e assent of a considerable majority of the people.

Never has a nation or an honest political body whatever, shown to
any mortal a confidence similar to that shown to Mr. Lincoln. Never
in antiquity, in the days of Athens' and Rome's purest patriotism
and civic virtue, has the people invested its best men with a trust
so boundless as did the last Congress give to Mr. Lincoln.

The powers granted to a Roman dictator were granted for a short
time, and they were extra legal in their nature and character; in
their action and execution the dictatorial powers were rather taken
than granted in detail. The powers forced on Mr. Lincoln are most
minutely specified; they have been most carefully framed and
surrounded by all the sacred rites of law, according to justice and
the written Constitution. These powers are sanctioned by all
formulas constituting the legal cement of a social structure
erected by the freest people that ever existed. These powers deliver
into Mr. Lincoln's hand all that is dear and sacred to man--his
liberty, his domestic hearth, his family, life and fortune. A well
and deliberately discussed and matured statute puts all such earthly
goods at Mr. Lincoln's disposal and free use.

The sublime axiom, _salus populi suprema lex esto_ again becomes
blood and life, and becomes so by the free, deliberate will and
decision of the foremost standard-bearer of light and civilization,
the first born in the spirit of Christian ethics and of the rights
of man.--

The Cromwells, the Napoleons, the absolute kings, the autocrats, and
all those whose rule was unlimited and not defined--all such grasped
at such powers. They seized them under the pressure of the direst
necessity, or to satisfy their personal ambition and exaltation. The
French Convention itself exercised unlimited dictatorial powers. But
the Convention allowed not these powers to be carried out of the
legislative sanctuary. The Committee of Robespierre was a board
belonging to and emanating from the Convention; the Commissaries
sent to the provinces and to the armies were members of the
Convention and represented its unlimited powers. When the Committee
of Public Safety wanted a new power to meet a new emergency, the
Convention, so to speak, daily adjusted the law and its might to
such emergencies.

Will Mr. Lincoln realize the grandeur of this unparallelled trust?
Has he a clear comprehension of the sacrifice thus perpetrated by
the people? I shudder to