Abraham Lincoln by Thomas Mears Eddy (best classic literature .txt) 📖

that immutable foundation, the justice and goodness of God. And when events are very threatening, and prospects very dark, I still hope, in some way which men cannot see, all will be well in the end, because our cause is just and God is on our side."

If, as the executive officer of the nation he erred, it was in excessive tenderness in dealing with criminals. Unsuspecting and pure, he could not credit unmixed guilt in others, and with difficulty could he bring himself to suffer condign punishment to be inflicted. There were times when he was inflexible. In vain did wealth and position plead for Gardner, the slave-captain. As vainly did they for Beall and Johnson. If he was lenient it was the error of amiableness.

In reviewing the administration of Abraham Lincoln, we see in him another of those Providentially called and directed leaders who have been raised up in great crises. His name stands on the roll with those of Moses and Joshua, and William of Orange, and Washington. Not only did Providence raise him up, but it divinely vindicated his dealings with slavery. As emancipation was honored, did the pillar of flame light our hosts on to victory!

In the dawning morn of peace and Union has this leader been slain. When the nation thought it most needed him, has he been basely butchered! As the ship which had been rocking in the waves and bowing before the storm was reaching the harbor, a pirate, who sailed with the passengers, basely stole on deck and shot the pilot at the wheel!

The assassin has been held in abhorrence among all people and in all ages. Here was a foul plot to destroy at one swoop the President, the officers eligible to the succession, the Cabinet, the Lieutenant- General, and no doubt the loyal Governors of the States. That the scheme was successful only in part, God be praised. Never has an assassination produced so terrible a shock. For—

    "He had borne his faculties so meek, had been
     So clear in his great office, that his virtues
     Do plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against
     The deep damnation of his taking off."

He fell, and the whole land mourns. Secession smote him in her impotent death-rage, but the State lives on! The reins which dropped from his nerveless hand another grasped, and the nation lives. No revolution comes. No war of rival dynasties! The constitutional successor is in the chief seat of power, and how much secession has taken by this new crime remains to be seen.

Fellow-citizens, there are some duties which press upon us in this hour.

1. We must anew commit ourselves to the work of suppressing rebellion and re-enthroning the majesty of the Union and Constitution. Mr. Lincoln lived until the nation's flag had waved in triumph over every important Southern city; until the proud Southern aristocracy had thrown itself at the feet of its slaves, and with frantic outcries implored salvation at their hands; had lived to walk through Richmond, and be hailed by its dusky freedmen as their deliverer; had lived until he received the report of the surrender of Lee's grand army, and then he was slain. We must complete the work. Onward, until it be wrought. We believe it will be soon, but were it a hundred years it must be accomplished!

2. We must complete the destruction of slavery. Added to its long catalogue of crimes, it has now slain the Lord's Anointed, the man whom he made strong! Now as THE ETERNAL liveth, it must die! By the agonies it has caused, by the uncoffined graves it has filled, by the tears it has wrung from pure women and little children, by our sons and brothers starved to death in its mined prisons, by our beloved Chief Magistrate murdered, by all these do we this day swear unto the LORD that slavery SHALL DIE and that he would save it shall politically die with it!

3. This day, as funeral rites are being said, and sobs are coming up from a smitten household and bereaved people, before the Lord do we solemnly demand that justice be done in the land upon evil-doers, that blood-guiltiness may be taken away, and that men shall not dare repeat such crimes.

When treason slew Abraham Lincoln, it slew the pardoning power, and by its own act placed authority in the hands of one of sterner mold and fiery soul—one deeply wronged by its atrocities. Now let it receive the reward of its own hands! This is the demand of mercy as well as justice, that after generations may see the expiation of treason is too costly for its commission. Mercy to the many demands the punishment of the guilty.

The assassin of the Chief Magistrate must be found. Though all seas must be crossed, all mountains ascended, all valleys traversed, he must be found! If he hide him under the mane of the British lion, beneath the paw of the Russian bear or among the lilies of France, he must be found and plucked thence for punishment! If there be no extradition treaty, then the strong hands of our power must make one. He was a tragedian. Had he never read—

    "If the assassination
     Could trammel up the consequences and catch
     With this surcease, success; that but this blow
     Might be the be-all and the end-all here,

* * * * * * * * * *

    "We'd jump the life to come. But in these cases
     We still have judgment here. We but teach
     Bloody inventions, which, being taught, return
     To plague the inventors. Thus even-handed justice
     Commends the ingredients of our poisoned chalice
     To our own lips."

We are told that he excelled in the part of Richard III. Did he not remember the tent scene—

    "My conscience hath a thousand several tongues,
     And every tongue brings in a several tale,
     And every tale condemns me for a villain—
     Perjury, perjury, in the highest degree,
     Murder, stern murder, in the darkest degree;
     All several sins, all used in each degree,
     Throng to the bar, crying all—Guilty! guilty!
     I shall despair. There is no creature loves me;
     And, if I die, no soul will pity me."

He has murdered the Lord's Anointed, and vengeance shall pursue him. Tell me not, in deprecation of this sentiment "Vengeance is mine, I will repay saith the Lord." Human justice has its work and must follow the assassin, if need be, to the very gates of hell! It is God's edict that he who causelessly takes any human life, "By men shall his blood be shed"—how much more when it is such a life! [FN#1]

[FN#1] Since the MS. of this discourse was given the printer, the assassin has met his retribution. Hunted like a wild beast to his lair, he was surrounded by his pursuers, forsaken by his accomplice, the barn to which he had fled fired, then shot to death, lingering several hours in intense suffering and his remains consigned to impenetrable obscurity. Retribution came to him before his victim was buried. So be it ever! His accomplices are known and must be punished.

A morning journal, which has been somehow retained in the interest of wrong, of home-traitors, of misrule, has already impliedly put in the plea of insanity for the assassin. The same journal runs a parallel between him and John Brown. Well, Virginia executed John Brown—its own precedent is fatal to its own client!

Let justice be done on the leaders of rebellion. Have done with the miserable cant of curing those perjured conspirators with kindness. Libby Prison mined under Federal captives, the starved skeletons of our slowly murdered kinsmen, the grave of Lincoln, and the gaping wounds of Seward are your answer. It must be taught men for all time that treason is, in this life, unpardonable! It is all crimes in one. In this case it is without the glitter of seeming chivalry for its relief. It has had nothing knightly. It has conspired to starve prisoners, has plotted conflagrations which were to consume, in one dread holocaust, the venerable matron, the gray-haired sire and the mother with her babe; has resorted to poison, the knife of the cut- throat and the pistol of the assassin. No treason was ever so repulsively foul, so reekingly corrupt. For its great leaders, the block and the halter; for its chieftains, military and civic, of the second class, perpetual banishment with confiscation of their goods, for all who have volunteered to fight against the Union perpetual disfranchisement—these are the demands of a long-suffering people.

The case of treason-sympathizers among us is one of grave moment. It is hard to bear their sneers and patiently to listen to their covert treason. It is a question whether the limit of toleration has not been passed. The era of assassination has been commenced. Be sure that any man who will excuse an assassin, will himself do foul murder when he can shoot from behind a hedge, or strike a victim in the back. It is matter of self-defence to cast such from our midst. Let us have no violence, no lawlessness, but such persons must be persuaded to depart from us. "They are gentlemen." Booth was courtly in speech and mien. Have they been State officers? So was Walsh, whose house was a disunion arsenal. The time has come when we cannot permit men in sympathy with armed rebellion, which employs the assassin, to dwell in our midst.

Abraham Lincoln is no more. His work is done. We may not comprehend the mystery which permitted his removal at such an hour, in such a way. God hideth himself wondrously, and sometimes seems to stand afar from His truth and His cause when most needed.

Our leader is gone. His work is finished, and it may be that his Providential mission was fully accomplished. His memory is imperishably fragrant. WASHINGTON—LINCOLN! Who shall say which name shall shine brighter in the firmament of the historic future!

He is dead! In the Presidential Mansion are being said words of solemn admonition and godly counsel. In a few hours his remains will be on their way to sleep in their Illinois grave!

Dead! "How is the strong staff broken and the beautiful rod!"

Pray devoutly for the smitten widow and fatherless children of our Chief Magistrate. They are sorely stricken and God alone can heal them. To them it is not the loss of the Chief Magistrate that makes this hour so sad, but that they have no more a husband or a father!

And now that there has been sorrow in all the land, and the death- angel in all its homes, from the humblest to the highest, is not our expiation well-nigh wrought, and will not our Father have compassion upon us?

Let us devoutly pray the King of nations to guide our nation through its remaining struggle! It may be He means to show us that He alone is the Savior!

Let us implore Divine guidance upon Mr. Lincoln's successor, Andrew Johnson, President of the United States. He was faithful amid the faithless. He was true to the Union when few in his section had for it aught but curses. Pray for him. He comes to power at a critical time and needs wisdom from above. Confide in him. He will surely rise above the one error which temporarily drew him down. He is only hated by traitors, and when they hate, it is safe for loyal men to trust.

By and by we may understand all this. Now it passes comprehension, but we have seen so many manifestations of God's supervising agency when we least looked for it, that we may safely trust Him. He means to save us. Nay, blessed be His name, He has saved us!

His grand purposes will go forward. The wrath of man shall praise Him, and the remainder of wrath will He restrain. Remember, and take heart as you remember, the ringing line of Whittier.

"God's errands never fail."

He who rides upon the whirlwind and directs the storm, is neither dead nor sleeping, and He is a God who never compromises with wrong, and never abdicates His throne.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Abraham Lincoln, by Rev. T. M. Eddy

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