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A VOICE FROM THE SOUTH

HON. J. M. DICKINSON

WHAT I say will carry no significance, if I voice merely

my personal sentiments, though they accord entirely with the spirit that prompted this memorial, and pervades this assembly. But in what esteem the South holds the name and fame of Abraham Lincoln is of national interest. All present should with sincere solemnity unite in honoring him, who is and always will be regarded as one of the world's immortals, and there should be no note of discord in the grand diapason which swells up from a grateful people in this Centennial Celebration. I would have stayed away, if I could not heartily respond to the spirit of the occasion; and would not speak in the representative character implied by an introduction as a "Voice from the South," if I did not believe that what I will say is a true reflection of the feelings and judgment of those who have the best right to be regarded as sponsors for the South. I recall as vividly as if it were to-day, when, in 1860, a messenger, with passionate excitement, dashed up to our school in Mississippi, the State of Jefferson Davis, and proclaimed that Abraham Lincoln was elected. The Brides of Enderby did not ring out in more dismal tones, or carry a greater shock to the hearts of the people. We had passed through a political campaign unsurpassed in bitterness. The true Lincoln had not been fully revealed, and had been transformed in the South-as the great protagonist of the South was transformed in the North-by the heat of the fiercest controversy that our country had ever experienced.

In the youthful imagination stirred to its highest pitch by the explosive sentiment of the times, without the corrective of mature judgment, Lincoln's name was invested with such terrors as the Chimera inspired in the children of Lycia. A

wave of emotions, feelings of indignation, commingled with a vague sense of impending evil, swept over us. Our souls mirrored the spirit of the times and its environment. From that day to the surrender at Appomattox, we would not have regretted the death of Lincoln any more than did the people of the North the fall of Stonewall Jackson. The War was protracted. There was time for revision of impressions. Sorrow in Protean forms, that pervaded every household, and, like the croaking raven, seemed as if it would never more depart, attuned their souls to an appreciation that those in the high tide of happiness and prosperity can never fully have, of facts that revealed a gentle spirit and a heart that was womanly in its tenderness, and in its sympathies commensurate with human suffering. Amid the peans of victory, sorrows over defeat, the times of hope, the periods of despair, congratulations to the victorious living, dirges for the dead; in the gloomy intervals, all too short, when they were not sustained by the excitement of battle, there drifted in stories of generous acts, soft words, and brotherly sentiments from him whom they had regarded as their most implacable enemy. They came to know that his heart was a stranger to hatred, that he was willing to efface himself if his country might be exalted, and that his love for the Union surpassed all other considerations.

They were profoundly impressed, when, at his Second Inaugural—a time when it was apparent that the Confederacy was doomed-he said:

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to 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 orphanto do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations."

With this favorable condition for responsive sentiment, the scene changed. Appomattox came, and then in quick sequence a total surrender. A civilization which developed some qualities of splendor and worth never surpassed-a civilization allied with an institution which all other Christian countries

had freed themselves of, and subsequently condemned, but which the South, with its conditions and environments, could not at once, without precipitating an immeasurable catastrophe, abolish-fell into financial, social, and political ruin as complete as that which overwhelmed the people of Messina.

The world did not spontaneously comfort them with tender words and overwhelm them with generous aid. Foreign nations dared not offend the triumphant flag. Potential voices at the North rang out fiercely for a bloody assize. Then it was that the great patriot, undazzled by success, untouched by the spirit of revenge, moved by generous sympathies, with the eye of a seer, looked beyond the passions of the times, saw the surest way for consolidating this people into a Union of hearts as well as of States, and, stretching out his commanding arm over the turbulent waters, said, "Peace, be still."

The magnanimous terms granted to their surrendered soldiers convinced the Southern people that Lincoln, having accomplished by force of arms the great work of saving the union of the States, would consecrate himself with equal devotion to the no less arduous and important work, for the endurance of our national life, of rehabilitating the seceding States, restoring to effective citizenship those who had sought to establish an independent government, and bringing them back to the allegiance which they had disavowed. There was a new estimate by the Southern people of his character and motives. They learned that he was not inspired by personal ambition, that he was full of the spirit of abnegation, even to the point of self-abasement, that he did not exult over them in victory, but sorrowed with those in affliction, that his heart was always responsive to distress, his soul full of magnanimity, and that he was filled with a patriotism which held in its loving embrace our entire country. With this new aspect in which he was regarded by our people, I well remember where I stood, and the consternation that filled all faces, when his assassination was announced. I will not say that some fierce natures, that some of the thoughtless, did not exult. But, as a witness of the times, I testify that there was general manifestation of sorrow and indignation. I would not convey the im

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Facsimile of Manuscript Tribute from Hon. John
Secretary of War (First page)

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Manuscript Tribute from Hon. John M. Dickinson,
Secretary of War (Second page)

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