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THE  MARTYR-PRESIDENT. 


A    S  E  K  M  O  N 


PREACHED    IN 


THE  CHURCH  OF  ST.  PAUL,  LEAVENWORTH, 

ON  THP:  first  SUNDAY    after  EASTER, 


AND    AGAIN     BY    REQUEST 


ON  THE  NATION /VL  FAST  DAY, 


JUNK  1st,  1865. 


BY  THE  REV.  JOHN  H.  EGAR,  B.  D., 


RECTOR, 


LEAVENWORTH  : 

PRINTED    AT    THE    BULLETIN    JOB    PRINTING    ESTABLISHMENT. 


^    /bd^udXcOuu^.  ^<rittxju       6</-C<ji^      /Ti^cTT^iX.     o^    tXi5  iff^Zi 

/^Uryu^^n^^     ix/^'c/    Ur<L<JU  ^^^ajl^l &a1/j     /?i^^     <fUy     ^CA>cU:>~ 
tydCa.U.ctay<j^     JUx^   'td      A-U^      Coo     dU^     <^^Uxa^  J^fYU^     7A^ 


/^ 


/A^  ^    't:^ci^ 


THE  MARTYR-PRESIDENT. 


A    SERMON 

PREACHED    IN 

THtLCHURCH  OF  ST.  PAUL,  LEAVENWORTH, 

ON  THE  FIRST  SUNDAY   AFTER  EASTER, 

AND    AGAIN     BY    REQUEST 

ON  THE  NATIONAL  FAST  DAY, 

JUNE  1st,  I860, 


BY  THE  REV.  JOHN  H.  EGAR,  B.  D., 


RECTOR. 


LEAVENWORTH  : 

PRINTED    AT  THE    BULLETIN   JOB   PRINTING   ESTABLISHMENT. 


/- 


Leavenworth  City,  Kansas,  June  1,  1865. 

Rev.  John  H.  Egar^   Rector  of  the    Church  of  St.    Paul,   Leaveii- 
ivorfh,   Kansas : 

Sir  :  In  common  with  many  other  of  your  parishioners,  we 
desire  to  see  the  influence  of  the  sermon  preached  by  you  this 
morniuo-  on  the  assassination  of  the  late  President  extended  to  a 
wider  circle  than  had  the  opportunity  of  hearing  its  delivery,  be- 
lieving that  much  good  may  be  effected  thereby  ;  we  would,  there- 
fore, most  respectfully  request  a  copy  for  publication  iu  pamphlet 
form.  Very  respectfully,  yours, 

E.  N.  O.  CLOUGH, 
M.  P.  RIVELY, 
GEO.  W.  NELLES. 
JOHN  KERR. 
J.  C.  HEMINGRAY. 


Leavenworth,  June  2,  1865. 
Col.  E.  N.  0.  Cloiigh,  and  others  : 

Gentlemen  :  Though  my  own  judgment  considers  the  ser- 
mon delivered  by  me  yesterday  to  be  not  quite  up  to  the  standard 
which  I  think  justifies  printing,  yet  the  suggestion  of  those  who 
heard  it,  that  good  may  be  done  by  its  circulation,  leaves  me  no 
alternative  but  to  place  the  manuscript  at  their  disposal. 
Yours  respectfully, 

JOHN  H.  EGAR. 


S  E  R  jvr  O  I^. 


"He  boing  dead,  yet  speaketh." — Heb.  xi,  4. 

These  words,  as  you  remember,  were  spokea  by  St.  Paul  of 
Abel,  the  second  son  of  our  first  father,  Adam,  whose  short  me- 
morial in  the  Old  Testament,  seems  to  have  been  recorded  as  the 
type  ofHhe  history  of  this  wicked  world  ;  where  what  is  good  and 
noble,  and  pure,  and  true,  seems  to  be  foreign  and  alien,  and  to 
provoke  the  most  malignant  efforts  of  diabolical  hatred.  If  we  are 
ever  tempted  to  forget  that  this  world  is  not  the  home  of  goodness 
and  truth,  ever  recurring  experience  brings  it  back  to  us  ;  the  in- 
tenser  malice  of  our  powerful  and  eternal  enemy  is  aroused  at  the 
nearer  prospect  of  their  triumph  ;  and  the  history  of  Abel  recurs  in 
every  page  of  the  larger  history  of  universal  humanity.  The  second 
son  of  our  first  father,  Adam — the  second  person  born  into  thiy 
world — the  first  person  who  died  under  the  curse  pronounced  upon 
all  mankind  ;  the  first  victim  of  that  terrible  root  of  sin  and  crime 
planted  in  the  world  by  the  transgression  of  his  parents,  which 
bore  fruit  instantly  in  full  and  dire  perfection  of  evil,  was  the  inno- 
cent sufferer  under  the  greatest,  most  dreadful  crime  of  all  that 
humanity  is  capable  of — murder — assassination.  The  parallel  in 
the  fact  re-produced  in  this  last  act  of  our  national  history,  justifies 
the  appropriation  of  the  text  to  him  whom  the  nation  at  this  time 
mourns  with  a  deep  and  swelling  sorrow,  its  murdered  President. 
"  He  being  dead,  yet  speaketh."  He  speaks  from  a  bloody  grave, 
a  martyr  to  the  national  integrity  now  all  but  re-established,  by 
his  fearful  and  inauspicious  death,  by  his  simple,  blameless,  single- 
hearted,  earnest  life  ;  by  his  fulfillment  of  the  high  responsibilities 
of  the  chief  station  in  the  Grovernment — speaks  more  emphatically, 
by  the  connection  between  this  crime,  and  the  crime  against  the 
nation;  by  the  causality  which  the  Divine  will,  without  whose 
Providence  no  life  is  begun  or  ended,  permitted  to  be  the  means  of 
calling  him  away  from  the  world.  He  died  at  the  moment  most 
fortunate  for  his  fame ;  when  the  plans  which  he  had  matured  were 
meeting  their  full  success,  when  the  instruments  he  had  chosen  had 


6 

justified  his  insight  by  their  efficiency,  when  the  vision  of  a  re- 
united nation  had  risen  fully  above  the  horizon,  and  the  dark  night 
of  national  danger  was  merging  into  day  ;  and  his  martyr's  death 
will  stamp  all  that  is  good  in  his  history  indelibly  on  the  hearts  of 
7  lie  people,  and  bind  his  memory  by  all  that  is  good  and  holy  and 
virtuous  and  patriotic — by  the  shame  for  the  deed,  and  the  sorrow 
at  its  success — by  all  that  reverences  authority,  and  all  that  respects 
character,  and  all  that  rises  indignantly  against  crime — to  the  soul 
of  the  Republic,  to  live  as  long  as  history  is  read,  and  martyrdom 
consecrates  the  principles  for  which  it  is  endured. 

It  is  our  duty,  brethren,  both  in  respect  to  the  memory  of  our 
late  Chief  Magistrate,  and  also  to  fulfill  all  we  can  of  our  ofiice,  not 
only  as  teachers  of  religion  but  of  virtue,  to  gather  together  accord- 
ing to  our  poor  ability,  the  lessons  which  the  present  calamity — for 
a  national  calamity  it  is  of  the  deepest  character — presents  to  our 
minds.  To  this,  then,  let  us  address  ourselves,  praying  for  the 
Divine  blessing  to  enable  us  to  consider  the  subject  with  the  words 
of  Christian  truth  and  soberness. 

I.  The  crime  of  murder,  considered  without  respect  to  station 
or  any  other  extraneous  circumstance — considered  as  against  any 
one  who  bears  our  common  nature — is  one  which  is,  and  which 
needs  to  be  met  with  the  utmost  abhorence.  The  murderer  of  whom- 
soever, high  or  low,  is  an  object  of  Divine  wrath,  and  the  curse  of 
God,  and  of  the  detestation  and  horror  of  all  thinking  people.  But 
brethren,  this  crime — and  it  may  have  been  permitted  to  teach  us 
the  sacredness  of  human  life— -sinks  into  the  nation's  heart  deeper 
than  can  any  private  crime  ;  not  because  it  is  physically  less  easy  to 
kill  a  President  than  a  private  citizen,  not  because  it  needs  a  heavier 
bullet  to  do  its  fearful  work  ;  but  because,  inthis  conspicuous  exam- 
ple, the  moral  foundation  of  our  institutions  is  attacked,  and  the  very 
law  itself  of  our  national  and  social  being  is  assaulted  in  this  dread- 
ful crime.  It  is  in  vain  to  seek  to  disconnect  it  from  the  chain  of 
causes  which  has  brought  upon  the  country  all  the  devastation  and 
bloodshed  of  the  past  years.  We  may,  and  for  the  honor  of  our 
common  nature,  we  will  hope  that  it  is  no  part  of  the  organized 
eff'ort  to  disrupt  the  country — that  it  is  the  private  act  of  a  few  des- 
perate conspirators,  too  cowardly  to  stand  in  the  ranks  of  open  war- 
fare; but  it  is  none  the  less  true,  that  it  is  a  calamity  and  a  crime 
growing  out  of  the  cause  of  all  the  other  calamities  which  have 
afflicted  the  nation  in  evoiy  ner,  ,'  of  its  manifold  life;  and,    there- 


fore,  that  the  ultimate  responsibility  for  it,  as  for  all  the  other 
eiFects  of  this  state  of  things,  foreseen  and  unforeseen,  must  by  dire 
necessity  rest  upon  and  be  borne  as  best  it  may,  by  those  whom  the 
public  opinion  of  the  world  will  judge  as  the  authors  of  all  this  mis- 
chief. It  was  as  the  executive  of  national  law — the  repository  of 
constitutional  power,  exerted  by  mighty  armies  to  preserve  the 
unity  of  the  nation,  that  the  late  President  was  the  object  of  the 
individual  hate  of  the  worthless  drunkard  who  took  his  life — aside 
from  that  no  human  being  would  have  borne  him  malice — it  was 
his  responsibility  in  his  office  to  uphold  the  trust  which  it  was  his 
above  all  others  to  uphold,  which  made  him  the  assassin's  mark. 
It  was  an  effort  against  the  very  life  of  the  nation  ;  and  it  is  this 
which  arouses  the  terror  and  the  sorrow  that  moves  the  nation  to 
the  depths  of  its  nature.  For  if  the  minister  of  the  law,  be  he  high 
or  low,  be  not  safe  in  his  person  in  carrying  out  those  measures 
which  are  necessary  for  government — wliether  it  be  by  marshalled 
armies  or  by  individual  police,  makes  no  difference — where  then  is 
the  guarantee  of  social  order  ?  where  is  the  bulwark  against  wild 
anarchy  and  universal  destruction?  And  this,  brethren,  itis,  which  is 
the  underlying  principle  of  this  mighty  struggle.  The  possibility  of 
free  government  under  the  universal  supremacy  of  law,  whether  our 
institutions  were  sufficiently  strong  to  uphold  the  fundamental  con- 
dition of  our  lives,  our  liberties  and  our  manifold  interests,  though 
the  universal  obedience  to  those  conditions  of  all  the  parts  and  sec- 
tions of  the  country.  East,  West,  North  and  South  alik« — it  was 
against  this,  when  armies  had  failed,  that  the  assassin's  hand  was 
raised — raised,  just  at  the  moment  when  the  solution  of  the  question 
seemed  to  be  attained — raised  fearfully,  with  self  avenging  success 
to  spread  its  effects  beyond  the  immediate  criminals  to  the  antece- 
dent causes — to  make  the  terms  of  reconciliation  harder,  and  to 
repress  the  budding  magnanimity  of  successful  vindication  by  the 
stern  resolve  to  exact  the  extreme  penalty. 

I  do  not  say  that  this  revulsion  of  feeling  is  desirable,  and  I  do 
not  say  that  it  is  not  desirable.  There  is  at  this  time  and  in  this 
place  a  higher  and  a  nobler  use  to  be  made  of  the  terrible  crime  and 
awful  calamity,  than  to  make  it  the  text  of  denunciation  of  that 
misgaided  people  who  are  now  suffering  so  fully  the  penalties  of 
their  great  mistake.  It  is  to  take  account  of  the  virtues  in  the 
character  of  him  whom  we  mourn.  In  the  presence  of  so  recent 
and  so  sudden   and  so   terrible  a  death,  the  personal  peouliarities 


8 

the  minor  mistakes,  if  any  there  were,  the  incidental  trivialities,  the 
partial  misunderstandings,  the  party  animosities  are  forgotten,  and 
we  seek  for  and  dwell  upon  those  great,  broad,  noble  characteristics  of 
our  better  nature,  which  are  the  deep  substratum  of  humanity,  and 
we  seek  to  sum  up  the  life-work  of  him  who  is  taken  away.  And 
surely  we  cannot  but  recognize  in  one  who,  born  in  the  floorless 
cabin  of  a  Western  wilderness,  by  his  own  industry,  clear  sighted- 
ness,  honesty  of  purpose,  and  sympathy  with  the  heart  of  the  nation  , 
won  for  himself  the  call  to  the  seat  of  the  great  founder  of  the  Re- 
public, and  who,  under  circumstances  of  equal  responsibility  and 
complexity  with  the  birth-throes  of  the  Revolution,  so  carried  on 
the  great  work  committed  to  him  as  not  to  be  laid  aside  when  the 
term  of  his  first  election  ceased,  those  great  qualities  which  made 
liis  pre-eminence  of  station  not  a  mere  fortuitous  conjunction  of 
accidents,  but  the  testimony  for  all  time,  to  a  fitness  for  the  work, 
to  principles  which  were  necessary  and  just  and  true,  to  an  adapta- 
tion to  the  place  and  the  occasion,  sufficiently  complete  to  give  him 
a  name  in  history  by  his  own  right.  If  we  have  any  faith  in  hu- 
manity, if  these  earthly  interests  which  compel  so  large  a  share  of 
our  time  and  thought  and  absorbing  care,  are  realities  of  Divine 
Providence,  if  there  is  any  hope  of  a  triumph  of  human  nature  over 
its  ills,  and  a  real  progress  in  the  history  of  mankind,  if  God  is  the 
ruler  of  the  world  and  his  instruments  are  fitted  to  his  operations, 
then  "he  being  dead,  yet  speaketh,"  by  an  example,  which  in  its 
essential  particulars  we  may  imitate,  and  a  work  which  in  its  gen- 
eral scope  and  design  his  survivors  must  complete. 

1 1.  We  may  attribute  to  the  deceased  President,  without 
fear  that  the  judgment  of  history  will  reverse  the  decision,  a  con- 
scientious devotion  to  the  great  trust  with  which  he  was  charged, 
and  an  honest  purpose  to  discharge  it  to  the  best  of  his  understand- 
ing of  its  requirements,  and  of  his  ability  to  meet  them.  The  proof 
of  this  is  the  course  of  his  administration  as  a  whole,  and  the  com- 
plete revelation  of  the  man  in  his  endeavors  towards  the  preserva- 
tion and  the  permanent  security  of  the  nation's  unity.  It  would  be 
superfluous  to  attempt  the  enumeration  of  the  acts  in  which  this 
spirit  showed  most  conspicuously  ;  and  in  like  manner  it  would  be 
impertinent  to  offer  an  unlearned  opinion  upon  any  measures  which 
he  thought  necessary  to  accomplish  the  end  in  view.  There  are 
doubtless  those  here  present,  the  course  of  whose  studies  has  been 
directed  that  way  in^the  practice  of  a  learned  and  laborous  profes- 


sion,  at  whose  feet  it  would  be  my  proper  place  to  sit  and  be  taught 
in  matters  of  this  nature  ;  and  it  is  no  derogation  from  them  to  say 
that  he  was  at  least  their  equal  in  that  profession  to  which  his  life 
and  theirs  have  been  directed  ,  and,  therefore,  that  his  opinion  of 
the  legal  authority  of  these  acts  which  have  been  the  most  dicusssed 
is  neither  to  be  confirmed  norcallcd  in  question  by  those  like  my- 
self, whose  studies,  if  they  are  faithful  to  their  high  calling,  are 
turned  in  another  and  widely  different  direction.  The  tribunal  ot 
ultimate  decision  on  such  questions  is  neither  the  pulpit  nor  the 
press.  It  is  ours  to  look,  in  this  place,  not  at  the  legal  formalities 
which  limit  and  define  actions  in  their  external  shape,  but,  as  far  as 
we  can,  at  the  inner  spring  and  source  of  the  life  which  animates 
them.  And  I  am  confident  that  all,  however,  divided  in  opinion 
respecting  the  particular  measures  developed  by  the  course  of  events, 
whether  they  seemed  to  them  too  fast  or  too  slow,  too  mild  or  too 
severe,  will  agree,  now  that  the  end  is  seen,  that  the  spirit  and  in- 
tention of  the  man  and  the  magistrate,  shining  through  all  the  difii- 
culties  of  position  and  circumstance,  in  a  state  of  things  unprece- 
dented in  the  history  of  the  world,  was  a  highly  conscientious' 
honest,  patriotic  spirit.  He  was  in  his  exercise  of  the  powers  of  the 
Government,  a  patriot  and  not  a  politician.  The  two  are  wide  apart. 
The  difference  between  them  is  indelibly  stamped  upon  the  percep- 
tions of  all  right-minded  and  intelligent  men.  The  general  voice 
of  public  opinion  speaks  of  the  one  with  contempt  as  surely  as  of 
the  other  with  approval  ;  and  the  difference  between  them  is  simply 
that  of  the  internal,  conscious  rectitude  and  conscientousness  and 
devotion  to  principle  and  to  country — the  unselfish  devotion  to  duty 
and  to  responsibility, — which  contrasts,  by  the  whole  space  between 
light  and  darkness,  with  the  hollow,  insincere,  selfish,  mean  and 
crooked  course  of  unprincipled  greed  and  unhallowed  ambition. 

We  may  add  to  this  sterling  integrity,  as  another  evident  part 
of  his  character,  a  judicious  firmness  and  a  practical  wisdom  in  the 
development  of  his  plans  and  the  selection  of  his  instruments,  and  a 
clear  perception  of  the  times  and  steady  consistency  in  shaping  the 
progress  of  events  toward  the  attainment  of  the  end  in  view.  It  is 
evident  that  he  was,  as  his  position  required  him  to  be,  the  master- 
spirit in  his  Cabinet ;  that  his  subordinates  were  subordinate,  and 
that,  though  he  called  statesmanlike  ability  and  organizing  tact, 
and  trusty  council  to  his  side,  yet  that  his  actions  were*his|own,  and* 
therefore,   that  he  is  to  be  judged  by  the  success  of  his  measures j 


10 

and  not  stinted  by  the  reward  they  return.  It  was  his  labor,- not 
only  to  prevent  the  present  disruption  of  the  nation,  but  to  secure, 
if  possible,  its  permanent  and  lasting  pacification  ;  to  keep  the  nation 
one,  not  only  for  the  few  years  of  his  term  of  office,  but  as  far  as  in 
him  lay,  to  dig  the  foundations  of  a  broader  and  deeper  structure  of 
unity  and  prosperity  for  the  common  country  of  us  all.  lie  lived 
long  enough  to  see  the  beginning  of  the  end  for  which  he  labored. 
The  result  must  tell  in  the  centuries  that  ai'e  to  come,  whether  he 
has  been  successful ;  but  this  at  least  is  clear,  that  as  he  was  con- 
scientiously and  honestly  devoted  to  his  work,  so  he  brought  to  it 
those  qualities  of  character,  that  firmness  of  purpose,  that  practical 
wisdom  in  planning,  that  judicious  discrimination  of  opportunity  in 
executing,  that  insight  in  chosing  his  chief  helpers,  that  singleness 
of  aim,  and  power  of  seizing  on  circumstances  to  set  forward  that 
aim,  which,  under  the  irresistible  logic  of  events,  has  approved 
itself  to  the  people  as  sagacious,  and  consistent,  and  necessary, 
and  which  we  may  hope,  under  Grod's  blessing,  will  result,  not  only 
in  re-uniting  our  country,  but  in  perpetuating  its  peace,  and  adding 
to  the  happiness  and  prosperity  of  all  sections  and  of  every  indi- 
vidual. 

And  here  again  we  cannot  too  highly  appreciate  these  quali- 
ties of  the  late  President,  in  their  effect  upon  the  destiny  of  the 
country.  The  singular  freedom  of  his  nature  from  all  dramatic 
effect  or  rhetorical  artifice  blinds  us  to  the  weight  of  his  influence, 
until  we  carefully  analyse  the  exact  history  of  the  times.  It  is 
one  thing  to  see  the  judiciousness  of  measures  after  they  have  suc- 
ceeded, it  is  another  thing  to  foresee  their  effect ;  and  this  was  his 
prerogative.  The  ability  to  reduce  order  out  of  the  chaos  of  public 
opinion,  to  lead  the  preponderating  power  of  the  country,  by  a 
steady  progress,  step  by  step,  to  unity  of  opinion  and  steadiness  of 
resolve,  as  tlie  necessary  antecedent  to  external  unity  restored,  to 
be  firm  in  judgment  and  merciful  in  disposition,  and  so  to  temper 
each  with  the  other,  as  to  sacrifice  neither,  to  adapt  the  policy  to 
the  circumstances  and  yet  to  keep  in  view  the  single  end  of  all 
operations,  was  not  less  necessary  for  the  nation,  than  evident  in 
him  who  had  the  destinies  of  the  nation  in  his  earthly  keeping. 
It  requires  no  extraordinary  memory  to  recall  the  vacillation  and 
uncertainty  which  held  the  minds  of  men  in  unbearable  suspense, 
during  the  months  immediately  preceding  and  at  the  beginning  of 
his  incumbency.     The  press  of  those  days  wa.  united  upon  none 


11 

of  the  issues  involved.  Party  maxims  had  no  authority  upon 
which  to  ground  an  opinion  as  to  the  course  to  be  pursued.  The 
uncertainty  was  not  only  as  to  the  next  step  to  be  taken,  but  as  to 
the  general  direction  in  which  to  move.  It  was  a  period  of  anxious 
waiting  for  the  authoritative  voice  of  the  government ;  and  never, 
perhaps,  in  the  history  of  the  nations,  was  there  a  time  when  gov- 
ernment was  so  thrown  upon  itself  to  be  in  truth  the  leader  and 
director  of  the  people,  as  in  those  days  of  the  beginning  of  the 
modern  history  of  the  Republic.  There  was  no  organized  and 
settled  public  opinion  to  indicate  the  way,  no  path  beaten  by  the 
footsteps  of  old  established  precedent,  or  surveyed  and  mapped  out 
by  the  logic  of  precise  theory,  in  which  the  nation  knew  that  it 
was  to  march.  Men  turned  to  the  new  and  untried  administration 
as  the  only  guide  in  their  perplexity.  The  strong  deep  instinct 
of  devotion  was  in  their  hearts,  but  the  way  in  which  to  exert  it 
was  not  plain.  And  yet  in  this  time  of  suspense,  the  utterances  of 
the  government  were  not  hasty  and  unreflecting.  The  suspense 
might  be  painful ;  but  the  consequences  of  a  false  estimate  of  the 
position  would  be  fatal.  And  when  the  government  did  develop 
its  method  of  procedure,  the  course  pursued  reflected  equal  lustre 
upon  the  practical  sagacity  of  the  head  of  the  nation,  and  the  true 
loyalty  to  authority  of  the  mass  of  the  people.  The  principle  of 
obedience  to  the  constituted  depositaries  of  the  law,  because  they 
are  clothed  with  the  authority  of  the  law,  (which  is  the  only  true 
meaning  of  the  word  loyalty,  and  upon  which  the  very  existence  of 
our  institutions  depends)  receives  its  most  sviblime  illustration  in 
the  spontaneous  response  which  met  fully  the  demands  of  the  gov- 
ernment as  soon  as  its  will  was  declared  —  the  more  marked  as 
following  upon  the  preceding  uncertainty  —  proves  that  the  sense 
and  realization  of  constituted  authority,  as  distinguished  from  mere 
personal  influence  or  personal  opinion,  is  a  stable  foundation  of  our 
national  freedom.  And  that  that  confidence  thus  fully  given  at 
first  was  never  afterwards  withdrawn — that  amid  all  the  impatience 
of  some,  and  the  hostile  criticism  of  others,  the  people  still  recog- 
nized and  confided  in  him  for  their  leader,  is  proof  sufficient  that 
that  leader  had  the  sound  practical  judgment  which  the  occasion 
required,  adapted  his  action  to  the  times,  made  a  fit  selection  of 
associates  in  council  and  subordinates  in  action,  and  pursued  his 
general  course  in  the  exigencies  of  the  nation,  with  a  wisdom  and 
independence  and  a   straight  forwardness  as  rare  as  they  were  ne- 


12 

cessary  to   adapt  to  the  principles  by  which  he  was  guided,  the 
public  mind  and  temper  by  which  he  must  be  sustained. 

And  thirdly,  we  may  discover  in  the  late  President,  an  un- 
failing faith  in  the  rectitude  and  the  final  triumph  of  the  principles 
which  he  brought  to  the  administration  of  public  aifairs.  The  cir- 
cumstances under  which  he  entered  upon  his  incumbency  of  his 
high  office  were  such  as  might  have  made  any  man  falter ;  but  he 
kept  heart,  and  infused  it  into  the  people,  and  secured  them  to 
himself,  because  he  had  principles  and  he  had  faith  in  them.  He 
had,  as  I  have  already  remarked,  comparatively  no  training  in 
ptatesmanship  ;  but  it  might  have  been  that  .such  training  would 
have  been  gained  at  the  expense  of  principle.  A  long  and  exclu- 
f^ive  devotion  to  public  life  is  apt  to  sink  the  patriot  into  the  poli- 
tician —  and,  steady  principle  wanting,  no  practical  wordly  wisdom 
will  supply  its  place.  This  can  be  obtained  in  subordinates,  that 
cannot  be  dispensed  with  in  the  chief.  His  election  was  an  infusion 
of  new  blood  into  the  decaying  vitals  of  public  afiairs  —  the  ele- 
vation of  one  immediately  from  among  the  people  ;  who,  being  in 
sympathy  with  the  popular  heart  should  confirm  and  steady  it, 
and  keep  it  true  to  the  aspirations  which  it.  honestly  entertained. 
And  indeed,  through  ali  his  character  this  was  prominent,  his 
being  one  with  the  mass  of  the  people  in  all  their  better  nature  — 
his  kindliness  of  heart,  and  geniality  of  temper,  his  unassuming 
manners  and  frank  directness  of  spcceh  and  address,  —  all  that  is 
public  and  all  that  is  private  in  his  character  and  actions,  now 
that  the  mists  of  prejudice  are  swept  away  by  his  sad  and  sudden 
death  —  will  be  recognized  as  of  one  who  was  emphatically  of  the 
people,  and  a  leader  among  their  hosts. 

And  indeed,  itwastliis  thorough  honesty  and  straight-forward- 
ness of  character — this  simple  rectitude  in  private  as  well  as  in 
public  life,  which  was  liis  great  strength  with  the  people  of  the 
country.  Even  those  who  made  his  election  to  the  Chief  Magis- 
tracy the  pretext  of  the  attempt  to  break  up  the  Union,  feel  and 
confess  that  they  have  lost  in  him  their  best  and  truest  friend. 
And  it  may  be,  by  that  Providence  which  brings  good  out  of  evil, 
that  his  martyrdom  may  exert  an  influence  more  potent  than  any 
other  cause  to  turn  the  hearts  of  the  disobedient  children  of  the  Re- 
public to  the  Government  of  their  Fathers.  There  are  arguments 
plausible  enough  to  those  who  are  under  their  influence  for  the  ap- 
peal to  arms  ;  but  the  crime  of  assassination  is  too  palpable  to  the 


13 

most  obtuse  mind  not  to  produce  a  horror  of  the  cause  which  it  is 
sought  to  advance  by  such  means.  In  such  a  death,  the  scales  drop 
irom  the  eyes  of  prejudice,  and  of  hatred  itself,  and  the  conscience 
opens  to  the  real  moral  conditions  involved.  The  world  does  him 
justice  now,  and  sees  that  in  him  the  nation  sought  to  its  foundations 
and  quarried  the  strong  tough  granite  of  simple  honesty  and  uncor- 
rupted  sincerity  for  the  base  of  her  re-edification.  Comparatively 
unknown  before  his  selection  for  the  Presidency,  and  altogether 
unused  to  the  arts  which  are  the  stock-in-trade  of  the  professional 
statesman — the  trivial  expedients  by  which  party  politicians  post- 
pone action  and  evade  responsibility,  and  hide  under  precedent  and 
do  nothing  with  busy  earnestness,  he  came  to  the  con  duct  of  public 
affairs,  at  a  time  when  such  arts  would  have  been  chaff  in  the  whirl- 
wind, with  a  strength  in  the  rugged  instincts  of  natural  virtue  which 
was  better  than  all  art,  more  timely  than  all  expediency,  truer  than 
all  precedent,  and  equal  to  all  responsibility.  The  times  required 
a  recurrence  to  first  principles;  they  were  past  dallying  with  accord- 
ing to  the  recognized  forms  of  parliamentary  and  political  inaction. 
Years  and  years  before  the  spirit  of  secession  became  overt  rebellion 
it  was  a  deep  and  solemn  question  in  the  minds  of  thinking  and 
religious  men,  whether  the  nation  was  not  about  to  be  broken  up  ; 
whether  it  could  live  with  the  corruption  and  dishonesty  circulatino- 
in  its  life-blood,  which  selfish  politicians  had  infused  into  its  veins 
and  arteries.  The  tactics  of  party  had  well  nigh  stifled  government 
itself.  Shrewdness  and  astuteness  and  cunning  had  so  overlaid  the 
true  wisdom  of  righteousness  with  the  multiplicity  and  success  of 
their  arrangements  for  moving  the  masses,  that  honest  and  sincere 
men  washed  their  hands  of  the  consequence,  and  retired  from  the 
uuequal  contest  with  the  professional  gambler  in  the  spoils  of  ofiice. 
The  evil  brooding  in  sullen  shapeless  darkness  upon  the  face  of  the 
land,  took  shape  more  suddenly  than  was  looked  for,  and  ere  men 
woke  to  the  reality,  the  crisis  was  upon  them.  It  was  a  day  when 
the  ordinary  maxims  of  political  action  had  no  force.  Something 
more  was  necessary  than  office-seeking  cunning,  and  the  art  of 
bai-gain  and  sale.  That  Providence  which  rules  mankind,  made 
him  the  available  man,  and  so  guided  his  election,  and  brought  to 
the  Chief  Magistracy  his  sterling  honesty,  his  sound  unsophisticated 
sense  of  I'ight  and  wrong,  his  uncorrupted  mind  and  heart.  During 
the  four  years  of  his  first  incumbency,  the  nation  learned  that  the 
simplicity  and  the  directness  of  a  recurrence  to  first  principles — to 


14 

honor  and  honesty  and  justice  and  truth — are  the  only  sure  founda- 
tion of  stability  and  permanence.  A  second  election  was  a  tribute  to 
the  broad,  genial  characteristics  of  an  honest  Western  life,  stamping- 
it  with  approval  after  the  fiery  trial.  And  now,  though  his  perish- 
able body  is  laid  in  its  mother  earth,  he  himself  stands  in  history 
like  one  of  the  granite  statues  which  face  an  old  Egyptian  temple, 
the  representative  of  what  the  men  of  this  nation  must  be,  and  of 
what,  by  the  discipline  of  Grod,  wo  hope  and  believe  they  are  be- 
C'oming  through  the  purifying  crucible  of  the  national  tribulation. 
And  it  may  be  another  reason  for  the  permission  by  Providence  of 
this  tragedy,  that  the  country  needed  it  to  fix  the  lesson  forever  in 
the  hearts  of  men.  The  principle  of  martyrdom  consecrates  and 
hallows  every  witness  to  great  and  holy  truth.  The  baptism  of 
blood  and  the  crown  of  fire  arc  everywhere  the  Divine  symbols  of 
the  ultimate  triumph  of  the  right.  The  martyred  President  would 
have  been  none  the  less  honest,  none  the  less  kind,  none  the  less 
sincerely  desirous  to  save  even  his  enemies,  had  he  not  been  stricken 
down ;  but  he  would  not  have  passed  into  history  with  the  same 
nimbus  of  glory  that  now  surrounds  his  memory.  His  image  would 
not  have  struck  so  deeply  into  the  heart  of  the  nation,  and  the  force 
of  his  example,  and  the  purity  of  his  life,  and  thefgrandeur  of  his 
character  would  have  failed  of  half  their  lesson  to  posterity.  Even 
now,  let  us  hope,  there  is  in  the  atmosphere  around  us  the  impulse 
of  a  better,  higher,  more  uoble  aim  for  our  energies.  God  grant 
that  this  impulse  may  exert  its  full  efi'ect  upon  our  own  generation 
and  upon  those  who  arc  to  come  after  us. 

III.  It  is  a  judgment  which  history  will  confirm,  that  the 
position  of  the  nation  this  day,  —  its  ordered  movement  through 
the  hurried  series  of  events  of  the  past  four  years  —  the  germinaut 
principles  of  its  future  course  —  owe  as  much  to  the  personal  cha- 
racteristics ot  the  man  thus  feebly  and  imperfectly  sketched,  as  to 
any  other  single  human  instrumentality.  A  people  can  no  more 
act  in  unity  and  concert  without  a  leader  in  sympathy  with  their 
instincts,  than  an  army  without  a  general  in  whom  they  have  con- 
fidence. The  late  President  is  one  of  the  main  links  which  bind 
the  future  to  the  past.  It  needs  only  to  contemplate  the  diflferent 
possibilities  which  might  have  come  to  pass,  contrasting  them  with 
what  is  now  the  accomplished  fact,  to  sec  this.  Circumstances  and 
the  man  combine  to  make  up  the  lesson  of  his  history,  and  neither 
is  an  empty  cypher.     Without  the  circumstances  the  man  would 


15 

have  lived  comparatively  unknown,  and  died  unnuirked  ;  without 
the  man,  the  circumstances  might  have  developed  differently.  The 
examples  in  history  of"  rulers  who  have  not  risen  to  the  height  of 
great  occasions  are  too  numerous  not  to  be  capable  of  application  to 
illustrate  the  possible  condition  of  a  President  unequal  to  the  task. 
Four  years  ago  there  seemed  to  be  two  at  least,  —  and  perhaps 
Many — different  possibilities.  Unity,  or  Disunion,  or  Universal 
Anarchy  depended,  humanly  speaking,  upon  the  administration. 
In  the  progress  of  the  nation  from  its  infant  existence  to  its 
growth  over  half  a  continent,  there  had  developed  too  great  diver- 
sity of  social  states,  as  the  principle  of  discord.  Moral  ideas  on 
the  one  side,  and  material  interests  on  the  other,  entered  into  con- 
flict,and  the  time  had  come  to  solve  permanently  the  question  wheth- 
er diverse  social  states  should  develop  into  diverse  nationalities,  or 
whether  national  unity  should  be  preserved  by  making  the  social 
state  everywhere  the  same.  Two  answers  were  possible  then  ;  one 
has  been  given  now,  never  to  be  reversed,  by  the  grace  of  Provi- 
dence using  him  as  its  chief  instrument.  The  institution  of  slav- 
ery has  fallen  before  the  principle  of  national  supremacy,  the 
guarantee  that  the  country  once  pacified  will  remain  permanently 
secure.  With  this  guarantee,  his  great  work,  all  lesser  question, 
are  of  no  importance.  Not  that  it  is  due  to  him  alone.  Ideas 
and  forces  had  to  be  called  into  activity  and  guided  to  their  re- 
sults, and  without  them  he  would  have  been  powerless.  But  as 
the  helmsman  at  the  wheel  guides  the  direction  of  all  the  forces 
(none  of  which  he  could  originate)  which  give  motion  to  the  ship  ; 
so  it  was  his,  here  to  restrain,  there  to  impel  onward,  and  so  to 
bring  the  ship  of  state  thus  far  on  its  course. 

The  work,  brethren,  is  not  yet  ended.  It  is  our  country  which 
has  suffered,  though  it  triumphs  in  its  suffering.  After  war  comes 
peace  ;  and  the  result  of  war  at  this  moment  is  so  sure  and  certain, 
that  all  can  look  for  peace  in  the  shortest,  surest  way,  —  peace 
that  shall  be  permanent  and  enduring.  It  is  the  business  of  the 
people  now  to  heal  the  nation's  wounds.  The  same  God  who  called 
him  by  the  people's  voice  to  the  helm,  and  granted  him  to  see  so 
much  accomplished,  still  rules  in  Heaven,  and  has  frustrated  the 
plot  to  throw  the  government  into  confusion,  has  preserved  his 
successor,  and  assigns  our  pathway  between  those  fences  of  Mercy 
and  Judgment  which  hedge  round  all  human  walks,  whether  of 
the  individual  or  the  community.  "By  Him  kings  rule,  and  princes 


16 

decree  justice."  It  may  suit  the  presumption  which  reckons  itself 
competent  to  proclaim  beforehand  on  every  occasion  the  secret 
counsels  of  the  Almighty  and  Infinitely  Wise  Being,  who  has  de- 
clared that  "His  thoughts  are  not  as  our  thoughts,  nor  His  ways 
as  our  ways,"  to  expound  what  is  or  what  ought  to  be  the  policy 
henceforward  of  the  Government,  the  chief  depositary  of  whose 
power  has  been  changed  by  Divine  permission  and  by  human 
crime.  I  humbly  decline  the  endeavor.  I  believe  in  the  Provi- 
dence of  Grod,  and  that  that  Providence  vindicates  itself  in  the  re- 
sult, though  its  counsels  may  not  be  known  beforehand,  except  by 
prophetic  Inspiration  ;  and  I  am  sincerely  of  the  opinion,  that  they 
who  by  that  Providence  are  vested  with  the  trust  taken  from  the 
hand  of  him  we  mourn,  are  abundantly  competent  to  consider  their 
responsibilities  without  my  advice,  and  to  resolve  wisely  and  to 
act  well.  Providence  qalls  us  to  the  humbler  duty  of  obedience 
to  the  powers  that  are  by  His  ordaining.  To  them  it  is  for  us 
to  look  for  guidance,  and  for  them  it  is  ours  to  pray,  that  God  will 
o-ive  them  the  wisdom  and  the  strength  to  secure  to  our  posting 
the  heritage  given  to  our  fathers,  and  to  bring  the  storm-tossed 
ship  of  state,  securely  into  the  harbor  of  a  stable  and  permanent 
peace. 


2^  ^'^'■■.'^