l; and as a happy sequel to this long night of suffering, in the
dawn of the nineteenth century, she bore a son who was destined to
awaken a nation's somnolent conscience to a monstrous evil; to lead a
nation through a fierce siege of fratricidal strife; to strike the
shackles of slavery from the limbs of four millions of bondsmen; to fall
a victim to the assassin's bullet; to be enshrined in the hearts of a
grateful nation; and to have an eternal abode in the pantheon of
immortals.

* * * * *

Abraham Lincoln! What mighty magic is this name! Erstwhile it made the
tyrant tremble on his throne and the hearts of the down-trodden leap for
joy. Now, over the chasm of two score years, it causes the drooping
hopes of freemen to bud anew, and the smoldering embers of their
ambition to leap into flame.

With talismanic power, it swerves the darts of hate and malice aimed at
a defenseless race, so that though they wound, they do not destroy. With
antidotal efficacy, it nullifies the virus of proscription so that it
does not stagnate the blood nor paralyze the limb of an up-treading and
on-going race.

When the nation was rent in twain, Lincoln, the propitiator, counselled
conciliation. When the States of the South sought to secede, Lincoln,
the concatenator, welded them into a solid chain, one and inseparable.
When brother sought the life of brother and father that of son, Lincoln,
the pacificator, advised peace with honor. When the nation was stupefied
with the miasma of human slavery, Lincoln, the alleviator, broke its
horrid spell by diffusing through the fire of war the sweet incense of
liberty.

The cynic has sneered at the Proclamation of Emancipation. The dogmatist
has called the great Emancipator a compromiser. The scholar, with the
eccentricity peculiar to genius, has solemnly declared that the slaves
were freed purely as a war necessity and not because of any
consideration for the slave. The undergraduate, in imitation of his
erudite tutors, has asserted that the freedmen owe more to the pride of
the haughty Southerner than to the magnanimity of President Lincoln. But
the mists of doubt and misconception have been so dissipated by the
sunlight of history, that we, of this generation, may clearly see the
martyred President as he really was.

* * * * *

All honor to Abraham Lincoln, the performer, not the preacher; the
friend of humanity, the friend of the North, the friend of the South,
the friend of the white