Chapter IV: Front Matter (4)

He then read the Proclamation of Emancipation. Chase thought there ought to be something about God at the close, to which Lincoln replied: "Put it in, it won't hurt it." It was also agreed that the President would wait for a victory in the field before giving the Proclamation to the world.

The meeting was over, the members went their way. Mr. Chase was the last to go, and as he went through the door looked back and saw that Mr. Lincoln had taken up the book and was again engrossed in the _Wax Wurx at Albany._

This was on the 22d of July, 1862. On the 22d of August of the same year--after Lincoln wrote his celebrated letter to Horace Greeley, in which he stated that his object was to save the Union; _that he would save it with slavery if he could_; that if it was necessary to destroy slavery in order to save the Union, he would; in other words, he would do what was necessary to save the Union.

This letter disheartened, to a great degree, thousands and millions of the friends of freedom. They felt that Mr. Lincoln had not attained the moral height upon which they supposed he stood. And yet, when this letter was written, the Emancipation Proclamation was in his hands, and had been for thirty days, waiting only an opportunity to give it to the world.

Some two weeks after the letter to Greeley, Lincoln was waited on by a committee of clergymen, and was by them informed that it was God's will that he should issue a Proclamation of Emancipation. He replied to them, in substance, that the day of miracles had passed. He also mildly and kindly suggested that if it were God's will this Proclamation should be issued, certainly God would have made known that will to him--to the person whose duty it was to issue it.

On the 22d day of September, 1862, the most glorious date in the history of the Republic, the Proclamation of Emancipation was issued.

Lincoln had reached the generalization of all argument upon the question of slavery and freedom--a generalization that never has been, and probably never will be, excelled:

"In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free."

This is absolutely true. Liberty can be retained, can be enjoyed, only by giving it to others. The spendthrift saves, the miser is prodigal. In the realm of Freedom, waste is husbandry. He who puts chains upon the body of another shackles his own soul. The moment the Proclamation was issued the cause of the Republic became sacred. From that moment the North fought for the human race.

From that moment the North stood under the blue and stars, the flag of Nature, sublime and free.

In 1831, Lincoln went down the Mississippi on a flat-boat. He received the extravagant salary of ten dollars a month. When he reached New Orleans, he and some of his companions went about the city.

Among other places, they visited a slave market, where men and women were being sold at auction. A young colored girl was on the block. Lincoln heard the brutal words of the auctioneer--the savage remarks of bidders. The scene filled his soul with indignation and horror.

Turning to his companions, he said, "Boys, if I ever get a chance to hit slavery, by God I'll hit it hard!"

The helpless girl, unconsciously, had planted in a great heart the seeds of the Proclamation.

Thirty-one years afterward the chance came, the oath was kept, and to four millions of slaves, of men, women and children, was restored liberty, the jewel of the soul.

In the history, in the fiction of the world, there is nothing more intensely dramatic than this.

Lincoln held within his brain the grandest truths, and he held them as unconsciously, as easily, as naturally, as a waveless pool holds within its stainless breast a thousand stars.

In these two years we had traveled from the Ordinance of Secession to the Proclamation of Emancipation.

VI.

WE were surrounded by enemies. Many of the so-called great in Europe and England were against us. They hated the Republic, despised our institutions, and sought in many ways to aid the South.

Mr. Gladstone announced that Jefferson Davis had made a nation, and that he did not believe the restoration of the American Union by force attainable.

From the Vatican came words of encouragement for the South.

It was declared that the North was fighting for empire and the South for independence.

The Marquis of Salisbury said: "The people of the South are the natural allies of England. The North keeps an opposition shop in the same department of trade as ourselves."

Not a very elevated sentiment--but English.

Some of their statesmen declared that the subjugation of the South by the North would be a calamity to the world.

Louis Napoleon was another enemy, and he endeavored to establish a monarchy in Mexico, to the end that the great North might be destroyed. But the patience, the uncommon common sense, the statesmanship of Lincoln--in spite of foreign hate and Northern division--triumphed over all. And now we forgive all foes. Victory makes forgiveness easy.

Lincoln was by nature a diplomat. He knew the art of sailing against the wind. He had as much shrewdness as is consistent with honesty. He understood, not only the rights of individuals, but of nations. In all his correspondence with other governments he neither wrote nor sanctioned a line which afterward was used to tie his hands. In the use of perfect English he easily rose above all his advisers and all his fellows.

No one claims that Lincoln did all. He could have done nothing without the generals in the field, and the generals could have done nothing without their armies. The praise is due to all--to the private as much as to the officer; to the lowest who did his duty, as much as to the highest.

My heart goes out to the brave private as much as to the leader of the host.

But Lincoln stood at the centre and with infinite patience, with consummate skill, with the genius of goodness, directed, cheered, consoled and conquered.

VII.

SLAVERY was the cause of the war, and slavery was the perpetual stumbling-block. As the war went on, question after question arose--questions that could not be answered by theories. Should we hand back the slave to his master, when the master was using his slave to destroy the Union? If the South was right, slaves were property, and by the laws of war anything that might be used to the advantage of the enemy might be confiscated by us. Events did not wait for discussion. General Butler denominated the negro as "a contraband." Congress provided that the property of the rebels might be confiscated.

The extreme Democrats of the North regarded the slave as more sacred than life. It was no harm to kill the master--to burn his house, to ravage his fields--but you must not free his slave. If in war a nation has the right to take the property of its citizens--of its friends--certainly it has the right to take the property of those it has the right to kill.

Lincoln was wise enough to know that war is governed by the laws of war, and that during the conflict constitutions are silent. All that he could do he did in the interests of peace. He offered to execute every law--including the most infamous of all--to buy the slaves in the border States--to establish gradual, compensated emancipation; but the South would not hear. Then he confiscated the property of rebels--treated the slaves as contraband of war, used them to put down the Rebellion, armed them and clothed them in the uniform of the Republic--was in favor of making them citizens and allowing them to stand on an equality with their white brethren under the flag of the Nation. During these years Lincoln moved with events, and every step he took has been justified by the considerate judgment of mankind.

VIII.

LINCOLN not only watched the war, but kept his hand on the political pulse. In 1863 a tide set in against the administration. A Republican meeting was to be held in Springfield, Illinois, and Lincoln wrote a letter to be read at this convention. It was in his happiest vein. It was a perfect defence of his administration, including the Proclamation of Emancipation. Among other things he said:

"But the proclamation, as law, either is valid or it is not valid. If it is not valid it needs no retraction, but if it is valid it cannot be retracted, any more than the dead can be brought to life."

To the Northern Democrats who said they would not fight for negroes, Lincoln replied:

"Some of them seem willing to fight for you--but no matter."

Of negro soldiers:

"But negroes, like other people, act upon motives. Why should they do anything for us if we will do nothing for them? If they stake their lives for us they must be prompted by the strongest motive--even the promise of freedom. And the promise, being made, must be kept."

There is one line in this letter that will give it immortality:

"The Father of waters again goes unvexed to the sea."

This line is worthy of Shakespeare.

Another:

"Among free men there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet."

He draws a comparison between the white men against us and the black men for us:

"And then there will be some black men who can remember that with silent tongue and clenched teeth and steady eye and well-poised bayonet they have helped mankind on to this great consummation; while I fear there will be some white ones unable to forget that with malignant heart and deceitful speech they strove to hinder it."

Under the influence of this letter, the love of country, of the Union, and above all, the love of liberty, took possession of the heroic North.

There was the greatest moral exaltation ever known.

The spirit of liberty took possession of the people. The masses became sublime.

To fight for yourself is natural--to fight for others is grand; to fight for your country is noble--to fight for the human race--for the liberty of hand and brain--is nobler still.

As a matter of fact, the defenders of slavery had sown the seeds of their own defeat. They dug the pit in which they fell. Clay and Webster and thousands of others had by their eloquence made the Union almost sacred. The Union was the very tree of life, the source and stream and sea of liberty and law.

For the sake of slavery millions stood by the Union, for the sake of liberty millions knelt at the altar of the Union; and this love of the Union is what, at last, overwhelmed the Confederate hosts.

It does not seem possible that only a few years ago our Constitution, our laws, our Courts, the Pulpit and the Press defended and upheld the institution of slavery--that it was a crime to feed the hungry--to give water to the lips of thirst--shelter to a woman flying from the whip and chain!

The old flag still flies--the stars are there--the stains have gone.

IX.

LINCOLN always saw the end. He was unmoved by the storms and currents of the times. He advanced too rapidly for the conservative politicians, too slowly for the radical enthusiasts. He occupied the line of safety, and held by his personality--by the force of his great character, by his charming candor--the masses on his side.

The soldiers thought of him as a father.

All who had lost their sons in battle felt that they had his sympathy--felt that his face was as sad as theirs. They knew that Lincoln was actuated by one motive, and that his energies were bent to the attainment of one end--the salvation of the Republic.

They knew that he was kind, sincere and merciful. They knew that in his veins there was no drop of tyrants' blood. They knew that he used his power to protect the innocent, to save reputation and life--that he had the brain of a philosopher--the heart of a mother.

During all the years of war, Lincoln stood the embodiment of mercy, between discipline and death. He pitied the imprisoned and condemned. He took the unfortunate in his arms, and was the friend even of the convict. He knew temptation's strength--the weakness of the will--and how in fury's sudden flame the judgment drops the scales, and passion--blind and deaf--usurps the throne.

One day a woman, accompanied by a Senator, called on the President. The woman was the wife of one of Mosby's men. Her husband had been captured, tried and condemned to be shot. She came to ask for the pardon of her husband. The President heard her story and then asked what kind of man her husband was. "Is he intemperate, does he abuse the children and beat you?" "No, no," said the wife, "he is a good man, a good husband, he loves me and he loves the children, and we cannot live without him. The only trouble is that he is a fool about politics--I live in the North, born there, and if I get him home, he will do no more fighting for the South." "Well," said Mr. Lincoln, after examining the papers, "I will pardon your husband and turn him over to you for safe keeping." The poor woman, overcome with joy, sobbed as though her heart would break.

"My dear woman," said Lincoln, "if I had known how badly it was going to make you feel, I never would have pardoned him." "You do not understand me," she cried between her sobs. "You do not understand me." "Yes, yes, I do," answered the President, "and if you do not go away at once I shall be crying with you."

On another occasion, a member of Congress, on his way to see Lincoln, found in one of the anterooms of the White House an old white-haired man, sobbing--his wrinkled face wet with tears. The old man told him that for several days he had tried to see the President--that he wanted a pardon for his son. The Congressman told the old man to come with him and he would introduce him to Mr. Lincoln. On being introduced, the old man said: "Mr. Lincoln, my wife sent me to you. We had three boys. They all joined your army. One of 'em has been killed, one's a fighting now, and one of 'em, the youngest, has been tried for deserting and he's going to be shot day after to-morrow. He never deserted. He's wild, and he may have drunk too much and wandered off, but he never deserted. 'Taint in the blood. He's his mother's favorite, and if he's shot, I know she'll die." The President, turning to his secretary, said: "Telegraph General Butler to suspend the execution in the case of--------[giving the name] until further orders from me, and ask him to answer--------."

The Congressman congratulated the old man on his success--but the old man did not respond. He was not satisfied. "Mr. President," he began, "I can't take that news home. It won't satisfy his mother. How do I know but what you'll give further orders to-morrow?" "My good man," said Mr. Lincoln, "I have to do the best I can. The generals are complaining because I pardon so many. They say that my mercy destroys discipline. Now, when you get home you tell his mother what you said to me about my giving further orders, and then you tell her that I said this: 'If your son lives until they get further orders from me, that when he does die people will say that old Methusaleh was a baby compared to him.'"

The pardoning power is the only remnant of absolute sovereignty that a President has. Through all the years, Lincoln will be known as Lincoln the loving, Lincoln the merciful.

X.

LINCOLN had the keenest sense of humor, and always saw the laughable side even of disaster. In his humor there was logic and the best of sense. No matter how complicated the question, or how embarrassing the situation, his humor furnished an answer and a door of escape.

Vallandigham was a friend of the South, and did what he could to sow the seeds of failure. In his opinion everything, except rebellion, was unconstitutional.

He was arrested, convicted by a court martial, and sentenced to imprisonment.

There was doubt about the legality of the trial, and thousands in the North denounced the whole proceeding as tyrannical and infamous. At the same time millions demanded that Vallandigham should be punished.

Lincoln's humor came to the rescue. He disapproved of the findings of the court, changed the punishment, and ordered that Mr. Vallandigham should be sent to his friends in the South.

Those who regarded the act as unconstitutional almost forgave it for the sake of its humor.

Horace Greeley always had the idea that he was greatly superior to Lincoln, because he lived in a larger town, and for a long time insisted that the people of the North and the people of the South desired peace. He took it upon himself to lecture Lincoln. Lincoln, with that wonderful sense of humor, united with shrewdness and profound wisdom, told Greeley that, if the South really wanted peace, he (Lincoln) desired the same thing, and was doing all he could to bring it about. Greeley insisted that a commissioner should be appointed, with authority to negotiate with the representatives of the Confederacy. This was Lincoln's opportunity. He authorized Greeley to act as such commissioner. The great editor felt that he was caught. For a time he hesitated, but finally went, and found that the Southern commissioners were willing to take into consideration any offers of peace that Lincoln might make, consistent with the independence of the Confederacy.

The failure of Greeley was humiliating, and the position in which he was left, absurd.

Again the humor of Lincoln had triumphed.

Lincoln, to satisfy a few fault-finders in the North, went to Grant's headquarters and met some Confederate commissioners. He urged that it was hardly proper for him to negotiate with the representatives of rebels in arms--that if the South wanted peace, all they had to do was to stop fighting. One of the commissioners cited as a precedent the fact that Charles the First negotiated with rebels in arms. To which Lincoln replied that Charles the First lost his head.

The conference came to nothing, as Mr. Lincoln expected.

The commissioners, one of them being Alexander H. Stephens, who, when in good health, weighed about ninety pounds, dined with the President and Gen. Grant. After dinner, as they were leaving, Stephens put on an English ulster, the tails of which reached the ground, while the collar was somewhat above the wearer's head.

As Stephens went out, Lincoln touched Grant and said: "Grant, look at Stephens. Did you ever see as little a nubbin with as much shuck?"

Lincoln always tried to do things in the easiest way. He did not waste his strength. He was not particular about moving along straight lines. He did not tunnel the mountains. He was willing to go around, and reach the end desired as a river reaches the sea.

XI.

One of the most wonderful things ever done by Lincoln was the promotion of General Hooker. After the battle of Fredericksburg, General Burnside found great fault with Hooker, and wished to have him removed from the Army of the Potomac. Lincoln disapproved of Burnside's order, and gave Hooker the command. He then wrote Hooker this memorable letter:

"I have placed you at the head of the Army of the Potomac. Of course I have done this upon what appears to me to be sufficient reasons, and yet I think it best for you to know that there are some things in regard to which I am not quite satisfied with you. I believe you to be a brave and skillful soldier--which, of course, I like. I also believe you do not mix politics with your profession--in which you are right. You have confidence--which is a valuable, if not an indispensable, quality. You are ambitious, which, within reasonable bounds, does good rather than harm; but I think that during General Burnside's command of the army you have taken counsel of your ambition to thwart him as much as you could--in which you did a great wrong to the country and to a most meritorious and honorable brother officer. I have heard, in such a way as to believe it, of your recently saying that both the army and the Government needed a dictator. Of course it was not for this, but in spite of it, that I have given you command. Only those generals who gain successes can set up dictators. What I now ask of you is military successes, and I will risk the dictatorship. The Government will support you to the utmost of its ability, which is neither more nor less than it has done and will do for all commanders. I much fear that the spirit which you have aided to infuse into the army, of criticising their commander and withholding confidence in him, will now turn upon you. I shall assist you, so far as I can, to put it down. Neither you, nor Napoleon, if he were alive, can get any good out of an army while such a spirit prevails in it. And now beware of rashness. Beware of rashness, but with energy and sleepless vigilance go forward and give us victories."

This letter has, in my judgment, no parallel. The mistaken magnanimity is almost equal to the prophecy:

"I much fear that the spirit which you have aided to infuse into the army, of criticising their command and withholding confidence in him, will now turn upon you."

Chancellorsville was the fulfillment.

XII.

MR. LINCOLN was a statesman. The great stumbling-block--the great obstruction--in Lincoln's way, and in the way of thousands, was the old doctrine of States Rights.

This doctrine was first established to protect slavery. It was clung to to protect the inter-State slave trade. It became sacred in connection with the Fugitive Slave Law, and it was finally used as the corner-stone of Secession.

This doctrine was never appealed to in defence of the right--always in support of the wrong. For many years politicians upon both sides of this question endeavored to express the exact relations existing between the Federal Government and the States, and I know of no one who succeeded, except Lincoln. In his message of 1861, delivered on July the 4th, the definition is given, and it is perfect:

"Whatever concerns the whole should be confided to the whole--to the General Government. Whatever concerns only the State should be left exclusively to the State."

When that definition is realized in practice, this country becomes a Nation. Then we shall know that the first allegiance of the citizen is not to his State, but to the Republic, and that the first duty of the Republic is to protect the citizen, not only when in other lands, but at home, and that this duty cannot be discharged by delegating it to the States.

Lincoln believed in the sovereignty of the people--in the supremacy of the Nation--in the territorial integrity of the Republic.

XIII.

A GREAT actor can be known only when he has assumed the principal character in a great drama. Possibly the greatest actors have never appeared, and it may be that the greatest soldiers have lived the lives of perfect peace. Lincoln assumed the leading part in the greatest drama ever enacted upon the stage of this continent.

His criticisms of military movements, his correspondence with his generals and others on the conduct of the war, show that he was at all times master of the situation--that he was a natural strategist, that he appreciated the difficulties and advantages of every kind, and that in "the still and mental" field of war he stood the peer of any man beneath the flag.

Had McClellan followed his advice, he would have taken Richmond.

Had Hooker acted in accordance with his suggestions, Chancellorsville would have been a victory for the Nation.

Lincoln's political prophecies were all fulfilled.

We know now that he not only stood at the top, but that he occupied the centre, from first to last, and that he did this by reason of his intelligence, his humor, his philosophy, his courage and his patriotism.

In passion's storm he stood, unmoved, patient, just and candid. In his brain there was no cloud, and in his heart no hate. He longed to save the South as well as North, to see the Nation one and free.

He lived until the end was known.

He lived until the Confederacy was dead--until Lee surrendered, until Davis fled, until the doors of Libby Prison were opened, until the Republic was supreme.

He lived until Lincoln and Liberty were united forever.

He lived to cross the desert--to reach the palms of victory--to hear the murmured music of the welcome waves.

He lived until all loyal hearts were his--until the history of his deeds made music in the souls of men--until he knew that on Columbia's Calendar of worth and fame his name stood first.

He lived until there remained nothing for him to do as great as he had done.

What he did was worth living for, worth dying for.

He lived until he stood in the midst of universal

Joy, beneath the outstretched wings of Peace--the foremost man in all the world.

And then the horror came. Night fell on noon. The Savior of the Republic, the breaker of chains, the liberator of millions, he who had "assured freedom to the free," was dead.

Upon his brow Fame placed the immortal wreath, and for the first time in the history of the world a Nation bowed and wept.

The memory of Lincoln is the strongest, tenderest tie that binds all hearts together now, and holds all States beneath a Nation's flag.

XIV.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN--strange mingling of mirth and tears, of the tragic and grotesque, of cap and crown, of Socrates and Democritus, of Æsop and Marcus Aurelius, of all that is gentle and just, humorous and honest, merciful, wise, laughable, lovable and divine, and all consecrated to the use of man; while through all, and over all, were an overwhelming sense of obligation, of chivalric loyalty to truth, and upon all, the shadow of the tragic end.

Nearly all the great historic characters are impossible monsters, disproportioned by flattery, or by calumny deformed. We know nothing of their peculiarities, or nothing but their peculiarities. About these oaks there clings none of the earth of humanity.

Washington is now only a steel engraving. About the real man who lived and loved and hated and schemed, we know but little. The glass through which we look at him is of such high magnifying power that the features are exceedingly indistinct.

Hundreds of people are now engaged in smoothing out the lines of Lincoln's face--forcing all features to the common mould--so that he may be known, not as he really was, but, according to their poor standard, as he should have been.

Lincoln was not a type. He stands alone--no ancestors, no fellows, and no successors.

He had the advantage of living in a new country, of social equality, of personal freedom, of seeing in the horizon of his future the perpetual star of hope. He preserved his individuality and his self-respect. He knew and mingled with men of every kind; and, after all, men are the best books. He became acquainted with the ambitions and hopes of the heart, the means used to accomplish ends, the springs of action and the seeds of thought. He was familiar with nature, with actual things, with common facts. He loved and appreciated the poem of the year, the drama of the seasons.

In a new country a man must possess at least three virtues--honesty, courage and generosity. In cultivated society, cultivation is often more important than soil. A well-executed counterfeit passes more readily than a blurred genuine. It is necessary only to observe the unwritten laws of society--to be honest enough to keep out of prison, and generous enough to subscribe in public--where the subscription can be defended as an investment.

In a new country, character is essential; in the old, reputation is sufficient. In the new, they find what a man really is; in the old, he generally passes for what he resembles. People separated only by distance are much nearer together, than those divided by the walls of caste.

It is no advantage to live in a great city, where poverty degrades and failure brings despair. The fields are lovelier than paved streets, and the great forests than walls of brick. Oaks and elms are more poetic than steeples and chimneys.

In the country is the idea of home. There you see the rising and setting sun; you become acquainted with the stars and clouds. The constellations are your friends. You hear the rain on the roof and listen to the rhythmic sighing of the winds. You are thrilled by the resurrection called Spring, touched and saddened by Autumn--the grace and poetry of death. Every field is a picture, a landscape; every landscape a poem; every flower a tender thought, and every forest a fairy-land. In the country you preserve your identity--your personality. There you are an aggregation of atoms, but in the city you are only an atom of an aggregation.

In the country you keep your cheek close to the breast of Nature. You are calmed and ennobled by the space, the amplitude and scope of earth and sky--by the constancy of the stars.

Lincoln never finished his education. To the night of his death he was a pupil, a learner, an inquirer, a seeker after knowledge. You have no idea how many men are spoiled by what is called education. For the most part, colleges are places where pebbles are polished and diamonds are dimmed. If Shakespeare had graduated at Oxford, he might have been a quibbling attorney, or a hypocritical parson.

Lincoln was a great lawyer. There is nothing shrewder in this world than intelligent honesty. Perfect candor is sword and shield.

He understood the nature of man. As a lawyer he endeavored to get at the truth, at the very heart of a case. He was not willing even to deceive himself. No matter what his interest said, what his passion demanded, he was great enough to find the truth and strong enough to pronounce judgment against his own desires.

Lincoln was a many-sided man, acquainted with smiles and tears, complex in brain, single in heart, direct as light; and his words, candid as mirrors, gave the perfect image of his thought. He was never afraid to ask--never too dignified to admit that he did not know. No man had keener wit, or kinder humor.

It may be that humor is the pilot of reason. People without humor drift unconsciously into absurdity. Humor sees the other side--stands in the mind like a spectator, a good-natured critic, and gives its opinion before judgment is reached. Humor goes with good nature, and good nature is the climate of reason. In anger, reason abdicates and malice extinguishes the torch. Such was the humor of Lincoln that he could tell even unpleasant truths as charmingly as most men can tell the things we wish to hear.

He was not solemn. Solemnity is a mask worn by ignorance and hypocrisy--it is the preface, prologue, and index to the cunning or the stupid.

He was natural in his life and thought--master of the story-teller's art, in illustration apt, in application perfect, liberal in speech, shocking Pharisees and prudes, using any word that wit could disinfect.

He was a logician. His logic shed light. In its presence the obscure became luminous, and the most complex and intricate political and metaphysical knots seemed to untie themselves. Logic is the necessary product of intelligence and sincerity. It cannot be learned. It is the child of a clear head and a good heart.

Lincoln was candid, and with candor often deceived the deceitful. He had intellect without arrogance, genius without pride, and religion without cant--that is to say, without bigotry and without deceit.

He was an orator--clear, sincere, natural. He did not pretend. He did not say what he thought others thought, but what he thought.

If you wish to be sublime you must be natural--you must keep close to the grass. You must sit by the fireside of the heart; above the clouds it is too cold. You must be simple in your speech; too much polish suggests insincerity.

The great orator idealizes the real, transfigures the common, makes even the inanimate throb and thrill, fills the gallery of the imagination with statues and pictures perfect in form and color, brings to light the gold hoarded by memory the miser, shows the glittering coin to the spendthrift hope, enriches the brain, ennobles the heart, and quickens the conscience. Between his lips words bud and blossom.

If you wish to know the difference between an orator and an elocutionist--between what is felt and what is said--between what the heart and brain can do together and what the brain can do alone--read Lincoln's wondrous speech at Gettysburg, and then the oration of Edward Everett.

The speech of Lincoln will never be forgotten. It will live until languages are dead and lips are dust. The oration of Everett will never be read.

The elocutionists believe in the virtue of voice, the sublimity of syntax, the majesty of long sentences, and the genius of gesture.

The orator loves the real, the simple, the natural. He places the thought above all. He knows that the greatest ideas should be expressed in the shortest words--that the greatest statues need the least drapery.

Lincoln was an immense personality--firm but not obstinate. Obstinacy is egotism--firmness, heroism. He influenced others without effort, unconsciously; and they submitted to him as men submit to nature--unconsciously. He was severe with himself, and for that reason lenient with others.

He appeared to apologize for being kinder than his fellows.

He did merciful things as stealthily as others committed crimes.

Almost ashamed of tenderness, he said and did the noblest words and deeds with that charming confusion, that awkwardness, that is the perfect grace of modesty.

As a noble man, wishing to pay a small debt to a poor neighbor, reluctantly offers a hundred-dollar bill and asks for change, fearing that he may be suspected either of making a display of wealth or a pretence of payment, so Lincoln hesitated to show his wealth of goodness, even to the best he knew.

A great man stooping, not wishing to make his fellows feel that they were small or mean.

By his candor, by his kindness, by his perfect freedom from restraint, by saying what he thought, and saying it absolutely in his own way, he made it not only possible, but popular, to be natural. He was the enemy of mock solemnity, of the stupidly respectable, of the cold and formal.

He wore no official robes either on his body or his soul. He never pretended to be more or less, or other, or different, from what he really was.

He had the unconscious naturalness of Nature's self.

He built upon the rock. The foundation was secure and broad. The structure was a pyramid, narrowing as it rose. Through days and nights of sorrow, through years of grief and pain, with unswerving purpose, "with malice towards none, with charity for all," with infinite patience, with unclouded vision, he hoped and toiled. Stone after stone was laid, until at last the Proclamation found its place. On that the Goddess stands.

He knew others, because perfectly acquainted with himself. He cared nothing for place, but everything for principle; little for money, but everything for independence. Where no principle was involved, easily swayed--willing to go slowly, if in the right direction--sometimes willing to stop; but he would not go back, and he would not go wrong.

He was willing to wait. He knew that the event was not waiting, and that fate was not the fool of chance. He knew that slavery had defenders, but no defence, and that they who attack the right must wound themselves.

He was neither tyrant nor slave. He neither knelt nor scorned.

With him, men were neither great nor small--they were right or wrong.

Through manners, clothes, titles, rags and race he saw the real--that which is. Beyond accident, policy, compromise and war he saw the end.

He was patient as Destiny, whose undecipherable hieroglyphs were so deeply graven on his sad and tragic face.

Nothing discloses real character like the use of power. It is easy for the weak to be gentle. Most people can bear adversity. But if you wish to know what a man really is, give him power. This is the supreme test. It is the glory of Lincoln that, having almost absolute power, he never abused it, except on the side of mercy.

Wealth could not purchase, power could not awe, this divine, this loving man.

He knew no fear except the fear of doing wrong. Hating slavery, pitying the master--seeking to conquer, not persons, but prejudices--he was the embodiment of the self-denial, the courage, the hope and the nobility of a Nation.

He spoke not to inflame, not to upbraid, but to convince.

He raised his hands, not to strike, but in benediction.

He longed to pardon.

He loved to see the pearls of joy on the cheeks of a wife whose husband he had rescued from death.

Lincoln was the grandest figure of the fiercest civil war. He is the gentlest memory of our world.

VOLTAIRE.

I.

THE infidels of one age have often been the aureoled saints of the next.

The destroyers of the old are the creators of the new.

As time sweeps on the old passes away and the new in its turn becomes old.

There is in the intellectual world, as in the physical, decay and growth, and ever by the grave of buried age stand youth and joy.

The history of intellectual progress is written in the lives of infidels.

Political rights have been preserved by traitors, the liberty of mind by heretics.

To attack the king was treason; to dispute the priest was blasphemy.

For many centuries the sword and cross were allies. Together they attacked the rights of man. They defended each other.

The throne and altar were twins--two vultures from the same egg.

James I. said: "No bishop, no king." He might have added: "No cross, no crown." The king owned the bodies of men; the priest, the souls. One lived on taxes collected by force, the other on alms collected by fear--both robbers, both beggars.

These robbers and these beggars controlled two worlds. The king made laws, the priest made creeds. Both obtained their authority from God, both were the agents of the Infinite.

With bowed backs the people carried the burdens of one, and with wonder's open mouth received the dogmas of the other.

If the people aspired to be free, they were crushed by the king, and every priest was a Herod who slaughtered the children of the brain.

The king ruled by force, the priest by fear, and both by both.

The king said to the people: "God made you peasants, and He made me king; He made you to labor, and me to enjoy; He made rags and hovels for you, robes and palaces for me. He made you to obey, and me to command. Such is the justice of God."

And the priest said: "God made you ignorant and vile; He made me holy and wise; you are the sheep, I am the shepherd; your fleeces belong to me. If you do not obey me here, God will punish you now and torment you forever in another world. Such is the mercy of God."

"You must not reason. Reason is a rebel. You must not contradict--contradiction is born of egotism; you must believe. He that hath ears to hear let him hear." Heaven was a question of ears.

Fortunately for us, there have been traitors and there have been heretics, blasphemers, thinkers, investigators, lovers of liberty, men of genius who have given their lives to better the condition of their fellow-men.

It may be well enough here to ask the question: What is greatness?

A great man adds to the sum of knowledge, extends the horizon of thought, releases souls from the Bastile of fear, crosses unknown and mysterious seas, gives new islands and new continents to the domain of thought, new constellations to the firmament of mind. A great man does not seek applause or place; he seeks for truth; he seeks the road to happiness, and what he ascertains he gives to others.

A great man throws pearls before swine, and the swine are sometimes changed to men. If the great had always kept their pearls, vast multitudes would be barbarians now.

A great man is a torch in the darkness, a beacon in superstition's night, an inspiration and a prophecy.

Greatness is not the gift of majorities; it cannot be thrust upon any man; men cannot give it to another; they can give place and power, but not greatness.

The place does not make the man, nor the sceptre the king. Greatness is from within.

The great men are the heroes who have freed the bodies of men; they are the philosophers and thinkers who have given liberty to the soul; they are the poets who have transfigured the common and filled the lives of many millions with love and song.

They are the artists who have covered the bare walls of weary life with the triumphs of genius.

They are the heroes who have slain the monsters of ignorance and fear, who have outgazed the Gorgon and driven the cruel gods from their thrones.

They are the inventors, the discoverers, the great mechanics, the kings of the useful who have civilized this world.

At the head of this heroic army, foremost of all, stands Voltaire, whose memory we are honoring tonight.

Voltaire! a name that excites the admiration of men, the malignity of priests. Pronounce that name in the presence of a clergyman, and you will find that you have made a declaration of war. Pronounce that name, and from the face of the priest the mask of meekness will fall, and from the mouth of forgiveness will pour a Niagara of vituperation and calumny. And yet Voltaire was the greatest man of his century, and did more to free the human race than any other of the sons of men.

On Sunday, the 21st of November, 1694, a babe was born--a babe so exceedingly frail that the breath hesitated about remaining, and the parents had him baptized as soon as possible. They were anxious to save the soul of this babe, and they knew that if death came before baptism the child would be doomed to an eternity of pain. They knew that God despised an unsprinkled child. The priest who, with a few drops of water, gave the name of Francois-Marie Arouet to this babe and saved his soul--little thought that before him, wrapped in many folds, weakly wailing, scarcely breathing, was the one destined to tear from the white throat of Liberty the cruel, murderous claws of the "Triumphant Beast."

When Voltaire came to this "great stage of fools," his country had been Christianized--not civilized--for about fourteen hundred years. For a thousand years the religion of peace and good-will had been supreme. The laws had been given by Christian kings, and sanctioned by "wise and holy men." Under the benign reign of universal love, every court had its chamber of torture, and every priest relied on the thumb-screw and rack.

Such had been the success of the blessed gospel that every science was an outcast.

To speak your honest thoughts, to teach your fellow-men, to investigate for yourself, to seek the truth, these were all crimes, and the "holy-mother church" pursued the criminals with sword and flame.

The believers in a God of love--an infinite father--punished hundreds of offences with torture and death. Suspected persons were tortured to make them confess. Convicted persons were tortured to make them give the names of their accomplices. Under the leadership of the church, cruelty had become the only reforming power.

In this blessed year, 1694, all authors were at the mercy of king and priest. The most of them were cast into prisons, impoverished by fines and costs, exiled or executed.

The little time that hangmen could snatch from professional duties was occupied in burning books.

The courts of justice were traps, in which the innocent were caught. The judges were almost as malicious and cruel as though they had been bishops or saints. There was no trial by jury, and the rules of evidence allowed the conviction of the supposed criminal by the proof of suspicion or hearsay.

The witnesses, being liable to be tortured, generally told what the judges wished to hear.

The supernatural and the miraculous controlled the world. Everything was explained, but nothing was understood. The church was at the head. The sick bought from monks little amulets of consecrated paper. They did not send for a doctor, but for a priest, and the priest sold the diseased and the dying these magical amulets. These little pieces of paper with the help of some saint would cure diseases of every kind. If you would put one in a cradle, it would keep the child from being bewitched. If you would put one in the barn, the rats would not eat your corn. If you would keep one in the house, evil spirits would not enter your doors, and if you buried them in the fields, you would have good weather, the frost would be delayed, rain would come when needed, and abundant crops would bless your labor. The church insisted that all diseases could be cured in the name of God, and that these cures could be effected by prayers, exorcism, by touching bones of saints, pieces of the true cross; by being sprinkled with holy water or with sanctified salt, or touched with magical oil.

In that day the dead saints were the best physicians; St. Valentine cured the epilepsy; St. Gervasius was exceedingly good for rheumatism; St. Michael for cancer; St. Judas for coughs and colds; St. Ovidius restored the hearing; St. Sebastian was good for the bites of snakes and the stings of poisonous insects; St. Apollonia for toothache; St. Clara for any trouble with the eyes; and St. Hubert for hydrophobia. It was known that doctors reduced the revenues of the church; that was enough--science was the enemy of religion.

The church thought that the air was filled with devils; that every sinner was a kind of tenement house inhabited by evil spirits; that angels were on one side of men and evil spirits on the other, and that God would, when the subscriptions and donations justified the effort, drive the evil spirits from the field.

Satan had power over the air; consequently he controlled the frost, the mildew, the lightning and the flood; and the principal business of the church was with bells, and holy water, and incense, and crosses, to defeat the machinations of that prince of the power of the air.

Great reliance was placed upon the bells; they were sprinkled with holy water, and their clangor cleared the air of imps and fiends. And bells also protected the people from storms and lightning. In that day the church used to anathematize insects. Suits were commenced against rats, and judgment rendered. Every monastery had its master magician, who sold incense and salt and tapers and consecrated palms and relics. Every science was regarded as an enemy; every fact held the creed of the church in scorn. Investigators were regarded as dangerous; thinkers were traitors, and the church exerted its vast power to prevent the intellectual progress of man.

There was no real liberty, no real education, no real philosophy, no real science---nothing but credulity and superstition. The world was under the control of Satan and the church.

The church firmly believed in the existence of witches and devils and fiends. In this way the church had every enemy within her power. It simply had to charge him with being a wizard, of holding communications with devils, and the ignorant mob were ready to tear him to pieces. So prevalent was this belief, this belief in the supernatural, that the poor people were finally driven to make the best possible terms they could with the spirit of evil. This frightful doctrine filled every friend with suspicion of his friend; it made the husband denounce the wife, children their parents, parents their children. It destroyed the amenities of humanity; it did away with justice in courts; it broke the bond of friendship; it filled with poison the golden cup of life; it turned earth into a very perdition peopled with abominable, malicious and hideous fiends. Such was the result of a belief in the supernatural; such was the result of giving up the evidence of their own senses and relying upon dreams, visions and fears. Such was the result of the attack upon the human reason; such the result of depending on the imagination, on the supernatural; such the result of living in this world for another; of depending upon priests instead of upon ourselves. The Protestants vied with Catholics; Luther stood side by side with the priests he had deserted in promoting this belief in devils and fiends. To the Catholic every Protestant was possessed by a devil; to the Protestant every Catholic was the home of a fiend. All order, all regular succession of causes and effects were known no more; the natural ceased to exist; the learned and the ignorant were on a level. The priest was caught in the net he had spread for the peasant, and Christendom became a vast madhouse, with the insane for keepers.

When Voltaire was born the church ruled and owned France. It was a period of almost universal corruption. The priests were mostly libertines, the judges cruel and venal. The royal palace was a house of prostitution. The nobles were heartless, proud, arrogant and cruel to the last degree. The common people were treated as beasts. It took the church a thousand years to bring about this happy condition of things.

The seeds of the Revolution unconsciously were being scattered by every noble and by every priest.

They were germinating slowly in the hearts of the wretched; they were being watered by the tears of agony; blows began to bear interest. There was a faint longing for blood. Workmen, blackened by the sun, bowed by labor, deformed by want, looked at the white throats of scornful ladies and thought about cutting them.

In those days witnesses were cross-examined with instruments of torture; the church was the arsenal of superstition; miracles, relics, angels and devils were as common as lies.

In order to appreciate a great man we must know his surroundings. We must understand the scope of the drama in which he played--the part he acted, and we must also know his audience.

In England George I. was disporting with the "May-pole" and "Elephant," and then George II., jealous and choleric, hating the English and their language, making, however, an excellent image or idol before whom the English were glad to bow--snobbery triumphant--the criminal code getting bloodier every day--223 offences punishable with death--the prisons filled and the scaffolds crowded--efforts on every hand to repress the ambition of men to be men--the church relying on superstition and ceremony to make men good--and the state dependent on the whip, the rope and axe to make men patriotic.

In Spain the Inquisition in full control--all the instruments of torture used to prevent the development of the mind, Spain, that had driven out the Jews, that is to say, her talent; that had driven out the Moors, that is to say, her taste and her industry, was still endeavoring by all religious means to reduce the land to the imbecility of the true faith.

In Portugal they were burning women and children for having eaten meat on a holy day, and this to please the most merciful God.

In Italy the nation prostrate, covered with swarms of cardinals and bishops and priests and monks and nuns and every representative of holy sloth. The Inquisition there also--while hands that were clasped in prayer or stretched for alms, grasped with eagerness and joy the lever of the rack, or gathered fagots for the holy flame.

In Germany they were burning men and women charged with having made a compact with the enemy of man.

And in our own fair land, persecuting Quakers, stealing men and women from another shore, stealing children from their mother's breasts, and paying labor with the cruel lash.

Superstition ruled the world!

There is but one use for law, but one excuse for government--the preservation of liberty--to give to each man his own, to secure to the farmer what he produces from the soil, the mechanic what he invents and makes, to the artist what he creates, to the thinker the right to express his thoughts. Liberty is the breath of progress.