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people of the United States, is well adapted to be the home of one National family; and it is not well adapted for two or more."*

Our fathers had organized this "national family" under the Constitution, and it became his especial duty, as President, to maintain and perpetuate it. This duty he had endeavored faithfully to discharge. The patriotism of the loyal people embraced every portion of the Republic. Their pride had long dwelt upon the idea of a vast Republic "whose dominion shall be also from the one sea to the other, and from the flood unto the world's end."+

The loyal people had fought the war through, because they would not give up this idea. The vast extent of the country and its future greatness and glory had long been to him a source of national pride. Virginians must learn to substitute in their affections the Nation for the State: they need not love Virginia less, but they must love the Republic more. The people have overcome the rebellion, not only because it was their duty under the Constitution, but also because they wanted the aid of the insurgent States to enable them to realize their great destiny. The South is an essential part of, and must help to build up, the great Republic.

In reply to a suggestion from the Virginians, that it was difficult to love a country so vast, and that patriotism was always strongest among a people inhabiting a country with a small territory, as illustrated by the Scotch and the Swiss, where every person identifies his own home with his country, and the difficulty of embracing in one's affections, a whole continent, the pride and glory of the Roman citizen in the Roman Empire was recalled. But perhaps a better answer to this may be found in Mr. Lincoln's message before referred to, in which he says, speaking of our whole country, "Its vast extent, and its variety of climate and productions, are of advantage, in this age, for one people, whatever they might have been in former ages. Steam, telegraphs, and intelligence have brought these to be an advantageous combination for one united people." The continent is "our

* Annual Message of December, 1862.

† 72 Psalm, v. 8.

national homestead." This, in all "its adaptations and aptitudes, demands union and abhors separation." Now that slavery is eradicated, we shall soon cease to quarrel, and become a homogeneous people. Virginia will again become a leading, possibly, the leading State, and before twenty years, she will thank Mr. Lincoln for the Emancipation Proclamation.

Mr. Lincoln returned to Washington on the 9th of April. He had scarcely reached the White House before the news of Lee's surrender reached him. No language can adequately describe the patriotic joy and deep gratitude to Almighty God which filled the heart of the President and the people. All the usual manifestations of delight, illuminations, processions, with banners and music were given; but beneath all these outward manifestation's, there was a deep, solemn, religious feeling, that God had given us these great victories, and that He had in His Providence a great future for our country.

The last battle had been fought, the last victory won, the Union triumph was complete, the rebellion utterly crushed, and slavery overthrown; and now, though not in order in point of time, let us, before dismissing from these pages the Grand Army of the Republic, anticipate that final review of the troops of Grant and Sherman before they, having finished their work, retired to their homes among the people. This review was an event full of moral sublimity. The bronzed and scarred veterans, who had survived the battlefields of four years of active war, the hardy frames of those who had marched and fought their way from New England, and the Northwest, to New Orleans and Charleston; those who had withstood and repelled the terrific charges of the rebels at Gettysburg; those who had fought beneath, and above the clouds at Lookout Mountain; who had taken Vicksburg, Atlanta, New Orleans, Savannah, Mobile, Petersburg, and Richmond; whose campaigns extended over half a continent; the triumphal entry of these heroes into the National Capital of the Republic which they had saved and redeemed, was deeply impressive. Triumphal arches, garlands, wreaths of flowers, evergreens, marked their pathway.

President and Cabinet, Governors and Senators, ladies, children, citizens, all united to express the nation's gratitude to those by whose heroism it had been saved.

But, there was one great shadow over the otherwise brilliant spectacle. Lincoln, their great hearted chief, he whom all loved fondly to call their "Father Abraham ;" he whose heart had been ever with them in the camp, and on the march, in the storm of battle, and in the hospital; he had been murdered, stung to death, by the fang of the expiring serpent which these soldiers had crushed. There were many thousands of these gallant men in blue, as they filed past the White House, whose weather-beaten faces were wet with tears of manly grief. How gladly, joyfully would they have given their lives to save his.

And now these grand armies were disbanded, and hastened to the homes which they had voluntarily left, to be welcomed by family and friends, and cheered and cherished for life by the thanks of a grateful people.

the midst of the rejoicings at the .capital, it had been announced by the press, that the President and General Grant would attend Ford's Theatre that evening. General Grant had an engagement which prevented him from attending, and Mr. Lincoln, although reluctant on that occasion to attend, was persuaded to go, that the people might not be disappointed. Mr. Colfax walked from the parlor to the door with the President, and at the door bade him "Good-bye,” declining his invitation to accompany him to the theatre. Mr. Colfax says:*

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* My mind has since been tortured with regrets that I had not accompanied him. If the knife which the assassin had intended for Grant had not been wasted, as it possibly would not have been, on one of so much less importance in our national affairs, perchance a sudden backward look at that eventful instant might have saved that life, so incalculably precious to wife and children and country; or, failing in that, might have hindered or prevented the escape of his murderer. The willingness of any man to endanger his life for another's is so much doubted that I scarcely dare to say how willingly I would have risked my own to preserve his, of such priceless value to us all. But if you can realize that it is sweet to die for one's country, as so many scores of thousands, from every State and county and hamlet have proved in the years that are past, you can imagine the consolation there would be to any one, even in his expiring hours, to feel that he had saved the land from a funeral gloom which, but a few days ago, settled down upon it from ocean to ocean and from capitol to cabin, at the loss of one for whom even a hecatomb of victims could not atone."

Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln and party reached the theatre at about nine o'clock, and found it crowded to its utmost capacity. He was received, as he always was, with the most enthusiastic greetings. In the midst of the play, a pistol shot was heard, and a man, with a bloody dagger in his hand, leaped from the President's box to the stage, exclaiming: "Sic semper tyrannis"-" The South is avenged”—and then ran behind the scenes. The President had been shot * See his speech at Chicago, April 30, 1865.

from behind, and the assassin had escaped. Major Rathbone, who had accompanied the President, seized the assassin as he rushed past him, but the murderer, cutting him severely in his arm with his dagger, broke from him. The President fell forward as he was shot, into the arms of his wife, and on the arrival of the surgeons, it was found the ball had entered the brain, creating a mortal wound. He was insensible from the beginning, and lingering until a few minutes past seven, on the morning of the 15th, expired. The rebel leaders had used the hand of a miserable, halfcrazed play-actor, by the name of John Wilkes Booth, to assassinate the Chief Magistrate of the nation, which their swords could not overthrow. Booth did not live to betray the men who set him on; had he lived, a man who could commit an act so cowardly, would have been likely to have betrayed his employers; but the exulting words of the fiend, as he leaped upon the stage, betrayed the source from which he derived his hellish inspiration. Alas, that Virginia's proud old motto should have been thus desecrated!

On the same night the Secretary of State, who was confined to his house by severe injuries, received, by being thrown from his carriage, was attacked in his bed, terribly cut, and stabbed, and his life was saved only by the heroic efforts of his sons and daughter, and an assistant nurse, whose name was Robinson. Mr. Frederick Seward, his son, in attempting to prevent the entrance of the ruffian into his father's sick room, was struck by a pistol on the head, and his skull fractured, and he rendered insensible. The assassin of Mr. Seward was an accomplice of Booth, who went by the name of Payne, but whose real name was Powell; and he had been a Confederate soldier.

Booth, in attempting to escape, was shot on the 21st of April, by a soldier named Boston Corbett. Some of his accomplices were arrested, tried, and hung. But all of these were but the wretched tools of the conspirators. It yet remains uncertain whether the conspirators themselves will ever in this world be dragged to light and punishment.

Andrew Johnson, the Vice President, was inaugurated as President on the morning of Mr. Lincoln's death. Afterwards, and after investigation, he issued a proclamation,

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