hopes

dary

is a

of are others wrought moch to destroy. That this feeling of the South toward Mr Lincoln should wish at this tribute both to his greate Character, ability, humanity, geuthness and patriation, and the sense of pistien, bearth of judgment, and independence of thought of the Southern people, who fought for a principle, acapted the resuch of war, and have the magnanimity to appreciate and to show their appreciatim of salted worth Cowin though beli & emplified

who apposed their

mosh Cherished hopes.

IM Dixinom

Jum 9.1909

pression that it was an exponent of such feeling for Lincoln as went out from the people of the North. That would have been as unnatural at that time, as it would have been ignoble to rejoice over his suffering, or approve the dastardly act that laid him low. It came partly from such chivalric spirit as that which evoked the lament of Percy over the fallen Douglas at Chevy Chase. It came also from a realization of their own condition-the sense of an impending storm, charged with destructive thunderbolts forged by political hatred, and launched by those who would humiliate them, grind their very faces to the earth, make their slaves taskmasters over them, and if possible expatriate them and divide their substance and the belief that Abraham Lincoln, who had been the leader in the fierce contest between the States, alone so held the affections and confidence of the Northern people that he could speedily "bind up the nation's wounds" and "achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves."

Nearly forty-four years have passed since that woeful event. I stood on Decoration Day by the monument erected in Oakwoods Cemetery-mainly by the contributions of Northern people to the memory of the unknown Confederate soldiers who yielded up their lives as prisoners of war at Camp Douglas, and saw the Illinois soldiery fire over those who fought for the Stars and Bars the same salute that was fired over those who fought for the Stars and Stripes. Within a short time there will be unveiled on the capitol grounds at Nashville, a monument to Sam Davis, the hero boy of Tennessee, who was hung as a rebel spy. General G. M. Dodge, who ordered his execution, and many other people of the North, were foremost among the contributors. The voice of Wheeler that had urged on the sons of the South in a hundred battles against the Union, rang out with equal devotion while leading our soldiers from North and South under the flag of our common country. In the same uniform, a son of a Grant, and a son of a Lee, ride side by side. Am I not right, here in the North, and in this assembly, in saying that the American people, reunited -with no contest, except in generous rivalry to advance their

country's welfare, cherishing, but without bitterness, the proud memories of their conflict-have long since realized the prophecy of Lincoln at his First Inaugural that:

"The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone 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."

The death of Lincoln postponed for a dreary time that happy era. How much humiliation, sorrow, wretchedness, and hate, what an Iliad of woes to white and black came through his untimely end, no tongue or pen can ever portray.

As far as the human mind can estimate and compare what was with what might have been, it was for the entire nation, but especially for the South, the most lamentable tragedy in history. My judgment, based upon years of observation and study, is that it was, in the light of subsequent events, more regretted by the Southern people than was the fall of the Confederacy.

What conflicts, what ingratitude, what disappointments in his great purposes, he may have been spared, we do not know. But we know that at the height of his fame, at the triumphant close of the great conflict which he had led, he was, by a tragedy that shocked the world, caught up from the stage of human action and its vicissitudes, and fixed forever as one of the greatest luminaries in that galaxy of illustrious men who will shine throughout the ages.

He passed out of view like tropic sun that

"With disc like battle target red

Rushes to his burning bed,

Dyes the wide wave with ruddy light,

Then sinks at once and all is night."

Southern-born-with mind, heart, and soul loyal to its traditions, believing that the South was within its constitutional rights as the Constitution then stood, that her leaders were patriotic, that her people showed a devotion to principles without a touch of sordidness, that such action as theirs could only come from a deep conviction that counted not the cost

of sacrifice, cherishing as a glorious legacy the renown of her armies and leaders, whose purity of life and heroism were unsurpassed by those of any people at any one time—yet I say in all sincerity and without reservation, that I rejoice as much as any of you that our country produced Abraham Lincoln, who will, as long as great intellect, patriotism, sincerity, self-denial, magnanimity, leadership, heroism, and those graces of the mind and heart which reflect the gentle spirit are cherished, shed lustre, not only upon his countrymen, but upon all humanity.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN AT THE BAR OF ILLINOIS

OFF

JOHN T. RICHARDS

F the early life of Abraham Lincoln, I shall not speak. His life in Kentucky and Indiana-his emigration to Illinois, at the age of nineteen years-his settlement at New Salem, his mercantile ventures there, his first candidacy for the Legislature, in which, as he said in later years, he met the only defeat he ever suffered at the hands of the people, are matters of history, with which all are familiar. He had passed through all these experiences before the end of the year 1834. He was then but twenty-four years of age, and had, within five years after his arrival in Illinois, been successively a farm-hand, laborer, clerk, and store-keeper. In 1834, he was elected a member of the Legislature and reelected for the three succeeding terms-his last election being in the year 1840. During the time of his service in the Legislature, he pursued the study of law and was admitted to the bar of Illinois, March 1, 1837, being at that time twenty-eight years of age.

At the time of Lincoln's admission to the bar, the rules of the Supreme Court did not require the applicant to submit to an examination as to his qualifications. The only requirements of the statute then in force, and which went into effect March 1, 1833, were that before he could be permitted to practice as an attorney or counsellor-at-law, he must have obtained a license for that purpose from some two of the Justices of the Supreme Court, and that he should not be entitled to receive such license until he had obtained a certificate from the Court of some County, of his good moral character.

Having obtained a license from two of the Judges of the Supreme Court, he was required to take an oath to support