Year: 1864

the nomination In full view of the


storm that lowered, he took the helm


How deeply the sense of obligation


emn farewell to his old friends and neigh


bors at Springfield as he started out on


his Presidential toar to the capital. He
felt almost the inspiration of a Prophet


and support were Almighty God, the


rectitude of his heart, the purity and


wisdom of his cause, and what he firmly
I believed to be the intelligence and vir-
people. His mission was to vindicate the
majesty of our Union and laws against
the clustering Southern Oligarchy who
I thought with cotton, rice and sugar, to
buy and to peryert the progress of this
great nation.


And SO among traitors at the North
and in the South he embarked on his
journey to Washington. Wherever he
went on that noted journey, however he
spoke, whether in private or before the
people, he continually held the olive
branch to the South,-the olive branch
of the Constitution. In those speeches
he said, 1.-The Southern crisis is artificial y
No one proposes to trench on single
right or prerogatiyc, or institution, or even
reasonable claim which belongs to YOU
With frmness (how grand in view of
W hot firm,
ness appear he repudiated the nonsense
and crime of calling that coercion, which
was but defence of the Government
against the inroads of rebels and free
hooters, who had seized and who held the
public property. At all hazards he de-
termined to execute his duty as President
of the United States. In his famous re
ply to Mayor Wood in New York;
speech made when all the surroundings
of Commerce were for humiliating
peace-when it was attempted to awe
this son of the West by painting to him
the great interests involved and to be
ruined as they said, by any disturbance
Of their relations-in that calm, quiet,
self-rcliant reply, the whole man, nav,
the whole cause spoke out That little
reply was one of Mr.. LINcoLS's parallels.
Reyicw it now, in the light of the fearful
history Which has since been made. and
the presciencc of the man thrills like an
inspiration


Over the kindling fires of sedition, he
reached Washington. On his oath he
swore to be faithful to the Constitution
and the Laws, and to execute his trust.


His measures of policy from that time
to this Will, in the highest blaze of our
history, down to that far future to which,
under God, it is destined, bear noble
comparison with anything that has pre-
celod or which may follow it.


His Inaugural Address was wise, sim
pie, solemn, firm, and atfectionate even
to pathos. He demonstrated not only
that there was no cause for q revolt, but
that none existed even for grave dissat-
isfaction; he pointed to the fact that the
Opposition, even then, held in Congress
the reins of power. He foreshadowed
his assent To the call of National Con
yention. He appealed most touchingly
to common traditions. to common monu-
nents, TO our common glory, to conse-
Grated battle fields to our kindred inter
mingled by all the ties OF blood and So
cial alliance.


He could not, he wonld not entertain
the horid idea of civil war: nor could he.
nor would he abate one jot of the moder-
ate, timely, necessary policy of which in
the .'fullness of time he had become the
instrument to enforce


But the judicially blind South mistook
this man. Alas, they mistook the words
of calmncss, of remonstrance, of warn
ing, OF reason, of appeal, for the ner-
vous tremors of terror. On they went in
their mad career, until Sumter was fired
Then, when uprose the whole North as
when at night the cry OF murdeS or fire
is heard in the crowded city or quiet vii
lage. then when the Northern heart was
reused to frenzy. the, President was all
calmness and selfpossession


Cautiously proceeding as n Civil Mag
istrate, he had warned the knot of con-
spirators at Montgomery to disperse
quietly to their homes. They laughed
1T that, Peal after peal Of derision went
up over his first Proclamation from the
arch-fiends in that imperial synod. They
said he was reading the Riot Act to
them They were then bloated with the
drunken hope of q divided North. and
with the idea that Cotton was King.
MIR. LINCOLN called ont few men. com
paratiyely,-such a number as seemed
adapted to the exigenee of large bat
unreasonable and short lived insurrec-
ton In all his early operations in the
war, he stood scsskin the line of what nor
is falsely called conservatism. But new
ertheless. as events have since proven.
he was following step by step chain of
wise and cODSuIuraafa policv Which, ls>,l-