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say and do hereafter, we disclaim everything like arrogance and
assumption. We claim for ourselves no superior devotion to the
character, history, and memory of the illustrious name whose monument we
have here dedicated to-day. We fully comprehend the relations of Abraham
Lincoln, both to ourselves and to the white people of the United States.
Truth is proper and beautiful at all times and in all places, and it is
never more proper and beautiful in any case than when speaking of a
great public man whose example is likely to be commended for honor and
imitation long after his departure to the solemn shades--the silent
continents of eternity. It must be admitted, truth compels me to admit,
even here in the presence of the monument we have erected to his memory,
Abraham Lincoln was not, in the fullest sense of the word, either our
man or our model. In his interests, in his associations, in his habits
of thought, and in his prejudices, he was a white man.

He was pre-eminently the white man's President, entirely devoted to the
welfare of the white man. He was ready and willing at any time during
the first years of his administration to deny, postpone, and sacrifice
the rights of humanity in the colored people to promote the welfare of
the white people of this country. In all his education and feeling he
was an American of the Americans. He came into the Presidential chair
upon one principle alone, namely, opposition to the extension of
slavery. His arguments in furtherance of this policy had their motive
and mainspring in his patriotic devotion to the interests of his own
race. To protect, defend, and perpetuate slavery in the States where it
existed Abraham Lincoln was not less ready than any other President to
draw the sword of the nation. He was ready to execute all the supposed
constitutional guarantees of the United States Constitution in favor of
the slave system anywhere inside of the slave States. He was willing to
pursue, re-capture, and send back the fugitive slave to his master, and
to suppress a slave rising for liberty, though his guilty master were
already in arms against the Government. The race to which we belong was
not the special object of his consideration. Knowing this, I concede to
you, my white fellow citizens, a pre-eminence in this worship at once
full and supreme. First, midst, and last, you and yours were the objects
of his deepest affection and his most earnest solicitude. You are the
children