“In my view of the present aspect of affairs, there need be
no bloodshed or war. I am not in favor of such a course; and I
may say in advance that there will be no bloodshed, unless it
be forced upon the Government, and then it will be compelled to
act in self-defence.”[213]
And so issue was joined.
It was plain from the first cannon-shot, that the Rebellion was nothing
but Slavery in arms; but such was the power of Slavery, even in the
Free States, that months elapsed before the giant criminal was directly
assailed. Generals in the field were tender towards it, as if it were a
church, or a work of the fine arts. Only under the teaching of disaster
was the country moved. The first step in Congress followed the defeat
at Bull Run. Still the President hesitated. Disasters thickened and
graves opened, until at last the country saw that by justice only could
we hope for Divine favor, and the President, who leaned so closely
upon the popular heart, pronounced that great word by which slaves
were set free. Let it be named forever to his glory, that even tardily
he grasped the thunderbolt under which the Rebellion staggered to its
fall; that, following up the blow, he enlisted colored citizens as
soldiers, and declared his final purpose never to retract or modify the
Emancipation Proclamation, nor to return into Slavery any person free
by the terms of that instrument, or by any Act of Congress,--saying,
grandly, “If the people should, by whatever mode or means, make it an
Executive duty to reënslave such persons, another, and not I, must be
their instrument to perform it.”[214]
It is sometimes said that the Proclamation was of doubtful
constitutionality. If such criticism does not proceed from sympathy
with Slavery, it evidently proceeds from prevailing superstition with
regard to this idol. Future jurists will read with astonishment that
such a flagrant wrong could be considered at any time as having any
rights which a court was bound to respect, and especially that rebels
in arms could be considered as having any title to the services of
people whose allegiance was primarily due to the United States. But,
turning from these conclusions, it seems obvious that Slavery, standing
exclusively on local law, without support in natural law, must have
fallen with the local government, both legally and constitutionally:
_legally_, inasmuch as it ceased to have any valid legal support; and
_constitutionally_, inasmuch as it came at once within the exclusive
jurisdiction of the Constitution, where Liberty is the supreme law.
The President did not act upon these principles, but, speaking with
the voice of authority, said, “Let the slaves be free.” What Court and
Congress hesitated to declare he proclaimed, and thus enrolled himself
among the world’s Emancipators.
* * * * *
From the Proclamation of Emancipation, placing its author so far above
human approach that human envy cannot reach him, I carry you for one
moment to our Foreign Relations. The convulsion here was felt in the
most distant places,--as at the great earthquake of Lisbon, when that
capital seemed about to be submerged, there was commotion of the
waters in our Northern lakes. All Europe was stirred. There, too, was
the Slavery question in another form. In an unhappy moment, under an
ill-considered allegation of “necessity,”--which Milton tells us was
the plea by which the Fiend “excused his devilish deeds,”--England
accorded to Rebel Slavery the rights of belligerence on the ocean,
and then proceeded to open her ports, to surrender her workshops, and
to let loose her merchant ships in aid of this wickedness: forgetting
all relations of alliance and amity with the United States, forgetting
all logic of English history, forgetting all distinctions of right and
wrong, and forgetting, also, that a New Power founded on Slavery was
a moral monster, with which a just nation could have nothing to do.
To appreciate the character of this concession, we must comprehend
clearly the whole, vast, unprecedented crime of the Rebellion, taking
its complexion from Slavery. Undoubtedly it was criminal to assail
the Unity of this Republic, and thus destroy its peace and impair its
example in the world; but the attempt to build a New Power on Slavery
as a corner-stone, and with no other declared object of separate
existence, was more than criminal,--or rather it was a crime of that
untold, unspeakable guilt, which no language can depict and no judgment
can be too swift to condemn. The associates in this terrible apostasy
might rebuke each other in the words of an old dramatist:--
“Thou must do, then,
What no malevolent star will dare to look on,
It is so wicked; for which men will curse thee
For being the instrument, and the blest angels
Forsake me at my need for being the author;
For ’tis a deed of night, of night, Francisco!
In which the memory of all good actions
We can pretend to shall be buried quick;
Or, if we be remembered, it shall be
To fright posterity by our example,
That have outgone all precedents of villains
That were before us.”[215]
Recognizing such a power, entering into _semi-alliance_ with such a
power, investing such a power with rights, opening ports to such a
power, surrendering workshops to such a power, building ships for such
a power, driving a busy commerce with such a power,--all this, or any
part of this, is positive and plain complicity with the original guilt,
and must be judged as we judge any other complicity with Slavery. To
say that it was a _necessity_ is only to repeat the perpetual plea by
which slave-masters and slave-traders from the earliest moment have
sought to vindicate their crime. A generous Englishman, the ornament
of letters, from whom we learn in memorable lines “what constitutes a
State,” has denounced all complicity with Slavery in words which strike
directly at this plea of necessity. “Let sugar be as dear as it may,”
wrote Sir William Jones to the freeholders of Middlesex, “it is better
to eat none,--to eat honey, if sweetness only be palatable,--better
to eat aloes or coloquintida, than violate a primary law of Nature
impressed on every heart not imbruted by avarice, than rob one human
creature of those eternal rights of which no law upon earth can justly
deprive him.”[216]
England led in concession of belligerent rights to Rebel Slavery.
No event of the Rebellion compares with this, in encouragement to
transcendent crime, or in prejudice to the United States. Out of
English ports and English workshops Rebel Slavery drew its supplies.
In English ship-yards the cruisers of Rebel Slavery were built and
equipped. From English foundries and arsenals Rebel Slavery was armed.
And all this was made easy, when her Majesty’s Government, under
pretence of an impossible neutrality, lifted Rebel Slavery to equality
with the National Government, and gave to it _belligerent power_ on the
ocean. The early legend was verified. King Arthur was without sword,
when suddenly one appeared, thrust out from a lake. “Lo!” said Merlin,
the enchanter, “yonder is that sword I spake of: it belongeth to the
Lady of the Lake, and _if she will, thou mayest take it; but if she
will not, it will not be in thy power to take it_.”[217] And the Lady
of the Lake yielded the sword, so says the legend, even as England
yielded the sword to Rebel Slavery.
The President saw the painful consequence of this concession, and
especially that it was the first step towards acknowledgment of Rebel
Slavery as an Independent Power. Clearly, if it were proper for a
foreign power to acknowledge Belligerence, it might, at a later stage,
be proper to acknowledge Independence; and any objection vital to
Independence would, if applicable, be equally vital to Belligerence.
Solemn resolutions of Congress on this question were communicated to
foreign powers;[218] but the unanswerable argument against any possible
recognition of a New Power founded on Slavery, whether Independent or
Belligerent, was stated by the President in a paper which I hold in
my hand, and which has never before seen the light. It is a copy of
a resolution drawn by himself, which he consigned to me, in his own
autograph, for transmission to one of our valued friends abroad,[219]
as an expression of opinion on the great question involved, and a
guide to public duty.
“_Whereas_, while _heretofore_ states and nations have
tolerated Slavery, _recently_, for the first [time] in the
world, an attempt has been made to construct a New Nation
upon the basis of Human Slavery, and with the primary and
fundamental object to maintain, enlarge, and perpetuate the
same: Therefore
“_Resolved_, That no such embryo state should ever be
recognized by or admitted into the family of Christian and
civilized nations, and that all Christian and civilized men
everywhere should by all lawful means resist to the utmost such
recognition or admission.”
Observe how distinctly any recognition of Rebel Slavery as an
Independent Power is branded, and how “all Christian and civilized men
everywhere” are summoned to “resist to the utmost such recognition”;
and precisely for the same reason such “Christian and civilized men
everywhere” should have resisted to the utmost any recognition of Rebel
Slavery as a Belligerent Power. Had this benign spirit entered into the
counsels of England when Slavery first took arms, this great historic
nation would have shrunk at all hazard from that fatal concession, in
itself a plain contribution to Slavery, and opening the way to infinite
contributions, without which the criminal pretender must have speedily
succumbed. There would have been no plea of “necessity.” But Divine
Providence willed it otherwise. Perhaps it was essential to the full
revelation of its boundless capacities, that the Republic should stand
forth alone, in sublime solitude, warring for Human Rights, and thus
become an example to mankind.
Meanwhile the war continued with proverbial vicissitudes. Battles were
fought and lost. Other battles were fought and won. Rebel Slavery stood
face to face in deadly conflict with the Declaration of Independence,
when the President, with unconscious power, dealt another blow, second
only to the Proclamation of Emancipation. This was at the blood-soaked
field of Gettysburg, where the armies of the Republic encountered the
armies of Slavery, and, after a conflict of three days, drove them
back with destructive slaughter,--as at that decisive battle of Tours,
on which hung the destinies of Christianity in Western Europe, the
invading Mahometans, after prolonged conflict, were driven back by
Charles “the Hammer.” No battle of the present war was more important.
Few battles in history compare with it. A brief space later occurred
another meeting on that same field. It was of grateful fellow-citizens,
gathered from all parts of the Union for its consecration to the memory
of those who had fallen there. Eminent men of our own country and from
foreign lands united in the service. There, too, was your classic
orator,[220] whose finished address was a model of literary excellence.
The President spoke very briefly; but his few words will live as long
as Time. Since Simonides wrote the epitaph for those who died at
Thermopylæ, nothing equal has ever been breathed over the fallen dead.
Thus he began: “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_.” How grandly, and
yet simply, is the New Nation announced, with the Equality of All Men
as its frontlet! The truths of the Declaration, so often proclaimed by
him, and for which he was willing to die, are inscribed on the altar
of the slain, while the country is summoned to their support, that our
duty may not be left undone.
“It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the
_unfinished work_ which they who fought here have thus far so
nobly advanced. 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 that cause for which they gave the
last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that
these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under
God, shall 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.”[221]
That speech, uttered at the field of Gettysburg, and now sanctified by
the martyrdom of its author, is a monumental act. In the modesty of his
nature, he said: “The world will little note, nor long remember, what
we say here; but it can never forget what they did here.”[222] He was
mistaken. The world noted at once what he said, and will never cease
to remember it. The battle itself was less important than the speech.
Ideas are more than battles.
Among events assuring to him the general confidence against all party
clamor and prejudice, this speech cannot be placed too high. To some
who doubted his earnestness it was touching proof of their error.
Others who followed with indifference were warmed with grateful
sympathy. Many felt its exquisite genius, as well as lofty character.
There were none to criticize.
His reëlection was not only a personal triumph, but a triumph
of the Republic. For himself personally, it was much to find
his administration ratified; but for republican ideas it was of
incalculable value that at such a time the plume of the soldier had
not prevailed. In the midst of war, the people at the ballot-box
deliberately selected the civilian. Ye who doubt the destinies of the
Republic, who fear the ambition of a military chief, or suspect the
popular will, do not forget that at this moment, when the noise of
battle filled the whole land, the country quietly appointed for its
ruler this man of peace.
The Inaugural Address which signalized his entry for a second time
upon his great duties was briefer than any in our history; but it has
already gone further, and it will live longer, than any other. It was
a continuation of the Gettysburg speech, with the same sublimity and
gentleness. Its concluding words were like an angelic benediction.
* * * * *
And now there was surfeit of battle and of victory. Calmly he saw
the land of Slavery enveloped by the national forces,--saw the great
coil bent by his generals about it,--saw the mighty _garrote_, as it
tightened against the neck of the Rebellion. Good news came from all
quarters. Everywhere the army was doing its duty. One was conquering in
Tennessee; another was advancing in Georgia and Carolina; another was
watching at Richmond. The navy echoed back the thunders of the army.
Place after place was falling,--Savannah, Charleston, Fort Fisher,
Wilmington. The President left the National Capital to be near the
Lieutenant-General. Then came the capture of Petersburg and Richmond,
with the flight of Jefferson Davis and his Cabinet. Without pomp or
military escort, the President entered the Capital of the Rebellion,
and walked its streets, from which Slavery had fled forever. Then came
the surrender of Lee; that of Johnston was at hand. The military power
of Rebel Slavery was broken like a Prince-Rupert’s drop, and everywhere
within its confines the barbarous government tumbled in crash and ruin.
The country was in ecstasy. All this he beheld without elation, while
his soul was brooding on thoughts of peace and clemency. On the morning
of Friday, 14th April, his youthful son, who had been on the staff of
the Lieutenant-General, returned to resume his interrupted studies. The
father was happy in the sound of his footsteps, and felt the augury
of peace. During the same day the Lieutenant-General returned. In the
intimacy of his family the President said, “This day the war is over.”
In the evening he sought relaxation, and you know the rest. Alas! the
war was not over. The minions of Slavery were dogging him with unabated
animosity, and that night he became a martyr.
The country rose at once in agony of grief, and everywhere strong men
wept. City, town, and village were darkened by the general obsequies.
Every street was draped. Only ensigns of woe were seen. He had become,
as it were, the inmate of every house, and the families of the land
were in mourning. Not in the Executive mansion only, but in uncounted
homes, was his vacant chair. Never before such universal sorrow.
Already the voice of lamentation is returning from Europe, where candor
towards him had begun even before his tragical death. A short time ago
he was unknown, except in his own State. A short time ago he visited
New York as a stranger, and was shown about its streets by youthful
companions. Five years later he was borne through those streets with
funeral pomp such as the world never witnessed before. Space and
speed were forgotten in the offering of hearts; and as the surpassing
pageant, with more than “sceptred pall,” moved on iron highways, over
Counties and States, from ocean-side to prairie, the whole afflicted
people bowed their uncovered heads.
It was hard to comprehend this blow, and many cried in despair. But the
rule of God is too visible to allow doubt of His constant presence.
Did not our martyr in his last address remind us that the judgments
of the Lord are true and righteous altogether? And who will say that
his death was not a judgment of the Lord? Perhaps it was needed to
lift the country into a more perfect justice and to inspire a sublimer
faith. Perhaps it was sent in love, to set a sacred, irreversible seal
upon the good he had done, and to put Emancipation beyond all mortal
question. Perhaps it was the sacrificial consecration of those primal
truths embodied in the birthday Declaration of the Republic, which he
had so often vindicated, and for which he had announced his willingness
to die.
He is gone, and he has been mourned sincerely. Only private sorrow
would recall the dead. He is now removed beyond earthly vicissitudes.
Life and death are both past. He had been happy in life: he was not
less happy in death. In death, as in life, he was still under the
guardianship of that Divine Providence, which, taking him early by the
hand, led him from obscurity to power and fame. The blow was sudden,
but not unprepared for. Only on the Sunday preceding, as he was
coming from the front on board the steamer, with a beautiful quarto
Shakespeare in his hands, he read aloud the well-remembered words of
his favorite “Macbeth”:--
“Duncan is in his grave;
After life’s fitful fever, he sleeps well.
Treason has done his worst; nor steel, nor poison,
Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing,
Can touch him further.”[223]
Impressed by their beauty, or by some presentiment unuttered, he read
them aloud a second time. As the friends about listened to his reading,
they little thought how in a few days what was said of the murdered
Duncan would be said of him. “Nothing can touch him further.” He is
saved from the trials that were gathering. He had fought the good
fight of Emancipation. He had borne the brunt of war with embattled
hosts, and conquered. He had made the name of Republic a triumph and
a joy in foreign lands. Now that the strife of blood was ended, it
remained to be seen how he could confront those machinations which
are only _prolongation of the war_, and more dangerous because more
subtle,--where recent Rebels, with professions of Union on the lips,
but still denying the birthday Declaration of the Republic, vainly seek
to organize peace on _another Oligarchy of the skin_. From all these
trials he was saved. But his testimony lives, and will live forever,
speaking by his life, speaking yet again by his death. Invisible to
mortal sight, and now above all human weakness, he is still champion,
as in his early conflict, summoning his countrymen _back to the
truths in the Declaration of Independence_. Dead, he speaks with more
than living voice. But the author of Emancipation cannot die. His
immortality on earth has begun. Country and age are already enshrined
in his example, as if he were the great poet gathered to his fathers.
“Back to the living hath he turned him,
And all of death has passed away;
The age that thought him dead and mourned him
Itself now lives but in his lay.”[224]
If the President were on earth, he would protest against any monotony
of panegyric. He never exaggerated. He was always cautious in praise,
as in censure. In endeavor to estimate his character, we shall be
nearer him in proportion as we cultivate the same spirit.
In person he was tall and bony, with little resemblance to any
historic portrait, unless he might seem in one respect to justify the
epithet given to an early English king.[225] As he stood, his form
was angular, with something of that straightness in lines so peculiar
in the figure of Dante by Flaxman. His countenance had more of rugged
strength than his person, and, while in repose, inclined to sadness;
yet it lighted easily. Perhaps the quality that struck most at first
was his constant simplicity of manner and conversation, without form
or ceremony beyond that among neighbors. His handwriting had the same
simplicity. It was clear as that of Washington, but less florid. Each
had been surveyor, and was perhaps indebted to this experience. But
the son of the Western pioneer was more simple in nature, and the man
appeared in the autograph. An integrity which has become a proverb
belonged to the same quality. The most perfect honesty must be the
most perfect simplicity. Words by which an ancient Roman was described
picture him,--“_Vita innocentissimus, proposito sanctissimus_.”[226]
He was naturally humane, inclined to pardon, and never remembered hard
things against himself. He was always good to the poor, and in dealings
with them was full of those “kind little words which are of the same
blood as great and holy deeds.” On the Saturday before his death I saw
him shake hands with more than five thousand soldier patients in the
tent-hospitals at City Point, and he told me afterwards that his arm
was not tired. Such a character awakened the instinctive sympathy of
the people. They saw his fellow-feeling, and felt the kinship. With him
as President, the idea of Republican Institutions, where no place is
too high for the humblest, was perpetually apparent; so that his simple
presence was like a Proclamation of Human Equality.
While social in nature and enjoying the flow of conversation, he was
often reticent. Modesty was natural to such a character. Without
affectation, so was he without pretension or jealousy. No person,
civil or military, complains that he appropriated to himself any
honor belonging to another. To each and all he gave the credit that
was due. And this same spirit appeared in smaller things. In a sally
of Congressional debate, he exclaimed, that a fiery slave-master of
Georgia, who had just spoken, was “an eloquent man, and a man of
learning, so far as he could judge, not being learned himself.”[227]
His humor, like his integrity, has become a proverb. Sometimes he
insisted that he had no invention, but only memory. Good things heard
he did not forget, and he was never without a familiar story. When he
spoke, the recent West seemed to vie with the ancient East in apologue
and fable. His ideas moved, as the beasts entered Noah’s ark, in pairs.
His illustrations had a homely felicity, and seemed not less important
to him than the argument, which he always enforced with a certain
emphasis of manner and voice. This same humor was often displayed where
there was no story, and with a point that might recall Franklin. I
know not how the indifference to Slavery exhibited by so many could be
exposed more effectively than when he said of a political antagonist
thus offending, “I suppose the institution of Slavery really looks
small to him. He is so put up by nature, that a lash upon his back
would hurt him, but a lash upon anybody else’s back does not hurt
him.” And then again there is a bit of reply to Mr. Douglas, most
characteristic not only for humor, but as showing how little at that
time he was looking to the great place he reached so soon afterwards.
“Senator Douglas,” said he, “is of world-wide renown. All the anxious
politicians of his party, or who have been of his party for years past,
have been looking upon him as certainly, at no distant day, to be the
President of the United States. They have seen in his round, jolly,
fruitful face post-offices, land-offices, marshalships and cabinet
appointments, chargéships and foreign missions, bursting and sprouting
out in wonderful exuberance, ready to be laid hold of by their greedy
hands.… _On the contrary, nobody has ever expected me to be President._
In my poor, lean, lank face nobody has ever seen that any cabbages
were sprouting out. These are disadvantages, all taken together,
that the Republicans labor under. We have to fight this battle upon
principle, and upon principle alone.”[228] Here is a glimpse of
himself, as honorable as curious. In a different vein, he said, while
President, “The United States Government must not undertake to run the
churches.”[229] Here wisdom and humor vie with each other.
He was original in mind as in character. His style was his own, having
no model, but springing directly from himself. Failing often in
correctness, it is sometimes unique in beauty and sentiment. There are
passages which will live always. It is no exaggeration to say, that,
in weight and pith, suffused in a certain poetical color, they call to
mind Bacon’s Essays. Theirs also was a touching reality and unconscious
power, without form or apparent effort. Nothing similar can be found in
state-papers. How poor are kings’ speeches and Presidential messages
by the side of such utterances, fit harbingers of the sublime era of
Humanity!
He was placed by Providence at the head of his country during an
unprecedented crisis, when the fountains of the great deep were broken
up, and men turned for protection to military power. Multitudinous
armies were mustered. Great navies were created. Of all these he was
constitutional commander-in-chief. As the war proceeded, prerogatives
enlarged and others sprang into being, until the sway of a Republican
President became imperatorial, imperial. But not for one moment did the
modesty of his nature desert. His constant thought was his country,
and how to serve it. He saw the certain greatness of the Republic, and
was pleased in looking forward to that early day, when, according to
assured calculation, its millions of people will count by the hundred;
but this prodigious sway was commended to him only by the good of man.
Personal ambition at the expense of patriotism was as far removed from
the simple purity of his nature as poison from a strawberry. And thus,
with equal courage in the darkest hours, he continued on, heeding as
little the warnings of danger as the temptations of power. “It would
not do for a President,” he said, “to have guards with drawn sabres
at his door, as if he fancied he were, or were trying to be, or were
assuming to be, an Emperor.” In the same homeliness he spoke of his
morning return to daily duty as “opening shop.” Though commissioning
officers in multitudes beyond any other person of authentic history,
he never learned the mystery of shoulder-straps or of buttons in the
military and naval uniforms, except that he noticed three stars on the
shoulders of the Lieutenant-General.
When he became President, he was without any considerable experience
in public affairs; nor was he much versed in history, whose lessons
would have been valuable. Becoming more familiar with the place, his
facility increased. He had “learned the ropes,” so he said. But his
habits of business were irregular, and never those of despatch. He did
not see at once the just proportions of things, and allowed himself to
be occupied by details. Even in small affairs, as well as great, there
was in him a certain resistance to be overcome. Moments occurred when
this delay excited impatience, and the transcendent question seemed to
suffer. But when the blow fell, there was nothing but gratitude, and
all confessed the singleness with which he sought the public good. A
conviction prevailed, that, though slow to reach his conclusion, he
was inflexible in maintaining it. Pompey boasted that by the stamp of
his foot he could raise an army. The President did this by a word, and
more: according to his own saying, he “put his foot down,” and saved a
principle.
This firmness in the right, as he saw it, was an anchor which held
always. Emancipation, once adopted, was safe against recall or change.
From time to time his determination was repeated in terms which
awakened a throb in every liberty-loving bosom,--as when, in the
summer before the Presidential election, in his letter “To whom it may
concern,” he announced “the abandonment of Slavery” as an essential
condition of peace,[230] and thus again proclaimed Emancipation,--or
when, on another occasion, he said, in simple words, “And the promise,
being made, must be kept,”[231]--and then again exclaimed, loftily, in
words good to repeat, “If the people should, by whatever mode or means,
make it an Executive duty to reënslave such persons, another, and not
I, must be their instrument to perform it.”[232] All this was beautiful
and grand. Sodom was burning, but there was no disposition to look back.
In statement of moral truth and exposure of wrong he was at times
singularly cogent. There was fire as well as light in his words. Nobody
more clearly exhibited Slavery in its enormity. On one occasion, he
branded it as a “monstrous injustice”; on another, he pictured the
slave-masters as “wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s
faces”; and then, on still another, he said, with fine simplicity
of diction, “If Slavery is not wrong, then nothing is wrong.” Would
you find condemnation more complete, you must go to John Brown, or
to those famous words of John Wesley, where the great Methodist held
up Slavery as the “execrable sum of all villanies.” Another mind,
more submissive to the truth he recognized, and less disposed to take
counsel of to-morrow, would have hesitated less in carrying this
judgment forward to its natural conclusion. His courage to apply truth
was not always equal to his clearness in seeing it. The heights he
gained in conscience were not always sustained in conduct. And have
we not been told that the soul can gain heights it cannot keep? Thus,
while condemning Slavery, he still waited, till many feared that with
him judgment would “lose the name of action.” Even while exalting Human
Equality, assailed and derided by one of our ablest debaters, and
insisting, with admirable constancy, that all, without distinction of
color, are within the birthday promises of the Republic, he yet allowed
himself to be pressed by his adversary to an illogical limitation of
political rights. But he was willing at all times to learn, and not
ashamed to change. Before death he expressed a desire that suffrage
should be accorded to colored persons in certain cases; yet here
again he failed to apply the great Declaration for which he so often
contended. If suffrage be accorded to colored persons only in certain
cases, then, of course, it can be accorded to whites only in the same
cases,--or Equality ceases.
It was his own frank confession that he had not controlled events,
but they had controlled him. At the important stages of the war, he
followed rather than led. The people, under God, were masters. Let it
not be forgotten that the national triumphs, and even Emancipation
itself, sprang from the great heart of the American people. Individual
services have been important, but there is no man who was necessary.
On one theme he inclined latterly to guide the public mind: it was the
treatment of the Rebel leaders. His policy was never announced, and of
course would have been subject to modification always in the light of
experience. But it is known that at the moment of his assassination he
was occupied by thoughts of lenity and pardon. He was never harsh, even
in speaking of Jefferson Davis; and only a few days before his end,
when one who was privileged to address him in that way said, “Do not
allow him to escape the law, he must be hanged,” the President replied
calmly, in the words so beautifully adopted in his last Inaugural
Address, “Judge not, that ye be not judged”; and when pressed again by
the remark that the sight of Libby Prison made it impossible to pardon
him, the President repeated twice over the same words. The question
of clemency to our Rebels is the very theme so ably debated between
Cæsar and Cato, while the Roman Senate was considering how to treat
the confederates of Catiline. Cæsar consented to confiscation and
imprisonment, but pleaded for life. Cato was sterner. It is probable
that the President, who was a Cato in patriotism, would have followed
the counsels of Cæsar.
Good-will to all men was with him a science as well as a sentiment. His
nature was pacific, and throughout the terrible conflict his thoughts
were always turned on peace. He wished peace among ourselves, and
he wished peace with foreign powers. While abounding in gratitude
to returned officers and men, who had fought the national battle so
well, he longed to see the sword in its scabbard, never again to flash
against the sky. His prudence found expression in the saying, “One war
at a time”; but his whole nature seemed to say, “Peace always.” And yet
it was his fortune to conduct one of the greatest wars in all time.
“With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the
right, as God gives us to see the right,”[233]--so he worked and lived;
and these words of his own might be his honest epitaph.
* * * * *
His place in history may be seen from the transcendent events with
which his name must be forever associated. The pyramids of our country
are built by the people more than by any ruler; but the ruler of the
people at such a moment cannot be forgotten.
It is impossible to exaggerate the Proclamation of Emancipation as
an historic event. Its influence cannot be limited to the present in
place or time. It will reach beyond the national jurisdiction, and
beyond the present age. Besides its immediate efficacy in liberating
slaves at home, it rises already a landmark of Human Progress. From the
solidarity of Slavery, the fall of this abomination among us must cause
its fall everywhere,--so that in Cuba, Porto Rico, Brazil, or wherever
else a slave now wears a chain, that Proclamation will be felt. Proudly
will it be recognized always in the destinies of the Republic. Only a
short time before, the Czar of Russia, also by proclamation, raised
twenty millions of serfs to the dignity of freemen; but even this
eminent act was less historic. Though of incalculable importance to
the serfs, it was not the triumph of Popular Government, and it came
from the East instead of the West. It is to the West that the world
now looks for sunrise. “_Video solem orientem in occidente._”[234] But
the Emancipation Proclamation itself was an agency in the military
overthrow of the Rebellion, which, if regarded as an achievement of
war, is one of the greatest in the annals of war, but, if regarded
in political consequences, is an epoch of history. Here, again, the
magnitude of the event is fully appreciated only when it is considered
that the triumph of the Republic is the triumph of Popular Institutions
everywhere. It is much that the Republic has become impregnable,
whether against “malice domestic” or “foreign levy”; but it is more
that it has become an example to the world. That all this should be
done under a President representing especially the people, speaking
always in sympathy with the people in words of power never to be
forgotten, and sealing his devotion with life, adds to the splendor of
the example.
His are great heralds, such as few have had as they entered the lofty
portals. Our martyred dead is seen also in the company to which
he is admitted, among the purest of all time,--martyrs, patriots,
philanthropists, servants of truth and duty. Milton, Hampden, Sidney,
Wilberforce, all welcome the new-comer. Washington leads the hosts of
his own country, from the Pilgrims of the Mayflower to the thronging
crowds who have laid down their lives for the Republic.
By the association of a similar death he passes into the same galaxy
with Cæsar, William of Orange, and Henry the Fourth of France, all of
whom were assassinated,--and his star will not pale by the side of
theirs. Cæsar was a contrast in everything, unless in clemency, and the
coincidence that each at the time of sacrifice was fifty-six years of
age. How unlike in all else! Cæsar was of brilliant lineage, which he
traced on one side to the immortal gods, and on the other to a recent
chief of Rome,--of completest education,--of amplest means,--of rarest
experience,--of acknowledged genius as statesman, soldier, orator, and
writer, being in himself the most finished man of Antiquity; but he was
the enslaver of his country, whose personal ambition took the place of
patriotism, and whose name has become the synonym of imperial power.
Of princely birth and great riches, William of Orange began as page in
the household of Charles the Fifth, on whose wide-spread dominions, the
largest of modern history, the sun never set. The youthful page became
companion and intimate of the powerful Emperor. Unawed and unseduced,
he upheld the liberties of his country, which he conducted wisely,
surely, grandly,--anticipating the example of Washington. His name of
“Silent” suggests the reticence of his American parallel, like whom he
was also a liberator. Henry the Fourth, of the House of Bourbon, was a
king memorable for practical sense, anecdote, and pregnant wit, with a
certain Gallic salt. He, too, knew the trials of civil war, which he
closed in peace and crowned with mercy. The National Unity prevailed in
him. The age of fifty-six witnessed also his death, leaving great plans
unfulfilled, and his career emblazoned by the popular epic of his
country, “La Henriade” of Voltaire. These are illustrious names; but
there is nothing in them to eclipse the simple life of our President,
whose example, commemorated by history and by song, will be the pride
of humanity and a rebuke to every usurper. The cause he served was more
than empire. The motive of his conduct was higher than success,--as
devotion to Human Rights is higher than genius or power, as man is
higher than aught else on earth.
More like him in certain aspects was the Roman Emperor Vespasian,
whose just sway was prolonged in Titus, his son. Without ancestry or
rank, he rose to the loftiest power, and, when on these heights, never
dissembled the humility of his origin. The simplicity and frugality of
early life were continued on the throne of the world. There was in the
Emperor a kindred humanity, and the same fondness for story and jest.
But the common feature, bringing the two into one historic family, was
generous indulgence to political opponents. It belongs to the fame
of our President that in selections for the public service he forgot
all personal differences. Capacity and devotion to the country were
controlling recommendations, before which every thought of opposition
or rivalry, or even of injury, disappeared. Here the Roman Emperor
anticipated the American President; for the contemporary historian,
in his brief record, presents him as “very little mindful of affronts
and enmities, or vindictive on their account.”[235] Such a character,
whether at Rome or Washington, is an example for all.
There is another character, taken away close upon the age of
fifty-six,[236] who seems to have revived in the President. Do not be
astonished, when I mention St. Louis of France. Difference of epoch and
of objects occupying attention cannot obscure certain kindred features,
and especially the common consecration of their lives. The French
monarch, though at the head of a military power, was a lover of peace,
and cultivated justice towards his neighbors. Through him a barbarous
institution was overthrown, and France advanced in civilization. The
Trial by Battle, against which he launched a noble ordinance, was a
curse not inferior to our Slavery. In an age of violence he was gentle.
In an age of privilege, and wearing a crown, he was moved to the
practice of Equality. History recalls with undisguised applause the
simple justice he delighted to administer, sitting under an oak in the
park of Vincennes. Our President launched his ordinance at a barbarous
institution, and advanced his country. He, too, practised Equality. And
he, also, had his oak of Vincennes. It was that plain room where he
was always so accessible as to make his example difficult for future
Presidents. At stated times he was open to all who came with petitions,
and they flocked across the continent. The transactions of that simple
court of last resort would show how much was done to temper the law,
to assuage sorrow, and to care for the widow and orphan; but its only
record is in heaven.
* * * * *
Such, fellow-citizens, are the Life and Character of Abraham Lincoln.
You have discerned his simple beginnings,--have watched his early
struggles,--have gratefully followed his dedication to the truths our
fathers declared,--have hailed him twice-elected head of the Republic,
through whom it was known in foreign lands,--have recognized him at
a period of national peril as representative of the _unfulfilled
promises_ made by our fathers, even as Washington was representative
of National Independence,--and you have beheld him struck down at
the moment of victory, when Rebel Slavery was everywhere succumbing.
Reverently we acknowledge the finger of the Almighty, and pray that our
great trials may not fail, to the end that the promises of the Fathers
may be fulfilled,--those promises, so great and glorious, which make
the Declaration a title-deed of mankind.
Traitorous Assassination struck him down. Yet be not vindictive
towards the poor atom that held the weapon. Reserve your rage for the
responsible power, which, not content with assailing the life of the
Republic, outraged all law, human and divine,--organized Barbarism
as a principle of conduct,--took the lives of faithful Unionists at
home,--prepared robbery and murder on the northern borders,--fired
hotels, the home of women and children,--plotted to scatter pestilence
and poison,--perpetrated piracy and ship-burning at sea,--starved
American citizens in prolonged captivity,--inflicted the slow torture
of Andersonville and Libby,--menaced assassination always,--and now,
at last, true to itself, has assassinated our President: and this
responsible power is none other than Slavery. It is Slavery that has
taken the life of our beloved Chief Magistrate; and here is another
triumph of its Barbarism. On Slavery let vengeance fall. Spare, if you
please, the worm it employs; but do not, I entreat you, yield amnesty
to this murderous wickedness. Ravaillac, who took the life of the
French Henry, was torn in pieces on the public square before the City
Hall by four powerful horses, each fastened to one of his limbs, and
rending in opposite directions, until, at last, after fearful struggle,
nothing of the wretched assassin remained to the executioner except his
bloody shirt, which was at once handed over to be burned. Such be our
vengeance; and let Slavery be the victim.
And not only Slavery, which is another name for property in man, but
also that other pretension, not less irrational and hateful, that Human
Rights can depend on color. This is the bloody shirt of the assassin;
let it be handed over to be burned.
Such a vengeance will be a kiss of reconciliation; for it will remove
every obstacle to peace and harmony. The people where Slavery once
ruled will bless the blow that destroyed it. The people where the
kindred tyranny of Caste once prevailed will rejoice that this fell
under the same blow. They will yet confess that it was dealt in no
harshness, in no unkindness, in no desire to humiliate, but simply and
solemnly, in the name of the Republic and of Human Nature, for their
good as well as ours,--ay, for their good more than ours.
By ideas, more than by armies, we have conquered. The sword of the
Archangel was less mighty than the mission he bore from the Lord. But
if the ideas giving us the victory are now neglected, if the pledges
of the Declaration, which the Rebellion openly assailed, are left
unredeemed, then have blood and treasure been lavished for nought. Alas
for the dead who gave themselves so bravely to their country, alas for
the living left to mourn the dead, if any relic of Slavery is allowed
to continue!--especially if this bloody imposture, defeated in the
pretension of property in man, is allowed to perpetuate an oligarchy of
the skin!
How shall these ideas be saved? How shall the war waged by Abraham
Lincoln be brought to an end, so as to assure peace, tranquillity, and
reconciliation? All turns on the colored suffrage. This is the centre
and pivot of national safety. A mistake now is worse than the loss of
a battle. And yet here again we encounter the Rebellion in its odious
pretensions, hardly less audacious than when it took up arms. Amidst
its expiring camp-fires, the men who have trimmed them--with fresh
oaths of allegiance on the lips--renew their early activity in plotting
how to preserve an oligarchical power. The demon of Caste follows
the demon of Slavery. In setting ourselves against this accursed
succession, we follow the solemn behests of the Great Declaration, so
constantly championed by the martyred President. And now, as I close
this humble tribute, let me ask you to adopt that championship, which
was his first title to national gratitude, and is now his best. Let
each be standard-bearer of the Declaration. I cannot err, if, speaking
at his funeral, I detain you to insist upon this absorbing duty, where
for the moment all other duties are swallowed up.
* * * * *
The argument for colored suffrage is overwhelming. It springs from the
necessity of the case, as well as from the Rights of Man. This suffrage
is needed for the security of the colored people, for the stability of
the local government, and for the strength of the Union. Without it
there is nothing but insecurity for the colored people, instability for
the local government, and weakness for the Union, involving of course
the national credit. Without it the Rebellion will break forth under a
new _alias_, unarmed it may be, but with white votes to take possession
of the local government and wield it at will, whether at home or in the
national councils. If it be said that the colored people are unfit,
then do I show that they are more fit than their recent masters, or
than the “poor whites.” They have been loyal always; and who is he,
that, under any pretence, exalts the prejudices of the disloyal above
the rights of the loyal? Their suffrage is now needed,--more even than
you ever needed their muskets or sabres. An English statesman, after
the acknowledgment of the Spanish Colonies as Independent States,
boasted that he had called a new world into existence to redress the
balance of the old. In similar spirit, we, too, must call a new ballot
into existence to redress the tyranny that refuses justice to the
colored race.
The same national authority that destroyed Slavery must see that this
other pretension is not permitted to survive; nor is there any doubt
that the authority which destroyed Slavery is competent to the kindred
duty. Each belongs to that great policy of justice through which
alone can peace become permanent and immutable. Nor may the Republic
shirk this remaining service, without leaving Emancipation unfinished
and the early promises of the Fathers unfulfilled. Vain the gift of
Liberty, if you surrender the rights of the freedman to be judged
by recent assertors of property in man. Burke, in his day, saw the
flagrant inconsistency, and denounced it, saying that whatever such
people did on this subject was “arrant trifling,” and, notwithstanding
its plausible form, always wanted what he aptly called “the executory
principle.”[237] These words of warning were adopted and repeated by
two later statesmen, George Canning and Henry Brougham; but they are so
clear as not to need support of names. The infant must not be handed
over to be suckled by the wolf; it must be carefully nursed by its
parent; and since the Republic is parent of Emancipation, the Republic
must nurse the immortal infant into maturity and strength. The Republic
at the beginning took up this great work: the Republic must finish what
it began; and it cannot err, if, in anxious care, it holds nothing
done so long as anything remains undone. The Republic, with matchless
energy, hurled forward victorious armies: the Republic must exact that
“security for the future” without which this unparalleled war will
have been waged in vain. The Republic to-day, with one consenting
voice, commemorates the martyred victim: the same Republic, prompt in
this service, must require that his promises to an oppressed race be
maintained in all their integrity and completeness, in letter and in
spirit, so that the cause for which he became a sacrifice shall not
fail; his martyrdom was a new pledge, beyond any even in life.
The colored suffrage is an overwhelming necessity. In making it an
essential condition of restoration, we follow, first, the law of reason
and of Nature, and, secondly, the Constitution, not only in its text,
but in the light of the Declaration. By reason and Nature there can be
no denial of rights on account of color; and we can do nothing thus
irrational and unnatural. By the Constitution it is stipulated that
“the United States shall guaranty to every State _a republican form of
government_”; but the meaning of this guaranty must be found in the
birthday Declaration of the Republic, which is the controlling preamble
of the Constitution. Beyond all question, the United States, when
called to enforce the guaranty, must insist on _the equality of all
before the law_, and _the consent of the governed_. Such is the true
idea of republican government according to American institutions.
The Slave-Masters, driven from their first intrenchments, occupy inner
defences. Property in man is abandoned; but they now insist that the
freedman shall not enjoy political rights. Liberty has been won. The
battle for Equality is still pending. And now a new compromise is
proposed, in the name of State Rights. Sad that it should be so. But I
do not despair. The victory may be delayed, but not lost. All who set
themselves against Equality will be overborne; for it is the cause of
Humanity. Not the rich and proud, but the poor and lowly, will be the
favorites of an enfranchised Republic. The words of the Prophet must be
fulfilled: “And I will punish the world for their evil, and the wicked
for their iniquity; and I will cause the arrogancy of the proud to
cease, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible. I WILL MAKE
A MAN MORE PRECIOUS THAN FINE GOLD, EVEN A MAN, THAN THE GOLDEN WEDGE
OF OPHIR.”[238] I accept these sublime promises, and echo them back as
assurance of triumph. Then will the Republic be all that heart can
desire or imagination paint,--“_supremely lovely and serenely great,
majestic mother_” of a free, happy, and united people, with Slavery
and all its tyranny beaten down under foot, so that no man shall call
another master, and all shall be equal before the law.
In this great victory death is swallowed up, and before us is the
vision of the Republic performing all that was promised. How easy,
then, the passage from sorrow to exultation!
* * * * *
Fellow-citizens, be happy in what you have. Mourn not the dead, but
rejoice in his life and example. Rejoice, as you point to this child of
the people, who was lifted so high that Republican Institutions became
manifest in him. Rejoice that through him Emancipation was proclaimed.
Rejoice that under him “government of the people, by the people, and
for the people” obtained a final verdict never to be set aside or
questioned. Above all, see to it that his constant vows are performed,
and the promises of the Fathers maintained, so that no person in the
upright form of man is shut out from their protection. Do this, and the
Unity of the Republic will be fixed on a foundation that cannot fail.
The corner-stone of National Independence is already in its place, and
on it is inscribed the name of GEORGE WASHINGTON. Another stone must
also have place at the corner. It is the great Declaration itself,
once a promise, at last a reality. On this adamantine block we will
gratefully inscribe the name of ABRAHAM LINCOLN.