The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1892-04-14
A SAD ANNIVERSARY.

II, 1865, N one of the boxes of a Washing
ton theatre. In the afternoons the Presi-
dent and his cabinet had been considering
measures of reconstruction growing out of
the surrender of the confederate forces az
Appomattox, details of which had Just been
received. The people of the whole land,
north and south. were intensely interested
in those very questions. For though the
long and bloody conflict of arms was over,
there were delicate adjustments to be fixed,
limitations to be set upon the legal powers
OF tie conquered. and provisional arrange
ments made for the return to self-govern-
ment of those sections where the military
laws of the United States mad superseded
the local or state administration of affairs.
Long before this period President LIN
COLIN had demonstrated himself to be the
foremost man of his party in Judgment,
prudence and common sense, as well as in
extraordinary executive ability. Not only
had he TO plan against the enemy in front,
but he was beset by an irrepressible, radi-
cal FIRE in the rear urging him to things he
had no inclination to do, and the effect of
which he distrusted. But he mastered the
entire situation. He did not take the field
as ommander-in-chief of the armies,
power invested in him by the constitution,
but no strRtegist ever pored over war
map with more earnest attention to details,
nor did any ever have better comprehen-
sion of the true points of attack and de-
tense than this natural chieftain of the
backwoods. He remained at the White
House where he undertook to be no party's
president, the representative of no coterie,
but the country's chief magistrate, intent
upon the restoration of the Union. Others
wanted war, in the expectation that it
would result in the destruction of
slavery. LINCOLN wanted peace and
union-the Union with or with
out slavery. To this he steadily
adhered ss long as it was possible to do SO
with the almost overwhelming pressure at
his back. When FREMONT, as a military
measure issued an order freeing slaves, he
required him to recall it. When a radical
delegation. great in number and strong in
influence, begged him to proclaim freedom,
he declared such an edict would be ''like
the Pope's bull against the comet" But
finally, in 1868, he did issue an emancipa-
ton proclamation, though it had no effect
beyond the military lines. Much of his
time was occupied in undoing imprudent
and exasperating. acts towards the south
ern people, and at all times was he ready
listener 10 any project or proposition that
promised to promote. peace.
In all the north, when General Ike gave
up his arms there was no man with kinder
feelings in his heart towards the southern
people than ABRAHAM LINCOLN. There
was no man in whose hands
those southern people could have
preferred TO leave the questions of
| reconstruction. 1t is not only to-day, after
the developments of quarter of a century
and more that this feeling prevails 1t pre-
vailed almost universally at the moment
when WILKES BooTH, in the same insane
and utterly reckless spirit which animated
GUITEAg years asterward TO kill GARFIELD.
sped the bullet which the next day resulted
in the death of the President This
dastardly act was instantly felt by the
southern people, Inundated as they already
were, to be the browning misfortune of all.
since it had been committed osiensibly in
their name.
For the death of. LINCOLN was not only
the removal of friendly and at the time
controlling spirit, but it was the incentive,
pretext temptation, or what you like. for
the implacables to ciamor for the harshest
terms. STANTON was in the cabinet as
secretary Of wsr-a cold, relentless
! tyrant, in whose breast hate was
the ruling passion. ANDREW JOHNSON
lad become President by BooTH's crime,
and by reason Of his southern lineage was
estopped from effort to stay the rising tide
which General SnERMAN's protocol with
General JOHNSTON now begot. STANTON
was the excited country's ruler, in fact.
IN his recent address before the New
York Loyal Legion, General SHERMAN's
brother, the Senator, said:
General SHERMAN believed in and sought to
carry out the policy OF Mr. LINCOLN. The
/ terms OF Surrer der we're tentative and the con-
dltions were entirely subject 10 the supervision
/ OF the executive authorities; but instead OF be-
ing submitted TO the generous and forqiying
patriot who had fallen. they were passed upon
/ IN III shadow OF a gTeas crime by stern and re-
lentiess enemies. who hadn't consented to the
| conditions imposed by General GRANT upon
General LEE and would have disrerarded them
had not General GRANT threatened To resign
upon their refusal TO carry out his terms
When the arrangement with General JOHNSTON
was submitted TO President JOHNSON and MIR.
STANTON 1t was rejected with the insulting init
nation that it proceeded from either cowardice
or treachery.
Whilst STATIONS biographer, referring
to this, quotes john SHERMAN as having.
April 81, 1865, declared TEcUNsEH SHER-
MANS terms ''inadmissabe" in a letter he
wrote to STANTON at that time. there is
little room to doubt the general statement
we have quoted. The change in the state
of affairs was the difference between LIN
COLIN living and LINCOLN dead. It is when
some great popular connection occurs that
extremes like EDWIN STANTON are brought
TO the front.
Looking back through a vista of twenty
seven years upon the career Of Mr.. LIN
COLIN, we shall find that the great and uni
versal admiration Of his character comes
from his patriotic conservatism. We learn
from it that safety lies in the middle path:
that reason and not passion, justice and not
resentment, must at last govern. Mental
composure, intellectual discrimination. the
firm will to be right and do right to Judge
as one would be iudged-these are what
place names like LINcoLN's on fame's ever
1aef ,As,,