e the awful sacrifices which the
conflict demanded; all this has passed into the commonplaces of history.
No man ever had a harder task, and no other man could have accomplished
it so well.

[Illustration: LINCOLN]

The emancipation of the slaves, which has loomed so large in history,
was in reality, merely an incident, a war measure, taken to weaken the
enemy and justifiable, perhaps, only on that ground; the preliminary
proclamation, indeed, proposed to liberate the slaves only in such
states as were in rebellion on the following first of January. Nor did
emancipation create any great popular enthusiasm. The congressional
elections which followed it showed a great reaction against
anti-slavery. The Democrats carried Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York,
Illinois. For a time the administration was fighting for its life,
and won by an alarmingly small margin.

Before the year had elapsed, however, there was a great reversal in
public opinion, and at the succeeding election, Lincoln received 212 out
of 233 electoral votes. The end of the Confederacy was by this time in
sight. A month after his second inauguration, Richmond fell, and five
days later, Lee surrendered his army to General Grant. Lincoln at once
paid a visit to Richmond and then returned to Washington for the last
act of the drama.

The fourteenth of April was Good Friday, and the President arranged to
take a small party to Ford's theatre to witness a performance of a farce
comedy called "Our American Cousin." The President entered his box about
nine o'clock and was given a tumultuous reception. Then the play went
forward quietly, until suddenly the audience was startled by a pistol
shot, followed by a woman's scream. At the same instant, a man was seen
to leap from the President's box to the stage. Pausing only to wave a
dagger which he carried in his hand and to shout, "Sic semper tyrannis!"
the man disappeared behind the scenes. Amid the confusion, no efficient
pursuit was made. The President had been shot through the head, the
bullet passing through the brain. Unconsciousness, of course, came
instantly, and death followed in a few hours.

Eleven days later, the murderer, an actor by the name of John Wilkes
Booth, was surrounded in a barn where he had taken refuge; he refused to
come out, and the barn was set on fire. Soon afterwards, the assassin
was brought forth with a bullet at the base of his brain, whether fired
by himself or one of the besieging soldi