By George Lowell Austin.
There is something eminently satisfactory in the reflection that, when
the new faith, "That all men are created equal," and that "Governments
are instituted among men deriving their just powers from the consent of
the governed," was finally assailed by the slave-power of America, and
had to pass the ordeal of four years of war, a man born and reared in
poverty, deficient in education, unused to the etiquette even of
ordinary society, and untutored in the art of diplomacy and deception,
had been selected by the people of the United States to become the
representative of the new faith, and the defender of the government
established upon it. This man was ABRAHAM LINCOLN, of Illinois, the
record of whose life, at once important, eventful, and tragic, it is
pleasant to recall.
There are, in my judgment, at least four men associated with the period
of the civil war, who, in their early lives, their struggles, their
training, and their future callings, ought forever to command the
admiration of this people: Lincoln, the lowly, the exalted, the pure
man in rude marble, the plain cover to a gentle nature, the giant frame
and noble intellect; Grant, the defender of the Federal Union, the
unflinching soldier, around whose dying couch a whole nation now
lingers, whose light will shine down through future ages a warning to
conspirators, to freemen a pledge, and to the oppressed a beacon of
hope; Stanton, the lion of Buchanan's cabinet, the collaborator of
Lincoln, the supporter of Grant, gifted with the far-seeing eye of a
Carnot, spotless in character, incorruptible in integrity, great in
talent and learning, and a fit object of unhesitating trust; and John
Rogers, the American sculptor, who has offered, in his beautiful and
famous group of statuary, "The Council of War," an undying tribute to
these three great leaders in American history, and is himself worthy
to be grouped with them in our remembrance.
"Leaves have their time to fall,
And flowers to wither at the north wind's breath,
And stars to set; but all--
Thou hast all seasons for thine own, O Death!"
If we could have looked into a rude log-cabin in Hardin county,
Kentucky, on the morning of the 12th of February, 1809, we should have
seen an infant just born,--and with what promise of future greatness?
Looking ahead ten years, we should have discerned this infant, Abraham,
developing into youth, still living in the old log-cabin, with neither
doors nor windows, with wolves and bears for neighbors, with a shiftless
father. But his mother was dead! Still this mother had left her impress,
and she had become in that boy's heart "an angel of a mother." She made
him what he afterwards proved himself to be. Follow Abraham Lincoln
where we will,--from the cradle to the grave,--and we shall find honesty
and kindness ever distinguishing him. In his boyhood, among boys, he was
always fighting the battle of the offended and the weak; in manhood, he
was always protecting the fugitive from an angry mob; as a lawyer,
saving the widow's son from the gallows, and declining the rich fee of
an unrighteous cause; as a public debater, the fairest ever met in the
political arena; and as president of the republic, honest in his
convictions and kind to his bitterest enemies.
Let us not forget the difficulties which it was his lot and his good
fortune to surmount. He never was six months at school in his life; and
yet, by the use of a single book and the occasional aid of a village
schoolmaster, he became an expert surveyor in six weeks! At the age of
twenty-one he accompanied his family to Illinois. One morning, when
seated at the breakfast-table of his employer, Lincoln was told that a
man living six miles away had a copy of an English grammar. He left the
table at once, and went and borrowed the book. During the long winter
evenings that followed, in the light of the village cooper's shop, he
pored over the pages of that book,--studying the science of language,
the theory of human speech, and qualifying himself to become the author
of one of the three great State papers of modern times, by the light of
burning shavings!
But we leave that early life of his, which, in rude simplicity, repeats
"the short and simple annals of the poor."
In 1832 Black Hawk, the celebrated Indian chief, then in his
sixty-seventh year, crossed the Mississippi to regain the Rock River
valley,--the scene of his early trials and triumphs. His coming meant
war upon the pale-faced stranger, that had ventured to possess the
hunting-grounds of the red men. Several companies of volunteers were
raised to meet him, and Abraham Lincoln served as captain of one of
them.
When the war was over Lincoln returned to New Salem, his home in
Illinois, and shortly afterwards began the study of the law. He was
still poor in purse, his clothing was threadbare, but his ambition was
immense. He often pursued his study in the shade of a tree. One day
Squire Godbey--a very good man he was, too, so we are told--saw him
seated on a pile of wood, absorbed in a book, when, according to the
squire, the following dialogue took place: "Says I, 'Abe, what are you
studying?'--'Law,' says he. 'Great God Almighty!' says I." Studying law
astride of a wood-pile, probably barefooted, was too great a shock for
the squire's susceptible nature. He continued to study, then to practise
a little without fee, and finally was admitted to the bar in 1836.
Judge Davis, once on the Supreme Bench of the United States, a man
spotless alike upon the throne of justice and in his daily walk, was
upon intimate terms with Lincoln for upwards of twenty years, and during
more than half of that period sat upon the judicial bench before which
Lincoln most frequently practised. No one is abler than he to speak of
Lincoln as a lawyer,--a lawyer who became one of the first of the
Western bar,--a bar that can proudly point to its Carpenter, its
Trumbull, its Ryan, and its Davis. He says:--
"The framework of Lincoln's mental and moral being was honesty; and a
wrong cause was poorly defended by him. The ability which some eminent
lawyers possess of explaining away the bad points of a cause by
ingenious sophistry was denied him. In order to bring into full activity
his great powers it was necessary that he should be convinced of the
right and justice of the matter which he advocated. When so convinced,
whether the cause was great or small, he was usually successful.
"He hated wrong and oppression everywhere; and many a man whose
fraudulent conduct was undergoing review in a court of justice has
writhed under his terrific indignation and rebukes. He was the most
simple and unostentatious of men in his habits, having few wants, and
those easily supplied."
In 1837 Mr. Lincoln removed to Springfield, Ill., where he entered into
partnership with his old friend, John T. Stuart; and this partnership
continued until 1841. In 1834 he had been elected to the Legislature,
and after his removal to Springfield he was again chosen to that body.
It was during this period that he found the nerve, when it did require
courage, to express and record his protest against the injustice of
slavery. Twice as a youth he had made a trip to New Orleans,--in 1828
and 1831,--and on his second visit had for the first time observed
slavery in its most brutal and revolting form. He had gone into the very
centre of a slave mart, had seen families sold, the separation forever
of husband and wife, of parent and child. When we recall how deeply he
always sympathized with suffering, brute as well as human, and his
strong love of justice, we can realize how deeply he was affected by
these things. His companions on this trip have attempted to describe his
indignation and grief. They said. "His heart bled. He was mad,
thoughtful, abstracted, sad, and depressed."
The years which Mr. Lincoln passed in Springfield were the preparatory
years of his future greatness. From this time onward he was ever a busy
man.
He was once associated with Mr. Swett in defending a man accused of
murder. He listened to the testimony which witness after witness gave
against his client until his honest heart could stand it no longer;
then, turning to his associate, he said: "Swett, the man is guilty; you
defend him: I can't." Swett _did_ defend him, and the man was
acquitted. When proffered his share of the large fee Lincoln most
emphatically declined it, on the ground that "all of it belonged to Mr.
Swett, whose ardor and eloquence saved a _guilty_ man from
justice."
At another time, when a would-be client had stated the facts of his
case, Mr. Lincoln replied: "Yes; there is no reasonable doubt but I can
gain your case for you. I can set a whole neighborhood at loggerheads.
I can distress a widowed mother and her six fatherless children, and
thereby get for you $600, which rightfully belongs, it seems to me, as
much to the woman and her children as it does to you. You must remember
that some things that are _legally_ right are not _morally_
right. I shall not take your case, but will give you a little advice,
for which I will charge you nothing. You appear to be a sprightly,
energetic man: I would advise you to try your hand at making $600 some
other way."
I turn now to another phase of his nature, and recall that he had not
grown up to manhood without the usual experiences of the tender passion.
It was while he was yet living at New Salem that his heart opened to a
fair, sweet-tempered, and intelligent girl, with the romantic name of
Anne Rutledge. They were engaged to be married as soon as he should be
admitted to the bar of the Supreme Court. But in August, 1835, she died.
Her beauty and her attractions and her early death made a very deep
impression upon him. We are told that he idealized her memory, and in
his recollections of her there was a poetry of sentiment, which might
possibly have been lessened, had she lived, by the prosaic realities of
life. With all his love of fun and frolic, with all his wit and humor,
with all his laughter and anecdotes, Lincoln, from his youth, was a man
of deep feeling. We have it on the authority of the most reliable of his
biographers, that he always associated with the memory of Anne Rutledge
the poem which, in his hours of despondency, he so often repeated:--
"Oh! why should the spirit of mortal be proud?
Like a swift fleeting meteor, a fast flying cloud,
A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave,
He passeth from life to his rest in the grave.
"The leaves of the oak and the willow shall fade,
Be scattered around, and together be laid;
And the young and the old, and the low and the high,
Shall moulder to dust and together shall lie."
I never read this beautiful poem, so full of the true philosophy of
life, so suggestive of the rich promises of the hereafter, that I do not
think of the great president. He first found it in the columns of a
newspaper, cut it out, carried it in his pocket, and treasured it in his
memory for many years without knowing who was its author.
It would be pleasant to trace the years spent by Mr. Lincoln in the
State Legislature, and to revert to some of the speeches and occasional
addresses belonging to those years, which, in the light of his
subsequent history, are strangely significant. In the early period of
his legislative career he became acquainted with Stephen A. Douglas,
while the latter was a school-teacher at Winchester. Douglas was a man
of extraordinary powers, and one of the readiest of the American
debaters of his time. As the years went on he became actively interested
in politics, and at length assumed the leadership of the Democrats in
Illinois, while Lincoln became the standard-bearer of the Whigs. When
party platforms were promulgated, upon the eve of important contests,
these two statesmen, by the unanimous consent of their supporters, were
selected to debate the merits of their respective political creeds
before the people. A series of joint discussions was arranged to take
place in the various important towns of the State. The assemblages were
large, and were composed of men of all parties. The discussion opened
with a speech of an hour, from one of the debaters; the other replied in
an address of an hour and a half; a rejoinder of half an hour brought
the discussion to a close. At the next meeting the order of speaking was
reversed, and by this arrangement the "last word" was indulged in
alternately by each debater.
During the various joint discussions held between the eloquent political
orators who were chosen to represent the Anti-Slavery and Democratic
parties, it may fairly be asserted that Lincoln opposed, while Douglas
defended, directly or indirectly, the slave interests of the country.
The former always felt that slavery was wrong, and in seeking a remedy
for the existing evil he followed in the footprints of Henry Clay. He
advocated gradual emancipation, with the consent of the people of the
slave States, and at the expense of the General Government. In his great
speech against the Kansas and Nebraska bill, he said, "Much as I hate
slavery, I would consent to its extension rather than see the Union
dissolved, just as I would consent to any great evil to avoid a greater
one."
The debates between Lincoln and Douglas, especially those of the year
1858, were unquestionably the most important in American history. The
speeches of Mr. Lincoln, as well as of the "Little Giant" who opposed
him, were circulated and read throughout the Union, and did more than
any other agency to create the public opinion which prepared the way for
the overthrow of slavery. As another has said, "The speeches of John
Quincy Adams and of Charles Sumner were more scholarly; those of Lovejoy
and Wendell Phillips were more vehement and impassioned; Senators
Seward, Hale, Trumbull, and Chase spoke from a more conspicuous forum;
but Lincoln's were more philosophical, while as able and earnest as any,
and his manner had a simplicity and directness, a clearness of statement
and felicity of illustration, and his language a plainness and
Anglo-Saxon strength, better adapted than any other to reach and
influence the common people,--the mass of the voters."
From 1847 to March 4, 1849, Mr. Lincoln served a term in Congress,
where he acted with his party in opposing the Mexican war. In 1855 he
was a prominent candidate for the United States Senate, but was
defeated. From the ruins of the old Whig party and the acquisition of
the Abolitionists, the Republican had been formed, and of this party, in
Illinois, Mr. Lincoln became, in 1858, the senatorial candidate. Again
he was defeated, by his adversary Mr. Douglas. Lincoln felt aggrieved,
for he had carried the popular vote of his State by nearly 4,000 votes.
When questioned by a friend upon this delicate point, he said that he
felt "like the boy that stumped his toe,--it hurt him too much to laugh,
and he was too big to cry."
In his speech at Springfield, with which the campaign of 1858 opened,
Mr. Lincoln made the compromisers of his party tremble by enunciating
a doctrine which, they claimed, provoked defeat. He said: "'A house
divided against itself cannot stand.' I believe this Government cannot
permanently endure half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union
to be dissolved; I do not expect the house to fall; but I do expect it
will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other;
either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it,
and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is
in a course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates will push it
forward till it shall become alike lawful in all the States,--old as
well as new, North as well as South."
These were prophetic words; and they were spoken by a man born in the
slave State of Kentucky. It was the truth, the fearless truth, uttered
in advance of even the acknowledged leader of the Republican party,
Governor Seward, of New York. The simple assertion of that truth cost
Lincoln a seat in the United States Senate; but it set other men's minds
to thinking, and in 1860 the PEOPLE, following the path made through the
forest of error by a pioneer in the cause of truth, came to similar
conclusions, and made "Honest Old Abe" Chief Magistrate of the republic.
On the 10th of May, 1860, the Republican convention of Illinois met
at Decatur, in Macon county, to nominate State officers and appoint
delegates to the National Presidential Convention. Decatur was not far
from where Lincoln's father had settled and worked a farm in 1830, and
where young Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Hanks had split the rails for
enclosing the old pioneer's first cornfield. Mr. Lincoln was present,
simply as an observer, at the convention. Scarcely had he taken his seat
when General Oglesby arose, and remarked that an old Democrat of Macon
county desired to make a contribution to the convention. Two old fence
rails were then brought in, bearing the inscription: "Abraham Lincoln,
the rail candidate for the Presidency in 1860. Two rails from a lot of
three thousand, made in 1830, by Thomas Hanks and Abe Lincoln, whose
father was the first pioneer of Macon county."
The effect of this contribution can well be imagined: at once it became
useless to talk in Illinois of any other man than Abraham Lincoln for
President.
On the 16th of May the National Republican Convention was called
together in Chicago. The convention met in a large building called the
"Wigwam," which had been constructed specially for the occasion. The
contest for the nomination lay between William H. Seward of New York and
Abraham Lincoln of Illinois. On the third ballot, as we know, the latter
was nominated. I was but a youth on that memorable day, but I vividly
recollect that I was standing, with other urchins, nearly opposite the
"Wigwam," and was startled when a man stationed on top of the building
yelled out, "Fire: Lincoln is nominated!" Then followed the roar of
cannon and cheers upon cheers.
When the news reached Mr. Lincoln he was chatting with some friends
in the office of the "Sangamon Journal," in Springfield. He read the
telegram aloud, and then said: "There is a little woman down at our
house who will like to hear this. I'll go down and tell her." The
"little woman" was his wife, whom, as Mary Todd, he had won in 1842, and
he knew that she was more anxious that he should be President than he
himself was.
On the 7th of November, 1860, it was known throughout the country that
Lincoln had been elected. From that very hour dates the conspiracy
which, by easy stages and successive usurpations of authority,
culminated in rebellion. It is painful now to revert to the events which
marked its progress. There is not a man living to-day, I trust, that
does not wish they could be blotted out from our history. While watching
the course of these events Mr. Lincoln chanced one day to be talking
with his friend, Newton Bateman, a highly respectable and Christian
gentleman, and Superintendent of Public Instruction in Illinois. I can
only quote a part of the interview, as furnished by Mr. Bateman himself:
"I know there is a God," said Lincoln; "and he hates injustice and
slavery. I see the storm coming. I know that his hand is in it. If he
has a place and work for me,--and I think he has,--I believe I am ready.
I am nothing; but truth is everything, I know I am right, because I know
that liberty is right; for Christ teaches it; and Christ is God. I have
told them that 'a house divided against itself cannot stand,' and Christ
and reason say the same; and they will find it so.
"Douglas doesn't care whether slavery is voted up or down; but God
cares, and humanity cares, and I care; and with God's help I shall not
fail. I may not see the end, but it will come, and I shall be
vindicated; and these men will find that they have not read their Bible
aright."
We are told that, after a pause, he resumed: "Does it not appear strange
that men can ignore the moral aspects of this contest? A revelation
could not make it plainer to me that slavery or the Government, must be
destroyed. The future would be something awful, as I look at it, but for
this rock on which I stand." He alluded to the Testament which he held
in his hand, and which his mother--"to whom he owed all that he was, or
hoped to be"--had first taught him to read.
There is nothing in history more pathetic than the scene when, on the
11th of February, 1861, Abraham Lincoln bade a last farewell to his home
of a quarter of a century.
To his friends and neighbors he said, while grasping them by the hand,
"I go to assume a task more difficult than that which has devolved
upon any other man since the days of Washington. He never would have
succeeded except for the aid of Divine Providence, upon which he at all
times relied. I feel that I cannot succeed without the same divine
blessing which sustained him, and on the same Almighty Being I place my
reliance for support." The profound religious feeling which pervades
this farewell speech characterized him to the close of his life.
All along the route Lincoln preached the gospel of confidence,
conciliation, and peace. Notwithstanding the ominous signs of the times,
he had such an abiding faith in the people as to believe that the
guarantees of all their rights under the Constitution, of
non-intervention with the institution of slavery where it existed, and
the assurance of a most friendly spirit on the part of the new President
would calm the heated passion of the men of the South, would reclaim
States already in secession, and would retain the rest of the cotton
States under the banner of the Union. What a striking evidence of the
lingering hope and of the tender heart of the President is afforded by
his first inaugural address!
"In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is
the momentous issue of civil war.
"The Government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without
being yourselves the aggressors; you can have no oath registered in
heaven to destroy the Government, while I shall have the most solemn
one,--'to preserve, protect, and defend it.'
"I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be
enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break, our bonds
of affection.
"The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field and
patriot grave to every living heart and hearth-stone all over this broad
land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, as
surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."
Abraham Lincoln took the helm of government in more dangerous times and
under more difficult and embarrassing circumstances than any of the
fifteen presidents who preceded him. The ship of Union was built and
launched and first commanded by Washington.
"He knew what master laid her keel,
What workmen wrought her ribs of steel,
Who made each mast, and sail, and rope,
What anvils rang, what hammers beat,
In what a forge and what a heat
Were shaped the anchors of her hope."
The men whom he chose as her first crew were those who had helped to
form her model. During succeeding generations inefficient hands were
occasionally shipped to take the place of worn-out members of the
original crew. Often the vessel was put out of her course to serve the
personal ends of this or that sailor, and ere long mutiny broke out
among her passengers, headed by John C. Calhoun, of South Carolina.
Finally, a man ignorant in the science of astronomy and navigation,
feeble alike in heart and arm, became, nominally, commander, but really
the cat's-paw, of his crew, at whose bidding the ship was steered. When
Abraham Lincoln was called to the helm he found the once stanch, strong
vessel in a leaky, damaged condition, with her compasses deranged, her
rudder broken, and the luminous star by which Washington guided his
course dimmed by a cloud of disunion and doubt. When the belching cannon
opened upon Sumter, then it was that the ship of State was found to be
all but stranded on the shoals,--Treason.
We are all aware of the story of that struggle. We can never forget
the story, for there is yet a "vacant chair," that recalls it in many
a home. The manner in which President Lincoln conducted the affairs of
the government during that struggle forms an important chapter in the
history of the world for that period. After Good Friday comes Easter;
after the day of dejection and doubt comes the day of recompense and
rejoicing. To my mind there is that in the life-work of President
Lincoln which itself consecrates every soldier's grave, and makes the
tenant of that grave more worthy of his sublime dying. It added honor
to honor to have fallen, serving under such a commander.
It was midsummer, 1862, and at a time when the whole North was
depressed, that the President convened his cabinet to talk over the
subject-matter of the Emancipation Proclamation. On the 22d of September
ensuing it was published to the world. It was the act of the President
alone. It exhibited far-seeing sagacity, courage, independence, and
statesmanship. The final proclamation was issued on the 1st of January,
1863. On that day the President had been receiving calls, and for hours
shaking hands. As the paper was brought to him by the Secretary of State
to be signed, he said, "Mr. Seward, I have been shaking hands all day,
and my right hand is almost paralyzed. If my name ever gets into history
it will be for this act, and my whole soul is in it. If my hand trembles
when I sign the proclamation those who examine the document hereafter
will say, 'He hesitated.'" Then, resting his arm a moment, he turned
to the table, took up the pen, and slowly and firmly wrote, ABRAHAM
LINCOLN. He smiled as, handing the paper to Mr. Seward, he said "That
will do."
This was the pivotal act of his administration; but this humane
and just promise to liberate four millions of slaves, to wipe out a
nation's disgrace, was followed by the darkest and most doubtful days
in the history of America. Grant, in the lowlands of Louisiana, was
endeavoring, against obstacles, to open the Mississippi; but, with all
his energy, he accomplished nothing. McClellan's habit of growling at
the President had become intolerable, and Burnside superseded him in
command of the Army of the Potomac. Burnside advanced against Lee,
fought him at Fredericksburg, and was repulsed with terrible disaster.
Then the army broke camp for another campaign, the elements opposed,
Burnside gave way to Hooker. The soldiers became disheartened, and
thousands deserted to their homes in the North. The President's
proclamation was now virtually a dead letter; people looked upon it
and characterized it as a joke. But there came at last a break in the
clouds, and on Independence Day, 1863, the star of liberty and union
appeared upon the distant sky as a covenant that God had not forsaken
the Prophet of the West,--the Redeemer of the Slave. I can find no more
fitting words to characterize Grant's victory at Vicksburg than those
which the young and brave McPherson used in his congratulatory address
to the brave men who fought for the victory:--
"The achievements of this hour will give a new meaning to this memorable
day; and Vicksburg will heighten the glory in the patriot's heart, which
kindles at the mention of Bunker Hill and Yorktown. The dawn of a
conquered peace is breaking before you. The plaudits of an admiring
world will hail you wherever you go."
Take it altogether it was perhaps the most brilliant operation of the
war, and established the reputation of Grant as one of the greatest
military leaders of any age. He, the last of the triumvirate, is passing
away; and, in this connection, no apology is needed in quoting the
letter which the President wrote with his own hand, and transmitted to
him, on receipt of the glorious tidings:--
MY DEAR GENERAL,--I do not remember that you and I ever met personally.
I write this now as a grateful acknowledgment for the almost
inestimable service you have done the country. I wish to say a word
further. When you first reached the vicinity of Vicksburg I thought you
should do what you finally did,--march the troops across the neck, run
the batteries with the transports, and then go below; and I never had
any faith, except a general hope, that you knew better than I that the
Yazoo-Pass expedition and the like could succeed. When you got below,
and took Fort Gibson, Grand Gulf, and vicinity, I thought you should go
down the river and join Gen. Banks; and when you turned northward, east
of the Big Black, I thought it was a mistake. I now wish to make the
personal acknowledgment that you were right, and I was wrong.
And recall now the never-to-be-forgotten scenes at Gettysburg. The Union
army had been defeated at Chancellorsville, and Gen. Lee, having assumed
the offensive, had been making the greatest preparations for striking
a decisive blow. Already had he passed through Maryland; he was now in
Pennsylvania. But valiant men were there to meet and oppose. The fate
of the day, the fate of the Confederacy, was staked upon the issue. I
cannot picture the battle; but we all know the result, and how great was
the rejoicing in the North when, on that 4th day of July, the tidings of
the fall of Vicksburg and the victory at Gettysburg reached the country.
A portion of the battle-field of Gettysburg was set apart as a
resting-place for the heroes who fell on that bloody ground. In November
of that year the ceremony of consecration took place. Edward Everett,
the orator and the scholar, delivered the oration; it was a polished
specimen of his consummate skill. After him rose President
Lincoln,--"simple, rude, his care-worn face now lighted and glowing with
intense feeling." He simply read the touching speech which is already
placed among the classics of our language:--
"Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon this
continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the
proposition that all men are created equal.
"Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation,
or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met
on a great battle-field of that war. We are met to dedicate a portion of
it as the final resting-place of those who here gave their lives that
that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we
should do this.
"But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we
cannot hallow, this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who
struggled here, have consecrated it far above our power to add or
detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we
_say_ here; but it can never forget what they _did_ here. It
is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished
work that they have thus far so nobly carried on. It is rather for us to
be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that from these
honored dead we take increased devotion to the cause for which they here
gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that
the dead shall not have died in vain; that the nation shall, under God,
have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the
people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth."
There have been but four instances in history in which great deeds have
been celebrated in words as immortal as themselves: the epitaph upon the
dead Spartan band at Thermopylæ; the words of Demosthenes on those who
perished at Marathon; the speech of Webster in memory of those who laid
down their lives at Bunker Hill; and these words of Lincoln on the hill
at Gettysburg. As he closed, and while his listeners were still sobbing,
he grasped the hand of Mr. Everett, and said. "I congratulate you on
your success."--"Ah," replied the orator, gracefully, "Mr. President,
how gladly would I exchange all my hundred pages to have been the author
of your twenty lines!"
I forbear to dwell longer on the events of the war. The tide had turned,
and the end was already foreseen. Notwithstanding that Mr. Lincoln had
proved the righteousness of his course, a great many people in the
North--and many even in his own party--were opposed to his nomination
for a second term. The disaffected nominated Gen. Fremont, upon the
platform of the suppression of the Rebellion, the Monroe doctrine, and
the election of President and Vice-President by the direct vote of the
people, and for one term only. The Democratic party declared the war for
the Union a failure, and very properly nominated McClellan. It required
a long time for the General to make up his mind in regard to accepting
the nomination; and, in conversations upon the subject with a friend,
Lincoln suggested that perhaps he might be _entrenching_. The
election was held, and Lincoln received a majority greater than was ever
before given to a candidate for the presidency. The people this time
were like the Dutch farmer,--they believed that "it was not best to swap
horses when crossing a stream."
On the 4th of March, 1865, he delivered that memorable inaugural address
which is truly accounted one of the ablest state papers to be found in
the archives of America. It concludes with these words:--
"With malice towards none, with charity for all, with firmness 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, and for his widow and his orphans, to do all which may
achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with
all nations."
Read and reread this whole address. Since the days of Christ's Sermon
on the Mount, where is the speech of ruler that can compare with it?
No other in American annals has so impressed the people. Said a
distinguished statesman from New York, on the day of its delivery,
"A century from to-day that inaugural will be read as one of the most
sublime utterances ever spoken by man. Washington is the great man of
the era of the Revolution. So will Lincoln be of this; but Lincoln will
reach the higher position in history."
Four years before, Mr. Lincoln, an untried man, had assumed the reins of
government; now, he was the faithful and beloved servant of the people.
Then, he was ridiculed and caricatured; and some persons even found
fault with his dress, just as the British ambassador found fault with
the dress of the author of the Declaration of Independence. The
ambassador is forgotten, but Jefferson will live as long as a government
of the people, by the people, and for the people, endures. While he
lived Lincoln was shamefully abused by the people and press of the land
of his forefathers; and not until the shot was fired--not until the
blood of the just--the ransom of the slave--was spilled, did England
throw off the cloak of prejudice, and acknowledge--
"This king of princes-peer,
This rail-splitter, a true-born king of men."
It is well known that not all of Mr. Lincoln's friends invariably
harmonized with his views. Of the number of these Horace Greeley stood
foremost, and undoubtedly caused the President great anxiety upon
several occasions. He never did things by halves; and, whenever he
undertook to do a thing, the whole country, believing in the honesty and
purity of his motives, gave to him a willing ear. From the editorial
sanctum of the "Tribune" many a sharp and soul-stirring letter went
forth addressed to the executive of the nation. Mr. Lincoln read them,
oftentimes replied to them, but very rarely heeded the counsel which
they contained. When the President was struck down, Mr. Greeley, who
differed so widely from him, mourned the loss of a very dear friend.
Charles Sumner often differed from the President, and on the floor of
the Senate Chamber frequently gave utterance to statements which carried
grief into the White House. But Mr. Lincoln knew and understood Charles
Sumner. An incident may here be recalled. The President was solicitous
that his views, as embodied in an act then claiming the attention of
Congress, should become law prior to the adjournment of that body on the
4th of March. Mr. Sumner opposed the bill, because he thought it did not
sufficiently guard the interests of the freedmen of that State. Owing to
the opposition of the Senator and a few of his friends the bill was
defeated. Mr. Lincoln felt displeased, and the newspapers throughout the
country published that the friendship which had so long existed between
the two men was at an end.
But Mr. Lincoln was not a man who would withdraw friendship on account
of an honest difference of opinion. It was not he who made the mistake
of urging the dismissal of Mr. Sumner from the chairmanship of the
Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. On the 4th of March Mr. Lincoln
was reinaugurated; on the evening of the 6th occurred the Inauguration
Ball. Mr. Sumner had never attended one of these state occasions, and he
did not purpose doing so at this time until he received, in the course
of the afternoon, the following letter:--
DEAR MR. SUMNER,--Unless you send me word to the contrary, I shall
this evening call with my carriage at your house, to take you with
me to the Inauguration Ball.
Sincerely yours,