As the generations slip away, as the dust of conflict settles, and as
through the clearing air we look back with keener vision into the
Nation's past, mightiest among the mighty dead, loom up the three
great figures of Washington, Lincoln and Grant. These three greatest
men have taken their places among the great men of all nations, the
great men of all times. They stood supreme in the two great crises of
our history, in the two great occasions, when we stood in the van of
all humanity, and struck the most effective blows that have ever been
struck for the cause of human freedom under the law.