CHARLES FOSTER-HAMILTON FISH.

355

BRAHAM LINCOLN'S name ranks with the pur

ABRA

est of men, the wisest of statesmen, the most sincere and devoted patriot, the loveliest character of American statesmen.

Chao Fisti

"With malice toward none, with charity to all, with

firmness in the right."

REMARKS TO A SERENADING PARTY AT THE WHITE HOUSE.

I AM notified that this is a compliment paid to me by the loyal Marylanders resident in this District. I infer that the adoption of the new Constitution for the State furnishes the occasion, and that, in your view, the extirpation of slavery constitutes the chief merit of the new Constitution.

Most heartily do I congratulate you and Maryland, and the nation, and the world upon the event. I regret that it did not occur two years sooner; which, I am sure, would have saved to the nation more money than would have met all the private loss incident to the measure. But it has come at last, and I sincerely hope its friends may fully realize all their anticipations of good from it, and that its opponents may, by its effects, be agreeably and profitably disappointed. A word upon another subject. Something said by the Secretary of State, in his recent speech at Auburn, has been construed by some into a threat that, if I shall be beaten at the election, I will, between then and the end of my constitutional term, do what I may be able to ruin the Government. Others regard the fact that the Chicago Convention adjourned not sine die, but to meet again, if called to do so by a particular individual, as the intimation of a purpose that if their nominee shall be elected he will at once seize the control of the Government. I hope the good people will permit themselves to suffer no uneasiness on this point.

REMARKS AT THE WHITE HOUSE.

357

I am struggling to maintain the Government, not to overthrow it; I am struggling especially to prevent others from overthrowing it. I therefore say that, if I shall live, I shall remain President until the fourth of next March, and that whoever shall be constitutionally elected therefor, in November, shall be duly installed as President on the fourth of March, and that, in the interval, I shall do my utmost that whoever is to hold the helm for the next voyage shall start with the best possible chance to save the ship. This is due the people both on principle and under the Constitution. Their will, constitutionally expressed, is the ultimate law for all. If they should deliberately resolve to have immediate peace, even at the loss of their country and their liberties, I have not the power or the right to resist them. It is their own business, and they must do as they please with their own; I believe, however, they are still resolved to preserve their country and their liberty; and, in this office or out, I am resolved to stand by them. I may add, that in this purpose to save the country and its liberties no class of people seem so nearly unanimous as the soldiers in the field and seamen afloat. Do they not have the hardest of it? Who should quail while they do not? God bless the soldiers and seamen, with all their brave commanders!

OCTOBER 19, 1864.

OBSERVANCE OF THE SABBATH.

THE President, Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy, desires and enjoins the orderly observance of the Sabbath by the officers and men in the military and naval service. The importance to man and beast of the prescribed weekly rest, the sacred rights of Christian soldiers and sailors, a becoming deference to the best sentiment of Christian people, and a due regard for the Divine Will, demand that Sunday labor in the army and navy be reduced to the measure of strict necessity. The discipline and character of the national forces should not suffer, nor the cause they defend be imperiled, by the profanation of the day or name of the Most High. the time of public distress," adopting the words of Washington in 1776, "men may find enough to do in the service of their God and their country without abandoning themselves to vice and immorality." The first general order issued by the Father of his Country after the Declaration of Independence indicates the spirit in which our institutions were founded and should ever be defended: "The General hopes and trusts that every officer and man will endeavor to live and act as becomes a Christian soldier defending the dearest rights and liberties of his country."

Abraham Lincoln

NOVEMBER 16, 1864.

HENRY S. FRIEZE.-CYRUS W. FIELD. 359

THE

HE name of Abraham Lincoln will not grow dim. with age, like many names brilliant in their own day, yet fading with the lapse of time. But that name will shine with ever-increasing luster, as the results of his public life and services shall be more clearly manifested in the increasing greatness of his country, which, without his wise leadership, aided by faithful counselors, would have been dissolved into clusters of insignificant states, forever at war and forever weak.

Henry S. Frieze.

1880.

L

INCOLN―the statesman, the emancipator, the martyr, whose services to his country will be remembered with those of Washington.