38
��Abraham Lincoln.
��alone was sufficient to carry us triumphantly through to the end. Before this prestige all resist- ance was discomfited, and his was the hand to com- plete and adorn the unfinished temple of our fa- thers. 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 cleai- blue its towers and pinnacles, white and pure, and crowning all with the Emancipation rroclamatiou as its fitting caj)- stone. 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 inlelli- gence" — 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 difler- ence of opinion now as to the grandeur and nobil- ity of this service. It was the finishing toirch upon ttie work of Washington. Before Lincoln, Wash- ington stood alone as the one great typical Amer- ican. 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 i)eople, who so sorely taxed and saddened that great spirit, are gaining a love and reverence for him almost tran- scending our own. J'hose whom he leduced to obedience are foremost in appreciation of liim, so that that eloquent son and orator of the New South could rise at the banquet of the New England So- ciety 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 him- self all the strength and gentleness, all the maj- esty and grace, of this republic — Abraham Lincoln. He was the sum of i'uritan and Cavalier, tor in his arden* 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 I'urilan, greater than Cavalier, in that he was American, and that in his homely form were first gathered the vast and thrillingforcesofthis ideal government — charg- ing it with such tremendous meaning, and so elevating it above human suffiL'ring that mar- tyrdom, though infamously aimed, came as a fit- ting cro ' n to a lite const crated fieni the cradle to human liberty."
This is equally beautiful and true; and it well pays us lor waiting to hear it come at lasi from I he lips of a lieorgian, representing a city so hammered and trampled upon by our hosts that ,'^carcely 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 alter his death, swelled from the liarj) of Eng- land through the jiages of y'«/)c/(. which had rid- iculed and insulted him through life:
You lay a wreath on murdered I-incoln'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 ol all we prize as debonair,
Of power or will to shine, of art to please, —
You,, whose smart pen backed up the pencils laugh. Judging each stop as tlnuigh the way were plain ;
Reckless, so it could point its jiaragraph. Of chief's perplexity, or people's jiain!
Beside this corpse, that boars for winding sheet The stars and stiipes he lived to rear anew,
Between the mourners at his head and feet. Say, scurril jester, is there room for you f
��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 E\ er 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 «ill we can arrive to know, Nor tamper with the weights of good and ill.
So he went forth to battle, on the side
Tliat 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, Anil lived to do it; four long suffering years'-
lU-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 switt eclipse To thoughts of peace on earth, good-will to men.
The Oil! 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 f 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 moie 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 crowiiest a life With much to praise, little to be forgiven !
Therefore, it is clear that whatever differences we are to have hereafter with our liiethren of the re- cent strife, and with the laces of mankind, we are, by common consent, to stand with equal reverence before him; antl contemphifing 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 inscrut- able things of the universe, and e.xclaim, — "Sub- lime destiny! to have climbed by his unaided ener- gies not only to the summit of earthly power, but to the reverence of history, and an undisputed do- minion 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, i'hrough these he became a
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