m Lincoln but I want to
say that he was, in my judgment, in many respects the grandest man ever
president of the United States. I say that upon his tomb there ought
to be this line--and I know of no other man deserving it so well as he:
"Here lies one who, having been clothed with almost absolute power,
never abused it except on the side of mercy."

Just think of it! Our churches and best people, as they call
themselves, defending the institution of slavery. When I was a little
boy I used to see steamers go down the Mississippi river with hundreds
of men and women chained hand to hand, and even children, and men
standing about them with whips in their hands and pistols in their
pockets in the name of liberty, in the name of civilization and in the
name of religion! I used to hear them preach to these slaves in the
South and the only text they ever took was "Servants, be obedient unto
your masters." That was the salutation of the most merciful God to a
man whose back was bleeding, that was the salutation of the most
merciful God to the slave mother bending over an empty cradle, to the
woman from whose breast a child had been stolen--"Servants, be obedient
unto you masters." That was what they said to a man running for his
life and for his liberty through tangled swamps and listening to the
baying of bloodhounds, and when he listened for them the voice came
from heaven: "Servants, be obedient unto your masters."

That is civilization. Think what slaves we have been! Think how we
have crouched and cringed before wealth even! How they used to cringe
in old times before a man who was rich--there are so many of them gone
into bankruptcy lately that we are losing a little of our fear.

We used to worship the golden calf, and the worst you can say of us
now, is, we worship the gold of the calf, and even the calves are
beginning to see this distinction. We used to go down on our knees to
every man that held office; now he must fill it if he wishes any
respect. We care nothing for the rich, except what will they do with
their money? Do they benefit mankind? That is the question. You say
this man holds an office. How does he fill it?--that is the question.
And there is rapidly growing up in the world an aristocracy of heart
and brain--the only aristocracy that has a right to exist. We are
getting free. We are thinking in every direction. We are
investigating with the microscope and the telescope. We are diggi