oper
practical relations with the Union. "Concede that the new government of
Louisiana is to what it should be only as the egg is to the fowl, we
shall sooner have the fowl by hatching the egg than by smashing it." Let
us be flexible as to our methods, inflexible as to vital principles.

These were his last words to his countrymen. Three days later, April 14,
as he sat in Ford's theatre,--the strain of responsibility lightened by
an hour of kindly amusement--there fell on him, from an assassin's hand,
the stroke of unconsciousness and speedy death. For himself, how could
he have died better! At the summit of achievement, hailed by the world's
acclaim, in the prime of manly strength, unweakened by decay, unshadowed
by fear; a life of heroic service crowned by a martyr's death; a place
won in the nation's heart of such love and gratitude as has been given
to no other,--how better could he have died?

But never was heavier bereavement than his death brought to the American
people. It was not sorrow only, but lasting loss, beyond estimation and
beyond repair. We know not how in the sum of things all seeming evil may
find place, but to human eyes seldom was man taken who could so ill be
spared. By nature and capacity he was above all else a peace-maker.
Called to be captain in a great war, his largest contribution to its
success had been in holding united to the common purpose men most widely
varying among themselves. He said, toward the end, that he did not know
that he had done better than any one else could, except perhaps at one
point,--he did think he had been pretty successful in keeping the North
united. And while he did this, while he kept radicals and conservatives,
Abolitionists and Unionists, New Englanders and Kentuckians, loyal to
the common cause, he also shaped that cause toward the highest aims that
his various constituency would admit. He could not bring them to his own
highest thought,--they would not be persuaded to try compensated
emancipation and peaceful reunion instead of war to the extremity. But
he did lift a war for the Union to a war for freedom also, and so direct
it that from the strife should emerge not the old, but a nobler nation.
And now, the harder half was to be done! Instead of generalship,
statesmanship; instead of animal courage, justice and kindness toward
former foes; instead of holding the North together, to bring North and
South together; that was the gigantic task now to be wrought.