consistently, persistently, and without qualification of purpose, met, and in the end successfully met, every demand of the enemies of the government, whether proffered in diplomatic notes or on the field of battle. He struggled first for the Union, and then for the overthrow of slavery as the only formidable enemy of the Union. These were his tests of political fellowship, and he carefully excluded from place. every man who could not bear them. He accepted the great and most manifest lesson of free government, that every wise and vigorous administration represents the majority party, and that the best days

of

every free country are those days when a party takes and wields power by a popular verdict, and guards itself at every step against the assaults of a scrutinizing and vigorous opposition. He accepted the essential truths that a free government is a political organization, and that the political opinions of those intrusted with its administration, as to what the government should be and do, are of more consequence to the country than even their knowledge of orthography and etymology. As a consequence, he accepted the proposition that every place of executive discretion or of eminent administrative power should be occupied by the friends of the government. This, not because the spoils belong to the victors, but for the elevated and sufficient reason that the chief offices of state are instrumentalities and agencies by

which the majority carry out their principles, perfect their measures, and render their policy acceptable to the country. And also for the further reason that in case of failure the administration is without excuse. The entire public policy of Mr. Lincoln was the natural outgrowth of his political principles as a Republican. Through the influence of experience and the exercise of power the politician ripened into the statesman, but the ideas, principles, and purposes of the statesman were the ideas, principles, and purposes of the partisan politician. In prosecuting the war for the Union, in the steps taken for the emancipation of the slaves, Mr. Lincoln appeared to follow rather than to lead the Republican party. But his own views were more advanced usually than those of his party, and he waited patiently and confidently for the healthy movements of public sentiment which he well knew were in the right direction. No man was ever more firmly or consistently the representative of a party than was Mr. Lincoln, and his acknowledged greatness is due, first, to the wisdom and justice of the principles and measures of the political party that he represented, and, secondly, to his fidelity in every hour of his administration, and in every crisis of public affairs, to the principles, ideas and measures of the party with which he was identified.

Having seen Mr. Lincoln as frontiersman, politician, lawyer, stump-speaker, orator, statesman and patriot, it only remains for us to contemplate him as an his

torical personage.

First of all, it is to be said that

Mr. Lincoln is next in fame to Washington, and it is by no means certain that history will not assign to Lincoln an equal place, and this without any qualification of the claims or disparagement in any way of the virtues of the Father of this country. The measure of Washington's fame is full, but for many centuries, and over vast spaces of the globe and among all peoples passing from barbarism or semi-servitude to civilization and freedom, Mr. Lincoln will be hailed as the Liberator. In all governments struggling for existence, his example will be a guide and a help. Neither the gift of prophecy nor the quality of imagination is needed to forecast the steady growth of Lincoln's fame. At the close of the twentieth century the United States will contain one hundred and fifty or two hundred million inhabitants, and from one-fourth to one-third of the population of the globe will then use the English language. To all these and to all their descendants Mr. Lincoln will be one of the three great characters of American history, while to the unnumbered millions of the negro race in the United States, in Africa, in South America, and in the islands of the sea, he will be the great figure of all ages and of every nation. His fame will increase and spread with the knowledge of Republican institutions, with the expansion and power of the English-speaking race, and with the deeper respect which civilization will

create for whatever is attractive in personal character, wise in the administration of public affairs, just in policy, or liberal and comprehensive in the exercise of constitutional and extra-constitutional powers.

It was but an inadequate recognition of the character and services of Mr. Lincoln that was made by the patriots of Rome when they chose a fragment from the wall of Servius Tullius and sent it to the President with this inscription: "To Abraham Lincoln, President for the second time of the American Republic, citizens of Rome present this stone, from the wall of Servius Tullius, by which the memory of each of those brave asserters of Liberty may be associated. Anno 1865." The final and nobler tribute to Mr. Lincoln is yet to be rendered, not by a single city nor by the patriots of a single country. A knowledge of his life and character is to be carried by civilization into every nation and to every people. Under him and largely through his acts and influence justice became the vital force of the Republic. The war established our power. The policy of Mr. Lincoln and those who acted with him secured the reign of justice ultimately in our domestic affairs. Possessing power and exhibiting justice, the nation should pursue a policy of peace.

Power, Justice and Peace; in them is the glory of the regenerated Republic.

GEORGE S. BOUTWELL.