There is something eminently satisfactory in the reflection that, when
the new faith, "That all men are created equal," and that "Governments
are instituted among men deriving their just powers from the consent of
the governed," was finally assailed by the slave-power of America, and
had to pass the ordeal of four years of war, a man born and reared in
poverty, deficient in education, unused to the etiquette even of
ordinary society, and untutored in the art of diplomacy and deception,
had been selected by the people of the United States to become the
representative of the new faith, and the defender of the government
established upon it. This man was ABRAHAM LINCOLN, of Illinois, the
record of whose life, at once important, eventful, and tragic, it is
pleasant to recall.

There are, in my judgment, at least four men associated with the period
of the civil war, who, in their early lives, their struggles, their
training, and their future callings, ought forever to command the
admiration of this people: Lincoln, the lowly, the exalted, the pure
man in rude marble, the plain cover to a gentle nature, the giant frame
and noble intellect; Grant, the defender of the Federal Union, the
unflinching soldier, around whose dying couch a whole nation now
lingers, whose light will shine down through future ages a warning to
conspirators, to freemen a pledge, and to the oppressed a beacon of
hope; Stanton, the lion of Buchanan's cabinet, the collaborator of
Lincoln, the supporter of Grant, gifted with the far-seeing eye of a
Carnot, spotless in character, incorruptible in integrity, great in
talent and learning, and a fit object of unhesitating trust; and John
Rogers, the American sculptor, who has offered, in his beautiful and
famous group of statuary, "The Council of War," an undying tribute to
these three great leaders in American history, and is himself worthy