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Washington was the natural representative of national independence. He might also have represented national unity had this principle been challenged to bloody battle during his life; for nothing was nearer his heart than the consolidation of our Union, which, in his letter to Congress transmitting the Constitution, he declared to be "the greatest interest of every true American." But another person was needed, of different birth and simpler life, to represent the ideas which in our day have been assailed. Washington, always strictly just, according to prevailing principles, and ordering at his death the emancipation of his slaves, was a general and a statesman rather than a philanthropist. His origin― his early life-his opportunities - his condition - his character, were all in contrast with the origin, the early life, the opportunities, the condition, and the character of him whom we commemorate to-day.

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Mourn not the dead, but rejoice in his life and example. Rejoice as you point to this child of the people, who was lifted so high that republican institutions became manifest in him! Rejoice that through him emancipation was proclaimed! Above all, see to it that his constant vows are fulfilled, and that the promises of the fathers are maintained, so that no person in the upright form of man can be shut out from their protection. Then will the unity of the republic be fixed on a foundation that cannot fail, and other nations will enjoy its security. The cornerstone of national independence is already in its place, and on it is inscribed the name of George Washington. There is another stone which must have its place at the corner also. This is the Declaration of Independence, with all its promises fulfilled. On this stone we will gratefully inscribe the name of Abraham Lincoln.

FE

LINCOLN'S SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS.

NELLOW-COUNTRYMEN: At this second appearing to take the oath of the presidential office, there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement somewhat in detail of a course to be pursued seemed very fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have constantly been called forth on every

point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented.

The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself, and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured. On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it, all sought to avoid it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war, seeking to dissolve the Union and divide the effects by negotiation.

Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish; and the war came.

One eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but located in the Southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union by war, while Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God, and each invokes his aid against the other. It may seem strange that any man should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing his bread from the sweat of other men's faces.

But let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayer of both should not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has his own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offences, for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh." If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of these offences, which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having con

tinued through his appointed time, he now wills to remove, and that he gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offence came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to him?

Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray that this mighty Scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said that the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wound, to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphans, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and a lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

LINCOLN'S ADDRESS AT GETTYSBURG.

The battle of Gettysburg, in Pennsylvania, was fought on the first, second, and third days of July, 1863, between the United States troops under General Meade and the rebel forces under General Lee. The result of the successive conflicts was the entire defeat of the rebels. A portion of the field of battle was appropriated for a cemetery for the Union soldiers who fell in the fight, and was duly consecrated by religions services on the 19th of November, 1863. An interesting historical and patriotic discourse was pronounced by Edward Everett, after which President Lincoln spoke as follows.

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NOURSCORE and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation, so conceived, and so dedicated - can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We are met to dedicate a portion of it as the final resting-place of those who have given their lives that that nation might live.

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It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow, this ground. The brave men, living and dead,

who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our power to add or to detract. The world will very little note, nor long remember, what we say here; but it can never forget what they did here.

It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated, here, to the unfinished work that they have thus far so nobly carried on. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us; that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead. shall not have died in vain; that the nation shall, under God, have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

WE

VOICES OF THE DEAD.

die, but leave an influence behind us that survives. The echoes of our words are evermore repeated, and reflected along the ages. It is what man was that lives and acts after him. What he said sounds along the years like voices amid the mountain gorges; and what he did is repeated after him in ever-multiplying and never-ceasing reverberations. Every man has left behind him influences for good or for evil that will never exhaust themselves. The sphere in which he acts may be small, or it may be great. It may be his fireside, or it may be a kingdom; a village, or a great nation; it may be a parish, or broad Europe; but act he does, ceaselessly and forever. His friends, his family, his successors in office, his relatives, are all receptive of an influence, a moral influence which he has transmitted and bequeathed to mankind; either a blessing which will repeat itself in showers of benedictions, or a curse which will multiply itself in ever-accumulating evil.

Every man is a missionary, now and forever, for good or for evil, whether he intends and designs it, or not. He may be a blot, radiating his dark influence outward to the very circumference of society, or he may be a blessing, spreading benedictions over the length and breadth of the world; but a blank he cannot be.. The seed sown in life springs up in harvests of blessings, or harvests of sorrow. Whether our influence be great or small, whether

it be for good or evil, it lasts, it lives somewhere, within some limit, and is operative wherever it is. The grave buries the dead dust, but the character walks the world, and distributes itself, as a benediction or a curse, among the families of mankind.

The sun sets beyond the western hills, but the trail of light he leaves behind him guides the pilgrim to his distant home. The tree falls in the forest; but in the lapse of ages it is turned into coal, and our fires burn now the brighter because it grew and fell. The coral insect dies, but the reef it raised breaks the surge on the shores of great continents, or has formed an isle in the bosom of the ocean, to wave with harvests for the good of man. We live and we die; but the good or evil that we do lives after us, and is not "buried with our bones."

The babe that perished on the bosom of its mother, like a flower that bowed its head and drooped amid the death-frosts of time— that babe, not only in its image, but in its influence, still lives and speaks in the chambers of the mother's heart.

The friend with whom we took sweet counsel is removed visibly from the outward eye; but the lessons that he taught, the grand sentiments that he uttered, the holy deeds of generosity by which he was characterized, the moral lineaments and likeness of the man, still survive, and appear in the silence of eventide, and on the tablets of memory, and in the light of morn, and noon, and dewy eve; and, being dead, he yets speaks eloquently, and in the midst of us.

Mahomet still lives in his practical and disastrous influence in the East. Napoleon still is France, and France is almost Napoleon. Martin Luther's dead dust sleeps at Wittenburg, but Martin Luther's accents still ring through the churches of Christendom. Shakspeare, Byron, and Milton, all live in their influence, for good or evil. The apostle from his chair, the minister from his pulpit, the martyr from his flame-shroud, the statesman from his cabinet, the soldier in the field, the sailor on the deck, who all have passed away to their graves, still live in the practical deeds that they did, in the lives they lived, and in the powerful lessons that they left behind them.

"None of us liveth to himself;" others are affected by that life; "or dieth to himself;" others are interested in that death. Our queen's crown may moulder, but she who wore it will act upon the ages which are yet to come. The noble's coronet may

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