The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1866-04-16
WASHINGTON, April II.
HOUSE.

HOUSE.
On motion of Mr.. Garfield, the read
ing of the journal of yesterday was dis
pensed with.
dress the House ut length. He said F:
/ desire to enter n motion that this
House be now adjourned. This day
will be memorable as long as this ma
ton shall endure, which God grant may
be till that last moment of recorded
time, when the volume of the worlds
history shall be sealed up and placed
before the omnipotent judge for his sem
tence on this day. For all time to come
doubt not the citizens of this republic
will meet together looking into each
others faces with solemn sadness as
they recall the great event of this day
in 1865, an event unparalleled in the
history ofthe nation, certainly unpar-
alleled in our own. think it emil
nently proper that this Congress should
put on its record to-day n resolution in
memory of that event. The war with
its wonderful events, which gave to his
tory many distinguished names, took
the young men of the land and made
them into heroes. It made the old men
patriots, and the women became minis
tering angels all over the land; but
chief among all the great developments
of the war, were the character and life
of that great man, whose loss the mutton
still deplores. He is aptly described in
the language of one of. England'S great
poets, us ''that divinely gifted man
whose life in low estate began upon a
simple village green, who breaks his
births inVidious bar and graSps the
skirts of happy chance, and breasts the
blows of circumstance and grnpples
with his evil star" who makes by force
his merit known and lives to clutch the
golden keys to mould a mighty state
and shape the whisper of the throne,
and moving up from high to higher be-
comes on fortunes browning slope the
pillar of II peoples hope, the centre of "A
worlds desire. Such n life and such a
character will go down to all time as
the greatest and sacred possession ofthe
American people, but there is more than
the mere character of any one man in
that great struggle through which we
have passed. There were two scenes i'll
military scene, with all its deaths, with
all its sufferings, signs and tears that
scene was the closing one. Oneyear ago
this night, Just as the curtain was lift
ing to the new and final scene, the re-
stOration of peace and liberty and order,
just as the curtain was rising to show
the new characters, the evil spirit of re-
bellion and treason could not resist its
desire to strike one blow, and to cause
the chief character in the scene then
closing to perish by the hand of an as
sussin. 1t was not the hand of one man
that killed President Lincoln, il was
the embodied spirit of treason and
slavery concentrated into fearful hate
that struck him down in that supreme
hour of the nations joy. There are
times in the history of men and of the
nation, when they seem to stand so
closely by the veil which shuts out
mortals from Immortality, time from
eternity and man from God, that they
can almost hear the beatingS and feel
the pulsation of the heart of God-such
n time have we passed through, when
$50, 600 patriotic spirits broke through
the folds of that veil and went up into
the presence of God, and when Mt last
its parting folds admitted the President
to go with the dead heroes of the repub-
lie, the nation felt indeed that it could
hear the whispers of God coming down
among tho children and men, kneellng
at that troubled hour where joy and
sadness were so strangely commingled,
the American people listened to the
voice oftheir God, and made solemn
covenant with him with each other that
this nation should be redeemed, all its
glories restored, and that on the ruins
OF slavery and treason the temple OF
freedom and justice should be builtand
should survive forever. 1t romans for
us Mr.. Speaker, cOnsecrated by that
great event and under the covenant
with God, to keep that faith and go on
in the good work until it shall be COM
pleted, following the lead of TINT great
man and reverently following the lead
of God. Let us remember that He has
sounded forth the trumpet, which shall
never call retreat. He is rftltng out the
hearts of men before his judgment seat,
be swift my soul to answer Him, be ju-
bilant my feet for God is marching on.
The motion of Mr.. Garfield was then
agreed to, and the House therefore adj
iOurned