control of the Democratic party, and no person, unless he was willing to do their bidding, could hope for advancement within that party. That was the situation when, on the 23d of January, 1854, Stephen A. Douglas, as a bid for the next presidential nomination of his party, introduced into the senate the famous Kansas-Nebraska bill, repealing the Missouri Compromise. Nobody in Illinois had asked Mr. Douglas to take that step. It was the order of the slave power, and the passage of the bill was a declaration of war on the part of the South. Very soon both parties began to throw out skirmishers into Kansas, and the result of the preliminary struggle was with the North.

It ad become evident to the minds of such men as William H. Seward a d Abraham Line In that the "irrepressible conflict between opposing and enduring forces" had begun. It was in the opening sentence of his great speech of the 17th of June, 1858, that Mr. Lincoln said,-"A house divided against itself cannot stand I believe that this government cannot enou e permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved. I do not expect the house will fall; but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other. Either the opponents of sl very will arrest the furth r spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates will push it forward till it shall become alike lawful in all the states, old as well as new, North as well as South."

The course of Mr. Douglas having made him the most conspicuous of the Democratic leaders in the North, his ambition was no longer limited to the Senate or any place within the gift of the people of Illinois. He now aspired to the presidency of the United States. For twenty years Mr. Lincoln had been his rival and competitor, antagonizing him step by step. He had met him repeatedly in debate, and had answered his arguments on the tariff and internal improvements, and, more recently, upon the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, and "popular sovereignty," until he had come to be recognized as the champion of the free tate men. On all sides it was expected of him that he should again take the stump in opposition to Mr. Douglas and the aggressions of the slave power. The famous debate of 1858 between them made Mr. Lincoln well known to the whole country, and without doubt the sinal ability which he then displayed, the moderation and fairness of his views, coupled with his inflexible tirmness for the right, made him the candidate of the Republican party in 1860.

In his speeches he did not deal in second-hand ideas. His practical trining prevented his being bookish or fond of abstractions From his own wide experience with men and nature he drew illustrations familiar to himself and to his audiences. He was not inclined to the use of invective, and was slow to apply hard names to his opponents. He prefered to appeal to their intelligence and sense of justice, an to convince them through their reason. He never undertook to persuade men by personal abuse. In his public discussions he seems to have been always charitable towards those who differed with him, apparently believing they might be honestly wrong, and seeking to win them to his way of thinking. He never claimed for himself or his party all the wisdom and virtue of the country, nor denied a fair share to his opponents; and yet under his wise counsel, and in a large mea ure by his efforts, the anti-s avery Whigs, the free-soil Democrats, the abolitionists, the constitutional union men of Illinois, and, to a certain extent, of the country at large, were united in one homogeneous whole, welded into the Republican party,-a party which has done more for the moral and material welfare of this country than any other party has ever done for any country since the dawn of civilizatio. With the war for the Union waged and won, with slavery rendered impossible forever hereafter, with the Pacific Railway built, and a generous homestead given to every settler, all under the administration of the first president elected by that

party, the country has gone on in a course of prosperity never equalled before, and has grown so in population, and so multiplied all those comforts and necessaries of life which go to make up the collective we lth of a people. that it has become the most populous, the wealthies', and, I may add, the most powerful nation. in Christendom. It leads the van of civilization.

But it is natural for us to be not quite satisfied. It is hard to let well enough alone. The best is not quite good enough; and it is as well so, otherwise if we were too easily content we shoult make no progress. In this age of boycotts, lockouts, and strikes, su cessful and otherwise, we hear a great deal abont socialism, communism, nibilism, anarchy, the land question, and various other movements founded on the assumption that capital must always of necessity be at war with labor. On this assumption the workingman is invited to align himself with this or that movement, and by so doing better his con ition. Now, there was a time when to a certain extent labor was at war with capital. That was the time when the Democratic party said capital had a right to buy and own labor. The Republican party, composed as it was of workingmen, took the opposite view, and said the converse of the proposition is true, and that instead of capital owning the laborer, the laborer should own the capital, as mu h of it as possible; and for the past thirty years that party has done everything to help him to take that position with regard to capital. A high protective tariff gives high wages to the workin, and, so long as his tea and coffee, his beef and flour, his house rent and doctor's bills, and nine-tenths of his clothi g pay no duty, the cost of living is not perceptibly increased by the tariff. By reason of the protective tariff, advocated by Lincoln in 1832 and put in operation under his administration by a Republican Congress, hundre 's of thousands of laborers have found comfortable homes in this country, who, but for that Republican measure, would have had no pecuniary inducement to come to us across the Atlantic.

Upon this que tion of the relation between labor and capital, which to-day perplexes the minds of a good many honest men, we are not left without words of gu dance from the sagacious and far-seeing Lincoln In his message to Congress in December, 1861, now thstanding the public mind was intent upon the prosecution of the war, he spoke of the attempt of the Confederacy to place capital on an equal footing, if not above labor, and enumerated fallacious assumptions on which they proceeded. He said they assumed that labor is available only in connection with capital; that nobody labors unless induced thereto by somebody else owning capital, either by hiring or owning the laborer; that whoever is a hired laborer is fixed in that condition for life. "Now," he said, "there is no such relation between capital and labor as assumed; nor is there any such thing as a free man being fixed for life in the condition of a hired labo er. Both these assumptions are false, and all inferences from them are groundless. Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed it labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of protection as any other rights." He s id a few men possess capital, and with their capital hire another few to labor for them, but a large majority North and South, were neither masters nor slivs, hirers nor hired. Men, with their families, wives, sons, and daughters, work for themselves on their farms, in their houses, and in their shops, taking their whole product to themselves, and asking no tavors of capital on the one hand or hired laborers on the other.

"Again," Mr. Lincoln repeat, "there is not of necessity any such thing as the free hired laborer being fixe to that condition for lite," and then he added in words, which, though I read them first while in camp in Virginia more than twenty-five years ago, I think I shall never forget because they are so true of our people: "Many independent men everywhere in these states a few years back in

their lives were hired laborers. The prudent, penniless beginner in the world labors for wages awhile, saves a surplus with which to buy tools or land for himself, then labors on bis own account another while, and at length hires another new beginner to help him. This is the just and generous and prosperous system which opens the way to all, gives hope to all, and consequent energy and ress and improvement of condition to all. No men living are more worthy to be trusted than those who toil up from poverty; none less in-lined to take or touch aught which they have not honestly earned."

prog.

These words of Abraham Lincoln are as wise and true to-day as they were when first uttered, and they are still the doctrine of the Republican party. While capital has a right to protect.on, labor is s'ill its superior. We recognize the fact that buman beings are of more consequence than dollars, that persons are more precious than things, and, happily for the workingman, under a free government, the party that by precept or example teaches otherwise, will soon become a mere plutocratic

remnant without votes

I congratulate the members of our club upon the na ne we have assumed, and I venture to predict, that so long as the Republicans of New Hampshire continue to honor the name of Lincoln and follow his example and teachings, they will deserve and continue to receive the support of a great majority of the intelligent people of the state.

SPEECH OF COL. DANIEL HALL.

The oration of Colonel Hall received the close attention of every one present, and was able and eloquent. It was as follows:

MR. PRESIDENT: I understand that I am expected to occupy a few minutes of your time in speaking of Abraham Lincoln as a Man." The theme is too large for me, and crushes me at the beginning. It is like speaking of the sun; and as, while we stand in the full effulgence of that great luminary, flooding the world with its light and warmth and life-giving power, it is impossible to disentangle and analyze its various and many-hued rays of beneficence, so is it difficult to emphasize any separate aspects of this illustrious and manysided character. The mere character of a great man not seldom confers greater benefits upon the nation, and upon the epoch in which he lives, than any, or even all, or his specific achievements. I have sometimes thought that such was the ministry to us of the life of Abraham Lincoln; for though it was given to him to connect his name inseparably with some of the greatest events in our history, the overthrow of the Rebellion, the maintenance of the Union, the emancipation of the slave, yet, when we consider the great moral authority his name has gained, the ideas and associations that cluster about that unique individuality, how his influence and example and precepts have uplifted this people in their whole being, it seems as if he had brought a new force into our national life; had set in motion a train of benign influences which is to go on without limit, so that in future his age is to form a new date and point of departure in our political calendar.

So familiar is his personality to us that we scarcely need to know more of him; and yet I think all of us must be reading with deep interest the new Life of him, which is appearing in "The Century," and throwing fresh light upon his origin, his education, and his early career. There was a special fitness in the birth, amid the poorest and harshest surroundings, of him whose destiny it was to assert for his country and his age the divine right, not of kings, but of humanity,-the essential equality of men, and their right to au untrammelled liberty and an unfettered pursuit of happiness. No training in the schools entered into his preparation for his great work, but he lived the life of the broad West, breathing its free and invigorating air, and thus developed a sterling

manhood, health of body, and strength of limb, truth in every word and deed, and a clearness of vision and moral intrepidity which the schools cannot supply. Thus reared, amid humble and simple surroundings, he "mewed his mighty youth" in warfare upon

"The uncleared forest, the unbroken soil,

The iron bark that turns the lumberer's axe, The rapid that o'erbears the boatman's toil, The prairie, hiding the mazed wanderer's tracks, "The ambushed Indian and the prowling bear,Such were the needs that helped his youth to

train:

Rough culture-but such trees large fruit may bear,

If but their stocks be of right girth and grain."

In such a mould his life took on that rough exterior and homely garb which shaped it for all time, and made him "in his simplicity sublime."

These struggles of pioneer lite were the bracing on of the armor of Vulcan which equipped him for deeds of high emprise; they made him brave and true, genuine and sincere,-oue to whom duty should be first, and the rights of man second; and he grew up having in him what our ancestors, with awful solemnity, called "the fear of God." To his latest day he took on no veneer of polish: he assumed no dramatic attitudes for dazzling the eye or impressing the imagination, and was guilty of no trickeries to cheat the judgment of contemporaries or of posterity.

It is not necessary to trace Mr. Lincoln's pathway, step by step, upward towards the high places of the world. You are all familiar with the slow but sure processes of his growth and advancement. His original abilities were of a high order. He saw quickly and distinctly. His mind was clear, and open to truth as the flowers are to the sunlight and the dew. His reasonings were close and sound. He was a man of power and effectiveness, and so steadily did he grow in public esteem that long before his great preferment was dreamed of he enjoyed a popular regard almost unparalleled. No stronger proof of his intellectual and moral energy can be cited than the rapid and strong hold which he gained in due time upon the patriotism, the confidence, and the faith of the country. These elements crystallized with an unhesitating abandon about his name, and the strength and vi tality of the free North took the color of his mind, and became charged with his personality. That he was a great lawyer, with vigorous powers of logic and comparison and illustration, and a strong grasp upon legal principles, will be shown to you by another, amply competent to present to you that phase of his greatness; and I will not trench upon his province.

He was also an orator of rare power. Before those rather rude audiences of the West, which had no fastidiousness, and judged him by no nice standard of taste, he was grandly effective, and convinced and swayed them with consummate skill. With them he employed, as he did everywhere, those "rugged phrases hewn from life," and that inimitable wit and genial humor which testified to his real seriousness, and the zest and relish with which he entered into the life around him. The severe logic, the clearness and compactness of statement, the moral earnestness which struck a deeper chord even than conviction,-all these appear in some of his speeches in Congress, and notably in the renowned debate between him and Douglas; and in these and his casual addresses, more still in his unstudied conversations, there is to be found phrase after phrase that has the ring and the weight and the sharp outline of a bronze coin. But he filled also the requisites of a higher and more exacting criticism. Though unlearned, and without the graces of the schools, he was sometimes gifted with the loftiest eloquence. On great occasions, written and spoken speech has rarely risen to higher levels than from his lips. Some of his utterances, instinct with solemn thoughtfulness, and illustrated by beauty of diction, a sententious brevity, and

felicitous turns of expression, such as the Cooper Institute speech, his inaugural addresses, and the oration at Gettysburg, are masterpieces, to live and resound as long as the English tongue survives.

Mr. Lincoln answered, as I think, another of the unerring tests of greatness, in his marked individ uality, and his unique unlikeness to everybody else. He had no affectation of singularity, and yet he created a distinctness of impression which seems to point him out as a type by himself, a distinct species created by the Divine hand in the evolution of time. His image on our vision is not a blur, but is as distinctly and sharply cut as the outline of a

cameo, or

"The dome of Florence drawn on the deep blue sky."

No other great man as yet in the least resembles him; and if. my friends, we are so happy one day as to meet the shades of the great in the Elysian fields, we shall know that exalted spirit at a glance, and we shall no more mistake the identity of Abraham Lincoln than we shall that of Cæsar or Cromwell or Napoleon, Washington or Grant. Nature stamps her particular sign-manual upon each of her supremely great creations, and we may be sure that she broke the die in moulding Lincoln.

To a club which has honored itself by taking his great name, an inquiry into Mr. Lincoln's conception of politics must ever be a study of the deepest interest. In the first place, he was a politician from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot, and, himself pure, sober, temperate, chaste, and incorruptible, he never shrank from what the mawkish sentimentality of our day affects to condemn and sneer at as the vulgarity of engaging in politics. He entered with ardor into the political life around him; he engaged in party caucuses, conventions, and gatherings; he mixed in the political manage ment of his state, his county, his district, his township, and received no contamination thereby. He conceived this to be the duty of every citizen of a free republic, and no word discouraging political activity ever fell from his lips. He carried into his politics the same morality that he used in his daily dealings with clients and friends. He was incapable of intrigue, he was true and transparent. and no duplicity ever stained his integrity. He studied the currents of public opinion, not as a demagogue to slavishly follow them, but from a profound conviction that, as to times and means, all men are wiser than any one man, and from a real respect for the will of the people, to which he ever rendered a genuine homage. He sought no power. He was too healthy and natural to be disturbed by any troubled dreams of a great destiny; and if he had ambition, it was free from vulgar taint. But in power he never forgot his trusteeship for the people, and he never lost elbow-touch with those to whom he rendered

"The constant service of the antique world,

When service sweat for duty, not for meed." The world knew, therefore, that glory, or vanity, or lust of power had no place in that pure heart. "His ends were his country's, his God's, and truth's," and thus did he earn the proud title of "Statesman, yet friend to truth! of soul sincere, In action faithful, and in honor clear: Who broke no promise, served no private end, Who gained no title, and who lost no friend," Therefore, Mr. President, I claim that his whole life is a standing reproof to the flippant notion and the skeptical and cynical fling that polities is a dishonest game. He was a politician from the outset; and if there is one lesson inculcated here to-day by his life and character, it is that politics in a free government affords the loftiest themes of thought and the grandest theatre of action for men of great and consecrated powers. He was a striking proof that the honestest politics is the best politics, that the greatest prizes are gained by unselfish souls, and that, in fact, there is in decent politics no room for a dishonest man. Here was a man devoted all

After his great elevation, his speeches and state papers are replete with proofs of his political inSight, his clearness of vision, and his far-reaching views. He saw vividly the great considerations which determined his duty, and that of his party, on the question of disunion He felt in his own breast the pulsations of this mighty land. He saw his country and her splendid opportunities for a great race for empire,-no oceans or mountains ↑ dividing, great rivers connecting, a common origin, a common history, common traditions, a common language, continuity of soil, and a great position in the family of nations which unity alone could secure. He rose to the full height of the issues involved. He knew that should the South succeed in winning independence "the cloth once rent would be rent again;" that there would no longer be one America, but many Americas; that the New World would tread over again in the bloody tracks of the Old; that there would be rival communities, with rival constitutions, Democracies lapsing into military despotisms, intrigues, dissensions, and wars following on wars. Therefore this man, so gentle, so mild, so peace-loving, that every shot sent a pang to his own heart, could give the word of command, and, with unbending will, see the United States tear open their veins, and spill their blood in torrents that they might remain one people. But throughout the sanguinary carnival through which he was forced to lead us for four long years, Mr. Lincoln's nature remained true and tender and forgiving. No bitterness and no uncharitableness usurped any place in his heart. There was nothing local or provincial in his patriotism. Notwithstanding the insults and contempt lavished upon himself, despite the injury and wrong done to what he held dearer than himself,-the Union and the liberty which it made possible,-he still enfolded the South in his warmest affections. His whole public life is full of evidences of this breadth of view, this catholicity of temper, this farreaching statesmanship, this magnanimous and Christian spirit. He yearned for peace unceasingly; and there can be no doubt that a complete pacification and reconciliation on the basis of impartial liberty was the last and fondest dream of his great soul, rudely interrupted by the stroke of the assassin. He lived not to realize his great designs, vet he fulfilled his historic mission, and what a large arc in the completed circle of our country's history will his administration embrace! What harvests of martial and civic virtue were garnered in! What a treasure-house of national memories and heroic traditions was prepared! What a new and glorious impulse was communicated to the national life!

What was achieved by his genius and character by that peculiar combination and summary of qual ities of heart and brain and environment which make up what we call Abraham Lincoln, we, by our finite standards and our partial view of the scopes and orbits of human influence, can never adequately measure, But some things we see in their completeness before our eyes. We gaze with admiration upon his pure and upright character, his immovable firmness and determination in the right, his inexhaustible patience and hopefulness under reverses. We remember how steadily these masterful qualities wrought upon the public mind, till his quaint wisdom, his disinterestedness, his identification with the principles that underlay the issues of the Civil War, made his name representative of all that was highest and holiest and best in the North, and gave it a prestige which

alone was sufficient to carry us triumphantly through to the end. Before this prestige all resistance was discomfited, and his was the hand to complete and adorn the unfinished temple of our fathers. Substituting the corner-stone of Freedom for that of Slavery, he built anew the indestructible edifice of our Liberty, giving it new proportions of beauty, lifting up into the clear blue its towers and pinnacles, white and pure, and crowning all with the Emancipation Proclamation as its fitting capstone. He it was who presided over the strife which restored the Union, and "out of the nettle Danger plucked the flower Safety." But for that great character, raising high above the tumult of contending parties its voice of patriotism and moderation-that moderation which a profound writer calls "the great regulator of human intelligence" who shall say that this government would not have been rent asunder, and the Ship of State foundered with all on board? There is no diflerence of opinion now as to the grandeur and nobility of this service. It was the finishing touch upon the work of Washington. Before Lincoln, Washington stood alone as the one great typical American. But now a new planet has come into our field of vision, and with him holds its place in our clear upper sky. Indeed, it is a significant fact that, as time goes on, our Southern people, who so sorely taxed and saddened that great spirit, are gaining a love and reverence for him almost transcending our own. Those whom he reduced to obedience are foremost in appreciation of him, so that that eloquent son and orator of the New South could rise at the banquet of the New England Society of New York on last Forefathers' Day, and pay this lofty tribute to his genius and virtue.

Said he, From the union of these colonists, from the straightening of their purposes and the crossing of their blood, slow perfecting through a century, came he who stands as the first typical American, the first who comprehended within himself all the strength and gentleness, all the majesty and grace, of this republic-Abraham Lincoln. He was the sum of Puritan and Cavalier, for in his ardent nature were fused the virtues of both, and in the depths of his great soul the faults of both were lost. He was greater than Puritan, greater than Cavalier, in that he was American, and that in his homely form were first gathered the vast and thrilling forces of this ideal government-charg ing it with such tremendous meaning, and so elevating it above human suffering that martyrdom, though infamously aimed, came as a titting cron to a life consecrated from the cradle to human liberty."

This is equally beautiful and true; and it well pays us for waiting to hear it come at lasi from the lips of a Georgian, representing a city so hammered and trampled upon by our hosts that scarcely one stone of it was left upon another in the gigantic struggle.

Not less striking, nor less surely the voice of the civilized world, were those strains, which, a few days after his death, swelled from the harp of England through the pages of Punch, which had ridiculed and insulted him through life:

You lay a wreath on murdered Lincoln's bier,
You, who with mocking pencil wont to trace.
Broad for the self-complacent British sneer,
His length of shambling limb, his furrowed face,

His gaunt, gnarled hands, his unkempt, bristling hair,

His garb uncouth, his bearing ill at ease, His lack of all we prize as debonair,

Of power or will to shine, of art to please,— You, whose smart pen backed up the pencil's laugh, Judging each step as though the way were plain; Reckless, so it could point its paragraph,

Of chief's perplexity, or people's pain!

Beside this corpse, that bears for winding sheet
The stars and stripes he lived to rear anew,
Between the mourners at his head and feet,
Say, scurril jester, is there room for you?

Yes, he had lived to shame me from my sneer;
To lame my pencil, and confute my pen;-
To make me own this hind of princes peer;
This rail-splitter a true born king of men.

My shallow judgment I had learnt to rue,
Noting how to occasion's height he rose;
How his quaint wit made home-truth seem more
true;

How iron-like his temper grew by blows;

How humble, yet how hopeful, he could be;
How, in good fortune and in ill, the same;
Nor bitter in success, nor boastful he,
Thirsty for gold, nor feverish for fame.

He went about his work-such work as few
Ever had laid on head, and heart, and hand-
As one who knows, where there's a task to do,
Man's honest will must heaven's good grace com-

mand.

Who trusts the strength will with the burden grow,
That God makes instruments to work his will,
If but that will we can arrive to know,
Nor tamper with the weights of good and ill.

So he went forth to battle, on the side

That he felt clear was Liberty's and Right's, As in his peasant boyhood he had plied His warfare with rude Nature's thwarting mights.

So he grew up a destined work to do,

And lived to do it; four long suffering years'
Ill-fate, ill-feeling, ill-report, lived through,
And then he heard the hisses change to cheers,

The taunts to tribute, the abuse to praise,
And took both with the same unwavering mood:
Till, as he came on light, from darking days,
And seemed to touch the goal from where he
stood,

A felon had, between the goal and him,

Reached from behind his back, a trigger prest,And those perplexed and patient eyes were dim Those gaunt, long-laboring limbs were laid to

rest:

The words of mercy were upon his lips,

Forgiveness in his heart and on his pen,
When this vile murderer brought swift eclipse
To thoughts of peace on earth, good-will to men.
The Old World and the New, from sea to sea,
Utter one voice of sympathy and shame!
Sore heart, so stopped when it at last beat high!
Sad life, cut short just as the triumph came!

A deed accurst! Strokes have been struck before
By the assassin's hand, whereof men doubt
If more of horror or disgrace they bore,
But thy foul crime, like Cain's, shines darkly out.

Vile hand, that brandest murder on a strife,
Whate'er its grounds, stoutly and nobly striven,
And with the martyr's crown crownest a life
With much to praise, little to be forgiven!

Therefore, it is clear that whatever differences we are to have hereafter with our brethren of the recent strife, and with the races of mankind, we are, by common consent, to stand with equal reverence before him; and contemplating the life onward and upward of this peasant boy, from the log cabin to the White House, and the moral dictatorship of the world. I involuntarily bow before the inscrutable things of the universe, and exclaim,-"Sublime destiny! to have climbed by his unaided energies not only to the summit of earthly power, but to the reverence of history, and an undisputed dominion over the hearts and minds of posterity in all coming ages."

I have spoken of Mr. Lincoln's plainness and simplicity, his abilities and achievements, and his relation to politics. Through these he became a

great factor in the events of his time. But after all I must think the true key to his influence is to be sought and found elsewhere. In his incorruptible purity, his disinterestedness, his inflexible morality, his fidelity to convictions,-in short, in his moral earnestness,-here were the real hidingplaces of his power. The world is ever loyal to this lofty type of character, and whenever it recog nizes a man who never does violence to his moral sense, it brings him the crown of its allegiance and homage. It was Mr. Lincoln's sturdy honesty that gave him early the soubriquet of "Honest Abe," which never left him; and this it was that winged his speech with celestial fire, and made him victor wherever he moved. The moral bearings of every question presented to him were never out of his mind. In this respect, unlike most of the world's great, "his wagon" was always "hitched to a star." In fine, the elements of intellect, and will, and morality, were

"So mix'd in him, that Nature might stand up, And say to all the world, This was a Man!

There is one scene in the life of Mr. Lincoln which has impressed my imagination beyond any other, and I have wondered why some masterly artist has never yet seized and thrown it in glowing colors and immortal beauty upon some great historical canvas. It seems to me it must have been the supreme happiness of that weary life, the moment when he looked into the dusky faces of his children by adoption in the streets of Richmond, from whose limbs the fetters had dropped at his touch, whom his word had lifted into the gladsome light of liberty,-"sole passion of the generous heart, sole treasure worthy of being cov. eted."

O my friends, the people did not simply admire Abraham Lincoln for his intellectual power, his force of will, the purity of his conscience, the rectitude of his private and public life; but they loved him as little children love their father, because they knew that he "loved the people in his heart as a father loves his children, ready at all hours of the day or the night to rise, to march, to fight, to

suffer, to conquer or to be conquered, to sacrifice himself for them without reserve, with his fame, his fortune, his liberty, his blood, and his life."

Great men are like mountains, which grow as they recede from view. We are even now, perhaps, too near this extraordinary man, as indeed we are too near the remarkable events in which he lived and fought and won his battle of life, to appreciate them in their full significance. His fame in the centuries to come will rest, as that of all great men must and does, upon certain acts that stand out as landmarks in history. Few men have been so fortunate as he. So canonized is he in the heart of mankind, that envy and detraction fall harmless at his feet, and stain not the whiteness of his fame. There have been many men of daily beauty in life, but few such fortunate enough to associate their names with great steps in the progress of manfewer still to blend the double glory of the grandest public achievement with the tenderest, sweetest, gentlest, and simplest private life and thought. Not too soon for an abundant glory, but too soon for a loving and grateful country, his spirit was "touched by the finger of God, and he was not," and

"The great intelligences fair

That range above this mortal state,
In circle round the blessed gate,
Received and gave him welcome there."

As we gather in spirit about his tomb to-day, and decorate with unfading amaranth and laurel the memory of our great chief, how fitly may we say of him what Dixon said of Douglas Jerrold,-"If every one who has received a favor at his hands should cast a flower upon his grave, a mountain of roses would lie on the great man's breast."

I know, friends, how little words can do to portray this august personage, and, toiling in vain to express the thoughts of him which you and I feel, I doubt if it were not better after all, as Mr. Lin

coln himself said of Washington, to "pronounce his name in solemn awe, and in its naked and deathless splendor leave it shining on."

If, now, such a character is a priceless possession to this people, how doubly fortunate are they, are we, who stood by him through life, and are the inheritors of his principles to-day. Therefore, Mr. President, is there a high propriety in this club of Republicans associating themselves together about the great name of Abraham Lincoln, inspired as they must be by the hope and the ambition to emulate those manly traits and those personal virtues which so pervaded his nature as to permeate his politics and govern his life. He was ours wholly, and this Club, by adopting his name, in effect declares him its ideal Republican and political exemplar. In the very name there is fitting inspiration to high and noble endeavor, and we should be recreant to our opportunities and to our best selves

"We that have loved him so, followed him, honored him,

Lived in his mild and magnificent eye, Learned his great language, caught his clear accents,

Made him our pattern, to live and to die"

I say, we should be recreant Republicans, if, under the influence of that transcendent name and character, the very crown and summit of American manhood, we should not rise to a lotty patriotism, a high conception of, and a new consecration to, political duty, and do our utmost to secure the triumph of his principles, and to lift our politics up to that high standard of honor and dignity which guided the steps of the great man whose birthday we now celebrate, and which is commemorated throughout the civilized world as that of a Patriot, Statesman, Hero, and supreme Martyr to Liberty.

SPEECH OF CHARLES R. CORNING.

Lincoln as a humorist was the theme assigned to Mr. Corning, and he treated it in his happiest vein, evoking laughter and applause many times. He said:

During the darkest days of the Civil War when disaster followed disaster in fearful succession, two Quakers chanced to meet. These honest baters of war could not keep their minds from the dreadful conflict. Said one,

"I think Jefferson will win."
"Why so?" asked the other.
"Because, Jefferson is a praying man."
"Yes, but so is Abraham"

"Verily so" the other replied, "but the Lord will think Abraham is joking."

Strange goddesses stood at his cradle. In the humble cabin were gathered the crowned heads of the world's court; the wise, the happy, the tender, the brave, all were there. One only was mis-ing. Danæ, whose hnd flings golden showers into the lap of the living, came not. Into the poor pi neer's hut the raint flicker of the tallow dip could not allure the fabled goddess. Her mission was nearer the stars, and s e never knew the lowly lad whom her sisters were glad to honor. They end wed im with all hat was good and true and honorable. To me Abraham L neo'n is one of the most remarkable studies that human nature ever presented. His mind was warped by no prejudices, and in a truly original manner he reachd his own conclusions in law, in politics, and in private life. Herein he differed from allur public men. Wash. ington, save his occasional profanity, was like his contemporaries. Jefferson, Jackson, Clay, Calhoun, Webster, and their sucessors differed only in mental qualities, but here in Lincoln we have a man who in mind and body was as solitary and alone as the north star. There was never one like him. I am asked to peak of President Lincoln as a humorist. That he was one there can be no question. But he was no wit. Humor and wit do