admire. He has left words and deeds and a finished work of statesmanship and philanthropy, which, aside from all interest excited by his tragic fate, worthily secure to him, not only the present gratitude and homage of the nation, but historic immortality among the few great names that America has produced. Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Lincoln, will not these be the four names that, a hundred years hence, will shine with most lustre in the first century of our national history?

I would speak to-day no mere eulogy. There is no need to exaggerate or to conceal. In discussing such a character we can afford to utter the simple, naked facts. All rhetori cal adornment seems but tinsel where there is such pure gold. I would keep strictly within the limits of truth and soberness, while I attempt, though with very inadequate success, to bring together some of the clements by which Abraham Lincoln's capacity, and place in history, must be measured. We shall find, also, that in this life and death, is matter for such history as Shakspeare wrote, which records not only outward events and measures outward greatness, but traces in national events and through individual lives the course and conflicts of absolute, vital principles; and shows how men, though they die, yet triumph in their death, because over their graves the cause they lived for is lifted up out of the arena of conflict and passion, to receive ever after the undivided homage and reverence of the world. Abraham Lincoln, the man, is one of the noblest gifts of our Republic to history; but Abraham Lincoln, the martyr, sanctifies republican freedom and makes our history forever sacred.

In measuring the character and historical value of this man, the first question to be asked is, What was his individuality? that is, had he original power in himself? were there in his own being such elements of strength that he impressed himself strongly upon other men and upon events? did he have personal greatness and weight? And this question is put first, because the answer to it is most obvious, and leads us to one of the main elements of Abraham Lincoln's character and national strength.

We have had few public men in America-scarcely one, I think more purely original,- scarcely one who relied more, or with greater safety and success, upon native, inborn capacity, and upon the individual convictions and experience developed out of native capacity. Few men, in any age or nation of the world, placed in so high a position, have borne its responsibilities so naturally and so easily, or, in the midst of great events and dangers, have assumed responsibility so naturally and borne it so safely. In the great crises of the war, we have sometimes asked indeed for more show of power in the executive branch of the government; we have wanted to be consciously led by the will of a strong man, and to see the display of that will in the nation. Yet all the while that we have been praying for a leader, this man has been really leading us. I doubt if we have ever had a president—I do not except even Jackson or Washington— who was more truly the leader and ruler of the people than Abraham Lincoln. And the fact that he took this position. so easily, and held it so quietly, that the people were not conscious of his hand holding and guiding them, is additional and consummate proof that he possessed the individual,

native power that makes one a natural leader. He led without even knowing it himself. He disclaimed all idea of leadership, disclaimed it in perfect sincerity; said that the president was the servant of the people and only followed to do their bidding. But in the very effort and claim to be their servant, he became their master. Refusing to put himself at the head of any party or clique, listening respectfully and sincerely to all, but deciding for himself and taking the responsibility in his own hands at last, he became in reality the head of the nation.

And this position he held, because of the inherent strength and force of his individual character. When the war first burst upon the country, and Abraham Lincoln-a Western lawyer, with little general culture and experience in statesmanship almost by accident was at the helm of affairs, selected with no reference to the great events that were coming, men began to look at each other with doubt and anxiety; and prominent persons of the party that had elected him wished that they could have foreseen, so that they might have chosen a stronger man. But Providence foresaw, and was wiser than the politicians would have been, or were. They did at Chicago better than they knew. They were thinking only of a temporary availability during an electioneering campaign, and so chose Abraham Lincoln for the presidential candidate; Providence, foreseeing a four years struggle with the power of slavery, was thinking of availability in its highest sense, and so let them choose him. For had they foreseen, where would they have found their stronger man? William H. Seward was then the foremost statesman of the party. Does any one now regret that he

was not the successful candidate? As events have proved, does any one believe that he has comprehended the struggle with a keener insight or with a broader grasp? He has held the first place in the cabinet and done good service there; some of us have sometimes thought that he had too much influence with the president for the president's goodthat he was in reality president. But when the facts are all known, we shall find that the Western lawyer was never overmatched in his cabinet by the shrewd, cultivated, experienced, philosophic statesman of New York. Nor would Chase have made a stronger president for the crisis. His policy, in some respects, from the outset might have been bolder and more radical; personally, in the early stages of the war, it might have suited you and me better; but it would have inevitably put him at the head of a party rather than at the head of the loyal nation; and with all our admiration and reverence for him, we may well doubt whether he could have led the country through these four years of perils on the right hand and on the left so safely as it has been led under its actual leader. We have had, too, the benefit of his strength in the cabinet.

And other strong men, officially and unofficially, have stood as advisers of the president. Yet he has stood the real head of the nation, clear and clean above them all. No ruler was ever readier to listen to opinions from all quarters, to admit all comers, and give every class of men and every party and every individual citizen a chance to be heard. But all these opinions went through the crucible of

his own keen judgment, and came out

into decd through his

own will, if they ever came out at all. His cabinet officers

sometimes complained that they were not even advisers, but only clerks, so independently did he frequently act of them. During Buchanan's administration, and for many years preceding, the policy of the government and all its great measures were decided by a vote of the cabinet, the president making himself strictly the executive of the will of the majority. Lincoln, from the outset, made the cabinet only an advisory body, seeking their advice or not according to his feeling of need, and in any event reserving to himself the right of decision. Sometimes he consulted a part without the knowledge of the rest; sometimes took important steps without the knowledge of any of them. But equally, whether acting by their advice or not, the responsibility was always his, and he was willing and sought to bear it, not for ambition's but for conscience' sake, before the country and the world. Congress passed a resolution of censure against a member of his cabinet: immediately he sent a message to Congress, announcing that the acts censured were his,—and the country, though it had been clamorous against the secretary, said directly that the president was right. Again, a furious party were crying down the secretary of war for withholding supplies from, and secretly plotting against the success of, their favorite general: the president, in a public speech, said that he himself had done the deeds complained of, and the people were silenced. He declared the report of a cabinet-officer to Congress to be his own, and changed it, if it ran counter to his own ideas. And so, generally, he never shrank from taking upon himself any responsibility in the conduct of affairs that the emergency demanded. He initiated measures and assumed powers that in any other

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