nd never found wanting. There, by his
courage, his justice, his even temper, his fertile counsel, his
humanity, he stood a heroic figure in the centre of a heroic epoch. He
is the true history of the American people in his time. Step by step
he walked before them; slow with their slowness, quickening his march
by theirs, the true representative of this continent; an entirely
public man; father of his country, the pulse of twenty-millions
throbbing in his heart, the thought of their minds articulated by his
tongue.

Adam Smith remarks that the axe, which in Houbraken's portraits of
British kings and worthies is engraved under those who have suffered
at the block, adds a certain lofty charm to the picture. And who does
not see, even in this tragedy so recent, how fast the terror and ruin
of the massacre are already burning into glory around the victim? Far
happier this fate than to have lived to be wished away; to have
watched the decay of his own faculties; to have seen--perhaps even
be--the proverbial ingratitude of statesmen; to have seen mean men
preferred. Had he not lived long enough to keep the greatest promise
that ever man made to his fellow men,--the practicable abolition of
slavery? He had seen Tennessee, Missouri, and Maryland emancipate
their slaves. He had seen Savannah, Charleston, and Richmond
surrendered; had seen the main army of the rebellion lay down its
arms. He had conquered the public opinion of Canada, England, and
France. Only Washington can compare with him in fortune.

And what if it should turn out, in the unfolding of the web, that he
had reached the term; that this heroic deliverer could no longer serve
us; that the rebellion had touched its natural conclusion, and what
remained to be done required new and uncommitted hands,--a new spirit
born out of the ashes of the war; and that Heaven, wishing to show
the world a completed benefactor, shall make him serve his country
even more by his death than by his life? Nations, like kings, are not
good by facility and complaisance. "The kindness of kings consists in
justice and strength." Easy good nature has been the dangerous foible
of the Republic, and it was necessary that its enemies should outrage
it, and drive us to unwonted firmness, to secure the salvation of this
country in the next ages.

The ancients believed in a serene and beautiful Genius which ruled in
the affairs of nations; which, with a slow but stern justice, carried
forward th