appreciated, and the consequences of which few, if any, foresaw. And yet there were among the combatants tens of thousands of men who felt the sweet reasonableness of his dispassionate statements, whose hearts were touched by his pathetic cry for peace, and yet who, caught up in the rising excitement of the time, aligned themselves under the stress of circumstances on the one side or the other; tens of thousands of men on both sides deploring war, yet when war seemed inevitable, ranging themselves with their neighbors.

It seemed the very irony of fate that so gentle a spirit, so sympathetic and kindly a nature, should be forced by the stern logic of events over which he had no control and for which he was in no way responsible, to assume the rôle of Commander-in-chief in a sanguinary civil war between men of the same blood and the same traditions.

The years of war and destruction during which he was President, whilst they plowed deep lines of care and grief upon his rugged face and wrung his gentle heart, provoked no expressions of bitterness from his lips. His many acts of personal kindness to Southern prisoners and Southern sympathizers demonstrated how free he was from the spirit of malice or vengeance.

As, in the progress of time, it became evident the Union arms would triumph, he evinced no feeling of exultation or sense of personal triumph, but only an anxious desire to restore the Southern States to their former place in the Union, and to heal the wounds of civil strife. He was opposed to extreme measures against the Southern people, and was prepared to stand between them and the radicals of his party who clamored for exemplary reprisals upon a conquered people whom the fortunes of war had delivered into their hands. That he would have succeeded in carrying with him the great majority of the people of the North in his beneficent purposes does not, to my mind, admit of doubt; and that there would have followed speedily a union of hearts is equally certain. It was indeed cruel that at the moment when he had reached the point for which he had striven, he should have died at the hands of a hair-brained actor

who was in no way identified with the South or her people. Still more cruel was fate to the Southern people. They shuddered both at the dastardly act of his assassination and at the disastrous consequences to themselves as well, which they knew would follow.

The dies ira of reconstruction was the inevitable result, and reconstruction did more to postpone reconciliation than did war itself. It was direful in its results to both sections, and to the negroes in greater measure, if possible, than to the whites.

But time has brought healing on its wings. A new generation of men has been born since Lincoln died. The animosities of the old days are ended. As we look back across the dead years we see his homely figure standing out clear and large. He is not awesome or repellent. There is an expression of pathos, touched with humor, upon his face, which draws us strongly, and there is sunshine all about him. He seems to speak, and we again hear him say, "We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection."

And thus hearing, the men of the South can not only look back upon a lost cause without bitterness, but recognize it was best that it did fail. And they can and do, without bitterness and in all sincerity, join with all the people of this nation, and all the people of all nations, in paying tribute to Abraham Lincoln-the liberator, the pacificator, the great American.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN, LEADER AND MASTER OF

MEN

WIT

GEN. JAMES GRANT WILSON

ITH pride and unfeigned pleasure, I appear in this place and in this presence, as the representative of the survivors of almost three millions of Lincoln soldiers and sailors, who served in the army and navy of the United States during what is officially designated as the War of the Rebellion. Of the two million seven hundred and seventy-eight thousand three hundred and four men who, on land and sea, fought for four fateful years that this nation should not perish from the earth, less than one-fourth are now living. In a few decades the last survivor who followed the dear old flag on the fields of Shiloh, Gettysburg, Chattanooga, and Mobile Bay, will have joined our great President in honor of whose gracious memory we are here assembled on this hallowed spot of his birth.

It is among the greatest mysteries of modern history that the child born in annus mirabilis, 1809, of illiterate and impoverished parents, in this unpromising place, and without any advantages whatsoever, should through life have been always a leader and master of men. For hundreds of years,

scholars have in vain searched for the sources from which Shakespeare drew the inspiration that has placed him first among the sons of men. Lincoln biographers have been equally baffled in similar attempts to discover from whence came the truly wonderful power to control and lead all sorts and conditions of men, that was certainly possessed by the son of "poor whites" of Kentucky who occupied yonder rude log cabin.

As a youth, Abraham Lincoln's alertness, skill, and strength, easily made him a recognized leader among his rough com

panions in their amusements and contests, including wrestling. When a company was raised in his County for the Black Hawk War, Lincoln, then but twenty-three years of age, was unanimously elected by his seniors their Captain, which gave him, he asserted, greater happiness than the presidency. At the Illinois bar he was early recognized by his integrity and ready wit, as the superior of his duller associates. As a political debater, Lincoln defeated one of the ablest speakers of the United States Senate, and but a brief period passed as President before the most gifted statesmen of his Cabinet unhesitatingly recognized him as their master. Grant praised Lincoln as being in military matters superior to many of his prominent generals, and your speaker heard Sherman say that the President was among the ablest strategists of the War. The beau sabreur Sheridan shared the opinion of his two seniors.

It was my peculiar privilege to hear several of the most famous speeches delivered during and before the Civil War by the great American, who stands second only to Washington. Abraham Lincoln was not only one of the wisest of men, but the English-speaking world is now aware that he was also among its very greatest orators. This fact was not appreciated during his life. The flowers of rhetoric are conspicuous by their absence from his speeches, but it may be doubted if Demosthenes, Burke, or Webster, could have found equally fit words to express the broad philosophy and the exquisite pathos of the Gettysburg Address of November, 1863.

Lincoln's Second Inaugural is among the most famous spoken, or written, utterances in the English language. Portions of it have been compared to the lofty lines of the ancient Hebrew prophets, and as being "Sublime as Milton's immemorial theme." As your speaker was seated within a few yards of the President when he delivered this immortal address, possibly he may be permitted to repeat to you, as nearly as he can, the concluding paragraph, in Mr. Lincoln's

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