Historical voices

In all his education and feeling he was an American of the Americans.

He was ready and willing at any time during the first years of his administration to deny, postpone, and sacrifice the rights of humanity in the colored people to promote the welfare of the white people of this country.

He was preëminently the white man’s President, entirely devoted to the welfare of white men.

In his interests, in his associations, in his habits of thought, and in his prejudices, he was a white man.

It must be admitted, truth compels me to admit, even here in the presence of the monument we have erected to his memory, Abraham Lincoln was not, in the fullest sense of the word, either our man or our model.

Truth is proper and beautiful at all times and in all places, and it is never more proper and beautiful in any case than when speaking of a great public man whose example is likely to be commended for honor and imitation long after his…

It is the first time that, in this form and manner, we have sought to do honor to an American great man, however deserving and illustrious.

For the first time in the history of our people, and in the history of the whole American people, we join in this high worship, and march conspicuously in the line of this time-honored custom.

It is the sentiment of gratitude and appreciation, which often, in the presence of many who hear me, has filled yonder heights of Arlington with the eloquence of eulogy and the sublime enthusiasm of poetry and song; a sentiment which can…

The sentiment that brings us here to-day is one of the noblest that can stir and thrill the human heart.

In view, then, of the past, the present, and the future, with the long and dark history of our bondage behind us, and with liberty, progress, and enlightenment before us, I again congratulate you upon this auspicious day and hour.

That we are here in peace to-day is a compliment and a credit to American civilization, and a prophecy of still greater national enlightenment and progress in the future.

The spirit of slavery and barbarism, which still lingers to blight and destroy in some dark and distant parts of our country, would have made our assembling here the signal and excuse for opening upon us all the flood-gates of wrath and…

Harmless, beautiful, proper, and praiseworthy as this demonstration is, I cannot forget that no such demonstration would have been tolerated here twenty years ago.

Few facts could better illustrate the vast and wonderful change which has taken place in our condition as a people, than the fact of our assembling here for the purpose we have to-day.

We stand to-day at the national center to perform something like a national act--an act which is to go into history; and we are here where every pulsation of the national heart can be heard, felt, and reciprocated.

If I have done something for that cause, I am after all more a debtor to it than it is debtor to me.

Forty years of my life have been given to the cause of my people, and if I had forty years more they should all be sacredly given to the great cause.

Schooled as I have been among the abolitionists of New England, I recognize that the universe is governed by laws which are unchangeable and eternal, that what men sow they will reap, and that there is no way to dodge or circumvent the…

In my communication with the colored people I have endeavored to deliver them from the power of superstition, bigotry, and priest-craft.

If I have pushed my example too prominently for the good taste of my Caucasian readers I beg them to remember that I have written in part for the encouragement of a class whose aspirations need the stimulus of success.

To those who have battled for liberty, brotherhood, and citizenship, I can say I too have battled; and to those who have lived to enjoy the fruits of victory, I can say I too live and rejoice.

To those who have taken some risks and encountered hardships in the flight from bondage, I can say I too have endured and risked.

To those who have suffered in slavery, I can say I too have suffered.