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so long together. It was not the mere matter of the separation of the colonies from the mother land, but something in that declaration giving liberty, not alone to the people of this country, but hope for the world for all future time. It was that which gave promise that in due time the weights should be lifted from the shoulders of all men, and that all should have an equal chance. This is the sentiment embodied in the Declaration of Independence.

How, my friends, can this country be saved upon that basis? If it can, I will consider myself one of the happiest men in the world if I can help to save it. If it can't be saved upon that principle, it will be truly awful. But if this country can not be saved without giving up that principle, I was about to say, I would rather be assassinated on the spot than to surrender it.

Now, in my view of the present aspect of affairs, there is no need of bloodshed and war. There is no necessity for it. I am not in favor of such a course, and I may say, in advance, there will be no bloodshed unless it be forced upon the Government. The Government will not use force unless force is used against it. [Prolonged applause, and cries of "That's the proper sentiment."] My friends, this is a wholly unprepared speech. I did not expect to be called upon to say a word when I came here. I supposed I was merely to do something toward raising this flag. I may, therefore, have said something indiscreet. But I have said nothing but what I am willing to live by, and, in the pleasure of Almighty God, die by.

From the cabin to the White House-from a lowly birth to an honored death, at the summit of human glory-these pages have imperfectly traced the earthly course of ABRAHAM LINCOLN. He is now where praise and blame alike fall unheeded "on the dull, cold ear" of the dead, yet one comes reluctantly to any final summing up of the labors and the character of one so lately gone, and still so spiritually present. He served the people. He saved the nation. He gave his life for his country. His name will be one of heroic grandeur for all time. His fame will be perennial as the sun. While Liberty lives, this her chief martyr will be the central figure among her most illustrious devotees. He finished his work, and its renown is not alone for a transient generation, but for the wide world and for the whole future.

What Robert Burns has, proverbially, been to the people of

his native land, and, to a certain extent, of all lands, as a poet, Abraham Lincoln early became to us as a statesman and a patriot, by his intimate relations alike with the humbler and the higher walks of life. By his own native energy and endowment, he rose from a place of humble obscurity to a commanding position and power among his fellow-men, and achieved an enduring fame. The experiences of the "toiling millions," whether of gladness or of sorrow, had been his experiences. He had an identity with them, such as common trials and common emotions produced. He had become in person, no less than in principle, a genuine representative man in the cause of free labor.

As a ruler, no man ever took the people into his confidence so unreservedly and fully-discarding the diplomatic devices of European statesmanship, which erect so many barriers between the governing and the governed. His policy was unfeignedly democratic. In accepting a great public trust, he endeavored always to be in harmony with those who gave it. He carried out the popular will, so far as in him lay, discarding the imperial idea which would force the masses into subjection to the will of one leading mind. He was "controlled by events," and "did not control them," after the vain imagination of a Napoleon. His strength lay in striving to embody and execute the mind of the nation, not to direct its thought and will. The greatness of Mr. Lincoln lay not in contesting, defying, or deluding the masses in their purposes, but in giving those purposes development and effect.

Mr. Lincoln knew how to be reticent, as occasion required, and how to be honest and open whenever matured decisions were passing into speech and act. He was never precipitate; and when he "put his foot down," it was never to recall the step deliberately taken. He did not move forward rapidly enough for some; he was in advance of many; but always keeping near what may be termed his skirmishing line, he moved forward whenever it appeared that his main column could safely move with him. He was not of the material of which reformers, a whole generation in advance of their time,

could be made; yet he recognized their uses, and was never indifferent to whatever in their aspirations had reality of promise.

He grew upon the affections and confidence of the people, which he had no art for suddenly captivating. He was never forced upon them by political management. His honors were duly ripened in the open air and sunlight-never forced to an artificial ruddiness or unnatural proportions under cover. The incident of his election as captain of volunteers in 1832—the confidence of his fellows outrunning his own aspiration-is a type of all his advancements, in his own State and in the nation. From the time of his first appearance in the Illinois Legislature, he was a man of mark as a politician in the best sense. From his earliest connection with the bar as an advocate and counsellor, more than ordinary success was expected of him. A sterling native ability was conceded to him. He wanted only development and cultivation. And to the necessary study for this end, it was at once remarked how closely he applied himself. As was said of him in those days, when not actively engaged, he was "always thinking." He was an "improving man." Such an one, with great inherent capacities, is capable of the highest attainment. Mr. Lincoln's life is a grand exemplar for the youth who worthily aspires. All the space, from the nethermost to the topmost round of the ladder-with the aid of no adventitious circumstances, and in spite of the most depressing hindrances-was thus surmounted by the once obscure worker.

This great success, it must not be overlooked, and can not be too earnestly impressed upon the young, was partly due to the remarkable purity of his private life and to the rugged honesty of purpose, in his earliest days as in his latest, which were at the basis of his character. He unhesitatingly and unswervingly believed in the right, the true, the good-not simply as on the whole preferable to their opposites, or even as infinitely worthier of his regard, but as the only possible objects of his faith. He had a reverent and abiding trust in a beneficent and all-controlling Providence. He saw the presence of God in all national and individual life, and devoutly

sought His guidance and spiritual strength in all his trials. Though never demonstrative on this subject, and recoiling from any doubtful pretensions, he had profoundly earnest religious sentiments and convictions. His conscience was ever active, clear and strong. His faith in God, and his worshipful trust, came out more and more visibly during the later years of his I life. Who, that knew him well, can point to any man in his whole circle of acquaintance, however wide, as a truer exemplar of the Christian character as set forth in the Sermon on the Mount? In certain outward restraints or formalities, and in merely negative virtues, others went beyond him, but few, very few in this world, have ever more truly lived the life of purity, of charity, of universal good-will, of gentle forgiveness, of self-denying devotion to the interests of humanity, of kindness to the poor, of sympathy for the oppressed, and of submission to the Divine will, as enjoined by the precept and example of Christ.

Mr. Lincoln's face was rather striking than attractive at the first view. Its plainness was proverbial. But the power of its expression, the winningness of its smile, were such, that you carried away the impression of a noble and pleasing countenance. It was written all over with the history of his struggles and triumphs. An olive complexion preserved the memory of his first seven years in a Southern clime. His deep-set, clear, steady eye, told of earnest study, of assured attainment, of confirmed self-mastery. He had no unsubdued passionor, if a sense of indignation occasionally got the better of him, it was not from wrong to himself but to a friend, or to a class, or to the nation. A terrible civil war, which he greatly dreaded, and labored earnestly to avert, impressed numberless lines on his brow and cheeks. He had had, too, his private sorrows, which deepened the native sadness of his countenance-especially the loss of two tenderly-loved boys, the one before, the other after, his elevation to the Presidency. A wide range of emotions-the extremes of sunlight and shadowpassed successively over these masculine features, in all of which strength and power were manifest.

His humor was proverbial, yet nothing could be wider of the

mark than to represent him as a "jesting" trifler. A trifler he never was, or a jester in any proper sense. His "stories" had always a logical relation to his main subject of conversation. They were never his own inventions. He resorted to them for illustrations, or as a gentle method of putting off importunities, or of avoiding a committal for which he was unprepared. To a zealous advocate for more radical measures in regard to slavery, for instance, early in the war, he spoke of the vivid impression made on his mind by one of the fables of Æsop-an edition of which, illustrated by plain wood-cuts, he read in very early life-in which certain zealous philanthropists are represented as endeavoring to change the color of a negro's skin by assiduous washing; their labors effecting nothing except to give him a cold, of which he nearly died. This tale, with its rude illustration, had an abiding lesson for him, and when told in his peculiar manner, its moral could not be without effect, in at least parrying complaints, if not repressing untimely zeal. The genuine humor which he possessed, is of the kind nearly allied to genius, and its almost invariable accompaniment. It relieved many a hard exigency of his life, and saved him from an unbroken gloom, toward which, at times, he gravitated.

It is idle to conjecture what might have been, or how his life could have been spared from the stealthy malice bent on his destruction. His work was really finished. The "wrath of man was permitted to accomplish its design, and so overruled as to serve the purposes of Providence. To that overruling power, the nation, and all who mourn the great bereavement, should reverently bow. The future of our nation, as the past has been, is in the keeping of a Being supremely wise and good, "who knoweth the end from the beginning," and ever "doeth all things well."

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