ese times, that all
times to come may hate and dread the sin that killed our noblest
President.

If ever anything were clear, this is the clearest. Is there the man
alive who thinks that Abraham Lincoln was shot just for himself; that it
was that one man for whom the plot was laid? The gentlest, kindest, most
indulgent man that ever ruled a State! The man who knew not how to speak
a word of harshness or how to make a foe! Was it he for whom the
murderer lurked with a mere private hate? It was not he, but what he
stood for. It was Law and Liberty, it was Government and Freedom,
against which the hate gathered and the treacherous shot was fired. And
I know not how the crime of him who shoots at Law and Liberty in the
crowded glare of a great theatre differs from theirs who have levelled
their aim at the same great beings from behind a thousand ambuscades and
on a hundred battle-fields of this long war. Every general in the field,
and every false citizen in our midst at home, who has plotted and
labored to destroy the lives of the soldiers of the Republic, is brother
to him who did this deed. The American nature, the American truths, of
which our President was the anointed and supreme embodiment, have been
embodied in multitudes of heroes who marched unknown and fell unnoticed
in our ranks. For them, just as for him, character decreed a life and a
death. The blood of all of them I charge on the same head. Slavery armed
with Treason was their murderer.

Men point out to us the absurdity and folly of this awful crime. Again
and again we hear men say, "It was the worst thing for themselves they
could have done. They have shot a representative man, and the cause he
represented grows stronger and sterner by his death. Can it be that so
wise a devil was so foolish here? Must it not have been the act of one
poor madman, born and nursed in his own reckless brain?" My friends, let
us understand this matter. It was a foolish act. Its folly was only
equalled by its wickedness. It was a foolish act. But when did sin begin
to be wise? When did wickedness learn wisdom? When did the fool stop
saying in his heart, "There is no God," and acting godlessly in the
absurdity of his impiety? The cause that Abraham Lincoln died for shall
grow stronger by his death,--stronger and sterner. Stronger to set its
pillars deep into the structure of our nation's life; sterner to execute
the justice of the Lord upon his enemies. Stronger to spread its a