sustain you. I scarcely need add, that with what I here speak for the nation, goes my own hearty personal concurrence." My father, taking from his pocket a sheet of paper containing the words that he had written the night before, read quietly and modestly, to the President and his Cabinet: "MR. PRESIDENT: I accept the commission with gratitude for the high honor conferred. With the aid of the noble armies that have fought in so many fields for our common country, it will be my earnest endeavor not to disappoint your expectations. I feel the full weight of the responsibilities now devolving upon me, and I know that if they are met, it will be due to those armies, and, above all, to the favor of that Providence which leads both nations and men." President Lincoln seemed to be profoundly happy, and General Grant deeply gratified. It was a supreme moment when these two patriots shook hands, in confirming the compact that was to finish our terrible Civil War and to save our united country, and to give us a nation without master and without a slave. From the time of these meetings, the friendship between the President and my father was most close and loyal. President Lincoln seemed to have absolute confidence in General Grant, and my father always spoke of the President with the deepest admiration and affection. This affection and loyal confidence was maintained between them until their lives ended. I feel deeply grateful to have been present when these two patriots met, on the occasion when they loyally promised one another to preserve the Union at all costs. I preserve always, as a treasure in my home, a large bronze medallion which was designed by a distinguished artist at the request of the loyal citizens of Philadelphia, upon the happy termination of our great Civil War, and which is a beautiful work of art. Upon this bronze medallion are three faces, in relief, with the superscription: "Washington the Father, Lincoln the Saviour, and Grant the Preserver"-emblematic of a great and patriotic trinity. A VOICE FROM THE SOUTH WHAT HON. J. M. DICKINSON HAT 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 but are the mosh Gras. potent factors in making That he was truly garah, and that his fam will Endure settled bry by and wal the deliberate judgment the world. ''На на THe ha the unique distinction of receiving the tribute of general and outspoken sentiments of nepul admiration and good will, and that within forty four years from his death, for Facsimile of Manuscript Tribute from Hon. John New York Public Li ོགས ས པ Isnth St. Br.. 112 East 96th Stree CIRCULATING SO |