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HUGH M'CULLOCH.

117

UST at the moment when the people were rejoicing over the fall of Richmond and the surrender of the Confederate armies, the Chief Magistrate of the Nation, the most beloved and most trusted of men, fell by the hand of an assassin. For a moment the nation was struck dumb by the atrocity of the act, and the magnitude of the loss that had been sustained. As the report flashed over the wires that the beloved Chief Magistrate of the Nation, in the midst of rejoicing over our victories and the prospect of returning peace, had been slain, what heart was there throughout this broad land which was not filled with anguish and apprehension ?-what thinking man did not put to himself the questions, Can the Republic stand this unexpected calamity? Can our popular institutions bear this new trial? The anguish remained and still remains, but the apprehension existed but for a moment. Scarcely had the announcement been made that Lincoln had fallen, before it was followed by the report that the Vice-President had taken the oath of President, and that the functions of government were being performed as regularly and quietly as though nothing had happened. And what followed? The body of the beloved President was taken from Washington to Illinois through crowded cities, among a grief-stricken and deeply excited people, mourning as no people ever mourned, and moved as no people were ever moved; and yet there was no popular violence, no outbreak of popular passion; borne a thousand miles to its last resting-place, hundreds of thousands doing such honor to the remains as were never

paid to those of king or conqueror, and the public peace notwithstanding intense indignation was mixed with intense sorrow, was in no instance disturbed. Hereafter there will be no skepticism among us in regard to the wisdom, the excellence and the power of republican institutions. There is no country upon earth that could have passed through the trials to which the United States have been subjected during the four years of civil war with out being broken into fragments.

The more I saw of Mr. Lincoln the higher became my admiration of his ability and his character. Before I went to Washington, and for a short period after, I doubted both his nerve and his statesmanship; but a closer observation relieved me of these doubts, and before his death I had come to the conclusion that he was a man of will, of energy, of well-balanced mind, and wonderful sagacity. His practice of story-telling when the government seemed to be in imminent peril, and the sublimest events were transpiring, surprised, if it did not sometimes disgust, those who did not know him well; but it indicated on his part no want of a proper appreciation of the terrible responsibility which rested upon him as the Chief Magistrate of a great nation engaged in the suppression of a desperate rebellion which threatened its overthrow. Story-telling with him was something more than a habit. He was so accustomed to it in social life and in the practice of his profession, that it became a part of his nature, and so accurate was his recollection, and so great a fund had he at command, that he had always anecdotes and stories to illustrate his arguments and delight those whose tastes were similar to his own; but those who judged from this

HUGH M'CULLOCH.

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trait that he lacked deep feeling or sound judgment, or a proper sense of the responsibility of his position, had no just appreciation of his character. He possessed all these qualities in an eminent degree. It was true of him, as is true of all really noble and good men, that those who knew him best had the highest admiration of him. He was not a man of genius, but he possessed, in a large degree, what is far more valuable in a public man, excellent common sense. He did not undertake to direct public opinion, but no man understood better the leadings of the popular will or the beatings of the popular heart. He did not seem to gain this knowledge from reading or from observation, for he read very few of our public journals, and was little inclined to call out the opinions of others. He was a representative of the people, and he understood what the people desired rather by a study of himself than of them. Granting that, although constitutionally honest himself, he did not put a very high valuation upon honesty in others, and that he sometimes permitted his partiality for his friends to influence his action in a manner that was hardly consistent with an upright administration. of his great office, few men have held high position whose conduct would so well bear the severest criticism as Mr. Lincoln's. The people have already passed judgment in favor of the nobleness and uprightness of his character and the wisdom of his administration, and the pen of impartial history will confirm the judgment.

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EXTRACT FROM MR. LINCOLN'S SPEECH

AT GALESBURG, ILLINOIS, OCTOBER 7, 1858.

I have all the while maintained, that in so far as it should be insisted that there was an equality between the white and black races that should produce a perfect social and political equality, it was an impossibility. This, you have seen in my printed speeches; and with it, I have said, that in their right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," as proclaimed in that old Declaration, the inferior races are our equals. And these declarations I have constantly made in reference to the abstract moral question, to contemplate and consider when we are legislating about any new country, which is not already cursed with the actual presence of the evilslavery. I have never manifested any impatience with the necessities that spring from the actual presence of black people among us, and the actual existence of slavery among us, where it does already exist; but I have isisted that, in legislating for new countries, where it does not exist, there is no just rule, other than that of moral and abstract right! With reference to those new countries, those maxims as to the right of a people to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," were the just rules to be constantly referred to. There is no misunderstanding this, except by men interested to misunderstand it. I take it that I have to address an intelligent and reading community, who will pursue what I say, weigh it, and then judge whether I

EXTRACT FROM MR. LINCOLN'S SPEECH. 121

advance improper or unsound views, or whether I advance hypocritical, and deceptive, and contrary views in different portions of the country. I believe myself to be guilty of no such thing as the latter, though, of course, I cannot claim that I am entirely free from all error in the opinions I advance.

I have said once before, and I will repeat it now, that Mr. Clay, when he was once answering an objection to the Colonization Society, that it had a tendency to the ultimate emancipation of the slaves, said that "those who would repress all tendencies to liberty and ultimate emancipation, must do more than put down the benevolent efforts of the Colonization Society-they must go back to the era of our liberty and independence, and muzzle the cannon that thunders its annual joyous return -they must blot out the moral lights around us-they must penetrate the human soul, and eradicate the light of reason, and the love of liberty," and I do think—I repeat, though I said it on a former occasion,-that Judge Douglas, and whoever, like him, teaches that the negro has no share, humble though it may be, in the Declaration of Independence, is going back to the era of our liberty and independence, and so far as in him lies, muzzling the cannon that thunders its annual joyous that he is blowing out the moral lights around us, when he contends that whoever wants slaves has a right to hold them that he is penetrating, so far as lies in his power, the human soul, and eradicating the light of reason and the love of liberty, when he is in every possible way preparing the public mind, by his vast influence, for making the institution of slavery perpetual and national.

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