ure."

I count it the glory of that gifted humanitarian that he gave his
magnificent talents and energies to the organization of a party that
could add to its _amor patriae_ the larger, broader, nobler love of
freedom for all mankind; and I count it the glory of that party that it
stood for

"the voice of a people--uprisen, awake";

that it was "born to make men free."

No matter what name has been inscribed on its banner during its
existence of a full half century, the cause that the party of freedom
espoused has given its standard-bearer a right to claim that it, and it
alone, is the legitimate heir to power in this land where the
forefathers sought the liberty the Old World denied. Who dares dispute
the claim? Who dares challenge the assertion? Time and events have
sanctioned it; age has but strengthened it. And to-day, holding as
tenaciously the same principles of truth and justice, the party that,
among the parties of this Republic, alone stands as the synonym of
freedom is the Republican party.

None dare gainsay it. And, among the growing multitudes in this broad
land of ours, none know this better than ten millions of Afro-Americans
who but for its strong arm of power might still be suffering from "Man's
inhumanity to man."

Forget it? The mightiest draughts from Lethe's stream could not blot
from the remembrance of the race the deed of that Republican leader
enthroned upon the seat of government, the deed of the immortal Lincoln,
whose birth we commemorate here to-night, the deed of that second
Abraham who, true to his name as the "father of the faithful," struck
the chains from the Negro's limbs and bade him stand forever free.

But did the great work stop there? No; the fast following amendments to
the Constitution show that the party of freedom never paused; and the
bond forged during the long years of struggle and riveted by
emancipation was indissolubly welded when that party crowned the
freedman with the glorious rights and privileges of citizenship. Ah,
what lamentations loud and long filled the land! What dire predictions
smote the nation's ear! What a multitude of evils imagination turned
loose like a horde of Furies! What a war of opinion raged 'twixt friends
and foes of the race that drew the first full breath of freedom! More
than three decades have passed. Have these dismal prophecies been
fulfilled? No race under the sun has been so patient under calumny,
under oppression, under mob v