As a public man, he set God before his eyes, and did reverence to
the Most High. It was deeply a touching scene as he stood upon the
platform of the car which was to carry him from his Springfield home,
and tearfully asked his neighbors and old friends that they should
remember him in their prayers. Amid tears and sobs they answered "We
will pray for you." Again and again has he publicly invoked Divine
aid, and asked to be remembered in the prayers of the people. His
second Inaugural seems rather the tender pastoral of a white-haired
bishop than a political manifesto.
What were his person relations to his God, I know not. We are not in
all things able to judge him by our personal standard. How much
etiquette may be demanded, how much may have been yielded to the
tyranny of custom we cannot tell. In public life he was spotless in
integrity and dependent upon Divine aid. He had made no public
consecration to God in church covenant, but we may not enter the
sanctuary of his inner life. He constantly read the holy oracles, and
recognized their claim to be the inspired Scriptures.
He felt that religious responsibility when he set forth the
Proclamation of Emancipation closing with the sublime sentence: "And
upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted
by the Constitution, on military necessity, I invoke the considerable
judgment of mankind and the gracious favor of Almighty God."
In one of the gloomy hours of the struggle he said to a delegation
of clergymen: "My hope of success in this great and terrible struggle
rests on that immutable foundation, the justice and goodness of God.
And when events are very threatening, and prospects very dark, I
still hope, in some way which men cannot see, all will be well in the
end, because our cause is just and God is on our side."
If, as the executive officer of the nation he erred, it was in
excessive tenderness in dealing with criminals. Unsuspecting and
pure, he could not credit unmixed guilt in others, and with
difficulty could he bring himself to suffer condign punishment to be
inflicted. There were times when he was inflexible. In vain did
wealth and position plead for Gardner, the slave-captain. As vainly
did they for Beall and Johnson. If he was lenient it was the error of
amiableness.
In reviewing the administration of Abraham Lincoln, we see in him
another of those Providentially called and directed leaders who have
been raised up in great crises. His name stands on the roll with
those of Moses and Joshua, and William of Orange, and Washington. Not
only did Providence raise him up, but it divinely vindicated his
dealings with slavery. As emancipation was honored, did the pillar of
flame light our hosts on to victory!
In the dawning morn of peace and Union has this leader been slain.
When the nation thought it most needed him, has he been basely
butchered! As the ship which had been rocking in the waves and bowing
before the storm was reaching the harbor, a pirate, who sailed with
the passengers, basely stole on deck and shot the pilot at the wheel!
The assassin has been held in abhorrence among all people and in all
ages. Here was a foul plot to destroy at one swoop the President, the
officers eligible to the succession, the Cabinet, the Lieutenant-
General, and no doubt the loyal Governors of the States. That the
scheme was successful only in part, God be praised. Never has an
assassination produced so terrible a shock. For--
"He had borne his faculties so meek, had been
So clear in his great office, that his virtues
Do plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against
The deep damnation of his taking off."
He fell, and the whole land mourns. Secession smote him in her
impotent death-rage, but the State lives on! The reins which dropped
from his nerveless hand another grasped, and the nation lives. No
revolution comes. No war of rival dynasties! The constitutional
successor is in the chief seat of power, and how much secession has
taken by this new crime remains to be seen.
Fellow-citizens, there are some duties which press upon us in this
hour.
1. We must anew commit ourselves to the work of suppressing
rebellion and re-enthroning the majesty of the Union and
Constitution. Mr. Lincoln lived until the nation's flag had waved in
triumph over every important Southern city; until the proud Southern
aristocracy had thrown itself at the feet of its slaves, and with
frantic outcries implored salvation at their hands; had lived to walk
through Richmond, and be hailed by its dusky freedmen as their
deliverer; had lived until he received the report of the surrender of
Lee's grand army, and then he was slain. We must complete the work.
Onward, until it be wrought. We believe it will be soon, but were it
a hundred years it must be accomplished!
2. We must complete the destruction of slavery. Added to its long
catalogue of crimes, it has now slain the Lord's Anointed, the man
whom he made strong! Now as THE ETERNAL liveth, it must die! By the
agonies it has caused, by the uncoffined graves it has filled, by the
tears it has wrung from pure women and little children, by our sons
and brothers starved to death in its mined prisons, by our beloved
Chief Magistrate murdered, by all these do we this day swear unto the
LORD that slavery SHALL DIE and that he would save it shall
politically die with it!
3. This day, as funeral rites are being said, and sobs are coming
up from a smitten household and bereaved people, before the Lord do
we solemnly demand that justice be done in the land upon evil-doers,
that blood-guiltiness may be taken away, and that men shall not dare
repeat such crimes.
_When treason slew Abraham Lincoln, it slew the pardoning power,_
and by its own act placed authority in the hands of one of sterner
mold and fiery soul--one deeply wronged by its atrocities. Now let it
receive the reward of its own hands! This is the demand of mercy as
well as justice, that after generations may see the expiation of
treason is too costly for its commission. Mercy to the many demands
the punishment of the guilty.
The assassin of the Chief Magistrate must be found. Though all seas
must be crossed, all mountains ascended, all valleys traversed, he
_must_ be found! If he hide him under the mane of the British lion,
beneath the paw of the Russian bear or among the lilies of France, he
must be found and plucked thence for punishment! If there be no
extradition treaty, then the strong hands of our power must make one.
He was a tragedian. Had he never read--
"If the assassination
Could trammel up the consequences and catch
With this surcease, success; that but this blow
Might be the be-all and the end-all _here,_
* * * * * * * * * *
"We'd jump the life to come. But in these cases
_We still have judgment here._ We but teach
Bloody inventions, which, being taught, return
To plague the inventors. Thus even-handed justice
Commends the ingredients of our poisoned chalice
To our own lips."
We are told that he excelled in the part of Richard III. Did he not
remember the tent scene--
"My conscience hath a thousand several tongues,
And every tongue brings in a several tale,
And every tale condemns me for a villain--
Perjury, perjury, in the highest degree,
Murder, stern murder, in the darkest degree;
All several sins, all used in each degree,
Throng to the bar, crying all--Guilty! guilty!
I shall despair. There is no creature loves me;
And, if I die, no soul will pity me."
He has murdered the Lord's Anointed, and vengeance shall pursue him.
Tell me not, in deprecation of this sentiment "Vengeance is mine, I
will repay saith the Lord." Human justice has its work and must
follow the assassin, if need be, to the very gates of hell! It is
God's edict that he who causelessly takes any human life, "By men
shall his blood be shed"--how much more when it is such a life! [FN#1]
[FN#1] Since the MS. of this discourse was given the printer, the
assassin has met his retribution. Hunted like a wild beast to his
lair, he was surrounded by his pursuers, forsaken by his accomplice,
the barn to which he had fled fired, then shot to death, lingering
several hours in intense suffering and his remains consigned to
impenetrable obscurity. Retribution came to him before his victim was
buried. So be it ever! His accomplices are known and _must be_
punished.
A morning journal, which has been somehow retained in the interest
of wrong, of home-traitors, of misrule, has already impliedly put in
the plea of insanity for the assassin. The same journal runs a
parallel between him and John Brown. Well, Virginia executed John
Brown--its own precedent is fatal to its own client!
Let justice be done on the leaders of rebellion. Have done with the
miserable cant of curing those perjured conspirators with kindness.
Libby Prison mined under Federal captives, the starved skeletons of
our slowly murdered kinsmen, the grave of Lincoln, and the gaping
wounds of Seward are your answer. It must be taught men for all time
that treason is, in this life, unpardonable! It is all crimes in one.
In this case it is without the glitter of seeming chivalry for its
relief. It has had nothing knightly. It has conspired to starve
prisoners, has plotted conflagrations which were to consume, in one
dread holocaust, the venerable matron, the gray-haired sire and the
mother with her babe; has resorted to poison, the knife of the cut-
throat and the pistol of the assassin. No treason was ever so
repulsively foul, so reekingly corrupt. For its great leaders, the
block and the halter; for its chieftains, military and civic, of the
second class, perpetual banishment with confiscation of their goods,
for all who have volunteered to fight against the Union perpetual
disfranchisement--these are the demands of a long-suffering people.
The case of treason-sympathizers among us is one of grave moment. It
is hard to bear their sneers and patiently to listen to their covert
treason. It is a question whether the limit of toleration has not
been passed. The era of assassination has been commenced. Be sure
that any man who will excuse an assassin, will himself do foul murder
when he can shoot from behind a hedge, or strike a victim in the
back. It is matter of self-defence to cast such from our midst. Let
us have no violence, no lawlessness, _but such persons must be
persuaded to depart from us._ "They are gentlemen." Booth was courtly
in speech and mien. Have they been State officers? So was Walsh,
whose house was a disunion arsenal. The time has come when we cannot
permit men in sympathy with armed rebellion, which employs the
assassin, to dwell in our midst.
Abraham Lincoln is no more. His work is done. We may not comprehend
the mystery which permitted his removal at such an hour, in such a
way. God hideth himself wondrously, and sometimes seems to stand afar
from His truth and His cause when most needed.
Our leader is gone. His work is finished, and it may be that his
Providential mission was fully accomplished. His memory is
imperishably fragrant. WASHINGTON--LINCOLN! Who shall say which name
shall shine brighter in the firmament of the historic future!
He is dead! In the Presidential Mansion are being said words of
solemn admonition and godly counsel. In a few hours his remains will
be on their way to sleep in their Illinois grave!