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PROCLAMATION.

283

large increase of freedom. No human counsel hath devised, nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and voice, by the whole American people. I do, therefore, invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea, and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and prayer to our beneficent Father, who dwelleth in the heavens. And I recommend to them that, while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation, and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the divine. purposes, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity, and union.

Abraham Lincoln

OCTOBER 3, 1863.

REPLY TO COMMITTEE OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH (NEW SCHOOL), .

IN

errors.

PHILADELPHIA, 1863.

my administration I might have committed some It would be indeed remarkable if I had not. I have acted according to my best judgment in every case. As a pilot I have used my best exertions to keep afloat our ship of state, and shall be glad to resign my trust at the appointed time to another pilot more skillful and successful than I may prove. In every case, and at all hazards, the Government must be perpetuated. Relying, as I do, upon the Almighty Power, and encouraged, as I am, by these resolutions which you have just read, with the support which I receive from Christian men, I shall not hesitate to use all the means at my control to secure the termination of this rebellion, and will hope for success.

S. IRENAEUS PRIME.

285

MY FIRST SIGHT OF MR. LINCOLN.

HE

E was riding into the city of New York with military and civic escort, on his way to Washington to be inaugurated for the first time to the Presidency of the United States. The country was at that moment in the first throes of the great rebellion. Millions of hearts were beating anxiously in view of the advent to power of this untried man. Had he been called of God to the throne of power at such a time as this to be the leader and deliverer of the people?

As the carriage in which he sat passed slowly by me on the Fifth avenue, he was looking weary, sad, feeble and faint. My disappointment was excessive, so great, indeed, as to be almost overwhelming. He did not look to me to be the man for the hour. The next day I was with him and others in the Governor's room in the City Hall, when the Mayor of the city made to Mr. Lincoln an official address. Of this speech I will say nothing; but the reply by Mr. Lincoln was so modest, firm, patriotic and pertinent, that my fears of the day before began to subside, and I saw in this new man a promise of great things to come. It was not boldness nor dash, nor highsounding pledges; nor did he, in office, with the mighty armies of a roused nation at his command, ever assume to be more than he promised in that little. upper chamber in New York, on his journey to the seat of government,

to take the helm of the ship of state then tossing in the storm. During the war, I was dining with a party of which Gen. Burnside was one. A gentleman expressed surprise and regret that the war had not brought to the front in civil service some man of such commanding force of character, will-power and genius as to compel his countrymen to accept him as the born statesman for the hour. Gen. Burnside said: "We are drifting, and it is better I think Mr. Lincoln is just the man to keep the ship on its course. One more headstrong, willful and resolute might divide and weaken the counsels of the nation. We shall go through and come out all right." It did not please God to spare him until the people were settled in peace in the redeemed and reunited land. But he saw

SO.

from the mount of vision the goodly sight afar, and died in faith.

NEW YORK, 1882.

S. Stenaus Prime

ALEX. RAMSEY—C. E. PRATT.

287

MR.

R. LINCOLN'S life was one of true patriotism, and his character one of honesty and of the highest type of religious sentiment.

ST. PAUL, 1882.

Am. Ramsy

WHE

HEN history crystallizes that the events of a century shall be recorded in a sentence, then will the administrations of Washington and Lincoln be the epochal marks of this age. The former founded a republic, the latter was the great emancipator of the nineteenth century.

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