Today we celebrate the birthday of Abraham Lincoln (1809-65). Before becoming President, Lincoln served four terms in the Illinois House of Representatives for Sangamon County. Every time I cross into Sangamon County on my way to Mahomet, I think of that. (Also it makes me happy to cross the Sangamon River four times on my way to my destination.)
Lincoln was largely self-educated. It is said that at home he read the Bible and Pilgrim’s Progress–the only books in the house. You could do a lot worse. He never went to college or law school. Back in the day, that didn’t hold one back.
Some members of the educated elite of the time looked down on our 16th President. His enemies in the press called him terrible names and were embarrassed by what they perceived sophisticated Europeans thought of him. They made fun of his looks. Some things never change.
President Ulysses Grant was not the main speaker when Abraham Lincoln’s tomb was dedicated on Oct. 15, 1874. He was asked to deliver the official dedication address, but declined, feeling that he was incapable of doing justice to the memory of the illustrious dead. He did, however, give a short speech at the ceremony, which was attended by an estimated 25,000 people.
Here is the full text of Grant’s speech, as reported by the Illinois State Journal on Oct. 16,1874.
Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen:
On an occasion like the present I feel it a duty on my part to bear testimony to the great and good qualities of the patriotic man whose earthly remains rest beneath the monument now being dedicated. It was not my fortune to make the personal acquaintance of Mr. Lincoln until the last year of the great struggle for national existence.
During the three years of doubting and despondency among the many patriotic men of the country, Abraham Lincoln never for a moment doubted but that the final result would be in favor of peace, union and freedom to every race in this broad land. His faith in an All-wise Providence directing our arms to this final result was the faith of the Christian that his Redeemer liveth.
Amidst obloquy, personal abuse, and hate undisguised, and which was given vent to without restraint through the press, upon the stump, and in private circles, he remained the same staunch, unyielding servant of the people, never exhibiting a revengeful feeling towards his traducers, but he rather pitied them and hoped for their own sake, and the good name of their posterity, that they might desist. For a single moment it did not occur to him that the man Lincoln was being assailed, but that a treasonable spirit, one willing to destroy the existence of the freest government the sun ever shined upon, was giving vent to itself as the Chief Executive of the nation, only because he was such executive. As a lawyer in your midst he would have avoided all this slander – for his life was a pure and simple one – and no doubt would have been a much happier man, but who can tell what might have been the fate of the Nation but for the pure, unselfish and wise administration of a Lincoln?
From March 1864 to the day when the hand of the assassin opened a grave for Mr. Lincoln, then President of the United States, my personal relations with him were as close and intimate as the nature of our respective duties would permit. To know him personally was to love and respect him for his great qualities of heart and head, and for his patience and patriotism.
With all his disappointments from failures on the part of those to whom he had intrusted command, and treachery on the part of those who had gained his confidence but to betray it, I never heard him utter a complaint, nor cast a censure for bad conduct or bad faith. It was his nature to find excuses for his adversaries.
In his death the nation lost its greatest hero. In his death the South lost its most just friend.
(Original content of the text of the speech copyright Sangamon County Historical Society.)
Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses Grant–the best.
*Walt Whitman, “Hush’d be the Camps To-Day”
