it to be formulated in any legislative action; to keep pace with it, to lead and direct it, to quicken laggard spirits, to hold in the too ardent, too impetuous, and too hasty ones, and thus, when he signed the emancipation proclamation, to make his signature, not the act of an individual man, the edict of a military imperator, but the representative act of a great nation. He was the greatest President in American History, because in a time of revolution he comprehended the spirit of American institutions, grasped the purposes of the American people, and embodied them in an act of justice and humanity which was in the highest sense the act of the American Republic. Lyman Abbott, CORNWALL-ON-HUDSON, 1881. CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS. 83 ERSONALLY I never saw President Lincoln more PE than twice in my life, and then for a very few minutes. He then frankly told me that my mission to Great Britain had not been altogether his selection, but I believe he became well satisfied afterwards. So, on the other hand, I became from a very lukewarm admirer of his, one of the most appreciative of his high qualities, and mourners of his great loss. I shall never forget the moment when, in London, the tidings of this loss were brought to me. It seemed as if we were all afloat in the midst of a boundless ocean. BOSTON, 1880. Charles Fram's Adams. AN ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE THE SPRINGFIELD WASHINGTONIAN TEMPERANCE SOCIETY, AT THE SECOND PRESBYTER IAN CHURCH, ON THE 22D DAY OF FEBRUARY, Although the Temperance Cause has been in progress for nearly twenty years, it is apparent to all that it is just now being crowned with a degree of success, hitherto unparalleled. The The list of its friends is daily swelled by the additions of fifties, of hundreds, and of thousands. The cause itself seems suddenly transformed from a cold abstract theory, to a living, breathing, active and powerful chieftain, going forth "conquering and to conquer." citadels of his great adversary are daily being stormed and dismantled; his temples and his altars, where the rites of his idolatrous worship have long been performed, and where human sacrifices have long been wont to be made, are daily desecrated and deserted. The trump of the conqueror's fame is sounding from hill to hill, from sea to sea, and from land to land, and calling millions to his standard at a blast. For this new and splendid success we heartily rejoice. That that success is so much greater now, than heretofore, is doubtless owing to rational causes; and if we would have it continue, we shall do well to inquire what those causes are. The warfare heretofore waged against the demon intemperance, has, somehow or other, been erroneous. Either the champions engaged, or the tactics they adopted, have not been the most proper. These cham pions, for the most part, have been preachers, lawyers and hired agents; between these and the mass of mankind, there is a want of approachability, if the term be admissible, partial at least, fatal to their success. They are supposed to have no sympathy of feeling or interest with those very persons whom it is their object to convince and persuade. And again, it is so easy and so common to ascribe motives to men of these classes, other than those they profess to act upon. The preacher, it is said, advocates temperance because he is a fanatic, and desires a union of the church and state; the lawyer from his pride, and vanity of hearing himself speak; and the hired agent for his salary. But when one who has long been known as a victim of intemperance bursts the fetters that have bound him, and appears before his neighbors "clothed and in his right mind," a redeemed specimen of long-lost humanity, and stands up with tears of joy trembling in his eyes, to tell of the miseries once endured, now to be endured no more forever, of his once naked and starving children, now clad and fed comfortably, of a wife, long weighed down with woe, weeping, and a broken heart, now restored to health, happiness and a renewed affection, and how easily it is all done, once it is resolved to be done; how simple his language; there is a logic and an eloquence in it that few with human feelings can resist. They can not say that he desires a union of church and state, for he is not a church-member; they cannot say he is vain of hearing himself speak, for his whole demeanor shows he would gladly avoid speaking at all; they cannot say he speaks for pay, for he receives none, and asks for none. Nor can his sincerity in any way be doubted, or his sympathy for those he would persuade to imitate his example be denied. In my judgment it is to the battles of this new class of champions that our late success is greatly, perhaps chiefly, owing. But had the old-school champions themselves been of the most wise selecting? Was their system of tactics the most judicious? It seems to me it was not. Too much denunciation against dram-sellers and dram-drinkers was indulged in. This, I think, was both impolitic and unjust. It was impolitic, because it is not much in the nature of man to be driven to anything; still less to be driven about that which is exclusively his own business; and least of all, where such driving is to be submitted to at the expense of pecuniary interest, or burning appetite. When the dram-seller and drinker were incessantly told, not in the accents of entreaty and persuasion, diffidently addressed by erring man to an erring brother, but in the thundering tones of anathema and denunciation, with which the lordly judge often groups together all the crimes of the felon's life, and thrusts them in his face just ere he passes sentence of death upon him, that they were the authors of all the vice and misery and crime in the land; that they were the manufacturers and material of all the thieves and robbers and murderers that infest the earth; that their houses |