Qass. 
 Book. 
 
;,:///■ / (/■ . 
 
 
 ■* -t 
 
 REY. MR. BINGHAM'S DISCOURSE 
 
 OV THE 
 
 ^^SH^^inatioii of f r^^itlent Sincolit, 
 
 « 
 
Rational gisapointmciit. 
 
 DISCOURSE 
 
 OCCASIONED BY THE 
 
 ASSASSINATION OF PIIESIDENT LINCOLN 
 
 UELIVEUED IN WESTMINSTER CHURCH, BUFFALO, 
 
 SuMMV KvENiNO, May 7tb, 1865. 
 
 BY JOEL F. BINGHAM, 
 
 TASTOK OF THK OONGEKGATION. 
 
 BUFFALO: 
 ]}REED, BUTLER AND COMPANY. 
 
 1865. 
 
FRANKLIN PRINTING HOl'SE. 
 
 TIIOMA*, TYPoaBAItllB. 
 
 .^^^^' 
 
DISCOURSE 
 
 I WILL BRING THE BLIND BY A WAY THAT THEY KNEW NOT. — ISAIAH 
 XLII, 16. 
 
 No otlier flict has been more conspicuous 
 upon the face of society among us, during the 
 progress of the war that is now closing, than 
 the constantly spreading and deepening senti- 
 ment of our national dependence on the allot- 
 ments of the Divine Hand. We have learned, 
 with all our fellow-countrymen, during the 
 last four years, as we never before understood 
 • it, the uncertainty 'of human calculations, and 
 the double blindness of human self-sufficiency, 
 conceit and independence. Inexorable and 
 repeated disappointments have taught us — the 
 most careful estimates and the most sanguine 
 expectations, now immeasurable cut short, and 
 then immeasurably outrun, have taught us, 
 
Ihuruu-lily at lust. tli:it God, above all earthly 
 forces, still directs tlie destinies of this world, 
 and, by an inscrutable and irresistil^le Provi- 
 dence, WILL HRING BLIND .MEN INTO HIS PUR- 
 POSES, {nationally as well as indwidualhj,) by 
 
 A WAV TIIKV KNEW NOT. 
 
 At the outset of the rebellion, we were 
 both unwillino- and unable to believe that 
 a civil war among us would ever actu- 
 ally come, till tlie sudden bombardmcn.t and 
 fall of Sumter thrilled, like liMUninrr, throun-h 
 the national heart, in the terrible conviction 
 that civil war was already begun. So, the 
 blind eyes of the people were then opened, 
 so far as to see that the incredible crisis was 
 upon us, and their heart was so far fired, as 
 to rouse them to gird themselves for the 
 dreadful strife. But the ma^-nitude of the 
 treason which was on foot, and the time and 
 force which would be required to crush it 
 was not then perceived, and only dawned on 
 our (lull vision in the mortilying and over- 
 whelming defeat of the national arms at 
 Bull Kun. Thus, again, we were strained to 
 the sending of those huge armies into the 
 field which have swc|)t witli des(.lali(.ii from 
 
the Potomac to the Gulf, and have destroyed 
 at once the status of RebeUion and the status 
 of Slavery. Slavery, however, even then, we 
 meant not to disturb, and commander after 
 commander was removed m disgrace for smit- 
 ing it, even as a military blow upon the 
 strength of the public enemy. But the 
 tedious and unsuccessful campaigns in Virginia, 
 the dreadful disasters on the Peninsula, before 
 Fredericksburg, in the Valley of the Shenan- 
 doah, and especially the alarming irruptions of 
 the rebel armies into Pennsylvania and Mary- 
 land, threatening the destruction of Washing- 
 ton, and even of our great northern cities — 
 it was this terrible path of God which 
 brought us, in the peril of our existence, to 
 lift our hand with the might of despair, and 
 sweep utterly from our soil that accursed 
 system of wrong under which rebellion was 
 born, and by which it was mightily fostered, 
 even in its grapple upon the throat of our 
 liberties. By such bitter disappointments and 
 terrors, were the President and the nation 
 nerved up to utter, (with doubt and hesita- 
 tion,) the immortal proclamation of January 1, 
 1863, by which the heathenish shackles were 
 
6 
 
 knocked at a l>low I'roiii lour millions of 
 wretched Ibllow-ljeings, at whose outrageous 
 wrongs humanity had wept for ages, though 
 powerless to break the tremendous strength, 
 or alleviate the horrors of their iron bondage. 
 See then, fellow citizens, in these bitter sur- 
 prises, how gloriously God has led us, in our 
 blindness, by a way of His own that we 
 knew not. 
 
 But tlicsc things are now securely past. 
 Wc have been coming, in these preparatory 
 remarks, to speak of our recent ' tremendous 
 surprise and grief For surely we expected 
 no such thing. We have been equally con- 
 founded with amazciucnt, and crushed with 
 sorrow. We did not dream that the path 
 along which God was leading us, already 
 actually emerging, as it seemed, forever, from 
 the darkness and peril under which we had 
 wept for four long years — we did not dream 
 that this pathj of Providence, already so 
 cheering, and brightening every day with the 
 realization of our best hopes, was to tnni 
 again into the gloom of that bitter sorrow 
 which overspreads the land. That the great 
 and rrood man whom wc all (leli":hted to 
 
honor — that the twice chosen President of the 
 now regenerated nation — the President, be- 
 yond all question, who Avas beloved with a 
 tenderer affection, and a more nearly unanimous 
 sentiment among the people, than any other 
 who has occupied that seat of power and of 
 popular criticism, save, perhaps, the first, the 
 unopposed, the uncompared, the solitary Wash- 
 ington, who is now henceforth to divide his 
 glory with this second object of a nation's 
 eternal veneration — a man, too, not only of 
 rare and tried wisdom, of an integrity as 
 high as heaven above every bribe, and of a 
 patriotism burning like the flame of life itself, 
 but a man so gentle, so conciliatory and for- 
 giving, so unwilling to inflict -^pain even upon 
 the guilty — a man of such transparent hon- 
 esty, of such child-like simplicity — the very 
 embodiment of every kind and sweet and al- 
 most womanly virtue of our nature — that 
 this man, the embodiment, also, of the supreme 
 authority of the nation, God's anointed over 
 us — truly, but a few days ago, nothing short 
 of an accredited prophecy from the skies 
 could have made us believe that this incom- 
 parable President, this intensely beloved man, 
 
tliis n'[)rcscntative ol" our national power and 
 our national life — that he would fall a mur- 
 dered victim to the Vjloody work of a politi- 
 cal assasin. When tlie terrible news first 
 sounded in our e:irs wo could not Ijelieve the 
 tidings. We can now scarcely credit the tes- 
 timony of our senses. But for three live-long 
 weeks we have been dwelling in the midst of 
 weeds. Every home in the land has been 
 draped in mourning. The temples of public 
 authority, law and justice, and the sanctuaries 
 of religion of every name, from Maine to 
 Louisiana, stand robed in Ijlack. We have all 
 witnessed and mingled in the funeral cortege, 
 magnificent in signs of woe. Many of us have 
 gazed with our «cyes upon the blackened ruin, 
 fast crumbling back into unrecognizable dust 
 — all of the nation's Deliverer and Slavery's 
 Destroyer which the murderer's work has left 
 to a mourning people. 
 
 Now we have to ask what that nr/r light 
 is 'which God has just made to dawn on our 
 sloiv nision hy this new and terrilde turn in 
 the jiath of If is Providence. The occasion of 
 such mighty mourning — a nation bowed, and 
 each man for himself ])()wed in the agony of 
 
9 
 
 a personal bereavement — what has this reveal- 
 ed to us which, in our blindness, we were be- 
 fore overlooking? What now are the new, or 
 at least newly reiterated and re-emphasized 
 facts which these blackened heavens are thun- 
 
 H dering in the ears of the nation? 
 
 ^ Why, in the first place, what all good men 
 
 have been slow to read, and unwilling to 
 read, but are now compelled to read in let- 
 ters of blood and fire in the heavens — that 
 the animus of this rebellion • — the spirit ivhich 
 gave it life^ and ivhich has been its living 
 p7-inciple ever since — IS ABSOLUTELY 
 HELLISH TO THE LAST DEGREE. For it 
 were useless to attempt to shield the cause of 
 rebellion, from responsibility for, and compli- 
 city with, this last supreme culmination of 
 its guilt and murder. It were useless to talk: 
 of this deed, which has shocked and disgusted 
 the world, as merely the individual guilt of a 
 maddened villain. Supposing, for a • moment, 
 that, in point of fact, it had been so, (which 
 is now officially proven to have been far oth- 
 erwise,) yet then, even, what must have been 
 the seed, the atmosphere, the culture which 
 could germinate and ripen this accursed fruit ! 
 
No good cause, no laudable spirit, no worthy 
 end could inspire a man to such devilisli 
 deeds. The cause, its spirit, its end are un- 
 mistakably set forth, before heaven and earth, 
 in the fiendish champion and his fiendish 
 work. 
 
 l]ut the almost incredible truth has been 
 made as clear as noonday — tlic unwelcome 
 evidence has rolled up in masses of terrible 
 light over innumerable enterprises and deeds of 
 darkness, till une must be more sightless than 
 the blind who does not see, to-day, that the 
 nameless act of April 14th was but striking a 
 higher and more conspicuous note in the same 
 dreadful harmony of hell, which has been 
 playing, half-muflled and in the distance, for 
 the last four years, the name of which is 
 "Revenge and Ptuin." The accomplishment 
 of this very deed was but narrowly escaped, at 
 Baltimore, four years ago. That attempt was, 
 indisputably, in the hands of the leaders of re- 
 volt. It was intended to forestall the inevita- 
 ble struggle, and render an appeal to arms im- 
 possible. Six months ago, when re-election 
 was certain, it was coolly advertised for, in 
 the newspapers, at a magnificent reward. 
 
11 
 
 Commencing at Selma, Georgia, (a copy ot 
 which I have seen,) the offer was copied 
 from paper to paper, till it had spread 
 throughout the South ; and at least one prom- 
 inent Southern journal, mentioning the project 
 with applause, took occasion to urge upon the 
 attention of the leaders, at Richmond, that a 
 few millions appropriated in this way would 
 be certain to secure the fact, and would 
 achieve more for the cause, than hundreds of 
 millions spent in the regular prosecution of 
 civilized warfare. This course, however attrac- 
 tive, the leaders dare not openly take. It was 
 too perilous, thus to outrage the conscience of 
 all civilized mankind. Yet it has now transpired 
 that they were privy to a most formidable con- 
 spiracy, to prevent, in this same diabolical way, 
 the second inauguration on the 4tli of March 
 last, which, no thanks to them, miscarried. 
 
 Look, now, for a moment, at the South- 
 ern methods of prosecuting their public and 
 civilized warfare, so-called, which the late cli- 
 max of crime has powerfully illuminated. In 
 Virginia, arsenic was thrown into the wells, 
 where national armies were likely to pass; and 
 the inhabitants of the country, whom these 
 
iiriiiies had spared in life and property, were 
 employed to bring into the national camps 
 and sell to these soldiers poisoned pies and 
 I'ruit. Sheridan himself, early in the summer 
 ol' 18G4, barely escaped with his life from a 
 fatal dose received in a similar way. 
 
 Throughout the territory in rebellion, and 
 during the whole contest, numberless mur- 
 derous gangs have swept to and fro, hunting 
 out and chasing down, like wild beasts, every 
 man, however unarmed, unoffending and quiet, 
 against whom the faintest suspicion whispered 
 that he still loved, and, in the bottom of his 
 heart, still clung to, the flag and the govern- 
 ment of his fjithers. Once caught, these 
 " fiiithi'ul among the fliithless found," whose 
 only offence was loyalty, were treated with 
 every refinement of cruelty and murder. They 
 were butchered in the midst of their families. 
 They were hung upon trees in front of their 
 own door. They were starved to death in the 
 forests. They were waylaid and shot from the 
 wayside. Their houses were set on fire over 
 their heads, and their wives and infant chil- 
 dren driven naked into the night and (he 
 storm and the wilderness. 
 
13 
 
 Our children will be compelled to read with 
 a shudder of the wholesale massacres of hun- 
 dreds aiid thousands of national troops after 
 surrender ; of wounded national soldiers, on the 
 field of battle and in the power of the enemy, 
 purposely left to welter and languish, for days, 
 without attendance, or so much as the service 
 of a drop of water for their terrible thirst; of 
 unnecessary and cruel amputations, by rebel 
 surgeons, with the double purpose, openly 
 avowed, to punish and disable; of hospitals 
 purposely set on fire, with sick and wounded 
 national soldiers left, by scores, to roast and 
 consume in the burning building ; in short, of 
 the fortunes of battle, so terrible at the best, 
 savagely aggravated, in a thousand horrible 
 ways, by the inhuman and unheard of bar- 
 barities which this rebellion has developed. 
 
 Our children and the world will read, too, 
 with indescribable detestation, how great and 
 peaceful cities, far remote from the armies in 
 conflict, were secretly set on fire, by the skulking 
 incendiaries of the rebellion ; of the attempted 
 destruction of moving railroad trains, filled with 
 unarmed men, women and children, by similar 
 emissaries from the same quarter ; and of the 
 
u 
 
 crudest ocean piracies on record, perpetrated 
 in ships of foreign make and outfit, under this 
 monstrous assumption of illegitimate authority. 
 
 But the blackest page, as it seems to me, 
 which the whole history of the past can show 
 will *be that on which shall stand the yet un- 
 written, yet ungathered and unknown summary 
 of the horrors of the rebel i^rzsows, which con- 
 fined and slowly destroyed the soldiers captured 
 from the national armies — pits of torture, 
 where a deliberate, systematic, long protracted 
 process of freezing, infection and starvation 
 was coolly and unrelentingly carried forward 
 upon tens of thousands of men taken in open 
 battle, and carried forward in connection with 
 circumstances of brutality whose horror is be- 
 yond expression, and which the ear of decency 
 refuses to hear. Our posterity will turn pale 
 as they read that record. Mankind will exe- 
 crate the story with everlasting curses, and 
 confess that this alone were enou2:h to consi":n 
 the exploded slave-holders' rebellion to the 
 blackest abyss of human iufiimy. 
 
 Now it should seem strange, if it were not 
 found, (though the evidence which has trans- 
 pired .ill points ill the opposite direction,) nev- 
 
15 
 
 ertheless, it were strange, that some of the 
 cooler heads among the insurgent authorities 
 should not have foreseen the reactionary effect 
 which a knowledge of these barbarities must 
 of necessity work to the prejudice of their 
 cause, and, however careless as to the atroci- 
 ties in themselves, should not have felt com- 
 pelled to put a stop to this disgraceful and 
 self-damaging course. But the important fact 
 is that these atrocities have -not been stop- 
 ped, in any direction, from the beginning un- 
 til now. On the contrary, history will be 
 compelled to declare, that this rebellion, from 
 the first, has clothed itself with every possi- 
 ble atrocity as with a garment. There is 
 nothing whatever that its partisans have scru- 
 pled to do. Unexampled perjuries, deceit 
 and theft, the most dreadful and extensive 
 persecution of neighbors and fellow citizens, 
 piracies of the most outrageous character, 
 wholesale poisoning, mining of prisoners' quar- 
 ters, ready for the match, in case they were 
 likely to be retaken, massacres, tortures, 
 starvation of tens of thousands of prisoners 
 of war, the destruction of railway trains, the 
 conflagration of great cities full of peaceful 
 
ii; 
 
 inhabitants by the niglitly t(jrch of the in- 
 cendiary, and iinally, oh lieavens ! the con- 
 certed butchery of tlie President of the Uni- 
 ted States, by a too long tolerated play- 
 actor ! 
 
 The evidence which is daily transpiring 
 points, as we have said, with increasing cer. 
 tainty to the conclusion, (hard as it is to credit 
 both the stupidity of the mistake and the 
 •brutality of the guilt,) that the head and re- 
 presentative and for a time essentially the 
 dictator over the whole insurrectionary move- 
 ment — the eternally infamous Davis — that 
 he and his coadjutors could, in a great de- 
 gree, at least, have checked and prevented 
 this career of inhuman proceedings, but did 
 not ; because their better judgment was 
 clouded by crime, and even their desire for 
 the surest success, overpowered by a terrible 
 thirst for revenge — a result which might 
 naturally enough be expected from that spirit 
 of hate and destruction to which they sur- 
 rendered their souls, when they entered the 
 conspiracy to break u}) and destroy this gen- 
 tlest of governments and happiest of nations 
 on earth. This view, it must be confessed, 
 
17 
 
 is corroborated, also, by the reflection that 
 the incredible starvation horrors at the Libby 
 Prison in Richmond, especially, to say noth- 
 ing of the corresponding horrors at Belle 
 Isle, at Salisbury, N. C, at Danville, Va., at 
 Andersonville and elsewhere, must have been 
 dependent on the will of the President, as 
 commander-in-chief of the rebel forces. He 
 must have known perfectly the facts. 
 Whether the cruelties were first begun by 
 his order, or not, he could, it seems cer- 
 tain, have spoken a word, or given a stroke 
 of his pen, which would have sent relief 
 and life to these dying men. But this he 
 did not do. That word he did not speak. 
 Their cruel and unnecessary deaths, therefore, 
 it is scarcely possible to deny, cry out of 
 the ground by thousands, and call him their 
 relentless murderer. 
 
 But there is another possible explanation of 
 the strength and steadiness of that unbroken 
 current of brutalities and fiendish deeds. We 
 are able to suppose, that, the rebellion once 
 under way, the leaders were practically un- 
 able altogether to control its lawless spirit, and 
 restrain its hideous excesses. It is not im- 
 
IS 
 
 probaljle, perhaps — though we must confess 
 tliat there is not a morsel of evidence to sus- 
 tain the supposition — yet it is conceivable, at 
 least, that the rebelling leaders, from motives 
 of far-sighted policy, however malignant their 
 passions might be, never advised to these cru- 
 elties and brutalities, but counseled to the 
 opposite course, and resisted, even, the actual 
 perpetration. We say it is conceivable that it 
 may have been so ; and if this be the true 
 alternative ; if the spirit of rebellion has devel- 
 oped a fury and madness which its leaders 
 could not restrain ; if it has seized the bits in 
 its teeth, and run unmanageable into out- 
 rageous inhumanities from which its instigators 
 may well endeavor to extricate themselves 
 with repudiation and shame and alarm; if it 
 be so; if this, rather than the other, be the 
 true explanation of these atrocities ; yet in 
 what respect is the situation alleviated, whether 
 as to the more than murderous guilt of the 
 instigating leaders, or as to the terrible char- 
 acter of the now developed and maddened 
 spirit of misrule and destruction? Oh, how 
 irreparable and eternal, is the mischief, and 
 liuw uiipardnnal)le is the thousandfold murder- 
 
19 
 
 ous guilt of those desperate men who have 
 persistently roused, and lashed into an ungov- 
 ernable fury, this demoniac temper which in 
 the fruitless support of an abominable cause 
 has deluged a happy continent with human 
 blood, and gloated over thousands of the most 
 blissful homes on earth covered with blight, 
 desolation and woe ! Oh, there are crimes so 
 big and so dreadful^ as almost to paralyze our 
 sense of right and wrong, and we stand in a 
 kiuc\ of uncertainty and bewilderment before 
 their tremendous guilt ! Fellow citizens, it is 
 madness to talk of pardon and amnesty for 
 such men. In a civil sense they have com- 
 mitted the unpardonable sin, for which there 
 can be no forgiveness. The history of the 
 world has invariably shown that a weak pity for 
 the guilty is cruelty to the innocent. The 
 only possible stability for our Government, and 
 safety for our children, depends on the irre- 
 vocable doom of these men, who stand before 
 heaven and earth the murderers at once of 
 ourselves and our liberties. 
 
 But this disposal of the leaders in treason, 
 painful and difficult as it may be, is not the 
 most painful, nor the most difficult aspect of our 
 
20 
 
 situation. It is comparatively easy, (though I 
 confess to much misgiving, lest the government 
 aiul the nation shall prove morbidly and dan- 
 gerously merciful in this quarter, even,) yet it 
 is comparatively easy to deal with a few con- 
 spicuous traitors ; but we shall be terribly de- 
 ceived if we imagine that this will either remove 
 or paralyze the dreadful and now maddened 
 spirit of ..rebellion, revenge, and ruin. We hear 
 dangerous syrens in one quarter and another 
 singing delusive strains of pity and paydon. 
 " The spirit of vengeance " against us, we hear 
 it said in some high conservative quarters, " the 
 spirit of vengeance is now quelled. The war is 
 • over. The day has gone by for anger, severity 
 and alarm." No avSsertion could be more untrue. 
 None could be more perilous for us to accept 
 in such a time as this. We do not speak of 
 the almost indifferent masses. They did not 
 excite the war. But there are hearts, by hun- 
 dreds, and I know not but by thousands, 
 in which the spirit of vengeance is not quelled, 
 and never will be, while they breathe in earthly 
 air. Consider, we pray you, how astonish- 
 ingly, beyond all we were able to believe 
 possible, the spirit of treason and blood grew 
 
21 
 
 strong and spread, by the fostering care of 
 its early fomenters, even under the peaceful 
 skies of our former visible unity and fraternity. 
 How rank and widely extended, then, must 
 have become its growth, under the congenial 
 tempests and malignity of these four years of 
 visible separation and exasperating war ? Its 
 purposes are now defeated, but its disposition 
 is unchanged, except as it is now the more 
 frenzied by chagrin and despair. It is but a 
 specimen of this sublimated venom which, be 
 it remembered, since the hopeless collapse of 
 their cause, and when the door of peace was 
 already opening, has filled our land with 
 blacker mourning, than the united slaughters 
 of the whole war. From this horrible speci- 
 men Providence is callino; us to learn of the 
 spirit which is yet to be dealt with. 
 
 How long this state of things is to continue 
 
 — how long this temper of murderous treason 
 is to remain, suppressed, indeed, but not dead 
 
 — how long it is to exist, scattered and con- 
 cealed, but alive and rankling in embittered 
 and desperate bosoms, or perhaps fostered and 
 deliberative in the darkness of secret organi- 
 zations — this is the first and foremost of the 
 
22 
 
 great questions on which our national destiny- 
 is now hinged ; and the tremendous interests 
 which it involves are equalled only by the 
 tremendous uncertainty that hangs over it, and 
 utterly baffles every attempt to predict, or 
 calculate its future developments. To await 
 these developments would be to await per- 
 dition. The contingency to be instantly met, 
 with all its uncertainties, is already upon us. 
 Its uncertainties constitute a great part of its 
 peril, as well as its demand for immediate, 
 effectual and decisive remedies. 
 
 In times like these it must be wise, then, 
 for us and our rulers to recall, and to be will- 
 ing to take for the guidance of our conduct, 
 principles of safety which have been so often 
 demonstrated, at the cost of seas of human 
 blood on other continents and in former gen- 
 erations. We cannot afford, in days like these, 
 to throw history and experience aside, in 
 order to make trial of humanitarian theories 
 and crude speculations. The exigency calls 
 for well-aimed and rapid strokes, such as the 
 experience of the world has proved to be 
 efficacious and sure. 
 
 Among the principles which have been 
 
23 
 
 settled by the bloody experiments of all the 
 ages, and stand written in blood-red letters 
 along all the pages of the past, one of the 
 first is, that treason, the crimen majestatis^ is 
 not only in its own character the supremest 
 pitch of human guilt, but also always contains, 
 potentially, in its black bosom, all possible 
 crimes; and, by the common consent of the 
 civilized world, whoever enters into a treason- 
 able conspiracy, openly takes his life in his 
 hand, and voluntarily sets up in the sight of 
 all mankind, as the stake of his success in 
 quenching the life of his government, his own 
 death, poverty and infamy. Another of the 
 principles which belong to this same category 
 is, that the stability of human government 
 indispensably re.quires a conviction pervading 
 the minds of all its subjects, of the certainty 
 that law will be executed, penal justice in- 
 flicted, legal equity maintained, in spite of 
 opposition and combinations, no matter how 
 formidable, and at the cost, even, if necessary, 
 of the happiness,' the reputation, the property, 
 the life of individuals, no matter how nu- 
 merous, no matter of what station. It is also 
 one of the stern facts which have been estab- 
 
24 
 
 lislicd l)y experience, that the spirit of murder 
 cannot be cured by caresses. It lias most 
 commonly l)een the gentlest of governmehts, 
 and the most generous of rulers, that have 
 fallen by treason and murder. Republics, in 
 comparison with monarchies, have ever been 
 notoriously insecure, and, for the most part, 
 have been finally destroyed by traitors from 
 within. So, as a rule, has it been of gentle, 
 unsuspicious, large-hearted rulers in dangerous 
 times. It was not Ilerod, dripping with the 
 blood of the innocents, but Julius Caesar, the 
 most generous of men, who fell at the foot of 
 Pompey's statue, by the daggers of pardoned 
 conspii'ators. It was not the infamous Catha- 
 rine de Medicis, of France, the patroness of 
 profligates and assassins, the instigator of the 
 massacre of St. Bartholomew, but it was the 
 lovely, peerless Henry IV., the mildest, wisest, 
 most paternal prince France ever saw, who fell 
 by Ravaillac's knife, in the streets of Paris, and 
 covered France with unexampled mourning. 
 It was not Philip II. of Spain, the meanest, 
 crudest, darkest spirit that ever occupied a 
 throne, ])ut it was William of Orange, the 
 brave, devoted, glorious deliverer of Holland, 
 
25 
 
 the idol of his people, who was shot, at the 
 door of his dining-room at Delft, by a hired 
 assassin of Philip. It was not the arch-traitor 
 Davis, hated and cursed as he was by his out- 
 lawed coadjutors, and yet likely to get away 
 with his life, but it was the gentle, forbearing, 
 forgiving, the incomparably loved and honored 
 President Lincoln, who received the assassin's 
 ball, and whose untimely and cruel death has 
 filled every loyal heart in the land with unut- 
 terable sorrow. 
 
 These principles, which ought to be worth 
 to us, whatever our lives and fortunes and 
 liberties are worth, are familiar and easily 
 apprehended; and the inferences which of 
 necessity follow are certain and terrible. 
 These principles, we say, and the stern and 
 terrible inferences which they carry, ^have 
 just been written, anew, over the heads of 
 this nation, as it were, in letters of fire and 
 blood on a midnight sky. Nevertheless we 
 have not recalled these things with a view to 
 dictate, nor with the desire that you, or that 
 our fellow citizens at large, should dictate in 
 their hearts, even, much less should clamor- 
 ously prescribe to our rulers and tribunals 
 
 4 
 
26 
 
 wliat kirifl, or what measure, of punishment 
 sIkiU be meted out to the various partici- 
 pants and abettors of this fearful l)ut now 
 smitten and dying rebellion — who shall die, 
 who shall be exiled, who disfranchised and 
 leit at home, who, from various reasons of 
 public expediency, pardoned and restored. 
 No good, as it appears to us, is to be hoped 
 for, Ijut great damage is to be apprehended, 
 from such discussion. In the case of an 
 ordinary, everyday crime, it is by common 
 consent admitted to be unwise and improper 
 to discuss the measure of punishment, before 
 the constituted authorities have sifted both 
 facts and expediences, and passed the lawful 
 decision. Much more must it be so in a case 
 like the present, of such transcendent magni- 
 tude, and of such an unexampled character. 
 Opinions will be sure to differ in respect to 
 details ; partisanship is easiest kindled and 
 passions blaze most furiously over such perso- 
 nal material, and dissension cannot foil to re- 
 tard and render more uncertain that stroke of 
 justice which all desire to see fall, in some 
 foi-in, upon the guilty ; wliilo, too, the most 
 essential thing, and perhaps the only thing 
 
27 
 
 really vital to the republic is, that the stroke 
 of retribution should be at once sure and 
 speedy. 
 
 But, unquestionably, as the whole class of 
 facts to which we have just alluded, and 
 above all the terrible ftict which has broucrht 
 us to this discussion to-night, distinctly indicate, 
 the danger icMcIi cliiefly threatens us lies 7iot 
 in the direction of severity, hut in that of 
 leniency — we are in no danger whatever of 
 being too severe, but we are in great danger of 
 an easy indifference. Severity was never a 
 popular virtue, because its face looks unlovely, 
 at first sight, and, especially, to a crowd, and 
 also because its exercise requires of most men 
 an effort and a self-sacrifice which the majori- 
 ties, unless stimulated by some great excite- 
 ment, like that with which God is now stimu- 
 lating us, are seldom or never ready to 
 undertake. Unquestionably, a few weeks ago, 
 when the last great support of the rebellion 
 gave way to our arms, and the speedy end .of 
 all armed resistance to the government flashed 
 upon our view, then, our very success was 
 operating to overset our safety. The joy of 
 final victory, the inexpressible sense of relief 
 
28 
 
 in every mind, and the exuberance of onr 
 rose-colored hopes, unfortunately, but not un- 
 naturally, went at once to melt down the 
 sternness of the popular heart, and efface the 
 just sense of wrong and danger which were 
 still indispensable to key the national nerve 
 up to the thorough work of annihilating the 
 last fragment of treason. 
 
 But if, after the new and terrible light 
 which this fearful Providence has thrown upon 
 tlie spirit and purposes of treason among us — 
 if, after this wholesome alarm, which has 
 touched the minds of millions who would not 
 otherwise have seen, or believed, the great 
 and insiduous perils by which we are still en- 
 compassed — if, after all, we now fail to put 
 the stern and necessary and finishing hand to 
 the tottering and skulking remnants of this 
 rebellion, smiting with every most effective 
 blow, till the last fibre of its existence is an- 
 nihilated, beyond resuscitation and beyond 
 resurrection — then what will be the judgment 
 of history upon us, and who will pity our 
 miseries, or, should we bo utterly devoured by 
 endless treason, who would drop a tear on 
 
29 
 
 the page that shoukl record our national ex-* 
 tinction ? 
 
 But, thanks to the Idnd efficiency of 
 God's bitter strokes, this will not be. Our 
 last lesson has been enough. The American 
 people is ready, now, to sustain, with unflinch- 
 ing determination, the execution of law and 
 justice and expediency, both upon the shat- 
 tered carcass, and upon every existing limb, 
 of this hideous treason ; and no matter how 
 terrible and how extensive the application of 
 punishment may be, they are ready to make 
 the welkin ring with their contented and 
 hearty Amen ! 
 
 The American Government has passed, and 
 emerged in safety, from the crucial test of its 
 lawful authority and its power to maintain it. 
 It is settled, whether the United States be a 
 nation, living an indivisible unity of life, or 
 whether it be a loose and lifeless conirlomer- 
 ation of thirty -six supreme sovereignties. That 
 troublesome folly is no longer debatable, 
 whether the will of a State, or of any co- 
 alition of States, can effectually defy the au- 
 thority of the American people, as embodied 
 in the General Government. These heresies 
 
have found their end. Tliey have been ground 
 to powder in the shocks of battle, and tram- 
 pled into the dust of the Southern planta- 
 tions under the terrible marches of the na- 
 tional armies. 
 
 Above all, that cause of causes — that force 
 behind all other forces — that germinating 
 power and foster-father of the States^ rights 
 heresy — that heaven -assaulting system of sin 
 — legalized slavery — has been throttled in the 
 exigencies of war, and its very carcass, in 
 the smoke of battle, has disappeared. This 
 was a way of deliverance, and advancement, 
 which we knew not, and four years ago were 
 too blind to see, but by which God (glory 
 to His name) has astonishingly brought us. 
 
 The immediate instrument by whom we 
 have been thus led — blindly indeed and 
 through terrible alarms, yet safely and glo- 
 riously led — has been, 1 need not say, the 
 departed, lamented, venerated President, whose 
 precious dust, the nation, sobbing in the 
 agony of bereavement, have just followed witli 
 benedictions to the place which shall give it 
 an ]i(*nurL'd rest, till the morning of the 
 resurrection. He has not only deserved to 
 
31 
 
 be, but he has been, the most fortunate of 
 men. Well might the most illustrious of em- 
 perors envy his fame. His history is sublime. 
 His glory is peerless. 
 
 There is but one measure of greatness and 
 glory which the American people will ever 
 tolerate to be used, in attempting to esti- 
 mate the grandeur of his excellence, and the 
 brightness of his name. Upon a monumental 
 column, at the northeast corner of Trafalgar 
 Square, in London, stands, in marble, the 
 immortal Nelson, evermore attracting the gaze 
 of the multitudes which are surging along at 
 his feet, and reminding them of patriotism, 
 valor and glory. The opposite, northwest 
 corner has a similar pedestal column, but its 
 empty top has been for fifty years awaiting 
 the coming hero who should be found wor- 
 thy to stand in marble beside the glorious 
 Admiral, and divide with him the silent in- 
 struction of the surging, admiring throng. 
 Mount Vernon, in the south of our land, planted 
 on the bosom of slavery and chivalry, has 
 hitherto held the form of the one great glory 
 of our nation, whither pilgrims trod to admire 
 the character of Washington, and receive new 
 
32 
 
 inspirations of liberty ;ind patriotism, at liis 
 tomb. The prairie of the north, in ;in atmos- 
 phere of ])urer freedom and sterner toil, has 
 been standinjL,'-, an empty pedestal, in the sight 
 of heaven, though we knew it not, awaiting 
 through these sixty-five years, the tomb of the 
 coming hero who slioiild be worthy to divide 
 with the Father of his country the applause 
 and the inspiration of posterity. The path of 
 patriot pilgrims will henceforth branch alike 
 northward and southward to the resting place 
 equally of the Founder of American Liberty, 
 and of the Destroyer of American Treason and 
 Traitorous Slavery. The two niches of glory 
 arc now full. Let us accustom our eyes to the 
 glittering letters of immortality, and our ears 
 to the golden sound which our children's 
 children will chant, together, to the latest 
 generation — WASHINGTON and LINCOLN! 
 WASHINGTON AND LINCOLN ! ! 
 
 The few great names grow greater and 
 more glorious, as years go by. They require 
 the perspective of ages, to allow us to make a 
 true measurement of their vastness; and it is 
 only the calm atmosphere of written history, 
 and the incrcjising light of developing truth. 
 
33 
 
 which is able to bring out, and will continue 
 more and more to bring out, in the apprehen- 
 sion of mankind, their real splendor. So it 
 has been with WASHINGTON, the first of 
 our golden names, so it will be with LIN- 
 COLN, our second. 
 
 There are reasons which will render this law 
 of human glory more sure in the second case, 
 than it has been in the first. WASHINGTON 
 was a military chief — a position which always 
 affords the best opportunity for building up a 
 rapid fame of the most showy and captivat- 
 ing kind. He was gilded, at once, with the 
 whole military glory of his country's successful 
 arms. The just departed LINCOLN, though offi- 
 cially and truly commander-in-chief of the armies 
 and navies of the nation, controlling with mar- 
 velous firmness, sagacity and singleness of pur- 
 pose, the whole complicated machinery of this 
 tremendous war, and having finally organized 
 and achieved for the nation a general and 
 conclusive victory, (so far as any human chief 
 can, reverently, be said to have organized a 
 victory, in affairs so immense and complicated 
 beyond any sure calculations of man,) yet 
 wore no other uniform but the dress of an 
 
34 
 
 American citizen, he rode at the head of no 
 armies, he remained in the shade of his oflll- 
 cial closet, he was al)Sorbed in thought and 
 prayer, he was toiling in silence at the heavy 
 cares of civil policy, and he was listening 
 to the plea of the distressed. The imme- 
 diate applause of successful arms he gladly 
 left for his faithful and illustrious lieutenants 
 in the field, who richly deserve their fame ; 
 while, nevertheless, many a specific and un- 
 expected blow which fell with crushing weight 
 upon the bleeding head of the rebellion was 
 contrived and matured in his own original and 
 sagacious brain. 
 
 Then again, WASHINGTON was not called 
 to encounter a breath of poUHcdl pr^udice, in 
 his opening career, but rode at once to his 
 illustrious station, on a whirlwind of popular 
 choice, esteem and expectation. The just de- 
 parted LINCOLN fell upon far different times, 
 and encountered a far dillbrent beginning. He 
 was sharply opposed. He was extensively and 
 outrageously defamed. Even by his friends, he 
 was then but partially known, and relied on 
 willi many painful misgivings and fears, which 
 gave way but slowly at first, though they disap- 
 
60 
 
 peared more and more rapidly, as the splen- 
 dor of his integrity and the richness of his 
 affections and the clearness of his insig-ht and 
 the invincibility of his purpose and his flam- 
 ing patriotism, began to form that wonderful 
 halo of glory which shone so brightly, at last, 
 around his venerated head. 
 
 Another thing — which fixes a stronger im- 
 pression upon contemporaries than on poster- 
 ity, and the essential splendor of which stead- 
 ily vanishes as ages go by — the family of 
 WASHINGTON was old, dignified and wealthy; 
 and these factitious advantages, never to be 
 despised in gilding a contemporary renown, 
 possessed, unquestionably, a greater influence 
 upon the men of his times, than they would 
 exert among us to-day. The just departed 
 LINCOLN has gathered no temporary dignity 
 from this quarter, and while, therefore, the 
 brightness of his name will never fade in the 
 least by the depreciation of such honor, on 
 the contrary, even the romantic enchantment 
 that gathers about the name of Cincinnatus, 
 taken from the plough-field to the command 
 and the salvation of the Roman state, will 
 weave its peculiar and increasing witchery 
 
36 
 
 of glory, around the strange, homely origin of 
 "the people's President." 
 
 Finally, WASHINGTON lived for his coun- 
 try, and died as a great and good man would 
 wish to die, who had no more sacritices to 
 make for his fellow men. The life of the just 
 departed LINCOLN, after having wrought out 
 the painful salvation of the Republic, has been 
 offered, a bloody sacrifice, upon the altar of 
 human freedom and the happiness of his 
 fellow countrymen. He has taken the last de- 
 gree of glory, and set above his undying 
 name the martyr's crown. The best who shall 
 arise among us, in the future, may imitate, but 
 none can surpass him. Further than his, hu- 
 man effort and human glory cannot go. 
 
 " Shroud the banner ! rear the cross ! 
 Consecrate a nation's loss! 
 Lay the gentle son of Toil ! 
 Proudly in his native soil ; 
 Crowned with honor to his rest, 
 Bear the Prophet of tlio West! "