We meet tonight to do honor to two of our greatest Presidents who to us are immortal heroes. Washington and Lincolon.

 

            Washington led our armies to victory when the republic was founded.

 

Lincolon was the successful leader of our people when the republic was defended and saved.

 

The present generation know Washington only from history, and the younger portion of this generation know Lincolon only from history, but there are thousands living nd some are here this evening, who had a knowledge of and participated in the stiring scenes and events of Lincolons time, and it / is of that time I shall endeavor to speak. But I shall not attempt to describe the life and character of Lincolon for all of you are conversant with that them, but simply give my idea of the conditions and events of that memorable period of our nations history.

 

When I look back to that time it seems to me that there were four important things, or rather there was one condition, one event and two results that made the time of Lincolon far different from the comparatively quiet and peaceful time in which we live.

 

The condition I mention was known / as human slavery, for when Lincolon was first inaugerated President of the United States, in fifteen of the states men, women and children were bought and sold like cattle. The event I refer to was the Great Civil War—the greatest civil war the world ever knew. The two results, were first, the preservation of Union, Second, the emancipation of the slaves.

 

            And in giving any idea of that time, one must necessariarly frequently refer to slavery, for slavery and its extension was the great cause of that great war in Lincolons time, and it had been the cause of strife, hatred and bitterness between the two sections of our country for many years before. And I know you will pardon me if I take up a moment of your time in giving a short history of slavery in this country.

 

            Way back in colonal times nearly all of the colonies held slaves, but after a time slavery was abolished in all of the Colonies north of Maryland and Delaware. After a time a difference of opinion arose between the men of the north and the men of the south in regard to the right and the wrong of slavery. The men of the north held / that there ought not to be any more slave states, the men of the south maintained contended that they had the right to take their property including slaves, to any part of our country. But let me say here that there were many good and true men in the south, including Washington and Jefferson, who regretted that slavery had ever been introduced into this country and I think it was Jefferson, who said, speaking of slavery, 'That I tremble for my country when I think there is a just God'. But this dispute, this strife and excitement upon this question became more and more bitter as time went on. And our statesmen / in Congress tried to quiet and allay this excitement and agitation by the enactment of laws in the way of compromises, that would be acceptable to both sides, but in almost every one of these compromises, the south obtained an advantage.

 

It is possible that there are some here who remember when the territory of Missouri applied for admission as a state that Henry Clays great measure, known as the Missouri Compromise became a law. By that measure Missouri came in as a slave state, but there was also a solemn pledge in it that in all of our territory north of / parallel 36 degrees and 30 minuets slavery should forever be prohibited. That included Kansas and Nebraska and all of our territory north and west of that. After that, as a result of the war with Mexico, we acquired a vast territory, including Texas. Then David Wilmot, a Democratic member of Congress from Pennsylvania, offered in Congress and tried long and diligently to secure the passage of his noted proviso. By that measure it was intended that in all of our territory acquired from Mexico slavery should be forever prohibited. But the slave states were too strong / in Congress, and the proviso was rejected, and Texas was admitted as a slave state. Then the Fugitive Slave law was enacted. By that law runaway slaves in the North were arrested and taken back to their masters in the South. And there was a feature of that law that that was very obnoxious to northern men. For whenever called upon by the officers a man was forced to assist in the capture and return of runaway slaves, so that it made slave catchers of men who hated slavery. And there was the Dred Scott decision, a decision of of the Supreme Court of the United States, that practically threw open to / slavery, not only the territories, but even the free states. But the measure that probably did more than any other legislation to excite and finally to solidify the northern states was what was known as the 'Kansas Nebraska Act' for that act repealed the Missouri Compromise. The South had secured its share of that compromise in the admission of Missouri as a slave state, but this Kansas Nebraska Act destroyed that pledge that had been given to the north that 'in all of our territory north of parallel 36, 30, slavery should be prohibited, and it opened up that territory to slavery. In that Kansas / Nebraska Act was a principle called by its author Squatter Sovereignty', that is when a territory applied for admission as a state, the settlers of a the territory could by a vote decide whether it should be a free or a slave state, and the result was that slaveholders, with their slaves went into the territory of Kansas to settle, and men from the north and the east went there also to make it their homes, and there occurred almost daily conflicts between free state men and slave state men.

 

Now we come down to the summer of 1858. During that summer a great political campaign was going on in the state of Illinois. Two great political leaders / were having a joint debate. And these leaders were the candidates of their respective parties for the high office of Unitaded States senator from that state. Slavery and its extension was then as it had been for years before the great question at issue. At one of their meetings at Springfield, on the 15^th of June, Stephen A Douglass, then a US Senator from Illinois, and the author of the Kansas-Nebraska act, made an able and eloquent defence of that Act and its principle Squatter Sovereignty. That was his compromise measure. His attempt to suit both the North and the South, for at that time he was / a prominent Presidential possibility. But Abraham Lincolon, the other candidate had no compromise to offer. In his speech he made this simple statement, 'That a house divided against itself could cannot stand', and he further said, 'I do not believe that this government can permanently exist half slave and half free'. That was a simple statement, but it was the first time a leader of a great political party, and a candidate for a high office had ever declared on the stump that the time would come when either freedom or slavery would give way—that the time would come when this would there would be a struggle to / the death between these two great principles and this nation would be all free or all slave. And I dont believe that Lincolon himself had any idea that that time would come in the near future. And he certainly little dreamed that he would hold an the most important place in that conflict, and that he would be called upon to render the important decision in the case.

 

Two years after this time Abraham Lincolon was elected President of this republic. In his youth he had followed the different avocations of common laborer, backwoods man, flatboatman, and his enemies called him the igno- / rant railsplitter from Illinois, but we know that in after life he was a splendid lawyer, an orator in his way, and that he made an honest, careful, patient and successful President for this republic in the time of her greatest peril. The northern states, by the election of Abraham Lincolon as President, declared that there should be no extension of slavery in our territories. There was no threat to interfere with slavery in the states where it then existed, for at that time slavery had so embedded and entwined itself in our laws and institutions that even those who hated it feared that its / destruction would be the destruction of the republic itself. And Lincolon in his first inaugural message pleaded with the south for peace. He said, 'We are friends, we cannot be enemies' and he also said, "though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection". But the reply of the South to this was practically this, 'That the states of this Union are held together by a compact or agreement that is good so long as each and every state considers it binding, and we do not consider it binding. And when South Carolina fired on Fort Sumpter, it was a declaration on her part that / this Union of States—this republic had lived out its allotted time and must go to pieces. Abraham Lincolon then said, 'I have taken an oath to support and defend the Constitution and I shall preserve this Government—nation by every indispensable means'.

 

            What followed are matters of history to these younger people here, but to these old comrades and their friends, whose heads are silvered ore, they are matters of actual knowledge—of experience, and are indelibly stamped upon your memories and are as lasting as your lives. I will not take up time by mentioning many of the exciting / scenes and events of that time, but simply say that you elderly men and women well remember how state after state in the South seceded. How out of a part of this Union they set up another government or confederacy and founded it upon human slavery. You remember that great war that followed between the North and the South. That great war with its 112 great battles and more than a thousand minor battles and skirmishes, whose mighty death roll reached 400 000, with fully as many more maimed and crippled for life, and all of these on both sides were Americans. No doubt you well / remember the darke days, for some of these battles were not victories for us, but terrible and bloody defeats. Those were indeed times that tried mens souls. Some one has said that if time had been counted by events our Country lived a century during those four years. And many were the good and true men whose hearts failed them, for they felt the end was near, that the Union could not stand the strain and must go to pieces, and that Abraham Lincolon would be the last President of the entire United States. And we know that all the Kings, emperors and tyrants / of the old world rejoiced at what they thought was the destruction of this great American republic and a death blow to a republican form of government. Yes, it was indeed a struggle to the death between liberty and Union on one side and slavery and disunion on the other. But thanks to an over-ruling Providence and the wise and patient leadership of Abraham Lincolon and the loyalty and patriotism of the men and women of the North and the valor and heroism of her soldiers this government of the people, for the people and by the people was not blotted from the earth. And you remember my / comrades in the darkes hour of that war when Abraham Lincolon said by his proclamation to four millions of slaves, 'you are free men and women' how it seemed to clear the way, how the Union Army took on new hope and pressed forward carraying victory and freedom together and made them one. And that war in Lincolons time—that memorable appeal to arms decided beyond controversy that this nation is supreme and no state can seceed from the union, even by force of arms.

 

And now after all these years have passed, after more than forty years have passed away, all the downtrodden and / oppressed, and all the liberty loving througout the world, and also our southern brethren rejoice with us that that great war in Lincolons time terminated as it did, they rejoice that the right triumphed. They rejoice with us that the defenders of this republic were mighter than its assailants.

 

            Now my friends let me call your attention to an incident, so near the time of Lincolon as to form a part of it. You well remember when just after the war had closed, when there came a dark day—when a great fear fell upon the people—when it seemed as if the sun of the republic had been ecli- / psed—when we hardly knew whether we had a government or not. It was when the people heard of the assination of Abraham Lincolon. You remember on the following morning after that dreadful event that there assembled in the streets of New York City, around the Stock Exchange a great crowd of people, 50 or 60 thousand—a terrible, excited and angry crowd. They had just received the news by telegraph that Lincolon had been assinated and that Secretary Seward was dying, and this great crowd were was intent upon destroying / the office of a great journal that had assailed the President and perhaps they would do other violence, for no man can tell what a mob will do. The crowd was almost beyond control. On the stand were distinguished statesmen, soldiers, judges and eminent clergymen, but what they said seemed to be of no avail to quiet that excited, maddened crowd. Then a man came to the front and in a clear and distinct voice quoted an appropriate passage from the bible. Then he said 'Fellow Citizens, God reigns and the government at Washington still lives'. Those were the words of Garfield, / and they were wondeful words, and they had a wondeful effect to allay and quiet that excited and revengeful crowd. And now after for more than forty years have passed away since that time, we can truly say that 'God reigns and our Government still lives, and during these years it has grown wiser, better and more powerful until now it holds a place in the front rank among the great nations of the Earth.

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