appear profoundly wise. Abolitionists, and
extreme anti-slavery men everywhere, were bitterly disap-
pointed, and a flood of criticism was let loose upon him for
his attitude in tins matter, while at the same time he was
also denounced by reactionaries, and by the opposition as a
^'Radicar^ and ^' Black Bepublican." Horace Greeley, an
able editor and an honest man, devoted to the cause of the
Union, but a lifelong and ardent opponent of slavery, aasafled
the President in The New York Tribune. Here is Lincoln's
reply:

"Am to the policy I 'ieem to be puTBuing,' as yon say, I hsFS noi
meant to leave anyone In doubt.

"I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under
the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored,
the nearer the Union will be 'the Union as it was.' If there be ihom
who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time aave
slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be thoee who would
not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy
slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this
struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to de-
stroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slavey
I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing aU the slaves, I would
do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others aloasb
I would also do that. What I do about slavery and the colored racsb
I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear,
I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I
shall do less whenever I shall believe that what I am doing hurts tbe
cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will

THE BOSTON COMMEMORATION 549

help the came. I shall ixj to correct errors when shown to be errors,
and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true
views.

"I have here stated my purpose according to mj view of oflSelal
duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish
that all men everywhere ooold be free.*

What a reply that is 1 Using his unrivalled power of state-
ment he sets forth his policy with a force which drives
opposition helpless before it and renders retort impossible.
He strips the issue bare of every irrelevant consideration
and makes it so plain that no one can mistake it.

This was a case of specific criticism. There were others of
a more general nature. A few months after Qreeley wrote,
Liincoln received a letter from Mr. Carl Schurz. Mr. Schurz,
who has been a familiar figure to the present generation, was
an able man and a very eloquent and effective speaker, espe-
cially upon economic subjects. He was also fond of criticising
other people who were doing work for which they were re-
sponsible and not he. His system of criticism was a simple
one. He would depict an ideal President, or Cabinet officer,
or Senator; put him in an ideal situation, surrounded by
conditions as they ought to be, and with this imaginary per-
son, he would then contrast, most unfavorably, the actual
man who was trying to get results out of conditions which
were not at all as they ought to be, but which, as a matter of
fact, actually existed. This method of discussion, of course,
presented Mr. Schurz in a very admirable light, and gave him
a great reputation, especially with people who had never been
called upon to bear any public responsibility at alL When
Mr. Schurz was in the Cabinet himself he fell easily into the
class which he criticised, and, naturally, bore no relation to
the ideal by which he tried other people, but that fact never
altered the opinion of his greatness entertained by his ad-
mirers. They liked to hear him find fault pointedly and
eloquently with their contemporaries, but they forgot or over-
looked the fact that in the past he had applied his gystem to
Lincoln, and in that connection the process seems less con-
vincing.

850 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Here is Lincoln's reply to Mr. Scharz's critieism :

"EzEOiTTiTS Mansion, WASHnreiON, Nor. 24, 1882.

GSNKRAL CabL SOHUBZ,

'HIT Dbab Sib: I haye jiut received and read your letter of the
20th. The purport of it is, that we loet the late electione, and the ad-
ministration is failing, because the war is unsuccessful, and that I must
not flatter myself that I am not justly to blame for it. I oatainty
know that if the war fails, the Administration fails, and that I
will be blamed for it, whether I deserve it or not. And I oag^t to
be blamed, if I could do better. Ton think I could do better; then-
fore you blame me already. I think I could not do better; therefore
I blame you for blaming me. I understand you now to be willing
to accept the help of men who are not Republicans, provided they havt
Hieart in it.' Agreed. I want no others. But who is to be the judge
of hearts, or of 'heart in it'? If I must discard my own judgment and
take yours, I must also take that of others; and by the time 1 ekoiiid
reject all I should be advised to reject, I should have none left,
Bepublicans or others — not even yourself. For be assured, my dear
air, there are men who have 'heart in it' that think you are perfanmng
|rour part as poorly aa you think I am performing mine."

In these two letters which I have quoted lie great lesBons.
There is not a man to-day, whose judgment would be of any
yalue, who does not know thatToncoln, in these instances, was
absolutely right, and his critics hopelessly and ignorantly
wrong. They teach us that a great executive officer, dealing
with the most momentous problems, cannot do everything at
once; that he must subordinate the lesser to the greater if
he would not fail entirely; that he must do the best he can,
and not lose all by striving vainly for the ideally best. He
must steer, also, between the radical extremists on the one
side and the reactionary extremists on the other — ^no easy
task, and one which Lincoln performed with a i>erfectiQD
rarely seen among men. Lincoln could have said, with abso-
lute truth, as Seneca's Pilot says, in Montaigne's paraphrase:

''Oh, Neptune^ thou mayest save me if thou wilt; thou mayeat rink
me if thou wilt; but whatever may befall I shaU hold my tiUer
true.**

As we look at this correspondence, and see how Lincoln
was criticised by able men on a point where the judgment of

THE BOSTON COMMEMORATION 851

events and of history alike has gone wholly in his favor, is
it not well for us, before passing hasty judgment and indulg-
ing in quick condemnation, to reflect that the man charged with
great public duties may have a knowledge of conditions and
possess sources of information which are not known to the
world, or even to those who criticise T Both for men in public
life, and for those who criticise these men, I think this corre-
spondence contains many lessons in conduct and character
which, if taken to heart, will make the public service better
and the judgment of the onlooker less hasty.

The thought and the admonition which these glimpses of
the past bring to us, have been put into noble verse by a poet
of our own day, and it is to the poet that we must always
turn for the best expression of what we try to say with the
faltering words of prose :

''A flying word from here and there,

Had sown the name at which we sneered^
But soon the name was everywhere.

To be reviled and then revered:
A presence to be loved and feared.

We cannot hide it or deny
That we, the gentlemen who jeered.

Hay be forgotten by and by.*'

Consider, also, the result. Lincoln's paramount purpose
was to save the Union, and he saved it. His critics thought
he was sacrificing the anti-slavery cause. He thought other-
wise, and he was right. At the accepted time he emancipated
the slaves and signed the death warrant of human slavery.
Had he struck at the wrong moment he might have ruined the
Union cause and thereby left the slaves in bondage. He was
a great statesman, and he knew all the conditions, not merely
a part of them. He therefore succeeded where his critics
would have failed.

Turn now from the difficulties and the criticisms with which
Xiincoln contended upon his own side, and which surrounded
him like a network, through which he had to cut or break his
way as best he might, and look with me for a moment at the
force with which he was doing battle, and see whether we can

8M ABRAHAM LINCOLN

also find a lesson there. Linooln's purpose mm to SKve the
Union; the object of those with whom he fought was to
destroy it I am not going to waste time upon that emptied
of all questions^ whether the States had the right, nnder the
Constitution, to seeede. The purpose of the Conatitation, if it
had meaning or purpose, was to make a nation out of janing
States, and that it had succeeded in doing so waa stated faj
kWebster, once and for all, when he replied to Hayne in the
greatest speech ever made in the Senate. Secession was the
destruction of the Union, whether the Constitution provided
for such a contradiction as tiie right of secession or not
Secession was revolution, and revolution is not to be stopped,
or to be provided for, by paper constitutions. This partieidar
revolution, however, found its reason and its ezeuae in the
doctrine of State rights. Under cover of ™«w^iiiii^ tiie
rights of States, the Union was to be destroyed. On this
issue the War was fought out. The Union waa victoriooB,
and the rights of States emerged from the conflict beaten and
discredited. The result brought with it a new danger in the
direction of a disproportionate growth in the power of tiie
central government, and this peril the fanatics of State
rights, ahd no one else, had brought upon themselvea and
upon the country. In the first public speech which I ever
delivered — some thirty years ago, alas I — ^I said:

. . . "The prindple of State rights is as Tital and
the national principle itself. If the former, oarried to extremaB,
anarchy, the latter, carried to like extremes, means oentralisatioa ani
despotism.

"Two lessons are dearly written on the pages which reeovd tte
strife between the inborn love of local independence and the
spirit of nationality created bj the Constitutioni One is
for the Constitution; the other, a careful maintenance of the piineiple
of State rights.''

To these general views I have always adhered, and I repeat
them now because I do not wish to be misunderstood in what
I am about to say in regard to State rights at the present
time. The subject is one of deep importance and ought never
to be neglected. The growth in power of the central govern-
ment is inevitable, because it goes hand in hand with Hie

THE BOSTON COMMEMORATION 558

growth of the oountry. There k no danger that thig move-
ment will be too dow; there is danger that it will be too
rapid and too extensive. The strength of our American sys-
tem resides in the fact that we have a Union of States, that
we are neither a weak and chaotic confederation, nor one
highly centralized government It is of the highest impor*
tance that the States shoold be maintained in all their proper
rights, and the Constitation scrupulously observed, but when
the Constitution is thrust forward every day, on every oc-
casion, serious and trivial alike, whether applicable or inap-
plicable, and for mere purposes of obstruction, the govern-
ment of the Union is not injured, but the Constitution is
brought into contempt, and the profound respect which we
all should feel for that great instrument is impaired. In
the same way, the rights of the States — ^the true rights — are
again in danger at this time, not from those who would
trench upon them, but from those who abuse them, as did
the advocates of secession. Nothing can accelerate the growth
of the national power to an unwholesome degree so much as
the failure of the States, from local or selfish motives, to do
their part in the promotion of measures which the good of
the whole people, without respect to State lines, demands.
No such reproach, as far as I am aware, lies at the door of
Massachusetts. The President of the United States has said,
not once but many times, that if every State had adopted
cori>oration and railroad laws like those of Massachusetts
there would have been no need of much of that national rail-
road legislation which he has advised, and which has been
largely enacted. He has also said, in regard to our laws
relating to health, that if every State had the same system
there would have been but little need of the Pure Food Act.
There are other States which have a record like that of Mas-
sachusetts in these directions, but there are many which have
not. The result of this neglect, and of local selfishness, has
been national legislation and a great extension of the national
power, brought on directly either by the failure of the States
to act, or by thrusting State interests and State rights across
the path of progress.

954 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Take another and far more aeriotui phase of fhis
question. We can deal with foreign nations only through the
United States. By the Gonstitntioni a treaty is the supreme
law of the land. No State can make a treaty, and yet a
treaty is worthless if any State in the Union can disregard
it at pleasure. The people of the United States will not long
suffer their foreign relations to be imperilled, nor permit the
peace of the country to be put in jeopardy, because some mie
State does not choose to submit to the action of the general
government in a matter with which the general govenmieDt
alone can deal. They will not permit a Legislature or a GitJ
Council to disregard treaties and endanger our relations with
other countries. Those who force State rights into onr for-
eign relations, will eventually bring on a situation from which
those rights will emerge as broken and discredited as tiiey
did from the Civil War. They were the enemy, powerful in
their influence upon the minds of men, with which Liineohi
grappled, and which he finally overthrew. The danger to
the rights of States does not arise now, any more than it
did in 1861, from the incursions of the national government,
but from the follies of those who try to use them as a cover
for resistance to the general government in the execution of
the duties committed to it. Congress alone can declare war.
The President and the Senate alone can make peace. It is
not to be tolerated that one or two States shall assert the
power to force the country into war to gratify their own
prejudices. Their rights will be protected by the generd
government sedulously and fearlessly, but if they venture to
usurp or to deride the national authority they will be forced
to yield to the power of the Union, and the State rights whieh
they have wrongly invoked, and their indifference to the in-
terests of the nation, will meet the punishment they deserve.
The day has passed when one State, or a few States, could in-
terfere with the . government of the Union in its own field
Lincoln smote down that baleful theory when he crushed se-
cession and saved the Union. But if we are wise, it is to the
States themselves that we ought to look for the preservatioa
of the rights of the States, which are so essential to our

THE BOSTON COMMEMORATION $55

uyniem of goveniment^ and the States can preserve their
rights only by doing their duty individually in regard to
measures with which the welfare of the people of all the
States is bound up, and by not seeking to thwart the general
govenunent in the performance of the high functions en-
trusted to it by the Constitution. If the advocates of the
extreme doctrines of State rights use them not for the pro-
tection of local self-government, but to promote selfish in-
terests hostile to the general welfare, or still more to embarrass
and paralyze the national government in the performance
of the duties for which it was created, the people will not
endure it, and State rights will be unduly weakened, if not
swept away — a result greatly to be deplored.

In the Civil War the fighting champions of State rights
bound them up with the cause of slavery, which was not only
an evil and a wrong, but which was a gross anachronism —
a stumbling block in the onward march of the Bepublic.
They and their allies, the Copperheads, the Southern (sympa-
thizers, and the timid commercialism of the North, proclaimed
that they were conservatives, and denounced Lincoln as a
revolutionist. ** Radical,'* ** Black Republican," ** tyrant,"
were among the mildest of the epithets they heaped upon him.
Yet the reality was the exact reverse of this. Lincoln was
the true conservative, and he gave his life to preserve and con-
struct, not to change and destroy.

The men who sought to rend the Union asunder in order
to shelter slavery beneath State rights, the reactionaries who
set themselves against the march of human liberty, were the
real revolutionists. Lincoln's policy was to secure progress
and right by the limitation and extinction of slavery, but
his mission was to preserve and maintain the Union. He
sought to save and to create, not to destroy, and yet he
wrought at the same time the greatest reform ever accom-
plished in the history of the nation. Let us learn from him
that reaction is not conservatism, and that violent change and
the abandonment of the traditions and principles which have
made us great is not progress, but revolution and confusion.
One word upon one other text and I have done. In An-

S56 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

gust, 1864, Linooln one morning asked his CSabinet to OfP
their names on the back of a sealed and folded paper. After
the election, in the following November, he opened the paper
in the presence of his Cabinet, and these words were found
written therein :

"EzEcuTiVK Mansion, WASHmexoir, Augut 23, 1861
"ThiB morning, as for some days past, it seems exoeedingly probaUa
that this administration will not be reelected. Then it will be wif
duty to so co5perate with the President-elect as to save the Unios
between the election and the inauguration ; as he will have eecared bii
election on such ground that he cannot possibly save it afterward.

"A. LDroQur."

Was there ever a nobler patriotism shown hy any man
than is contained in those few lines! What utter forgetful-
ness of self, what devotion to the country do they reveal 1
Then, as at the beginning, we see him driving straight for-
ward to his one mighty pnrpose — the salvation of the Union.
No criticism, no personal defeat, nothing could change that
great intent. There, indeed, is a lesson to be learned and
to be repeated from day to day. We none of ns can be as
Abraham Lincoln, but we all can try to follow in his f ootstqii
If we do so, the country will rise to ever new hei^hta^ as he
would fain have had it.

That nation has not lived in vain which has given to the
world Washington and Lincoln — ^the best great men, and the
greatest good men, whom history can show. But if we content
ourselves with eulogy, and neglect the teaching of their livei»
we are unworthy of the heritage they have left us. To ui
they offer lofty ideals to which we may not, perhaps cannot)
attain; but it is only by aiming at ideals which are never
reached that the great victories on earth are won. Yet, when
all is said, it is not Lincoln's patient wisdom, his undaunted
courage, his lai^e abilities that should really sink deepeat
into our hearts and minds to-day. Touch, if you can, aa
he touched, the '* mystic chords of memory." Think of that
noble character, that unwearied devotion to his country, that
gentle heart which went out in sympathy to all his people.
No one can recall all this and not feel that he is lifted up

THE BOSTON COMMEMORATION $57

and made better. Bemember him as he lay dying, haying
offered up the last great sacrifice on the. altar of his country.
TThen, indeed, you feel his greatness, and you cry out, in the
^livords of Bunyan, ' ' So Valiant-f or-Truth passed over, and all
the trumpets sounded for him on the other side."

THE CINCINNATI COMMEMORATION

AT Cinciimati) preparatioiui for the celebratioii began a«
far in advance as October, 1908, when, at a meeting of
the Cincinnati Schoolmastera' Club, it was anggested that atepa
be taken to properl7 observe the Lincoln Centenary. A Com-
mittee was appointed by President E. D. Lyon to confer with
the various civic, business, educational, and other bodies of
the dty. At the conference held to form the plans, there were
present representatives from over fifty organizations. This
joint conference formed an organization, and adopted the
name ''The Lincoln Centenary Memorial Association, '' and
under its auspices, with Mr. W. C. Washburn as the able Presi-
dent, the Centenary celebration was planned and carried out.
The funds necessary for carrying out the elaborate plans of
the Association were provided by the organizations represented
in its membership.

On the Centenary day, memorial exercises were held in all
the schools ; and special exercises were held by order of Arch-
bishop Moeller in the Catholic parochial schools of the Cin-
cinnati diocese; all the municipal buildings, and many of the
business houses, were fittingly decorated, and the whole at-
mosphere of the city breathed the spirit of tribute and com-
memoration.

The principal meeting of the day was held in Music Hall,
in the afternoon. At two o'clock members of the Grand Army
of the Republic, four hundred strong, marched to the hall
and took seats in the section especially reserved for them.
Dr. J. M. Withrow, President of the Board of Education, pre-
sided, and a choir of seven hundred and fifty school children,
accompanied by an orchestra of fifty pieces, rendered the pa-
triotic airs and War-time melodies which have come down to
us from the day of Lincoln. One of the special features was
an ode — "Our Lincoln'' — by W. C. Washburn, rendered by
this children's choir, under the direction of Professor Joseph

861

S69 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

SardOy composer of the music. The orator of the day was
Bishop William Fraser McDowell^ of the Methodist Episcopal
Church of Chicago, who delivered to an enthusiastic audience,
^'An Appreciation of Lincoln."

In the eyeningy members of the Loyal Legion gave a ban-
quet, with commemorative exercises, in their quarters at MLa-
sonic Hall, where iJudge Frederick A. Henry, of Cleveland,
acted as the speaker of the occasion.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN — AN APPRECIATION
BiSHap wujiUK r. kcdowsll

ABRAHAM LINCOLN was an American product The
world itself has seen nothing finer. America has not
done it twice. When one speaks of Lincoln he speaks of
something that only happened once. He is one of the suv
prises of history. No land but America has produced his
like. When he was bom, a hundred years ago, we had about
seven millions of people. When he died, forty-four years
ago, we had thirfy-five millions of people. To-day we number
ninely millions.

Those who knew Lincoln are few in number now, but he
is enshrined in the nation's heart as no one else is. He died
at the end of a civil war whose passions were bitter, whose
bitterness is not wholly gone, but we can honor this leader
of that war without awakening bitterness anywhere. His
name is the symbol of peace, his character an inspiration to
imion, his life a perpetual call to charity and fraltemity.

That life began in Kentucky, continued in Indiana and
Illinois, and flowered out in splendor at last upon^ the nation
and the nations. His parents were so poor that life was all
they could give their son; so poor that they could give the.
world nothing except their son. We praise him to-day, but
can not forget his mother, Nan<7 Hanks —

THE CINCINNATI COMMEMORATION $6S

*'0 Mill obfeuiey

Whose wings life boondi
And soft death folded
Under the ground;

"^ildiiig lady,

Still and true>
Who gave us Lineoln
And never knew;

^^o you at last

Our praise and tears.
Lore and a song
Through the nation's years I

'^Mother of Lincoln,

Our tears, our praise;
A hattle-flag

And the victor's bajsl"

Abraham Lincolii was not a youthful prodigy. He was
neither precocious nor angelic. He had neither luck nor cir-
cumstance in his favor. He had as poor a chance as ever
greeted a boy under our flag. It was not a fair chance. He
made it turn out right. He did not complain of luck, or seek
excuses for failure. He put his foot on adversity and rose .
to opportunity. There were not many books in all that
region. He read them alL There was not much going on.
He got into contact with every sign of life about him, whether
it was Circuit Court or country store. He had five school
teachers, and went to school less than h year. But all his
life he had the long arms of his mind out in every direction
for information, and ^'he never finished his education." He
did not know what many others know, but he knew what
he knew, and was not uneducated. He mastered a limited
list of books. The Son of the Nazareth carpenter, like the
son of the Kentucky carpenter, had one small collection of
books, but from them he got a training in literature, in his-
tory, in insight, in patriotism, and in religion. The son of
the Kentucky carpenter had a small list — ^^sop'^s ''Fables,"

564 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

"Robinson Crusoe,'' the "Revised Statutes of Indiana,"
Pilgrim's Progress," Parson Weems' "Life of Wariung-
ton," The Bible, Shakespeare, and a "History of the United
States." And these he read by day and night, with a slow
mind but a sure one — ^a mind he declared to be like steel, hard
to scratch but retaining every scratch made upon it. And
from these books he got a training in literature, in history,
in philosophy, in patriotism, and in religion. Such a man
is educated.

He was not divinely gifted nor inspired. He was just an
American boy, bom in poverty, in a locality where life was
hard and meagre ; and without genius he rose to the heights
by hard work. Poverty did not do it Anyhow, poverty has
never done it again. Ancestry did not do it. Hardships
did not do it. He did not learn the language of the Oettys*
bui^ Speech at the country stores of Indiana or Illinoia.

"The little farm that raised a man, was not enchanted
ground." Circumstances neither created him nor hind^ed
him from working out his life. He did what any American
boy can do, ought to do — made the most of life 's chance.

He came into the world with a great company. LoweU
once declared that the sixteenth century was spendthrift of
genius, that any family might expect an attack of greatness
as it looked for measles and whooping cough. "Hamle^"
Newton's "Principia," Bacon's "Novum Organum," were all
in danger of teething at once. The single year 1809 was prod-
igal to the point of recklessness in producing great men.
That year saw the birth of Oliver Wendell Holmes, William
E. Gladstone, Charles Darwin, Mendelssohn, and Abraham
Lincoln. It must have seemed a strange planet that had
on it, at the same time. Napoleon Bonaparte and Abraham
Lincoln.

Compared with the great men of hid time or the great men
of all time, Lincoln does not suffer or grow small. Washing-
ton was rich; Lincoln was poor. Both nobly served the Re-
public and freedom, showing at two supreme crises how the
country can be greatly served by rich and poor alike. Wash-
ington piloted the young Republic through its first days.

THE CINCINNATI COMMEMORATION 865

liineoln through the days of its fiercest testing. One pushed
the door of liberty ajar, the other opened it wide and ^^ saved
the last best hope of earth." One led the colonies to the
Declaration of Independence, the other fulfilled that early
declaration by these iipmortal words, '^In giving freedom to
the slave we assure freedom to the free." One set a nation
oat on its wide way among nations. The other taught us
that a nation worth creating is worth saving, and worth sav-
ing all the time. Of each it can be said, ^'His palms never
itched for a bribe, his tongue never blistered with a lie."
Each came when he was needed, and each met the need fully.
Need alone does not produce such men. Barrenness, want,
aelfiahneas, or ambition can not bring to a nation men like
these. Washington rose not because our fathers needed a
soldier who could win battles, but because the colonies needed
a man of truth and tranquillity, ''a standard to which the
vnse and just should repair." Lincoln arose, not because
our later fathers needed a debater, but because they needed
a truth teller; not because they needed a conqueror, but be-
cause they needed one to whom peace was a sacrament and
mercy a divine force; not because they needed a man who
could win an election or finance a war, but because they did
sorely need in a day of strife one who could show ^'charity
for all and malice to none."

Thus William of Orange arose in the Dutch Republic,
Washington and Lincoln in the American Bepublic, each of
them ''tranquil in the midst of raging billows."

Measured by any of the real tests, our Abraham, friend of
God like the old Abraham, appears to be one of the mightiest
figures seen in a thousand years. He was a real leader of
men — ^not a tyrant driving them, nor a weakling following
them, nor a visionary getting out of touch with them. He
perfectly knew the average mind and the strong mind. He
knew how valuable were men like Seward, and Stanton, and
Chase, and many others who did not agree with him. Many
strong men abused him, many tried to override him. He
was silent under abuse and always master of his own soul and
his own policies. Men said his clothes did not fit him, that

566 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

he did not know what to do with his hands, but ihej kanwl
at last that hia mind fitted him perfeetlyy and he used Ua
hands for his supreme tasks.

We are obliged to go back to the Bible for tbe wpoedi to
describe him, ''He was a shepherd whp had led his flock ae»
cording to the integrity of his heart, and guided ihsmt bgr the
skilfulness of his hands." He kept in close toueh wiUi tke
common people, and kept ahead of th^n. He kept in toodi
and moved on. He nsed all the strong men in all paitiea^
and was nsed hy none of them. He has been called If one
biographer, ''The Master of Men." Bnt never was waxy
leas of a tyrant. His mastery was due to that goiti^
which made him great. He could neither be a tyrant nor a
tool, a slave driver nor a slave. He led, not becaoae he wanted
to be served, but because he wanted to serve. His seereto
were few because his purposes were great. Without arro-
gance, without vanity, with eternal charity, and iviUMNit
malice, as Qod gave him to see the right, he held on his stoa4]r
way. Men were impatient; his Cabinet was vexed; he was
iled by the radicals and by his compromisers ; he endured
the storms of ridicule, of slander, of scorn; insult and ae>
cusation were heaped upon him like a mountain ; news from
the front broke his heart, scramble for spoils cursed his dagri;
he lived through passion and prejudice, relieving his net
ancholy soul with stories* that brought more eritieiaai, and
at last "he heard the hisses turn to cheers'' and stood aloiie
in a glory no man could endure.

He had a genius for stating eternal matters in sneh a way
that men felt as under a call to battle. Away yonder on
the plains of Palestine, the saddest man of history declared
that a "house divided against itself shall not stand." Long
afterward, on the plains of Illinois, this Lincoln reached bad
to that other's word and said: "A house divided against
itself can not stand. I believe this government can not per-
manently endure half slave and half free." Friends niged
him not to say it. It was too clear, too plain and unmis-
takable. It was not good politics to say it. But lineolfl
replied, "It is true, and I will deliver it as written." Tfaers

/ (assai

THE CINCINNATI COMMEMORATION 567

never was any answer to it. It became a standard to wbich
men rallied. And truth appeared the best politics. Mr. In-
geraoll calls this ^'a yictorions truth whose utterance made
Lincoln the foremost man in the Republic." That sentence
stated the clear principle. On that he wiU not compromise,
but on all the minor matters he will be yielding and con-
ciliatory — and always go ahead.

He summarized the Dred Scott decision in the fierce words,
''If any one man choose to enslave another, no third man shall
be allowed to object I " ' ' The central idea of secession is the
essence of anarchy/' was another rifle shot in his First In-
augural.

At no time did he satisfy the extremists on either side.
MAny times he was thought to be drifting and without a
policy. He was not omniscient. Only a few men are. But
it is an unspeakable mercy that this man was willing to learn
from current events, to use his discretion according to cir-
cumstances actually existing ; that the only consistency he had
v^as the consistency of principle, and he would find his goal
by any path he could. And his own eye was so single that at
last the whole body was full of light.

In two crucial respects he stands nearly alone — ^in his
powei^ to keep still, and his power to speak. We are a speak-
ing people. Good talkers are always at a premium with us.
Nowhere else is the right word more effective than in a
Repfublic. And Lincoln had the national gift, as we shall
see. But in certain supreme crises the final test is not only
wh4t a man says, but what he refrains from saying.

A civil war does not develop careful and dainty speech.
M^n — and women — on both sides incline to invective and
vitJriol. Our Abolitionists knew a lot of hard words. The
SouHh did not measure its terms by the rule of gentleness.
Whe)p there was nothing else men could do, they pitched into
oln. Men here, who were boys then, heard him called
11 the names that were bad. I have always been wanting
tone to him for the names I heard him called in my
youfth.

Mot only so, but the North and the South were abusing

868 ABRAHAM LINCX>LN

each other. ''Bebel" and ''traitor" were about the genM
terms we used. And it was a talking time. But in all thit
flood of acrimonious speech, not one word of malice eac^
his lips. He was reviled and slandered, but ''as a sheep
before her shearer is dumb, so he opened not his moatii"
Other men stung and goaded him, but he replied only i&
some quaint story that acted like oil where others used mk
And in all the forty-four years since "the lilacs bloomed"
as he died, we have not had to take back one word of bitter-
ness toward the South, or pull out one sentence from fes-
tering sore. He won a victory over the South, and is to^hj
our strongest appeal to the South. "His entire adminutn^
tion was one protracted magnanimity. He was as great in
his forbearance as in his performances."

But what shall be said of his power to speak? His silenee
and his speech alike were golden. Men were chared wfaen
he began the debates with Douglas^ for Douglas laa in^
a "Little Giant." When the debates were over, tto air wii
cleared for a thousand years. Douglas won the sen'tonhipi
but Lincoln won the shining victory for truth. An M mi&
said, "You always felt that Abe was right." "I m ^
bound to win," he said, "but I am bound to be true! ^
"he did not say the thing which was best for that day\^
bate, but the thing that would stand the test of time^
square itself with eternal justice."

Gladstone, born the same year as Lincoln, was the q>eaJ
marvel of England during many years. British oratory I
hardly ever been richer or nobler than his. He was educaf
at Oxford. All that culture could do had been done for hi'
but his supporters declare that he has left not a single nr.
terpiece of English, and hardly one great phrase that cli/
to the memory of men. Lincoln has given a new meai'
to oratory and a new dignity to public speech. His \M
ances have the quality of finality. George William cV*
declares that there are three supreme speeches in our histiF;
"The speech of Patrick Henry at Williamsburg, of W<
Phillips in Faneuil Hall, of Abraham Lincoln at Gettyst]
— ^three, and there is no fourth." I think there was a foil

THE CINCINNATI COMMEMORATION 569

— Lineoln'fl Second Itungnral. He gave a new and embar-
nadng definition to the words '^prindpal addren.'' At
Gettysburg, Edward Everett spoke magnificently throngh
many thousand noble words — a masterly oration. Lincoln
spoke three minutes, two hundred and fifty words, and this is
the principal address of that day or many days. The Second
Inaugural is only seven hundred and fifty words in lengtti,
but while liberty lasts, while charity survives among men,
while patriotiBm lives under any flag, these few words will
be on men's lips like prophecy, psalm or gospeL How did
this man, bom in poverty, reared in poverty, untrained in
any schools, come to do this miradet It is not a trick of
expression, it is the miracle of supreme truth, supremely
stated. ' * Back of the orator is the man. ' ' Behind the match-
less President is the matchless personality.

He had the faith that saves, without the bigotry that
blights. He had insight like a prophet's, a sense of the Al-
mighty Person like a mystic's; no theology, but the life of
the spirit; an unwavering belief in the Providence that was
often silent and perplexing; moral courage bom of moral
conviction; a sense that right is right, since God is God;
a devotion that planted a cross in his heart; a trust that
kept his hands clean and his heart pure. When he called
the Cabinet to hear the Emancipation Proclamation, they
found him reading a chapter from Artemus Ward. He said,
''I made the pronuse to myself and to my Maker that I would
do this. I do not wish your advice about the main matter,
for that I have determined for myself" — and read the im-
mortal document which freed the slave. His sense of des-
tiny was not fatalism, but faith. He thought of himself and
the nation as in the guiding care of God. He thought more
of his duties than of his rights, more of his burdens than of
his honors. He incarnated the simplest and greatest virtues.
He was above all a man of truth. ''I am nothing, truth is
everything. ' ' His life did not belie the language of his lips.
'' Whatever appears to be God's will, I will do it." And he
put the loftiest at the service of the lowliest.

I know what I am saying, and n^ust not be betrayed into

S70 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

extrayagance, bat I ean not refrain from saying, that of
Abraham Lincoln, more than of any merely hnman man of
history, are certain inspired words true; to him, more than
any other save One, are they to be applied : ' ' He was a man
of sorrows and acquainted with grief." ''We hid, as it were,
our faces from him. " ' ' He trod the winepress alone. " ' ' The
chastisement of our peaoe was upon him. " ' ' He saved othen,
himself he could not save." ''The common people heard
him gladly." "The government shall be upon his shoulden.
His name shall be called Wonderful" — and, after war — ^'the
Prince of Peace."

He was murdered on Qood Friday, and, as when William of
Orange was slain, "the little children wept in the streets."

It is not for us to mourn that we have lost Lincoln, for he
is our finest inspiration and "gentlest memory" forever. It
is rather for us to be gkd that we have had and still have
him. The mention of his name makes poverty look less odious
and depressing. The story of his life is enough to make any
youth under the flag put his feet upon difficulties and hard-
ships in a royal purpose to rise above them all. The picture
of his character should call us again to the love and pradiee
of those simple, majestic virtues of which Lincoln was the
living definition. A thousand things we can live without,
but we cannot live without truth and honesty, courage and
kindness, self-denial and patriotism, faith and charity, liberty
and law. In the face of an old conservatism and a dangerous
radicalism we need again the truth and independence of
this tall rail-splitter, leader of the sons of men. In the face
of greed and graft we need to learn again that a good name
like Lincoln's is infinitely better than any riches, however
great.

Once in the darkest days of the War, after many defeats
for our armies, one of our poets addressed Lincoln in a
poem called, "Abraham Lincoln, give us a man." This
still IB America's call to manhood and youth. "The jovA
of a nation are the trustees of posterity." "It is a glorious
thing to see a nation saved by its youth." It is our high
chance to show whence we have sprung; ours to add to Lin-

THE CINCINNATI COMMEMORATION 871

coin's glory by carrying his work forward to perfection;
ours to make a new Bepublie in which all men shall have
life's fair chance; a Republic in which no one shall be a
tyrant and no one a slave ; a Republic in which poverty shall
be full of hope and wealth full of modesty; a Republic in
which the color of the skin shall not make men forget the
color of the blood; a Republic which shall not be a white
man's land or a black man's land but all men's home; a
Republic in which there is always a new birth of freedom;
a Republic true to the son of Kentucky grown large, true
to the undivided house, true to both Inaugurals, true to
the Emancipation Proclamation, true to the Gettysburg Ad-
dress, true to Abraham Lincoln — ^finest product of a new
nation, foremost citizen of the world, friend of Ood, liberator
of humanity, tallest white angel of a thousand years 1

THE ROCHESTER COMMEMORATION

THE EOCHESTER COMMEMORATION

THROUGHOUT the State of New York celebrationg were
held in the various cities, bnt one which attracted wide-
spread attention was that at Rochester, where His Excellency,
Hon. Charles E. Hughes, Qoyemor of the State of New York,
was the speaker of the occasion.

LINCOLN: THE TRUE AMERICAN

HON. OHABLBB BVAN8 HUGHM

ON the twenty-third day of August, 1864, Abraham Lin«
coin, President of the United States, penned these
words, which he laid aside for future reference, ' ' This morn-
ing, as for some days past, it seems exceedingly probable
that this administration will not be reelected."

It was within eight mcmths of the dose of a career which
has made his memory a priceless treasure of the nation. He
had risen from the humblest conditions to the highest place
of influence and power. For three years and a half he had
borne the awful burdens of leadership in the struggle to
preserve the Union. He had proclaimed the emancipation
of the slaves, and delivered the immortal Address at Gettys-
burg. The logic of events had demanded his renomination
for the presidency, and as yet the candidate of the opposing
party had not been named. Yet in those dark days of the
Summer of 1864, it seemed that he would be buried under
an avalanche of hostile criticism. He was misconstrued,
maligned, and reviled. He was charged both with weakness
and with usurpation. It was his painful lot to bear the
heavy assault, not simply of the enemies of his armies or
their sympathisers, but of sincere and high-minded men who
should have been his stoutest supporters. He later described

57tf

876 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

those days to his Cabinet aa a time ' Vhen aa yet we had no
adversary and seemed to have no friends." The moat aatote
advisers told him that his reelection was an impossihilitj,
and it appeared aa if the American people were to write the
word ^'failure" over the administration which gives to the
day we now celebrate its nndying significance.

It waa precisely at that hour of nncertainty and fore-
boding, that Lincoln displayed the finest qualitiea of his
character. Unshaken in conviction, secure in the peace of aa
undisturbed conscience, he looked into the future with a
keen and honest eye, and resolved that even were he sub*
jected to humiliation and defeat^ even were he scorned and
thrust aside by those for whom he had so severely labored^
yet, if he could, he would still save the Union. In the pri-
vate memorandum of that August day, the opening words of
which I have already quoted, he thus registered thia deter-
mination, *^Then it will be my duty to so eoSperate with the
President-elect aa to save the Union between the eteetioii
and the inauguration; aa he will have secured his election on
such grounds that he cannot possibly save it afterwards."

Thia is the Lincoln whom we honor to-dayl — not the Com-
mander-in-chief of a victorious army; not the triumphaat
political leader; not the master of debate, or the inqnred
orator, but the hero of patriotic self -sasriflee^ the great«niled
servant of the people.

The story of Lincoln's rise will ever be the finest inqiira-
tion of American youth. The surroundings of his early life
were not only obscure, but depressing and disheartening.
It waa not simply that he waa the child of poverty — that
may be a blessing. The real deprivation was not in the
rudeness of the home or in the lowlinesa of the estate, but in
the lack of those incentives to endeavor, and stimuli to am-
bition, which are the heritage of most of our American boys.

Lincoln was not without opportunity. The event proves
that. And the glory of his career is that he so nobly used
each opportunity that he had, and made it provide another.
The marvel is that he waa not a victim to inertia; and that,
in such conditions, may be found such talent and such die*

THE BOCHESTEB COMMEMORATION 877

pofiition to use it. With each review of his career we ranew
our confidence in humanity and pledge our faith, not to
circmnatance or station, but to the divine fire of reaaon, and
truth, and conscience, constantly flaTning oat in nnsospeoted
places— which the Power that makes for righteoosneas and
progress will not i)ermit to be qnenched.

lincohi performed each task as well as he knew. Aa a
hoy he learned to write, and he did it so well that ha became
the favored scribe of an nnlettered community. He had
access to but few books, but instead of . neglecting these be*
cause they were few, he mastered them, and he became ridk
in the strength of their wisdom. He was willing to give his
day's labor to secure a coveted '^life of Washington." He
had little schooling and none of tiie advantages of academy
or college. But he seised what was within his reach, and
the fact that for a time he was denied, made his pursuit the
more eager. And so he was constantly growing and develop*
ing, with a sense of i>ower which comes by the exerciae of
the will in constant achievement. That part of our educa-
tional methods is really worth while which develops the sense
of intellectual conquest, and Lincoln, from hia early years,
despite his apparent disadvantages, had a fine eurrieulum
of victories.

He was nourished in patriotism, learning at the feet of
Washington. As soon aa there was opportunity he enlisted,
and reenlisted, to protect the safety of the State, in the
Black Hawk War. When he returned, he went into politics.

According to the practice of the time, liinooln became a
candidate for the Assembly by simply announcing his oondi-
dacy and declaring his principles. He was defeated in his
first campaign, and, turning to the simple aotivitiea of a
village life, he devoted himself more earnestly than ever
to the increase of his store of knowledge. He had aoquired
no little information as to men and affairs; and his earlier
trips, by boat to New Orleans, and his ezperienoes in the
Black Hawk War, had widened his horiaon. In 1861^ Ian*
coin was again a candidate for the Legislature, and was
elected by a large majority. He waa reflected in 1836, 1888|

87B ABRAHAM LINCOLN

and again in 1840. Meanwhile he ' had been encouraged to
study law, and in 1836 was admitted to the bar. His great
adversary, Douglas, said of him, ''Lincoln ia one of those
peculiar men who perform with admirable skill everything
they undertake." But he was peculiarly fitted for the bar.
His keenness and analytical precision, his good humor and
democratic ease, his passion for study, and his rugged hon-
esty, equipped him for high place in a profession whose best
prises are not won by those who are mere masters of Alii<>i»w_

It is said that he left the Legislature in 1840 with the
reputation of being ''the ablest man in it, the reoognijBed
leader of his party in the House and in his State," and
"with a reputation for honesty and integrity which not even
the Utterest of his poUtical opponents had the hardihood to
asperse." He rose rapidly at the bar and particularly ex-
odled in the arts of advocate. Meanwhile he was not with-
out his disappointments. As he failed in his first candidal
for the State Assembly, he also failed in his first candidal
for Congress^ but was elected to Congress in 1846. Betiring
after his first term, he devoted himself to his legal praetice.
But he was equipped and destined for political activity.

The discussion of the great questions which related to the
extension of slavery furnished the opportunity, and soon he
became the protagonist in the debate which challenged the
attention of the country and marked him as a national
leader. His nomination and election to the presidency were
the natural result of the contest in which, although Douglas
through the apportionment of districts won his election to
the Senate, Lincoln had the best of the argument, and the
prestige of popular victory. Thus he was elected not to hon-
ors, but to burdens. And from his accession to the highest
place in the pec^le's gift, to the time when he laid down his
life a martyr to the cause of liberty and union — at last one
and inseparable — ^he bore a weight of care and responsibility
greater than that borne by any other President, and for which
it would be difficult to find ia parallel in history.

There is no day so eloquent to me as the day on which we
commemorate the birth of Lincoln. In him we recognize the

THE BOCHESTER COMMEMOBATION $79

representatiYe of ihoae qualities which ^^igHtigniA Amerioaa
character and are the sonroea of our national power. Lineoln
is the tme American.

Abraham Lincoln waa an acute man. Bat we «reot no
monuments to shrewdness. We set aside no da3rB for the
ocmmiemoration of mere American smartness. Skill in manip*
nlation, acnteness in dealing for selfish purposes^ may win
their temporary -victories. But the i>eople reserve their
memorials for the ability that finds its highest display in
nnselfish devotion to the public good.

Lincoln was an expert logician. He brought to bear upon
his opponents the batteries of remorseless logic. But he
thought honestly and scorned the tricks of sophistry. He
had a profoimd confidence in the reasoning judgment of the
American people. He disdained all efforts to cM>tare the
populace 1^ other means, or to employ his g^'eat talents in
other than fair disputation. He treats imposing aignments
with an extraordinary power of analysis. He eriscerated
the subject of discussion and laid it bare. He presented not
abuse, not appeal to the emotions of the multitude, but eogtnt
reasoning, and thus appeared before the Amoiean people
representing their ideal of straightforward, honest repre-
sentation of the truth, applicable to their crisis. Loyalty
was commanded because reason exerted its sway. Wh«ne¥er
^ou are tempted to think in a discouraging maonor of the
future of the American Republic, you should read the annab
of those times when the Union itself was in the balance, and
you should realise how inevitable is the final resp<mse of
the American people to the donands of reason.

Lincoln was a man of principle. Said he on one occasion,
''I have no sentiments except those which I have derived
from the study of the Declaration of Independence." He
ever sought for the foundation principle, and built upon
it with sure confidence that the house which was founded
upon the rock could not be destroyed by the storm. He was
profoundly an apostle of liberty, but for liberty under the
law, developed and applied in accordance with constitutional
principle. Barely has the doctrine of the rdation of the

BM ABKAHAM LINCOLN

Nfttion to the Statei, and of the goTemment to the indiridiial
been mcMre hieidly eq[>onnded than in thoee limple aentaieee
in which he said, *'The Nation must control whatever eon-
cerna the Nation. The State, or any minor political eom-
manitjr, mnat control whatever exclnaively conoema it. The
individual ahall control whatever exclusively ooncema him.
That ia really popular lovereignty. " But he waa a piogrea-
dve man. He was aenaitive to the demanda of hia day.
Three years, I believe, after the outbreak of the War, he said,
*'I have not controlled events, and I confess events have eon*
trolkd me, and after three years we find ourselves in a sit-
uation which neither party, luid no num, devised or expected."'
He waa a man who met eadi demand as it arose — to the rad-
iciUs he waa too oonaervative; to the conservatives he was
too radicaL Few men have beoi so severely criticised and
so mercilessly lampooned. But while he sought to deal with
each situation as he found it, he dealt with it as illumined
by the principles which were the light to his path and the
guide to his feet

Lincoln waa a man of poise. Beset with difficulties and
bowed with grief, frequently without the sustaining encour-
agement even of those who were close to him in his ofBcial
family, he waa still able to exercise the judgment which hia-
tory commends, and display the extraordinary talent for
analysing perplexing situationa which is the marvel of our
later day.

Lincoln was a humble man, xmpretentious, and genuinely
democratic Honors did not change him and pride could not
corrupt him. He waa a stranger to affectation. He waa a
humane man, a man of emotion well controlled; a man
of sentiment and deep feeling. No one who haa lived
among us haa been so much a brother to every man, however
lowly bom or unfortunately circumstanced. He was a lowly
man who never asserted himself as superior to his fellows.
Tet he oould rise in the dignity of hia manhood to a majes^
that has not been surpaased by <my rulw of any i>eopIe
under any form of government When Lee sent to Grant
suggesting an interchange of views, and the communication

THE BOCHESTEB COMMEMORATION Ml

was forwarded by Grant to the Preddent, the President m»
stantly wrote the following instmotions for Seeretary Stanton
to transmit to General Grant :

'The President directs me to eay that he wishes you to hare no
conference with General Lee unless it be for capitulation ttf General
Lee's army, or on some minor or purely military matter. He instmets
me to say that you are not to deoidey discuss, or eonfcr upon 9mj
political questions. Such questions the President holds in his own
hands, and will submit them to no military conferences or conventions.
Heanwhile you are to press to the utmost your military admntages.''

Thus did the simple democratio mler of a free people assmne
the responsibilities, and assert the prerogatives, of his high
ofSce. It was not a desire to claim any superiority which
he felt over his brother man ; it was simply, to him, the dis-
charge of duty in a supreme crisis, and the assumption be-
fore the American people of a responsibility which he dared
not shirk, and of which his intellectual strength and sturdy
conscience made him unafraid.

Despite the yicissitudes of the stormy period in which he
played so important a part, he retained his confidence in the
people. ''Why'' he said, ''should we not have patient con-
fidence in the ultimate justice of the American people t"
Why not, indeed! Th^ have abundant opportunities for
education. If we can only feel as Lincoln felt, and derive
our political sentiments from a study of the Declaration of
Independence, and proceed as Lincoln did with inexorable
logic and high purpose to the consideration of every exi-
gency, there can be no question but that each problem will
be solved, that every decade of American history will wit-
ness a fresh advance, and that the prosperity of the fu-
ture will far transcend anything that we have realized in the
past.

The strength of the nation lies in the influence of the high-
est ideals of character. We cannot become sordid or base
so long as we cherish the memory of Washington who won
our liberties, and of Lincoln who preserved them. But we
must see these men in a true perspective, not as demigods,
splendid with power and victory, but as man^ vigorous and

SM ABRAHAM LINCOLN

slerty rtnieB^nig against tremeDdooa odds, perplexed wiQi
diflienlties, embarrasKd by ecHiflictiiig yoioea^ aasailed fay
calmnny, bat still able unflinchingly to adhere to profonnd
conviction, steadfastly to pnrsae great aims, and in thdr
self-sacrificing devotian to di^lay those virtues of character
which may inspire all of ns in onr lesser q>heres to the noble
condnct of onr lives. And in commemorating their achieve-
ments and inculcating the lessons of their efforts, we may
conserve those moral resources without which free institu-
tions would become a mockery.

THE MADISON COMMEMORATION

THE MADISON COMMEMOEATION

AT Madison, Wisconsin, the first important commemoration
of the day consisted of the exercises held in the special
session of the Senate and House of Representatives. Here, a
large audience filled all available places on the floor of the
Assembly hall, and overflowed the three visitors' galleries.
The hall and galleries were richly decorated with the national
colors. (Governor James 0. Davidson presided, and the speak-
ers were Senator E. P. Fairchild, of Milwaukee, and Professor
John Charles Freeman, of the University of Wisconsin.

School exercises were held in all the districts of the city,
one notable one being that at the Lincoln School, where the
pupils presented to the school a brass memorial tablet of the
Gettysburg speech — ^the imveiling of the tablet being one of
the features of the day's programme. Another presentation to
this school — ^made by W. W. Warner — ^was an autograph letter
from Lincoln to Mrs. Bixby, who had seven sons in the War.
The exercises at the school were followed by a general recep-
tion to the public, under the management of the teachers of the
school and the educational department of the Woman's Club.

Later in the day, five thousand students and members of the
Faculty of the University of Wisconsin gathered in the gym-
nasium of the University, there to hear the announcement by
President Van Hise, that to the University of Wisconsin had
been granted the privilege of securing the only replica of the
heroic bronze statue of Lincoln, by Adolph Alexander Wein-
man, being erected by the United States and the State of Ken-
tucky, jointly, at Lincoln's birthplace, Hodgenville, Kentucky.
This replica was secured for, and presented to, the University
by Mr. Thomas E. Brittingham, of Madison, Wisconsin.

The address of the day was delivered by the Bev. Jenkin
Lloyd Jones, the well-known Lincoln enthusiast and authority,
head of Lincoln Center, Chicago.
»S SB5

THE GREAT STONE PACE

PBBSIDENT 0. B. VAN HIBB

THBOUGH the cooperation of the United States and tk
State of Kentucky, a heroic bronze statue of Abrahai
Lincoln is to be unveiled at his birthplace, HodgenviUe, Em-
tucky, on Decoration Day of this year. This statue is Ij
Mr. Adolph A. Weinman, a pupil of. Saint-Qaudens. Photo-
graphs of the statue show that this sculptor is a man of tlie
first rank; that he has truly caught the spirit of his grest
master. Bequests for replicas have come to the Commifl»m
that has the Lincoln statue in charge, from Providence^ Phil-
adelphia, Champaign, St. Louis, Lincoln, Seattle, and, on
behalf of Oshkosh, from Mr. Hicks, United States Ambassa-
dor to Chile.

After much discussion, the commissioners voted to pemit
one full-sized replica of the statue to be cast, provided it
was placed at the University of Wisconsin. This deciskm
came in consequence of the great interest in the Univendtj
of Bichard Lloyd Jones, one of the commissioners, associate
editor of '^Collier's Weekly," alumnus of the University, and
son of the speaker of to-day, the Beverend Jenkin Lloyd
Jones. When the chance to secure the Lincoln replica for the
University came, the question at once arose as to the source
of the necessary funds. The situation was placed before
Mr. Thomas E. Brittingham, of this city. With lai^eness of
view he appreciated the fortunate opportunity whidi had
come to him to serve the University and the State, and ^^adlj
agreed to furnish the required funds. Upon behalf of the
Begents, the Faculty, the students, and the people, I wish from
my heart to thank Mr. Brittingham for his generosity.

The statue of Lincoln will be unveiled during the coming

386

THE MADISON COMMEMORATION 887

Commencement. It will be placed in the centre of the future
Court of Honor of the Uniyendty, a short distance in front of
Xlniversity Hall, facing the east

It will be remembered that a lad named Ernest, created l^
Bawthome's imagination^ growing up in a village set in a
broad and deep valley, had his attention called by his mother
to the noble lineaments of a Great Stone Face on a mighty
buttress of one of the surrounding mountains. Among the
people there was a tradition that some time a native of the
valley would appear with a face like the gigantic one in stone.
The growing boy continued his Ufe among the villagers, and
each morning he looked out upon the strong and benignant
Oreat Stone Face and hoped that he might some day see the
man who was its image. The boy reached manhood and mid-
dle age, doing the work of a villager, and lending a hand to
his neighbors. Gradually he became a source of strength to
the people with whom he was in contact, and very slowly as
age grew upon him, his fame extended far beyond his native
valley. Several times a celebrated man, bom in the valley,
returned from the outer world. Each time Ernest looked
eagerly forward to his coming, hoping that he would resemble
the Great Stone Face. Each time when the noted man ap«
peared, Ernest was profoundly disappointed, but still hoped
that before he died he would see in a man the likeness of the
face of stone. One evening, while addressing the villagers,
as had become his habit, a poet visitor saw the truth, and cried,
'^ Behold, behold, Ernest is himself the likeness of the Great
Stone Face I ' ' During his many years of deep reflection upon
the inner meanings of things, and of faithful service to his
fellows, his features had become the counterpart of his ideal.

It cannot be doubted that the bronze face of Abraham Lin-
coln will modify the spiritual faces of the students of the
University who are to view daily the sad, calm, sagacious,
determined, and rugged face of our great President of the
Civil War. What this Lincoln statue will do in the way of
developing nobility of character and sustained courage to
carry forward the fight for the advancement of the people of
this country, no one may foretell ; but that it will be perpetu-

088 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

ally one of the great and high edneational foroea of the
venity, no man may doubt. From it, during the eentanci
to come, many hundreds of thousands of students will gtin
at least a reflection of the spirit of sendee to their oountrjr
that animated Abraham Lincoln. They will persist to the end
in the great fight for right and equal justice to all, even ai
did this man of sorrow. This spirit will pass in some measure
to the millions with whom they come in contact, and grado-
ally the widening influence for good of the Lincoln statue will
extend throughout the world.

THE GREAT DEBATE; or, THE PROPHET ON THE

STUMP

BEV. JBNKm LLOTD JONXS

CENTRAL Illinois, seventy-eight years ago, represented,
in the main, an nnstaked and nntraeked wild. Its com-
1)ination of prairie and forest, its broad stretches of waving,
wild grass, were rimmed by ferny glens and brush-protected
creeks. The great forests yielded logs and rails for the pio-
neer fences and cabins, and their branches sheltered the part-
ridges, quail, raccoons, opossums, and deer that fed the pioneer
and his family while he was hurrying the hominy and beans
that would meet the game on the table, making the fare of
the pioneer toothsome as well as wholesome, varied as well as
vigorous.

Into this wild country a tall, unkempt stripling drove the
four-ox team that carried his father and step-mother, step-
brothers, sisters, and cousin, with their simple household equip-
ment^ out of Indiana into IllinoiB. He had scarcely reached
his majority. He tarried with the family long enough to
help house his aging parents, and then, with the diaraeteristic
independence of the true American lad, struck out for himself ;
for at twenty-one the true pioneer youth accepted the responsi-
bilities of life, became responsible for his own bed, board, nhd
clothing, literally became the architect of his own fortune.
In these pioneer days the true American parent recognized
the boy's right to his time— eome twenty-one — and, without
any sickly distrust or sentimental regret, gave him his dollar
and said to him, ''Your time is your own; the world is before
you ; go seek your destiny. ' '

Thus it was, a few months after the arrival with the ox-
team and the hand-made wagon, shaped out of the sycamore,
hickory, and oak of Indiana by the deft hand of Thomas

589

$90 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

#
Lincoln^ the father carpenter, that the bare-footed striidiog;

trousered in buckskin and capped with coonskin, simck out tat
himself, and, in the adjoining counties of Ifacon and Sangih
mon, entered upon that great career that is the moflt pietmv
esque as well as the most profoundly significant story in Amer-
ican history. It is a story as charming as it is inspiring as
poetic as it is prof oimd. It is the story of the Odyaaem of the
Western World. The material pegs upon which this stoiy
is hung are those of chopper, flatboatman, storekeeper, poBt>
master, Captain of militia, sunreyor, legislator, lawyer, Prw-
dent, martyr.

The more inward traces of the early parts of this grest
journey from the log cabin in the backwoods of Kentucky to
the President's chair — ^the President of a distracted people^
the Commander-in-Chief of the noblest army that was ever
marshalled on this footstool of the Eternal, the martyred eman*
oipator, who, by the stroke of his pen, enabled four miUioa
slaves to stand up as freemen, and made human slayeiy in
these United States under sanction of the law impossible for-
ever more, making at last the boast of our Republic real—
are those that point to the tireless student, the matchless stoiy-
teller, the sad humorist of the Sangamon and the invineiUe
lawyer on the circuit.

Twenty-eight years after, this driver of oxen, whose effident
weapons were only the ox-goad, the axe, and the oar, took the
leading part in a great intellectual joust, a tourney of intellect,
a memorable political debate. Of this I would speak this
morning, on the centennial anniversary of his birthday.

Abe Lincoln, the ox-driver, was easily the champion wrostkr
when he entered Illinois. His long arms, sinewed with sted,
his giant legs, framed as of iron, were more than a match for
whoever dared grapple with him. When, twenty-eight yean
afterwards, Abraham Lincoln came to tiy his strength in the
great intellectual wrestling match of history, he was to clinch
a veritable giant of intellect, an adept on the platform, and
a master of that great tester of brain which we call the Amer-
ican Stump.

The details of that stoiy are not for me to tell; th^ shaold

THE MADISON COMMEMOfiATION 891

be told by some competent eye and ear witness* It was no?
only a battle of giants, but it was a testing ground of trathy
a sifting mill of the Almighty, whereby dark problems were
beaten into clear, holy issues forced to the front, and the
banners of progress borne forward by virtue of the mistakes
and the crudities, the fallacies as well as the truths, then enun-
ciated.

The contestants were mortal ; many of the arguments were
temporal and transitory ; but immortal justice broke through
the subterfuges and the sophistries, the passing passion, the
unworthy ambition, and the flippant applause that so filled
the foreground of those days that the grim but sublime figures
of Truth and Bight in the background were so obscured that,
at the end of fifty years, we are just beginning to see through
the dust and to distinguish between the passing, and the per-
manent notes, in the boisterous turmoil.

The great debate began at Ottawa, August 31, and dosed
at Alton, October IS, 1858. Seyen times was the trumpet
blown, summoning the giants to battle; seven times did vast
multitudes of feverish, distracted, perplexed voters seek to
champion their chosen leaders; others, perhaps the majority,
sought for light, hoping for some solution of the great per-
plexity.

This battle of giants in Illinois fifty years ago, represents one
great climacteric in the history of the United States. There
democracy was fought to a finish, so far as two mighty men
could fight it, on the true battle field of democracy — ^the politi-
cal stump. Here was waged the war of the new regime, with
ballots — ^not bullets — for weapons. The parry and thrust in
this contest were with wit and not with bayonets ; here blood
flowed freely indeed, but through unsevered arteries; the red
currents tided with increasing potency through enkindled
brains and, flaming hearts.

We turn the pages of history in vain to find anything com-
parable with the popular enthusiasm, the civic awakening,
the political revival, which culminated in the great debate
between Stephen A. Douglas and Abraham Lincoln in Illinois
in 1858.

S9» lABEAHAM LINCOLN

Draw a line from the prophetic heights upon whieh sUnd
the great reformers of Jewry in the eighth century B. C—
Amofiy Micahy Hosea, and Isaiah— to the peaks of prophecy
whereon stood the rail-splitter of Illinois in the nineteenlli
century of the Christian era, and there is no leader in dne
agitation, no champion of just govemmenty high enaetmenti
and progressive legislation, whose head rises to break the line.

I am not unnundful of the political revolutions that f dlowed
in the wake of Benedict, Charlemagne, Luther, and Crcmiidl;
I am not speaking of the saintliness and spiritual ekamMi
leached by individual souls, such as Socrates. Paul, St Fm-
eis. Fox, Channing, and their fellows. What I mean to nj
is, that from Amos and Isaiah to Abraham Lincoln and ha
fellows, no political issue, no legislative problem, was found m
ethical — ^none was so freighted with principle, so identified
with the cause of justice and progress — as that beaten out aod
brought to the high issues of popular suffrage by the greit
debate, the semi-centennial of which was celebrated with fit*
ting pomp, oratory, and song in the State of Illinois Itft
Autumn.

The cause of freedom, the rights of races and religians, wen
often challenged in the intervening centuries, and such caiM
have always found inspired spokesmen; but in such eruei
the appeal, for the most part, was made to crowned heads;
the fate of justice was in the hands of an aristocracy, either
civic or ecclesiastic. Such appeals, for the most part, were to
dukes or to bishops, convocations of priests or of nobles. Bat
this appeal was to the people, the common people ; the questkn
was submitted, not to the decisdon of clerics or of warrion,
but to voters.

We talk of ''the War of '61 to '65,'' and, at this distance,
the younger men and women may think of it as a dap of
thunder out of a clear sky, an unexpected doud-burst in the
heavens that were otherwise serene. Not so. One of the latest
and most philosophic studies of the great conflict is entitled
"The American Ten Years' War, from 1855 to 1865." This
author, Denton 7. Snyder, finds the beginning of the confliet
at least as far back as the first invasion of Kansas by five

THE MADISON COMMEMORATION $99

fhotuumd and more aimed men, well named '' Border Saf-
fians/' for they came from slave-holding territory for the
express puri>ose of extending the boundaries of the same.
This army was met by a force, equally picturesque and intense,
but far more lofty in character and purpose. It came from
the north and east to hold '^bleeding Kansas" to liberty.
Grim, dauntless ''Old John Brown of Ossawattomie'' is not
ah unworthy representatiye of this other army. In the presi-
dential campaign of 1856 battle lines became more defined
when the friends of freedom and haters of slayery found a
not unfitting standard-bearer in the dashing path-finder of the
Rocky Mountains, John 0. Fremont Two years later, here
in Illinois, the other side was marshalled into battle line by
its brilliant Senator, the ''little Oiant,'' who met the com-
paratively obscure champion of a new and unpopular move-
ment in high debate.

To adequately tell the story of this debate would be to write
the history of American slavery; to trace its origin, breadth,
strength, decay, and death would be to discuss the perplexities
that gathered around it from beginning to finish. It would
further be to discuss the ethics of expediency and to test the
logic of compromise.

In this great debate the prophet and the politician met face
to face, not only in the persons of Stephen A. Douglas and
Abraham Lincoln, but in the internal arrangement, the spirit-
ual equipment, the conflict within the breasts of both Douglas
and Lincoln; for politics and prophecy wrestled with each
other in the utterances of both these men. To use Lincoln's
own figure, as remembered by Carl Schurz, "These wrestlers
worked themselves almost into one another's coats."

Here two theories of government, two criteria of action, two
tests of what is true and wise in human conduct and State
enactments, clutched in deadly combat.

Never did two knights, haloed in poetry and romance, meet
in tournament more picturesque or with more striking con-
trasts. One came, boastful of superior ancestry, conscious of
a noble New England lineage, a proud son of Vermont, stocked
with sufficient learning to give him prestige among the un-

894 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

schooled pioneers — ^the prestige of a schoolmaster had given
way to the successful lawyer, the triumphant politician who
had already won with honor the senatorial toga — short, fat, a
master of sarcasm, a debater of national repute. The other
came, as he and his neighbors supposed, a child of humble,
illiterate, obscure parentage, the story of which he modestly
condensed into the single line of poetry — ^''The short and sim-
ple annals of the poor. ' ' In appearance they were as diverse as
they were in their origin and their pretension ; it was five feet
two versiLS six feet four. It seemed, again, to be a cavalier
ixersus a plebeian.

Already the University of his native State had invested the
favored son, Stephen A. Douglas, with academic honors. He
was LL. D. Lincoln's literary fame and scholastic attain-
ments consisted only in the reputation of being the champion
story-teller of the Sangamon district, the JEaop of the prairies,
the Merry Andrew of the Illinois bar. There were no academic
honors for him. His idiom was provincial ; his pronunciation
was that of a rustic. The scholars deplored the lack of that
something called '^ culture," but the farmers greeted one
another with, ''Have you heard Abe's lastf"

These are points of contrast, but there were points of agree*
ment equally interesting, which points were well stated by
Douglas in the opening speech at Ottawa as he manceavred
for an advantageous start in the great tournament :

*'I have known him lor nearly twenty-flve yean. There were maoy
points of sympathy between iu when we first got acquainted. We
were both comparatively boya, and both struggling with poverty in a
strange land. I was a school teacher in the town of Windiester,
and he a flourishing grocery-keeper in the town of Salem. He was
more successful in his occupation than I was in mine, and henoe more
fortunate in this world's goods. Lincoln is one of those peculiar men
who perform with admirable skill everything which they undertake. I
made as good a school teacher as I could, and when a eabinet-maker
I made a good bedstead and tables, although my old boas said I «ae»
ceeded better with bureaus and secretaries than with anything ^ae;
but I believe that Lincoln was always more successful in buatnesa
than I, for his business enabled him to get into the Legislature. I
met him there, however, and had a sympathy with him, because oi
the uphill struggle we both had in life. He was then just aa good ai

THE MADISON COMMEMORATION $95

teUing an anecdote as now. • • • I sympathiced with him because
he was struggling with difficulties, and so was I. Mr. Lincoln served
with me in the Legislature in 1836, when we both retired, and he
subsided, or became submerged, and he was lost sight of as a public
man for some years.**

At the outaet, ''Little Oiant" was a happier phrase to con-
jure by than that of ''raftsman/' "ox-driver/* or "rail-
splitter.'' There is evidence that Douglas and his friends
were loath to accept the challenge from this rostio, lest it
might lower the dignity of a United States Senator and give
undue publicity to an obscure rivaL But the careful historian
also discovers that the man from Vermont realized the quality
of his foeman; he shrank from putting his astuteness over
against the homely frankness of the man from Kentucky ; he
f elty if he did not know, that the common people were more
familiar with principle than with diplomaey, and more sus-
ceptible to the appeal to the heart and the conscience than to
the logic of prudence and the intrigue of politicians.

On the other hand, the friends of Lincoln feared that his
unschooled oratory would be no match for the more brilliant
rhetoric of the Senator; that he would be cornered and con-
fused by the dexterity of his opponent. But, most of all,
they feared that Lincoln's intensity of conviction and frank-
ness of aim would undo him, even if the brilliancy of his
opponent failed, and the sequel shows how well founded were
these anxieties.

This battle of giants began at least as far back as that
motley gathering in Bloomington on the twenty-ninth of May,
1856, where the Republican party of Illinois was bom. It
was a convention of discontents, the disturbed, detached, and
semi-detached fragments of all the old parties : the old Whigs,
who were ready to confess the imbecility and inadequacy of
their party; the uneasy Democrats, who were beginning to
face the problem which the party, honestly, in the main, tried
to evade; the out-and-out radicals, those who had heard the
moan of the slave-mother, the crack of the slave-driver's whip,
those who, with the eye of the spirit, had seen what the
Mississippi River boatman had seen with his bodily eyes in

$96 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

New Orleans nearly a quarter of a century before — a woman
on the auction block — and could understand and approve the
exclamation of the boy Lincoln to his cousin, John Hanks,
* ' Oreat Ood, look at that I If power is ever given me I will
hit that accursed thing hard!" Here were Abolitioniats
proud of the name, successors of Lovejoy, followers of Uoyd
Garrison, Wendell Phillips, and Theodore Parker, those to
whom the ringing measures of Whittier. and Lowell were as
psalms of the sanctuary; and those who were ill at ease in
their presence, who dreaded their vehemence and disdaimed
the incendiary title. History calls it a convention, but it
was rather an unorgani2ed and incoherent mass without
vision; they were as sheep without a shepherd, and in their
imbecility they cried **Lincolnl'* "Lincoln 1" "Lincoln!'*
And the man whose political ideal had always been Heniy
Clay, who had grown weary in waiting for the Whigs, bis
political party, to rise to the occasion, whose spirit chafed
within its bonds, at last broke loose in a speech, the very
excellence of which threatened to annihilate it. A young
newspaper reporter on The Chicago Tribune — subsequently
to become the editor and proprietor of that paper in its
ascendant era — Joseph Medill, said :

'^ began taking notes but I soon forgot myself, joined with tlie
convention in cheering and stamping and clapping to the end. WlicB
the calm had come I awoke out of an hypnotic trance and thonglit of
my report for the Tribune, aad there was nothing written. It was
some sort of satisfaction to find that I had not been scooped, as aU
the newspaper men present had been equally carried away by the
excitement caused by the wonderful oration and had made no report
or sketch of this speech.**

Forty years after, the famous 'Uoet speech" was i>artly
rescued from oblivion by the energy of ^'McClure's Maga-
zine.'' A skeleton of the speech, elicited from the memory
of H. 0. Whitney and others, was printed in the September
number of 1896, and we discover in this ragged remnant that
all the logic, pathos, and appeal of his subsequent career were
anticipated in that explosion of the spirit. It created a po-
litieal Penteeost, and^ however diverse the vernacular, all

THE MADISON COMMEMORATION d97

understood the Evangel, yielded to the goapel appeal, and
were lifted up above the trammels of expediency, halting poli*
cies, and that black beast — ^the bugaboo that has demoralized
and degraded so many Conventions— ^^ What will they sayt"
**WhatwiU they say t" *'Th^y" will say, of course, the idlest
thing that is going in an earnest world; ^'they'' will put
shortest meaning on long sentences; ''they'' will interpret
noble utterances meanly; "they" will parry, qualify, discount,
distrust, hold back, using the breeching instead of the collar
in the harness that is attached to the car of progress.

There at Bloomington, as Whitney remembered, Lincoln
said:

"The battle of freedom is to be fought out on principle. Slavery
is s violation of the eternal right. We have teiiiporiz^ with it from
the neoesBitiei of our condition, but as rare as Qod reigns and school
children read, that black foni. urn oak ivxvkb bk oonbigratkd into
god's hallowed tbitthI • • .

"In seeking to attain these results — so indispensable if the liberty
which U our pride and boast shall endure— we will be loyal to the
Constitution and to the 'flag of our Union'; and no matter what oar
grievance — even though Kansas shaU come in as a slave State; and
DO matter what theirs — even if we shaU restore the Compromise — ^we
will say to the Southern Disunionists, 'WK woN^r oo odt of thx uinoir,

AND TOU shan't! ! I'"

Here the record ends abruptly in a series of exclamation
points ; the sentences are lost in a blaze of light, but the con-
quering spirit was there awakened, and in the astoundingly
short period of seven years the hand of the orator fulfilled
the prophecy of the heart and signed the Emancipation
Proclamation*

Two years after the birth throes at Bloomington, June 17,
1858, the Bepublican State Convention at Springfield was to
name a candidate for the United States Senate to take the
place of IllinoiB's favored son, one whose fame was already
national, the brilliant ''Little Oiant," Stephen A. Douglas.
The Chicago delegation carried into the hall a banner upon
which was inscribed, ''Coos Countt fob Lincoln I'' In
the midst of wild excitement a manfaPBi>4lomi |hgState
asked permission to revise the banat^^tfi)! pU^if ^^^^^^

S9S ABBAHAM LINCOLN

words^ "Cook County," in larger letters, the word, "Ilu-
N0I8,'' and the nnanimity did not wait for formal ballot
That night the Pilot of Destiny took his place at the wheel
and ventured to cast the horoscope of national politics, and,
like the captain on the high seas that he was, he took his
reckoning by the stars.

"Where are we and whither are we tending!" was his fiirt
question, and this his portentous answer:

'^'A houfle divided against itself caxmot stand.' I believe tliis gov-
enunent cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do
not expect the Union to be dissolved — ^I do not expect the house to iaU;
but I do expect it wiU cease to be divided. It will become all om
thing, or aU the other.''

Three weeks later. Senator Douglas returned from Wash-
ington, and in the City of Chicago began the fight for the
retention of the toga. The worst fears of Lincoln's friends
were realized. The fated ^^house-divided-against-itself " pas-
sage was seized upon as the war cry of the ^^Little Oiant."
This was ^'incendiary" doctrine; it was ''sectionalism," ''de-
fiant to the Constitution," "dangerous to the State." It was
"rebellion," "treason," and the lovers of freedom trembled.

But Lincoln was not scared. Next week, at the Springfield
State Fair, Lincoln and Douglas were both heard. lanes were
being formed, arguments being marshalled. Douglas was
tactical; it was for him to dissipate the rising enthtoiaam,
to multiply perplexities, to scatter the attention, to impress
the public with the ethical confusion, the economic menace,
and the political dangers of the situation. He was sincerely
alarmed. Lincoln saw his course much more dearly; hu
larger ship sank into the deeper waters where lies the eternal
calm.

''When winds are raging o'er the upper ocean.
And billows wild contend with angry roar,
'T is said, far down beneath the wild oommotloo.
That peaoeful stillness reigneth evermore.**

So, on the twenty-fourth day of July, 1858, thirty-seven
days after the fateful Springfield address, Lincoln addressed
the following note to Douglas :

THE MADISON COMMEMORATION 899

^CBiOAOOy LuuNOiSy Julj 24^ 1868.
''Hoir. 8. A Douglas.

. ** Mt Deab Sib: Will it be agreeable to you to make an arrangement
for you and myself to divide time, and address the same audiences the
present canvass? Mr. Judd, who will hand you this, is authorized
*to receive your answer; and, if agreeable to you, to enter into the
terms of such arrangement.*

"Yonr obedient servant,

**A. LmooLir."

The same day the reply came, written at some length,
evasive, halting, but. consenting to speak once in each of the
seven congressional districts. And so the great itinerary was
arranged for —

Ottawa, August 21

Freeport, •• 27

Jonesboro, Sept. 15

Charleston, ** IS

Galeeburg, Oct. 7

Quincy, " 13

Alton, ....*' 15

On the fiftieth anniversary year, the spots whereon these
hustings were held were glow points in the history of Illinois.
Here, nnconsciously, the destiny of the nation hung npon the
breath of these two men. Bronze tablets to conmiemorate the
dates and places were placed, and the pen of the historian,
the poet, and the philosopher were sharpened to interpret the
same.

In 1858, the students of Enoz College displayed on the front
of the building, in rear of the open*air platform, in bold let-
ters: *'Emqx Gollbgb is fob LmooLN 1'' Forty years after,
in 1896, a bronze tablet was put into the face of the building,
and the movement for the erection of a Lincoln Science Hall
was set afoot, with the nation's applause.

It was arranged that the speakers were to introduce the
debates alternately, Douglas securing the first and last open-
ing, by his own stipulation. The first speaker was to occupy
an hour; the next, an hour and a half; the first speaker to
close with half an hour rejoinder. Biographers, writers of
fiction and poetry, and orators, have tried to depict the pic-

400 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

tnresqueneMi^ the dramatie intensityy the popular outpoTuings
of these gatherings, but they have all failed. Only those who
were of it and in it can understand how they came — ^by wagons
and by trains, afoot, on horseback, across State and County
lines, overflowing hotels, and private houses — camping out on
the prairies, sleeping under the stars, enduring uncomplain-
ingly the scorching rays of the sun, cheering unwearied by the
light of the moon, disputing, debating, talking, talking, and,
what is better, thinking, thinking, and thinking again on new
lines. For the most part such political gatherings do but little
more than confirm convictions already held, deepen prejudices
which the listeners carry with them, but here men were con-
verted, not only by individuals, but by families, in hloeks;
audiences were given fresh angles of vision, touched with new
puri>oses and enthusiasms, and the votes of Counties changed.

The spectacular phases, the externals of this debate, were
fascinating and striking. Douglas was the cavalier riding in
his special car, often drawn by special engine, accompanied
by brass bands that played, ''Lo, the conquering hero comes !"
A cannon, carried on an open car, belched the news of his
arrival; gaily caparisoned coaches met him, and mounted
horsemen caricoled at the head of the column that wended its
way to the stand ; a barouche with four milk-white horses was
his Freeport conveyance.

On the other hand was Lincoln, plain, awkward, carrying
his own shawl and grip, at first at least travelling lonely,
sometimes in the caboose of freight cars; and when, towards
the end, his fellow-citizens would do him honor, eonvoyed hj
them to the speaker's stand in a ^'prairie schooner."

But the more exciting features were pii^ychological. It was
a duel of intellects, a battle of brains, in which, for strategic
agility and platform manoeuvring, Senator Douglas probably
held the advantage all the way through. It is painful to see
how much time was consumed on both sides in seeking taetical
advantage, the one of the other. The wrestlers stood often
at bay and used the precious time, each in trying to get tiie
under hold. But it was no playtime for the speaken. Al-
though delivered without manuscript and illumined witii the

THE MADISON COMMEMORATION 401

play and repartee of extempore speedi, each speaker did
level best ; there is evidenee of careful preparation and studied
utterances on both sides.

At this distance ^'Squatter sovereignty/' '^State sover-
eignty/' "The Wihnot Proviso/' ''Lecompton Constitution,"
''Nebraska and Anti-Nebraska Bills," ''Bleeding Kansas,"
''Border Ruffians/' even the "Mason and Dixon line/' and
the "Dred Scott decision/' need interpretation; they mean
but little to our children, but these words represent the storm-
oentres of the debate. Between the lines of these q>eecheB
it is not hard to discover the real debate in a nutshell, and here
it is: A house divided against itself cannot stand; this nSr
tion cannot remain half slave and halt free, and it will not be
wholly slave.

This was the bright tai^t against which the polished
arrows of Stephen A. Douglas fell like hail. He accused
Lincoln of awakening a sectional spirit, arousing race preju-
dices, provoking slave-holding anxieties, shocking conventional
proprieties, defying constitutional safeguards ; in short, mak-
ing himself an impractical fanatic who would be an idealist,
a reckless reformer.

On the other hand, in an unguarded moment, Stephen A.
Douglas had said that he "did not care whether in the new
Territory of Kansas slavery was voted up or voted down I"
This became the centre of Lincoln's attack, the vulnerable
target for his high archery. Here was a man seeking the
popular suffrage, who was dull to the instincts of liberty,
indifferent to the atrocities of slavery, careless of the rights
of the human soul, defiant to the fundamental postulates of
the Declaration of Independence, which to Lincoln meant all
men. Douglas maintained it meant only all white men, with
preference for native-bom white Americans at that. "Did
not care whether the virgin State of Kansas should be dedi-
cated to perpetual freedom or to perpetual slavery I" ex-
claimed Lincoln. "Was this, a man who made his policy of
State Sovereignty of more importance than the principles of
human liberty, to be returned to the United States Senate
and perchance two years hence to take his place as the stand-

408 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

ard-bearer of the Democratio Party, and to be made Presideat
of the great Republic t " he farther asked.

The debate began at Ottawa, where liberty-loving sentimeDt
was strong. Here Douglas propounded seven questions, hop-
ing to commit Lincoln to the most radical position, so that
to use his own phrase, ''When I trot him down to the sonthern
part of the State, where the pro-slavery sentiment is strong,
I can show him in his true lighf But Lincoln's boyish skill
as a wrestler held him in good stead. He postponed the an-
swers until the next meeting, and his final appeal was so
satisfying that at the close of the debate he was carried to
the hotel on the shoulders of his admirers.

Six days later, at Freeport, Lincoln answered Douglas's
seven questions and retorted by propounding four hard ques-
tions to ''The Little Giant." The second question was sodi
as to give Douglas an opportunity to answer in a way to
allay the anxiety of the hesitating friends of liberty and to
justify his halting politics to the cautious politicians. lin-
coin 's friends strongly disapproved of this question, for tacti-
cal reasons. A delegation of Chicago friends disturbed hit
midnight slumbers at Dixon the night before the debate witk
their protests, but Lincoln proved the more skilful tactieiaiL
He was courting short-range defeat in the interest of a long-
range victory. When Douglas said, "The people of a Terri-
tory have the right to exclude slavery from its limits," be
reassured his Northern friends, but in the same breath he
incurred the distrust and enmity of every sincere believer in
slavery. By that simple sentence Douglas forfeited forevff
the confidence of the Southern slaveholder.

The next bout, on the fifteenth day of September, was at
Jonesboro in Union County. This is as near Egypt as yoa
can ever get in Illinois, for it is always said to begin "in the
next County south." The audience was necessarily largdy
people of Southern antecedents, and Douglas knew his audi-
ence; he made the most of their prejudices; feathered his
arrows with Fred Douglass who, he said, came to hear him si
Freeport, riding in a carriage beside a white woman, white
her husband sat on the box with the driver. His favorite

THE MADISON COMMEMORATION 403

epithet here was ''Black Bepnblican. ' ' Here he propounded
the old brutal reducito ad absurdum as to the white man
marrying a black woman.

Lincoln, too, knew how to nae geographical prejudices. In
his dosing sentences at Jonesboro he said :

'1)id the Judge talk of trotting me down to Egypt to scare me to
death t Why, I know this people better than he does. I was raised
Just a little east of here. I am a part of this people. But the Judge
was raised farther North, and perhaps he has some horrid idea of
what this people might be induced to do.'*

The next debate was held at Charleston. After this at
Galesburg, Lincoln said :

''Whatever may be the result of this epliemeral contest between Judge
Douglas and myself, I see the day rapidly approaching when his pill
of sectionalism, which he has been thrusting down the throats of Be-
publicans for years past, will be erowded down his own throat.''

A week later, October 13, they were at Quincy, and, two
days after, the great tournament came to an end at Alton.
Douglas's voice had given out; his friends listened to him
with pain and anxiety. Lincoln's voice was clear, his en-
thusiasm unabated, and his courage waxing stronger and
stronger. They were standing on ground already consecrated
to liberty. Here, twenty years before, Elijah Lovejoy's
printing press was thrown into the river, the publishing house
burned, and he himself gave his life to the cause — ^the first
conspicuous soldier to fall in the battle for freedom and the
Union. More clearly than anywhere else, perhaps, Lincoln
oatlined the inevitable conflict; he saw the imi>ending crisis.

But before I ask you to listen to his closing appeal, I must
give a few moments to the consideration of the Charleston
debate, the most prominent of all the debates to this time and
place, but to the historian perhaps the least significant be-
cause the most personal, for it was almost wholly given over
to a discussion of Lyman Trumbull's part in the imbroglio —
Douglas trying to dear himself from what he considered
certain misstatements of Senator Trumbull ; Lincoln attempt-
ing to vindicate the character of Judge Trumbull and to

404 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

snbstantiate the charges. The intricacies and sobtiltles of
this debate may be judged when I tell you that in the Nicdaj
and Hay edition of the ''Speeches and Addresses of Lincoln"
there are over ten solid pages in fine lype of supplementaiy
reading, pnt in as necessary material in order to understand
the debate at Charieston.

Lincoln opened the debate, his speech covering ten pages in
the book jnst referred to. Notwithstanding the secondary
matter jnst described, the speech is memorable and immortal,
if for no other reason than that here at Charieston he nlenced,
once and for all, the coarse knock-ont bravado of the ''Uaek
wife'' threat, which Douglas propounded at S'onesboro, and
which at the end of fifty years is still tilie last resort, the
stock in trade of him who would appeal to race prejudice
and justify the injustice and inequalities resting there<m«

"I do not underttand," Mid iho greatest Kentuddsii, "that
I do not want a negro woman for a slaTO I aeoesMrily want bcr lor
a wifa. ... I am now in my fiftieth year and I certainly aerer
have had a blade woman for either a ilaye or a wife. So it seema to
me quite possible for us to get along without making either alaviea er
wiyee of negroes.''

Two flashes of Lincoln's wit brighten the first addreos^ He
reminded that audience that the social and political relatioos
of the negro and the white man w«re matters of state and not
of United States legislation, and inasmuch as Jndge DoogUi
was in constant horror of some rapidly approaching danger
in that direction, he suggested that the most efficient meaoa
to prevent this would be to keep the Judge at home and aead
him to the State Legislature, there to fight the dangeroos
measure.

Again alluding to Judge Douglas's disclaimer of certain
action in the Kansas matter, Lincoln said, ^'It is said that a
bear is sometimes hard enough pushed to drop a cub, and
so I presume it was in this case."

Stephen A. Douglas's Address, delivered fifty years ago,
covers sixteen compact pages in the authorised version of
Lincoln's "Works," filled with dexterous sarcaimij and elo-
quent, sometimes fiery, appeals to race prejudice. He talks

THE MADISON COMMEMORATION 405

of Lincoln's '^rank abolitionism/* his ''negro equality doo-
trine/' the ''enormity of the principles of the Abolitionists/'
accuses liincoln of an attempt to conceal "from this vast
audience the real question which divides the two great par-
ties"; he discovers a conspiracy on the part of the "Black
Republicans" to carry the election by slander and not by fair
means; says "Lincoln's only hope of riding into office is
on Trumbull's back, bearing his calumnies"; accuses Lin-
coln of tryiag to occupy his time in personal matters to
prevent his showing up the revolutionary principles which the
Abolition Party has proclaimed to the world; talks of "Fred
Douglass, the negro, hunting me down, now speaking in the
Southern part of the State" ; flaunts in the face of the audi-
ence a printed speech of the "black orator"; eharges the
"Black Bepublicana" with changing their names and com-
plexions like a chameleon.

Lincoln's half -hour rejoinder covers six pages of the ofBcial
report ; he explains his position on negro citizenship in a way
that would at the present time satisfy the most cautious ex-
Confederate of the South; explains his position on the
Mexican War while in Congress — always refusing to vote for
any endorsement of the origin or justice of the War, but never
refusing to vote supplies for the army. In this speech he
compared Judge Douglas to the "cuttle fish, a small species
of fish that has no mode of defending itself when pursued
except by throwing out a black fluid, which makes the water
00 dark that the enemy cannot see it, and thus it escapes."
The sagacious lawyer of the circuit was alert and alive. He
would stand no "playing upon the meaning of words," or
"quibbling around the edges of the evidence." Pointing to
an individual, he

**1 assert that you are bere to-day, and you undertake to prove me
a liar hy showing that you were in Mattoon yesterday. I say that you
took your hat off your head, and you prove me a liar by putting it on
your head. This is the whole foree of Douglas's argument.**

But for all this playfulness and the consumption of time
on the part of the speakers, and of enthusiasm on the part of

406 ABBAHAM LINCOLN

the audience on what at this distance seems trivial and un-
importanty Lincohi did not let his audience lose sight of the
main issue. He said :

"If Kanaaa should sink to-day, and leave a great yacant place in
the earth's surface, this vexed question would still be among us. . . .
I do not suppose that in the most peaceful way ultimate extiiMtiaB
[of slavery] would occur in less than a hundred years at last; but that
it will occur in the best way for both races, in God's own good tim^
I have no doubt."

The treiiiendous mental activity, the brain storm that then
raged, is curiously suggested by the things that did not get
themselves said; by the material that was crowded out, the
fragments that were left over, enough to fill more than the
twelve baskets. The collectors of Lincoln's words have
dumped in between the Charleston and Qalesburg speeebxA
fifteen pages of curious matter, under the strangely character*
istic head of ''Fragments/' showing that even with Linecdii,
and doubtless with Douglas, as with the rest of us, the best
things often did not get themselves said. Let me pass on to
a changed audience what Lincoln had probably planned to
say, but had not time to give :

((

'Qive to him that is needy* is the Christian rule of diarUy;
Take from him that is needy* is the rule of slavery.

"The . • • pro-slavery theology seems to be this: 'Slawy ia not
universally right, nor yet universally wrong; it is better for some people
to be slaves ; and, in such cases, it is the will of God that they be sucIl'

'The Rev. Dr. Ross has a slave named Sambo, and the question ia,
'Is it the will of Qod that Sambo should remain a slave^ or be set fraef
While he considers it, he sits in the shade, with gloves on hia hand%
and subsists on the bread that Sambo is earning in the burning son.
If he decides that God wills Sambo to be free, he thereby has to walk
out of the shade, throw off his gloves, and delve for his own bread.

!••• • •• • . . . • • •

''When Judge Douglas ascribes such [logic] to me he does so • • .
by such fantastic arrangements of words as prove 'horae diestnnta to
be chestnut horses.*

"I claim no extraordinary exemption from personal ambition. Tliat
I like preferment as well as the average of men may be admitted.

THE MADISON COMMEMORATION 407

Bat I protest I hmve not entered upon this hard contest eolely, or eren
chiefly, for a merely pcreonal object. • • . I enter upon tiie oonteet
to contribute my humble and temporary mite in opposition to that
effort [to make slavery universal and perpetual in this nation].

"The negro being doomed, and damned, and forgotten, to everlasting
bondage, is the white man quite certain that the tyrant demon will
not turn upon him too?''

What a pity this sentence did not get itself uttered on
every one of the seven platforms in that great debate :

'To give the victory to the right, not bloody bullets, but peaceful
ballots only are necessary. Thanks to our good old Constitution, and
organization under it, these alone are necessary. It only needs that
every right-thinking man shall go to the pMn, and witiiout fear or
prejudice vote as he thinks.''

Now, then, let ns hear the conclusion of the whole matter,
the summing up of this debate between the great politician
and the great prophet, as the prophet saw it and stated in the
closing speech at Alton :

''That is the real issue. This is the issue that will continue in
this country when these poor tongues of Judge Douglas and myself
shall be silent. It is the eternal struggle between these two prindples
— ^right and wrong — ^throng^out the world. They are the two prind-
ples that have stood face to face from the beginning of time; and
wiU ever continue to struggle. The one is the common right of hu«
inanity, and the other the divine right of kings. It is the same prin-
ciple in whatever shape it develops itself. It is the same spirit that
says, 'You toil and work and earn bread, and 111 eat it.' No mat-
ter in what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a king who
seeks to bestride the people of his own nation and live by the fruit
of their labor^ or from one race of men as an apology for enslaving
another race, it is the same tyrannical principle. I was glad to ex-
press my gratitude at Quincy, and I re-express it here to Judge
Douglas— -i^^a^ he looks to no end of the institution of slavery. That
will help the people to see where the struggle really is. It will here-
after place with us all men who really do wish the wrong may have
an end. And whenever we can get rid of the fog which obscures the
real question, when we can get Judge Douglas and his friends to avow
a policy looking to its perpetuation, we can get out from among them
that class of men and bring them to the side of those who treat it as a
wrong."

408 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Thtu doied the great debate, the beat sostamed, moat eon-
spicnoiu, moat intellectual, and most ethical eonteat of intel-
lect and personality on a i>opular platform known in histoiy.
Aa predicted, Lincoln lost the aenatorship, though he had
gained a popular majority of four thousand. Of oouraey he
was disappointed. He said he ^'felt like the boy who had
stubbed his toe — ^it hurt too much to laugh and he waa too
big to cry." But Lincoln bargained for his defeat; in part,
at least, he knew what he waa doing. *'I would rather be
beaten with that in the speech than to succeed with it ex-
punged," was his word concerning the ''house-divided-against-
itself " passage. Of the mischievous questions at Freepoit,
against which his sagacious political friends oounaeUed, he
said: ''I am for larger game than the senatorahip. " It is
generally supposed that at that time his eye waa on the presi-
dential campaign of two years later. I suspect his thou|^
waa less personal ; that he had in mind the clearing up of the
issue, the forcing of the main battle, that being the ultimate
triumph of freedom.

In the February following, the '^Sad Humorist of the
Sangamon" stood in the lime-light of the nations, aa he defir-
ered the Cooper Institute Address. Men of letters, the leadezi
in culture and statesmanship of New York city, listened with
bated breath to the riverman of the West, the awkward lawyer
of the prairies. The peroration of that masterpieee m
American statesmanship indicated the logic by meaiia of
which he had won the hearts aa well aa the brains of the
noblest in America, the lance by which he unhozaed hit
chivalric opponent in the great tournament, the road upon
which he travelled to his triumph :

''Neither let lu be ilsadered from our duty by falie
agahist 118, nor frightened from it hy menseee of deatmetioa to the
government, nor of dnngeons to oanelyet. Let m haTe fsith tkei
right makes might, and in that fkith let us to the end daie to do osr
duty at we understand it*"

The Chicago papers, then as now, displayed oommendahle
enterprise as news-gatherers. The Lincoln speeches wore
stenographically reported in full in the eolimina of Tks CU-

THE MADISON COMMEMORATION 409

cago Tribune, and those of Stephen A. Douglas in The Chu
eago Tifne$, but when, two years later, Linooln was anxious
to make eampaign uses of them in the greater race, Chicago
enterprise halted; the vision of the newspaper man waa
blurred No publisher dared make the necessary investment,
and so the obseure printing firm of FoUett, Foster ft Co.,
of Columbus, Ohio, dared and reaped a golden harvest
Edition after edition was called for; the press waa buQr
night and day in supplying the demand, and happy is the
heart of the collector who can to-day secure a copy of the
plain, unpretentious ''first edition,'' which sold for fifty
cents, for as many dimes.

What a great interpreter is Timel How the half-century
has cleared up things, brought out the outlines that were
dim in the shadowsl No one at this distance thinks Stephen
A. Douglas a bad man« He was not in love with treason nor
in hii heart allied to davery ; he waa nmply a victim of his
inheritance and his environment, unable to discriminate clearly
between things transient and things permanent ; between popu-
larity and power ; between success and truth ; between what is
right and what is expedient. He lived long enough, thank
Heaven 1 to be tutored of circumstances into the better way.
The lightning flashes through the battle storm enabled him to
aee things dear, which the bright sunlight of peace had hid
from his view. He lived to hold his opponent's hat while he
took the presidential oath of office, administered by Chief
Justice Tan^, author of the Dred Scott decision, which the
new President so loathed, and which, under the mysterious
providence of God, he was to overrule and reverse, to the
smrprise and admiration of the civilised world. Stephen A.
Douglis lived long enough to hurry to the President's side
before the smoke of rebel guns had deared from over Sump-
ter, and help kindle the fires of patriotism and loyalty in
Us ^jwn Illinois and throughout the entire North. He lived
las^/ enough to say, ''There are but two parties now, patriote
avd traitors," and with his dying breath to whisper, "Teach
Wy boys to ob^ the laws and to uphold the Constitution."
' The years have dispelled the diadows out of which the

410 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

great Lincdii emerged We now know that in him tiie law
of heredity was not tricked* If, as the poet has song, he
was cast in a '^new mold," it was the mold made out oi
materials fused in the seething caldron we call ''history.''
We now know that in the Teins of Abraliam Lincoln flowed
the blood of noble ancestry. His is a name that reaehei
hack to the proud shire in Bngland that bears it; a name
that reaches into the noble crowd that overflowed fhe jail
and filled the Guild Hall in Norwich because they would not
accept a ritual prepared for than by bishops without their
consent. Nancy Hanks, the most neglected woman in Amo^
ican history, was a gentle lady by descent. Thomas Tiincoln,
the carpenter, though early orphaned in the wild woods by
a treacherous Indian's bullet, was man enough to reseue his
fortune from the bottom of the Ohio River ; to build with his
own hands five or more homes ; and with his axe and whip-
saw convert the i^camore tree into lumber, and the lumber
into the ooffin that was to encase the perishable portion of
the wife that bore to the world the noblest of PresidentB,
the greatest American.

The same day that the child was bom in that log cabin
without floor in the wild woods of a new country, Ihe child
of humUe parents, without tradition and without culture,
there was bom another babe in a stately English home around
which gathered the inherited traditions of respectability, cul-
ture and accumulated wealth. He was the child of favored
ancestry, bom to financial ease as the other was to i>over^.
He was bom to the school, college and university privilege.
According to his own estimate, he had too many of the oppor-
tunities that were denied to the child of the backwoodsman,
but he, too, was stirred with the divine passion which: he ss
little understood as did the lad of the clearings. He^, too,
was moved with the thirst for knowledge, felt the subUmitj
of nature, rejoiced in the solitudes of the forest and b,)ard
the cry of the depressed. It is a long social distance ^om
the voyager on Her Majesty's ship the Beagle, equipfked
with all the appliances and comforts then known to acienoe^

THE MADISON COMMEMORATION 411

to tile raft that floated down the MiMoasippi Bivev with, its
load of such truck as pioneers had to barter —

"Tdl Nancy to make me twelve iiutead of eight shirts. Tell Ed-
ward to send me up in my carpet-bag (he can slip the key in the bag
tied to some strings) my slippers, a pair of lightish walking shoes,
my Spanish books, my new microscope (about six inches long sod
tluree or four deep) whieh must hsTe eoUom stuffed iasidei sad my
geological compass."

So wrote the English boy to his sister. The voyager of the
Mississippi was barefooted. A coonskin cap, buckskin
breeches for cold, and a blue jeans jumper for hot days, con-
stituted his wardrobe.

How wide the distance between these twin children of
destiny, thrown out of the tardy womb of time in one day
and offered as one gift, measureless and incomparable, of
time to eternity. One. of these became a great prophet of
nature, the other a great prophet of human nature. One
delved deep into the secrets of the life in plant and animal;
the other sank his plummet into the prof ounder depths of the
human heart. One, by slow and patient search sought out

the secrets of life ; and the other, by bold adventure, sought

to measure and advance the social forces that make for
human weal and human liberty. The one, when a boy at
the University of Edinburgh, surmised that he would never
need to earn, and so his interest in medicine as a calling ran
low. He attributed his subsequent achievements to the fact
that he never had to agonize for bread. Says 'John Fiske in
this connection:

**A man of science should never be called upon to earn a living,
for that is a wretched waste of energy in which the highest intel-
lectual power is sure to suffer serious detriment and runs a risk of
being frittered away into hopeless ruin."

The other lad knew all the bitterness of poverty and the
anxiety of wants.

These twins of destiny climbed the heights of fame to-
gether. Both won the crown that belongs to helpers of men,

414 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

he redeemed, joa must preserve the sanctities of fhe ballot
box, magnify the civic holiness and freedom of election daj;
yon mnst restrain the vicious and invite the virtuous ballot
in the hand of rich and poor, black and white, male and
female. For the right of the governed to a voice in the gov-
emment is dependent not upon sex, sect, or color, bnt upon
intelligence, honor, and the willingness to serve the larger
entity — ^the pnblijo and its weaL

THE DENVEB COMMEMOEATION

THE DENVER COMMEMORATION

THE Denver Centenary celebration was a notable one,
starting in at the State House in the morning, the Gen-
eral Assembly suspending business and holding special exer-
cises in joint session, to which the public was invited. Admis-
sion to the lower floor was reserved for the members of the
Legislature and their friends, and a portion of the gallery was
reserved for members of the Grand Army of the Bepublic and
their wives ; but the rest of the house was thrown open to the
public. Fine addresses were delivered by the Hon. John F.
Shafroth, Governor of Colorado, and by Senator-Elect Charles
J. Hughes, Jr. The exerdses were very impressive, being
opened by an Invocation by the Chaplain of the Senate, the
Reverend P. T. Ramsey, followed by the vested boys' choir of
St. Mark's Church, in a processional. A chorus of children
from the Denver public schools, under the direction of Pro-
fessor Whiteman, sang patriotic airs, and the Washington
Post Veteran Vocal Club had a place upon the programme.
The Emancipation Proclamation was read by the Clerk of the
Senate, M. J. Smith, and Lincoln's Gettysburg Speech was
read by the Reading Clerk of the House, Frank Leary. The
Benediction was pronounced by the Chaplain of the House.

This observance of the day was followed in the afternoon
by an imposing military parade, in which marched, side by
aide, aged veterans of the Civil War, r^rolcur army troops, and
men of the National Guard. The parade ended at the vast
Denver Auditorium, into whose walls twelve thousand people
bad crowded to offer tribute to the memory of Lincoln. Here,
taking part in the great chorus of national airs, were one
thousand school girls in white ; behind them ranged the gray-
haired veterans of the Civil War ; and, still beyond, the blue
uniforms of the national standing army. Each company of
the parade carried its flag into the hall, while hundreds of
•r 417

418 ABBAHAM LINCOLN

small flags waved in the hands of spectators. At this Taifc
mass meeting, Gtovemor Shafroth was again one of the oratoni
Other noted speakers upon the programme were Mrs. Sarsh
Piatt Decker, Ex-President of the National Federation of
Woman 's Clubs ; E. L. Stirman of Beauregard Post, Veteraot
C. S. A. ; and Joseph Farrand Tuttle, Jr.

Many of the city schools held Lincoln Day exercises an the
afternoon of Thursday, February 11, and on the morning of
Friday, February 12. The town was lavishly decorated in iti
business section, the streets being draped with bunting and
made bright with flags.

The Orand Army veterans held a special celebration on the
evening of February 12, which was in charge of ail the Posts
of the city ; numerous auxiliary societies being present. This
meeting had the flavor of the old War time, with the bitter*
ness abstracted. The old time patriotic airs were sung, foB
of the memory of the days of the Blue and the Gray.

The Denver Centenary celebration was one of the most en-
thusiastic in the country, and was participated in by the en-
tire population. The events of the Centenary Day in Den-
ver proved that the proclamation of Governor Shafroth and
of Mayor Spear, regarding the day's fitting celebration, had
found unreserved and enthusiastic response in the heart of
every citizen.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN: THE PERFECT BULEB OF

MEN

JOSEPH FABBAND TUniiE, JB.

IT is said that when the sun is at its zenith, the huge tow-
ering form of Mont Blanc is reflected in a little pool at
its base. Even so is the great Abraham Lincoln in our hearts
to-day. We love him not only as the great President, the
great statesman, the great martyr, the great Emancipator
of a race whose representatives here in this service to-day and
all over the world, are bowing in*loving worship at his ahrine^

THE DENVER COMMEMORATION 419

[ but we loTe him because he is the great Master of men — ^the
Perfect Buler of men — ^who in his humble birth and in his
magic power to charm the hearts of men, has made all the
dearer to us the story of Bethlehem's wayside inn two thou-
sand years ago.

As those three .swarthy lords from the Orient hills paid
their loving homage to the Child in the manger that first
Christmas morning, so there were ''wise men" at Washing-
ton in 1860 who laid their gifts of gold, frankincense, and
myrrh at the feet of Abraham Lincoln, the child of the
West.

I suppose the most powerful body of men ever associated
in American history, was President Lincoln's Cabinet in the
first year of his administration. There was William H.
Seward, the ablest diplomatist of his age; Edward Bates of
Missouri, that wily political chief of the old Whig school;
Salmon P. Chase of Ohio, courtly, able, dignified, polished.
These three men had been Lincoln's active opponents at Chi-
cago for the nomination in 1860, and with the instinct of a
perfect ruler he gathered them in his Cabinet, that no dis-
sensions might arise among them to imperil the country.
Then there were those great lawyers of Indiana, Caleb B.
Smith, and John P. Upsher ; Montgomery Blair, the leader of
the Maryland Bar; Qideon Welles of Connecticut; Edwin
M. Stanton — a fiery eight-in-hand they were, some of them
having never worked in harness before — ^that is having never
held ofSce before — ^with Abraham Lincoln on the box. They
pulled up evenly on the bit at the start; but from the slack
rein over their backs, each soon, to change the figure, imagined
that around himself and his department, was whirling the
grotesque Abraham Lincoln like an attending satellite. Seo-
retary Seward was the fipst to have his mind disabused of
this impression, as one day he received a touch with the whip
on the flank. And he looked around and wondered if the
man on the box meant it. He certainly did.

It happened in this way. One day Mr. Seward said to
Lincoln, ''Now, you have this great war on your hands,
jron attend to home matters, and I will look after our foreign

4S0 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

relations." And I ean imagine Abraham Lincoln langjnnc
one of those loud western prairie laughs of his, sach as Jokn
Hay tells us of, as he said, '^What a capital idea, Seward;
what a team we 'U make! But sajl" — as Mr. Seward wn
about leaving him, perhaps thinking in his heart what emf
game he had made of Abraham Lincoln — ^''Don't forget to
show me eyerything you receive, and particularly tv&j-
thing you send away." And that was alL

Members of the Orand Army of the Bepublie, you iriO
remember when you enlisted in 1861 and went down to
bloody battlefields that the Bepublic might live, our relatkm
were very much strained with England. The whole Nortk
was greatly shocked when a Cunard steamer arrived in Nev
York one morning in the first week of May, 1861, with tte
published proclamation of Queen Yietoria's reoognitiaii of
the belligerency of the Confederate States. It was a seinov
Uow to Lincoln and Seward, and it was then necessary for
Mr. Seward to make good his suggestions and write bis
first important state paper, viz., a letter of instroetions to
Charles Francis Adams, our Minister at the Court of St
IJames. It was such a delicate task that he did not aofaoiit it
in dictation to a clerk, but wrote it all out carefully with In
own hand in thirteen closely written pages. BemeniberiBg
Lincoln's little caution, he went to the White House with h.
to have Lincoln put his offieial ''0. EL" upon it Now the
condition of that letter as Lincoln returned it always remindi
me of what I used to hear the good people of Cambridge uj
of Bufus Choate's signature — ^''a gridiron struck I7 li^
ning." Section after section of Mr. Seward's letter had been
stricken out; many words — even whole sentoncea — wen
erased, and new ones substituted; in some plaoes the white
spaces between the lines were entirely absorbed with tbe
interlineation of new sentences; beautiful flowers of riietorio
were ruthlessly torn up by the roots. And then, what do
you think I This humble backwoodsman who had been
cradled in a hollowed-out log — ^whose only schooling had
been 'the winter evenings before the rude fireplace, where,
in the absence of any candles or of old rags soaked in oil.

THE DENVER COMMEMOBATION 4^1

his mother had taught him and his father to read and
write in the blaze of the spioe-wood brush he had chopped up
and thrown upon the fire, and where, stretched out upon
the rough, gntty, dirt floor, he would cipher upon an old
wooden shovel with a bit of charred wood picked from the
fireplace, and say to himself ''1 11 study and get ready, and
then maybe the chance will come'' — ^what do you think of
this humble backwoodsman criticising the English of the
accomplished, the versatile, the scholarly William H. Seward
and actually showing him that in some places he had not
even expressed his own meaning I

William H. Seward had a very little body but a very big
brain and a very big heart of love for his country, but it
would seem as if the feathers were standing out at right
angles all over his little body, when he wrote this sentence
of a letter to Mr. Adams: ''We intend to have a clear and
simple record of every issue which may arise between ua
and Qreat Britain." Lincoln bracketed the paragraph and
wrote in the margin, ''Leave out." Mr. Seward wrote,
"The President is surprised and grieved" ; Lincoln changed it
to "The President regrets." Mr. Seward referred to certain
acts of Oreat Britain aa "wrongful"; Lincoln changed it to
' ' hurtful. * ' Mr. Seward made reference to certain explanations
made by the British government; Lincoln wrote, "Leave out»
because it does not appear that such explanations were de-
manded"— ^just a jog to Mr. Seward's memory. Mr. Seward
wrote learnedly of "the laws of nature"; Lincoln ran his
pen through the expression "laws of nature," and wrote
"our own laws" — good, honest United States laws were all
Abraham Lincoln was looking for in those days. Mr. Seward
wrote, "The laws of nations afford us an adequate and
proper remedy, and we shall avail ourselves of it" — an im-
plied threat, you see; Lincoln wrote opposite the last part
of the sentence in the margin ' ' Out. ' ' Mr. Seward elaborated
a thought in seven particular words, and Lincoln ran his pen
through one, two, three, four, five, six of those words and left
only one word as having sufficient carrying power to designate
Mr. Seward's meaning. Mr. Seward wrote "Europe atoned

422 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

by forty years of suffering for the crime Great Britain had
committed"; and Lincoln changed the crime to ''error."

Mr. Seward must have had a whole basketful of chips on
his shoulder when he wrote this sentence, which if allowed
to remain, would undoubtedly have precipitated a war with
Great Britain :

"When thia act of interventioa is dutinctively performed, we from
that hour shall cease to be friends and become once more, aa we ban
twice before been forced to be, enemies of Great Britain."

It is interesting to see how Lincoln tried to save a little out
of the wreck of this paragraph, to save Mr. Seward's f^
ingSy but he finally gave it up, and obliterated the whole
paragraph. And so all through this remarkable state piqper,
the great master of rhetorical art, with rare literary dis^
crimination and fine appreciation of the shadings of wordi»
extracted the sting of implied censure out of Mr. Seward's
words.

Now, Charles Francis Adams, with that letter as originally
written by Mr. Seward, would have been a blufi^er and a
bully, with his mouth full of threats, before the 1gTigi«li
court. But with it, as corrected by this log cabin genius of
bdleS'letires, he was a far different man. He read that
letter as if it had been his Bible, till he became saturated
through and through with the spirit of Abraham Linooht
From it he learned to be tactful, patient, long-suffering,
*^ hoping all things, enduring all things," having the power
and gift of silence, the power of saying nothing when there
was nothing to say, or rather, like the great Master at Wash-
ington, of saying nothing that had better be left unsaid —
qualities he sorely needed for a great trial that was to come.

At that time, at Birkenhead on the Mersey, just opposite
Liverpool, two powerful armored cruisers were being buOt
by private British capital, destined, so Mr. Adams' secret
agents informed him, to be delivered to the Confederaey at
a certain secret island in the West Indies, and there to be
turned loose to harry and scourge the commerce of the
United States from the high seas, as the Alabama and Shen^

THE DENVES COMMEMORATION 488

andoah did two years later. There was no more eritical
moment in the Civil War. Intervention or non-intervention
on the one hand, and a war between the United States and
Great Britain on the other, all depended on the wisdom of
Charles Francis Adams, three thousand miles away from
his home government and instmctions, and with no Atlantie
cable between the two eonntries at that time. It was for this
moment that the Perfect Bnler at Washington had corrected
that letter, whose wise, noble, and large q>irit were so in-
carnated in the bearing of Mr. Adams, that finally the British
ministers, wise men also with gifts in their hands, made this
fair proposition to Mr. Adams : ' ' If you will deposit one mil-
lion pounds sterling with the British government as indem-
nity against possible suits that may be instituted against it
l^ these private capitalists, we will not allow these ships to
sail.''

When Mr. Adams returned to his office that day, there
was a knock at his office door, and upon opening it he looked
into the face of a man whose name, at the man's request, he
refused to divulge to the day of his death — a fellow Massa-
chusetts citizen, a banker in London. And he said to Mr.
Adams, ^*I know all about it. Here are one million pounds
sterliQg in gold certificates deposited in various banks in
Ijondon. Deposit them to the credit of the United States."
A few days afterwards, Mr. Adams deposited those particu-
lar one million pounds sterling with the British government
as the indemnity they had asked, and those two armored
eruisers never sailed from the banks of the Mersey. The
swords that had been unsheathed in America and England,
were returned to their scabbards, because the pen of Abra-
bam Lincoln was mightier than the sword.

As I think of Charles Francis Adams in those critical
moments at the English court, I always think of what the
King said to his wise counsellors after he had cast Shadrach,
Heshach, and Abednego into the fiery furnace, ^'Did not
"we cast three men into the fiery furnace, and behold I see
four men walking there, and the form of the fourth is like
unto the Son of Godt" Ohi it was Abraham Lincoln walk-

4S4 ABRAHAM UNCOLN

ing with Charles Franeif Adams before the Engliiih eoort
in those troublous days of 1861 1

But how about that other wheel horse of that team, that
fiery, mettlesome creature, Edwin M. Stanton I Would the
man on the box dare to touch him with the whip — naj, would
he dare even to allow the silken lash to rest upon his baek
eyer so lightly f The beginning of the aequaintanee and
the subsequent friendship of these two men for each other,
is to me the great romance of the Civil War period, and I
believe that around it will be woven the great American his-
torical noveL About 1857 Cyrus H. McCormick, of Chicago^
brought suit against a man by the name of Manney for all^^ed
infringement of the IfcCormick Harvester Be^>er patent
rights. The latter engaged Lincoln to defend. The case
was tried in the United States District court at Cincimiati,
and without consulting Lincoln as senior counsel, the parties
there employed as local counsel a man by the name of Edwin
M. Stanton. It pained Lincoln not a little. Stanton's treat-
ment of Lincoln was brutal from start to finish; and he
frequently alluded to Lincoln as ''my long-armed friend
from niinois." It was Lincoln's right as senior counsel to
make the closing legal arguments in the case. Of course he
knew that the great George H. Harding of Philadelphia
would make the closing mechanical argument Lincoln for
months had been preparing that final argument in the ease,
as a door he would throw open to make himself more widely
known in the United States. But he listened in vain for
Stanton to suggest that he, Lincoln, make that argument ; and
finally, to relieve the embarrassment, was obliged to sug-
gest that Stanton make that closing argument. To his
great chagrin and mortification, Mr. Stanton eagerly ac-
cepted that suggestion. It was a very great disappointment
to Lincoln. Don't you remember those beautiful words
written of Abraham Lincobi, by Balph Waldo Emerson t
''His heart was as big as the world, but it could not hold
the memory of a wrong." Lincoln went away from Cincin-
nati with no resentment in his heart.

THE DENVER COMMEMORATION 4A5

Members of the Qrand Army of the BepnUic, yon will
remember, wherever you were— on the march, in the camp,
or on the bloody battlefield in November, 1861— that in that
month occurred the Trent affair — ^that affair when Captain
Wilkes with the United States man-of-war, the San Jacinto,
threw a shot across the bows of the British mail steamer,
the Trent, in the Carribean Sea, hove her to, and forcibly
took from her decks the two Commissioners, Mason and
Slidell, then on their way to represent the Confederacy at
the Courts of Qreat Britain and France respectively. Lin-
coln, great lawyer that he was, deemed it a very illegal
procedure, and would gladly have given them up could he
have done so. He was opposed in his views by every mem-
ber of his Cabinet, equally great lawyers though they all
were. One morning Salmon P. Chase, Secretary of the
Treasury, called upon Lincoln to make a casual remark as
he was leaving the room: ''Mr. Lincoln, Stanton is in town,
and he says the United States has the clearest right to detain
those men. Mason and Slidell, in Fort Warren, Boston har-
bor.'' It greatly interested Lincoln, and he asked that Mr.
Stanton call, and put that opinion in writing. Mr. Stanton
called the next morning and did as Lincoln requested, and
just as he was leaving the room, Lincoln laid his great,
brawny hand upon his shoulder. It was the one supreme,
psychological moment of the whole Civil War. And this
was the situation: Stanton was of the opposite school of
politics from Lincoln; he was not even a War Democrat at
that time; he had been the Attomey-Oeneral of the United
States under President James Buchanan ; he had unmercifully
criticised the first year of President Lincoln's administra-
tion; he had gone so far in his bitter hostility to Lincoln
as to disrespectfully refer to him as ''the great northern ape"
— and Lincoln knew it all. But, charmer that he was of the
hearts of men, Lincoln said, "Stanton, it makes no difference
to me what you think of me personalty, but your country
has need of your services in my Cabinet. Will you accept
the portfolio of the War Department?" And Stanton broke

4£6 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

down, and asked for a day to consider the matter. He ae-
cepted, remained with Lincoln to the close of the War, and
became the greatest War Secretary the world has ever known.

Their relations with each other were very peculiar. No
two natures more antipodal, not only in their mental tem-
peraments, but in their physical appearance, ever met
Stanton was a short, stocky, John Morrissey kind of a nan,
with his fighting face and broad shoulders ; Lincoln was tall,
gaunt, spare, angular. Stanton was grim, brusque, iiunt,
often savage in his intercourse with men ; Lincoln was always
mild and gentle. Stanton was silent, secretive, often with-
holding telegrams at important crises; Lincoln was forgiT-
ing, open, frank, and cordial. Stanton was solemn, austere,
severe in his ideals; Lincoln was laughter-loving. Stantoo
absolutely saw no good in any man who had once proved
recreant to his trust; Lincoln was always saying ^'givta the
man another chance."

It was upon the question of pardoning so many; s(ddiei%
that these two great men battled royally with each other,
for supremacy. It had been a running fight for four yeai8»
but permit me to say that Mr. Stanton was doing all the
running. A few days before the War dosed, Mr. Stanton
made his last great stand. Senator Henderson of Hissouri
was looking over papers on his desk, and there found papers
relating to the pardon of a Confederate soldier by the name
of Vaughn — ^a spy who had been taken within the XJmm
lines with the goods on him. He was tried by three di&r
ent courts-martial, found guilty each time, and was at 8t
Louis awaiting execution of his sentence. Mr. HendenoD
carried the matter to Lincoln, but was informed by him that
it was in Mr. Stanton's department. Mr. Henderson saw
Mx» Stanton, who informed him that the case had been tried
thi^e times, and that he would not open it, and broadly
hinted that he would be much obliged to him if he would
not meddle with affairs in his department. Mr. Henderaoo
then went to Lincoln with all the papers. The kind-hearted
President put on those old-fashioned, big-disced ''specs,'' as
he always called them, and commenced to wade through the

THE DENVER COMMEMORATION 427

voltuninous testimony of those three trials, to find some legal
loophole of escape. There was noneL because the iron Sec-
retary Stanton and his equally iron Judge-Advocate-Gen-
eraly Joseph Holt, had drawn up those papers. Lincoln at
last jerked off his ''specs," and said, ''Now, Henderson,
what 's the use of killing this man ! There will come no good
in it of discipline to the armies of the United States, as
Stanton says, because in a few days there will be no armies
of the United States. They all will have melted back into
the walks of civic life. This man is a good deal better man
for us above ground, than under ground. There has been
too much spilling of blood; we must begin to save some of
it now. You go back and tell Stanton that he must open
this case.'' When Mr. Henderson reported this to Mr. Stan-
ton, there was an explosion at the War Office. The air was
blue and sulphurous from the fierce unevangelical terms Mr.
Stanton was using, as he said, "You go back and tell Abra-
ham Lincoln that I will not open that case, even for him as
President." Mr. Henderson reported this at the White
House. And then Lincoln, the man with the sad, haunting,
melancholy, patient face — ^that face in which Mrs. Mary
Shipton Andrews says there seemed to be the "suffering of
all the sins of the world" — ^went to the comer of the room
and took down the old gray shawl, and threw it over his
ahouldenu Oh, the poetry and romance of that old gray
shawl' of Abraham Lincoln I How often during those four
years had he thrown it over his shoulders, and carefully
dosed the door of the White House after him at midnight,
when all supposed him asleep, and walked down that lonely
path to the War Office to get the latest news from you,
members of the Grand Army of the Republic at the front, or
to see if here was not some. case where, by writing that magic
word "J>^Jf!don," he could bring gladness to some poor, suf-
f ering^']0f e and children ; he always said he slept better if he
couldklo that. He hung up the old, gray shawl upon arriving
at the War Office, on the top of a particularly high door,
where he always hun^ it. When Mr. Stanton returned to the
room, he caught sight of the old gray shawl, and knew what

488 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

was in store for hinL Man of hot, Cdtie, fightinir Uo^^
that he was, he ruahed impetaoiudy into the room to haie
the first word or round with Lincoln, as he said — and Oh!
this old wheel horse of the team is rearing and plnnging
violently now. '*I will not open this case, even for yon is
President I" Lincoln looked npon Stanton most kmgingij
and lovingly even as it is said the Christ looked at tiie dis-
ciple John and loved him. He knew that Stanton was only
fighting now to save his pride; he knew that Edwin M
Stanton loved him more than he loved any other human hdng»
and he merely said, so tenderly and soothingly, aa be took
down the old gray shawl, '^Well, Stanton, I goeas yonll
have to do it this time,'' and the great battle waa over for-
ever.

A few days after, John Wilkes Booth fired the bollet ttst
ploughed its way throngfa the brain of Abraham T.i»M«rtlM
They carried the nnconseioos President across the street,
laid him upon the bed, and held loving vi^^ at the bedside sD
that night. During the night the most alarming nnnon
startled Washington — Oeneral Grant had been killed in
New York I Vice-President Johnson had heea murdered,*
Salmon P. Chase had been assassinated ; William H. Seward
was barely alive from the murderous dagger-wounds of an
assassin — ^till it seemed as if the government of the United
States was being literally stabbed to its death that night
With these reports fljdng around Washington, every one
seems to have lost his head that night but Edwin M. Stanton,
and grandly did he prove himself to be the man of the hour.
As if he had received a wireless from Abraham Lincoln, fsit
disappearing in the mists of the deep vall^, ''The countiy,
Stanton, the country," Stanton, shortly after midnight, went
into a little room adjoining the one where the President lay
dying, called in his Assistant Secretary of War, Charles A
Dana, with a corps of telegraphers, and dictated orders, as
Mr. Dana says, ''necessary to carry on the govemmut''
Stanton sent telegrams to aU the Generals in the field. South,
West, and Southwest; then to all the great cities of the N<MrCh;
then to all the country where there were wires to eany them

THE DENVER COMMEMORATION 439

— telegrams of hope, assurance, and confidence that though
the beloved President was dying, the Bepnblic would live!
Edwin M. Stanton had laid his iron hand upon our country
that night, and when the sun walked ^'forth with steps of
fire'' from the golden gates that morning of April fifteenth,
1865, the government at Washington was safe.

But all that night the beautiful life of Abraham Lincoln
-vras gradually ebbing itself awa^, till, at twenty-two minutes
after seven o'clock that morning of April fifteenth, 1865,
Snrgeon-Qeneral Barnes, who had been sitting upon the bed
all night with the dear hand of Abraham Lincoln in his,
suddenly announced the last beat of the puke. In the solemn,
the awful hush of that moment, when all realized that the
beautiful spirit of Abraham Lincoln had taken its return
flight to Ood, Edwin M. Stanton — and his words shall be the
city of Denver's tribute of affection to his memory to-day —
Edwin M. Stanton walked to the bedside, and, affectionately
stroking the face of his dead Chief with both his hands and
wetting the silent, upturned face with his tears, said, between
his sobs, ''Here lies the most perfect ruler of men the world
has ever known."

THE WASHINGTON COMMEMORATION

AT Washington, the nation 's capital, the day was fittingly
observed, although the President, Vice-President, and
many other of the prominent figures in the life of the Capital
*were upon the programmes of celebrations in other parts of
the eoontry.

In the House of Bepresentatiyes, on Thursday, February
11, the Hon. Henty Sherman Boutell of Illinois delivered a
memorial address, while on the Centenary Day itself, Mr.
Boutell read Lincoln's Get^burg Address from the Speaker's
chair ; Representative Frank M. Nye deliyering an address on
lAnedttL

The Senate passed a joint Resolution declaring the Cen-
tenary Day a special legal holiday in the District of Colum-
bia, and in the Territories of Alaska, Arizona, New Mexico,
and Hawaii, and authoriong the President to issue a Proclam-
ation to this effect. At all of the schools of the city, com-
memoratiye exercises took place ; and celebrations were held
by the United States Historical Society, the Orand Army of
the Republic, and other organisationa. One of the most no-
table observances of the day was the morning celebration at
Howard University, a University for colored students. Here
Hon. James R. Oarfield, Secretary of the Interior, presided,
representing the Government, as patron ex-officio of the Board.
The speakers of the day were Hon. Joseph G. Cannon, Speaker
of the House of Representatives, and Gen. J. Warren Eiefer.
Speaker Cannon was received with a tremendous hand-clap-
ping and cheering, which i>ersisted throughout his inspiring
speech. The demonstration ended with what is known to the
students as the "Howard dap'' — a rhythmical hand-clapping
which ends with a shout. Gen. Eiefer made the time inter-
esting with personal recollections of the days of the Civil
War. One of the features of the meeting was the presentation

4M ABRAHAM LINCOLN

of a painting by G. T. Webber— ''The Undergraiiiid Bail-
way. ' ' This picture depicts the aiding of a fugitive slave, and
contains the portraits of Levi and Catherine Coffin, who, dm^
ing their life-time, assisted more than three thousand dafei
to escape from bondage, and whom Harriet Beeeher Stowe ia-
mortalised in her ''Uncle Tom's Cabin,'' under the names of
Simeon and Bachel HoUaday— the Quaker eouple who he^ed
Eliza Harris to freedom. The presentation of the picture im
made by William E. Curtis, the famous war correspcmdeBt
Another presentation was that of a bronze tablet containiiif
the Gettysburg Address, which was presented to the Univervty
by the Lincoln Educational League, of which Levi P. Martoa
and William Dean Howells are prominent members.

At 3 :30 in the afternoon, the mass-meeting of the day wm
held at the new Masonic Temple. This meeting was direetlbF
under the charge of Henry B. F. ilacf arland, Commiasioiier of
the District of Columbia. Cooperating with him were ^le-
cial committees from the Chamber of Commerce and the Boari
of Trade. The result was a meeting vivid with interest^ hris^
ing together aU classes and conditions of men in one united
tribute to our old War President.

Upon the platform, supporting Commissioner MajofnyiMna,
sat ^e former Commissioners of the District, the various eob-
mittees in charge, and the heads of the Civil War societieB.

The speakers were men of national prominence, among then
being the Hon. Joseph G. Cannon, Speaker of the House of
Representatives; Thomas Nelson Page, the Southern writer;
former Senator John B. Henderson, who penned the Foo^
teenth Amendment of the Constitution abolishing alaveiy;
Joaquim Nabuco, Ambassador of Brazil; Justice WendeD
Phillips Stafford, of the Supreme Court of the District of
Columbia ; the Bev. J. G. Butler, who was Chaplain in several
hospitals in the city during the War; and the Bev. Dr. Abram
Simon, Babbi of the Washington Hebrew Congregation. The
Invocation was offered by Edward Everett Hale, Chaplain of
the Senate. Bishop D. J. O'Connell, Bector of the CaOolie
University, pronounced the Benediction.

The speech of Thomas Nelson Page was a tribute of the

THE WASHINGTON COMMEMORATION 485

South to the man who stood at the head of the North in the
time of dissension. Mr. Page expressed his appreciation of
the honor shown him in being asked ''aa the Southern man, to
speak on this notable occasion, to celebrate, here in the Capital
of the nation, where he achieved his great and abiding fame,
the Centenary of the birth of the man who, more than any
other man or group of men, saved the nation." The closing
words of the address of Mr. Page, speaking of the South —
''But the passing years are sweeping away the mist that ob-
scured her vision, and she is coming more and more to see
Lincoln as he was, as a great-hearted and large-minded man
who, had he lived, might have been her defender in the hom;
of her greatest trial — ^whose last acts were acts of kindness,
and whose last words were words of good will and peace to-
ward the South as well as the North" — ^were enthusiastically
applauded by the great gathering which included in its midst
a number of Confederate veterans.

In the evening of the Centenary, the Military Order of the
Loyal Legion of the United States, Commandery of the Dis-
trict of Columbia, gave a banquet, about four hundred men
sitting down to the table ; while the balcony was crowded with
women who came to look on at the scene of festivity. The
programme contained the names of men of national prom-
inence.

On the same evening, the Central Labor Union met at Odd
Fellows' Hall in honor of the day, and here addresses were
made by well known statesmen, and many labor leaders,
including Samuel Gompers, President of the American Feder-
ation of Labor, and Miss Phoebe Couzins, the Womans' Suf-
frage leader.

LINCOLN AND THE GHABACTEB OF AMERICAN

CIVILIZATION

HON. J0AQX7IK NABUOO

IT was not without much hesitation that I accepted the in-
vitation to speak by the side of the distinguished mea
ehosen to address yon on this great occasion, but when I w
told that I would represent here the sentiment, of Litin
America, I felt that was a call I could not fail to answer.

The presence at this place of any single foreign nation, in
the person of its official representative, would be a suffieieBt
acknowledgment that Lincoln belongs to all the world. Bit
there are reasons why the other nations of this cantiDent fed
themselves more closely associated with him than the rest of
the world, and why they owe him the greater gratitude after
that of the United States.

We are bound, indeed, to form with you a political mcval
unit, and no man, after Washington, has done more than
Lincoln to strengthen the magnet that attracts us to you.
Washington created the American freedom; Lincoln puii>
fiedit

Personally, I owe to Lincoln, not only the choice, but tte
easy fulfillment of what I consider was my task in life*
as it was the task of so many others — the emancipatioB
of the slaves. Nobody, indeed, could say what would have
been the struggle for abolition in Brazil, if, past the middle
of the nineteenth century, a new and powerfcd nation had
sprung up in America, having for its creed the maintenanee
and the 'expansion of slavery. Through what lineoln did,
owing to the great light he kindled for all the world with kb
Proclamation, we could win our cause without a drop of Uood
being shed. In fact, we won it in a national embrace — tiie
slave-owners themselves, with the lavishness of their letteis

436

THE WASHINGTON COMMEMORATION 487

of manumiflsiony eimilating the action of the laws of freedom,
successively enacted.

Lincoln, like Washington, is one of the few great men in
liistory abont whom the moral sense of mankind is not divided.
Sis record is, throughout, one of inspiration. His part at
±be White House was that of the national Fate. To-day, when
one looks from this distance of time to the fields of that terrible
Civil War, one sees in them, not only the shortest cut, but
iJie only possible road, to a common national destiny. I con-
strue to myself that War as one of those illusions of life, in
which men seem to move of their own free will, projected by
a Providence intent on saving their nation from the course
she was pursuing. Nobody can say what would have been
the duration of slavery, if the Southern States had not acted
as they did. By seceding, they doomed it to death and saved
themselves. In that way the Secession, although a wholly
different episode, will have had in the history of the United
States the same effect that the secession of the people to the
Sacred Mount had in the history of Bome, in the early period
of the Republic — ^that is, that of cementing the national unity
and of assuring the destiny of the nation for centuries of ever-
vridening power.

Lincoln, with the special sense bestowed 1^ the Author of
that great Play, upon one entrusted with its leading part,
saw distinctly that the South was not a nation, and that it
wotdd not think of being one, except during the hallucination
of the crisis. If the South had been a nation, the North,
with ail its strength, would not have subdued it. Neither
would the American people care to have a foreign nation
attached to its side by conquest ; nor would a coerced nation,
after such a bloody war, reenter the Union in the spirit of
staying forever, as did the South, once the passion spent that
moved it to secede.

I believe such was the feeling of Qeneral Lee during the
whole campaign; only he could not utter it, and the secret
died with him. But only such a feeling could have kept his
surrender free from all bitterness, as if he had only fought
a duel of honor for the South. Nothing is so beautiful to me

438 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

in the celebration of this first centenary of liinooln, u tk
tributes of men who represent the noblest spirit of the SoBfli

I came here to say a word — I have said it. With the m-
creased velocity of modem changes, we do not know what tk
world will be a hundred years hence. For, surely, the idnk
of the generation of the year 2000 will not be the same s
those of the generation of the year 1900. Nations will tfaa
be governed by currents of political thought which we eu
no more anticipate than could the seventeenth oentuiy aiitid-
pate the political currents of the dghteenth, which still m
part sway us. But whether the spirit of authority — or thtf
of freedom — ^increases, Lincoln's story will ever appear ibor
luminous in the amalgamation of centuries, because he n-
premely incarnated both those spirits. And this veneratkB
for Lincoln's memory, throughout the world, is bound more
and more to ceiitre in this city — which was the excloEaw
theatre of his glory, and which alone could reflect the sitTift^
and the elations of his heart during the whole performasa
of his great part in history — as holding the great preemineDl
title of being the place of his martyrdom.

I am proud of having spoken here at his first Centexoial
in the name of Latin America. ,We all owe to Lincoln dM
immense debt of having fixed forever the frea eharaeter of
American civilization.

THE PHILADELPHIA COMMEMORATION

PHILADELPHIA had no official celebration of the day,
there being no general Committee organised, bat the ob-
Berranees took place nnder private initiatiye, or nnder the
aufipices of the varions organizations and societiea of the
city. It was estimated, howeyer, that over half a million per-
sons participated in the varions memorial meetings and exer-

AU of the schools observed the day with appropriate pro-
grammes and special observances; there were elaborate exer-
cises nnder the auspices of the Loyal Legion, Pennsylvania
Gommandery ; a commemorative programme by the University
Extension Society; and an observance by tt^d Philadelphia
Association of Naval Veterans.

The Historical Society had on exhibition the famons Lam-
bert collection of Lincohi autographs and books, while at the
roonEis of The Union Leagne was displayed a loan collection of
rare prints and portraits^ from the private collection of Major
Lambert, who is known as possibly the greatest collector of
Linoolniana in onr country.

The banquet held in the evening at The Union League, was
perhaps the most notable celebration of the day. This was
presided over by Mr. James F. Hope, President of the Club ;
Major William H. Lambert, the speaker, lending wonderful
significance to the day with his personal reminiscences of Lin-
coln. The Marine Band from Washington furnished a musical
programme, both afternoon and evening.

The Grand Army Association of Philadelphia held a meet-
ing at the Opera House, at which Henry Watterson made the
address; and commemorative exercises under the auspices of
the Grand Army of the Republic were held in the afternoon.

PRESERVER OP THE UNION— SAVIOUR OP THE
REPUBLIC : REMINISCENCES OP ABRAHAM

LINCOLN

MAJOR WILLIAM H. LAMBERT

A MONO the many associations that are met to eommemo-
rate the Centennial AnniveiBary of the birth of Ahrt-
ham Lincoln, there is none that can rejoice in the honor done
his name with greater fitness than' The Union League of Fhit
adelphia.

The Union League owes its being to the earnest pnrpm
to uphold his hands ; of it he was an Honorary member, and
in acknowledging his election as such, he wrote, ''The ges-
erons approval of a portion (tf my teUow citizeiiSy so intelligeBt
and patriotic as those comprising your association, nmax»
me that I have not wholly failed/'

Among the founders of the League were men miio had earij
advocated his nomination for the Presidency, streavsoij
worked for his election, and heartily approved his administn'
tion; and when they united to form this organization tii^
enrolled men of like sympathy and purpose, and The Uumb
League became the prototype of many dubs emulous of its
example. The League did not confine itself to mere vntil
expressions of approbation, valuable and important as nek
evidences of sympathy and loyalty were, but it engaged
actively and successfully in recruiting for the army, ^
participating vigorously in the campaign for his renomimtHV
and reelection, was powerf uUy effective in securing the tn*
umph at the ballot which ensured final victory in the Mi
Having steadfastly and energetically supported the fP^
President, The Union League of right joins the ehonis d
thanksgiving and praise for the life, the character, and tke
work of Abraham Lincoln.

United with the thousands who to-day commemorate tk
centenary of his birth, recalling all that we have heard mb^
read concerning him, especially the many incidents of Ui

THE PHILADELPHIA COMMEMORATION 448

life that for months preparatory to this day have been nar-
rated in onr newspapers and magannesy remembering how he
shaped our history and enriched onr literature, it is hard to
realize how little known he was to the oountiy at large prior
to the assembling of the eonvention that nominated him for
the presidency.

He had serred a single term in the national House of Bepre*
sentativesy he had been an unsuccessful candidate for the
United States Senate in 1855, in the next year his name had
been presented to the first National Convention of the Bepub-
lican Party as a candidate for the yice-presidency ; again
placed in nomination by his party for the Senate, he engaged
with Stephen A. Douglas in a political debate the most mem-
orable in our history outside the halls of Congress, and as
a result of this debate he secured a majority of the popular
vote of the State for the Bepubliean candidates for the Legis-
lature, but as the majority of the legislators chosen were for
Douglas, Lincoln was a second time defeated in his aspiration
for the Senate. The fame of the debate led a dub of young
men in the city of New York to invite Lincoln to lecture, and
in compliance he made a remarkable address at the Cooper
Institute, in the presence of a large audience, comprising
some of the foremost members of the Bepubliean Party. Be-
cause of this address he was requested to deliver a series of
speeches in the New England States. These apeeches in New
York and the East attracted the attention of men influential
in the councils of the party, who, opposed to the more prom-
inent candidates for the presidential nominaticm, were seeking
a candidate who, in their judgment, would be more likely to
be elected.

Consideration of Lincoln's availability, the importunity of
the Bepubliean candidates for Qovemor in Pennsylvania and
Indianar— both '^ October States," and supposedly doubtful-—
local antagonism to Seward and to Chase, and the intense ear-
nestness of Lincoln's friends in Illinois and adjacent StateSi
cooperated to secure for him the nomination.

Seemingly, Lincoln had made so little impression upon the
people at large, that conservatives who deprecated the radical

444 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

phraae of the ''Ineprcisible Conflict^'' and feared iia efteet
upon voters, had apparently forgotten — ^if indeed they had
known — that months bef<»e. Seward had pronounced these
objeetionable words, Lineoln had declared, ^'A honae divided
against itself eannot stand; I believe this govemiaent cannot
endore permanently half slave and half free."

Despite efforts that have been made to ecmtrovert the state-
ment, the truth is that for the moment the supreme fact of
the Chicago Convention of 1860 ''was the defeat of Sewaid
rather than the nomination of Lineoln* It was the triumph
of a presumption of availability over preeminence in intelleet^
and unrivalled fame.''

Elected to the presidency by a minority of the popular vote,
his election followed by the threatened withdnwal of sevoal
States, the snecessful candidate might well be awed by the
stupendous req>onsibiIity that awaited him. The monllis of
suspense between his election and his inauguration were
fraught with intense anxiety. In the hope of averting the
threatened calamity many public meetings urged compromise
and favored libenl ecmcessions. Beaction appeared to be
setting in, and many who had helped to elect him seemed
to regret their success; but whoever else was shaken, Lincolip
was not, and to his intimate friends gave assurance of his firm
adherence to the principles that had triumphed in his election.

In letters to Senator Trumbull, Lincoln wrote:

"Let there be no ooBiprMiilee on tlie qneetioa of extending sIsTCfy-*
if there be, all our Isbor is lost, and ere long must be dons vg^K
. • . Stand tan. The tog hss to eome, sad better now thsn ssy
tims heresfter."

''If any of our friends do prore false, and ilz np a oompromiss os
the territorial qnestion, I am for fishting again, that ii alL" "If it
prove true (report that the forte in South Carolina will be aurrendered
bj the oonaent of President Buchanan), I will, if our friends at Wasb*
ington concur, announce publicly at ones that they are to be retakan
after the inauguratioa. This wiU g^ the Union bmu a raUyi^ ay,
and preparations wiU proceed aomeirhat on this sids ss weU as oi the
other." •

• These passages ware read by Major Lanbeit trim the origiBal anto-
graph letters.

/6, ,a<AC^^^ ^^-^^^^^ fA*^^ M^^.:„^

/Cui /» <E-^»^ Jf^^ *tV^ '»«^^ 90e^»-e_ yL-«-<fl^ ^^»--'
•*^ ^i^ ro^^/^ ;'<:2e<M:./ ^ *^^*^-»^^«»^

^Ol^rx^ ^;/^L<««^. V^!l*i.>^k.^ y^««»l^»-- -*«-'

A^tMe^yu^ ,^yn/i^*^^^rt^f»^ ^ ^*-v -'St- ^^-^ -^ <__

^ ...^4^ ^^^ i^^^r^ >-^«>k ^^^^fV^***fe:

Facsimile of Manuscript Tribute from Seflor Joaquim Nabuco, Brazilian

Ambassador to the United States

yf/um^ ctrerrz^ Ck^ri,tC £^€jl^ «AKa.^<y a.'^l^/^ "^^^ j^i^tu. a^ j^^ •

Facsimile of Manuscript Tribute from Wendell Phillips StafTonl, Associate
Justice of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia

THE PHILADELPHIA COMMEMORATION M5

Meanwhile he steadily retrained from public atteianee on-
til he set forth from the home to which he was never to return
alive. His touching farewell to his Springfield neighbors^
and the series of addresses in reply to greetings from the
several communities through which he passed on his journey
to the national capital, plainly showed iliat he appreciated
the weight of the burden he was about to aarume, and so far
encouraged the party that had elected him, but gave little
evidence of special fitness for the work. In the light of after
events, the assertion which he made in Independence Hall —
that, rather than surrender the principles which had been
declared there he would be assassinated on the spot — is pre-
eminent as an indication of the source and the courage of his
political convictions; while the fact that at the time of its
utterance he had been warned of a conspiraigr to kill him,
removes from these words any suspicion that they were spoken
for rhetorical effect, and invests them with the solemnity of
prophecy. The Inaugural Address of the new President was
awaited with painful solicitude. Apprehension that, in the
hope of avertiBg disaster, he might yield somewhat of the
principles upon which he had been elected; fear that, in
retaliation for threats of disunion, he might determine upon
desperate assaults on the rights of the revolted and threaten-
ing States; mistrust that he might prove unequal to the
nation's supreme exigency, combined to intensify anxiety.

The address failed to satisfy extremists, either North or
South, but the great body of loyal people were delighted with
the manifest determination of the President to preserve, pro-
tect, and defend the government he had sworn to uphold.
But his solemn assurances that he would in no wise endanger
the property, peace, and security of any section of the coun-
try; that it was his purpose to administer the government as
it had come to him, and to transmit it unimpaired by any act
of his to his successor; and his appeal to the memories of the
past, and to the common interests of the present, were alike
powerless to recall the revolted States to their allegiance or
to restrain the action of other States, bent on following their
example.

440 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Anticipating the inaiigciratioii of President Lincoln, the
Soathern Confederacy had been proclaimed, and its troops
were arrayed against the authority of the United States, while
the absence of efforts of represBion seemed to indicate that
the dissolution of the Union, so arrogantly deelared by the
States in rebellion, was to be accomplished.

For weeks succeeding his inauguration, the President
awaited the progress of events — ^the policy of laissez-fairt
seemed to have been adopted. Some tentative efforts were
made to relieve the beleaguered forts within the limits of the
insurgent territory, but apparently the nation was drifting to
death.

But the shot on Sumter wrought instant and wcmdroaB
change. However uncertain Abraham Lincoln may have been
as to the method of maintaining the Union, his purpose to
maintain it had been positively declared; and from the mo-
ment the flag was fired upon, the method was no longer in
doubt. The call of April 15, 1861, was the answer to the
challenge of Charleston Harbor. We know now that the num-
ber of men called forth was utt^ly inadequate to the work
to be done, but the value of the call was less in the number of
men it evoked than in the aaaertion that armed rebellion was
to be confronted and the power of the nation was to be put
forth for its own preservation, and the enforcement of the
laws.

Previous to his entrance upon the presidency, Lincoln had
had no part in the administration of great affairs; he was
destitute of experience in statecraft and he had no precedent,
either in our own history or in that of other lands, to guide
him. He had called to his Cabinet the chi^ of the leaders
of the Bepublican Party, men whose great experience in public
affairs and whose admitted ability and acquirements justified
their selection, and might well indeed have induced him to
submit to their direction; but he realised that as President
he could not, even if he would, transfer the obligation of his
office. Whatever doubts may have existed in the minds of
his advisers as to his purpose and fitness to accept the responsi-
bilities of his office were soon dispelled, and it is evident that

THE PHILADELPHIA COMMEMORATION 447

the President dominated his administration from the beginning
— ^when, in reply to the Secretary of State, who had advised
a radical and startling change in the goyermnental poUcy,
and had expressed his iinllingness to undertake its direction,
Lincoln declared, ''If this must be done, I must do it" — ^to
the close — ^when he notified the Lieatenant-General, ''Yon
are not to decide, discuss, or confer upon any political ques-
tions. Such questions the President holds in his own hands,
and will submit them to no military conferences or conyen-
tions. * *

In this connection, and as confirmatory of the President's
control of affairs, the recently published letter of his private
secretary, John Hay, is particularly interesting, as showing
the impression made upon a qualified observer, and recorded
at the time. Writing at Washington, under date August 7,
1863, to his fellow secretary, Nicolay, Hay said :

"The lyoooQ is in fine whadc. I have nrdy teen him more Berene
and busy. He is managing this war, the draft, foreign relations, and
planning a reccmstruction of the Union aU at once. I never knew
with what tyrannons aothoiity he rules the Cabinet until now. The
most imi>ortant things he decided and there is no caviL''

The outbreak of hostilities presented to President Lincoln
an opportunity not of his seeking, but of which he might well
avail himself. However specious the plea of State rights,
however disguised the chief motive which prompted the seces-
sion of the revolting States, he knew, as the people knew, that
slavery was the real cause of the Rebellion. He had long
foreseen that the country could not permanently endure par-
tially slave, partially free; he knew that slavery had been
the basis of the controversies and dangers of the past. If
tradition may be believed, in his oarly manhood he had de-
clared that if ever he should have a chance, he would hit
slavery hard, and now the chance had come. In 1837, with
one other member of the Illinois Legislature, he had placed
himself on record declaring his belief ^'that the institution of
slavery is founded on both injustice and bad policy,'' and
protesting against the passage of resolutions favoring it.

44S ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Slavery wu atteinpting the destmetiaa of ffae Bepnblie, ind,
by its own appeal to arms, was offering an opportonily for a
counter-blow which might forever destroy an institation whose
malign influence had long controlled national a£Eaii8» and
endangered the perpetuity of the nation. He was President
and Commander-in-chief; in the party that had elected him
were many thousands anxious for the proclamation of free-
dom to the slave and insistent upon its issue. He had been
the nominee of a party, but he was now the President of the
United States, and neither hope of partisan gain nor personal
gratification could swerve him from what he omceived to be
the obligation of his oath. His conception of his duty was
forcibly expressed in his letter to Horace Qredey^ probably
the most important of the many notable letters written hy the
President. Replying to the Editor's article accusing him of
failure to meet the rightful expectations of twenty millions
of the loyal people, Lincoln wrote from Washington, undar
date of August 22, 1862 :

''I have just read yonrs of the IMi, addrened to mjmAt tliroo^
The New York Trihuiie. If there be in it anj ttfttemaits or
tions of fact which I may know to be erroaeoiUy I do not.
here, controrert them. If there be in it ai^ inferences whidi I naj
beliere to be faleely drawn, I do not, now and here, argue againai ttaa.
If there be perceptible in it an impatient and dictatorial tone, I waire
it in deference to an old friend whose heart I haye always vuppoaed
to be right

"As to the policy I 'seem to be pursuing/ as yon say, I haw not
meant to leave anyone in doubt.

"I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the
Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored, the
nearer the Union will be 'the Union as it was.* If there be thoee who
would not save the Union unless they could at the same time save
slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be thoee who would Bsi
save the Union unless they could at the same time destaray slavery, I
do not agree with them. My paramount object in this strv^e la to
save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If
I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and
if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I
could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone^ I would also
do that. What I do about slavery and the colored rae^ I do
I bdieve it helps to save the Union; and what I lurbear, I forbear

THE PHILADELPHIA COMMEMOBATION 449

•

cause I do not beliere it would help to WTe tlie Union. I shall do less
whenever I shall beUeve what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall
do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I
shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors, and I shall adopt
new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views.

''I have here stated my purpose according to my view of oiBcial
duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-ezpressed personal wish
that all men everywhere could be f ree.**

Twenty months later, in a letter to a citizen of Kentucky,
in answer to his request for a statement of what had been
said to the Governor of that State, the President wrote :

''I am naturally anti-slaveiy. If slavery Is not wrong, nothing is
wrong. I cannot remember when I did not so think and feel, and yet
I have never understood that the presidency conferred upon me an
unrestricted right to act officially upon this judgment and feeling. It
was in the oath I took, that I would to the best of my ability, preserve,
protect, and defend the Ck>nstitution of the United States. I could
not take the office without taking the oath. Nor was it my view
that I might take an oath to get power, and break the oath in using
the power. I understood, too, that in ordinary civil administration
this oath even forbade me to practically indulge my primary abstract
judgment on the moral question of slavery. . • • And I aver that,
to this day, I have done no official act in mere deference to my ab-
stract judgment and feeling on slaveiy.**

With clear view, and steadfast purpose. President Lincoln
devoted his life to the preservation of the Union. To accom-
plish this end, in the spirit of the great Apostle to the Gentiles,
he made himself servant unto all, that he might gain the
more. Subordinating self, personal prejudices and partisan
feelings were not allowed to obtrude between him and his
conception of the country 's need. Ability to serve the cause
was the essential qualification for high office and honor, and,
outweighing other consideration, atoned for past or present
personal objection.

Early in 1862 he appointed as chief of the War Department
a man of boundless zeal and energy, who had treated Lin-
coln with marked discourtesy, had denounced his conduct of
the War, and had freely expressed his dislike for him and
doubt of his fitness — an apx>ointment as sagacious and f ortu-

450 ABBAHAM LINCOLN

nate as it was magnanimotis ; and he retained in his Cabinet
the Secretary of the Treasury, whose own aspirations for
the presidential nomination were well known to Lincoln, who
wrote, ''Whether you shall remain at the head of the Treasoiy
Department is a question which I will not allow myself to
consider from any standpoint other than my judgment of the
public service, and, in that view, I do not perceive oceasioii
for a change/'

The War of 1861-1865 was no mere factional contest It
was a people's war, begun by a people jealous of its institu-
tions, fearful of the wane of the power it had long wielded,
distrustful of the new administration's assurances of non-
intenrention with the rights of States, and conscious that the
limitation of slavery to the territory that it now occupied
must eventually effect its extinction. The War was aceq>ted
by a people innocent of pxu*pose to interfere with the ''do-
mestic institution" within State lines, and far from united
in opinion about slavery, and though substantially imposed
to its extension over the country's free domain, not sgrwi as
to the best method of legislative treatment ; but one abeohitdj
in love with the Union and in determination to mniwit^Sn jt
"One would make war rather than let the nation sorvive,
and the other would accept war rather than let it perish
And the war came."

Only the enlistment of the people on each of the contend-
ing sides could have sustained so long a war of such magni-
tude, and offered such heroic devotion as distinguished it
The President realized that his ability to make effective his
oath to preserve the government was dependent ui>on the firm
an4i eotailjnued support of the loyal people ; that he could lead
them ho faster and no further than they would follow, and
that it was absolutely necessary to retain their confidence.
His faith in the principles of the Declaration of Independence,
his conviction that the people were the rightful source of all
governmental power, had suffered no change by his elevation
to the presidency. In an especial sense a man of the people,
the restraint which kept him closely in touch with them

THE WHITE HOUSE

WASHINGTON

We never hAve had a man In public life who^e eenoe of duty
was atronger, whose bearing toward those with whom he came In
contact 9 whether his friends or political opponents » waa charao-
terized by a greater sense of fairness than Abraham Lincoln. We
never have had a man in public life who took upon himself uncOB-
plainingly the woes of the nation and suffered in hia aoul froa
the weight of them as he did. lVe never have had a nan in our
history who had such a mixture of far-sightedness ^ understanding
of people 9 common sense, high sense of duty, power of inexorable
logic cuid confidence in the goodness of God in working out a
righteous result* as this great product of the soil of our country.

One cannot reeul of him without loving him. One cannot think
of his struggles 9 of hio life and its tragic end, without veeplng.
One cannot study his efforts, his conscience, his heroisn, and lii*
patriotism, and the burdens of bitter attack and calumny under
which he suffered, and think of the place he now occupies in the
history of this country, without a moral inspiration of the
stirring and intense character.

•v. P-J^''C (i->5^t5sie of TrilnitG from Prosidcnt Taft

THE PHILADELPHIA COMMEMORATION 461

not unwillingly borne, but readily accepted as the condition
i2nder which he beat could act with and for them.

The acquisition of vast power, increasing with the prolonga-
tion of the War, made no change in the simplicity of his
character. Unhampered by conventionaUties, indifiEerent to
forms, he received his old-time friends with the freedom of
their earlier intercourse, and was accessible to all who sought
him. No yisitor was too humble for his consideration, and
if, in too many instances, the causes which received his atten-
tion were too trivial to engage the thought of the Chief Mag-
istrate of a great nation in its time of stress, the very fact of
his willingness to see and hear all, endeared him to the people,
who saw in him one of themselves — ^unspoiled by power, un«
harmed by success.

As no President before him had done, he confided in the
people; and, in a series of ronarkable letters and speeches,
explained or justified his more important acts by arguments
of simplest form, but marvellous strength. His frankness
and directness of expression, his obvious sincerity and abso-
lute patriotism, even, perhajM, as much as the force of his
reasoning, compelled respect for his acts and enlarged the
number and iucreased the faith of Ids strenuous supporters.

The sympathetic audience which he gave to every tale of
woe, his manifest reluctance to inflict the extreme penalty
which violation of military law entailed, seemed at times to
detract from the dignity of his high office, and prompted
commanding officers to complain that the proper maintenance
of discipline was rendered impossible by Lincoln 's sensibility ;
but these characteristics strengthened his hold upon the people
at home and in the army. In his profound sympathy, in his
splendid courage, in his transparent honesty, in his patriotic
devotion, in his simplicity of thought and manner — nay, in
the very haggardness of feature, ungainliness of form, and
homeliness of attire, he was the expression of a plain people 's
hopes, and the embodiment of their cause.

Here was neither CflBsar nor Napoleon, but a popular leader,
such as befitted a Republic destined to preserve its popular

452 ABBAHAM LINCOLN

f onn, though its roler wielded imperial power ; a leader who§e
highest ambition was to save the country and to transmit the
government unimpaired to his successor.

OeneralSy intoxicated with power and anticipations of sue^
cesSy might assert the country's need of a dictator, and, appsr-
ently^ be not unwilling to assume the role, but the President,
without shadow of jealousy of any of his subordinateiy
shrewdly declared, ^'Only those generals who gain sueoeas can
set up dictators. What I ask of you is military sacoess; I
will risk the dictatorship."

The splendid manifestation of popular feeling which fol-
lowed the assault upon Sumter might easily have caused the
President to rely confidently upon popular support in his
every effort to suppress the Bebellion ; the generous respome
to his early calls for troops might readily have assured him
that the number of volunteers would exceed all needs, and
have led him to expect the speedy end of the War ; but he was
not deluded by the hope that the War would be of short
duration ; he saw the necessity of preparation for a long strug-
gle, and felt the importance of conserving all interests, and
of securing the support of all who, however they may have
differed in other respects, agreed in devotion to the Union.
Hence he made concessions to the opinions of those who, while
opposed to disunion, did not sympathize with his own views
concerning tiavery and its extension. ''How a free people*'
would ''conduct a long war" was a problem to be demon-
strated, and President Lincoln was unwilling to alienate any
who were faithful to the government, even though thqr dep-
recated the occasion which had placed it in jeopardy. HU
sagacity and his observation had shown him how wavering
were the currents of popular opinion, how readily i>opiilar
enthusiasm could be quenched by disappointment and defeat,
and how imperative it was for him to hold together all elements
requisite to the successful prosecution of the War.

Disappointed friends might inveigh against his cautioD
and demand dismissal of leaders and change of policy; luke-
warm supporters might withdraw their confidence, supersoi-
sitive observers might denounce heroic war measures as

THE PHILADELPHIA COMMEMORATION 455

invMioiui of personal or State rights ; but, despite harassment
and annoyance and antagonism, nnshaken in purpose, indomi*
table in courage, the President moved steadily on. The de-
fection of old friends and party associates might grieve him,
the nnjmt aocosations of nominal Unionists might rankle,
but he conld not be deflected from the line of his duty.

He knew that other than purely military considerations
might rightfolly determine campaigns; that success in the
field, though conducive to success at home and to ultimate
triumph, was not the only essential ; and that to maintain the
armies at the front it was imperative to sustain the sentiment
of the people at home. From the broader outlook of the
Capital, from his knowledge of the people directly, and
through their chosen representatives, he appreciated, as the
generals in the field could not, the indispensability of popular
support as well as of military success.

The President early gave eyidence that he was willing to
assume the gravest responsibilities by acts which he believed
would conduce to the great end that he had in view. ''I fed
that measures otherwise unconstitutional might become law-
ful by becoming indispensable to the preservation of the
nation. Bight or wrong, I assumed this ground, and now
avow it'' Acting upon this theory, while he had abstained
from striking at slavery as an evil in itself and in its results,
yet when, by deliberate and painful consideration, he became
convinced that the preservation of the Union demanded free-
dom for the slave, he determined upon emancipation so far
as he could effect it consistently with his constitutional obligar
tion and his military prerogative. We honor his memory
because of the courage and the foresight which led him to this
great and beneficent act, but we in no wise detract from his
fame as the liberator of the slave when calling attention to
the fact that uniformly he justified the act by its military
necessity, and never because of its righteousness as the aboli-
tion of a great wrong.

It is interesting to note the steps by which the President
reaehed his determination to proclaim emancipation. He
moved most cautiously and would not allow any of his sub-

454 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

ordiiytes to force his hand, or permit them a latitude te
would not permit himaelf ; hence, when with impetiuyas md
ill-judged seal General Fremont, who, in 1856, was the fint
Bepublican nominee for the preaidency, iaiued a Proelamatkm
of Freedom, Mr. Lincohi courteoualy but poaitively reTolaed il
— an act which brought upon him the oondemnatio(n of maiqr
of hia warmest friends, ta one of whom. Senator Browninf^
he wrote a confidential letter, dated Washington, Sq>teinbar
22, 1861, from which I quote :

""Ottiend Frimoiit'i prodamstiim as to obnilsestion of propafty uA
tha liberation of iIatoi is purely poUtical sad not within the nofi
of military law or neoeasity. If a oommanding general flnds a
sity to tein the farm of a private owner for a pastare, an encam]
or a fortification, he has the right to do so, and to ao hold it aa losg
aa the neoeasity lasts; and this is within militaiy law, beeanaa within
military necessity. But to say the farm shall no longer belong to tks
owner, or his heirs forever, and this as well when the farm is not
needed for militaiy purposes as when it is, is purely political, without
the savor of military law about it. And the same is tme of alavea
If the general needs them, he oaa seiie them and use them; but
the need is past, it is not for him to fix their permanent future
dition. That must be settled according to laws made bj law-i
and not by military proclamations. The prodamation in the point is
question is simply 'dictatorship.' It assumes that the general nay
do anything he pleases— oonfiscate the Unds and free the daw of
kyal people, as well as of disloyal ones. And going the wlxde ggue^
I have no doubt, would be more popular with some thougfatleos people
than that which has been done! But I oannot assume this recklesi
position, nor allow others to assume it on my responsibility. . , .
I do not say Congress might not with propriety pass a law on the
point, just such as General Fremont proclaimed. I do not say I nsfsbft
not, as a member of Congress, vote for it. What I objeet to is, that ^
as President, shall expressly or impliedly seise and fBrrrrrier tti
permanent legislative functions of the Qovemment.'' *

Again, when, later, (General Hunter— unmindful of Fre-
mont's experience, and confronted by peculiarly aggravating
conditions in his Department of the South — tissued a Pixxla-
mation of Emancipation, the President countermanded the

• These passagea were read by Major Lambert firam the original ant^
graph letter.

THE PHILAPELPHIA COMMEMORATION 455

Oeneral'fl act, but in the order of revocation there jras a
diftinct advance in the views ezprefised on the. aobjefist of
emancipation as a military meaaure. Now, instead of doubt-
ing his own right as President, he declared :

"Whether it be competent for me, u commander-in-chief of the army
and navy, to declare the alaTes of any State or States free^ and
Whether, at any time, in any case, it shall haye become a necessity
indispensable to the maintenance of the gOTemment to exercise sudi
supposed power, are questions which, under my responsibility, I re-
serve to myself, and which I cannot feel Justified in leaving to the
decision of commanders in the field.'*

The revocation of these attempts at emancipation evoked
many indignant protests against the President's action, but
they were ineffective to change it; but four months later,
having decided that the time had come when the nation's life
demanded the emancipation of the slaves of rebel owners, on
the twenty-second of September, 1862, he announced his pur-
pose to declare freedom to the slaves held by the people in
rebellion, and on the first of January, 1863, by virtue of his
I)Ower as Commander-in-chief of the Army and Navy of the
United States, as a fit and necessary war measure for the
suppression of rebellion, he proclaimed emancipation to slaves
within designated territory, invoking ''upon this act, sincerely
believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution
upon military necessity, . . • the considerate judgment
of mankind and the gracious favor of Almighty Ood."

Although the President had decided that emancipation was
only justified as a war measure, he declared emphatically that
he would not retract or modify the Proclamation or return
to slavery any person who had been freed by its terms or
by any of the Acts of Congress, and in his last Annual Mes-
sage he repeated that declaration and said, ''If the people
should, by whatever mode or means, make it an executive
duty to reenslave such persons, another, and not I, must be
their instrument to perform it.''

Emancipation, which, in its inception, was necessarily lim-
ited and largely tentative, became by force of his action and
by reason of his advocacy universal and permanent; for it

456 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

was through his inspiration and because of his persistence that
by legal procedure the war measure became a constitutional
enactment, and to the end of time Abraham Lincoln will be
known as the Liberator of the Slave.

The possession of imperial power, the accomplishment of
complete victory — saving the Union and securing its by-
product, Emancipation — the plaudits of exulting thousands,
did not change the man, or tempt him to forego his allegiance
to the Constitution, or to waver in his devotion to *'the senti-
ments embodied in the Declaration of Independence." No
aspiration for perpetuity of power separated him from the
plain people upon whom he relied, from whose ranks he had
come, to whom he expected to return ; for it is glory that he
had not only completed a great work, and guaranteed its
beneficent and far-reaching consequences, ^^but," to quote the
language of Carl Schurz, ''that during the stormiest and most
perilous crisis in our history, he so conducted the Oovemmoit
and so wielded his almost dictatorial power as to leave essoi-
tially intact our free institutions in all things that concern the
rights and liberties of the citizen/'

From the highest reach that Lincoln had attained before
his accession to the Presidency, to the zenith of his career, the
space seems incalculable. The study of his earlier life shows,
indeed, that he possessed clearness of thought, remarkable gift
of expression, native sagacity, honesty of purpose, and courage
of conviction ; that he was devoted to the rights of man, and
that he loved his coimtry; but that he possessed elements of
greatness in such degree as the War revealed could not have
been surmised from aught he had said or done. And that he
should manifest so soon and so signally his ability to rule i
great nation in the most dangerous period of its existence;
that he should overtower his associates and prove that, more
than they, he was fitted to save the government ; that he could
wield a power far greater than that of any of his predecessors
and surpassing that exercised by any contemporary ruler,
king or emperor, could not have been foreseen by any lacking
divine inspiration. Not by graded steps, but by giant stride,
Lincoln reached the height of power, achievement, and fame.

THE PHILADELPHIA COMMEMORATION 457

True, the progress of the War revealed growth in character,
in thought, and in force, and he stood much higher at its close
than at its beginning; but at its opening it early became ap-
parent that Providence had so shaped the country's destiny
that the man who had been chosen mainly because of his avail-
ability as a candidate was far and away the one man for the
office and the work.

In the metropolis of the State wherein most of Lincoln's
life was lived, on the shore of the great lake over which he
had so often looked, at the entrance to the beautiful park that
bears his name, stands his figure in bronze, in the attitude
of speaking, as he so often stood in life. His face is rugged
and kindly ; no toga drapes his gaunt form or hides his every-
day garb; no scroll in his hand and no conventional column
by his side detract from his homely simplicity; no allegoric
devices mar the harmonious realism. Upon the flanks of the
granite exedra that stretches around the pedestal, metal globes
bear the words of his immortal utterances. This triumph of
Saint-Gaudens's art marvellously portrays the ideal, that is no
less the real, Abraham Lincoln — ^Presehveb of thb Union —
Savioub of the Bepubuo.

THE CORNELL UNIVERSITY
COMMEMORATION

THE regular exercises of Cornell University were sus-
pended for the purpose of the Lineohi celebration, at
which the Hon. Frank S. Black, former Governor of the State
of New York, gave the commemorative address.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN: MASTER OF TIME

HON. FBANK S. BLACK

THERE are subjects upon which nothing new can be said,
but which still arouse the fervor awakened at their first
enunciation. If the song was true when it started on its
journey, it will be sung as long as human hearts vibrate and
tongues retain the gift of speech. It will be lisped by those
who are tottering on toward the end, and echoed by those
whose hearts are filled with the promise and the glow of youth.
If the product was genuine when it passed from the Creator's
hand, it will neither be dimmed by age nor cheapened by
familiarity; for honor is not decreased by contact, and truth
ia never out of tune. If none of the old stories are ever to be
re*told, many a noble inspiration must be lost, and many a
tender chord must remain untouched.

This is the age, I know, when the search is at its height for
the new and marvellous, and in this eagerness the primeval
forests are swept away, the bowels of the earth are punctured,
and even on the remotest sea the observant eye detects the
flutter of a sail. The watchword is energy, the goal is success,
but in the fever of modern enterprise a moment's rest can do
no harm. We must not only acquire, we must retain. We
must not only learn, we must remember. The newest is not

461

46lS ABBAHAM LINCOLN

always the best. The date or lustre of the coin does not deter-
mine its metal. The substance may be plain and nnobtrosivey
and still be gold. Whoever chooses without a proper test may
die both a pauper and a fool. The paintings of recent times
have evoked the praise of critics, and yet thousands still pay
their homage to an older genius. Modem literature is aUase
with beauty and with power, and yet millions are still going
to one old and thumb-worn text for their final consolation.

Remembering the force of these examples, it will be profit-
able sometimes to step one side for the serious contemplati<Hi
of rug^^, lasting qualities in whatever age or garb th^ have
appeared. The hero of an hour will pass as quickly as he
came. The flashlight will dazzle and blind, but when the eyes
are rubbed the impression has passed away ; but the landscape
that comes slowly into view with the rising sun, growing more
resplendent and distinct with his ascending power, and fading
gently from the vision at the approach of night, will remain
in the mind forever, to illuminate, to strengthen, and to cheer.
And men are like impressions. There are more examples of
the flashlight kind than there are fireflies on a summer's night,
but there is no nobler representative of the enduring and
immortal than he in whose name this event is celebrated.
Whoever imparts a new view of his character must tell it to
the newborn, to whom all things are new, for to the intelligent
and mature his name and virtues have been long familiar.
His was the power that commanded admiration, and the
humanity that invited love ; mild but inflexible, just but merci-
ful, great but simple, he possessed a head that commanded men
and a heart that attracted babes. His conscience was strong
enoi^^h to bear continual use. It was not alone for public
occasions nor great emergencies. It was never a capital, but
always a chart. It was never his servant, to be dismissed at
will, but his companion to be always at his side. It was with
him, but never behind him, for he knew that a pursuing
conscience is an accuser, and not a guide, and brings remorse
instead of comfort

His greatness did not depend upon his title, for greatness
was his when the title was bestowed. He leaned upon no

CORNELL UNIYEBSITT COMMEMORATION 468

fiction of nobility, and kissed no hand to obtain hia rank, bnt
the stamp of nobility and power which he wore was conferred
tipon him in that log hut in Eentncky, that day in 1809, when
he and Nancy Hanks were first seen together, and it was
conferred by a power which, unlike earthly potentates, never
confers a title without a character that will adorn it When
we understand the tremendous advantages of a humble birth,
when we realize that the privations of youth are the pillars of
strength to maturer years, then we shall cease to wonder that
out of such obscure surroundings as watched the coming of
Abraham Lincoln should spring the colossal and supreme
figure of modem history.

Qroves are better than temples, fields are better than
gorgeous carpetings, rail fences are better than lines of kneel-
ing slaves, and the winds are better than music if you are
raising heroes and founding governments.

Those who understand these things and have felt tht9 heart
of nature beat will not wonder that this man could stand the
shock and fury of war, and yet maintain that calm serenity
which enabled him to hear above the roar of the storm that
enveloped him, the low, smothered ciy that demanded the
freedom of a race.

If you look for attributes that dazsle and bewilder, you must
seek them elsewhere than in the character of Abraham Lincoln.
It was not by show or glitter or by sound that the great
moments of history were marked, and the great deeds of man-
kind were wrought. The color counts for nothing; it is the
fibre alone that lasts. The precept will be forgotten unless
the deed is remembered. The wildest strains of martial music
will pass away on the wind, while the grim and deadly courage
of the soldier, moving and acting without a word, will mark
the spot where pilgrims of every race will linger and worship
forever.

No character in the world more clearly saw the worth of
substance and the mockery of show, and no career ever set in
such everlasting light the doctrine that although vanity and
pretence may fiourish for a day, there can be no lasting
triumph not founded on the truth.

464 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

The life of Lmcoln moved upon that high, consistent plane
which the surroundinga of hia youth inspired. Poverty is a
hard but oftentimes a loving nurse. If fortune denies the
luxuries of wealth, she makes generous compensation in that
greater love which they alone can ever know who have faced
privations together. The child may shiver in the fury of the
blast which no maternal tenderness can shield him from, but
he may feel a helpless tear drop upon his cheek which will
keep him warm till the snows of time have covered his hair. It
is not wealth that counts in the making of the world, but
character. And character is best formed amid thoae sur-
roundings where every waking hour is filled with struggle,
where no flag of truce is ever sent, and only darkness stays
the conflict Give me the hut that is small enough, the
poverty that is deep enough, the love that is great enough, and
over all the fear of Qod, and I will raise from them the best
there is in human character.

This, lad, uncouth and poor, without aid or accidental cir-
cumstance, rising as steadily as the sun, marked a path across
the sky so luminous and dear that there is not one to mate
it to be discovered in the heavens; and throughout its whole
majestic length there is no spot or blemish in it.

The love of justice and fair play, and that respect for order
and the law which must underlie every nation that would l<mg
endure, were deeply embedded in his nature. These, I know,
are qualities destitute of show and whose names are never set
to music, but unless there is in the people 's heart a deep sense
of their everlasting value, that people will neither conunand
respect in times of their prosperity nor sympathy in the hour
of their decay. These are the qualities that stand the test
when hurricanes sweep by. These are the joints of oak that
ride the storm and when the clouds have melted and the waves
are still, move on serenely in their course. Times will come
when nothing but the best can save us. Without warning and
without cause, out of a clear and smiling sky may descend the
bolt that will scatter the weaker qualities to the winds. We
have seen that bolt descend. There is danger at such a time.
The hurricane will pass like the rushing of the sea. Then is

CORNELL UNIVERSITY COMMEMORATION 465

the time to determine whether governments can stand amid
saeh perilous surroundings. The American eharaeter has been
often proved superior to anj test No danger can be so great
and no calamity so sudden as to throw it off its guard. This
great strength in times of trial, and this self-restraint in times
of wild excitement, have been attained l^ yean of training,
precept, and experience. Justice has so often emerged tri-
umphant from obstacles which seemed to diain her limbs and
make the righteous path impossible, that there is now rooted
in the American heart the faith, that, no matter how dark
the night, there will somehow break through at the appointed
hour a light which shall reveal to eager eyes the upright forms
of Justice and the law, still moving hand in hand, still supreme
over chaos and despair, the image and the substance of the
world 's sublime reliance.

I shall not try to present Lincoln as an orator, a lawyer, a
statesman or a politician. His name and his performances in
the lines which he pursued have been cut into the rock of
American history with the deepest chisel yet made use of on
this continent. But it is not by the grandeur of his powers
that he has most appealed to me, but rather by those softer,
homelier traits that bring him down to a closer and more
affectionate view. The mountain that crowds its summit to
the clouds is never so magnificent to the observer on the plain
below as when, by some clear and kindly light, its smaller
outlines are revealed. And Lincoln was never more imposing
than when the milder attributes of his nature were exposed.
He was genuine; he was affectionate; and after all is said,
and the end is reached, what is there without these two t You
may measure the heights and sound the depths; you may gain
the great rewards of i>ower and renown ; you may quiver under
the electric current of applause — the time will come when
these will fall from you like the rags that cover your body.
The robes of power and the husks of pretence will alike be
stripped away, and you must stand at the end as you stood at
the beginning, revealed. Under such a test, Abraham Lincoln
might stand erect, for no man loved the humbler, nobler traits
more earnestly than he. Whatever he pretended to be, he was ;

466 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

genuine and sincere, he did not need embellishment. Thei« is
nothing in the world whieh needs so little decoration, or which
can so well afford to fitpum it altogether, as the abaolntely
genuine. Imitations are likely to be exposed unless carefully
ornamented. Too much embellishment generally covers a
blemish in the construction. It therefore happens that the
first rate invariably rejects adornment and the second rate in-
variably puts it on. The difference between the two can be
discovered at short range, and safety from exposure lies only
in imperfect examination. If the vision is clear and the
inspection careful, there is no chance for the sham ever to be
taken for the genuine ; and that is why it happens that among
all the forms of activity in this very active age, no struggle is
more sharp than that of the first rate to be found out and of
the second not to be. It is easier to conceal what a thing is*
than to prove it to be what it is not. One requires only con-
cealment, the other demonstration. Sooner or later the truth
will appear. Some time the decorations will fall off, and then
the blemish will appear greater because of the surprise at find-
ing it. None have less to fear from such a test tihan Abraham
Lincoln, and his strength in that regard arose, it seems to me,
from the preservation through all his life of that fondness
for his early home, of the tender recollections of his family
and their struggles, which kept his sympathy always warm and
young. He was never so great but that the ties of his youth
still bound him. He was never so far away but that he oould
still hear the note of the evening bird in the groves of his
nativity.

They say the tides of the ocean ebb and flow by a fores
which, though remote, always retains its power. And so with
this man, whether he rose or fell; whether he stood in thai
giant-like repose that distinguished him among his fellow men,
or exercised those unequalled powers, which, to my mind, made
him the foremost figure of the world, yet he always felt the
tender and invisible chord that chained him to his native roek.
In whatever field he stood, he felt the benign and sobering
influences of his early recollections. They were the rock to
which he clung in storms, the anchor which kept his head to

CORNELL UNIVERSITY COMMEMORATION 467

the wind, the balm which sustained him in def eat, and en-
nobled him in the hour of trimnph.

I shall not say he had his faults, for is there any hope that
man will pass through this vale of tears without themt Is
there any danger that his fellow men will fail to detect and
proclaim themf He was not small in anything. He was
carved in deep lines, like all heroic figures, for dangerous alti-
tudes and great purposes. And as we move away from him,
and years and events pass between us, his form will still be
visible and distinct, for such characters built upon courage
and faith, and that affection which is thgjKed of both, are
not the playthings, but the mast^OM^f^Gme.

How long the names of men will last, no human foresight
can discover, but I believe that even against the havoc and
confusion in which so many names go down, the fame of Lin-
coln will stand as immovable and as long as the pyramids
against the rustle of the Egyptian winds.

THE PITTSBURG COMMEMORATION

THE PITTSBUEG COMMEMORATION

SCHOOL celebrations nuirked the day at Pittsburg, PeEin-
sylvania, as elsewhere in the United States, a hundred
and twenty-five thousand school children taking part in
this memorial tribute to Lincoln. In the evening there were
special celebrations held in the Western Pennsylvania School
for the Blind, and the Pittsburg Home for Deaf Mutes.

A convocation celebration by the various departments of the
University of Pittsburg was held in Carnegie Music Hall in
the afternoon, while the women of Pittsburg's church organiza-
tions gathered together in the afternoon to commemorate the
day. Here Lincoln souvenirs were given to everyone in at-
tendance.

The Pittsburg Association of Credit Men held a banquet in
the evening, but the important event of the day was the cele-
bration by the Chamber of Commerce, which took the form
of a banquet. The newly elected Yice-President-to-be, Hon.
James S. Sherman, was the guest of honor, and the orator of
the occasion. The audience was in a rollicking frame of
mind, and subjected the Vice-President-elect to much affec-
tionate raillery, singing ''Sunny Jim/' up and down the hall,
and hailing the procession of the guests of honor with the
softly whistled score of ''Here Comes the Bride." The audi-
ence was an enthusiastic one, and Mr. Sherman's speech, "Lin-
coln : The Greatest American," was received with feeling and
applause.

The banquet room was decorated with the Stars and Stripes,
and the black and gold colors of the city. The banquet was
preceded by a reception at seven o'clock, where more than a
thousand people came to shake hands with the guests of the
day. Besides Yice-President-to-be Sherman, Congressman
James Eli Watson, of Lidiana, and the Hon. James Scarlet
were on the programme. The Chairman in charge of the ar-

471

47S ABRAHAM LINCOLN

rangements for the recepticm and banquet was the Hon. John
B. Barbour, Jr., while President Lee S. Smith, of the Cham-
ber of Commerce, presided at the banquet. Judge J. J. Miller
acting as toastmaster.

LINCOLN: THE OBEATEST AMERICAN

HON. JAMBS 8OHOOL0BAFT 8HSBMAN

WHAT a personality was Lincoln's — ^What a task he per>
formed — What results he achieved I The life, the
work, the end, are exhaustingly fascinating in their pathos.
His heredity and environment offered no hope for his career.
It has been said he was not brought up ; he came up. Through
hardest struggle, through dismal lack, through stark necessity,
he came; but up, up, he came, and stands distinctively, the
American nobleman.

No need to repeat his biography. History tells that he rose
unaided from nothing to the executive head of this great
nation, and his life has been the favorite illustration of authon
and orators to emphasize the possibilities of American dtiiai-
ship.

It has been said that Napoleon, Washington, and Lincdn
were children of destiny. True, mayhap, of Napoleon, but
not of Washington and Lincoln. Napoleon did little whieh,
in remembrance, endears him to his people. "He was a warrior,
not a philosopher. Washington was, to a d^ree, both. He
assumed command of the armies, sustained and encouraged
by a united people smarting under the yoke of a monarchy,
thirsting for independence and individual liberty. Washing-
ton was aware of his strength in his own countiy^ and the
possibilities and probable results of a strong resistance. He
had studied military methods; he knew frontier warfare.
He had the advantage of birth, of education, of early aaao-
eiation with cultivated people. More, he was schooled by con-
tact with the brightest and best men of the age, and by severe
and trying campaigns. He had learned the lesson of ezperi*

THE PITTSBUBO COMMEMOBATION 478

enoe, had seen the grand fatare poirible for this oonntrj with
her aif airs properly directed. After seven yeara of a aaecen-
ful warf are, he came to the preaidency, equipped by study
and experience, with wigdom and enlightenmenty and it ui
amall wonder that he standa ^'fint in war, first in peaoe, and
first in the hearts of his conntiyinen. "

When Lincoln was disoovered and nominated— not as the
nnqnestioned choice of all the people, bnt rather of the minor-
ity of a party, a minority made into a majority, apparently,
by means of political tactics — the sitnation was far different
The nation was rent asunder, opinion was divided, and a
grave constitutional question was involved In the South the
dark doud of secession had already appeared, while in the
North there were mutterings of empathy. Men were being
persecuted for their belief^; the right of freedom of thought
and expression was questioned, and a whirlpool of discord and
dissension was gathering. It threatened to engulf the nation
in its mighty rush.

At such a moment Lincoln waa brought forward. How
different from Napoleon, whose vietories on the field of battle,
whose brilliant adiievements wherever the force of arms was
tried, had made him for the nonoe the idol of his impetuous
I>eoplei How unlike the introduction of Washington, when
a united, hamnmious people, desperate from long suffering,
were ready to sacrifice, to do and die, that their descendants
might enjoy the privileges of freedom unfettered by a govern-
ment not in sympathy with their aims, their purposes, or their
needs I

Lincoln had none of the advantages or encouragements of
many of his predecessors. He was untried, abnost unknown.
The crisis was approaching; he must meet it or fall. That is
the situation pictured by tb» after-lights ; and surely by intu*
ition or iuspiration he so viewed it. Not the liberty of the
defenders of the Stars and Stripes which fioated victoriously
over Bunker Hill, and Saratoga, and Bennington, and Oris-
kany, was at stake, but the liberty of a race tor&ga to the
country — a race brought here for bondage or reared in slavery.
Was it worth fighting fort Many in the North said ''No!"

^74 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Was it a question which cotQd be constitationally acted upont
The entire South said ''No!" and then Abraham Lineobi,
with dignity, with flrmneas, and with a spirit which conld have
been inspired only of Qod» grasped the helm of the Ship of
State and pointed its course directly into the teeth of the
storm. His Proclamation of Emancipation unforged the fet-
ters of the slaves, united the North, sent a thrill of joy and
patriotism in reverberation over the land — ^nntil the hundreds
of thousands of boys in blue swore by their flag and by their
country that slavery should cease, and that their nation should
be reunited though it were cemented by blood.

A child of destiny t No I An American boy, a man of
America. Bom, bred, and reared in an atmofiqphere of liberty,
of justice, and of truth, made possible only by Washington
and his compatriots ; broadened, ripened, and educated under
the sun of freedom; endowed with physical capabilities
brought to their greatest perfection by years of toil and indus-
try and self-denial ; possessing mental strength developed by
the same rigorous discipline — ^he was fitted to lead, and the
situation brought him forward.

His appearance was at the most critical time in the nation's
history. He met his responsibilities superbly. Gentle, mild,
and forbearing, his private and official careers are filled with
pictures of prose and poetry which throw about him a charm
most delicate and delightfuL His homely, quaint humor
brightens with age, and will never be disassociated from his
name, or copied by another.

That Lincoln was perhaps the greatest American will not
be denied, but his individuality was greater than his personal-
ity. It was not merely beeause he was President during the
Civil War; not because he solved its stupendous proUans
with a mildness and gentleness and without the least display
of physical power or authority; not because he marshalled
arndes in the panoply of war or sent navies, to battle against
almost impregnable strongholds. It was not because of any
of these things that his memory is more and more revered,
and his name more and more cherished, as we of this natum
annually meet to pay homage to him, to impress upon our

THE PITTSBUBG COMMEMORATION 4f78

ehildren that America produced, developed, and honored
sach a man. It was because he had witfaiii him more than
statesmanship, more than fervid patriotism, more than a calm,
dispassionate element of judgment. It was not because he
sought preferment; not that he considered the effect upon
personality^ or what the future might say of him. He saw
no shadow on future popularity, so anxiously looked for and
00 carefully avoided by the politician. He is not to be meas-
ured by the craft or the selfish sagacity of a statesman. It
was because he had within him that stem, unyielding sense of
du^. He saw his path before him deariy outlined, and he
f oUowed it regardless of obstacles — patient, untiring, possessed
of no thought of what the morrow might have in store for
him personally— confident in his rugged honesty and homdy
but true philosophy, that though perhaps misunderstood and
wrongly criticised, sooner or later his mission would be accom-
plished and his country once more stand forth reunited and
rejuvenated, the greatest nation of all time, glorifying in her
strength, her broadness, her humanity, and her achievements.

Oentle beyond compare, patient beyond belief, his country
and his duty were his creed, and for them he labored un-
ceasingly and suffered patiently. *'It is not a question of
Lincoln, of Democrat or Republican, but a question of our
country," he once said wh^i r^roached for a contemplated
action. It was that sentiment, ''our country,'' which guided
him. For that country he gave himself without reserve, his
rare talents, his immeasurable love, his remarkable sagacity —
his life. All were freely laid upon the altar of home and
country.

Careful and close inspection of his life reveals no single
act which would bring him forth as a hero, or a man to be
revered in after years. No one of his acts beckons posterity
to cherish his memory or to applaud his name. Still, there
he stands, gentle, yet firm ; calm, yet unyielding ; facing the
storm of revolution; meeting defeat on bloody battlefields;
earning victories at the expense of thousands of lives and mil-
lions of treasure; steadfastly facing the storm, unmoved by
protest, denunciation, or praise, unwaveringly and persistently

476 'ABRAHAM LINCOLN

pndung f orwird to tiiot result wUch should bring pe&» wUh
honor, and oemsnt this nation in ties of brotherhood ao atroDg,
so endnrinf » that it woold seem beyond the bounds of possi-
bility that th^ dMNild again be severed.

Great presidents have come and gone ; great generala have
aahieyed Tietories that have moved the world to poema of
praise and thanhflgiving; great statesmen have by diplomaqr
gathered for ns fmita of polities^ and lanrela of world-req>eet»
which have given na momentary pride and moved na well nigh
to national egotion; but above and beyond all in the proeeasioa
of the great men of our past history, stands Lincoln. Lin-
ooln-Hwt aeeking greatnessi yet the greatest of alll Lineofai
— ^tried by fire, tempted by ealla of what seemed hnmanityl
Linedin— the gentle, yet holding true the course of the Ship
of State amid the most fearful carnage intemeeine strife had
evw inflieted, hia heart ffiomiog with sympathy and aorrow,
and his gaze longing for the si^t of the olive branch of peace,
hid by the tempestuous clouds of warl Lincoln — bearing the
cmcifix of rebellion, never for a moment hesitating or halting,
and finally, when the end waa reached and the labcnr of recon-
struction begun, giving up hia life for the cause which brou^
him forthi Well might have beaa his last words, ''It ia not
a question of Lincoln, but of our country/'

It is because of all of thia that we of this country qieak
of Lincoln ta>night. It will be because of this, as the years
go by, and aa the transcendent qualities and b^gn nature
of the man are studied and appredated by future gen»atioDs,
that hia memory will be recudled more doquoitly and more
vividly by an appreciative country.

As time passes, as we draw further away from the days ou
earth of the truest and best men, their figures stand out
against the background of the history of ages, brightened and
illuminated — ^yes, magnified, magnified to human ^yes. In
Statuary Hall in the Oapitd at Waahingtcm ia a life-mse
statue of Washington. The thousands who halt before it,
almost in reverence, each year, are impressed with the thought
-— ''Wss he no larg» than thatf '' His deeds and hia memory

THE PITTSBURG COMMEMORATION 477

Iiaye bo "wrotight thenuselres upon our iimgiiiatioPy that we
look to see, in the repreaentatum of his form, a giant in
stature. With Idnooln fresher in our mindB, with thoae among
us who knew him in his life, his statue seems but that of a
pigmy in comparison with the results he achierecL

Future generations will pause before the image of the
martyr patriot to wonder if the ^figures were not rednoed by
the seulptor to accommodate some niche among the glorious
mea in our national history.

The traveller fortunate enough to traverse America's
em cosst, north of the Gk>lden Oate, sees upon the one
the blue, never-resting bosom of the Padflc, disappearing only
under the steady music of its rolling waves breaking on the
shore; on the other side the rugged peaks of tiie Sierra
Nevadas. And in the northward journey are seen, now and
again, standing out against the sky, like nature's everlasting
sentinels, those magnificent snow-capped peaks, Shasta, and
Adams, and Jefferson, and Hood, The Sisters, and last —
grandest and greatest of all — ^Mount Rainier, eternally snow-
capped, towering fifteen thousand feet into the sky. I remem-
ber to have stood at Tacoma and gased with awe upon that
pearly wonder — ^fif 1y miles away and yet so grand and great
that its base seemed at my very feet. I remember to have
seen it when the valley between it and me was filled with
the storm doud, and yet above the cloud this matchless peak
towered a mile into the sky. I remember that when I left
Tacoma it was at night, and that after riding all night upon
the cars the first object that met my gaze in the morning was
this same beautiful mountain peak, seeming grander, higher,
more impressive than ever.

So it seems to me it is with Lincoln. Grand and strong and
immutable in his greatness as he appeared in Ufe, towering
as he did above the storm cloud of war that surrounded him ;
yet viewed as we view him to-day through more than four
decades of history, he seems even greater, more nearly divinely
sent than before.

This is the test of true greatness. Lincoln sustains that

478 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

test No flaws can be discovered in his eharacter, inspect it
as yon will. His is a fame which will shine with undying
lustre ; his a name that will never be forgotten.

The sacredness of the Constitution, the unity of the States,
the true freedom of all the people — for which he labored
and prayed, for which his life went out just as the dawn of
promise was breaking — are ours, still ours; ours to preserve
and defend as he pointed the way ; and we will preserve and
defend them. Please Ood we may never again lose a chosen
leader by the hand of one whose disordered brain directs
it to fire the fatal shot Please God that he whom the people
choose to direct the nation's destinies during the coming yean
may, in the strength and vigor of perfect health, discharge
those duties to the end. And as Lincoln inspired confidence
and faith — so, calm, placid, ser^ie — ^may he awaken a firm
conviction that our future is secure. His hand upon the
wheel, his eye upon the chart, may we be inspired to say :

'^Tliou, too, sail on, 0 Ship of SUtol
Sail on, 0 Union, strong and gnat;
Humanity with all its fears,
With all the hopes of future years.
Lb hanging breathless on thy fatal
We know what Master laid thy keel.
What Workman wrought thy ribs of steel.
Who made each mast, each sail, each rope^
What anvils rang, what hanmiers beat.
With what a forge and what a heat
Were made the anchors of thy hope!
Fear not the sudden sound and ahodc,
Tis of the wave and not the rock,
T ig but the flapping of the sail,
And not a rent made by the gale.
In spite of rock and tempest roar,
In spite of false lights on the shore.
Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea!
Our hearts, our hopes are all with thee,
Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears.
Our faith, triumphant o'er our fears,
Are all with thee— are all with theel**

THE JANESVILLE COMMEMORATION

HON. GEORGE B. PECE, of Chicago, former President of
the American Bar Association, has rendered many beau-
tifal tributes to Lincoln ; on the occasion of the Centenary he
spoke at his old home at Janesvilley Wisconsin.

THE APOSTLE OF OPPORTUNITY

HON. GSOBGB B. FBCX

IT is very fitting and appropriate that this association of
lawyers should render homage to one of their calling^ who,
after winning high professional distinction, took to himself
a glory and a fame that cannot die. You do well to remember
that Abraham Lincoln was a lawyer. If you will recall his
last great years — ^the years by which the world knows him —
you will feel a certain pride in belonging to that profession
which he chose in youth and whose principles and traditions
were his guide and monitors to the end. In all that majestic
on-marching career we may see — nay, we cannot fail to see —
that he followed with almost religious devotion the approving
voice and sanction of the law. Mark the solemn language
which was the real keynote of the First Inaugural : ' ' I hold, * *
he said, ''that in contemplation of universal law and of the
Constitution, the Union of these States is perpetual." In that
sentence it was the lawyer who spoke, giving to the states-
men who surrounded him, the fundamental idea upon which
it was his purpose to stand. It was a brave pronouncement.
Certainly it was also political wisdom and political truth, but
above these the clear vision of Abraham Lincoln saw the
organic law of a nation consecrated and enthroned. I bid you,

481

4S% ABBAHAM LINCOLN

gentienien of the bar, take nundfiil lieed of that great ideal
wbieh lifted Abraham Lineoln to sneh lofty heiglita.

This mneh I have thon^^t to aay of him, beeame he be>
longed to oar guild. He knew, aa we do, the rigor of a lav-
aoit ; he had felt the jay of yietory and the amart of defeat;
and, I do not doubt, the memory of the daya idien he travdled
the eircoity and of forensic eontesta in which he had takoi
party nenred and strengthened him in the weary years when
nerve and strength were sorely needed. Bnt Abraham Lincota
was not a mere lawyer, and history has given him a fame w
univerBal that the world hardly remembers he belonged to
our profession. But, if we cannot claim him simply beeautt
we are lawyers, we may yet rejoice that, as citizens of the
Bq>ublic, we participate with all that bear the American name
in his unfading renown. .

In veiy truth he belongs alike to all who have shared tiie
precious heritage which he left to his countrymen. He behmp
to them as the lighthouse does to the mariner who steen hie
bark by its steadfast ray. He belongs to all who cheridi the
ideas, the hope, and the faith that were in him. Whatever sad
and heroic memories cluster around his great career, some-
thing of their glory, some breath of their fragrance, rests upon
every man who strives to make the United States of Ameriea
such a nation as Abraham Lincoln strove to make it.

When we think of the name that is in every heart and upon
every lip, how like a dream seems the centuiy that is past!
In a rude Kentucky cabin a hundred years ago this very daj,
the curtain was rising upon a drama which was destined to be
of epic grandeur. Recalling the hour and the event, we at
most seem to hear the rhjrthmic beat of the years as they speed
to their eternal goal.

It is sometimes said, and said with truth, that the Amerleas
character, considered as a type, has not yet been formed and
moulded into shape. Undoubtedly it is still plastic and muta-
ble; but we must remember that the processes of time are
slow. The entire period since the western continent dawned
upon Europe is but a brief span in comparison with the cen-
turies which have been fusing Norman and Saxon and Dane

JtV4«4^

Facsimile of Manuscript Tribute from Dr. Henry van Dyke

Ill

THE JANESVILLE COMMEMORATION MS

m
•■

into the English raee; and yet we have something to ahow
when great names are eountedi something to remember when
great deeds are told Abraham Lincoln ontshines the Pkn-
tagenetSy and ennobles eommon Uood f orevermore.

The laws of descent are mysterions^ if not altogether fathom-
less. Science, indeed, tells ns that men are, in their essential
qualities, the result and prodnct of all their ancestors. But
how and why it is— who can tellt The lineage of Abraham
Lincoln was so humble, his environment and that of his family
so narrow and so steeped in poverty, it seems like a miracle
that he should ever have bnrst such bonds. Nicolay and Hay,
in their great work, after descrilmig his wretched birthplace,
say: ''And there, la tibe midst of the most unpromising
circumstances that ever witnessed the advent of a hero into
the world, Abraham Lincoln was bom on the twelfth day of
February, 1809.'' In this event there was nothing to attract
attention — absolutely no prophecy of the future latently slum-
bering in the new bom child. Least of all was there any hint
of the solemn pageantry with which a great nation this day
commemorates that lowly birth. Birthdays are rests and
pauses in the symphony of time, and in observing the great
and notable ones we set history to music.

Abraham Lincoln's parents were Virginians, but the an-
cestral strain flowed from Old England through New England,
New Jersey, and Pennsylvania before it reached Virginia.
The first of his race to settle in America was Samuel Lincoln,
who came from Norwich, England, in 1638, and cast his lot
vnth the Ood-fearing settlers who had located in the forest
solitudes of Hingham, Massachusetts. Later, his son Mor*
decai pushed on to New Jersey, and tiience to Penniiylvania.
John, who was Mordecai's son, returned from Pennsylvania
to New Jersey, but soon sought another home in Rockingham
County, Virginia, and through him the blood of the Hingham
Puritan flowed uninterraptedly to Abraham Lincoln. They
were a family of frequent migrations, ever hungering for the
wilderness and the frontier. If you follow their footsteps,
you will be led from Massachusetts to New Jersey, Peunsyl-
vania, Vij^inia, and Kentucky, and, after the birth of Abra-

4M ABBAHAM LINCOLN

ham Lincoln, to Indiana and lUinoia. Oat of these
wanderings, perhaps by reason of them, or, it may be, in
spite- of them, was evolyed the highest lype of man thii
nation has known. And that is the mystery of it aU, from
every point of view. Human wisdom fails utterly what it
grapples such a question. If any answer shall ever come,
it must be in that far-off ultimate region where the mind
can get nearer than now to the fugitive wherefore, and the
ever elusive why. What gave so humble a plant sueh t
noble fruitage ia a problem we can not yet solve. But this
we know, that it is our iKxm and privilege to behold, admire^
and love.

Carlyle, within certain limitations, was not far from rigU
in adoring heroes, and he was more than right in aeeiiig that
heroes do not of necessity wear plumes and sabrea. It ii
the meek and not the mighty who are promised the inhe^
itance of the earth. Francis of Assisi, out on the mountaiB
side, calling the birds to come and perch upon his ahonlden^
and beckoning the poor peasantry to follow him in the path-
way to the higher life, is a nobler figure than the great
Medici, bent with the weight of his tinsel and his broideiy.
In the same way it may be truly said that Luther was t
greater conqueror than Yon Moltke, and Victor Hugo ia
exile a more potent force than the Third Napoleon in tbe
Tuileries. Ideal characters cannot be made to order. Thcj
must stand for something more than accident, for aomethiog
better than titles and dignities.

You do well to celebrate this day, and you will be wise it
here and now, you pledge a new and increasing fealty te
the memory of Abraham Lincoln and his noble life. The
times in which we live are filled with high appeals and
solemn warnings, and yet we are in danger of forgettisf
plain old truths. The age is restless. Everywhere ih&t b
discontent, partly right and partly wrong; but th^ greafij
err who imagine that the white crest upon the wave is a
true measure of the depths below. The dogmatist sund the
doctrinaire, whose lips have hardly been moistened hy the
dew of wisdom, think that they, above all others, have a

THE JANE8VILLE COHMElfORATION 485

meBsage to which fhe age must listen. And thns it happens
that things are often made to seem more, and sometimes tar
less, than they really are. It is well, periiaps, that it should
be so. Let ns not complain, for it is a wise and wholesome
liberty which declares that every creed and doctrine shall
be heard, and eyery voice shall have its say. But when
the crickets pipe and chirrup, it is pleasant to think that
somewhere there is peace ; and when summer heats are upon
us, it is sweet to rest in the shadow of an illustrious name.
''He was not of an age, but for aU time,'' was the noble
tribute of Ben Jonson to Shakeq>eare, and it is as widely
true of him who was the gentlest, bravest, wisest leader that
ever wore the name of American citisen.

Abraham Lincoln was great — not fully knowing, but, I

think, always believing in his own greatness. In him eom*

mon sense took on flesh and blood. Booted in humble soil,

his life grew and strengthened and unconsciously flowered

into fame. If you compare him with other statesmen — with

Pitt, or Fox, or Palmerston — ^you will see that he had learned

fhe secret never revealed to them, the sublime art of leading

while seeming to follow. He is sometimes called the founder

of the Bepublican Party. He was not that, but he was more.

When, in 1858, he made that memorable canvass of Illinois,

his party was a great instrument, discordant and untuned.

He touched its chords and straightway a nation leaped into

life to follow its enchanting strains. Some, perhaps, are

here to-day who knew him; all have felt in their veins the

thrill of his inspiring words. In those early days no one

fathomed him. To his neighbors he was a plain, homely

man, but behind that rugged face and the ill-fitting clothes

there dwelt the soul of a ruler. No herald announced his

coming, no trumpet sounded when a new Agamemnon — ^not

king of men, but leader of men — rose from the prairies.

*'l8 not a man better than a townf " asks Emerson. Verily,

Abraham Lincoln, proclaiming the unwelcome truth that had

just begun to dawn, was more than a city with all its domes

smd turrets flashing against the sky. We often talk of men

who have a mission. Think of him in all that great debate,

486 ABBAHAM LINCOLN

iounding into unwilling ears the prophetie figare of the
''home divided againgt itself/' Again and again it nmf
out, like an alarum bell, ealling npon men to bestir them-
selves if they woold avert the gathering wrath.

And the storm came-4mt the honse stood. It stood be-
oanse Abraham lineoln lived to set it ri^t and to make
all who dwelt therein free, by the grace of God and his owd
immortal pen.

It is something more than a sentiment which makes m
love the memoiy of Abraham Lincoln^ though sentimeBt
alone is a sofficioit reason. The years have lifted him into
the region of legend and tradition. But there are still ammg
ns men whose memories go back to the days when he earned
the nation's bnrdens. They remembw how the world opened
its eyes to marvel at his never-failing judgment, his tender
qrmpathy, and the unconquerable spirit which disaster eouU
not shake nor victory too much elate. He kq[)t his even
poise in good and in evil times. No President before or
since ever selected such a Cabinet. He chose his rivals to
be his advisers and easily towered above them alL And
yet this man, so sagacious and sensible, had, as the greatot
always have, a temperament highly wrought, poetical, mys>
tical, almost superstitious. The unseen world haunted him
like a vision. To him was given that '^inward eye'* of whiA
iVI^ordsworth sang, the deep perception of things which are
precious because they are invisible. It seems strange to m
that Abraham Lincoln believed in the dreams that came to
him before great victories and defeats; but it is because we
cannot fully comprehend a nature in which, if there had
not been some vent, soul and body would have sunk together
under the terrible strain that was upon him. In the midil
of it all a merciful solace came to him in that sense of
humor with which he was so largely endowed. Only f ook
are always serious. Abraham Lincoln's hxunor gives him a
place in the first order of minds. Laughter and tears are
next of kin. The same pen that wrote ^'Hamlef gave to
the world the rollicking fun of Falstaff, and thereby flbowed
that his genius was ''as broad and general as the casing air.''

THE JANESYILLE COMMEMORATION 487

If Abraham Lincoln had been a pedant; if he had been simply
an able lawyer; nay, if he had been only a stateBman, instead
of a Man, you would never have heard of his stealing silently
out of the White House at night, out under the midnight
sky, alone, to think of the old days by the Sangamon and to
brood over the unknown future and the veil which hung
between him and his destiny.

The mythical and the romantic have already gathered their
stories and wreathed them about his name. The age of
chivalry has passed, and this unromantic century does not
readily accept the traditional and the unreal; and yet King
Arthur and the Gid are no more heroes in the fabulous tales
of their knightly deeds than is Abraham Lincoln in the
quaint and curious anecdotes of his life. He is the only
great man in history whom we cui make seem like ourselves,
the plain, everyday people. Who knew as he did how to
say the right word T Who, like him, could touch the popular
heart when it was ready to break, and make it beat again
"With his own high resolves! We took our courage from him,
and the shattered armies filled up when he sounded the
summons to come.

The great crisis of his life, as all the world knows, was
the proclamation of freedom. It has been glorified in history,
poetry and art. And yet, resplendent as it was, he gave to
it none of the dramatic coloring which usually accompanies
such events. It was, perhaps, an inspiration, but it was
not such as suddenly came to Napoleon, when he called upon
the Pyramids and past ages to be witnesses of his genius.
If you will stop to consider, you will see how the very great-
ness of it forbade any of the tawdry gilding of a theatrical
performance. Others might be thinking of such things, but
lie had ^'that within which passeth show." Simplicity is
the truest sublimity. And thus it happened that the greatest
act in American history — ^perhaps in all Ustory— went forth
only as an appeal to ''the considerate judgment of mankind
and the gracious favor of Almighty God."

And then his prophe^^ came true. The house ceased to
be divided* The armies of the Union, pressing forward with

488 ABBAHAM LINCOLN

new hope, earned vietoiy and freedom together and made
them one. History haa given Abraham Lincoln a unique
place. He had power greater than any King or Emperor,
and he used it as modestly as a viUage pastor might widd
his inflaence over a raral congregation. It haa sometinicB
been said that he did not have in the highest aenae what k
known as executive ability. I am glad that he did not
Very small men have had that. Bnt he had what ia better.
He was granite for the right, bnt yielding aa water whea
common sorrows touched his own sad heart

''The better angels of our nature/' of which he upcike ia
that first sublime appeal to his countrymen, were liviaf
realities to him ; and many a time, when some soldier boy had
made a slip from the rules of military duty and diaeipline,
those '' better angels" pleaded for him, and pleaded not ia
vain. How true it is that '' spirits are not finely touched
but to fine issues.'' Abraham Lincoln's nature waa not tiiat
which is commonly, but mistakenly, supposed to dwell in the
backwoodsman and the rustic. Gk>d sets his seal on the farov
which is worthy to receive it You cannot tell what subtle
law it was that made a Warwickshire village flaah Shakeepeave
upon the world's great canvas, nor why Bums came from
an Ayrshire cottage to be the universal singer of humanity.
Equally, it is beyond our ken to guess why Abraham T<ineoln,
plain and homespun, was called from an Illinois prairie to
the first place in the world.

He was above all things a man; strong, resolute, modest,
too great to be proud, too deeply introspective not to aee hk
own limitations and his own possibilities. No ruler by divine
right ever had more true dignity ; no laborer driving hia team
afield, more true humility. As Abraham Lincoln, he never
forgot that he was President; as President, he never fwgot
that he was Abraham Lincoln. He was more than conqueror.
The armies triumphed at last; but greater than Atlanta or
Bichmond or Appomattox was the conquest he made of the
world 's opinions and the world 's heart. Four years had lifted
him into the secure region where neither malice nor envy
nor uncharitableness can ever come again. And what yean

THE JANESVILLE COMMEMORATION 489

they were I Years of broken hopesy of pride omshed under
ehariot wheels, years of disappointment and years of agony.
Annies had gone down in min, and generals had ridden to
defeat; but still the nation waited, patiently tmsting the
leader who never spoke a donbting word We lived on hope
— ^''the medicine of the nnhappy/' But the currents came
right at last Victories began to crowd upon each other,
giving assurance that fortune had repented and would make
atonement for the past

Those of us who are old remember how the Fourth of July
gained a new lustre at Qettysburg, and was given a deeper
meaning when Yicksburg opened its gates and the river flowed
unvexed to the sea. And then the months went on, crowded
with thrilling scenes, as if a new Homer were chanting another
story for the ages. Every day some shackle was broken;
every hour some slave stood up and thanked Ood that he was
free. In that last triumphal year there was a Wilderness
to be crossed, but there was a Qrant to cross it. There was
a sea kissing the beach by Savannah, but there was a Sherman
eager to plant the flag on its shore. And so the end came
in glory and with a joy that never would find words. And
with the end came death and immortality —

''When lilacs Uat in the dooryard bloomed.
And the great star early drooped in the western sky in the night,
I mourned, and yet shall monm with ever returning Spring.**

Nature has griefs that claim kinship with humanity. The
story is told that farmers in central Illinoia insisted, with
quaint but touching gravity^ that the brown thrush did not
fldng for a year after he died. When he ceased to breathe,
Bdwin M. Stanton turned to the group of mourners standing
by his bedside and said, ^'Now he belongs to the ages."

It is true ; and the times in which we live, the events which
we have witnessed, or {hat have come to us from those who
saw and heard and felt, make us hostages to his memory, and
pledge us to that universal truth whose voice pleads for every
good cause.

It is an inspiring thing to follow one whose leadership

^90 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

is always toward what is best in American eitiz^iship* View-
ing that greatest figare in all onr history, we cannot fail to
see that he was absolutely free from cant and affeetatioiiy
doing bravely and openly the things he conceived to be his
duly. He lived in plain view of his neighbors and tneaadA,
sharing their joys and sorrows, doing his duty after the
fashion of a brave and honest man. Until the time when
the nation called him to his great office, he might h&ve been
counted — and, I suppose, was counted, in some sense — a politi-
cian, but I have never heard that he was ashamed of the fact,
or had cause to be ashamed. Undoubtedly he recognized, and
it is one proof of his greatness, that in every oonsdtutionsl
government, parties, notwithstanding their blemishes and im-
perf ections, are the forces upon which statesmen and patriots
and the people themselves must rely. If you would make
steam work, you must harness it into the mechanism of an
engine. If you would make principles effective, you must
organize them into moral batteries which*will break down the
forces that stand in their path.

The large, well-rounded nature of Abraham Lincoln always
reached out for high essentials, but never wasted time on
small abstractions. Slavery in all its forms was hideous to
him, and he opposed its extension with all the strength of
his mgged nature, but, recognizing its constitutional sanctions,
he never thought of disturbing it in the States where it was
protected by law until, to save the Union and to crush the
Rebellion, he sentenced it to death.

Abraham Lincoln was the apostle of opportunity. Doing
always the duty that lay nearest, he worked with the toob
that were at hand. He knew — ^and we must learn — that ma-
jorities and minorities may be right or wrong ; but whatever
is best will some day come if only patience stands on guard.

How paltry seem the little contentions of little men I More
than any other of our statesmen, Abraham Lincoln stands
for that largeness of view, that serene balance of mind,
which is the true evidence of genius. And that is our highest
lesson to-day and the lesson for the centuries to come. Above

THE JANESVILLB COMMEMORATION 491

all else, Abraham Lincoln leads us away from things which
are petty and ignoble to the heightel — always to the heights.

Comrades of the Grand Army, more than any others in
this great assemblage, you are the sure and concrete proof
of American patriotism. You have worn the blue, you have
carried the flag, and you have stood in rank when the air waa
filled with scream of shot and shell. But to-day the peace f (^
which you fought rests upon you as a blessing and a benedic-
tion.

Let me salute you in soldier fashion and give you heart
and hand in memory of the old days and the old cause. It
must needs be that time and frost and the years that never
stop have stiflFened our joints and given us the stoop of age,
but shall the currents of our hearts be slackened t Comrades,
we are old ; but there are infinite memories which invoke us
to be true to the cause which was the love of our youth.
When fife and drum were sounding it was easy to keep step
to every call, and tfow, when our lives have almost reached
the end, and our walk is slow and heavy, let us proudly re-
member that it was Abraham Lincoln who summoned us to
defend a government ''of the people, by the people, for the
people. ' '

AN BX-SLAVE'S TRIBUTE TO THE BMANCIPATOE*

DB. BOOKEB T. WASHINQTON

WHEN I look back it aeems to me that almost the fint
name I learned, aside from those of the people who
lived on or near the Virginia plantation where I was bom,
was that of Abraham Lincoln, who, forty-ox years ago last
month, signed the Proclamation which set my people free.

The circumstances nnder which I first heard the name of
the great emancipator were these: When the war hrcke out
I was a small boy on a plantation in Franklin County, in
the Bonthwestem comer of Virginia. We were living in a
remote part of the country and, although the war was going
on all around us, we saw little of it, except when we saw
them brought back again — as we did sometimes^— dead.

My mother was the cook on our plantation and as I grew
up and was able to make myself useful, my work was to
attend my master's table at meal time. In the dining-room
there was an arrangement by which a number of fans that
hung to the rafters over the table could be moved slowly
back and forth by pulling a string. It was my business to
work these fans at meal time, and that, as I remember, was
the first work I ever did. As a result, however, I was present
at all the meals and heard all the oonversation that went on
there. Incidentally I heard a great deal about the causes and
the progress of the War, and though I understood very little
of what I heard, there was one name that stuck fast in my
memory and that was the name of Abraham Lincoln. Tlie
reason that I remembered this name more than the others, wss
because it was the one name that I encountered at the "big
house,'' which I heard repeated in different tones and with
different significance in the cabins of the slaves.

* Copyright, 1900, by The Chicago THhme.

492

THE JANESVILLE COMMEMORATION 49S

Many a night before the dawn of day I have been awakened
to find the figure of mj dear mother bending oyer me as I
lay huddled np in a comer of the kitchen, praying that
^'Marse Lincohi'' might saeoeed and that some day I might
be free. Under these eireomstanoes the name of Lincoln made
a great impression upon me, and I never forgot the eircnm-
stanees under which I first heard it.

Am<mg the masses of the negro jVeople on the plantations
during the War, all their dreams and hopes of freedom were
in some way or other coupled with the name of Lincoln.
When the slaves sang those rude plantation hymns, in which
thoughts of heaven and salvation were mingled with thoughts
of freedom, I suspect they frequently confused the vision
of the Saviour with that of the Emancipator, and so salvation
and freedom came to mean sometimes pretty much the same
thing.

There is an old plantation hymn that runs somewhat as
follows :

'^•ll looB be free,
WeH floon be free,
When de Lord will call us hcm^
My bmdder, how long,
Mj brudder, how long^
Tore we done suiferln' hsret
It won^ be long,
It won't be long,
Tore de Lord will call nt home.''

When that song was first sung, the "freedom" of which
it qieaks was the freedom that comes after death, and the
''home" to which it referred was Heaven. After the War
broke out, however, the slaves began to sing these freedom
flongs with greater vehemence, and they gained a new and
more definite meaning. To such an extent was this the case
that in Georgetown, South Carolina, it is said that negroes were
put in jail for singing the song which I have quoted.

When Lincoln, in April, 1865, entered Richmond imme-
diately after it had been evacuated by the C!onfederate armies,
the colored people, to whom it seemed almost as if the 'Mast

494 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

day'' had eome, greeted the strange, kindly figure of the
President as if he had been their Savioor instead of merelj
their liberator.

There is a story of one old Aunty who had a sick ehild
in her arms when the President passed through the city.
The child was alarmed at the surrounding riot, and was
crying to come home, but the good woman kept trying to
get the child to gaze at the President, which she was afndd
to do, and she would try to turn the child's head in that
direction, and would turn around herself in order to accom-
plish the same object.

''See yeah, honey," she would say, "look at de SaYiour,
an' you will git well. Touch de hem of his garment, honey,
an' yur pain will be done gone."

As the years have gone by, we have all learned, white
folks and colored people, North and South, how much the
country as a whole owes to the man who liberated the daTea
There is no one now, North or South, who belieyea that
slavery was a good thing, even for those who seemed to
profit most by it ; but hard and cruel as the iqrstem frequaitly
was in the case of the black man, the white man suffered
quite as much from the evils that it produced. In order to
hold the negro in slavery, it was necessary to keep him in
ignorance. The result was that the South condemned itselt
not merely to employ none but the poorest and most expensive
labor, but what was worse, to use all its higher intellectual,
moral, and religious energies in defending before the world
its right to hold another race, not merely in a condition of
ignorance, but of moral and spiritual degradation.

There is no task that an individual or a people can under-
take which is so ungrateful, and so certain, in the long run,
to fail, as that of holding down another individual or another
race that is trying to rise. It is not possible, you know, for
an individual to hold another individual down in the gutter
without staying down there with him. So it is not possiUe
for one race to devote a large share of its time and attention
to keeping another race down, without losing some time and

THE JANESVILLE COMMEMORATION 496

some energy that might otherwise have been used in raising
itself higher in the scale of civilization.

Under the influence of slavery the South was fast getting
out of touch and sympathy with all the generous, upbuilding,
and civilizing influences of the world.

Abraham Lincoln, in giving freedom to the black man,
who was a slave, gave it at the same time to the white man,
who was free. He not merely loosened the enslaved forces
of nature in the Southern States, but he emancipated the
whole United States from that sectional and fratricidal hatred
which led the white man in the South to look upon his
brother in the North as an enemy to his section and himself,
and led the white man in the North to look ux>on his brother
in the South as an enemy not merely to the nation, but also
to mankind. I have had some experience of physical
slavery, and I have known, too, what it is to hate men of
another race, and I can say positively that there is no form
of slavery which is so degrading as that which leads one man
to hate another because of his race, his condition, or the
color of his skin.

All these things did not seem so clear to us before the
l^ar as they do now, and yet there have always been people
in the Soutii who clearly saw the evils of slavery and opposed
them. If the times had permitted these men in the South
to look calmly upon the course of events, they would have
found themselves in dose sympathy with Abraham Lincoln.
Now that the excitement of the antinslavery agitation has
died away, not merely these men, but many others in the
South are beginning to see that during the whole course of
the Civil War the South had no more sincere friend than the
Abolitionist President of the United States, Abraham Lin-
coln. He, at least, never forgot, during all the long and
bloody struggle, that a time was coming when the men who
fought for the South, and the men who fought for the Union
must settle down side by side as fellow-citizens of the one
indivisible Republic.

Some one who was present when Lincoln heard the news

490 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

of Lee's sorrender said that Jeff Davifl ought to be hirag.
The President in his reply quoted from his Liaogoral Ad-
dressy ''Let us judge not that we be not judged." Anotiier
said that the sight of Libby prison forbade mengr. "Let
us judge not/' he repeated, ''that we be not judged." TUi
was said at the close of the War when the whole North wai
aflame with the news of yictory. A year bef ore^ however,
he had said in his jocular way, "We should avoid planting
and cultivating too many thorns in the bosom of aocie^."
All through the War he saw, what Southern statesmen either
shut their eyes to or failed to see, that even had the Sooth
won in the War, the old struggle between freedom and sUveiy
would have gone on just the same, under other banners and
other battle cries.

''FhyBically ipeaking,** he said, Ib his first InaiigiirBl Address!,
esonot separate. We cannot remove our lespectiTa seetaons from
<4her, nor buUd an impassable waU between them. A huabaad
wife niay be divorced, and go out of the presence and bsfyond tta
reach of each other; but the different parts of our country camioi do
this. They cannot but remain face to face^ and interoourae, eithsr
amicable or hostile, must continue between them. Is it poeaibli^
then, to make that intercourse more advantageous or more aataaCse-
toiy after separation than before? Can aliens make txeatiea easiv
tlum friends can make lawst Oan treaties be more faithfully cetaved
between aliens than laws can among friends? Suppose yoa go is
war, you cannot fight always; and when, after much loes on both aidei,
and no gain on either, you cease fighting, the identical old qnestions
as to terms of intercourse are again upon you.**

Whether as separate nations, or as separate States of the
same nation, the struggle between freedom and slavery was
bound to continue. Had it been possible to put an end to
the conflict over slavery between the people of the Northera
and people of the Southern States, it would soon have broken
out again within the Southern States themselves. It should
never be forgotten that there was always a minority in the
South which openly or in silence opposed slavery. After
1830, when the abolition agitation sprang up in the North
and it came to be considered a sort of treason in the South
to lend any sort of favor to abolition sentiments, the opinions

THE JANESVILLE COMMEMORATION 497

against slavery were no longer openly expressed in the Soufhi
but the opposition to slavery did not cease. Thonsands of
people who sabmitted to the censorship that was at that time
imposed upon the open expression of opinion, silently evaded
the laws, and npon some plea or other emancipated their
slaves or sent them into free States, where their freedom
was assured. This is shown by the fact of the constantly
increasing number of ^'free negroes,'' both in the Northern
and Southern States, and this, too, in spite of the efforts that
were made to oolonize this class of citizens abroad.

No one knew these facts better than Lincoln. He men-
tions them in his debates with Douglas. In this connection
it should not be forgotten that Lincoln was a Southerner
by birth. If he did not share the prejudices of the Southern
I>eople, he at least understood and eympathized with them.
In his debate with Douglas he spoke as a Southerner rather
than a Northern Abolitionist.

The extreme Abolitionists of the Eastern States were fre-
quently violently opposed to him. Because of his attitude
on the fugitive slave law, Wendell Phillips wrote an article
entitled ''Abraham Lincoln, the Slave Hound of Illinois."

The Northwest Territory, of which Ohio, Indiana, Illi-
nois, Wisconsin, and Michigan were formed, was largely set*
tied by Southerners who were opposed to slavery. These
men remained Southerners in sentiment and tradition.
They did not cease to love the South because they had gone
into voluntary exile from it. In a certain sense it is true,
therefore, that the abolition movement of the Middle West,
which Lincoln represented, was the moral sentiment of the
South turned against its own peculiar institutions. It was
Bot the opposition of strangers nor of aliens in tradition and
sentiment that the South met in Lincoln and in the anti-
slavery people of Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, and Illinois, from
whom he sprang. It was, to a large degree, the opposition
of Southerners to that institution of the South that not only
endangered the Union of the States, but was slowly and
insidiously destroying the South.

I think it is important to point^^'i^Qiftu^Q^^iiCjp of

J. < Ninety-Sixth $u Rmnch ^ vj

408 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Lmeoln with the South, and with SouUiem anti-fllaTery senti-
ment, because there are men in the South to-day who are
working, silently and earnestly^ still in the spirit of that
elder generation of anti-slavery men, in order to oomplete
fl^e work that Lincoln began. Li a certain way I may mj
that these men are the direct inheritors of that moral senti-
ment of the South, which, as I have sought to suggest, was
represented by Abraham Lincoln and the Southern anti-
slavery men of the Middle West

As the years have passed, all sections of the country have
learned to look with altered views upon the men and the
issues of the Civil War. Many things that seemed of ova<-
shadowing importance forty or fifty years ago, now look
small and insignificant.

Many persons who were in the foreground th^i, have now
moved into the background. Looking at these persons and
events from a distance, as usually happens, they look smaller
and less significant. There is only one figure that seons to
grow constantly bigger and more impressive aa the years go j
by. It is with a really great man as it is with a lofty tower
standing in the midst of a crowded city. As long aa you are
near it, there are a multitude of smaller and more animated
scenes and objects that distract your attenticm, and you get
only the most distorted idea of the lofty structure near yov.
But as you move farther and farther away, other objects
sink into insignificance, and it looms large and serene abofs
them. For the first time you see the mighty edifice in its
true proportions.

As it is with the tower in the city, so it has been with
Abraham Lincoln. Year by year he looms larger above tiw
horizon of our national life — a great, serene, benefieoot
figure — ^which seems to stretch its arms out to us, saying to
us of that War as he did at Gettysburg :

''It is for US, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the imitiiidMd
work which they who fought here have thus far so noUy adTmnesd.
It is rather for us to be here .dedicated to the great task rwiaratsg
before us — ^that from these honored dead we take increased derotian to
that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion; tkai

THE JANESVILXE COMMEMOEATION 499

we here hlghlj reaolTe that these deed shall not have died in Taia;
that this nation, under Qod, shall have a new birth of freedom; and
that government of the people^ by the people, for the people, shall
not perish from the earth.''

Although each portion of the American people still look
at Abraham Lincoln from a different angle and with widely
different sentiments and feelings, it is still true, I believe,
that the whole country has learned to honor and revere his
memory. To the South he appears, as I have said, no longer
as an enemy, but a wise and sincere friend. To the people
who have inherited the traditions of the North he is the pre-
server of the Union, the second founder of the nation, but to
the negro people he will remain for all time the liberator of
their race. In the eyes of the excited and ecstatic freedmen
at the dose of the War Lincoln appeared not merely as a
great man, but as a personal friend ; not merely an emanci-
pator, but a saviour. I confess that the more I learn of Lin-
coln's Ufe, the more I am disposed to look at him much as my
mother and those early freedmen did, not merely as a great
man, not merely as a statesman, but as one to whom I can
certainly turn for help and inspiration — as a great moral
leader, in whose patience, tolerance, and broad human sym-
pathy there is salvation for my race, and for all those who
are down, but struggling to rise.

LINCOLN AND HIS RELATIONS WITH CONGRESS •

HON. SHELBY M. CULLOM

CONGRESS, in the days of Lincoln, was a cosservati^
hard-working body, jealous of its prerogatives^ just aa
it has always been ; but there was far more intense excitemait,
bitter feeling, and general interest in Congress than there is
to-day. President Lincoln was freely criticised ; he had let-
ter opponents in Congress, as he had outside ; but there were
others who, with the great majority of the people, placed
implicit faith in him and felt certain that he would carry
the country through the awful crises and eyentually save the
Union. This was especially true among those who knew him
best. With the War dragging its bloody trail the entire
length of his administration, the national credit poor, taxes
mounting upward, problems innumerable only to be solTcd
by Congress, it can be readily seen that it was exceedingly
important that the President should know intimatelj and
judge correctly the men whose support he must seek in nearly
every project he was called upon to undertake. Lincoln did
know his men. There was never a President of the United
States who could so well and so correctly judge men as
Abraham Lincoln, and he was seldoniy if ever, mistaken in
his judgment.

I called upon him at the White House a few months hctxjm
he was assassinated and a short time after my election ai
a member of the House of Representatives. I had beea
visiting in Washington, and spent considerable time aroimd
Congress, talking with members and senators, and it aeemed
to me that scarcely any of the strong men were in favor of
the President. I was greatly impressed and concerned ca
account of the number of adverse criticisms I had heard.
Before leaving Washington I called upon the President, and

* Copyright, 1909, by The Chicago Tribune.

500

THE JANESVILLE COMMEMORATION 501

I asked him, ''Mr. Lincoln^ do yon allow anybody to talk
to you aboat yourself f' He said, ''Certainly; sit down."
I told him that I wanted to talk with him a little about
what I had seen and heard around Congress sinee coming
here, and said that it seemed to me that most of the strong
men were against him. He replied, with a smile, "It is not
quite so bad as that/' and with that he took up a oopy of the
"Congressional Directory/' with the remark that there were
many congressmen on his side, and turning to the list of
senators and representatives he went over it for my benefit
I saw that nearly every name was marked, and as he went
down the list he commented on each, as, for instance: "This
man is for me"; "The best friend I have"; "He's not for
me now, but I can win him over," and so on. I found that
he knew almost positively how every man stood, and the great
majority of them were for him.

It was an interesting catalogue of personal characteristics,
and I knew then that Abraham Lincoln's habit of studying
men had not lapsed when he went to Washington ; and I saw,
too, that he had a perfect knowledge of Congress and its
personnel.

I well recall a comment I heard him make concerning James
G. Blaine, who was then in the House. Blaine had made a
speech that day that had attracted attention. Lincoln said
of him, "Blaine is one of the rising young men of oar coun-
try," an assertion which succeeding years proved to be true.
I well recall the morning when the message came from
Washington that the President had been killed, and it so
hapi>ened that I was called upon to announce the terrible
news to the great crowd assembled in the old State House
Square in Springfield.

Five years previous he had departed from Springfield for
Washington, never to return. I da^ed hands with him at
parting, aifi there passed between us a conversation which
strengthened my determination to go to Congress. I was the
newly elected Speaker of the Illinois House of Representa-
tives, and Lincoln had just attained his title "Mr. President,"
vrhich I took delight in using.

508 ABBAHAM LINCOLN

''Good-lqr, Mr. Pendent/' said I, ''I wiU be down in
Waahington with you one of these days.'' '^Cknne oio, Mr.
Speaker/' he replied, ''I hope yoa will appear there soon."

After a few years I kept my promise, and immediatdisr
following my election to the House I took a trip to WasidDg-
ton to look over the field of my eoming labors, as the aoeeesnr
to Congressman John T. Stewart. I boldly entered the roon
of Secretary Nicolay at the White House, as I had been aeeos-
tomed to do during my visits to Washington, and found, modi
to my surprise, that I had broken in on a eonf erenoe between
the President and Seoretary Seward. President Linedn,
seeing me, as I was about to withdraw, said, ^^Come in, Col-
lom," and, turning to his Cabinet officer, '^Seward, you re-
member my old friend Stewart, who was here last tena!
Well, he was beaten for reelection, and this is the young msa
who beat him.''

There were many great and interesting men in both the
House and Senate in those terrible days during the Ciril
War, and many of them continued leading figures during the
days of reconstruction immediately following. With mai^
of those I was personally, and later became more or less in-
timately, acquainted. There was Fessenden of Maine, who
succeeded as Secretary of the Treasury the dignified Safansa
P. Chase, whom many people, including myself, thought in-
dispensable, and succeeded him in the office so well that the
country never felt the change. There was John Sherman in
the Senate, even then one of the leaders, later to beo(»ie one
of our greatest Secretaries of the Treasury; Thaddeua Stevens
in the House» who wieldtnl an influence second to none;
Charles Sumner, one of the great men of his day, who filled
a peculiarly important place in the history of his time, then
serving as Chairman of the Foreign Bdations Commitlee.
Senator Trumbull of Illinois was one of the leaders of the
upper House and was recognized as one of the great lawyos
of the nation* Hendricks of Indiana, Wilson of MasBsdu-
setts, Howe of Wisconsin, Henderson of Miasouri, Chandler
of Michigan, were then in their prime. John A. Logan was^
during the early part of Lincoln's administration, a member

THE JANESVILLE COMMEMORATION 508

of the House; resigning in 1861, he became the foremost
volunteer officer of the Civil War.

I regarded Thaddeus Stevens as the dominating figure in
the House during the War and the days of reconstruction,
but there were others who became famous in American politi-
cal life later. There was Voorhees of Indiana, William B.
Allison of Iowa, James G. Blaine of Maine, Conkling of New
York, next to whom I occupied a seat and was practically
at his elbow during his fierce struggle in debate with Blaine
some years later. Owen Lovejoy represented one of the
Illinois districts previous to my term in the House. I was
at the White House when the news of his death was brought
to Lincoln, and I recall the kindly manner in which he spoke
of hinu Lovejoy had been something of a radical in the
House, and, although his radicalism had in a way aided Lin-
eoln, there were times when it grew too strong for the good
of the cause in hand* Speaking of Lovejoy on this occasion,
lincoln said, ''He was one of the best men in Congress. If
he became too radical I always knew that I could send for
him and talk it over and he would go back to the floor and
do about as I wanted.''

Shortly before Lincoln was nominated as a candidate for a
second term, Salmon P. Chase^ a member of the Cabinet, had
quietly undertaken to secure the nomination for himself. I
was in Washington when the secret letter written by Senator
Pomeroy, urging politicians to support the Chase candidacy,
came out, and I was among those who urged that Chase be
turned out of the Cabinet, and I so expressed myself to the
President. He replied: ''Let him alone; he can do no more
harm where he is than on the outside."

That was his way of looking at things. He was of too
kindly a disposition, too great a man to punish any one for
being against him, but at the same time he was more far-
seeing than others. He knew that to remove Chase would
only make a martyr of him ; to send him back to Ohio would
only place him in. a position to make trouble for the admin-
istration, and so he simply let him alone, which was by far
the wisest thing to do, until Mr. Chase resigned once too

604 ABRAHAM UNCOLN

often, and then, one day, mnch to the ehai^rin of his Secretaiy
of the Treasury, he accepted his resignation.

No more striking illustration of Mr. Idnooln 's magnanimity
can be given than his appointment of Mr. Clhase to be Chief
Justice of the United States a few months after he had
accepted his resignation as Seoretaiy of the Treasury. It »
happened that I was in Mr. Nioolay's office when Mr. Cham
came to the White House to thank the Presidait for im ap-
pointment as Chief Justice. The door was ajar, and I heard
the few words that passed between them. They were hoik
extremely dij^nifled. Mr. Chase thanked him in a few word%
and the President simply responded that he hoped that Mh
Chase would do his duly, and so the interview closed.

The Message to Congress the year I was elected warn, as I
recall it, a marvel of succinctness and frankness as to aetaal
conditions prevailing in the land. A sonny and optimistie
view of every situation was taken, however, and if the peopk
wished to take a gloomy view of even disastrous war episode^
it was their own doing. At the time the Message was wnitteB
General Sherman was attempting his famous march of three
hundred miles directly through the insurgenta' region.
There were plenty of forebodings at Washington as to the
eventual outcome. Lincoln dismissed the subject in his Mes-
sage with these few words, after stating the undertaking;
''The result not yet being known, conjecture in regard to it
is not here indulged."

In other word% Lincoln intimated to Congress that ttie
country would cross no hridges until they were readied
However, there was contained in that Message to Congren^
when the War was nearly over, a note of determination whidi
left no doubt in the minds of those who read it that Lineofai
still believed the sentiments he had expressed in his great
speech wherein he said, ''A house divided against itself can-
not stand'' — ^a speech which I heard him deliver, by the way»
and I must confess that it was an utterance which was a bul-
wark to me in those trying days when determination only
gave way to doubt and fear.

Those were dark days, but how soon was to come vindiea-

THE JANESVILLE COMMEMORATION 505

tion of Linooln's diagnosis that the issue could only be tried
by war and decided by victory. In the early days of Spring
came the campaigns around Bichmond, and Lee was driven
to the final stand, where he accepted bitter and unconditional
surrender.

To Lincoln was given but a glimpse of the Promised Land.
He lived to see the power of rebellion broken, but was sent
to his eternal reward before he saw the authority of the Union
established in all the rebellious States. He was permitted
to go up into the mountain, Nebo, and to catch a glimpse of
the Pronused Land of a restored nation, but his weary feet
were not permitted to cross the border that separated it from
the Wilderness of Civil War. With his gentle but firm
manner, he had led Congress to do his bidding. The rising
curtain of succeeding years has only served to show the soul
of wisdom which that legislative body had before it during
those dark days as a guiding angel.

THE COMMEMORATION ABROAD

THE COMIOJMORATION ABROAD

THE truly national character of the coBUsemoratiQn of
Lincoln's Centenary ia shown not alone by the celebration
of the day in every city and hamlet^ church and school, home
and library; by rich and poor, educated and unlettered; by
the most distinguished officials of the Nation, State, or city, and
by the humblest private citizens; but perhaps more than all
else by the way in which the day was observed by absent Amer^
leans on foreign shores.

The Lincoln Centenary was widely celebrated abroad by the
American colonies, under the direction of the American con-
suls, and at the American embassies. These celebrations evi-
dence the abiding interest of Americans the world over in
the life of ' * the first American. ' ' Wherever groups of Amer-
icans were found, the day was given over to patriotic exer-
cises, in commemoration of the man who stands, as never be-
fore, for aU that America means to the hearts of her sons and
daughters.

The universal interest which this great American awakened
was also shown by the recognition of the Centenary of his
birth by the citizens of these foreign nations, and by the
tributes to him by the sons of Japan and England, Germany
and France, Italy and Brazil.

England, the country perhaps closest to us of all, by ties
of blood and common ideals, paid homage to the day through
the person of its King, Edward VII., addressing to Am-
bassador Bryce at Washington the following message for
transmission to our Secretary of State and the people of the
United States :

"His Ifajcstj's goverament has learned with interest of the prqiMtra-
tiona which are being made by the President and people of the United
States to commemorate, on February 12, the anniversary of the birth
of Abraham Lincoln.

"I have to request Your Excellency to convey to the Secretary of
State, the cordial sympathy of His Majesty's government, with the spirit

500

510 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

which inipires the United States on this eeld>ration, and their dedie
to liiare in paying a tribute of honor and appredatioii to the strength
and aimplici^ of President Lincoln's character."

The Mayor of London, England, cabled to President Booie-
Telt the following measage :

«<The Lincoln dty flag wavea over the Gnild Hall to-daj in wjmp^
thetie oommemoration of the erent.''

At Bochdale, Lancaster, England, a great meeting was
held, presided over by the Mayor, while Hon. John L. Grif-
fith, American Consul at Liverpool, delivered the Centenaiy
address. Other speakers recalled that Rochdale 's great towns-
man, John Bright, had loyally supported fhe cause of Lin-
coln.

A cable message was also received from Manchester, Eng-
land, where the crowds, gathered to take part in the codi-
memoration of the day, over-taxed the capacity of the hsll
provided, and necessitated an over-flow meeting.

Brazil honored Lincoln and Lincoln's country through the
participation of Ambassador Nabuco in the celebration at
Washington, D. C, while in its own towns and cities, national
flags were hoisted on all the federal, state, and municipal build-
ings; the Brazilian warships were dressed, and at ten o'clock
on the morning of the Lincoln Centenary day, both warships
and fortresses fired a salute of twenty-one guns.

At Paris, France, the American Club observed the fairQi-
days of both Washington and Lincoln, with joint impressive
ceremonies, while on the Centenary day itself the Lyeema
Club gave a banquet at which were present Ambassador and
Mrs. White and two hundred Americans resident in Pans.
Dr. Henry Van Dyke,, of Princeton University, acted as the
speaker of this occasion, as weU as of the commemoration at
the American Club.

At Berlin, Germany, there were two commemorative meet-
ings ; one at the University of Berlin, under the direction of
Professor Felix Adier, and the other an essentially American
meeting at the home of the Ambassador.

In Rome, Italy, a special banquet was held, attended bj
one hundred and ten Ajnerieans, including Ambassador Lloyd

THE COMMEMORATION ABBOAD dll

Onscom, Signor Nathan^ Mayor of Borne, and sereral other
Italian dignitaries, Ambassador Oriseom making the princi-
pal address of the evening.

In the Hawaiian Islands a civic and military parade marked
the day, with exercises at the Opera House in the evening;
while at Manila, and all through the Philippine Islands, pa-
triotic exercises were held in schools during the day, with a
general celebration at Manila, presided over by Governor-
General James Smith, at which the principal address was de-
livered by Mr. Justice Johnson of Manila.

It is regretted that an account of these various foreign and
territorial celebrations, fuller than we have here been able to
offer, cannot be given, with the full text of the speeches de-
livered that day in Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, and in
the islands of the sea, but the limits of this volume permit the
inclusion of only a very few.

MANCHESTBE, ENGLAND •

THE public meeting held in Manchester to celebrate the
Centenary, led to a remarkable demonstration of interest
in Abraham Lincoln's life and work. Whea the meeting
was planned, the offer by the Lord Mayor of the use of his
parlor (a room with accommodation for about four hundred
people) was accepted readily, for it was anticipated that
it would be adequate for the occasion. Instead of four
hundred nearly five times as many people made their way
to the Town Hall in the afternoon, and an overflow meeting
in the large hall had hastily to be arranged. Even then
there were no spare places, for while the surplus audience
quite filled the large hall, the smaller room was packed to
the doors and scores of people had to stand. To prevent dis-
appointment, the speakers addressed each gatiiering in turn.
Bishop Welldon, Dean of Manchester, was the Chairman in
the Lord Mayor's parlor, and the Deputy Mayor (Mr. Coun-
eillor Harrop) presided in the large hall.

*Eztr«ct from a Manchester newspaper.

5» ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Biahop WeUdon reeaUed the dates of Lincoln's bizth and
death, and spoke of the deep impression made on the citiKDS
of Manchester by the circumstances of the President's end.

BISHOP WELLDON's SPEECH*

A poUie meeting was held in the Old Town HaU ii
King Street, and a resolution was passed expressing ''homr
and detestation of the deplorable crime which has resolted i&
the violent death of the chief magistrate of the Amerissa
BepubUc." Forty-four years later we are met here to ex-
press our faith that Abraham Lincoln ''thou^ dead jet
speaketh." His name is imperishaUy associated with one
of those supreme moral triumphs which ennoble and exilt
the life of nations, whidi are not achieyed withont bloodahad
and without agony, but having onee been won endore f oievei^
more. The slave trade has become so entirely a matter of
history that few who are present to-day can imagine what it
was. But if anybody cares to read a chapter of a book whidi
has quite lately appeared — Lehmann's ''Memories of Half a
Century," and the chapter entitled ''Richmond Slave
Market" — he will realize and will never forget the nnqieak-
able shame of the slave trade.

It is sometimes said that President Lincoln was eut off
before his work was done. To my mind his work vras done
on that day, April 3, 1865, when the flag of the Union was
hoisted at Bichmond over the house in whidi the Confederate
Assembly had been wont to meet, that day when, as he
rode silently through the streets to his house, "the eolated
people in multitudes flocked around him, they rent the air
with their shouts, they danced, they sang, they prayed iat
blessings on his head, they wept, kneeling at his feet.'*

The roll of the Presidents of the United States of America
is one of which any country may be proud. Among those
Presidents, Lincoln, if he is not the greatest, is at least tiie
most familiarly known. The magnitude of the meetings
gathered to-day in his honor is a witness to the undying
lustre of his name; but in him there were certain dementi

* Giyea in part cody.

THE CGMMElfOBATION ABROAD 51S

which appealed, and do still appeal, to the popular mind.
He rose, at other Presidents haTS risen, from a humble state
of life. There was in him a simple, homely eloquence.
Bveiybody knows his dietum about swapping horses. But
I always like better that saying of his which he wss wont
to put in the form of a dream, when he saw somebody watch-
ing him who said, ''l%at is a oommon-looking fellow," and
he replied, ''Yes, Qod prefers common-looking people; that
18 why He has made so many of them."

Lincoln was characterised by a certain background of
melandholy, which gave a charm and character to hn youth.
It is to his eternal credit that he saw the truth respecting
the Union in the United States, that he saw on what con-
ditions that Union could endure, and that he resolved, what-
ever the cost might be, to preserve it. I recall to your mind
those words of his, ''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 ex-
pect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one
thing or all the other." Thank God, it has become all the
home of free men.

No words can exaggerate the weight of responsibility which
rested upon Lineohi before and during the Civil War. It
is impossible to admire too strongly his integrity, his sym-
pathy, his love of peace, which never failed him in the hours
of battle and of victory. I do not think anyone here will
forget that in all that he did he was actuated by a strong,
if somewhat undefined, religious feelii^. He believed — and
may I not say rightly believed f — ^that in his great crusade
for liberty the Almighty stood at his right hand. He re-
mains as one of the heroic figures of all history, for he laid
down his life that the slaves might be free.

Vice-Chancellor Hopkinson, of Manchester University, re-
lated some of the incidents which occurred in Lancashire
at the time of the Civil War, and recalled memories of the
workers in the cotton trade who supported the cause of
liberty.

51% ABRAHAM UNCOLN

''Was there anything in the histoiy of the last coitiuy/'
he asked, ''more noble than the way in whidi the woridng
people of Lancashire insisted that no part should be taken
in that struggle, although they were hearing from time ta
time how the ships of the North were blockading the qbIj
ports from which supplies of cotton could comet"

There were (he pointed out) many lessons to be learned
from the War. If a nation is to be strong it most be in-
spired by a strong feeling of unity. In time of stress then
must be that kind of courage which, in spite of reverses at
first, will go on till victory is won. And, lastly, if engaged
in any strun^le, whether in politics or in war, men gained
enormously in i>ower if a great cause for the benefit d
humanity was before them.

Abraham Lincoln^s personal life emphasiaed one or two
dangers with which England and America were faeed tiKdiQr-
There was a want of simplicity in the lives of the bett»4o-
do dasBes of both nations. There was a perpetual desire
to talk, a i>erpetual desire for publicity and advertisemmt
The simplicity of Lincoln's life, and his silence, even more
than his speeches, were eloquent on these points.

Lord Stanley of Alderley described himself as one of
the few people present who had been face to face with Lin-
coln. "It is forty-five years since I met him in Waahingtoo,
yet the memory of his face is still fresh to me. It is es^
but unnecessary to dwell on the fine points in Abraham
Lincoln's character, but looking back on that period I fed
that the merits and qualities of the President were in
degree the merits and qualities of the people in fhe
through which they went. Lincdbi would have done nothing
if he had not had the people of the United States behind
him. His career shows what a free people can do when
they are stirred by a great moral cause." Of the lessons to
be drawn from Lincoln's career, Lord Stanley said there
was^one which might be emphasized. Many, nowadays, were
in danger of forgetting the earnest conviction which ani-
mated their forefathers, that human rights and equal justice

THE COMMEMORATION ABROAD 515

are the paramount duties of the State. Everybody con-
demned slavery, but was there not to-day a tendency to
acquiesce in and even to approve servile conditions!

Mr. Francis Ashworth, president of the Manchester Cham-
ber of . Commerce ; Mr. George Mihier, the Bev. Dr. Qood-
xich, and Miss Margaret Ashton spoke of the noble work
done by Lincoln. Miss Ashton said that just as the women
of Lancashire fought on the side of liberty during the Civil
War, so they were fighting for their own liberty to-day.

At the conclusion of the speeches it was decided to tele-
graph to America the following message:

''Manchester cituens honor Lincoln, and send heartiest expressions
of good-will.'

Mr. J. Duxbury then recited Lincoln's great Gettysburg
Speech, and later he gave Walt Whitman's ''O Captain,
My Captain."

When Major Church Howe, the United States Consul in
Manchester, rose to acknowledge the speeches made, he was
Teceived with long and hearty applause. Such a manifesta-
tion of friendship, he said, made him feel he was at home
among his own people. President Boosevelt had likened
Lincoln to Bunyan's Qreatheart in the "Pilgrim's Progress."
That day in every city, in every town, and in every hamlet
in America aU business had ceased in order that one great
mass meeting of the people might honor the name of the
great emancipator. That day, too. President Boosevelt, the
British Ambassador, and the Ambassadors of nearly every
country in the world were assembled down in the State of
Kentucky, and, around the little cabin in which Abraham
Lincoln was bom, were assisting at the laying of the corner-
stone of the memorial hall, built by the people of the United
States.

''I am not here," Major Church Howe continued, *'to
deliver a eulogy on the life of Mr. Lincoln. That was for
you to do, and grandly you have done it. I am here to thank

516 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

you for this great interest, for the cordial maimer in which
you bring back to memory Abraham Lincoln, the great,, the
commoner, the man of the people, the man who believed in
the government 'of the people, for the people, by the people.'

''I have been aaked to relate some of my experiences as
a soldier of the Civil War, and I do so with a great deal of
pride. I am proud that I was a soldier under the great
Commander-in-chief Abraham Lincohi. You must remember
that our army was made up of the boys of the eoimtry.
Li my own regiment, the first r^^ent that responded to
the call, there were not twenty per cent, over twenty-two
years old. The soldiers of the army were the youth of the
country. And they responded as the English boy would
respond to-day if he was called upon. The American boy
was patriotic, like the Englidi boy. I belonged, as a boy
of seventeen years, to the Massachusetts militia, whidi is
similar to your Territorial Force. The War was cammaiced
by the South, not by the North, and Mr. Lincoln, as Com-
mander-in-chief, acted on the defensive. The. South, which
had enjoyed the fruits of slavery for generations, believing
that it was right, that the slave was a chattel and proper^
that could be bought and sold, that wife could be sepuated
from husband and children from father and mother, went into
the War in the belief that it could conquer. When Litieola
stood in the way, they declared their intention to estaUidi
a union of their own. It was then that Mr. Lincoln saw he
was in danger. You can realize now how little he thought
the War would amount to, when his first call was for only
seventy-five thousand troops. Among those troops was the
regiment of which I was a member — the old 6th Maassr
chusetts. At six o'clock in the afternoon we received notice
to go to the armory. We took off our dotiiing, put on our
imifonns, and at nine o'clock were on our way to Wash*
ington. ; -

''Upon p^iti^g through Maryland, a slave-owning State,
bn the nineteenth of April, about two o 'dock in the afternoon,
axL assault was inade on that regiment and the first blood
was shed. flfS(js proceeded, and in an hour's time we were

THE COMMEMORATION ABROAD 517

at Washington. Lincoln met ns. I recollect that as we lined
up he came down the line and shook hands with every boy,
and thanked ns for coming. And then he marched with us
to the Senate Chamber, where we stood gnard for weeks.
After that he was continually coming to us, talking with
6very one.

'^Oh, he was a commoner, he was a democrat, he was a
man who felt that you were as good as he was. And we all
loved him. He was a gaunt, tcdl man, better than six foot,
homely and ungainly. But when you came to listen to his
talk, you realized what was in the man.''

Major Church Howe went on to describe Lincoln's kind-
ness of heart, how he reprieved a man condemned to be shot
for falling asleep when on sentry duty, and how he won his
way into the hearts of the parents as into the hearts of the
soldiers.

In closing, the speaker emphasized the sincerity of the
good-will which existed between the British and American
people. "There are those," he said, "who pretend that we
are not as cordial as we should be, and that the cordiality
which exists is conmiercial only. I stand here to say that
that is not true. The two countries of the world that stand
more closely to each other than any others are Great Britain
and the United States. We are one people."

The meeting passed unanimously a vote of thanks to
Major Church Howe, and to the Lord Mayor for the use of
the Town Hall. This was proposed by Mr. William Tatter-
sall and seconded by the Bev. C. Peach.

When the meeting was over Major Church Howe expressed
his surprise and delight at the remarkable success of the
celebration. He said that during his twelve years' experi-
ence of England he had never had such a glorious afternoon
or seen such a clear demonstration of good-will towards his
country. "It has been wonderful," he added, .^'^ quite spon-
taneous and altogether hearty. I think that Manchester must
have eclipsed every other place in the country to-day."

At the overflow meeting the speakers were the same as
those who had addressed the chief gathering, with the addi-
tion of the Bev. J. Hirst HoUoweU.

518 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

BEBLIN, GEBMANT •

THEBE were two commemoratiye meetmgs in Berlin, ooe
at the University of Berlin under the direction of Pro-
feflsor Felix Adler, and the other an essentially Ameriean
gathering at the home of the American Ambassador.

The large auditorinm of the University in which Professor
Felix Adler, the '' Boose velt" Exchange-prof esaor, gave his
commemorative address on Abraham Lincoln, was filled, to
practically the last standing-place on Friday, with an andienee
containing many distinguished people from the German
official as well as the academic world* The American Am-
bassador and Mrs. David Jayne Hill were present, as well
as perhaps a score of representative Americans. The body
of the hall was filled with Professor Adler's regular daas of
Gterman students, whose numbers have increased eontinusily
during his term of activity here.

The Professor showed himself a master of (German, and
spoke not only clearly and fluently, but with graphic force of
expression. His sketch of Lincoln's life and life-work, which
probed deeply into the psychology of the great American
liberator, was listened to with profound interest throughout,
to judge by the atmosphere of deep attention which pervaded
the hall.

Professor Adler pointed out how difficult it is to bring
home to a gathering of cultured Europeans all that Amen*
cans understand by the name of Abraham Lincoln — ^that
"raw-boned American," *'echt amerikanischer Typ/' rising
from the ranks, **aiL8 der tiefsten Tiefe/' from ^'Lohnknechf
to President, and finally the founder of the American Union.
Germans know Lincoln best in the character of emancipator,
as the liberator of the negro, but they see the humanitarian
motives by which he was guided, rather than the political

* Extract from The Daily Record printed in

THE COMMEMORATION ABROAD 619

ideals which catised him to demand aboliticm, not only for
the Bake of freedom in the abstract, bnt for the sake of
political imity. Professor Adler put the humanitarian side
of the subject somewhat in the background and turned a
strong search-light upon Lincohi's lofty political aims.

One of the striking features of the address was the really
beautiful i>ortrait which the Exchange-professor drew of
liincoln as ruleiv-truly the servant of the people, subservient
to their will ; but at the same time their educator, developing
in them according to his needs the intellect and the reason-
ing power, so that while he served he ruled and led.

Professor Adler finally unveiled the bronze bust of Lincohi
which he is presenting to the Berlin University as a me-
mento of his activity here. The bust, which is faithfully
reproduced from the striking original by Leonard Volk in
the National Museum at Washington, will be placed in the
Boosevelt room

A few words of cordial and eulogistic thanks were then
spoken by the Rector on behalf of the University, both for
Professor Adler 's address and for his liberal gift which he
was assured was at least quite unnecessary in order to keep
his memory green in Berlin. The Bector also referred to the
great honor and gratification which the University authori-
ties hope next year to experience with Mr. Boosevelt in their
midst as lecturer.

Among those present were Baron von dem Bussche, of the
Foreign Office; leading officials of the ^'Eultusministerium":
Professor Wilhelm Forster, astronomer, and head of the
'^ Ethical Culture" society in Qermany; Professor and Mrs.
Alois Brandl, and a host of other representatives of the
University faculties; Fran Bosa Poppe, of the Egl. Schau-
spielhaus; Geh. Bat. Ludwig Ooldberger, etc.

Some Americans present were: Mrs. Felix Adler and
Mrs. William Morris Davis, Bev. Dr. Dickie, Consul-Gtoneral
Thackara, Mr. Wm. C. Dreher, Dr. and Mrs. Geo. Watson,
Dr. and Mrs. C. L. Babcock, Dr. Alice Luce^ Mrs. F. JU

520 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Keppler^ Mn. J. H. HoQan, Mi» Came F. SmiUi, Mia
IdeUe Morrifloii, Mr. Qimther Thomas.

An interesting personality present was Philip Loewenfhil,
of New Torky a veteran of the CSjil War who wont out witli
Lincoln's corps of vdnnteeis in 186L

A second, more general, edebratlQii of {he Timeoln Oen-
tenary took place in the afternoon at the home of fhe Abmt-
lean Ambassador and Mrs. HilL A general invitation had
been extended to all Americans who desired to honor tint
memory of Lincoln, with the result that about five hundred
Americans filled the reception-rooms at Bismarck Straoee 4
Patriotic feeling ran high, and there was an immense amoonl
of enthusiaam during the rendering of the programme, whieh
included the singing of '^My CSountry 'Tis of Thee," the
''Star Spangled Banner," and ''Dixie," and the rendering
of several selections of a thoroughly American order hj
individual musicians.

The speakers of the occasion were Ambassador David Jajus
Hill, Consul-Qeneral Thackara, and Professor Felix Adier.

Professor Davis, who has up till now been known aa
"Colony" occasions only as a humorous speaker, came out
in a new vein, reading a set of verses on Lincoln of whieik
he himself was the composer, and which called forth sineeKe
appreciation. Professor Felix Adler^s address was on the
same lofty scale as at the midday celebration at the Univer-
sity, and was again greatly enjoyed. It remained for the
Ambassador to deliver the address which waa the feature
of the afternoon. Dr. Hill, who spoke last, had originally
intended merely to thank the previous speakers and the
musicians of the afternoon, adding just a few words in
honor of Lincoln. But the general enthusiasm of fhe ooea*
gion and the exceptionally large American gathering, added,
no doubt, to the unanimously expressed desire that he should
speak at length, prevailed upon the Ambassador to continue.
The result was a masterpiece of simple eloquence, sneh as
Lincoln himself might have delivered, and which cannot be
reproduced in cold print with any justice. Dr. Hill re-

THE COMMEMORATION ABROAD 581

f erred to the original erroneous idea of Lincoln, which repre-
sented him as a despot and a tyrant, as a hard, self-willed
man, and showed how biographical research had proved the
utter fallacy of this view. He compared Lincohi to ''a
great rock in a surging sea," as he stood calm and deter-
mined amidst the passions of North and South, and referred
to Lincoln's political philosophy. Abraham Lincoln repre-
sented the political rights of all people, from the lowest
stratum upwards ; but how, asked Dr. Hill, did Lincoln come
to represent this particular form of political philosophy?
Simply because he himself, in his own unique life and per-
sonality, represented all the people. He himself had lived
the life of every class in turn, from the lowest to the highest ;
''like a river which gathers unto itself a thousand rivulets
and rivers as it flows on full-breasted to the sea," Lincoln
gathered unto himself all the wisdom, the wit, the pathos,
the humor, and the everyday philosophy of the common
X>eople. His personality was the incarnation of all these ele-
ments; and when Lincoln's soul reached Heaven its claim
for admittance was based on no Order, on no title or patent
of nobility, but on the simple fact that the man was the
elected representative of the majesty of the common people.
In addition to the large gathering of Americans, the fol-
lowing notabilities were observed among the audience : Herr
von Holleben, former Ambassador at Washington; Excellenz
von Yersen; Frau von Hegermann-Lindencrone, wife of the
Danish Minister, who had just returned from witnessing
the departure of the King and Queen of England at the
Lehrter Bahnhof ; and Professors Paszkowski and von Mar-
tins, of Berlin University.

322 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

LINCOLN'S HUNDREDTH BIETHDAY
Febroary 12, 1909.

WnJilAH MOBBIS DAVIS
Harvard Exchange-Profeaaor at the University of Berlin.

We name a day and thus conunemorate
The hero of our nation's bitter strife;
The martyr who for freedom gave his life.
We feel the day made holy by his fate.

The wheels of time then turn their ceaseleas round.

And slowly wear our memory away:

The holy day becomes a holiday;

Its motive changes with its change of sound.

Let not our purpose thus be set aside:
An hour, 'twixt work and pleasure, let us pause.
And consecrate ourselves to serve the cause
For which our hero strove, our mar^ died.

He lived to reunite our severed land ;

To liberate a million slaves he died.

And that the great experiment be longer tried

Where each one ruled, in ruling has a hand.

What tho' the pessimists, amid their fears,
The great experiment to failure doom.
Let us recall his trust in time of gloom.
And steadfast persevere a thousand years.

Tho' sure that victories new will yet be won.
Like those our fathers gained laboriously,
'T is not for us to boast vaingloriously
As if our battles were already done.

THE COMMEMORATION ABROAD 529

Our elders miglit have sang with better grace
The verse that vaunts us ever free and brave,
Had not our land so long oppressed the slave,
Stolen from over sea^ to our disgrace.

Yet in our pride, how little right have we
To blame our elders for an ancient wrong
That gave the weak in bondage to the strong..
Are we ourselves so wholly brave and free T

Yes, with primeval courage, brave and strong,
"When banded 'gainst a foe; yes, free from kings —
But not BO brave in smaller things
That we should celebrate oursdves in song.

Not that it counts for naught that we have grown

To be the leaders of a continent.

And not that we could be for long content

Hid any other folk except our own.

But that we must not lightly over-rate
Our qualities : if on our faults I lay
A certain emphasis, 't is not to-day
Ourselves, but Lincoln whom we celebrate.

For he was brave, a true American —
Unselfish, kindly, patient, firm, discerning,
His honest, homely wisdom outweighed learning ;
He stood for service to his fellow man.

How think of him and not condemn the use
Of public office turned to private ends,
Of petty fraud, for which each one pretends
To find in others' frauds his own excuse t

5M ABRAHAM LINCOLN

How ean we think of him and not repent
The shaded line we draw 'twixt wrong and ri|^t;
Of him, and not resolve, with aU our might.
To carry on the great experiment t

If most of \iB have no great taaks to do.
Let nSy like him, be faithful in things smalL
Our nation 's drama makes us actors all ;
If only splitting rails, we 11 split them true.

If troubles thicken, let us still deserve

To solve them all as Lincoln would to-day;

If dangers threaten, let us not betray

The cause that Lincoln, living yet, would serve.

Here in a distant foreign land we pause,
'Twixt work and pleasure, to commemorate
His noble life. How better than to consecrate
Ourselves to play our part in Lincoln's cause t

THE MAN FOR THE HOUR

ALEXANDEB MONTQOMERT THACKABA.

THE literature inspired by Lincoln's record is vast in
quantity and rich in quality, and to do justice to talent»
requires talent. It is not for me to speak of his distinctkm
as a lawyer, his achievements as a statesman or of his historie
guidance of a nation in the most trying time of its existence.

From a stump speaker and comer grocery debater, he
lived to take hit place in the front rank of immortal oraton^
whose lucidity of speech surprised and enthralled his hearem
He rarely failed to seize an opportunity to illustrate a situa-
tion by substituting a story for an argument, and left his
listeners to make their own deductions.

We are all familiar with his humor, his melancholy, his
strange mingling of energy and indolence, his unconventioDal

THE COMMEMORATION ABROAD 6M

character, his frugality, his tenderness and hu courage.
Could Lincoln have foreseen the place he now holds in the
hearts of the nation, which greatly owes its preservation to
his wise goidance, his great heart would have been spared
many a pang which his political enemies inflicted upon him.
Could he have been granted a vision of those countrymen
he loved better than himself, in America and throughout the
world, meeting together in his memory — ^proud to have such
a ruler, a father who saved his children from a family
breach — ^his fine nature, in which the keynotes were malice
towards none and charity for all, would have been saved
many a hurt. For Lincoln, of whom we think as beyond
fitting praise, as he is beyond reproach, had sad moments of
self -doubting and self-depreciation. Many incidents of his
life show this side of his character, but it was the other side
that predominated when occasion demanded and made him
the man for the hour in our greatest need.

An anecdote which was told in my presence by Dr. Nich-
olas Murray Butler, President of Columbia College, and
which doubtless many of you have heard, will illustrate his
firmness when sure of his own position. Lincoln had for
a long time advocated the abolition of slavery. After care-
ful study and deep thought, he prepared a rough draft of
his Emancipation Proclamation and submitted it to his Cab-
inet OfScers for their opinion as to its feasibility, its pro-
priety, and its wording. One and all expressed their
disapprobation of the scheme, stating that the time was not
opportune, and that it was extremely bad politics, etc. Lin-
coln was impressed by the unanimity of the adverse senti-
ment of his advisers, but after giving the subject deep and
prayerful reconsideration, some two* weeks later he again
presented the Proclamation to his Cabinet mth some slight
changes in the context, and stated that he desired to have
their final vote to settle the matter. When the question was
put, Lincoln voted ''Aye." The rest of the Cabinet to a man
cast their votes in the negative. Lincoln stood up and with
a firm and impressive voice said: ''Gentlemen, the ayes
have it,'' and the famous Proclamation was issued.

596 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

To the real orators who are going to follow me^ I les?e tte
handling of this inspiring subject — Lincoln — which is kio-
dling a flame of patriotic enthusiasm that spans the woiU,
for I venture to say that not only in the United States, hut
in Europe and in the Far-East, there will be found groiipi
of Americans gathered to-day for the same pnrpose that biB
brought us together. AU know the pall of sorrow wUd
spread over our country when he met his tragie dettL
Could he be with us and see the splendid progress our eoaatij
has made since the fatal day in April, 1865, he would floic^
realise that his martyrdom was not in vain.

THE COMMEMOBATION ABBOAD 527

PARIS, FRANCE

Doctor Henry van Dyke famishes this account of the
meeting of the American Club at Paris: ''The banquet of
the American Club of Paris, was held in the Hotel d' Or-
leans on February 22, 1909. It was a joint celebration of
the memory of Washington and Lincoln. Colonel Theodore
Ayrault Dodge, a veteran of the Civil War, presided.
Among those present were: Hon. Henry White, Ambasssr
dor to France; Hon. Stewart L. Woodford, ex- Ambassador
to Spain ; Colonel Frank L. Mason, Consul-general ; and rep-
resentatives of the French Republic, and the city of Paris.
The meeting was one of the largest in the history of the
elnb." The principal address follows:

FROM WASHINGTON TO LINCOLN

DR. HENBT VAN DYEE

FROM Washington' to Lincoln ! From the stately pillared
mansion at Mt. Vernon to the Illinois log cabin, from
silver shoe-buckles to square-toed boots, from the Virginia
landed proprietor to the rough and ready Western lawyer —
what a change ! There are some who regret it, and lament the
good old times when all the Fathers of the Revolution (per-
haps) wore silk stockings and knee breeches. This regret re-
minds me of the two Irishmen who went to hear Mr. Bryan
on his return from Europe: '^Ah! " said one, ''Bill Bryan
is not the man he used to be." ''No," said the other, "and
he never was either." There are some who rejoice in the
supposed change, and hail in Lincoln the advent of a new
democracy. This rejoicing and self -congratulation remind me
of the old New England farmer, who returned a volume of
Plato which Emerson had lent to him, with the remark, "I
kinder like that old Qreek feller; he's got some o' my idees."

5M ABRAHAM LINCOLN

But 88 a matter of fact, both the regret and the rejoicing are
wasted.

The change from Washington to Lincoln is one of fonn,
not of substance; one of dress, and not of spirit. It is, in
fact, only an outward modification, which does not touch tt
all the continuity of moral and political ideas, or the un-
broken strain of patriotism which made both of those moi
representative of America.

Washington was not the last American, nor was Linooh
''the first American," though Lowell said so. f*ranUin was
an American, and Alexander Hamilton was an Ammcan«
Philip Schuyler was an American, John Jay was an American.
Everyone of those men who had spirit enough to take his
heritage from English, or French, or Scotch, or Dateh stodt
and lay it at the shrine of freedom and equal rii^ts, was an
American.

Washington and Lincoln were rooted in the same sofl e(
fundamental justice. They expanded their manhood in the
same air of liberty. They were like a stately silver pine and
a rugged black oak, growing together on the same hillside,
and spreading abroad their strength in the free winds of
heaven. (

I am struck, not by the difference m their dress, but by
the resemblance in their hearts. They lived by and for tke
same aims. They hitched their wagon to the same star. It
was Washington who saw most clearly the vital necessity of
Uni(m, and who did most to make it firm and duraUe. It
was Lincoln who met the dangers which Washington had
predicted would assail that Union, and who saved it from
them, and made it indissoluble. It was Washington who
first gave to America the lesson of toleration and forgivenesa,
by his treatment of the men who calumniated and eon-
spired against him during the Revolution — ^forgiving all, as
he said, for the sake of the common cause. It was Linoofai
who wrote the words of peace and reconciliation upon the
firmament, when the lurid clouds of Civil War had n>Iled
by, so that Jefferson Davis said of him, *' Since the fall of the
Confederacy, the South has suffered no loss so great as the

THE COMMEMORATION ABROAD 089

death of Abraham Lincohi.'' It was Waahfaigtoa who saw
the inooDsisteney, the shame, and the peril of slavery. It was
liincoln who ended it.

Washington was a soldier who fought for the su-
premacy of just and peaceful laws. Lincohi was a lawyer
who invoked the sword to defend a supreme equity. Both
men were too great for personal jealousy, too noble for per^
8onal revenge, too simple for personal affectation, whether
of roughness or of smoothness, too sincere for personal con-
cealment. They had no secrets from their country. They
served her with a whole, clean, and glad heart; and they
asked no greater reward than her service.

Washington used long words. Lincoln used short words.
But they both used words for the same purpose; fhey both
had that kind of eloquence which is simply the result of
manly virtue, sober thought, and straight utterance. Through
the speeches of both there ran three main ideas: — first, a
recognition of the nation 's dependence upon Almighty God ;
second, a strong emphasis upon the necessity of union at the
sacrifice of factional differences and interests ; third, a steady
insistence on moral ideas as the foundation of national great-

Th^ were not sceptics, they were believers; they were
not clever cynics, they were sober enthusiasts. They were
not plaster of Paris saints. Washingtcm had, beneath his
quiet exterior, a power of indignation against evil which
made him use, at times, language which was not fit to print.
Lincoln had a sense of humor which made him, occasionally,
tell stories whose latitude exceeded their longitude. But at
heart th^ were both profoundly serious men. * ^ When I die, ' '
said Abraham Lincoln, ''I want it said of me by those who
know me best that I always plucked a thistle and planted a
flower where I thought a flower would grow." ''If I know
my own heart," wrote Washington from Valley Foi^, ''I
coold offer myself as a living sacrifice to the butchering enemy,
provided that would contribute to the people's ease." I
leave it to you if this is not the same keynote struck by these
two men.

5B0 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

I am tired of fhe talk which makes of Linooln a rade, im-
gainly, demagogie jester. I am tired of the aaperficial eriti-
cism which makes of Washington a prond, self-satisfied Brit-
ish Sqnire. (Qeorge III. did not think so.) Que of these
men was great enough to refose a erown, the other great
enough to accept a cross, for his country's sake. Let us leani
to recognize in both of these men, embodiments of the spirit
of America, of the type of manhood which has made America;
and let us, if we love our country, get away from the notion
that she is a happy accident! If we do not get away from
that notion she will be an unhappy disaster.

What are the ideals which belong to true AmericaniaDiT
Here are some of them :

To believe that the inalienable rights of man to life^ liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness are given by God.

To believe that any form of power which tramples on those
rights is unjust.

To believe that freedom must be safeguarded by law, and
that the end of freedom is fair play for everyone.

To believe that the selfish interests of persons and faetioDi
must be subordinated to the welfare of the Commonwealth.

To believe, not in a forced equality <^ conditions and ei>
tates, but in a true equalization of burdens and opportonitieB^
so that every man shall have a fair chance.

To believe that no class is sacred Plough to rule the Bepob-
lie, and no mass great enough to ruin it.

To believe, not that all men are good — ^for th^ are not—
but that the way to make them better is to trust tiie whole
people.

To believe that the great Democracy should offer to all na*
tions an example of virtue, sobriety, and square dealing.

To believe that Church and State are absolutely independ-
ent, and that both need real religion.

These are vital elements in the faith of Americans; and
to-night, as guests and grateful friends of the French Repub-
lic, we profess our creed, we celebrate our heroic chiefi»—
Washington, who lived to create the Union ; Lincoln, who died
to save it. We celebrate a republicanism which beloDgs

THE COMMEMORATION ABROAD 581

neither to the classes nor to the masses, a republicanism
which has room for the unselfish aristocrat as well as for the
noble democrat, a republicanism which speaks of self-reliance,
fair play, common order, self-development, and a country
which belongs to all — from Waahington to Lincoln, to Cleve-
land, to Roosevelt, to Taft.

5S2 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

SOME, ITALY
THE AMERICAN UNION AND ITALY •

HON. LLOTD G. GRISOOM

AS we are all enjoying, for the moment, the hospitality
of the Kingdom of Italy, it seems to me that we should
not let this occasion pass without some expression of our
heartfelt sympathy with a people so recently stricken with
the most disastrous calamity which has ever been recorded in
the history of nations. I am sure I justly interpret the
unanimous sentiment of this assembly when I express to the
government, and to the people of Italy, our condolence in this
hour of suffering and misery, and our admiration for the cour-
ageous manner in which the whole nation has nobly risen to
meet the blow.

Italy may well be proud of her brave soldiers and sailon,
who are still carrying on the humane work of relief; but
above all she is to be congratulated upon having at Hus mo-
ment two sovereigns, who, at the first word of the disasto*,
proceeded to the scene of horror, and there, by their untir-
ing efforts, brought succor and comfort to the suffering peo-
ple, and gave an inspiring and illuminating example to the
Italian nation, and, indeed, to the whole world. It is not in
Italy alone that the humane deeds of King Victor Emmanuel
III. and Queen Helena are justly admired and will be perma-
nently remembered.

It requires a leap of memory over well nigh fifty years to
recall that once, when we in America had our period of trial
and suffering, we received from Italy a sympathy and en-
couragement which was sorely needed. It takes us to the time

* An addreBB delivered, February 12, at a Linooln l^.ii^Tirt at ¥^<nn%
Italy.

THE COMMEMORATION ABROAD dSS

whea Abraham Lincoln was President, and when, for four
bitter years civil war devastated the fairest section of the
American continent. In Europe generally, the Southern Con-
federacy received the greatest sympathy, based largely on com-
mercial interests, but in Italy the cause of human liberty and
of national unity for which Lincoln stood the champion, was
the cause which appealed to the people and received its un-
wavering support.

The fact is written large in the archives of the Embaaefy
which I have the honor to occupy. One of my most illustrious
predecessors, Mr. George P. Marsh, while Minister at Turin,
wrote to our Government on June 27, 1861, four days after
presenting his letters of credence, that the tenor of Baron
Bicasoli's remarks left no room for doubt that his personal
sympathies, as well as those of his (Government, were entirely
on the side of President Lincoln and the constituted author-
ities of the Union. A year later, he wrote that there was no
country in Europe where the cause of the American Union met
with so warm and hearty a sympathy as in Italy, and that the
Italian population was unanimous in its vrishes for the triumph
of the Federal cause.

Again, a year later, in 1863, he wrote that the conduct of the
Italian (Government was the more entitled to a generous ap-
preciation by the United States, because the cutting off of
the supply of cotton by Northern naval operations was a se-
vere injury to Italian industry. In the course of the four
years of the Civil War, Marsh never had occasion to send to
our (Government a word of complaint of the attitude or con-
duct of Italy. As early as June, 1861, Baron Bicasoli gave
special police orders to prevent the sale of vessels or muni-
tions of war to the South, and the hospitality of Italian ports
was denied to Southern privateers. It seems appropriate to
recall that, when other foreign nations were seriously con-
tributing to the duration and bitterness of Lincoln's task,
Italy never deviated from the path of friendship.

At the risk of trespassing on your patience, I would like,
at this moment, also to recall a curious and interesting his-
torical incident which betrays the then existing under-current

tfM ABBAHAM LINCOLN

of feeling between Italy and the United States. An Amer-
ican historian, Mr. Nelaon Qay— who should be here toni^
but who is engaged in a much nobler occupation of carrying
relief to the mountain towns of Calabria — ^unearthed from the
archives of our Embassy in Borne the long-ooncealed histary
of the offer, by President Lincoln to Qeneral (Jaribaldi, of the
command of one of the Northern armies. Garibaldi refmed
the offer, largely because the American Qovemment had not
yet decided upon the liberation of the slaves, which was the
only cause which would have induced the Italian patriot to
gage in the American struggle. The incident had no
quences, but it serves to show in what esteem Lincoln held
Oaribaldiy and what a powerful sway the name and reputa-
tion of the great Italian patriot had in America at that time.

It is in such moments of stress and tribulation that res!
ties and real friendships between nations are made. Hap-
pily, the diplomatic intercourse between Italy and the United
States is one long record of amity and good wilL We are
ever ready to recognize our indebtedness for the literary and
artistic inspiration received from the land which gave faiith
to Dante, to Petrarch, to Baphael, to Leonardo da Vinci, and
to Michael Angelo. If further link were needed, we have only
to recall that it is from an Italian that we have taken the name
which is so dear to us — ^''America."

Your Chairman has given to me a task which ia ever moit
welcome to an American representative. The toast of ''The
President of the United States'' is one which thrills every
thread of our patriotic fibre, and we may be pardoned if we
seize upon the moment, even here in this most hospitable fof^
eign land, to indulge in an expression of the respect in which
we hold the highest officer of our Government, and of the con-
fidence we have in him and our institution.

It is by such gatherings as this that w^ keep fredi within
us the memory of our greatest heroes, and contribute our share
to maintain the standards and ideals of our forefathers.

THE MAN LINCOLN

WCUBUB D. NESBIT

NOT as the great who grow more great
Until they are from us apart —
He walks with us in man's estate;
We know he was a brother heart.
The marehing years may render dim

The hnmanness of other men^
To-day we are akin to him
As they who knew him best were then.

Wars have been won by mail-clad hands,

Realms have been mled by sword-hedged kings,
Bnt he above these others stands

As one who loved the conmion things;
The common faith of man was his,

The common faith in man he had—
For this to-day his brave face is

A face half joyons and half sad.

A man of earth I Of earthy stuff,

As honest as the fruitful soil,
Onarled as the friendly trees, and rough

As hillsides that had known his toil;
Of earthy stuff— let it be told,

For earth-bom men rise and reveal
A courage fair as beaten gold

And the enduring strength of steeL

535

596 ABRAHAM LINCOLN

So now he dominates our thoufi^t^

This humble great man holds us thus
Because of all he dreamed and wrought.

Because he is akin to us.
He held his patient trust in truth

While God was working out His plan.
And they that were his foes, forsooth.

Game to pay tribute to the Man.

Not as the great who grow more great

Until they have a mystic fame —
No stroke of pastime nor of fate

Gave Lincoln his undying name.
A common man, earth-bred, earth-bom.

One of the breed who work and wait —
His was a soul aboye all scorn.

His was a heart above all hate.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

THE editor of this yoltune wishes briefly to mention again
the obligation that the city of Chicago is nnder for the
splendid work of the Lincoln Centennial Memorial Committee
of One Hundred, appointed by Hon. Fred A. Bnsse, Mayor
of Chicago, and to give a list of that committee, with the o£S-
cers and its sab-conrntittees. The scope and magnitude of the
Chicago celebration, the participation therein of all classes
of citizens, the lack of friction in the carrying out of the plans
of the Committee, the general success and wide publicity
achieved, were largely due to the able leadership of Hon. Wil-
liam J. Calhoun, the distinguished President of the Committee
of One Hundred.

He also wishes to take this opportunity of thanking by name
some of the men who helped make the week in Chicago a suc-
cess, and regrets that this acknowledgment will have to be
confined to those connected with the ofKcial celebrations, as
to attempt to name the hundreds of speakers and organiza-
tions, or the thousands of earnest and effective committeemen,
who helped to make the general celebration memorable in the
history of the city would take a volume in itself.

THE LINCOLN CENTENNIAL MEMORIAL COMMIT-
TEE OP ONE HUNDRED was appointed by the Mayor of
Chicago, under the following resolution introduced in the
Chicago City Council by Alderman Albert J. Fisher on March
16, 1908, and unanimously adopted :

WHEREAS, The memory and public acts of Pres-
ident Abraham Lincoln of Illinois have become the
priceless heritage of the people, irrespective of, and
above all party lines and afSliations ; and

5S9

540 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

WHEREAS, Movements are in progress fhroni^
out this State to fittingly recognize and commemorate
the centennial year of his nativity, 1909 ; and

WHEBEA8, It is only proper that this metropolis
in which Lincoln received his nomination for the
high office of President, should bear its full part in
such proposed memorial ; therefore

BE80LVED, That His Honor, the Mayor, do ap-
point a Lincoln Memorial Commission, whose da^
it shall be to cooperate with other like committees
throughout the State to the end that this city govern-
ment shall be properly represented in such memorial
proceedings, and shall contribute to their promotian
its proper share of assistance and encouragement
This Committee, originally a committee of one iiundred, by
the additions to its various constituent committeea was eoD*
siderably augmented in numbers. It was organized as fol-
lows:

OFFICERS

pBEsmsNT Han. WSUam J. Cidhmn

FmsT YiCE-PBEsmsNT AUL Albert /« FiAer

Second Yigb-President .' Charles B. Crmn

Third Vicbs-Pbesident Oeorge W. Pertm

Secretabt Nathan WiUiam MaeChen^

Tbeasubsb Leroy A. OoddaH

CHAIRMEN OF SUB - COMMITTEES

ExEOUTiVB WiUiofii J. Cattowi

Spbakebs, Halls and SghochiS .... Edgar A, Bancrefi
MUiiTABY Pabtigipation .... Ccl, Jossph Rosenbamm
PuBUcrrr, T. Edward Wilder, Joseph Bosch, ShaUer Mathews
Music, Art, and Decorations • . . Alexander H. Bevdl
Church and Institutional

Observance Judge C, C. KohUasi

Reception and Entertainment . . WHUam J. Cidko^

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

FiKANGB Arthur Meeker

Pbbmamxnt Mbmobial . • Nathan WiUiam MocChemey

CONFEBBNCE JOID UNIFICATION OF

CELEBiiATiON Frank Hamlin

COMMITTEE OP ONE HUNDRED

Anderson, Bishop C. P.
Bigelow, Edward A.
Hoyden, William C.
Baker, Charles A.
Bancroft, Edgar A.
Brundage, Edward J.
Burch, William A.
Brentano, Judge Theodore
Cheney, Bishop Charles Ed-
ward
Culver, Dr. Forest E.
Callaghan, Bev. J. P.
Crane, Charles B.
Calhoun, William J.
Clarke, Arthur L.
Cigrand, Dr. B. J.
Dunn, Aid. Winfield P.
Eckhart, Bernard A.
Earle, Dr. Frank B.
Everest, Col. J. G.
Eastman, John C.
Eaton, Marquis
Fallows, Bishop Samuel
Fisher, Aid. Albert J.
FoUansbee, Mitehell D.
Finn, Aid. Nicholas B.
Farr, Marvin A.
Forgan, David B.
Favill, Dr. Henry B.
Faye, Charles M.
Furqr, Charles H.

Foreman, Col. Milton J.
Olessner, J. J.
Gregory, S. S.
Glogauer, Fritz
Goddard, Leroy A.
Grant, Gen. Frederick D.
Gunsaulus, Bev. F. W.
Heckman, Wallace
Hamlin, Frank
Hanberg, John J.
Hinman, (George W.
Hall, Richard C.
Hirsch, Rabbi Emil G.
Hutchinson, Charles L.
Harris, Abram W.
Judson, Harry Pratt
Jones, Frank H.
Jones, Rev. Jenkin Lloyd
Keep, Chauncy
Kohlsaat, Judge C. C.
Kohlsaat, H. H.
Kelly, John T.
Kelly, Rev. Edward A.
Keeley, James
Lathrop, Bryan
Lagorio, Dr. A.
Lawrence Andrew
MacChesney, Nathan Wil-
liam
McCormick, Robert R.
McCormick, Harold F.

543

ACKNOWLEIXSMENTS

McCormick, MediU
McClurg, Ogden T.
MacYeagh, Eames
Mack, Judge Julian W.
Mitchell, John J.
Mullaney, B. J.
Murphy, Dr. John B.
McNally, James
Meeker, Arthur
McFatrich, Dr. J. B.
Morris, Ira N.
Muldoon, Bishop P. J.
Michaelis, W. B.
Masters, Edgar Lee
Mills, S. B.
Metz, John
Noyes, Frank B.
O'Keefe, P. J.
Olson, Chief Justice Harry
Purdy, Capt. W. P.
Perkins, George W.
Quigley, Archbishop James E.
Both, John C.
Bevell, Alexander H.
Reynolds, Qeorge M.
Roberts, Oeorge

Roberts, E. L.
Reilly, Leigh
Rosenbaum, CoL Joseph
Rosenwald, Julius
Simmons, Francis T.
Sunny, B. E.
Snow, Aid. B. W.
Sprague, Albert A., IL
Sullivan, Roger C.
Simpson, James
Shedd, John O.
Sutherland, Geoige
Shaffer, J. G.
Schneider, Otto C.
Thompson^ Capt. S. B.
Tenney, Horace Kent
Taylor, Aid. Francis W.
Tolman, Maj. Edgar Broim
Upham, Fred W.
Wacker, Charles H.
Wilson, John P.
Walker, Frauds W.
Wilder T. Edward
Young, Qea. E. C.
Zimmer, Aid. MJAh^^

The following named gentlemen, after the organization of
the Committee under the authority given to it by the Mayor,
were added to the original Conmdttee of One Hundred:

Arnold, Lt. William
Anderson, John
Barber, Maj. Frank W.
Brown, Frederick A.
Basch, Joseph
Brand, Horace L.
Browning, Granyille W.
Burry, Oeoi^

Burley, Clarence A.
Chenowith, Maj. W. H.
Cassidy, Maj. Harry C.
Chamberlain, Capt. HeoiyB.
Carey, Rev. A. J.
Cooley, Harlan W.
Crossley, Frederick B.
Dietrich, CoL Henry A.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

548

Dixon, Qeorge W.
Deranek, Charles
De BloiSy Rev. Austin E.
Foster, Qen. D. Jack.
Fisher, George P., Jr.
Freund, Ernst
Garrity, Col. John J.
Greene, Col. Lewis D.
Ginzburg, M. P.
Greztad, N.
Holt, Charles S.
Hart, Louis E.
Holland, John F.
Kline, Col. Julius B.
Knapp, Eemper E.
Moriarty, Col. Daniel
Marshall, Col. John B.
Mathews, Shailer
McCalla, Capt. Lee A.
McDowell, Bishop W. P.
Milbum, Bev. Joseph A.
Merbitz, Bev. P. P.
Montgomery, John B.
Marston, Thomas B.
Moore, Nathan G.
Musgrave, Harrison
Morse, Charles P.

Matz, Budolph
Norcross, Prederick P.
Oakley, Horace S.
PhiUips, Lt. E. O.
Parker, Hon. Prancis W.
Bobeson, Lt. Col. T. Jay
Bogers, Edward S.
Bumsey, George D.
Smith, Henry A.
Sanborn, Col. Joseph B.
Strong, Col. Gordon

Strong
Szwajkart, Stanislus
Stevens, Charles A.
Shaw, Bev. John Balcom
Sellers, Prank H.
Sidley, William P.
Tenney, Horace E.
Thompson, Col. John B.
Vance, Bev. Joseph A.
Wood, John H.
Willard, Norman P.
Waldo, Otis H.
Wheeler, Arthur D.
Wigmore, John H.
Woolman, Lt. Maurice
Zane, John M.

In addition to the general Committee there were a large
number of citizens who served on various sub-committees, es-
pecially in connection with the splendid work of the Pinance
Committee under the chairmanship of Mr. Arthur Meeker.
Among those who served on these sub-committees were:

Allen, W. D.
Allen, Benjamin C.
Bunnell, John A.
Brown, M. L.
BusweU, H. G.

Chester, H. W.
Crane, B. T., Jr.
Childs, C. Pred
Dixon, Thomas J.
Dickinson, William

5M ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Fnller, Frank Lytton, George, Jr.

C. H. MiUer, John S.

Hahn, H. F. Phillips, W. K

Ingweraen, Enul Peacock, C. D., Jr.

Keaner, J. L. Schweppe, CharleB

Eline, Samuel J. Tighe, Bryan, G.

Ejmball, C. N. Wiehe, C. F.

EJirpen, Adolph Young, H. W.
Leahy, Harold F.

Aside from the members of the committees throaghoul ^
city, who contributed to the success of the celebraticn, the
editor desires to thank on behalf of the Committee those who
assisted it at the various official celebrations. AmAng then
were:

At thb AuDrroBiuM Mebtiko

Frederick A. Brown, Esq., Committeeman-in-charge ; Cari D.
Kinsey, General Musical Director; William Ap Madoc, Diree-
tor of the Chorus; the three hundred Chicago High School
pupils who formed the splendid Chorus; Wilhelm IGddd-
schulte, the Organist ; Bev. Maurice J. Domey, who aAed fle
LiYocation ; Bey. Joseph A. Vance, D. D., who offered the eki-
ing Prayer.

At ths Sbvbnth Bbgdoent, Ilu N. G., Abmobt

Bev. Charles Baird Mitchell, D. D., who asked the Invoea-
tion and pronounced the Benediction; Col. Daniel Mori-
arty, Commanding the Seventh Lif antry, which gave the vat
of its Armory, both for the afternoon meeting and the me^iiif
in the evening for the colored citizens; Lieut. G^rge K
Beed; Mr. John Byan of the Seventh Infantry; The Seventh
Lif antry Band, Paul Smith, Director; The Irish Choral So-
ciety under the leadership of Professor Taylor DrilL

At thb Seoond Beoiment, III. N. G., Abmoey

>in-charge

John J. Garrity, Commanding the Second Infantry, whiditea>

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 5M

dered the use of its Armory to the Committee and which
assisted it in every way; Bev. Austin K. De Blois, who pro-
nounced the Invocation; The Second Infantry Band, Panl
Qoepfert, Director; Madame Anita Patti Brown, the colored
singer; The Virginia Quartette; Bev. Thomas Y. Shannon,
who pronounced the Benediction.

At thx Batteby B, Ilu N. O., Abmobt

Eames MacYeagh, Esq., Committeeman-in-charge ; Col. Mil-
ton J. Foreman of the First Gavahy, who acted as Chair-
man pro tern.; Maj. Joseph C. Wilson of the First Cavalry;
lit. Maurice Woolman of Battery B; Bev. Father Basil A.
Didier; Miss Gknevieve De Forrest, Soloist; Mr. Charles B.
Hay, Soloist; First Cavalry, 111. N. O. Band, A. Fisher, Di-
rector; The Colored Jubilee Singers; Bev. Fred Y. Hawley,
who pronounced the Benediction.

At thb Mxbtinq of thb Eighth Intaktst (Cou>bkd), akd

thb colobed cmzens' comhriteb, at thb sxvbnth

Bbgiicent, III. N. G., Abmobt

Hon. George W. Dixon, Committeeman-in-charge ; CoL John
B. Marshall, Commanding the Eighth Infantry; Pedro T.
Tinsley, Director of the Choral Study Club ; The Choral Study
Club; Bt. Bev. Charles Edward Cheney, DD., S.T.D., who
gave the opening Prayer ; J. Gray Lucus, Esq. ; E. P. McCabe,
Esq. ; W. H. Clark, Esq. ; The Eighth Begiment Band, Wil-
liam E. Berry, Chief musician; Bev. Moses H. Jackson, who
pronounced the Benediction.

At the Dextbb Pabk Pavojon

E. L. Boberts, P. J. CEeefe, Geo. W. Peridns, Committee-
in-charge; Arthur Meeker, Chairman; John A. Spoor of the
International Live Stock Exposition Company, for the use of
fhe Amphitheater ; Bt. Bev. Paul C. Bhode, who gave a short
address and the Invocation; five hundred members of the
Chorus from the singing societies and church choirs of the
city; Clarence Dickinson, Director of the Chorus; The Ai)ollo

INDEX

Abolitionistft, 174, 289, 290, 306,

396
Adams, Charles Francis, minister

to England during Civil War,

420-424
Anti-slaveiy days, 320, 327, 392,

393

Benjamin, Judah P., 121, 122

British Qoyemment and United
States, their relations during
Civil War period, 41, 42, 50-
53, 210, 222, 223, 303, 305,
831, 420^23, 425, 514

Brown, Hon. (George, founder and
editor of The Tcronio Globes
46, 47, 49, 50, 52

Brown, John, 45.

Civil War, elosed, 12; causes
which made inevitable, 33;
had its counterpart in Can-
ada, 43; attitude of Canada
during, 47, 48; Lincoln and
Grant during, 144-147; out-
break of, 302, 329, 330, 348,
446, 452; conduct of, 304,
331; cost of, 306; a ''peo-
ple's war," 450; attitude of
England toward, eee British
Government and United
States, their relations during
Civil War period; attitude of
Italy toward, 533

Congress, Lincoln's relations with,
500, 501, 504, 505; in recon-
struction period, 502, 503

Conversation, the business of life^
19

''Cotton, King,"* as determining
agent in war, 51, 52, 286, 287,
514

Canada, Lincoln's significance to,
and political situation in, 35,
42-^14, 46, 47, 49, 50; slavery
in, 44, 46; refuge for fugitive
slaves, 44, 45; Southerners
and their sympathisers go to,
at outbreak of war, 47, 48;
attitude of, during Civil War,
47, 48

Canadians in Union Army, 48, 49

Carr, Col. Clark E., 65

Cautious men, 20

Chase, Salmon P., 302, 303^ 419,
503, 604

Darwin, Charles, as great contem-
porary of, and compared with,
Lincoln, 15, 16, 78, 310, 410-
412
Davis, David, 69, 162, 208
Davis, Jefferson, 38, 48, 262
Democracy in North America, 35,

37-43, 46, 47, 53, 54
Democratic party, 69, 141, 142
Douglas, Stephen A, 117, 121, 122,
162, 288, 324, 378, 393, 394,
398, 409; see aUo under Lin-
coln, debates with Douglas

551

559

INDEX

Drad Soott dttcUkm. 120, 140, 288,

S24, 367
DranuDoiid, ThomM, 182, 227

Haj, John, 243, 447

•'l^gTpt" (Southern niinoit), 402,
403

SowBciiMtlon Proclamation, 44,
40, 55, 62, 01, 126, 223, 224,
237, 200, 205, 306, 331, 332,
360, 453-456, 474, 487, 525

Bngland, m« tmder Britiah Govern-

Srerctt, Hon. Edward, orator at
Gettysburg dedication, 65,
136^ 137, 360

Illinois fittingly giTes tribabs to
laneoln, 33, 76, 84; 1^
practioe and ooorta in, dar>
ing Lincoln's lile^ lUAU,
201, 203-209, 211» 225-427,
268; the SUte between isn
and 1861, 160; in UmBotA
boyhood, 380

JadDBon, ''StonewaU," S3
Japanese relations with Uiilci
States, 244-«46

France, career of Lincoln followed
in, 101, 102, 104

Freedom and slavery, conflict be-
tween, 30, 40, 53, 54, 173, 234

F^esport debate, 140-142, 210, 402;
90$ uUo umder Lincoln, de-
bates with Douglas

Fugitive Slave Act, 44-46

Fugitive slaves, 44, 45

Garibaldi compared with Lincoln,
116; offered command in
Northern army, 534

Gettysburg address, tee under Lin-
coln

Gladstone, William E., great con-
temporary of Lincoln, 15, 16,
868

Golden Rule in diplomacy, 243,
244, 246

Grant, Ulysses 8., 143-147, 260,
270, 304, 380

Greeley, Horace, 62, 60, 70, 72,
122, 200, 303, 304, 348, 448

Kansas-N^raaka Bill, 231
King of Rome contrasted with
Lincoln, 113, 114

Labor question, slawy a phass

of th^ 276, 200-203
XicadcT of a n^l'if?fi, essentials el^

24^7
Lee, Robert E^ 83, 437
Lincoln, Abraham —
fomily of, 310, 410, 483
belonged 1^ Urth to Sovti^ 58,

73, 134, 176, 264, 407
youth of, 16, 17, 10, 50-61, 73,
114, 131-134, 154, 175, 178,
170, 102, 105, 256, 261, 287,
268, 204-208, 31^-321, 343,
362-^364, 376, 380, 300
self-trained, and investigatiBg
for himself, 50, 61, 63, 131-
134, 138, 160, 176, 178, m
206-208, 320, 321, 363, 38i
377

INDEX

55S

eduoatibn, Me aelf-trained, eie.
peraonal appearance, 22, 70, 71,

277, 309, 318, 517
story of his life familiar, 14,

34, 154, 280, 343
language used bj, 50, 04, 06, 07,

120, 121, 138, 278, 207, 335,

330, 420-422; Mtf alto aa

orator
atoriee told oonceming, 19, 116,

120, 300, 307, 308, 339, 404,

487, 525
wit and humor of, 20, 21, 81,

172, 173, 188, 299, 307, 308,

335, 486
atory-telling characteristic of,

21, 80, 307, 304
characteristics of, 18-32, 34, 36,

54, 55, 61-04, 68, 71-73, 114-
122, 138, 159-162, 172, 173,
176-178, 193, 201, 202, 211,
220, 242, 255-260, 263-266,
282-285, 298-304, 300-310,
318, 321, 329, 330, 334-342,
350, 364-369, 376-381, 394,
396, 451, 453, 456, 457, 462-
467, 474-478, 486-488, 490,
500, 501, 503, 504, 513, 514,
517, 624, 525
of frontierman and pioneer type,

22, 23, 60-64, 66, 319, 389
patent taken out by, 61

his belief in dreams, 74, 486
religion of, 81, 125-127, 282,

283, 336, 369
an optimist, 31

isolaUon of, 16, 54, 55, 178, 179
prophetic imagination of, 257,

486
conversation important to, 19
an all-round man — a "man of
the people " — not representr
ing a class or profession, 23-
27, 36, 62, 63, 101, 138, 170,
490

admission to the bar and law
practice, 154-165, 171, 201,
203-209, 211, 225-227, 268,
296—300, 322, 323, 378

in State legislature, 154, 159,
105, 106, 175, 204-207, 300,
321, 322, 325, 377, 378, 447

q)eeches {other than debates
and Cooper Institute speech),
Bloomington, 1856 and 1858,
225, 228, 232-238, 395-397;
Springfield, 1858, 234

** lost speech," 238, 390

senatorial campaign of 1858, 36,

141, 186, 285, 325, 327, 397-

399, 408, 443

^-^bates with Douglas, 83, 120,

135,tUo-142, 171, 176, 177,

<l85-188, 210, 234, 208, 285,

301, 302, 325, 327, 336, 339,

368, 378, 391, 393-395, 399-

•407, 443, 497

Cooper Institute speech, 135, 130,
171, 176, 177, 234, 277, 278,
281, 285, 286, 328, 336, 337,
408, 443

nomination and presidential cam-
paign, 68-70, 177, 185, 191,
230, 277, 281, 295, 302, 328,
444

as President, 37, 38, 171, 172,
210, 302, 303, 307, 309, 329,
378, 381, 445-448, 451, 452

abused and lampooned, 11, 62,
68, 70, 71, 123, 124, 258, 347.
348, 355, 366-368, 375, 376,
380, 452, 497

First Inaugural Address, 39, 121,
127, 139, 152, 163, 168, 192,
221, 255, 264, 337, 445, 481,"^
496

Second Inaugural Address, 59,
149, 218, 268, 269, 297, 321,
337, 369

Gettysburg address, 57, 59, 64-

654

INDEX

M, lSe-138, 165-170, 188, 268,
297, 810, 368, 368, 498
M orator, 186-189, 268, 301, 368
EmandiMtioii Prodamaiioii, aee

mnder EnumciiMtioai

Oabinct, reUtiooB with, 122, 268,

302-304, 419-422, 424-^428,

446, 447, 449, 450, 486, 503

CongrcM, reUtions with, 500,

501, 604, 505
hit caIU for men, 39, 294, 446
hit personal conduct of the war,

304, 307, 447, 453

hie detemunation to save the
Union, 12, 39, 124, 144, 221,

305, '348, 351, 352, 355, 356,

4vO, 44o, 44V

as diplomat, 41, 42, 242, 243,

246; 966 aUo Britiah Goyem-

ment and United States,

their relations during Civil

War period
his significance to democracy,

35-44, 46, 47, 50, 53, 54
the world-citizen, 34, 53, 54
how regarded by the South, 33,

14^152
reUtions with U. S. Grant. 143-

147 ; see aUo Grant, U. &
autobiography of, 231
and the n^^roes, 332-334, 338
statesmanship of, 82-^, 118,

119, 223
greatness of, 33, 34, 99, 172-

174, 207, 341, 342, 347, 462,

477, 478, 486, 490
death of, 34, 35, 142, 150, 162,

194, 221, 265, 266, 269, 279,

310, 340, 370, 428, 429
his remains lie in state, 58, 310
reaction of feeling occasioned

by his death, 11, 68, 310, 334,

347
duration of public career, 171
uncompleted life pf,. 18, 221, 222

lessons to be learsed flfos^ 56-
58, 128, 129, 172, 224, ttt,
J»44, 870, 371, S76» 887, 388^
413
inspired words tme ol^ 370
quotations from, 38, 57, 74, lU^
118, 125-127i 146, 147, 140, ISt,
163, 166-168, 170, 173, 80^
231, 233, 234, 256, 264, 28B,
283-291, 293, 300, 301, 321,
324, 348-350, 366, 381, 387,
398, 403-408, 444, 448, 448,
454, 455, 496
liovejoy, Owen, Lineola's
of, 503 .

Marshall, Chief Jostieeb liMTt

McCormick, Qyrus, 85, 208, 421

Mexican War, 301, 406

Missouri Compromise aad Ms re-
peal, 46, 140, 163, 219, 228^
230, 237, 287, 288, 302

M<mnments to soldiers, 151; to
great men, 271, 272

Myths, 345

Napoleon compared with Wai^

ington and Lincoln, 472; 473
Kegrob problem of the, 92-88, 104*

112; cause of ayil War, 164,

106
Negio soldiers in war. 111, 381
Negroes and linoofai, 332-834, 338
New York, impossible to oosMfivc

of Lincoln aa liaTiag bssn

bom in, 23
Nineteenth century, signiBesnt

erento of, 14, 15, 174, 217,

218, 864
North, the, honors Southen les^

ers, 33

INDEX

555

Ordinanoe of 1787, 228, 229, 237

Poe, Edgar Allan, as great con-
temporary of Lincoln, 16, 16,
310
Popular soyereigntj," 230, 231,
288, 302

•«

Beconstruction period, 73, 266,

337-339
Republican party, platform of, 300
Revolution, causes which made in-
evitable, 33; furnished an ar-
guable case for secession, 38
Riches, encumbrance of, 20
Rodin's statues likened to Lin-
coln, 17

Saint-Oaudens' statues of Lincoln,

179
Schurz, Carl, 123, 349
Scott, Lieut.-Gen. (by brevet), 144
Secession, 37, 38, 210, 262, 263,

329, 347, 352, 437
Seward, William H., Secretary of

SUte, 42, 69, 70, 72, 142, 193,

223, 234, 243, 302, 303, 331,

.419^22, 450
Slavery, 36, 38-40, 44, 83, 140,

175, 186, 233, 263, 264, 286-

290, 295, 301, 302, 305, 306,

323, 324, 396, 447, 448, 494-

496
Slaves, proposition to buy, 73,

306, 307
Soldiers, surviving, 267
South, the, honors Lincoln, 33,

148, 150-152, 266, 837, 495,

499; Lincoln belonged by
birth to, 69, 73, 134, 176, 264,
497; relation to Union after
war, 74, 150

Southerners, writings of, their in-
fluence upon Lincoln, 136

"Squatter sovereignty," 288, 324

Stanton, Edwin M., 209, 419, 424-
429, 449, 489

State rights, 352-355

State sovereignty, 38, 165

Studiousness, the quality of, 21

Sumner, Charles, 339

Swett, Leonard, 162, 163

Tennyson, Alfred, as great con-
temporary of Lincoln, 15, 55,
56

Theories, 21

Trent affair, see British Govern-
ment and United SUtes, their
relations during Civil War
period

** Uncle Tom's Cabin," influence of,

46, 326
" Underground Railroad," 45

Washington, Booker T., 108

Washington, George, contrasted
with Lincoln, 36, 67, 68, 190,
221, 267, 269, 270, 279, 341,
346, 347, 366, 364, 366, 437,
472, 473, 527-531; held title
of Lieut.-Gen., 144

West, the, as factor in destiny of
nation, 85, 86, 175, 176

Whitman, Walt, 74; his lines,
«0 CantHJB.f. Mv Captain I ~

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