He was its leader in the first successful national contest, and it was during his administration as President that the policy of the party was developed and its capacity for the business of government established.

Lincoln is an historical personage, not less so than Cromwell, Napoleon, or Washington, and all without the glamor that rests upon the brows of successful military chieftains.

The author of the Declaration of Independence is so identified with the history of the country that that history cannot outlast his name and fame.

Lincoln was nominated for the Presidency, he was an unknown man; he had performed no important public service; his election was not due to personal popularity, nor to the strength of the party that he represented; but to the divisions…

Lincoln's career, time and research will disclose many facts not now known, which may lend coloring to a character whose main features, however, cannot be changed by time nor criticism.

Lincoln's services we can comprehend, but their value will be more clearly realized and more highly appreciated by posterity.

Attempts have been made to reverse the judgment of contemporaries, in the cases of Judas Iscariot, of Henry the Eighth, and of Shakespeare, and I venture the assertion that all these attempts have failed, most signally.

The country has grown towards Hamilton and away from Jefferson.

It is the fate of those who take an active part in public affairs, to be misjudged during their lives, but death softens the asperities of political and religious controversies and tempers the judgment of those who survive.

Calhoun has suffered by the attempt to make a practical application of his ideas of government, but the nature and dangerous character of those ideas were as fully understood at the time of his death as they are at the present moment.

In what other time, to what other ruler have questions of such importance been presented, and under circumstances so difficult?

And to what other ruler can we assign the ability to have met and to have managed successfully all the difficult problems of the Civil War?

He asserted for himself every prerogative that the laws and the Constitution conferred upon him, and he declined to assume any power not warranted by the title of office which he held.

He was resolute in his purpose to perform every duty that devolved upon him, but he declared that the responsibility of preserving the Government rested upon the people.

Turning again to the civil side of his administration, consider the steps by which he led the country up to the point where it was willing to accept the abolition of slavery in the States engaged in the rebellion.

History must soon address itself to generations of Americans who will have had no knowledge of the institution of slavery as an existing fact.

One thing more was wanted, an amendment to the Constitution abolishing slavery everywhere within the jurisdiction of the Government.

It was our example that wrought the abolition of slavery in Brazil, and in colonies of Spain and Portugal; it has led to the extermination of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, and it was an inspiration to the nations of Europe in their…

On the great question of the abolition of slavery his mind reached a definite conclusion, a conclusion on which he could act, but neither too early nor too late.

The Proclamation was issued at a moment when the exigencies of the war justified its issue as a military necessity, and when, as a concurrent fact, the public mind was first prepared to receive it, and to give to the measure the requisite…

Through his agency the Constitution of the United States has been brought into harmony with the Declaration of Independence.

The system of slavery has perished, the institutions of the country have been reconciled to the principles of freedom, and in these changes we have additional guarantees for the perpetuity of the Union.

The Republican Party found the Union a mass of sand; it left it a structure of granite.

Lincoln that he was a great man, in a great place, burdened with great responsibilities, coupled with great opportunities, which he used for the benefit of his country and for the welfare of the human race.

On the statesmanship side of his career, there is no one from Washington along the entire line who can be considered as the equal or the rival of Lincoln.