LINCOLN
CENTENNIAL ASSOCIATION
ADDRESSES
MCMXVIII
/
LINCOLN ROOM
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
LIBRARY
MEMORIAL
the Class of 1901
founded by
HARLAN HOYT HORNER
and
HENRIETTA CALHOUN HORNER
%
r
ADDRESSES
Delivered
At The
C elebration of
The One Hundred
AND Ninth
Anniversary
of the birth of
Abraham Lincoln
Under the Auspices of the
Lincoln Centennial Association
and
Illinois Centennial Commission
At The
Ctate Armoury, in Springfield,
Illinois, on the twelfth day
of February, nineteen hundred
and eighteen.
Springfield
Printed for the Association
The Lincoln Centennial
Association
Incorporated under the Laws of Illinois
Object: *'To properly observe the one
hundredth anniversary of the birth of
Abraham Lincoln; to preserve to posterity
the memory of his words and works, and to
stimulate the patriotism of the youth of the
land by appropriate annual exercises''
Incorporators
The Honorable Melville W. Fuller*
The Honorable Shelby M. Cullom*
The Honorable Albert J. Hopkins
The Honorable Joseph G. Cannon
The Honorable Adlai E. Stevenson*
The Honorable Richard Yates
The Honorable J Otis Humphrey
(ii)
The Honorable Charles S. Deneen
The Honorable John P. Hand
The Honorable James A. Rose*
The Honorable Ben F. Caldwell
Dr. William Jayne*
Mr. John W. Bunn
Mr. Melville E. Stone
Mr. Horace White*
♦Deceased.
Officers
President, J Otis Humphrey
Vice-President and Treasurer, John W. Bunn
Secretary, Philip Barton Warren
(iii)
Illinois Centennial
Commission
Created by Act of the General Assembly of the State of Illinois, Approved
January 21, 1916.
Object: '*To arrange for and conduct a
celebration in honor of the centennial of the
admission of the State of Illinois to the Federal
Union**
COMMISSIONERS
Dr. Otto L. Schmidt
Dr. Howard Bowe
Hon. William Butterworth
Rev. R. W. Ennis
Hon. Harry Pratt Judson
Hon. William N. Pelouze
Judge Thomas F. Scully
Col. Frederick H. Smith (Deceased)
Mrs. Jessie Palmer Weber
(iv)
Hon. John W. Bunn
Hon. Leon A. Colp
Professor E. B. Greene
Hon. George Pasfield
Hon. a. J. Poorman, Jr.
Rev. Frederic Siedenburg, S. J.
OFFICERS
Dr. Otto L. Schmidt, Chairman
Mrs. Jessie Palmer Weber, Secretary
Hon. Hugh S. Magill, Jr., Director of
Celebration
(V)
speakers at Former
Celebrations
HE Right Honorable James Bryce,
Ambassador Extraordinary and Min-
ister Plenipotentiary from Great
Britain; the Honorable J. J. Jusserand,
Ambassador Extraordinary and Minister
Plenipotentiary from the French Republic;
the late Jonathan P. DoUiver, former United
States Senator for Iowa; the Honorable Wil-
liam Jennings Bryan, former Secretary of
State; the Honorable Charles S. Deneen, for-
mer Governor of Illinois; Dr. Booker T.
Washington, of the Tuskegee Institute; the
Honorable William Howard Taft, former
President of the United States ; the Honorable
Martin W. Littleton, former member of Con-
(vi)
speakers at Former Celebrations vii
gress from New York; the Honorable Henry
Cabot Lodge, United States Senator from
Massachusetts; the Honorable Frank B.
Willis, member of Congress from Ohio;
Count J. Von Bernstorff, former German Am-
bassador to the United States ; the Honorable
Joseph M. Bailey, former United States Sen-
ator from Texas; Honorable Edward F.
Dunne, former Governor of Illinois ; The Most
Reverend Archbishop Glennon of St. Louis;
Mr. Gutzon Borglum of New York; The
Right Reverend Samuel Fallows of Chicago ;
the Honorable James Hamilton Lewis and the
Honorable Lawrence Y. Sherman, the United
States Senators from Illinois ; Bishop William
A. Quayle, of the Methodist Episcopal
Church; Dr. John Grier Hibben, President
Princeton University ; Honorable Thomas
Sterling, United States Senator from South
Dakota.
Foreword
HE Illinois Centennial Com-
mission having been created
by the Legislature of the
State of Illinois, for the pur-
pose of celebrating, in the
year nineteen hundred and
eighteen, the One Hundredth Anniversary of
the Admission of the State of Illinois into the
Union of the United States, and this country
having entered the World War, it was deemed
proper that the Celebration of the One Hun-
dred and Ninth Anniversary of the birth of
Abraham Lincoln be made the occasion for
manifestation of patriotism under the joint
auspices of the Illinois Centennial Commis-
sion and the Lincoln Centennial Association.
Accordingly, meetings were held in the after-
(viii)
Foreword ix
noon and evening at the State Armoury in
Springfield, Illinois.
In the afternoon, Dr. Otto L. Schmidt,
Chairman of the Illinois Centennial Com-
mission, presided; patriotic music was ren-
dered by a chorus of twelve hundred students
from the public schools and the Springfield
High School Orchestra; addresses were made
by Hon. Hugh S. Magill, Jr., Director of the
Illinois Centennial Celebration, and by Hon.
Addison G. Proctor, the youngest delegate to
the Republican National Convention of Eigh-
teen Hundred and Sixty, at which Lincoln
was nominated a Candidate for President of
the United States.
In the evening Hon. J Otis Humphrey,
President of the Lincoln Centennial Associa-
tion, presided; and addresses were made by
Hon. William Renwick Riddell, Justice of
the Supreme Court of Ontario, and Hon.
X Foreword
Thomas Power O'Connor, Member of the
British Parliament for Ireland.
Mr. Justice Riddell brought to the meeting
and exhibited a letter written to Lincoln by
the Governor of Kansas, May 13th, 1864, and
Lincoln's reply thereto endorsed in Lincoln's
own hand. This was loaned for the occasion
to Mr. Justice Riddell by Mr. John Gribbel,
of Philadelphia ; it has been seen by very few
persons and is very characteristic of both
statesmen. The letter and reply are as follows :
"Washington, D. C
Mav 13th, 1864.
To the President of the United States.
Sir:—
Kansas has furnished more men according to
her population to crush this rebellion, than any
other State in the Union. Her sons today are
scattered over the country defending the old flag
while many of her peaceable citizens at home
are being murdered by lawless guerillas. Such
is the intelligence I received today.
The Major-General commanding that De-
partment informed me that he needed more
Foreword xi
troops to secure protection to the State. I have
tendered you two thousand troops for one hun-
dred days, such as you have accepted from other
States, to be used as you might direct through
the Commander of that Department, without
other cost to the Government than the pay of
Volunteers without bounty. You referred the
matter to the Secretary of War, for his consider-
ation. I found that Officer overburdened with
business of such magnitude to the Country, that
he could not be seen, either upon my request or
yours.
I have to ask that you either accept or reject
the proposition I made in my communication of
the 12th instant.
I hope, however, you will not allow the lives
and homes of the Citizens of Kansas to be
jeopardized by the objections you suggested in
our conversation, ^that Senator Lane would
probably oppose the raising of the troops, or if
raised, would oppose an appropriation for their
pay in consequence of the patronage thus con-
ferred upon the Governor of the State.'
You will do me the favor to reply at your
earliest convenience.
Very respectfully.
Your obedient servant,
(Signed) Thos. Carney,
Governor of Kansas^
xii Foreword
LINCOLN'S REPLY
"The within letter is, to my mind, so obviously
intended as a page for a political record, as to be
difficult to answer in a straightforward, busi-
ness-like way. The merits of the Kansas people
need not be argued to me. They are just as good
as any other loyal and patriotic peoples; and,
as such, to the best of my ability, I have always
treated them, and intend to treat them. It is
not my recollection that I said to you Senator
Lane would probably oppose raising troops in
Kansas, because it would confer patronage upon
you. What I did say was that he would proba-
bly oppose it because he and you were in a mood
of each opposing whatever the other should pro-
pose. I did argue generally, too, that, in my
opinion, there is not a more foolish or demoraliz-
ing way of conducting a political rivalry, than
these fierce and bitter struggles for patronage.
As to your demand that I will accept or re-
ject your proposition to furnish troops, made to
me yesterday, I have to sav I took the proposi-
tion under advisement, in good faith, as I believe
you know, that you can withdraw it if you wish,
but that while it remains before me I shall
Foreword
xiu
neither accept it or reject it until with reference
to the public interest, I shall feel that I am
ready.
Yours truly,
(Signed) A. LINCOLN."
May 14th, 1864.
The addresses made on this occasion are
now published for the Members of the
Lincoln Centennial Association.
Philip Barton Warren,
Secretary.
March, 1918.
m
f:-^^
Abraham Lincoln
An Address delivered before the Lincoln
Centennial Association at Springfield,
Illinois, on February 12, 1918,
By the Honorable
William Renwick Riddell, L.L.D., F.R.S.
Can., Etc.
Justice of the Supreme Court of Ontario
At first sight there might seem an incon-
gruity in a Canadian addressing this gather-
ing, met to honor the memory of a President
of the United States. But that would be a
narrow view ; the first words spoken after the
martyr President's death are as true now as
(xiv;
Address by William Renwick Riddell 15
when on that fateful April morn fifty-three
years ago they were uttered by Stanton, "He
belongs to the Ages."
The Great President who led his people
amid terrible difficulties, cheerful in the face
of apparently irreparable disaster, calmly
saying before truculent foe as before doubt-
ing friend "Whatever shall appear to be God's
will I will do," the President who in the very
hour of victory achieved was stricken down
by the hand of the assassin, has become the
treasured possession of the world; and my
Canada claims her share in him.
A lad of thirteen years when he died I well
remember the horror and detestation w^th
which the deed of blood was regarded by
Canadians, for we had learned to look upon
him as our own and we venerated him less
only than our beloved Queen Victoria.
Canadian to the last drop of my blood,
i6 Address by William Renwick Riddell
British to my finger tips, I too was born on
this our Continent of North America, have
from infancy breathed her free air, drunk in
almost with mother's milk the splendid prin-
ciples of democracy which are her glory and
her pride — in common with my brother Cana-
dians, in all things I am '^sprung of earth's
first blood," in the highest and best sense I am
American.
And I cannot but feel that your invitation
to me to speak to you shows that you agree with
me in the thought which caused me to accept
your invitation that notwithstanding our dif-
ference of allegiance, our status in inter-
national law of alien and foreigner, notwith-
standing all outward appearance of separa-
tion, there is between American and Canadian
an essential and fundamental unity, for we be
brethren, nay in all that is worth while,
American and Canadian are one.
Address by William Ren wick Riddell 17
The great bond, the eternal principle, which
makes us one is democracy; and Abraham
Lincoln is the finest type and the greatest ex-
ample of democracy the world has ever seen.
What do we mean by democracy? Not a
form of government the republics of ancient
and medieval times, many republics, so-called,
of modern times are as far from democracv as
the nadir from the zenith. Monarchies, too,
are different ranging from absolute monarchy
where the arrogant monarch can say ^'There
is but one will in my country and it is mine"
to the monarchy under which it is my pride to
live in which the King is content to reign
leaving it to his people to whom it belongs,
to rule.
A republic in form may be an oligarchy or
a tyranny in fact ; a monarchy in form may be
in reality a true democracy.
i8 Address by William Renwick Riddell
Every people has the government it de-
serves, every free people the government it
desires; and that free people which has chosen
that there shall be government of the people
by the people for the people, is a democracy.
Yet he who adopts that principle simply
because . it recommends itself to his fellow
citizens, or simply as a matter of policy, is not
a true democrat; the true democrat must love
the people, the common people.
Washington, praeclarum nomen, loved the
common people, but he was not of them, one
would almost say he was an English gentle-
man; he would not have a commission given
to any but gentlemen ; Lincoln was of the com-
mon people himself, he knew them and loved
them as his own, not as a superior and from
above but as one of themselves and on a level.
And this was the cause of utter bewilder-
ment, honest perplexity, to many in the east,
Address by William Renwick Riddell 19
to no few in the west, who could not under-
stand that high station was not inconsistent
with simplicity of manner; they thought the
joke, the amusing story, undignified, un-
Vvorthy of the occupant of the highest office
in the Union.
Had this been mere frivolity, such strictures
would have been pardonable, but the light
manner covered deep feeling, the joke had its
immediate practical application, and the story
was often full of significance, like the parables
of the Gospel, in which the Master taught
profound moral truths in the guise of tales
almost child-like in their simplicity.
This very want of affectation was symp-
tomatic of the deep regard he felt for his fel-
low men and of his reverence for the people at
large ; democratic in his views of government,
he was democratic in his manner toward
others.
20 Address by William Renwick Riddell
Wholly believing in the power of public
opinion, with a perfect respect for the popular
will, he did not seek applause or to amuse the
people, except with the end of convincing
them. Was not this the real reason why he re-
lied so much upon '*the stump," upon the open
oral debate, when face to face the champions
of rival policies might give a reason for the
faith that was in them? Loving the people as
he did, his greatest ambition was to be es-
teemed by rendering himself worthy of that
esteem.
He was not unconscious of the tremendous
importance of the issues involved, for coming
as he did from a small frontier town, lacking
what the world calls education, with little
grace of diction and none of manner, he knew
that his seven meetings with Douglas were the
successive acts of a drama enacted in the face
of the nation and to no small extent in the face
Address by William Ren wick Riddell 21
of the world. But during his whole life, even
when he had become the people's attorney by
being placed in the presidential chair he was
not self-willed, he sought the advice and coun-
sel of others, he listened to all the myriad coun-
sellors bidden or otherwise, ever trusting that
those who should know would help him in his
perplexities.
From early life he pondered over and strug-
gled with every proposition till he understood
it and mastered it ; he read every book he could
to help him to understand, and in the end he
made up his own mind as to the right. Public
opinion more than once was against him,
more than once would have destroyed his plan,
but with all his respect for public opinion he
recognized his own responsibility before God,
and man, and made — not adopted — a decision.
That marks the distinction between the dem-
ocrat and the demagogue.
22 Address by William Renwick Ridbell
So at all times he repudiated any arbitrary
personal prerogative; as he was not a dema-
gogue he would not be an autocrat — no roy-
alty could be smelt on his train.
At all times and under all circumstances he
felt the majesty of law. It may be that Seward
lost the nomination in i860 because he had
boldly asserted that there is a higher law than
the Constitution; but that assuredly was not
the reason for Lincoln's devotion to it. He
did not imagine that the Constitution was per-
fect, but he revered it because it was a contract,
and his conception of right did not allow him
to look upon a contract as a scrap of paper.
This reverence for compact explains his
attitude towards slavery.
Convinced that where the white man gov-
erns himself that is self-government but when
he governs himself and also governs another
that is more than self-government, that is des-
Address by William Renwick Riddell 23
potism — convinced that slavery is a violation
of eternal right and that that black foul lie
can never be consecrated into God's hallowed
truth ; wishing that all men everywhere could
be free, nay convinced that the Republic could
not endure half slave and half free, he never-
theless fought the radical abolitionists as he
fought those favouring the extension of slav-
ery, while he swore that the Constitution
should not shelter a slave holder, he would not
permit it to shelter the slave stealer; he de-
clared in his first inaugural address that he did
not intend to interfere with slavery; even in
the midst of war he repudiated the proclama-
tion of Fremont, and at length he freed the
slave only as a war measure. Inter arma silent
le^es.
Devoted to principle, he fought all his bat-
tles on principle; and while the most kindly
24 Address by William Renwick Riddell
and placable of men, he gave way no jot on
matters of principle, he made no compromise
with wrongdoing. The attempts at compro-
mise with the seceding States, which we now
know were foolish, he would have nothing to
do with — he stood firm — Blair, Dawson,
Greeley, who not? Men of consequence in
their day but now as stars lost before the sun
coquetted with rebellion. Lincoln listened,
smiled and moved not. Rebellion he knew
was not the work of a day, it was deep-seated
and required heroic measures; one could not
fight it with elder-stalk squirts filled with rose-
water; and he pressed on the war more earn-
estly than his professional soldiers and with no
shadow of turning.
Lincoln had utter faith that Right makes
Might, the true democratic doctrine, as op-
posed to the autocratic creed Might makes
Right; and in that faith dared till the end to do
Address by William Renwick Riddell 25
his duty as he understood it. In that belief he
dared to defy almost the whole of the Northern
States by releasing the Southern envoys taken
from the Trent contrary to international law.
Firm in asserting right he recognized cor-
relative duties, national as well as individual.
Lincoln had (it would seem) no well de-
fined religious views in early life, but as soon
as his thought became clear he recognized that
there is a God who governs the world and that
if God be with us we cannot fail in the end;
he revered the justice and goodness of the
Creator and humbly acknowledged that "The
judgments of the Lord are true and righteous
altogether." He walked humbly knowing
God as the Father of all and that very knowl-
edge made him the better democrat. As it
seems to me no man can be a true democrat
who looks upon the world as without a Divine
Author and Governor, the children of men
26 Address by William Renwick Riddell
but an accident here with a future of utter
nothingness. The true democrat is he who
knows that all men are like himself the chil-
dren of God and therefore his brethren.
Does not the love of his fellow men shine
out in every line of that sad but kindly face?
Compare it with the scowling face of the
Kaiser, the outstanding example of the auto-
crat— a face indicating arrogance, contempt,
brutal disregard of the rights and feelings of
others.
Your President has said that the present
war is waged that the world may be safe for
democracy.
Truly the world is now in the crucible ; the
furnace is seven times heated, the tension well-
nigh intolerable; in the welter of blood, the
cry of agony, the horror of death, the world's
destiny is now being wrought out — the white
Address by William Renwick Riddell 2
f^
hot metal must soon issue and take permanent
form — all this is terrible but it was inevitable.
The autocrat and the democrat must needs
meet in deadly conflict, and determine what
the future of the world should be — there is not
room enough on earth for both.
This is no dynastic war to establish a sover-
eign or a reigning house, no religious conflict
to render dominant, Catholic or Protestant, all
but a very few peoples are wholly indifferent
who is and who is not king ; Protestant Prussia
and Protestant England, Catholic Austria
and Catholic France and Italy are not divided
on religious lines, the Catholic American or
Canadian stands shoulder to shoulder with his
Protestant fellow-countryman with the same
high resolve toward the same lofty ends. A
people whose whole principle of government
is autocratic, whose Kaiser is never photo-
graphed without a frown, his avowed models
28 Address by William Renwick Riddell
a people whose princesses glory in military
uniform, whose whole national atmosphere is
enmity, hate and malevolence had been pre-
paring for more than a generation for world
dominion — not a world dominion where
others would be treated with kindness and
justice but where they would be ruled with a
rod of iron having no rights which a German
was bound to respect.
The rest of the world was strangely blind to
its danger — the few who understood and spoke
out, were treated as alarmists; one I know in
Canada was laughed at and ridiculed, and
more than one in England had the same ex-
perience. No one in a civilized country could
believe that any people had reached the depth
of infamy; required to make the disregard all
justice and right in order to aggrandize them-
selves and their ruling house. Yet so it was ;
and the world had a terrible awakening.
Address by William Renwick Riddell 29
To the amazement of the civilized world,
the solemn contract to respect and maintain
the neutrality of Belgium was ruthlessly
broken; the nation which prided itself on its
blunt honesty became a perjured nation —
true, at first the Chancellor expressed some
kind of regret but soon the real spirit became
all too manifest, the brutal aggressor was con-
temptible enough actually to attempt to justify
the wrong by lying charges against crucified
Belgium, enmity, hate, malevolence did their
perfect work. France must necessarily resist
for she was attacked- — but the land across the
Channel was safe, her navy ruled the Narrow
Seas, and there was little chance of a success-
ful invasion of her peaceful shores.
But she had made a bargain with Belgium,
she wished well to Belgium, her heart went
out to Belgium; and she threw her small army
in the way of the aggressor.
30 Address by William Renv/ick Riddell
The world did not know the Prussian, did
not understand to what depth of brutality he
could descend. Rules of decency were sup-
posed still to hold even in war ; but every vile
thought that could be conceived by the vilest
of men was carried into execution by the in-
vading Hun — not sporadically as may happen
in any army who see red and are in the agony
of battle, but of design, with fixed purpose ana
by command of cool, collected officers. Mur-
der, rape, arson by wholesale; women and
children massacred or tortured with a torture
worse than death — the Indian on this continent
never gave such a spectacle, the world stood
aghast and the German smiled a smile of self-
satisfaction.
For long the conflict raged, Canadians
fought and bled and died, many gallant young
Americans joined our army, many joined the
Address by William Ren wick Riddell 31
forces in France — but the United States v/as
neutral.
Murder on land was followed by murder
on the sea; American lives went out in the
waters as Belgian lives went out on the plain,
and yet America held her hand.
But when the promise solemnly made was
contemptuously broken, when it became man-
ifest that a wild beast, a tiger was abroad to
which a promise was but something to be
broken, when it became manifest that the
Germany which was at war was the enemy of
the human race, there was no longer hesita-
tion.
War was declared by America against the
enemy of America because the enemy of every
nation governed by humane and moral prin-
ciple, an enemy determined to set at naught
all principles of right, of mercy, of justice to
attain his object.
32 Address by William Renwick Riddell
And America is united — the un-American,
disloyal, hyphenated, I disregard; they are an-
noying but ridiculous and will vanish from
sight once the United States seriously turns its
attention to them. Some day when Uncle Sam
is not too busy, he will take a bath and have his
clothes baked ; and we shall then hear no more
of the vermin.
Is this not in a large measure the work of
Abraham Lincoln? Abraham Lincoln
thought that in giving freedom to the slave
freedom was assured to the free; in waging
war against slavery he said "We shall nobly
save or meanly lose the last best hope of
earth." Britain grimly hanging on, France
bleeding at every pore, Italy angrily and help-
lessly watching the Hun devastate her beauti-
ful land look eagerly across the sea for the
coming American host who are nobly to save,
not, please God, meanly to lose the last best
Address by William Renwick Riddell 33
hope on earth — and he who set free the slave
for a United America half a century ago made
it possible for a United America to keep free
and democratic the weary nations fighting for
life against the autocrat.
It is a favorite thought of mine that the
democrat and the autocrat are typified in the
leading characters in that war for freedom and
in this the man, the kindly Abraham Lincoln,
the most perfect ruler of men the world has
ever seen, the repellant, scowling Kaiser, the
superman, one of the worst failures, the one
fearing God and expressing ignorance of His
will, the other patronizing the good old Ger-
man God, congratulating Him on being a
faithful ally and admitting Him almost to an
equal partnership: Lincoln willing to hold
McClellan's horses if he would but bring vic-
tory: William, arrogance personified, filled
with overweening pride and insolence, Lin-
34 Address by Willum Renwick Riddell
coin took as his models the Fathers of the Rev-
olution and the good of all nations. The
Kaiser, Alexander, Caesar, Theodoric II,
Frederick the Great, Napoleon, Alexander,
who, after deluging the world with blood,
wept because there were no other worlds to
conquer, Csesar, whose cold blooded slaughter
of the unfortunate Gauls horrifies even the
school boys, who have to pick out their mean-
ing with the aid of grammar and lexicon;
Theodoric, who murdered his guest at the ban-
quet and slew his great Chancellor because he
dared to insist on the innocence of one whom
Theodoric had determined to destroy. Fred-
erick the Great, the perjured thief whom all
the rhetoric of Thomas Carlyle cannot make
into even a decent barbarian. Napoleon, who
also sought world power and cared little how
he got it, who sprinkled Kings of his own fam-
Address by William Renwick Riddell 35
ily over Europe like grains of pepper out of a
pepper pot, who cared no more for the blood
of the common man than for the life of a fly —
such are the Kaiser's chosen models and he
strives hard to better their example. If the
President had a reverence for contract the
Kaiser treats it as a scrap of paper; Lincoln
gave up Mason and Slidell though he thereby
angered the North because the rules of inter-
national law forbade their retention, the
Kaiser boldly says there is no longer any in-
ternational law and murders at sea as on land.
The American instructed Francis Lieber — a
Brandenburger be it said, one who never for-
got that he was a Brandenburger, a Prussian,
a German — to draw up rules for the conduct
of his troops, a war code the best, the most
humane known to its time and never improved
upon; the Prussian! The cities, villages
and plains of France and Flanders cry aloud
36 Address by William Renwick Riddell
his infamy, slaughtered non-combatant, out-
raged woman, starved child, ruined fane,
poisoned well, the hideous story is all too well
known, the world will not for generations for-
get the nightmare horror of Belgium, and so
long as devotion to duty, sincere patriotism
and unaffected piety and self-sacrifice com-
mand the admiration of the world, so long
w^ill be held in memorv the name of that illus-
0
trious martyr to the German rules of war,
Edith Cavell.
America is at war. Why? What is the real
reason? It is the same as why Britain and her
fairest daughter Canada are at war.
It is that the principles which were dear to
Lincoln may prevail, that malevolence and
overweening pride may have a fall, that the
awful doctrine of the superman may be de-
stroyed, that humanity may be vindicated, that
the free shall remain free and the enslaved
Address by William Renwick Riddell 37
made free, that the people of every land shall
say how and by whom they will be governed,
that militarism may be shown to be not only
a curse but also a failure; that it may clearly
appear that contract breaking, lying, cruelty,
do not pay.
Until that lesson is learned and thoroughly
learned, the Prussian must remain without the
pale of friendly converse with other nations
unlike him; but the lesson when learned will
be abundantly worth the pain experienced in
learning it. Let but the arrogant superman
lay aside his intolerable assumption of super-
iority, let him lay aside the brutality symbol-
ized by the scowl of his Kaiser, let him feel
the moving spirit of democracy and benevo-
lence toward others, let him in a word become
human — and he may be met as an equal, es-
teemed and loved as a friend.
38 Address by William Renwick Riddell
But until that time comes, we must fight
on — if the Germans conquer then nothing else
is worth while. All the silly attempts at a
German peace must be received with the con-
tempt which they deserve, the contempt with
which Lincoln looked upon the efforts of
many to compromise. He could not compro-
mise with slavery, we cannot compromise
with autocratic pretensions. We cannot lay
down the sword till democracy and our civili-
zation are safe. We will never accept the
Kultur of Prussia.
We must expect reverses, bitter disappoint-
ments, loss of hard-earned ground, luke warm
friends, incessant spying, incessant attempts
to weaken our resolve — but these must not dis-
courage us, the goal is clear ahead and there
is no discharge in this war.
Thirty-five thousand Canadian lads, three
thousand from my own city, of high courage
Address by William Renwick Riddell 39
and high promise lie under the sod, having
given their all for us, having made the su-
preme sacrifice for civilization — a hundred
thousand are crippled or wounded in the
various hospitals — tens of thousands of Cana-
dian mothers are broken-hearted — yet we must
carry on.
So too, America must now take her share
of the burden; hating war as she does she must
fight as never before, for there never was a
war like this before — every nerve strained, all
her resources called out, man and woman and
child each in his own way doing his very best,
even so the road will be long and hard, and
ever and anon the heart will be sick from hope
deferred.
There cannot be any doubt of the final re-
sult— right must triumph and wrong be put
down, but there can be no slackening of the
efforts put forth for victory.
40 Address by William Renwick Riddell
One Canadian soldier bard has sung with a
curiosa felicitas not excelled, I think, since
the times of Horace :
*'In Flanders fields the poppies grow
Between the crosses row on row
That mark our place and in the sky
The larks still bravely singing fly
Scarce heard amidst the guns below — >
We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe,
To you from failing hands we throw
The Torch — be yours to hold it high 1
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep though poppies grow
In Flanders fields."
(The poet, my friend, Lieutenant Colonel
John McCrae himself now^ lies in Flanders
fields, having made the last, the supreme sacri-
fice for God, for King and for the right.)
So your dead are calling you — few they are
Address by William Renwick Riddell 41
now but many they will be — your hearts will
ache like ours but thank God your courage is
as high, your faith as serene.
As Lincoln before the dead at Gettysburg,
so you before your dead in France and we be-
fore ours in Mesopotamia and Syria, at Galli-
poli and Saloniki and wherever on the western
front the battle has been waged most fiercely
— at St. Julien, Vimy Ridge, Paschendaele,
Courcelette — must offer up the vow "It is
* * * for us to be * * * dedicated
to the great task remaining before us, that
from these honoured dead we take increased
devotion to that cause for which they gave the
last full measure of devotion, that we * * *
highly resolve that they shall not have died in
vain, that the world under God shall have a
re-birth of freedom and that government of
the people, by the people and for the people
shall not perish from the earth." May we be
42 Address by William Renwick Riddell
strengthened to carry out the like resolve to
his, "With malice toward none, with charity
for all, with firmness in the right as God has
given us to see the right, let us strive to finish
the work we are in * * * to do all which
may achieve and cherish a just and lasting
peace/'
For those who mourn the dead will come
the consolation:
^'To yearning hearts that pray in the night
For solace to ease them of their pain
For those who will ne'er return again
There shines in the darkness a radiant light —
A vision of service at God's right hand
For the noble, chivalrous, youthful band
Who gave up their all for God and the Right.
"God will repay what we owe to Youth,
Youth that sprang at their Country's call,
Youth ready to give up their all
For God and Country, Freedom and Truth,
For love of home and a scathless hearth.
For all that ennobles this transient earth
Imperilled, o'ershadowed by ^woeful ruth'."
Address by William Renwick Riddell 43
For God and the right? Yes we fight not
for Britain, for France, for America alone, not
even for the democratic nations alone. Just
as Lincoln when pouring his hosts against the
South knew that he was fighting for the South
and the future of the South, so we straining
every muscle against Germany and her allies
are fighting for them and their future. We
do not arrogate the right to dictate to them
how they are to be governed. Our arms may
persuade them by the only argument they can
fully understand that there is no need of loss
of liberty to hold the Fatherland secure that
democracy can wage a war and defend a land
in the long run more effectually than auto-
cracy; but if they resist our persuasion, that is
their affair — every nation has the Government
it deserves. But they must learn that people
of our race are not to be bullied, that we are
44 Address by William Renwick Riddell
not subdued by threat or by brutality and
Schrecklichkeit has no terrors over us. Hav-
ing learned that democracy has the will and
the power to live they may choose their own
form of government; but they must keep
"hands off' ours.
Free America, America who more than a
century ago fought that her sons might be
free, who fought half a century ago that the
helpless black might be free, we welcome you
to the great Armageddon wherein you will
fight that the world may be free. Germany
must share the benefits of your victory. Once
she has seen the light, has learned the truth of
the apostle's words "God has made all nations
of men of one blood," when her people have
learned that men of other nations are their
brethren not destined to be their slaves, that
"The earth is the Lord's and the fullness there-
Address by William Renwick Riddell 45
of" then may be seen on earth what the poet
saw in his vision of the heavens :
*'I dreamt that overhead
I saw in twilight grey
The Army of the Dead
Marching upon its way.
So still and passionless,
With faces so serene,
That one could scarcely guess
Such men in war had been.
"No mark of hurt they bore.
Nor smoke, nor bloody stain ;
Nor suffered any more
Famine, fatigue or pain ;
Nor any lust of hate
Now lingered in their eyes —
Who have fulfilled their fate,
Have lost all enmities.
"A new and greater pride
So quenched the pride of race
That foes marched side by side
Who once fought face to face.
That ghostly army's plan
Knows but one rede, one rod
All nations there are Man,
And the one King is God,
46 Address by William Renwick Riddell
/
"No longer on their ears
The bugle's summons falls ;
Beyond these tangled Spheres
The Archangel's trumpet calls ;
And by that trumpet led
Far up the exalted sky,
The Army of the Dead
Goes by and still goes by.
f
"Look upward, standing mute;
Salute!"
(Note: — I have read this beautiful poem of Barry
Pain's on many occasions. I make no excuses for
reading it again. W. R. R.)
Address
By the Honorable
Thomas Power O'Connor
Member of the British Parliament for Ireland
I can scarcely remember the time when the
name of Abraham Lincoln was not familiar
to me. I still remember the strange thrill with
which I listened to my professor reading out
in the class the forecast in a newspaper as to
what the different states of the Union were ex-
pected to do in case there came a war. I still
remember the historic description of his inter-
view with Abraham Lincoln by Goldwin
Smith, one of the prominent Englishmen of
his time, who was on the side of the North.
The first speech I ever made was on the
Civil War. Finally there comes back to me,
(xlvii)
48 Address by Thomas Power O'Connor
with something of the poignancy of the hour
the day when Dennis, the good old porter of
my college, said with sadness on his face, that
there was a rumor that Abraham Lincoln had
been assassinated; it was in the days before
the Atlantic cable and I suppose then news
did not reach the small and remote Irish town
in which I then lived till some weeks after the
tragic event.
But it was not until many years afterwards
that I got some knowledge of Lincoln. One
morning I found myself introduced to a man
who was seated in a bath chair taking, like
myself, the cure at Carlsbad. He looked the
splendid ruin of a great western man, the
shoulders were unusually broad; the chest
massive, the head massive and the massive
features, and his expression gave a similar im-
pression of a powerful temperament; power-
ful and yet genial and amiable. It was Ward
Address by Thomas Power O'Connor 49
Lamon, once a partner of Lincoln in this very
town, afterwards his Marshal in Washington ;
for many years his intimate friend ; always his
devoted admirer.
Let me tell you the spirit in which I ap-
proach the study of Lincoln. In his case, as
in the case of all public men, and indeed of
all men who have influenced the world, I start
from the principle of giving the whole truth
and nothing but the truth. There is a ten-
dency to make of Lincoln what is called plas-
ter of paris saint; he is a saint in my secret
calendar of saints ; but you make less a saint of
him trying to make him a plaster of paris saint.
It was a great saying of Oliver Cromwell,
'Taint me as I am, wart and all," and Lincoln
would probably have said the same thing.
It is only snobbishness or prudery, or the
vulgarity that sometimes calls itself elegance,
50 Address by Thomas Power O'Connor
that seeks to portray Lincoln in inhuman per-
fection.
A great deal has been written on the very
trivial question whether Lincoln's language
was always that of the Sunday school. It
wasn't; and some people have found it neces-
sary to prove that he never used a big D.
What ignorance such criticism displays of
human nature and of the masters that under-
stand and control human nature! Wisdom is
not effective which does not get to the simplest
as well as to the erudite, — to the plain people
as well as the scholars. A gospel has failed
which is not in the language of the people.
The sayings of Lincoln are better known
than those of any other president that ever
lived in the white house. Many of these say-
ings summed up a whole world of wisdom and
of policy in a single phrase which at once
caught the imagination and reached the mind
Address by Thomas Power O'Connor 51
of his people, as for instance, when he warned
the nation during his second election not to
**swap horses when crossing the stream." If
anybody object that his stories had sometimes
phrases that are not used in the drawing room,
again remembering my principle that we are
dealing with a saintly man, but not a plaster of
paris man. I am not concerned to prove that
the language was not always that of the draw-
ing room.
Surely it is the merest prudery to contend
that Lincoln's utterances so often in the som-
ber philosophy of Solomon's vanity of vanities
should also be combined with the healthy and
wise laughter of **Don Quixote" or the Pick-
wick Papers. In this. view of life, half ironical
and yet pronouncedly serious, Lincoln was
the embodiment of the point of view of the
American people then and since.
52 Address by Thomas Power O'Connor
If you scrutinize his utterances through the
different epochs of his career you find at once
great variety and yet underlying unity. His
first appeal to the people is that of a somewhat
rough man. Then you pass on to the period
when his style has something of the preten-
tiousness of the self-educated man, until at last
you reach the period when his utterances have
the noble simplicity of the great masterpieces
of literature.
There has been a strange theory that there
were two Lincolns, and that it is impossible
to account for the Lincoln of the white house
and the Lincoln of Springfield. Coupled
with this there has been much said about the
defects of his education, as that he was only
a little less than a year altogether at school,
that he never attended university, that he never
was outside America. I hold very strongly
to the opinion that a university education is a
Address by Thomas Power O'Connor 53
very useful part of the life of any man, for
everybody ought to inherit the wisdom of all
the ages. And yet in a way I would not have
had the education of Lincoln other than it
was.
The greatest of all educators, the greatest
of all universities, is the education and the
university of life, always on the condition that
you live. Lincoln lived to the utmost. There
wasn't a part of the life around him, there was
scarcely a part of the life of the whole nation,
except of the idle rich, of which he did not
have personal experience.
Like so many millions of other Americans,
before and since, he had to work with his
hands. He had to try storekeeping. He had
to travel with baggage contained within the
narrow frontier of his shabby tall hat from
village to village and to occupy with his fellow
lawyer the same room and even the same bed.
54 Address by Thomas Power O'Connor
Men born with silver spoons have occasionally
in human history been the leaders in the revolt
and in the liberation of the plain people, but
it remains the general truth that most men can
realize the lives, the difficulties, the joys, the
sorrows of the plain people only if they have
been plain people themselves.
Imagine a president at the White House
who had to ask millions of his countrymen to
fight their fellow countrymen, to die the death,
to pass through this awful struggle of four
years of sanguinary war, frequent defeat, fre-
quent disaster ; imagine a president who came
from the rich family of the crowded city, and
I think you will realize the greater and the
supreme fitness of Lincoln's training for Lin-
coln's task. It was because he understood the
plain peogle that he was able to get the plain
people to go through so tremendous and awful
a strain.
Address by Thomas Power O'Connor 55
I have heard it said that if you want to get
the real opinion of the real American, by
which is meant that vast population that lives
outside the great cities, on lonely farms or in
small towns, you have to go to the popular
forum that gathers around the stove of the
rustic hotel. This was the forum in which
Lincoln at once sharpened his mind and
studied and realized his people. Thus, grad-
uating from the small stove to the big stove,
from New Salem to Springfield, he was learn-
ing all the time. He was graduating in his
university.
When he burst upon the east of America,
and then on all America, as some strange un-
known portent neither the east nor America
had a real conception of the man. To them
he was a rough, untutored, unsuccessful,
provincial lawyer, trained in no arts but those
of small and squalid politics.
56 Address by Thomas Power O'Connor
''Who is this huckster in politics," asked
Wendell Phillips; ''who is this country bred
advocate?" But he learned to know Lincoln
better. In addition the ungainliness of his
person much exaggerated had passed through
the country, and especially through the south
until he appeared, as Mr. Morse says, in his
biography, "a Caliban in education, manners
and aspect; the ape from Illinois, the green
hand." There is a story of a proud South
Carolina lady with fire in her eye, contempt in
her manner, getting an interview with him.
And when before the gentle face and the calm
and passionless conversation she was subdued,
she expressed her amazement.
As a matter of fact, always every hour even
of Lincoln's hard youth, was a preparation
and a forecast of the presidency. He himself
thought of this culmination of his career from
his earliest years and even in his earliest years
Address by Thomas Power O'Connor 57
he began his training. It is recorded that
while still a child he was in the habit of ad-
dressing his boy and girl companions and
could command their tears and laughter as
easily as afterwards he commanded the whole
nation.
It is even still more remarkable that those
brought into immediate contact with him even
in his most squalid hours but impressed on^
with his greatness. Offut, who lured him into
the disastrous partnership in the store at New
Salem, used to declare that he not only had the
best storekeeper in the world, but a man who
one day would be president of the United
States.
There are several other early prophecies of
his future greatness. I am very much struck
by the fact, too, that in spite of the ungainli-
ness of appearance set forth, of course, by ill-
fitting clothes, he had an immense power of
58 Address by Thomas Power O'Connor
immediately impressing large bodies of peo-
ple. All his biographers relate how before he
addressed an audience he gave them a long
look from those wonderful gray-blue eyes of
his, and that this look nearly always produced
an immediate and immense effect. It was at
9
once a manifestation of conscious mastery on
his part and realization in the audiences of
being faced by a master.
Those who didn't know him to be great
were either those who were ignorant of him
altogether or who, as is said to have been the
case, were themselves too small to realize his
greatness. His greatness at the white house
was but the flowering of the seed that had been
germinating in the days of his sad childhood
and squalid youth.
Lincoln lived, moved and had his being in
the city partly southern in its geographical
situation, intensely southern In the sympathy
Address by Thomas Power O'Connor 59
of many of its people. Lincoln had almost
every hour of the terrible four years of the Civil
War to face division of opinion in almost
every section of the country. Consequently
even after he had apparently reached safe
ground he found the ground trembling and
sinking under his feet. Among old political
foes he found so grotesque a creature as
Vallandigham of Ohio rise to a formidable
enemy. Horace Greeley, one of the pioneers
of the policy of emancipation, was weeping or
appealing or denouncing at every critical
hour.
This was the atmosphere of vituperation
and disparagement, of disunion and false
sentiment in which he lived from the first hour
when a disgusted and supercilious Washing-
ton gave a scant welcome to this western man
of the people. My friend. Ward Lamon,
from among his very valuable records of the
6o Address by Thomas Power O'Connor
period showed me some of the attacks of
papers, the brutality of which give me a shud-
der that recurs whenever I recall it. In times
of war passionate and malignant rumor is
busier and more fertile than in times of peace.
There wasn't a step or a word of Lincoln's
that wasn't scrutinized, misinterpreted, mis-
represented by tens of thousands of malignant
eyes.
Don't suppose because you laugh at these
things today that Lincoln could laugh at them.
He had the courage to go steadily on his way
in spite of them all, but he went with bleeding
heart and bleeding feet through that road of
Golgotha. He was, as I have said, an intensely
impressionable man, looking for the love in
others that he gave to others, and we every-
where find upon him this hideous array of
ignorant, rancorous and unscrupulous attack.
Have you ever, in thinking of the day of
Address by Thomas Power O'Connor 6i
Appomattox, thought of the days that pre-
ceded them, the days after Bull Run and
Fredericksburg? I own that as I read the de-
scriptions of his contemporaries of that face,
drawn, aged, gray as the gray walls of the
chambers of the white house, with sleepless
nights and days overhung with the hereditary
gloom aggravated by all the anxiety and blood-
shed and horrors, Abraham Lincoln appears
to me as pre-eminently the greatest man of
sorrows since He to whom that title v/as first
given.
There never was a moment in the history of
this country since the death of the illustrious
man, by whose ashes we stand today, when the
inspiration and lessons of his life are more
needed by his people and his country. As a
man, he stands as much alive as though he
were still among us. He is a flaming torch
which leads on the inner soul of everv Ameri-
62 Address by Thomas Power O'Connor
can, whether he is standing by the honor of his
country in his work at home or marching over
barbed wire trenches against shell and cannon,
to wounds or death. What American can be
cowardly when his courage inspires? What
American be selfish when his utter unselfish-
ness is recorded in every page of his history?
What American can prefer the claims of am-
bition or party in face of his forgetfulness of
all personal and partisan feeling before an
imperilled nation? What American can en-
tertain or tolerate the very thought of a di-
vided allegiance in face of his passionate
patriotism and of the inflexible resolution with
v/hich he fought for a united nation?
Some men live by their writings, some by
their glory on battle fields, some by their states-
manship, but there are rare men who, in ad-
dition to these great title deeds to immortality,
live in the memory and gratitude of men as an
Address by Thomas Power O'Connor 63
undying inspiration by their own personal
character and life. Such a man was Lincoln.
Consider him in any of the many changes in
his checkered life, in private or in public ; he
never fails in your expectation of the highest.
He was free from personal animosity or vin-
dictiveness. He could smash the subtle logic
of Stephen A. Douglas and meet him the same
evening with a cordial outstretched hand — a
splendid private friendship amid political dif-
ferences that illumine the life and character of
Douglas as well as Lincoln.
In forming his Cabinet, Lincoln did not
choose little men that might on the one hand
be subservient, and on the other, by their ob-
scurity concentrate attention on his central
glory. He chose great minds to share with
him the awful task of saving the Union —
Chase and Seward and Stanton ; men that had
been his rivals and that divided with him in
64 Address by Thomas Power O'Connor
equal, sometimes in even larger degree, the
affection and support of the great masses of
the country. In the friction and dissent that
are inevitable in even the best ordered and
the most honorable assemblage of able men,
he always said the right thing, always did the
right thing, could be inflexible in his own
opinions and respectful of the opinions and
still more of the feelings of others. Thus he
was the greatest chief of a Cabinet that ever
lived in the white house. The sweetness of
temper that kept from his lips a word of im-
patience, the absence of even one word of self-
esteem, the generous sharing with others of all
the glory of victory, these things make him the
greatest gentleman that ever lived in the white
house. In his choice of policy when so many
things were to be said in favor of one course
or another, he opposed with tenacity and pa-
tience the opposition of political foes, the in-
Address by Thomas Power O'Connor 65
discretions of friends, the mistaken haste and
narrowness of political zealots. Biding his
time, choosing his own path to the great end,
he always proved to be right. Through all
the black night of defeat, amid divided coun-
sel, factious and inept opposition, he led the
people to the full sunshine of victory, the
nation united forever, the slaves emancipated
forever. Thus he was the greatest statesman
that ever lived in the white house. Try to
figure this man as he really was in his inner
heart and soul. He was not of joyous nature.
From hereditary or other causes he was a man
who lived under the overshadowing gloom of
melancholy. There was nothing in him of
that robust love of battle (as in General Jack-
son) which transformed the battle field into
the romance and chivalry of the personal
jousts of the knights of old. Still less was he
one of the great adventurers of history that
66 Address by Thomas Power O'Connor
find in even sanguinary deeds the laurels that
transform them into a Caesar or a Napoleon.
A burden though it was to him, that inner sad-
ness has always appeared to me as suiting him
for his task. It made him kin with all suffer-
ing men ; like to the Man of Sorrows to whom
in his humanity he bears so striking a resem-
blance, his message is often but a variation
of the Sermon on the Mount in its plea for
the poor, the righteous, the merciful. It was
this sadness and sympathy with all men, this
ever present inner outlook on the transience,
the griefs, the trials of human life that lifted
him above personal vanity and personal feel-
ing. Yet, was it not a strange destiny that in
a world out of joint, gave to this man the awful
and tragic task of waging war amid changing
and often black fortunes, through an unex-
pected length of time, amid a multitude of
horrors. And again, does it not raise him
Address by Thomas Power O'Connor 67
still higher in our estimate that yet he went
on to the end, equal and resolute, without ever
listening to the shouting and reproachful
world outside or to the somber forebodings in
his own breast.
In thus overcoming others and in overcom-
ing himself in this most terrible of all times,
he was the strongest man that ever lived in the
white house.
If you give full credit to all the brilliant men
that helped him in the Council Chamber, to
the generals whose skill won the victories in
the field. Grant and Meade, Thomas and Sher-
man, Sheridan and Logan; yet the supreme
fact of the war is that Lincoln was the man
of men, the real leader, the one who towered
above all the others. And here again, it is the
personality of Lincoln that is the heart of the
mystery. It may be true, as some of his inti-
mates like your respected and venerable citi-
68 Address by Thomas Power O'Connor
zen, Mr. Bunn, insist, that nobody in this, his
town, nor in any circle of friends, dared to
offend his natural and commanding dignity
by any address more familiar than *'Mr. Lin-
coln," yet it was not as "Mr. Lincoln" that
he was known to the plain people and to the
soldiers. To them he was ''honest Abe" or
"Uncle Abe" or "Father Abraham." That
meant that though hooted at, insulted, dispar-
aged, despised, a huckstering politician, in the
words of a great and good man who did not
realise him, the plain people and the fighting
soldier always understood him. They saw
through all the poison gas in which enemies
sought to cloud the glory of his character;
realized his simplicity, his human nature, his
tenderness, his honesty, his single-minded
patriotism, and in defiance of the intrigues of
politics and the misrepresentation of personal
enemies they re-elected him as the good, the
Address by Thomas Power O'Connor 69
true, the wise and the merciful man that could
best lead them out of the wilderness into the
light.
Lowell is right in attributing this hold of
Lincoln on the popular heart largely to the
fact that he was in the truest sense of the word
the first American that ever ruled in the white
house. His predecessors were, of course, as
good Americans as he, but, perhaps with the
exception of General Jackson, they were
courtly gentlemen who had been born in easy
circumstances and refined homes. He was a
man who had led the life of the frontier pio-
neer, who had fought the primeval fight of
man with nature, who had helped to gather in
a portion of the wild and untilled heritage that
nature had given to America. He was a man
who had worked for small daily wage, with
literally horny hands and been forced to all
sorts and conditions of life to make a scanty
70 Address by Thomas Power O'Connor
living. He had dwelt among the real fathers
of America — the fathers who, though they
have not written constitutions or Declarations
of Independence, have in wild and remote
settlements in the solitude of forest and virgin
soil brought into being the great America of
today.
Lincoln was in the best sense of the word
the self-made man, and the self-made man is
the typical American. Of the energy, the self-
reliance, the simplicity and the stern straight-
forwardness which are still the spiritual foun-
dations of American character, Lincoln was
the embodiment. He was the embodiment of
the other characteristics of the genuine Amer-
ican. Lowly, almost squalid in his birth and
upbringing, poor all his life, child of the
lonely cabin in the prairie, who wielded with
his own hand the axe and the plow ; how in the
Address by Thomas Power O'Connor 71
small rural store of the village, then in the ill-
paid Post Office, the country lawyer, traveling
v^ath a small equipment of baggage, and wil-
ling to share a bedroom with a friend, yet
Lincoln became the gentleman in manner and
appearance, in speech and demeanor as well
as in the higher spiritual gifts of the soul.
What nation could produce its greatest citizen
out of such modest material but a Republic,
which teaches to all its children, from their
earliest hours, the equality, the pride, the self-
reliance, the dignity that are the birthright of
every child of a Republic? Thus the Ameri-
can people recognized in Lincoln not only the
embodiment but the vindication of their in-
stitutions. Thus Lincoln was the greatest and
most genuine American that ever lived in the
white house.
Ap-ain. Lincoln is the most marvelous ex-
ample of the easy and instinctive self-develop-
72 Address by Thomas Power O'Connor
ment of the child of the American Republic.
Scanty in schooling, poor in the learning of
the ages and the books, he produced speeches
and writings that in their simplicity, their
choice of the right word, their directness, their
measured eloquence, are as much master-
pieces of literature as the dialogues of Plato
or the orations of Demosthenes. And so Lin-
coln was the greatest man of letters that ever
lived in the white house.
Finally, in the midst of all the storms of his
day, while others raged, he did not rage, while
others hated, he did not hate, while others
cried for vengeance, he preached forgiveness.
He was thus the greatest Christian that ever
lived in the white house.
Such, then, was the man. What of his gos-
pel, and especially what of his gospel as ap-
plied to the position of Lincoln's country to-
day? Can any man doubt where he would
Address by Thomas Power O'Connor 73
stand if in the crisis through which his country
is now passing he was still its ruler?
His attitude with regard to the problems of
his country today can be ascertained almost
as clearly as if he were still alive — still at the
white house; indeed so clear is this that you
can pick a text in absolutely his own words
that meets every problem — that answers every
question — that rouses every hope, and dissi-
pates every apprehension of the hour.
Do you think that America could remain
free while Europe was enslaved? Then the
voice of Lincoln comes to you with the wordr
''This Government cannot endure permanent-
ly half slave and half free/'
Have you any doubt as to the justice of
President Wilson's demand that nations shall
have the right of choosing their governmicnt
and shaping their own destinies? Listen to
Lincoln. Lincoln's words: "What I do say
74 Address by Thomas Power O'Connor
is — that no man is good enough to govern
another man without that other's consent," or
listen again to the passage which though ap-
plied to the extinct slavery of the New World
is still applicable to the existing slavery which
Germany imposes and seeks to extend on the
world today: *'When the white man governs
himself that is self-government; but when he
governs himself and also governs another man
that is despotism."
When President Wilson addressed his ap-
peal to the masses of Germany he might have
quoted from Lincoln the words, ''Those who
deny freedom to others deserve it not for them-
selves and under a just God cannot long re-
tain it."
If you want the summing up of the issue
between your nation and the Hohenzollerns
here it is again in the precise words of Lin-
coln : "Two principles have stood face to face
Address by Thomas Power O'Connor 75
from the beginning of time and will ever con-
tinue to struggle — the one is the common right
of humanity and the other is the divine right
of the kings."
Could your task be better expressed than in
these words: "It has been said of the world's
history hitherto that might makes right. It is
for us and for our times to reverse the maxim
and to show that right makes might."
And finally if throughout a struggle which
may be prolonged and must be checkered
there be any faint hearted enough to think that
you should end the struggle in an indecisive
peace, let them go back to Lincoln and study
his attitude in the hour of America's greatest
tribulation. Here was a man distinguished
above other men by his tenderness, pity and
love; tenderness, pity and love not bounded
by even human beings but extended to ani-
mals ; so hateful of even necessary punishment
76 Address by Thomas Power O'Connor
that over and over again we have the phrase
of bursting relief, "Give me that pen," as he
rushes to sign a pardon. So considerate even
in a time of frenzied passion, violent hate and
boundless and cruel abuse as to be able to say
"I have not willingly planted a thorn in any
man's bosom/'
Assailed, denounced wildly, importuned in-
cessantly by the Horace Greeleys and other
humane but unwise adherents of the unfin-
ished work, think of all this in Lincoln's life
and then see the inflexible tenacity with which
he went through all the bloody horrors and
often the unmitigated gloom of the Civil War
to the end. "War," he said, "has been made
and continues to be an indispensable means
to the end." Or take the words, "I hope peace
will come soon, and so come as to be worth
the keeping in all future time."
Address by Thomas Power O'COxXnor 77
Or finally, take these words, which are al-
most like the thunder from Mount Sinai :
*'The fight must go on. The cause of civil
liberty must not be surrendered at the end of
one or even one hundred defeats."
The spirit then of Lincoln is the spirit of
Wilson. Higher indeed than the spirit of
Lincoln or Wilson or Washington is the spirit
of the American people — that people with all
the vast changes brought about by all the flow-
ing tides of immigration from all the races of
the world remains one in purpose, in funda-
mental conviction ; in essential ideals ; in tem-
perament. This nation founded by men who
abandoned home and property and safety and
sought over tempestuous seas new and un-
known homes to flee from tyranny remain the
unconquerable enemies of tyranny. The
spirit of the signatories of the Declaration of
Independence is still the spirit of America. It
78 Address by Thomas Power O'Connor
is the children of their loins and of their ideals
that are the governing spiritual and political
forces of the nation.
Today the problem is different and yet es-
sentially the same as brought the men and
women to Plymouth Rock. They sought lib-
erty instead of slavery of the Old World —
today they are giving back to the Old World
the liberty which they established in the New.
Like the Man of Sorrows, he drank the
chalice in his garden of Gethsemane to its
dregs, though often he wished that it might
pass away. Like the Man of Sorrows, no
cruelty would make him cruel. No unde-
served suffering could make him hard. To his
last hour and last words he remained the
Abraham Lincoln known in his childhood —
tender, understanding, compassionate. Ever
throughout all his messages the grim and in-
flexible resolution to fight on to the end is in-
Address by Thomas Power O'Connor 79
terspersed with appeals to reason and to mercy.
Throughout it all there is the refrain, 'Vith
malice toward none, with charity to all."
It was mete that the day of such a man's
taking off should be Good Friday. Tragic,
horrible as was his assassination at such an
hour, would it have been better for the world
if it had been otherwise? Would he be today
that powerful inspiration to all of us, to
patriotism, towards firmness in the right, to-
wards the noble life and the noble death if he
had not so died? Today his country and we
are face to face again with an imperiled
nation, with the old, old struggle between lib-
erty and slavery, between might and right.
Though dead, he speaketh. Laid low, he yet
towers above your armies and your fleets. He
is your invisible and your unconquerable
leader.
The Nomination
of Lincoln
By the Honorable
Addison G. Proctor
Youngest delegate to the Convention of i860
that nominated Lincoln.
The year i860 introduced into our National
life Abraham Lincoln, one of the most re-
markable and certainly the most interesting
characters that had graced our history since
the days of Washington.
Now this man, born to poverty and obscur-
ity, whose life from its earliest days to middle
age was one continued struggle for a bare ex-
istence,— ^who came to the State of Illinois at
(Ixxx)
The Nomination of Lincoln 8 1
the age of 21 a raw backwoodsman, clothed
in the homespun that he had earned by the
splitting of rails, — how this man could have
so impressed himself on the people of this
great State, and of this Nation, as to become
the chosen and accepted leader of a great
National party at the most critical time in the
affairs of this country, must always remain
one of the interesting chapters of our political
history.
There met that year in the City of Chicago,
in the month of May, a Convention composed
of 466 delegates from the Northern and Bor-
der States of the South. They were men of
strong convictions, who had met for a very
decided purpose. Slavery, as a political
power, had been growing more and more ag-
gressive and dictatorial. It had trampled upon
all of the compromises, had outraged the
82 The Nomination of Lincoln
moral sensibilities of the North by its enforce-
ment of its fugitive slave law, and now under
cover of a recent Supreme Court decision it
was attempting to force its way into the free
territories of the Northwest, and so the temper
of that convention was that of exasperation.
To the West, stretching from the valley of
the Missouri River to the far off Pacific Ocean,
lay one great undeveloped empire, promising,
as we all realized, tremendous possibilities.
To that great empire of the West, this Conven-
tion invited the people of the world to come
and help in its development and to share in its
prosperity, and it pledged the faith of that
great party that it represented to the dedicat-
ing for all time of this great empire to the up-
building and maintaining of free homes for
free men, and so like an intrepid gladiator
this Convention strode into the National
arena, threw its gauntlet of defiance into the
The Nomination of Lincoln 83
face of Slavery, and proclaimed — thus far
may thou go and no farther.
This determination of the Convention,
unanimously adopted and made a part of the
platform on which they stood, the next and
most vital question was — to whom, in view of
this emergency we are creating, can we dare
to entrust the leadership? This was the ques-
tion that gave us pause.
There had come to that Convention, largely
from the East, a well organized body of dele-
gates demanding the nomination for the Presi-
dency of Senator William H. Seward of New
York. Mr. Seward had been prominent in
National affairs for many years. As Governor
of the great State of New York, and as United
States Senator, he had attracted unusual at-
tention by his ability and clear statesmanship.
He was by all odds the most prominent man
of his party at that time.
84 The N omination of Lincoln
He was represented in that delegation by
many of the most noted political manipulators
of his party under the leadership of Thurlow
Weed, the most adroit politician of his day.
Seward had come to that Convention backed
by this great element, full of confidence, lack-
ing less than sixty votes of enough to control
that entire convention, pledged to him on that
first ballot. The advent spectacular event of
the p re-convention days.
Outside this great movement for Seward all
seemed confusion and disintegration.
Vermont was there asking for the nomina-
tion of her able and popular Senator Jacob
Collimer, who had filled many places of
honor, including a cabinet membership and
Supreme Judgeship and Senator.
New Jersey was there asking for the nom-
ination of her Judge and Senator, William L.
Dayton, who had stood with Fremont four
The Nomination of Lincoln 85
years before and gone down to defeat on a
ticket that many suggested ''had the head
where the tail ought to be."
Pennsylvania was there asking for the nom-
ination of her able, aggressive Senator Simon
Cameron with the whole Pennsylvania dele-
gation at his call.
Ohio was there urging the nomination of
her splendid specimen of Senator and States-
man, Salmon P. Chase, afterw^ard our Chief
Justice of the Supreme Court.
Missouri, with a splendid delegation made
up of a new element that everyone wanted to
encourage, was there asking for the naming
of her eminent Jurist, Judge Edward Bates.
And Illinois was there with a united and
very active delegation asking for the nomina-
tion of a man — who was neither Governor,
Judge nor Senator, just a plain citizen —
Abraham Lincoln.
86 The Nomination of Lincoln
And this was the condition confronting us
as we faced the responsibility of that nomina-
tion for leadership.
We had come to that Convention from far
away Kansas from '*out on the border." We
had been making a very determined fight
against the aggressions of the Slave power, a
conflict that had attracted the attention of the
entire country and had been of such value to
the party that they, through their National
Committee, had invited us to a full participa-
tion in the councils of the Convention. For
this reason our little delegation of six were the
recipients of many marked attentions.
The morning of our arrival we were invited
to an interview with Thurlow Weed at his
parlor at the Richmond House.
We had a touch of trepidation as we con-
templated being ushered into the presence of
this noted political Mogul, but we braced up
The j\ omination of Lincoln 87
our courage and went. He met us at the door
of his parlor. We were introduced as we
passed in by our Chairman and seated about
his big round table in the centre of the parlor.
Mr. Weed was most gracious in his man-
ner, and dispelled all terror from the start.
He stood by the table while we were seated
about him and addressed each one of us per-
sonally, calling each of us by name, which ap-
pealed to us as something remarkable, seeing
that our introduction was so informal. That
ability was probably one of the secrets of his
wonderful influence, the ability to associate
the name and the face, an adroit quality, essen-
tial to the successful politician. He was an
attractive man and very interesting. After
complimenting us on the good work accom-
plished out on the border and thanking us
most graciously for the service rendered to the
88 The Nomination of Lincoln
country and to the party, he turned to the ques-
tion of the impending nomination.
He said: 'Tour years ago we went to Phil-
adelphia to name our candidate and we made
one of the most inexcusable blunders any
political party has ever made in this country.
We nominated a man who had no qualifica-
tion for the position of Chief Magistrate of
this Republic." "Why," he said, "that boy
Fremont had not one single quality to com-
mend him for the Presidency. The country
realized this and we were defeated as we prob-
ably deserved to be. We have that lesson of
defeat before us today." He went on to say:
"We are facing a crisis; there are troublous
times ahead of us. We all recognize that.
What this country will demand as its Chief
Executive for the next four years is a man of
the highest order of executive ability, a man
of real statesmanlike qualities, well known to
The NominatiGn of Lincoln 89
the country, and of large experience in na-
tional affairs. No other class of man ought to
be considered at this time. We think we have
in Mr. Seward just the qualities the country
will need. He is known by us all as a states-
man. As Governor of New York he has
shown splendid executive ability. As Senator
he has shown himself to be a statesman and a
political philosopher. He is peculiarly equip-
ped in a knowledge of our foreign relations,
and will make a candidate to whom our people
can look with a feeling of security. We ex-
pect to nominate him on the first ballot, and
to go before the country full of courage and
confidence." He thanked us for the call and
gave each of us a friendly handshake at
parting.
As he stood at the table, so gracious, so
genial, with all our previous estimate of him
dispelled, I was reminded of Byron's picture
90 The Nomination of Lincoln
of his "Corsair" as "The mildest mannered
man that ever scuttled ship or cut a throat,"
politically, of course.
We had hardly gotten back to our rooms at
the Briggs House when in came Horace
Greeley dressed in his light drab suit with soft
felt hat thrown carelessly on our table; with
his clean red and white complexion, blue eyes
and flaxen hair, he looked, as he stood there,
for all the world like a well-to-do dairy farmer
fresh from his clover field. He was certainly
an interesting figure, and he seemed to find a
place in our hearts at a bound. As a journal-
ist he was full of compliments for the good
news we had furnished to his Tribune and we
were all drawn to him by his irresistible smile.
"I suppose they are telling you," said
Greeley in a drawly tone, "that Seward is the
*be air and the 'end all' of our existence as a
party; our great statesman, our profound phil-
The Nomination of Lincoln 91
osopher, our pillar of cloud by day, our pillar
of fire by night, — but I want to tell you, boys,
that in spite of all this you couldn't elect
Seward if you could nominate him. You must
remember as things stand today we are a sec-
tional party. We have no strength outside the
North, practically we must have the entire
North with us if we hope to win."
*'Now there are States of the North that can-
not be induced to support Seward, and without
these States we cannot secure electoral votes
enough to elect. So to name Seward is to in-
vite defeat. He cannot carry New Jersey,
Pennsylvania, Indiana or Iowa, and I will
bring to you representative men from each of
these States who will confirm what I say."
And sure enough he did; bringing to us Gov-
ernor Andy Curtain of Pennsylvania, Gover-
nor Henry S. Lane of Indiana, Governor
Kirkwood of Iowa, each of whom confirmed
92 The Nomination of Lincoln
what Greeley had said and gave reasons for
the belief.
Governor Curtain was particularly em-
phatic. He said: ''I am the Republican can-
didate for Governor. At the last national
election Mr. Buchanan carried Pennsylvania
by 50,000 majority. I expect to be elected on
the Republican ticket by as large a majority
as Mr. Buchanan had on the Democratic
ticket, making a change of 100,000 votes; but
I can only do this if you give me a man as
presidential candidate acceptable to my peo-
ple. I could not win with Mr. Seward as our
candidate." He was a bright looking, en-
thusiastic young fellow and had every indica-
tion of making what he later proved to be, one
of the most valuable of our war Governors.
Governor Lane and Governor Kirkwood both
gave the same evidence touching Indiana and
Iowa. It was the work of Horace Greeley to
The Nomination of Lincoln 93
satisfy the Convention that the nomination of
Seward would mean defeat and he certainly
did effective work. He was the most untiring
of workers. I doubt if Horace Greeley slept
three consecutive hours during the entire ses-
sion of that Convention.
We had calls from strong men, all in a wide-
awake determination to meet the demands of
the emergency; among them Governor John
A. Andrews of Massachusetts with quite a
group of New England delegates, and Carl
Schurz of Wisconsin.
The afternoon of the day before we were
likely to reach the balloting, Greeley came in
to see us. He was very much discouraged.
He could see no way to effect a consolidation
of the elements opposed to Seward and he
feared that Seward would win on the first bal-
lot. He seemed tired and depressed. "Mr.
Greeley," said one of our delegates, "who do
94 The Nomination of Lincoln
you really prefer to see nominated, tell us?"
Greeley hesitated a moment and sort of brac-
ing up he said : "I think well of Edward Bates
of Missouri as a safe nominee. He is a verj^
able man and he comes from a section that we
ought to have with us. He is not well known
in the East, and for that reason I am hesitating
in urging him strongly, but he would make a
good candidate and an able President if
elected, but I am hesitating."
*'Mr. Greely," said one of our group, * 'what
do vou think of Abraham Lincoln as a candi-
date? Why not urge him?" "Lincoln," said
Mr. Greely, speaking very slowly as if weigh-
ing each word, "is a very adroit politician.
He has a host of friends out here in Illinois
who seem to see something in him that the rest
of us haven't seen yet. He has a very interest-
ing history, that would make good campaign
literature; but the trouble with Lincoln is that
The Nomination of Lincoln 95
he has had no experience in national affairs,
and facing a crisis as we all believe, I doubt
if such a nomination would be acceptable. It
is too risky an undertaking." And that was
the judgment of Horace Greely, the leader of
the opposition, only a few hours before we
should reach the actual balloting.
Soon after Greely had gone we received a
message on a card saying: *'A company of
Unionists from the Border States would like
to meet you at your rooms." They were of that
sharp eyed, broad jawed Scotch Irish type; the
typical mountaineers of the South — intense
and volcanic, standing for a something and
standing resolutely. We realized instantly
that the intense moment had come. We hur-
riedly arranged our room to seat as many as
we could, the others stood against the four
walls, filling the room so that we felt that we
96 The Nomination of Lincoln
were in close touch with some full charged
electric batteries.
These men of the southern border had
chosen as their spokesman Cassius M. Clay
of Kentucky. As Clay stepped forward and
stood at the head of our table at which we were
all seated, there was a deep intense silence for
a moment. As he stood posed before us he
was the ideal Kentucky Colonel with all the
mannerisms of that element so well pictured
in our literature. A fascinating man, hand-
some to look upon, faultlessly dressed, keen,
bright and emotional. We could not keep our
eyes off as he stood like a waiting orator
charged with a volcanic mission. As he
stepped closer to the table, leaning forw^ard
with a sort of confidential gesture, speaking
right to our very faces, he said: "Gentlemen,
we are on the brink of a great Civil War." He
paused as if to note the effect. He seemed to
The Nomination of Lincoln 97
have caught a look of incredulity creeping
over our faces that he chose to interpret in his
own way. Straightening himself, looking
every inch the orator, he said : ''You undoubt-
edly have heard that remark before, but I want
you to know^ that that fact will soon be flashed
to you in a way you will more readily compre-
hend. Gentlemen, we are from the South, and
we want you to know^ that the South is prepar-
ing for war. If the man that you will nominate
at this Convention should be elected on the
platform you have already adopted the South
wull attempt the destruction of this Union. On
your Southern border stretching from the east
coast of Marvland to the Ozarks of Missouri
m
there stands today a body of resolute men (of
whom these are the representatives) who are
determined that this Union shall not be dis-
solved except at the end of a terrible struggle
in resistance.
98 The Nomination of Lincoln
It makes a wonderful difiference who you
name for this leadership at this time; a won-
derful difference to you but a vital difiference
to us. Our homes and all we possess are in
peril. We realize just what is before us.
You must give us a leader at this time
who will inspire our confidence and our cour-
age. We must have such a leader or we are
lost. We have such a man — a man whom we
will follow to the end. We want your help
and," leaning forward, in a half suppressed
whisper, he said: "We w^ant you to name
Abraham Lincoln. He was born among us
and we believe he understands us.
*'You give us Lincoln and we will push
back your battle lines from the Ohio (right at
your doors) back across the Tennessee into the
regions where it belongs. You give us Lincoln
and we will join this Union strength full of
enthusiasm with your Union Army and drive
The Nomination of Lincoln 99
secession to its lair. Do this for us and let us
go home and prepare for the conflict."
Here was a new issue just at a psychological
moment when everyone realized that some-
thing unusual had to happen. Up to this time
it had been, ''How shall we keep Slavery out
of the Territories?" Now it was the question,
"How shall we make sure to preserve this
Union?" On this new line of formation the
Army was drawn up for its new drive.
This impassioned appeal of Clay, first given
to us reached the many hesitating delegates
and aroused a new vitalization all along the
line.
Probably the more conservative presenta-
tion of the issue as made by Governor Lane of
Indiana did much to supplement the more
volcanic work of Clay. Lane said to us: "I
am Governor of Indiana. I know my people
well. In the South half of my state a good
100 The Nomination of Lincoln
proportion of my people have come from the
slave states of the South. They were poor peo-
ple forced to work for a living and they did
not want to bring up their families in competi-
tion with slave labor, so they moved to Indiana
to get away from that influence. They will
not tolerate Slavery in Indiana or in our free
territories but they will not oppose it where it
is if it will only stay there. These people want
a man of the Lincoln type as their President.
They are afraid Seward would be influenced
by that abolition element of the East and make
war on Slavery where it is. This they do not
want, so they believe Lincoln, understanding
this as one of their kind, would be acceptable
and would get the support of this entire ele-
ment. If at any time the South should under-
take in the interest of slavery to destroy this
Union we can depend on every one of this
class to shoulder his musket and go to the front
The Nommation of Lincoln loi
in defense of a united nation even at the cost
of Slavery itself."
This new issue fostered by the strong Illi-
nois delegation under the adroit leadership of
David Davis, pressed by the impetuous ora-
tory of Clay and strengthened by the sincere
and convincing arguments of Governor Lane
of Indiana was the real prevailing influence
that brought cohesion out of disintegration
and centered the full strength of the opposi-
tion on the one man. It was an adroit piece
of work as effective as it was adroit.
As the spectre of Civil War loomed before
us becoming more and more convincing and
menacing, we came to realize the need of con-
serving that element. It grew on us that this
element might be a controlling factor in the
great struggle before us. It might be decisive
and the thought gave us deep concern.
Later, when the conflict was upon us and
102 The Nomination of Lincoln
we saw 200,000 of these fighting men from our
slave states of the border enlisted in our Union
Army we more fully realized the vital influ-
ence and superb wisdom of that final decision.
But the battle was not over. Strong appeals
were being made by both elements. The Sew-
ard forces pressed the great fact of known
ability, of great experience, of large acquaint-
ance, its ability to control an element to
finance a hard campaign; an element that
might help to overcome any factional opposi-
tion in the doubtful States.
The opposition delegates centered around
their man were pleading for a more complete
recognition of the West as the coming factor
in the growth and strengthening of the party,
and while conceding the value of the ability
that comes from experience, claimed for their
man an abundance of common sense on which
they could appeal to the people with safety.
The Nomination of Lincoln 103
This, with the great fact of the demands of
that border element for consideration that it
was not safe to ignore gave strength to the ap-
peal of the opposition.
The issue was sharp, keen and decisive. The
call to the battle of the ballot brought us face
to face with the demand for a duty we could
not shirk or would not if we could. We felt
the full weight of the responsibility. A re-
sponsibility that by our act might involve the
very existence of the Republic. We knew that
our man, whoever he might be, must be de-
pended on to carry the Nation through the
most critical experience of its history. The
coming events were casting their dread
shadows before us. It was an ordeal. All I
can say is — we simply put our trust in God
and He who makes no mistakes gave us
Abraham Lincoln!*
io6 Address by Hugh S. Magill
men are created equal," must be preserved for
the welfare of our own people, and as an in-
spiration and example to all the world.
Through four long years of sacrifice and
suffering he ''carried on," until freedom tri-
umphed, and democracy was saved. It is in
support of the same principles of free govern-
ment that millions today are dedicating their
lives and all that they have. We would be un-
true to him, and unworthy of the liberty for
which he gave his life if we faltered in this
hour of trial. Who would dare put a price on
these ideals and principles? For the sake of
ourselves and the people of all nations, and of
generations yet to be, these principles must be
maintained, though it cost billions of our
treasure and millions of our best and bravest
men.
When, war-weary, we would consider for a
moment a compromise peace, let us remember
Address by Hugh S. Magill 107
that Lincoln was tempted in like manner.
During the dark days near the close of the
Civil War, just before the dawn of victory,
men who were reputed as statesmen went to
Mr. Lincoln and urged him to offer a com-
promise in order to end the war. He replied,
"We accepted this war for a worthy object,
and the war will end when that object is at-
tained. Under God, I hope it will not end
until that time !" This should be the sentiment
of every staunch patriot today. The last
vestage of that military autocracy, which de-
liberately brought on this terrible war, must
be put down forever, that it may never again
destroy the peace of the world.
Abraham Lincoln, above any mortal man,
has given to the world its finest example of
loftv spirit and purpose in the hour of severest
trial. The military autocracies of Europe
have poured out on a suffering, bleeding world
io8 Address by Hugh S. Magill
all the vials of wrath, and hatred, and cruelty.
But in this dark hour it will sweeten our souls
to contemplate his words uttered near the close
of four years of awful war: "With malice
toward none, with charity for all, with firm-
ness in the right as God gives us to see the
right, let us finish the work we are in, to bind
up the nation's wounds, to care for him who
shall have borne the battle, for his widow and
orphans, to do all which may achieve and
cherish a just and lasting peace among our-
selves and with all nations."
And so with him, "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."