Memorial Address on the Life and Character of Abraham Lincoln: Delivered at the request of both Houses of Congress of AmericaBancroft, George
History
Memorial Address on the Life and Character of Abraham Lincoln: Delivered at the request of both Houses of Congress of America
Bancroft, George
Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865
Those who saw LINCOLN most frequently had never before heard him speak
with bitterness of any human being, but he did not conceal how keenly
he felt that he had been wronged by Lord Russell. And he wrote, in
reply to other cavils: "The emancipation policy and the use of colored
troops were the greatest blows yet dealt to the rebellion; the job was
a great national one, and let none be slighted who bore an honorable
part in it. I hope peace will come soon, and come to stay; then will
there be some black men who can remember that they have helped mankind
to this great consummation."
The proclamation accomplished its end, for, during the war, our armies
came into military possession of every State in rebellion. Then, too,
was called forth the new power that comes from the simultaneous
diffusion of thought and feeling among the nations of mankind. The
mysterious sympathy of the millions throughout the world was given
spontaneously. The best writers of Europe waked the conscience of the
thoughtful, till the intelligent moral sentiment of the Old World was
drawn to the side of the unlettered statesman of the West. Russia,
whose emperor had just accomplished one of the grandest acts in the
course of time, by raising twenty millions of bondmen into freeholders,
and thus assuring the growth and culture of a Russian people, remained
our unwavering friend. From the oldest abode of civilization, which
gave the first example of an imperial government with equality among
the people, Prince Kung, the secretary of state for foreign affairs,
remembered the saying of Confucius, that we should not do to others
what we would not that others should do to us, and, in the name of his
emperor, read a lesson to European diplomatists by closing the ports of
China against the war-ships and privateers of "the seditious."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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