CONTENTS. PAGE General Introduction by the Editor... 1837 (Jan. 27) The Perpetuation of our Political Institutions: 1858 (June 16) Speech at Springfield, Ill., at the close of the (Sep. 15) Speech at Jonesboro, Ill., in Douglas Debate.. 129 (Sep. 18) Speech at Charleston, Ill., in Douglas Debate. 151 (Oct. 7) Speech at Galesburg, Ill., in Douglas Debate.. 162 (Oct. 13) Speech at Quincy, Ill., with Rejoinder..... 185 (Oct. 15) Speech at Alton, Ill., in Douglas Joint Debate 195 1859 (Mar. 1) Speech at Chicago, on night of Municipal Elec- 1860 (Feb. 27) Address at Cooper Institute, New York. 259 (Mar. 6) Address at New Haven, Conn..... 1861 (Feb. 15) Speech at Pittsburg, Pa.... (Mar. 4) First Inaugural at Washington, D. C........... 1861 (July 4) Message to Congress in Special Session. (Aug. 12) Proclamation of a National Fast-Day (Dec. 3) Annual Message to Congress.... ABRAHAM LINCOLN, THE EMANCIPATOR PRESIDENT. FULLY two-score years have passed since the assas sination, at Ford's Theatre, Washington, of Abraham Lincoln, "the great Emancipator" President, whose martyr death has consecrated his name to all coming generations of freemen and enshrined it indelibly in the hearts of every lover of Humanity. The tragic death of this "first of Americans," though it whelmed the nation he loved in sorrow when news of it fell upon the appalled ear, was yet a glorious and triumphal one, since it was the crowning sacrifice of a life spent in Freedom's cause and in the loved service at once of his kind and of his country. His lamented death and the hideous manner of his taking off were but the sad sequel of a period of calamitous strife in the nation's annals, when the South, seeking to preserve its cherished institution of slavery— a vile traffic which Lincoln ever held in dire abhorrence -and defying the moral sense of the North against the hideous wrong, plunged the nation into one of the most terrible wars in history. The conflict, as all know, entailed a loss of nearly a million lives and the expenditure of about thirty-five hundred million dollars; but it had at length its happy consummation, not only in reuniting and cementing the riven Union, but by the great edict of Emancipation, the work we might almost say alone of the kindly, humane President, in abolishing slavery forever from the country and elevating the slave to the rights and privileges of freemen. What the conse |