of
the party from the President. Not that unanimity prevailed by any means;
that was impossible under the conditions of human nature. The extremists
still distrusted Mr. Lincoln, and regarded him as an obstruction to
sound policies. Senator Chandler of Michigan, a fine sample of the
radical Republican, instructed him that, by the elections, Conservatives
and traitors had been buried together, and begged him not to exhume
them, since they would "smell worse than Lazarus did after he had been
buried three days." Apparently he ranked Seward among these defunct and
decaying Conservatives; certainly he regarded the secretary as a
"millstone about the neck" of the President.[52] Still, in spite of such
denunciations, times were not in this respect so bad as they had been,
and the danger that the uncompromising Radicals would make wreck of the
war was no longer great.

* * * * *

Another event, occurring in this autumn of 1863, was noteworthy because
through it the literature of our tongue received one of its most
distinguished acquisitions. On November 19 the national military
cemetery at Gettysburg was to be consecrated; Edward Everett was to
deliver the oration, and the President was of course invited as a guest.
Mr. Arnold says that it was actually while Mr. Lincoln was "in the cars
on his way from the White House to the battlefield" that he was told
that he also would be expected to say something on the occasion; that
thereupon he jotted down in pencil the brief address which he delivered
a few hours later.[53] But that the composition was quite so
extemporaneous seems doubtful, for Messrs. Nicolay and Hay transcribe
the note of invitation, written to the President on November 2 by the
master of the ceremonies, and in it occurs this sentence: "It is the
desire that, after the oration, you, as Chief Executive of the Nation,
formally set apart these grounds to their sacred use, by a few
appropriate remarks." Probably, therefore, some forethought went to the
preparation of this beautiful and famous "Gettysburg speech." When Mr.
Everett sat down, the President arose and spoke as follows:[54]--

"Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this
continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the
proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a
great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived
and so dedicated, can long en