LETTER ΤΟ F. A. CONKLING AND OTHERS, NEW YORK, JUNE 3, 1864, REPLYING TO INVITATION TO ATTEND A MASS MEETING IN HONOR OF GENERAL GRANT. "While the magnitude and difficulty of the task before him (Gen. Grant) do not prove less than I expected, he and his brave soldiers are now in the midst of their great trial, and I trust at your meeting you will so shape your words that they may turn to men and guns moving to his and their support." SPEECH AT PHILADELPHIA, "War, at the best, is terrible, and this war of ours, in its magnitude and in its duration, is one of the most terrible. It has deranged business, totally in many localities, and partially in all localities. It has destroyed property and ruined homes; it has produced a national debt and taxation unprecedented, at least in this country; it has carried mourning to almost every home, until it can almost be said that 'the heavens are hung in black.'" TO LADIES AT A PRESENTATION OF BATTLE-FIELD, JAN. 24, 1865. "I wish you to read, if you have not already done so, the eloquent and truthful words which he (Edward Everett) then spoke of the women of America. Truly, the services they have rendered to the defenders of our country in this perilous time, and are yet rendering, can never be estimated as they ought to be." INAUGURAL ADDRESS, MARCH 5, 1865. "With malice toward none, with Jcharity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and orphans; to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations." OF ASSASSINATION. THERE were threats of personal violence openly made very soon after Mr. Lincoln's election. Other and even deadlier menaces came to him secretly, or were privately made known to his personal friends. From the day of his arrival in Washington, his mails teemed with letters of a threatening character, but he invariably refused to see them or be informed of their contents. He would not permit himself to know or to think that his service to his country was performed in the constant presence of personal peril. Other people thought of it, however, and tried to guard him, but the idea of assassina |