address you at length; I have no voice for it. Allow me again to thank you for this magnificent reception, and bid you farewell.

The President's Dependence on the People.

At ROCHESTER, SYRACUSE, AND UTICA, N. Y., President-elect Lincoln made two-minute speeches from the train, on February 18, 1861. At Rochester he repeated the thought that the people had gathered to see him, not as an individual but as their President. At Syracuse he refused to go on a platform that had been set up for him, on the plea that a longer speech than he was capable of making would be required of him. "But I wish you to understand that, though I am unwilling to go upon this platform, you are not at liberty to draw any inference concerning any other platform with which my name has been or is connected." At Utica he said that he had no speech, but appeared solely to see and be seen, in which reciprocal arrangement he claimed to have the best of the bargain as far as the ladies were concerned, though he would not admit this in the case of the men. These sentiments he repeated at TROY and HUDSON, New York, on February 19, 1861. At PEEKSKILL, N. Y., on the 19th, he said:

"I will say in a single sentence, in regard to the difficulties that lie before me and our beloved country, that if I can only be as generously and unanimously sustained as the demonstrations I have witnessed indicate I shall be, I shall not fail; but without your sustaining hands I am sure that neither I nor any other man can hope to surmount these difficulties. I trust that in the course I shall pursue I shall be sustained not only by the party that elected me, but by the patriotic people of the whole country."

President, not of a Party, but the Nation.

REPLY TO GOVERNOR MORGAN OF NEW YORK, AT ALBANY. FEBRUARY 18, 1861.

Governor Morgan: I was pleased to receive an invitation to visit the capital of the great Empire State of this nation while on my way to the Federal capital. I now thank you, Mr. Governor, and you, the people of the capital of the State of New York, for this most hearty and magnificent welcome. If I am not at fault, the great Empire State at this time contains a larger population than did the whole of the United States of America at the time they achieved their national independence, and I was proud to be invited to visit its capital, to meet its citizens, as I now have the honor to do. I am notified by your governor that this reception is tendered by citizens without distinction of party. Because of this I accept it the more gladly. In this country, and in any country where freedom of thought is tolerated, citizens attach themselves to political parties. It is but an ordinary degree of charity to attribute this act to the supposition that in thus attaching themselves to the various parties, each man in his own judgment supposes he thereby best advances the interests of the whole country. And when an election is past, it is altogether befitting a free people, as I suppose, that, until the next election, they should be one people. The reception you have extended me to-day is not given to me personally,-it should not be so,but as the representative, for the time being, of the majority of the nation. If the election had fallen to any of the more distinguished citizens who received the support of the people, this same

honor should have greeted him that greets me this day, in testimony of the universal, unanimous devotion of the whole people to the Constitution, the Union, and to the perpetual liberties of succeeding generations in this country.

I have neither the voice nor the strength to address you at any greater length. I beg you will therefore accept my most grateful thanks for this manifest devotion-not to me, but the institutions of this great and glorious country.

The Mightiest of Tasks for the Humblest of Presidents.

Remarks before the New York LEGISLATURE AT ALBANY. FEBRUARY 18, 1861.

Mr. President and Gentlemen of the General Assembly of the State of New York: It is with feelings of great diffidence, and, I may say, with feelings of awe, perhaps greater than I have recently experienced, that I meet you here in this place. The history of this great State, the renown of those great men who have stood here, and have spoken here, and been heard here, all crowd around my fancy, and incline me to shrink from any attempt to address you. Yet I have some confidence given me by the generous manner in which you have invitedme, and by the still more generous manner in which you have received me, to speak further. You have invited and received. me without distinction of party. I cannot for a moment suppose that this has been done in any considerable degree with reference to my personal services, but that it is done, in so far as I am regarded, at this time, as the representative

of the majesty of this great nation. I doubt not this is the truth, and the whole truth, of the case, and this is as it should be. It is much more gratifying to me that this reception has been given to me as the elected representative of a free people, than it could possibly be if tendered merely as an evidence of devotion to me, or to any one man personally.

And now I think it were more fitting that I should close these hasty remarks. It is true that, while I hold myself, without mock modesty, the humblest of all individuals that have ever been elevated to the presidency, I have a more difficult task to perform than any one of them.

You have generously tendered me the support -the united support-of the great Empire State. For this, in behalf of the nation-in behalf of the present and future of the nation-in behalf of civil and religious liberty for all time to come, most gratefully do I thank you. I do not propose to enter into an explanation of any particular line of policy, as to our present difficulties, to be adopted by the incoming administration. I deem it just to you, to myself, to all, that I should see everything, that I should hear everything, that I should have every light that can be brought within my reach, in order that, when I do speak, I shall have enjoyed every opportunity to take correct and true ground; and for this reason I do not propose to speak at this time of the policy of the government. But when the time comes, I shall speak, as well as I am able, for the good of the present and future of this country-for the good both of the North and of the South-for the good of the one and the other, and of all sections of the country. In

the mean time, if we have patience, if we restrain ourselves, if we allow ourselves not to run off in a passion, I still have confidence that the Almighty, the Maker of the universe, will, through the instrumentality of this great and intelligent people, bring us through this as he has through all the other difficulties of our country. Relying on this, I again thank you for this generous reception.

Piloting the Ship of State.

REMARKS AT POUGHKEEPSIE, N. Y. FEBRUARY 19, 1861.

Fellow-citizens: It is altogether impossible I should make myself heard by any considerable portion of this vast assemblage; but, although I appear before you mainly for the purpose of seeing you, and to let you see rather than hear me, I cannot refrain from saying that I am highly gratified-as much here, indeed, under the circumstances, as I have been anywhere on my route-to witness this noble demonstrationmade, not in honor of an individual, but of the man who at this time humbly, but earnestly, represents the majesty of the nation.

This reception, like all the others that have been tendered to me, doubtless emanates from all the political parties, and not from one alone. As such I accept it the more gratefully, since it indicates an earnest desire on the part of the whole people, without regard to political differences, to save-not the country, because the country will save itself-but to save the institutions of the country-those institutions under which, in the last three quarters of a century, we