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and honest man, possessing a comprehensive mind, an open and generous heart quickened by the impulses of patriotic devotion to liberty and his country. And if, in these hours of natural depression and distrust, there be doubts whether every event in his career has merited our approbation; if, in short, in a single instance we should have felt a strong and fervent disapproval, yet let God be praised if we can any of us gather all our misdoings into the compass of a single act; ay, and let Him be devoutly thanked if we can offset the damaging incident by a long record of laborious and faithful services. For my part, Mr. Mayor and fellow-citizens, I have confidence and hope in the future: apart from this great tragedy all the events and circumstances by which we are encompassed are encouraging. The Army and Navy of the Republic have pressed back the once towering and threatening waves of Treason and Rebellion. The lamented President, their Commander-in-Chief, lived long enough to see the Rebel flags trailed in the dust and the Rebel leader surrender the flower of his army. He lived long enough to see the Rebellion practically ended; and in looking for the instructive lesson that it may be designed we shall be taught by the melancholy and tragic event which has taken the Chief Magistrate of the country from us, perhaps God in His wisdom saw it was a greater boon than any one mortal should possess, to enjoy all the benedictions that shall follow the triumph over rebellion and the restoration of peace to our distracted land. Perhaps it was necessary for our future security and for the ends of justice, that he should pass away at this point of time and at this stage of

public affairs, and be succeeded by another, born and raised in that section of the country where the Rebellion was nurtured and originated, and who more intimately understands its atrocity, and the spirit and purposes of parricides and traitors.

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It may be that Andrew Johnson's knowledge of the complications of slavery with the civil and industrial systems of the rebellious States, was necessary to secure us against the reappearance of its influence, and to blot out its existence from our land. It may be that his firm hand was necessary to guide the nation's settlement with the public enemies in accordance with the terms of law and righteousness. He has yet had no opportunity to declare his official policy, nor to state with deliberation what he will seek to do with those who may be amenable to the law; but he has declared that he esteems treason to be the greatest of crimes, a crime to be punished and not lightly forgiven, and in this declaration he has but embodied the sentiment and feeling of a large majority of his countrymen. Exhilarated by the prospect of returning peace, we unite the influences of magnanimity, of charity, and of forgivness; we accept the conviction and cherish the hope that by some means, in the exercise of forbearance and consistently with the public honor and a sense of justice, the masses of the people in the now alienated sections of the country are to become speedily reconciled; but the instigators of this Treason and Rebellion, the authors and principals in its barbarous atrocities, and sickening cruelties, and assassinations, must suffer the penalty of their crimes. We want no more of their seditious utterances, sent forth to breed discord and

death through the land; we want no more of their open or secret conspiracies against the lives either of citizens or of the Republic; no more of their presence in our halls of legislation, none of their fellowship in our society; and the loyal people will demand that henceforth they shall not be admitted there. This is demanded, not by vengeance but by justice, if there be any virtue in penalties anywhere, and as a security in the future against the recurrence of a similar calamity; that it may teach the lesson also to future Presidents and Cabinets that the power and authority of the nation are superior to those of the States; and that hereafter treason must be strangled in its infancy.

Fellow-citizens, let us not doubt, even in this dark hour of national sorrow, that peace is near at hand, - such a peace as shall bring compensation for the sacrifices and for the heroism of this war,— peace to a country delivered from slavery as well as from war; and which in view of its future greatness and reunion is already calling upon us for a fresh consecration to freedom and to God.

Hon. Richard H. Dana, Jr., made the following remarks:

The Martyr President! The Martyr President!

"Treason has done its worst! Nor steel, nor poison,

Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing

Can touch him further."

This is the great tragedy of history! The most appalling, the most pernicious, the most sickening! For the assassination of rulers, there has often been some show of provocation or public cause; but our President has

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borne his faculties so meek, hath been

So clear in his great office, that his virtues

Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against

The deep damnation of his taking off."

But this catastrophe is too vast, its lessons too vital, for us to linger long about the person of the victim, however

Simple, prudent, natural, events and causes provi

strongly affection may bind us. faithful, affectionate, as a man; dential, inherent, circumstantial, and accidental have made him the central figure in the great era of modern times. It would be unworthy of him and his place in history, beneath the vastness of the catastrophe, unfitting the sacredness of this Hall, if we did not force our minds from the contemplation of the tragic scene and the personal loss, to listen to the great lessons that this event is reading to us.

It seems to be written that no great blessing, no redemption can come to race or nation, as not to human nature itself, without the shedding of blood. This blood must be sacramental to our country. It must be the seal, the final seal to the covenant of our national existence and of human rights.

Shall we dip our napkins in his blood with vows of vengeance? No! The innocent blood of that kind heart would teach us no such lesson. His life and death were for his country and the liberty of the oppressed. Let us take to heart then, as in the presence of the dead, the lessons his death teaches us.

The spirit of assassination must be rebuked and cast out. We owe it to the safety of our public men, and to

the fair fame of our country. We hoped it was the vice of other ages and other climes. Is it possible that the Southern temper, with the passions which Slavery fosters, is developing in that direction? When our Senator was struck down in the Senate chamber, by the representative from Carolina, was it rebuked? was it discountenanced by the power in whose interests it was done? No! It was applauded and honored by its legislatures, by its constituencies, by its press, without one prominent responsible exception. Then came the murders and massacres by which Slavery was forced into Kansas. Then came the general appeal to arms. Is it possible, that that appeal failing, there is a spirit that leads them to the secret steel and to the poisoned cup? If this be so, the soldier must meet it in arms, the magistrate with the sword of justice, wherever it appears in act. These murderers are not paradoxes, anachronisms, without cause or accompaniments. They are but the crests of a wave that lifts them up and bears them on. The spirit must be exorcised, not by violence, not by retaliation, for then violence becomes the order of the day. Wherever any of its spirit appears, religion must denounce it as a sin, and society cast it out as an offence. Here, in New England, if there is a spot which did not answer with horror to the tidings of this crime, "Let that spot be purified, or let it cease to be of New England." If there was a man whose first thought and utterance were not that of horror and reprobation, who needed a second thought to furnish him the seemly utterance, What shall we do with him? I will tell you. If he be hungry, feed him! If he be naked, clothe him! sick or in prison, minister unto

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