"In the light of what we now know so well, nothing is hazarded in saying that the death of no man has been to his country so irreparable a loss, or one so grievous to be borne, as that of Abraham Lincoln. When Washington died his work was done, his life well rounded out. Save one, the years allotted had been passed. Not so with Lincoln. To him a grander task was yet in waiting, one no other could so well perform. The assassin's pistol proved the veritable Pandora's box from which sprung evils untold,--whose consequences have never been measured.--to one-third of the States of our Union. But for his untimely death how the current of history might have been changed,--and many a sad chapter remained unwritten! How earnestly he desired a restored Union, and that the blessings of peace and of concord should be the common heritage of every section, is known to all. "When in the loom of time have such words been heard above the din of fierce conflict as his sublime utterances but a brief time before his tragic death-- "'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 a lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations.' "No fitter occasion than this can ever arise in which to refer to two historical events that at crucial moments tested to the utmost the safe and far-seeing statesmanship of President Lincoln. The first was the seizure upon the high seas of Mason and Slidell, the accredited representatives from the Southern Confederacy to the courts of England and France, respectively. The seizure was in November, 1861, by Captain Wilkes of our navy; and the envoys named were taken by him from the _Trent,_ a mail-carrying steamer of the British Government. The act of Captain Wilkes met with enthusiastic commendation throughout the entire country; he was voted the thanks of Congress, and his act publicly approved by the Secretary of the Navy. "The demand by the British government for reparation upon the part of the United States was prompt and explicit. The perils that then environed us were such as rarely shadow the pathway of nations. Save Russia alone, our Government had no friend among the crowned heads of Europe. Menaced by the peril of the recognition of the Southern Confederacy by England and France, with the very stars apparently warring against us in their courses, the position of the President was in the last degree trying. To surrender the Confederate envoys was in a measure humiliating and in opposition to the popular impulse; their retention, the signal for the probable recognition of the Southern Confederacy by the European powers, and the certain and immediate declaration of war by England.