The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1914-02-13

4nOS0 WHO TOSaTQ0o n1Ln as tiA0 buffon in politics, the untried ruler and the political accident (and they were not a few1 were not slow to revise their opinion when they view ed him at closer range and learned to | realize his supreme qualities of head and heart. And his first inaugural address, while mild and friendly in tone, left no doubt anywhere that Abraham Lincoln, elected to the Pres idency of the United States, had high ly resolved to exercise his fullest pow CT to preserve the Federal Union from disruption.
 ttIt was in this address that he ex- tended the oIfve-branch of peace to the Secessionists, and called upon them to return to the Union with the assurance that the administration would not interfere with slavery but only with it's extension. At this time too, he gave utterance to the most conclusive answer to the upholders of state rights, by showing the physical 1mpossibility of separation, the illegal ity of disunion, and the futiIity of war.
 Finally, it was in this address that he threw the full responsibility of 3 civil war upon the shoulders of the South: Tn your hands. my dissatis- fled fellow countrymen, and not in
 mine is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not assa1 you. You can have no conflict with out being yourselves the transgressor. AO0 11cdfS 1RO OdI11 T0S1SIST0Q III 110dF- en to destroy the Government; while have the most solemn one to pre- serve, protect. and defend it..
 .tIt was the profoundest hope of President Lincoln that the southern section of the nation would return and amfcably adjust their existing diff ferences, temporarily at least; but the South interpreted the inaugural ad- dress challenge to war and soon after became the aggressor by att
 
 first blood to flow in the fratricidal Civil War.
 '"The issue was no 1onger between slavery and the limitation of it's exten- sion, but between the preservation and the destruction of the Federal Union. Lincoln was thoroughly aroused, the northerners awoke from their lethar- gy, when they realized the fellness of their countrymen'S purpose, and the inevitable and Irresponsible conflict foretold by Seward and by Lincoln be- gan with frightful intensity to work l it's havoc everywsere.
 we shall not rehearse the momen- tous events of the Civil War. We shall not call to mind the heroic sac rifice of human life upon the altar of patriotism; we shall not review the severance of closest ties, the anguish of spiEit,1z41ae sanfanses slfferiug, the enormous expenditure that were in- volved in those four years of frightfuI bloodshed during which Lincoln felt with the deepest feeling the woes that 1 were visited upon his countrymen and sought by all means in his power to alleviate them.
 teThe war bore heavily upon his soul and oppressed him by it's magnitude. During those stormy days he repeat edly said that he firmly believed he | was the instrument of Providence chosen while the nation was in peril, to preserve the integrity of the Un-4 | ion, and his every act bore witness to this belief.
 Assuming that dread responsibii- l fty and placing his trust in God, with full control over the financial and gov | ernmenta1 resources of the nation. | with the constitutional power of com mander-in-chief of the army and na- ", he exercised with unerring discre- l tion and with consummate effective ness his vast prerogatives, not for sec | tionM aggrandizement or for party | spite, but for the lasting good of his l countrymen and the entire human race, so that it must be said of him that he wrought not in vindictiveness or in animosity but in the eternal prin- l cfples of love and justice.'' | At this point the speaker referred at some length to the Emancipation I Proclamation which he regarded as the greatest act of Lincoln's life. The particulars concerning the adoption of
 
 fleet upon the progress of the war, it's influence on Europe and finally it's in corporation as an amendment-the Thirteenth Amendment = into the Federal Constitutional of these l were dwelt upon.
 | MT. Buckley closed with the follow
 ing peroration:
 And so in the fitness of time when 1 he had passed his length of days in
 the land of fraternal bIoodshed and
 had accomplished Tftan's work, | while beset with difficulties such as
 no other man of the country encoun-
 tered, God called him to his bosom Not cast in any ordinary mould was
 he, this friend of humanity, this rail-
 splitter, this true born king of mem
 Indeed it would seem that he was 1 raised by Providence in the time o1
 direst need, to do a superhuman task
 and to leave to posterity a heritage o1
 bright memory and noble inspiration
 He was the most American of all ouI
 public men-American in birth, Amer
 ican in training Unstained by urban l arti1ciality, or by European effeteness
 inal, typif1ed the splendid natural en- 1 ergieS of the new country itself.
 And yet this plain man of the peo- | pie, unattractive in person, unpOIiSh- ed in manner, untaught in the sub1ety
 of diplomacy and the culture of the l dliCiSHCS, IOSO lO d Ird1Sc0nO0nI pIdCe not only in the hearts of his own coun- >l trymen but wherever the name of un-
 selfish genius and martyred patriotism
 is recorded.
 t.He was no Ta1leyrand, cooI1y to
 play with the destinfes of continent,
 with delft and jewel1ed fingers; no
 Bismarck to trample down with blood
 and iron the sacred rights of his fel-
 lows. He never swept invincible
 from the Tague to the Danube no1 flung his grenadiers against the com bined armies of Europe like Napoleon He never held senate spell-bound hy l the magic of his oratory like Pitt ol l Webster. B ut when Ta11yrand and Bis marck are unread names in dusty