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compared with the Czar Alexander II. of Russia, who by his own personal will freed so many millions of serfs, in opposition to the wishes of his nobles; while the former freed no slaves, but granted some elective privileges to the plebeian claims, subject always to the approval of the patrician senators, and built a five-mile wall around Rome. But neither of these despots (one a King and the other an Emperor) possessed the characteristics of Abraham Lincoln. The fact that all three were assassinated does not signify much in making them resemblances of each other. In studying the marble and bronze portraits of the rulers and great men of ancient medieval and modern times, the writer has found none possessing any decided resemblance to Mr. Lincoln, whose features are distinctly in contrast with European types and may properly be designated as purely American. Our own brief history gives us the names of five distinctly remarkable men who were Presidents of the United States, greater than all others, more remarkable because they carved out and achieved their own immortality, and none but one of these five referred to was a college graduate, and he, by his own indomitable will, perseverance and industry, through extreme poverty, alone obtained a collegiate education. None of these five men were sons of presidents, nor did they possess wealthy and distinguished relatives (except, perhaps, the first) to advance and place them in high stations. No! they all earned their honors and promotion from stage to stage, from young boyhood, in the rough, rugged school of experience, toil and hardship, which ripened and fitted them for every station to which they were successively

LEONARD W. VOLK.

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advanced up to the highest and proudest positions in the land. Nature had endowed these favorite sons with a wealth of ideas, a wealth of self-reliance, industry, honesty, patience and patriotism, far greater and more valuable than inherited riches, titles, or class privileges. Imagine Abraham Lincoln, as a sturdy youth in the depths of the primeval forests of the west, alone with his axe, felling the giant trees, lopping off the limbs, dividing the trunks in regular lengths, then, with beetle and wedges splitting them into rails, now and then wearily sitting on a stump or log, or lying on the ground to rest himself, and snatching a few moments to study a book, or perhaps contemplating the solitude of the forest, while watching the birds and listening to their wild songs. Then, in the grand moon-lit night, while floating silently down the mighty Mississippi on his flat-boat, he doubtless thought, planned and dreamed of his ambitious. desire to rise in the world and get above his present lowly condition. Noble and ambitious resolves were weaving in his young brain. He, like the others of the immortal five, believed in himself to be able to grapple with the difficulties of life and take the responsibilities thrust upon him by the people. It was fortunate for the fame of these men that events of sufficient magnitude occurred, affording the opportunities to prove to the world their real fitness, talent and greatness, to be imperishably engraved upon history's tablets among the immortal men of all ages. If the ambitious young men of the present and future generations will earnestly study and imitate these sublime characters, relying as they did upon their own honest, patient toil and privation of lux

uries, instead of leaning upon others or watching chances to be placed high by those temporarily in power-to suddenly tumble from unearned stations-some of them may reap the reward and honors of Washington, Jackson, Lincoln, Grant and Garfield.

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GEORGE STONEMAN.

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THE

HERE is and can be but one opinion regarding the life and work performed by that great man Lincoln. He did more to perpetuate the existence of free institutions and a republican form of government than any man that has ever lived, and the debt mankind owes his memory can never be repaid.

He had but one fault. He was too sympathetic and tender-hearted. I well recollect one night about two o'clock A. M. in the early days of the war, that I was with him in the telegraph office at General McClellan's headquarters. He arose from his chair to leave, straightened himself up and remarked, "To-morrow night I shall have a terrible headache." When asked the cause he replied, "To-morrow is hangman's day and I shall have to act upon death sentences," and I shall never forget the sad and sorrowful expression that came over his face. It is well known that Congress relieved him from the consideration of death sentences for desertion and other capital offenses, and conferred it upon army commanders.

SAN GABRIEL, 1881.

MESSAGE TO CONGRESS

ASSEMBLED IN EXTRA SESSION, JULY 4, 1861.

I AM most happy to believe that the plain people understand and appreciate this. It is worthy of note that while in this, the Government's hour of trial, large numbers of those in the army and navy who have been favored with the offices, have resigned and proved false to the hand which pampered them, not one common. soldier or common sailor is known to have deserted his flag. Great honor is due to those officers who have remained true despite the example of their treacherous associates, but the greatest honor and most important fact of all, is the unanimous firmness of the common soldiers and common sailors. To the last man, so far as known, they have successfully resisted the traitorous efforts of those whose commands but an hour before they obeyed as absolute law. This is the patriotic instinct of plain people. They understand without an argument that the destroying the Government which was made by Washington means no good to them. Our popular Government has often been called an experiment. Two points in it our people have settled: the successful establishing and the successful administering of it. One still remains its successful maintenance against a formidable internal attempt to overthrow it. It is now for them to demonstrate to the world that those who can fairly carry an election, can also suppress a rebellion; that

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