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SPEECH AT UTICA, N. Y.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN-I have no speech to make to you, and no time to speak it I appear before you that I may see you, and that you may see me; and I am willing to admit, that so far as the ladies are concerned, I have the best of the bargain; though I wish it to be understood that I do not make the same acknowledg ment concerning the men.

S. WELLS WILLIAMS.

177

W

WHEN President Lincoln was killed, I was the acting United States Minister at Peking, and reported the assassination to His Imperial Highness, Prince Kung, then at the head of the government, from whom. a suitable reply was received on the 8th of July, 1865. I sent the correspondence to the Secretary of State, with the following remarks: "The limits of a dispatch will hardly allow me more than to add my tribute of admiration to the character of Mr. Lincoln. His firm and consistent maintenance of the national cause, his clear understanding of the great questions at issue, and his unwearied efforts, while enforcing the laws, to deprive the conflict of all bitterness, were all so happily blended with a reliance on Divine guidance, as to elevate him to a high rank among successful statesmen. His name is hereafter identified with the cause of Emancipation, while his patriotism, integrity, and other virtues, and his untimely death, render him not unworthy of mention with William of Orange and Washington."

This was written seventeen years ago, since which time I have learned more of the inimitable blending in his character of mercy and firmness, and estimate him higher. He was tested in every way throughout the long struggle, and his rare virtues will endure him to the American people the more they study his life.

Wells Williams

YALE COLLEGE, 1882.

SPEECH

FROM THE STEPS OF THE CAPITOL, ALBANY, N. Y.

I AM notified by your Governor that this reception is given without distinction of party. I accept it the more gladly, because it is so. Almost all men in this country, and in any country where freedom of thought is toler ated, attach themselves to political parties. It is but ordinary charity to attribute this to the fact that in so attaching himself to the party which his judgment prefers, the citizen believes he thereby promotes the best interests of the whole country; but when an election is past, it is altogether befitting a free people that, until the next election, they should be as one people. The reception you have extended to me to-day, is not given to me personally. It should not be so, but as the representative, for the time being, of the majority of the nation. If the election had resulted in the selection of either of the other candidates, the same cordiality should have been extended to him, as is extended to me this day, in testimony of the devotion of the whole people to the Constitution and the whole Union, and of their desire to perpetuate our institutions, and to hand them down in their perfection, to succeeding generations.

JOHN BRIGHT.

179

THE

HE life of President Lincoln is written in imperishable characters in the history of the great American Republic.

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