Statesmen . m who shall have borne the battle,and for his widow and his orphans, to do allwhich may achieve and cherish a just and last-ing peace among ourselves and with all na-tions. Well may it be said, No AmericanPresident had ever spoken words like theseto the American people. America never hada President who found such words in the depthsof his heart. Now came the closing scenes of the army surrendered to Grant, and peacewas assured. The people went wild with joy;bonfires and illuminations lighted up the North-ern sky, and the city of Washington was a blazeof light, as cannon bo
Statesmen . m who shall have borne the battle,and for his widow and his orphans, to do allwhich may achieve and cherish a just and last-ing peace among ourselves and with all na-tions. Well may it be said, No AmericanPresident had ever spoken words like theseto the American people. America never hada President who found such words in the depthsof his heart. Now came the closing scenes of the army surrendered to Grant, and peacewas assured. The people went wild with joy;bonfires and illuminations lighted up the North-ern sky, and the city of Washington was a blazeof light, as cannon boomed their warlike notes 218 STATESMEN to proclaim that the war was over. In the midstof this jubilation, our people were stunned by theannouncement that the good President had fallenin the national capital, stricken by the hand of anassassin. No words can picture the grief of thenation as these appalling tidings went by magic the scene was changed from oneof festivity and joy to one of mourning and. House where Lincoln Died in Washington—516 Tenth Street, N. W. lamentation. But the man and the hour hadcome and gone. The American Union wassaved, slavery was destroyed, and peace atlast brooded over a long-distracted and bleed-ing country. His work done, Lincolns life-less form was carried to his home in Spring-field, 111., where it was laid in the earth withmany tears. The attorney for the people, ashe always called himself, had prosecuted thecause entrusted to his hands. Trained as he ABRAHAM LINCOLN 219 had been in the hard school of poverty andadversity, he had learned lessons of self-relianceand self-denial; he had learned the real value ofhuman freedom, and had slowly absorbed intoevery fibre of his being the principles that lieat the foundation of human liberty and of self-government. His mission was ended. They who complain, as certain analysts havecomplained, that Lincolns character, so strangelyand weirdly mixed, is a mystery, may rest in thebelief that all g
Size: 1378px × 1813px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, bookpublis, booksubjectstatesmen
