superstition. Despite the mist and haze that surround him; despite the
tumult, the hurry, and confusion of the hour, we were able to take a
comprehensive view of Abraham Lincoln, and to make reasonable allowance
for the circumstances of his position. We saw him, measured him, and
estimated him; not by stray utterances to injudicious and tedious
delegations, who often tried his patience; not by isolated facts, torn
from their connection; not by partial and imperfect glimpses caught at
inopportune moments; but by a broad survey, in the light of the stern
logic of great events, and in view of that divinity which "shapes our
ends, rough hew them as we will," we came to the conclusion that the
hour and the man of our redemption had somehow met in the person of
Abraham Lincoln. It mattered little to us what language he might employ
on special occasions; it mattered little to us when we fully knew him,
whether he was swift or slow in his movements; it was enough for us that
Abraham Lincoln was at the head of a great movement, and was in living
and earnest sympathy with that movement, which, in the nature of things,
must go on until slavery should be utterly and forever abolished in the
United States.

When, therefore, it shall be asked what we have to do with the memory of
Abraham Lincoln, or what Abraham Lincoln had to do with us, the answer
is ready, full, and complete. Though he loved Caesar less than Rome,
though the Union was more to him than our freedom or our future, under
his wise and beneficent rule, and by measures approved and vigorously
pressed by him, we saw that the handwriting of ages, in the form of
prejudice and proscription, was rapidly fading away from the face of our
whole country; under his rule, and in due time, about as soon, after
all, as the country could tolerate the strange spectacle, we saw our
brave sons and brothers laying off the rags of bondage, and being
clothed all over in the blue uniforms of the soldiers of the United
States; under his rule, we saw two hundred thousand of our dark and
dusky people responding to the call of Abraham Lincoln, and with muskets
on their shoulders, and eagles on their buttons, timing their high
footsteps to liberty and union under the national flag; under his rule,
we saw the independence of the black Republic of Haiti, the special
object of slave-holding aversion and horror, fully recognized, and her
minister, a colored gentleman, duly received here in the City