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FUNERAL ORATION
ON
ABRAHAM LINCOLN,
BY
MISS
EMMA HARUINGE.
NEW
16,
1865,
AT COOPER INSTITUTE,
THOUSAND PERSONS.
NEW YORK:
AMERICAN NEWS COMPANY,
Nassau Street.
t^wenty-it'ive;
cents.
The
Institute of
Museum and
http://www.archive.org/details/greatfuneralorat3783brit
LSTA Grant
THE GRB^T
FUNERAL ORATION
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
BY
MISS
EMMA HARDINGE.
THOUSAND PERSONS.
NEW YORK:
AMERICAN NEW'B COMPANY,
Nassau Street.
T'V^EJSTTY-iT'IVE
CENTS.
I^I^EIF'.^OIB.
The news
of the death of
Abraham
morning, April
Emma
15.
Toward
the
Lincohi, President of
Kew York
on Saturday
tial citizens to
oration
The
its
invitation
delivery
There was
no time
for preparing
and the
was
eflbrt
an address
entirely
of so
important a character,
extemijoraiieous.
to,
^/iree ?//.02sa?ic^
The
attention
bly of upward of
day, Sun-
which
aii
assem-
and
The
reported,
is
now
published
in
who
the virtues of
American
phonographically
all
shades of polit-
patriot.
memento
read by
of
every
INVOCATION.
Thou
this
prayer
hearest
that
children, in
Look
hour of deepest
Thou who
God
Thy
us,
Lord of
art
upon
soul-affliction
grief,
our
all
teach
'tis
our
brightening patli of
His
omniscient
Eighteen
goodness.
Eighteen
Once more we
free.
light,
and
guilt
and crime, a
see
Thy
down beneath
grief
out
the hand of
when
O Thou whose
Teach
turn with
Teach us
us,
all
is
sobbed
of Crucifixion, to
as
hopes of Easter.
child of
Thy
son beloved,
lifted
up on the
whom we mourn
a bright
all
this
mankind of
cross of
Easter,
so
day of Resurrec-
for us,
who
so dearly
rises,
and, like
tion
life,
His prototype in
to his Father's
home, and
ours.
ORATION.
seems
It
to
me
as if I heard a tone,
of the distant
West
a voice that
for eighteen
hundred years has pleaded before the throne of AlmightyJustice in the only strain that can solve the dire and dreadful
problem
of red
murder saying,
'
what they
do.''''
speaks,
fit
to explain its
grief.
meaning,
that
afflicts
woe.
I recall the
page of history
in vain to find
any prece-
re-
When
pale and
dumb
ages of this
us utterly.
fail
grow
to us with the
;"
martyrdom
posterity pronounces
of a multitude.
French
Roman and
rulers.
The shadow,
if
condemned
we
down
can hand
But where
in
is
to a candid posterity in
citizen
judge, a relentless
enemy
Where
which destroys
is
the precedent in
in
a nation's pre-
in a nation's noblest
man
her
inflicts
a nation's honor
in
strife,
political hatred,
lines of sepa-
ration
his
enemy
that
mid'^t of
who were
so often unfaithful
was always
pitiless
and cruel
see
him
exall
of the
whole world.
trial
Lincoln
forgave the foe, uniting again in one fraternal clasp the severed hands of North and South, and silenced every jealous
lip or
by
rebellious tongue
clemency calculated
to
win
for
who
up around him,
in defiance
and love
and
it
was even
for
by
a]3pointment to embitter,
his absence,
went
their hours of
forth to
death, the
its
a sacred trust, to
upon humanity
that wrote
blot that
foulest
amen
for the
Our
children of perdition.
to face
in his pity-
lips are
"this,
too
to say
and person
speak
my
know
it is
all
so
fiearfully
aggravate,
work
permit
this act,
me
however
still
here to
fatally
we
we
call
American.
I cannot believe
it
the
work
The
foe.
act of a
demon
common enemy,
or even a foreign
humanity; and we should pause long ere we accept, as conclusive, evidence to show that a knot of inhuman serpents
wearing the shape of men, or a
doing
coil of conspirators
manhood.
Of
my
birth and
enemy we once
called
this I
shall
still
belief that
an
ing, as
we may,
lesson.
mine what
we
First, then,
our
dis-
upon
friend's history;
lost
which closed
God
are called
it
demands of
us as duty.
I
cannot think
it is
those
*'
has
left
be, already
are, as
his love.
Now, will you deem it less in order that I should presume to be your memento of this sacred page? Month after
month it has seemed my special inspiration to call upon the
people, whom it was my privilege to ad Iress, to study out
and comprehend the acts of him wdiom I ftlt and named as
the true " Presekver of his Country."
Scarcely ten days have passed since these walls re-echoed
to the gallant cheer that hailed
my
voice
when
I told
you
wisdom
the
Some
10
of you heard
me
hope that
my
est
should see
me
hand in mine,
as the noblest
What
wholly fashioned, by the fostering sun of American republicanism, does our great chief magistrate's history present us
with
low sigh
of the lonely
woodbird,
and the chirp of the tenants of the wildest solitudes were the
natal songs that
welcomed
to
wide fame
toil,
a log-cabin
was
the green forest his baptismal roof, and the lonely stars and
voiceless
mother,
flowers,
the
backwoodsman
and teachers
nobility
father and
and yet
we
humble
trace the
unfolding themselves in
every year of his faithful life; always the good and dutiful
child, the industrious little aid of the toiling father, the will-
ing
little
drudge
At seven
State
is
and
At
black
self
first
in competition
with captive
slave himself ;
toil
and hardship of a
11
to Indiana freedom
Abraham Lincohi
and
light.
learn his
first
Remember, thus
did
early
At ten years
backwoodsman's boy, by industry and (for
time and condition) most arduous study, had become the
wonder of the scattered population in which he dwelt for
his skill in reading, and his yet more astonishing faculty for
the
little
and
At twenty-one he
first
is
set
to call
his father's
him
Here he makes
hers.
his house,
and fence
farm,
his
title
From
nal
of the "
this
roof,
rail-splitter''^ a
Hawk
Black
pean princes
postmaster, captain
man.
earthly potentates
toil,
proud Euro-
to study
to learn of the
and prepare
for a rule
the
teachers
more
large,
greatest
man's
raft,
the
Bright, beautiful,
village
store,
by
thou knowest
office
And
in
every
by
12
his industry,
Abraham
Lincoln,
didst
unwearying
of
feet
good
last
and highest
in the
New World's
presidential mansion.
human
who are familiar with this wonhow nobly and skillfully the
history,
first
for the
life
once
life.
came forward
in the
tion
tion of other
day of the
back
By
least expecta-
his
noble heart,
They
say, on the
trial
her son to
down."
least of
life
quence to prove
it,
last
by him
the clear
is
public history
the history
of that
mighty struggle
in
ably distinguished.
of this
is
13
found
No
in his
one can
to
Lincoln's remarkable
life,
com-
pletely loathed the monstrous blot that had crept into the
He was
place,
form
the powers of his acute and logical mind and forcible nervous
oratory, to bear on the monstrous evil of
its
extension into
its
And
yet,
we
find
which
as petty sovereignties
fact, that
and
while the
known
beneficence
irrepressible conflict in
life
was yet
to be
act,
base secession.
zeal that
14
of the Constitution, infringed on the guarantees
Southern
it
offered to
States in the eager arms ofa half justifiable rebellion, the wise
we owe
South no
less
and relent-
plots, a vast
and broken
all
and
treasury to
raise, a
all;
no section
but a vast
New World
to cover, guard,
up or destroy a
war
to
to calculate
subdue; clamorous
friends to check
coast, a
highway
harpies to
satisf}^,
presumptuous
powers,
all
waiting, longing greedily to aid the ruin of tlie earth's democracy, their
own most
dreaded foe
and
yet, in
any of these
15
momentous
vast and
where
issues,
at fciult?
my
words
not.
son
in
tion's status
was
defined, aye,
and maintained,
you
find the
his feet,
dark,
where
real internal
mantle
strings
weakness
girdled
it
and wraps
that the
towered
like a
He
woe
about
it
office
it
as a winding-sheet of glory.
dignity of the
still
One
united" States
first
show
is,
to
my
thinking, to be found
nection with
its
Am-
Mr. Lincoln's
still
To him you
and Stripes.
as a
now around
name and
wore
in
will
owe
When
power?
foreign
Slavery
There
in
con-
and
is
fairly
A mind capable
republicanism grandly
16
the nation's
life
all
fail in
steering the
The
who had
pre-
defi-
vi'as
prescient
ot
great statesmen
made by him,
when he
against itself
cannot stand
says
believe
house divided
this
government
expect
the
will
It
Union
fall
to
become
be dissolved
but I do expect
all
as candi-
"
as
it
I do
free.
I do
not
ex-
be
will cease to
one thing or
such utterances of
all
his
the other."
public
life
vexed questions that were agitating the land, but also give
the key to that policy which his opponents have so often
And when
fearful, or disobedient to
his
life
tion of the
law"
which, beyond
all
through
all
postevity.
name down
Up
to
an immortal glory
first
three
years ot the war Mr. Lincoln had robbed the rebellious foe
of every shadow of plea against his administration
by
forfeited, as jealous as
17
Assailed by unwise friends and bitter foes, with taunts and
revilings on every hand,
came
crisis
still
in
he moved not
how
life
disloyal raised
accustomed
its
" abolitionism
in
;"
ages,
cried to
Him
Abraham
Lincoln,
1863,
in
proclaimed
it
in
" Liberty
God
him
bless
for it
was present
in
who
could be
after this
found to
take part on
memor-
white. orator
such an occasion,
Port
backs were
still
toil
seamed with
now devoted
them.
their
formed of
fetters,
peculiar, wild,
forgiven
when
the
all
Moses
wfts
it
name
lives
still
were
had enslaved
own
whose
forgotten,
men whose
rich,
in strains of
all was
modern
shout went
;
but
of their
was that a
18
up
to
by the white
voices, echoed
all
That cry
coln !"
shout of
"'
God
bless
Abraham Lin-
courts of heaven, in
all
eternity, did
it
through the
life.
I find
real ability
received.
No
one jot of selfishness, dishonesty, or aught but generous singleness of purpose in the use of
vast
intrusted
resources
to
as
your
" Father
all
his
!
it
Oh
charge
people of
Abraham Lincoln
!"
man whose
My
will"
shine through
all
life is
almost ended.
if
It
our Chief
military experience
to general
the situation,"
he w^as
19
From
action.
every gate of
South
drew
life
in the
pierced
confederate
around the
until they
Domin-
that glorious
in
the
on
to destroy
his
with
back
What
unassuming presence of
ple
to
He was
all
meet
New
his
southern brothers
on which
its
peace
20
could be insured nor, when treating for its people, abated
one jot of the unconditional submission of every soul beneath
the shelter of the American Constitution, the just but lit;
We
republicanism, the
boy,
the legislator,
the earthquake's
What more
the
true
unimpeachable
statesman,
or?tor,
their anchor
shock,
of
spirit
the
in
staff
storm.
with
his
all
manhood
miserable wrecks of
homes made
the
slain,
shadows of
ated
He
demon captors
Or had
his ear
dull
own
grown
Had he forgotten the emaciwhat once were men returned from the
to
desolate, the
fiendish grasp of
Did he cease
all
which opened
this
termina-
of foreign nations,
other blood-stained
all
memo-
all
when
its
its
in the
fallen
31
Would
Would
doom
np the
glitter-
the very bells that to-day should have sounded out the gladrejoicing tones of peace.
its
already
how many
image of Himself
down
as to
human
still
life
hiss of a
who was
whole
while
makes a country
up and pampers on the shameful
gains of others' labor a whole community in idleness,
builds up a rank, degraded aristocracy, living by theft of
men, ruling, by force of blows and stripes and bull3nng
cause, the hateful, poisonous cause, that
pamper
and
v^eakness
tones,
and bearing
ignorance,
inevitably
unhappy South
shame, and
would
sit
for
him
as sorrowful
many
cheerfully
as
as
we weep
ours
hearts in the
a one
lay
know
men
this
and
as the
friend
and honor
in
Abraham
Lincoln.
slain its
man would
good man in
For never
never
who had
whom
traffic in
but those
23
and who, having seen the murderous knife of treason whetted
for the nation's
and
life,
its
spirit ;
institutions;
if
and
for fathers
it
for brothers.
hut on
if
men
of the South,
ijet
on
its
of Slavery!
the prayer of the gentle Master, " Father,
Oh, friends
forgive them, they Jcnow not what they do," constitutes the his-
We know
makes men
forget their
humanity
on others' labor
ttie
it
must not
close
mean and
truckling
and compels
cessantly
all
men
can never be
spirit that
;
to
bow
satisfied,
them
to
and
the aristocratic
demands more
growing millions, more lands, more States,
more power that fatal institution that dare not
more
fuijds,
trust the spelling-book and Bible, that gags free speech and
must
culminate at
last in the
arm of
force
and murder; must throw away the ballot and take instead
the bullet, and send
recoil in
its
nameless horror on
And
itself.
thus believing, I
he
is
bond, henceforth
now
but Cain
a fugitive
widow and
him
shelter.
of every
home on
murder
earth
him
The
for
And
and a vaga-
violated
evermore
by
is
closed
the gates
24
on the earth,
bow
shall
his
who looked
Abraham Lincoln
to
One
of old,
up
dare put
who
to
hour
shame
in
heavy
ourselves, in our
man
him and
for
for
him
human
who
family shall
Our
loss,
?
as their Moses,
in pity for
who
himself
knew
The hour is
naugbt of pity
cry, though mortal may never hear him, " My punishLet Him who judges
is heavier than I can bear."
!
must
ment
Man
What
country.
hour,
if
is
the
demands of the
come to try men's souls. The counyou, with arm and heart and head, to rebuild
struct, if
ties
its
its life
and
all
your
liber-
up
your duties.
demanded of me,
Philadelphia, suggestive words on the theme of
reconstruction.
I then said
what
now
repeat
25
The
true time
is
it is
who
to the people,
The
intrust that
ians,
and never
until
such
full
is
fully
made
should the war power cease or the people (the true legis-
made for the union and the people, not the people
FOR the union and THE LAWS. It is plain, then, that reconare
struction signifies,
Union
State of the
The
first,
;
the
of peace in every
restoration
is
reconstructed.
legislative
wisdom
shall deal
was the
wisdom of the people
cannot in solemn council agree to accuse and condemn the
monster Slavery as cause enough if some lingering remnants of the suicidal folly which cherished the serpent, in
whose foul embrace the land has well-nigh died, should still,
with, execute, and annihilate the fatal thing that
cause of war.
And
the legislative
if
an amended charter,
Why,
reconstruction will
don't
narrow
and
if
a nation's
growth
is
grow
too ;
or
if
they can-
26
not,
life
Or if you hesiamend the law which you've outgrown,
speak what the timid tongue fears to pronounce,
!
tate to add to or
let the heart
and "
ITe,
Abraham
mation
of
ing soul let this speak for you, and, in the name of the
" higher law," God's law, and Abraham Lincoln's own most
godlike act, decide your problem,
and reconstruct
hell,
human
the
eternal
rock of Justice
ham
"
prove
it
You
by swearing over
*'
Father Abra-
martyr-grave
his
your
not to
its
the land of the Stars and Stripes, and nullifies the brightest
Abraham
act of
Lincoln's
life, is itself
The
rest,
mous
exigencies of his
new
is
first
President.
momentous
As for the
home on
that presses
man
another
ladder,
man
of the people
nature's loyalty
rise to
Rally around your President with heart and head and hand,
that, if the
Andrew Jackson
has,
that of bold
27
when mercy
is
Mourn
your love
to
its
destr
quenched.
3'er.
for
For you,
his
of his great
country, and
He
patriotism, he perished.
he's laid
so
life
the
holy
man
untimely
cause
of
he made no
spoke no word,
on mortal
down and
but, oh,
if
was most eloquent, if speechless, dying martyrdom pleads now, as in the days of "righteous Stephen," with
an angel light upon its blood-stained brow, obey that dumb
ever silence
best republic.
more
disloyal
We must
murmurs
no more pretense of
best defenders.
bane
in the seed,
murder and
no
kill its
blunt
plain,
hen-
fruit as
rebellion.
Trust to the
man
like a
God-given answer
Ques-
tionnot his faults, but regard his sterling qualities. Follow his
;
his noble
need had
life
come, and be sure that God has sent him to our rescue, and
your part
is
to give
in a nation's united
What
matters
it,
then, that he
we
plore has gone before us? Sooner or later, for usall, his
mons
will be ours.
God
sum-
28
the land of light and never-setting sun, to clasp his immortal
hand again in eternal fellowship in our own Easter resurrecting day, and hear the glorious greeting that, with the arisen
sun of his bright eternity, has welcomed him to the home
he's
so justly earned
faithful
-}\.^OL>'^.o'^4-
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