CONVERSATION WITH D. R. LOCKE, 1863.

"It's a good thing for individuals (generals and others in office) that there is a government to shove over their acts upon. No man's shoul

ders are broad enough to bear what must be."

The chairman of an enthusiastic delegation of emancipationists was a clergyman who plied him heavily with scriptural quotations.

"Well, gentlemen," replied Mr. Lincoln, "it is not often one is favored with a delegation direct from the Almighty."

The British Minister, Lord Lyons, was very much liked by Mr. Lincoln, He was a bachelor. When the marriage of the Prince of Wales to Princess Alexandra of Denmark required announcement, as an affair of state, the duty was performed

ceremoniously, with an autograph letter from Queen Victoria to the President of the United States, and with a very neat and cordial international address from the minister. The response expected was such as might be sent by a president to a Queen, but Mr. Lincoln listened to the speech, to the end, and then his face lit up with friendly fun as he replied:

"Lord Lyons, go thou and do likewise."

OF PERSONAL
LIBERTY.

VERY soon after the outbreak of

the civil war, the entire American people discovered, with more or less individual astonishment, that their form of government contained powers not ordinarily exercised, the operation of which they had never before experienced.

There was a prompt and altogether righteous inquiry into the source and nature of these powers. Following this was a well founded and very general anxiety lest, after their temporary exercise in a war emergency, there might not be a perfect return to their old time quies

cent state, leaving the liberties of the people permanently unabridged in time of peace.

There were stormy, acrimonious protests against every unaccustomed restriction of individual freedom, even for war purposes, and the political opposition to the Lincoln administration assumed a watchful censorship. On the other hand, Lincoln himself asserted his own position and purpose as the constitutionally appointed guardian of all the rights and liberties affected by the temporary exercise of the special powers in his hands. Not only his official acts but his repeated utterances were a sufficient preventive of injurious consequences which might otherwise have been produced. He watched against the supposed peril more jealously than did even his critics themselves, and, long before the end, the public mind rested,

satisfied that their treasure of personal liberty was safe in his keeping.

LECTURE, AT SPRINGFIELD, ILLS.,

JAN. 27, 1837.

"I know the American

people

are much attached to their government.. I know they would suffer much for its sake. I know they would endure evils, long and patiently, before they would ever think of changing it for another. Yet, notwithstanding all this, if the laws be continually despised and disregarded; if their rights to be secure in their persons and property are held by no better tenure than the caprice of a mob, the alienation of their affections from the government is the natural consequence, and to that, sooner or later, it must come. There is no grievance that is a fit object of redress by moblaw."