h would ask the other, "Am I awake,
or do I dream?" There was a piteous helplessness. Strong men bowed
down and wept. Other and common griefs belonged to someone in chief;
this belonged to all. It was each and every man's. Every virtuous
household in the land felt as if its firstborn were gone. Men were
bereaved and walked for days as if a corpse lay unburied in their
dwellings. There was nothing else to think of. They could speak of
nothing but that; and yet of that they could speak only falteringly.
All business was laid aside. Pleasure forgot to smile. The city for
nearly a week ceased to roar. The great Leviathan lay down, and was
still. Even avarice stood still, and greed was strangely moved to
generous sympathy and universal sorrow. Rear to his name monuments,
found charitable institutions, and write his name above their lintels,
but no monument will ever equal the universal, spontaneous, and
sublime sorrow that in a moment swept down lines and parties, and
covered up animosities, in an hour brought a divided people into unity
of grief and indivisible fellowship of anguish.

This Nation has dissolved--but in tears only. It stands four-square,
more solid to-day than any pyramid in Egypt. This people are neither
wasted, nor daunted, nor disordered. Men hate slavery and love liberty
with stronger hate and love to-day than ever before. The government is
not weakened; it is made stronger. How naturally and easily were the
ranks closed! Another steps forward, in the hour that one fell, to
take his place and his mantle; and I avow my belief that he will be
found a man true to every instinct of liberty; true to the whole trust
that is reposed in him; vigilant of the Constitution; careful of the
laws; wise for liberty, in that he himself, through his life, has
known what it was to suffer from the stings of slavery, and to prize
liberty from bitter personal experiences.

Where could the head of government of any monarchy be smitten down by
the hand of an assassin, and the funds not quiver or fall one-half of
one per cent? After a long period of national disturbance, after four
years of drastic war, after tremendous drafts on the resources of the
country, in the height and top of our burdens, the heart of this
people is such that now, when the head of government is stricken down,
the public funds do not waver, but stand as the granite ribs in our
mountains.

Republican institutions have been vindicated in this experience