ership in man in time of peace, has found out yet more terrible
barbarisms for the time of war. It has hewed and burned the bodies of
the dead. It has starved and mutilated its helpless prisoners. It has
dealt by truth, not as men will in a time of excitement, lightly and
with frequent violations, but with a cool, and deliberate, and
systematic contempt. It has sent its agents into Northern towns to fire
peaceful hotels where hundreds of peaceful men and women slept. It has
undermined the prisons where its victims starved, and made all ready to
blow with one blast their wretched life away. It has delighted in the
lowest and basest scurrility even on the highest and most honorable
lips. It has corrupted the graciousness of women and killed out the
truth of men.

I do not count up the terrible catalogue because I like to, nor because
I wish to stir your hearts to passion. Even now, you and I have no right
to indulge in personal hatred to the men who did these things. But we
are not doing right by ourselves, by the President that we have lost,
or by God who had a purpose in our losing him, unless we know thoroughly
that it was this same spirit which we have seen to be a tyrant in peace
and a savage in war, that has crowned itself with the working of this
final woe. It was the conflict of the two American natures, the false
and the true. It was Slavery and Freedom that met in their two
representatives, the assassin and the President; and the victim of the
last desperate struggle of the dying Slavery lies dead to-day in
Independence Hall.

Solemnly, in the sight of God, I charge this murder where it belongs, on
Slavery. I dare not stand here in His sight, and before Him or you speak
doubtful and double-meaning words of vague repentance, as if we had
killed our President. We have sins enough, but we have not done this
sin, save as by weak concessions and timid compromises we have let the
spirit of Slavery grow strong and ripe for such a deed. In the barbarism
of Slavery the foul act and its foul method had their birth. By all the
goodness that there was in him; by all the love we had for him (and who
shall tell how great it was); by all the sorrow that has burdened down
this desolate and dreadful week,--I charge this murder where it belongs,
on Slavery. I bid you to remember where the charge belongs, to write it
on the door-posts of your mourning houses, to teach it to your
wondering children, to give it to the history of th