LIBERTY.

20

(March 4, 1865, Second Inaugural Address-The Man of the People, Hapgood, p. 404.)

Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the conflict, itself, should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces; but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered-that of neither has been answered fully.

"Woe

The Almighty has His own purposes. unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which having continued through His appointed

time, He now wills to remove and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to him? Fondly do we hope-fervently do we pray that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, "The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether!"

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan-to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

21

(January 27, 1837, Speech at Springfield, Ill.-Complete Works, Vol. I, p. 14. Speaking of the Revolution.)

At the close of that struggle nearly every adult male had been a participator in some of its scenes.

The consequence was that of those scenes in the form of a husband, a father, a son or a brother, a living history was to be found in every family-a history bearing the indubitable testimonies of its own authenticity, in the limbs mangled, in the scars of wounds received, in the midst of the very scenes related-a history, too, that could be read and understood alike by all, the wise and the ignorant, the learned and the unlearned. But those histories are gone. They can be read no more forever. They were a fortress of strength; but what invading foeman could never do, the silent artillery of time has done the levelling of its walls. They are gone. They were a forest of giant oaks; but the all-restless hurricane has swept over them and left only here and there a lonely trunk, despoiled of its verdure, shorn of its foliage, unshading and unshaded, to murmur in a few more gentle breezes, and to combat with its mutilated limbs a few more ruder storms, then to sink and be no more!

22

(September 11, 1858, Speech, reported in Chicago Daily Press and Tribune, September 15, 1858.)

And when by all these means you have succeeded in dehumanizing the negro; when you have put him down, and made it impossible for him to be but as the beasts of the field; when you have extinguished his soul and placed him where the ray

of hope is blown out in the darkness that broods over the spirits of the damned, are you quite sure the demon you have roused will not turn and rend you? What constitutes the bulwark of our own liberty and independence? It is not our frowning battlements, our bristling seacoasts, the guns of our war steamers or the strength of our gallant and disciplined army. These are not our reliance against a resumption of tyranny in our fair land. All of them may be turned against our liberties without making us stronger or weaker for the struggle. Our reliance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in our bosoms. Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands everywhere. Destroy this spirit and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors. Familiarize yourselves with the chains of bondage and you are preparing your own limbs to wear them. Accustomed to trample on the rights of those around you, you have lost the genius of your own independence and become the fit subjects of the first cunning tyrant who rises among you. And, let me tell you, all these things are prepared for you, with the sure logic of history, if the elections shall promise that the next Dred Scott decision and all future decisions will be quietly acquiesced in by the people!

23

(January 27, 1837, Speech at Springfield, Ill.-Hapgood, p. 60.)

At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it? Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant to step the ocean and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest, with a Bonaparte for a commander, could not by force take a drink from the Ohio or make track on the Blue Ridge in a trial of a thousand years.

At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, If it ever reach us it must spring up among us; it cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time, or die by suicide!

24

(January 27, 1837, Speech at Springfield, Ill.-Coffin, p. 97.) We find ourselves in peaceful possession of the fairest portion of the earth as regards extent of territory, fertility of soil and salubrity of climate. We find ourselves under the government of a system of political institutions conducing more essentially to the ends of civil and religious liberty