Santa Fe daily New Mexican. [volume] (Santa Fe, N.M.) 1885-1897, 1892-02-13
LINCOLN'S ANNIVERSARY.
A Grand Celebration Of the Event
Under the Auspices of the
Republican League.
The Addresses and Letters from Prcsi-
dent Harrison, Secretary Blaine,
MIR. EIklns and Others.

The county court house was filled with
a patriotic people last night to participate
in the commemoration of Lincoln's ami
versary under the auspices of the Repub
lican League. AS presiding officer, Presi.
dent A. l.. Morrison was in his happiest
element, and he touched responsive
chord in the hearts of his hearers when
he spoke as follows in making his open
ing address,
Ladies and Gentlemen: The Republi-
can league OF the United States has set
apart the natal day of our great martyr
president, Lincoln, as an occasion of
special commemorate /, and in pursuance
of that patriotic purpose We have assem-
bled here tonight to strew his sacred
grave with the lmmortelles of our fondest
love and gratitude. "God always raises
great men for great occasions" is a
venerable maxim which has come down
to us from our ancestors, but never in the
history Of our race was it more literally
verified than in the life of the amented
statesman whose name and virtues we
will hand down to our children as a
sacred, priceless heritage. 1t is ofuen aud
truly said that the ways OF God are not the
ways OF men. He sees the boundess uni
verse, from the revolutions OF the might
lest planet which illumines the realms
of space, to the filmy hues of the tiniest
insects wing, while We survey the objects
in contracted sphere with the weak eyes
of finite humanity. What human brain
could have OWNED (half century before
the civil war burst like volcano on our
startled people,) that in the woods of
Illinois, rough, uncouth, uneducated
boy was growing up amid the most
squalid surroundings who, in Gods good
time, was to be his chosen agent to crush
the hydra-headed serpent of rebellion and
save from ruin the only nation on earth
which has in very truth "a government
of the people by the people and for the
people," Often my eyes have filled with
tears while reading Of the rude and almost
roofless hut within whose humble walls |
our Lincoln first saw Gods blessed sun
light, and from which his darling mother |
passed away from earth in his infancy,
leaving him sadly bereft of that tender
natural love which is so seldom supplied
by any other heart bat that of her who
gives US birth. Oh, how pathetic it is to
see that poor lonely child, slowly
cropping his darksome way towards
the light, painfully acquiring the
humblest elements Of education, borrow
ing here, there, anywhere (that rarest OF
all treasures in frontier settlement) a
book, having found it, devouring its mys-
Lerious contents before the Pickering blaze
Of a log fire during the lonely watches of
me night. How little the rude compan-
ons of his young manhood appreciated
he majestic greatness of the mighty soul
which all unknown to them was being
by the hands of God to accom-
Dlish the great work which then lay hid
len in the mysterious womb of the future
years. His was not one OF those minds
which, like Napoleon or Alexander, bursts
ike meteor upon the astonished world.
On the contrary, it was of slow and pain
ul growth. His early life was one of
weary and unremitting toll, spent in hon.
'stly and industriol:sly performing the
heaviest labors which came to his hand.
Splitting logs as carefully as he after ,
Yards studied the obstruse pages of Kent s
md Blackstone. Steering his fatboat
through the snags and sawyers of the t
turbulent Mississippi with as steady
land and as clear brain as in the troub- +
Qua days of the war he guided our ship c
# state over the tempestuous waves Of c
strife which often threatened '
o engulf her in their tumultuous depths. r
f ever it might be said OF any man it
night be said Of him, that his life was an
pen book. For four long years, during
which he bore the heavy burdens OF our
mperiled republic, the fierce light of
ruel, merciless, hostile criticism was :.
urned on his every action without dis ',
overing one weak spot in the invulner- -
BILE armor of his incorruptible rectitude. !
he malevolent abuse, the vulgar sneers, :
he baseless ISLANDERS of the enem les of :,
he union fell harmless from his unshaken ',
oul "like dewdrops from the lions :
name" And, in humble imitation of the II
7orld's Redeemer, he could truly say
hat he had "charty for all and malice
oward none."
We know how often his purest motives
1ere nisrepresented by his enemies,
by his friends. We know Il
he troubles he suffered from discouraged C
nd sometimes half hearted cabinet, but il
'e have only caught imperfect glimpses tt
his inner life; of the csrking care which G
nawed his heart, of the long, sleepless
lights he must have passed when defeat a
fter defeat overlook our armies and a
pread like a pail of death over our il
lflcted country. All these hours OF C
gony are hidden from our eyes, and we're II
My known to his tortured soul and to G
le God of hosts who gave him fortitude p
, bear them in uncomplaining silence. [
nd then, when the first rays of sunlight b
ere dispensing the sullen war clouds and o
to his enraptured eyes the b
romised land of peace, when the ran h
omed land was throbbing with widest tt
", when every town echoed with peals II
silvery bells, when our veterans, ts
'owned with glory, we're preparing to re- "