contrary, as firmly believed that such a course could only strengthen and
confirm what I regarded as a gigantic conspiracy against the rights and
liberties, the union and the life, of the nation.

Recent events have certainly not tended to change this belief on my part;
but in looking over the past, while I see little or nothing to retract in
the matter of opinion, I am saddened by the reflection that through the
very intensity of my convictions I may have done injustice to the motives
of those with whom I differed. As respects Edward Everett, it seems to
me that only within the last four years I have truly known him.

In that brief period, crowded as it is with a whole life-work of
consecration to the union, freedom, and glory of his country, he not only
commanded respect and reverence, but concentrated upon himself in a most
remarkable degree the love of all loyal and generous hearts. We have
seen, in these years of trial, very great sacrifices offered upon the
altar of patriotism,--wealth, ease, home, love, life itself. But Edward
Everett did more than this: he laid on that altar not only his time,
talents, and culture, but his pride of opinion, his long-cherished views
of policy, his personal and political predilections and prejudices, his
constitutional fastidiousness of conservatism, and the carefully
elaborated symmetry of his public reputation. With a rare and noble
magnanimity, he met, without hesitation, the demand of the great
occasion. Breaking away from all the besetments of custom and
association, he forgot the things that are behind, and, with an eye
single to present duty, pressed forward towards the mark of the high
calling of Divine Providence in the events of our time. All honor to
him! If we mourn that he is now beyond the reach of our poor human
praise, let us reverently trust that he has received that higher plaudit:
"Well done, thou good and faithful servant!"