some periods
of their history; a democracy founded upon the privileges of the
few and the exclusion of the many. Very much like the democracy
of the barons of Runnymede, who, when they met together to dictate
Magna Charta to King John, guarded fully their own privileges as
against the king, but cared but little for the rights of the people.
And so with the south--the old south. But it was an able oligarchy.

"Among the brightest names in the American diadem were many men of
the south--at the head of whom, and at the head of all mankind,
was the name of Washington. And so, in all our history, the south,
misnamed a democracy, did furnish to the United States many of
their leading lights, and the highest saints in our calendar. They
were able men. All who came in contact with them felt their power
and their influence. Trained, selected for leading pursuits, they
exercised a controlling influence in our politics. They held their
slaves in subjection and the middle classes in ignorance, but
extended their power and influence, so as to control, in the main,
the policy of this country, at home and abroad. They disciplined
our forces, led our parties, and made our law.

"General Grant, in the popular mind, represents the impersonation
of the forces that broke the old south. Not that thousands of men
did not do as much as he within the limits of their opportunities.
Not that every soldier who followed his flag did not perform his
duty in the same sense as General Grant. But General Grant was
the head, the front, the selected leader; and therefore his name
is the impersonation of that power in the war which broke the old
south, and preserved our Union to your children, and I trust your
children's children, to the remotest posterity. But, while we
praise Grant and the Union soldiers, we must remember that Abraham
Lincoln was the genius of the times. He pointed out the way. He
foresaw the events that came. He did not like war. He hated war.
He loved the south as few men did. He was born of the south--in
his early life reared in the south. All his kin were in the south.
He belonged to that middle or humble class of men in the south who
were most seriously oppressed by all their surroundings--by the
slavery of the south. He hated slavery, if he hated anything, but
I do not believe he hated the owners of slaves. He loved all
mankind. No man better than he could have uttered those words:
'Malice towards none, cha