The Freedmen's Monument to Lincoln

The Marietta Register, July 17, 1873:

From the St. Louis Democrat.

The Freedmen's Monument to Lincoln.

Just after President Lincoln's death it was announced that a woman named Charlotte Scott, in Marietta, Ohio, had sent $5, "her first earnings in freedom," to Mr. Yeatman, President of the Western Sanitary Commission, to build a monument in memory of the Great Emancipator. The publication of this fact led to an enthusiastic response from several colored regiments in Tennessee, and other Western-Southern States, and there was at one time a good prospect that $100,000 would be raised. 

But the amount reached was only about $16,000, which was reduced by cost of collection and by several unsuccessful efforts to obtain a suitable design. But by increase of interest received the fund now in the hands of the Sanitary Commission is about $21,000, and we are gratified to announce that an order has been sent to Thomas Ball in Florence for a group to be executed in bronze, colossal size, which will, as we believe, give universal satisfaction. It has already been executed in marble, reduced size (four feet high), and has been seen by all visitors to Ball's studio during the last five years; for it was done by the artist immediately after the President's assassination, with the hope that it would be some day wanted to tell the emancipation story. One of the members of the Sanitary Commission, being in Florence two years ago, requesting Mr. Ball to keep it for the present use, and the fund having now reached the requisite amount, and photographs of the group having been received and approved, the design has been accepted and the order sent forward.

It is expected to be finished, including a white marble pedestal, 12 feet high, and delivered in Washington City in about two years, to be unveiled and dedicated perhaps on the anniversary of Mr. Lincoln's death, in 1876.

The Marietta Register, April 27, 1876:

The Lincoln Monument.  Dedicatory Exercises.

The Freedmen's monument to Lincoln, dedicated on the 14th, was the outgrowth of the enthusiasm of a poor slave, Charlotte Scott, now living at Lynchburg, Virginia. She was at the time in Marietta with her old master, who was a refugee. The following letter was the means of making Charlotte Scott's five dollars the nucleus for the monument fund:

St. Louis, April 26, 1865.

Jas. E. Yeatman, Esq.

My Dear Sir: A poor negro woman of Marietta, Ohio, one of those made free by President Lincoln's proclamation, proposes that a monument to their dead friend be erected by the colored people of the United States. She has handed to a person in Marietta five dollars as her contribution for the purpose. Such a monument would have a history more grand and touching than any of which we have account. Would not it be well to take up this suggestion and make it known to the freedmen?

Yours truly, T. C. H. Smith.

On the day of dedication Mr. Yeatman presided over the ceremonies and made the following statements:

In compliance with General Smith's suggestion, I published his letter, with a card, stating that any desiring to contribute to a fund for such a purpose that the Western Sanitary Commission would receive the same and see that it was judiciously appropriated as intended. In response to this communication liberal contributions were received

FROM COLORED SOLDIERS

under the command of General J. W. Davidson, headquarters at Natchez, Mississippi, amounting in all to $12,150. This was subsequently increased from other sources to $16,242.

From the liberal contributions made in the first instance, we are led to believe that a very much larger sum would have been subscribed. But, as our determination was to have a free-will offering without solicitation, we determined to rest with what was voluntarily contributed.

Harriet Hosmer, one of America's greatest sculptors, asked for permission to submit a design, which she did. It was one of great beauty and merit, and could it have been executed, it would have been one of the grandest and most beautiful monumental works of art ever erected in this or any other country. I mention this here as the design has doubtless been seen by some that are now present. It was published in the London Art Journal and other journals published in this and other countries. I trust yet that the gratitude of the freed people will prompt them to execute this grand design. I now proceed to give you the history of the Lincoln monument as adopted and executed.

One of the members of the Western Sanitary Commission, Rev. William G. Elliot, being in Florence in the autumn of 1869, when visiting the studio of Mr. Thomas Ball saw the group subsequently adopted, and was so much pleased with it that he spoke strongly in its praise after returning to St. Louis. He had learned from Mr. Ball that the work was conceived and executed under the first influence of the news of Mr. Lincoln's assassination. No order for such a group had been received, but Mr. Ball felt sure that the time would come when there would be a demand for it, and, at any rate, he felt an inward demand to produce it. His aim was to present

ONE SINGLE IDEA

For several years it has stood there in its place, greatly admired, but not finding the direction of its rightful destination. But, when the artist heard of the possible use to which it might be put as the memorial of freedom by the emancipated slaves themselves, he at once said that he should hold it with that view until the commission were prepared to take action, and that the price to be paid would be altogether a secondary consideration. When the description was given to the other members of the Western Sanitary Commission, they sent for photographs, four of which, presenting the group at different points of view, were taken in Florence and forwarded to them. They at once decided to accept the design, and an order was given for its immediate execution in bronze, in accordance with the suggestions made by Mr. Ball. The original group was in Italian marble and differs in some respects from the bronze group now to be inaugurated. In the original the kneeling slave is represented as perfectly passive, receiving the boon of freedom from the hand of the great liberator. But the artist justly changed this to bring the presentation nearer to the historical fact, by making the emancipated slave an

AGENT IN HIS OWN DELIVERANCE

He is accordingly represented as exerting his strength with strained muscles in breaking the chain which had bound him. A far greater degree of dignity and vigor, as well as of historical accuracy, is thus imparted.

*     *     *     *     *

Mr. Matthews read the poem written for the occasion by Miss Ray and entitled, "Lincoln," as follows:

To-day, O martyred chief! beneath the sun
We would unveil thy form; to thee who won
The applause of nations, for thy soul sincere,
A living tribute we would offer here.
'Twas thine not worlds to conquer, but men's hearts;
To change to balm the sting of slavery's darts;
In lowly charity thy joy to find,
And open "gates of mercy on mankind."
And so they come, the freed, with grateful gift,
From whose sad path the shadows thou didst lift.
Eleven years have rolled, their seasons round
Since itts most tragic close thy life-work found.
Yet through the vistas of the vanished days
We see thee still, responsive in our gaze
As ever to thy country's solemn needs.
Not regal coronets, but princely deeds,
Were thy chaste diadem; of truer worth
Thy modest virtues than the gems of earth.
Staunch, honest, fervent in the purest cause,
Truth was thy guide; her mandates were thy laws.

Rare heroism; spirit purity;
The storied Spartan's stern simplicity;
Such moral strength as gleams like burnished gold
Amid the doubts of men of weaker mold
Were thine, Called in thy country's sorest hour.
When brother knew not brother-mad for power-
To guide the helm through bloody deeps of war,
While distant nations gazed in anxious awe,
Unflinching in the task, thou didst fulfill
Thy mighty mission with a deathless will.

Born to a destiny the most sublime,
Thou wert, O Lincoln! in the march of time.
God bade thee pause-and bid the oppressed go free-
Most glorious boon giv'n to humanity.
While Slavery ruled the land, what deeds were done!
What tragedies enacted 'neath the sun!
Her page is blurred with records of defeat
Of lives heroic lived in silence-meet
For the world's praise-of woe, despair and tears-
The speechless agony of weary years!

Thou utterest the word, and Freedom fair
Rang her sweet bells on the clear winter air;
She waved her magic wand, and lo! from far
A long procession came! with many a scar.
Their brows were wrinkled-in the bitter strife
Full many had said their sad farewell to life.

But on they hasten'd-free-their shackles gone-
The aged, young-e'en infancy was borne
To offer unto thee loud paeons of praise-
Their happy tribute after saddest days.

A race set free! The deed brought joy and light!
It bade calm justice from her sacred height,
When faith, and hope, and courage slowly waned.
Unfurl the stars and stripes at last unstained!
The nations rolled acclaim from sea to sea,
And Heaven's vaults rang with Freedom's harmony.
The angels 'mid the amaranths must have hush'd
Their chanted cadence, as upward rush'd
The hymn sublime; and as the echoes pealed
God's ceaseless benison the action sealed.

As now we dedicate this shaft to thee,
True champion! in all humility
And solemn earnestness, we would erect
A monument invisible, undecked,
Save by our allied purpose to be true
To Freedom's loftiest precepts, so that thro'
The fiercest contests we may walk secure,
Fixed on foundations that may still endure
When granite shall have crumbled to decay
And generations passed from earth away.

Exalted patriot! illustrious chief!
Thy life's immortal work compels belief.
To-day in radiance thy virtues shine,
And how can we a fitting garland twine?
Thy crown most glorious is a ransomed race!
High on our country's scroll we fondly trace
In lines of fadeless light that softly blend;
Emancipation, hero, martyr, friend!
While Freedom may her holy sceptre claim
The world shall echo with "Our Lincoln's" name.

Professor Langston then introduced the orator of the day, Hon. Frederick Douglass, with the following words: "I experience especial pleasure in introducing to you the orator of the occasion, the Hon. Frederick Douglass."

Mr. Douglass was received with applause. During the delivery of the oration the approbation of his hearers was manifested in many ways, and he was frequently interrupted with applause. This address was as follows:

ORATION OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS

Friends and Fellow Citizens: I warmly congratulate you upon the highly interesting object that has caused you to assemble in such numbers and spirit as you have to-day. This occasion is in some respects remarkable. Wise and thoughtful men of our race, who shall come after us, and study the lessons of our history in the United States, who shall survey the long and dreary space over which we have traveled, who shall count the links in the great chain of events by which we have reached our present position, will make a note of this occasion - they will think of it, and with a sense of manly pride and complacency. I congratulate you also upon the very favorable circumstances in which we meet to-day. They are high, inspiring, and uncommon. They lend grace, glory, and significance to the object for which we have met. Nowhere else in this great country, with its uncounted towns and cities, uncounted wealth, and immeasurable territory extending form sea, could conditions be found more favorable to the success of this occasion than here. We stand to-day at the national centre to perform something like a national act, an act which is to go into history, and we are here where every pulsation of the national heart can be heard, felt and reciprocated.

A THOUSAND WIRES

fed with thought and winged with lightning, put us in instantaneous communication with the loyal and true men all over this country. Few facts could better illustrate the vast and wonderful change which has taken place in our condition as a people than the fact of our assembling here for the purpose we have to-day. Harmless, beautiful, proper and praise-worthy as this demonstration is, I cannot forget that no such demonstration would have been tolerated here twenty years ago. The spirit of slavery and barbarism, which still lingers to blight and destroy in some dark and distant parts of our country, would have made our assembling here to-day the signal and excuse for opening upon us all the flood-gates of wrath and violence. That we are here in  peace to-day is a compliment and credit to American civilization, and a prophecy of still greater national enlightenment and progress in the future. I refer to the past not in malice, for this is no day for malice, but simply to place more distinctly in front the gratifying and glorious change which has come both to our white fellow-citizens and ourselves, and to congratulate all upon the contrast between now and then, the new dispensation of freedom with its thousand blessings to both races, and the old dispensation of slavery with its ten thousand evils to both races - white and black. In view, then, of the past, the present and the future, with

THE LONG AND DARK HISTORY

of our bondage behind us, and with liberty, progress and enlightenment before us, I again congratulate you upon this auspicious day and hour.

Friends and fellow-citizens: The story of our presence here is soon and easily told. We are here in the District of Columbia; here in the city of Washington, the most luminous point of American territory - a city recently transformed and made beautiful in its body and its spirit; we are here, in the place where the ablest and best men of the country are sent to devise the policy, enact the laws and shape the destiny of the Republic; we are here, with the stately pillars and majestic dome of the Capitol of the nation looking down upon us; we are here, with the broad earth freshly adorned with the foliage and flowers of spring for our church, and all races, colors and conditions of men for our congregation; in a word, we are here to express, as best we may, by appropriate forms and ceremonies, our grateful sense of the vast, high and pre-eminent service rendered to ourselves, to our race, to our country and to the whole world 

BY ABRAHAM LINCOLN

The sentiment that brings us here to-day is one of the noblest that can stir and thrill the human heart. It has crowned and made glorious the high places of all civilized nations, with the grandest and most enduring works of art, designed to illustrate characters and perpetuate the memories of great public men. It is the sentiment which from year to year adorns with fragrant and beautiful flowers the graves of our loyal, brave, and patriotic soldiers who fell in defense of the Union and liberty. It is the sentiment of gratitude and appreciation, which often, in the presence of many who hear me, has filled yonder heights of Arlington with the eloquence of eulogy and the sublime enthusiasm of poetry and song; a sentiment which can never die while the Republic lives. For the first time in the history of our people, and in the history of the whole American people, we join in this high worship and march conspicuously in the line of this time-honored custom. First things are always interesting, and this is one of our first things. It is the first time that, in this form and manner, we have sought to do honor to any American great man, however deserving and illustrious. I commend the fact to notice. Let it be told in every part of the Republic; let men of all parties and opinions hear it; let hose who despise us, not less than those who respect us, know that now and here, in the spirit of

LIBERTY, LOYALTY, AND GRATITUDE

let it be known everywhere and by everybody who takes an interest in human progress and in the amelioration of the condition of mankind, that in the presence and with the approval of the members of the American House of Representatives, reflecting the highest intelligence and the calmest judgment of the country; in presence of the Supreme Court and Chief Justice of the United States, to whose decisions we all patriotically bow; in the presence and under the steady eye of the honored and trusted President of the United States, we, the colored people, newly emancipated and rejoicing in our blood-bought freedom, near the close of the first century in the life of this Republic, have now and here unveiled, set apart, and dedicated a monument of enduring granite and bronze, in every line, feature, and figure of which the man of this generation may read- and those of after-coming generations may read-something of the exalted character and great works of Abraham Lincoln, the first martyr President of the United States.

In all his education and feelings he was an

AMERICAN OF THE AMERICANS

He came into the Presidential chair upon one principle alone, namely, opposition to the extension of slavery. His arguments in furtherance of this policy had their motive and mainspring in his patriotic devotion to the interests of his own race. To protect, defend and perpetuate slavery in the States where it existed, Abraham Lincoln was not less ready than any other President to draw the sword of the nation. He was ready to execute all the supposed constitutional guarantees of the Constitution in favor of the slave system anywhere inside the Slave States. He was willing to pursue, recapture, and send back the fugitive slave to his master, and to suppress a slave rising for liberty, though his guilty master were already in arms against the Government. The race to which we belong were not the special objects of his consideration. Knowing this, I concede to you, my white fellow-citizens, a pre-eminence in this worship at once full and supreme. First, midst, and last, you and yours were the objects of his deepest affection and his most earnest solicitude. You are the children of Abraham Lincoln. We are at best only his step-children; children by adoption, children by force of circumstances and necessity. To you it especially belongs to sound his praises, to preserve and perpetuate his memory, to multiply his statues, to hang his pictures high upon your walls, and commend his example, for to you he was a great and glorious friend and benefactor. Instead of supplanting you at this altar, we would exhort you to build high his monuments; let them be of the most costly material, of the most cunning workmanship; let their forms be symmetrical, beautiful, and perfect; let their bases be upon solid rocks, and their summits lean against the unchanging blue, overhanging sky, and let them endure forever! But while in the abundance of your wealth, and in the fullness of your just and patriotic devotion, you do all this, we entreat you to despise not the humble offering we this day unveil to view; for while Abraham Lincoln saved for you a country, he delivered us from a bondage, according to Jefferson, one hour of which was worse than ages of the oppression your fathers rose in rebellion to oppose. Fellow-citizens, ours is no new-born zeal and devotion--merely a thing of this moment. The name of Abraham Lincoln was near and dear to our hearts in the darkest and most perilous hours of the Republic. We were no more ashamed of him when shrouded in clouds of darkness, of doubt, and defeat than when we saw him crowned with victory, honor, and glory. Our faith in him was often taxed and strained to the uttermost, but it never failed. When he tarried long in the mountain; when he strangely told us that we were the cause of the war; when he still more strangely told us to leave the land in which we were born; when he refused to employ our arms in defence of the Union; when, after accepting our services as colored soldiers, he refused to retaliate our murder and torture as colored prisoners; when he told us he would save the Union if he could with slavery; when he revoked the Proclamation of Emancipation of General Frémont; when he refused to remove the popular commander of the Army of the Potomac, in the days of its inaction and defeat, who was more zealous in his efforts to protect slavery than to suppress rebellion; when we saw all this, and more, we were at times grieved, stunned, and greatly bewildered; but our hearts believed while they ached and bled. Nor was this, even at that time, a blind and unreasoning superstition. Despite the mist and haze that surrounded him; despite the tumult, the hurry, and confusion of the hour, we were able to take a comprehensive view of Abraham Lincoln, and to make reasonable allowance for the circumstances of his position. We saw him, measured him, and estimated him; not by stray utterances to injudicious and tedious delegations, who often tried his patience; not by isolated facts torn from their connection; not by any partial and imperfect glimpses, caught at inopportune moments; but by a broad survey, in the light of the stern logic of great events, and in view of that divinity which shapes our ends, rough hew them how we will, we came to the conclusion that the hour and the man of our redemption had somehow met in the person of Abraham Lincoln. It mattered little to us what language he might employ on special occasions; it mattered little to us, when we fully knew him, whether he was swift or slow in his movements; it was enough for us that Abraham Lincoln was at the head of a great movement, and was in living and earnest sympathy with that movement, which, in the nature of things, must go on until slavery should be utterly and forever abolished in the United States. When, therefore, it shall be asked what we have to do with the memory of Abraham Lincoln, or what Abraham Lincoln had to do with us, the answer is ready, full, and complete. Though he loved Caesar less than Rome, though the Union was more to him than our freedom or our future, under his wise and beneficent rule we saw ourselves gradually lifted from the depths of slavery to the heights of liberty and manhood; under his wise and beneficent rule, and by measures approved and vigorously pressed by him, we saw that the handwriting of ages, in the form of prejudice and proscription, was rapidly fading away from the face of our whole country; under his rule, and in due time, about as soon after all as the country could tolerate the strange spectacle, we saw our brave sons and brothers laying off the rags of bondage, and being clothed all over in the blue uniforms of the soldiers of the United States; under his rule we saw two hundred thousand of our dark and dusky people responding to the call of Abraham Lincoln, and with muskets on their shoulders, and eagles on their buttons, timing their high footsteps to liberty and union under the national flag; under his rule we saw the independence of the black republic of Hayti, the special object of slaveholding aversion and horror, fully recognized, and her minister, a colored gentleman, duly received here in the city of Washington; under his rule we saw the internal slavetrade, which so long disgraced the nation, abolished, and slavery abolished in the District of Columbia; under his rule we saw for the first time the law enforced against the foreign slave-trade, and the first slavetrader hanged like any other pirate or murderer; under his rule, assisted by the greatest captain of our age, and his inspiration, we saw the Confederate States, based upon the idea that our race must be slaves, and slaves forever, battered to pieces and scattered to the four winds; under his rule, and in the fullness of time, we saw Abraham Lincoln, after giving the slaveholders three months' grace in which to save their hateful slave system, penning the immortal paper, which, though special in its language, was general in its principles and effect, making slavery forever impossible in the United States. Though we waited long, we saw all this and more. Can any colored man, or any white man friendly to the freedom of all men, ever forget the night which followed the first day of January, 1863, when the world was to see if Abraham Lincoln would prove to be as good as his word? I shall never forget that memorable night, when in a distant city I waited and watched at the public meeting, with three thousand others not less anxious than myself, for the word of deliverance which we have heard read to-day. Nor shall I ever forget the outburst of joy and thanksgiving that rent the air when the lightning brought to us the emancipation proclamation. In that happy hour we forgot all delay, and forgot all tardiness, forgot that the President had bribed the rebels to lay down their arms by a promise to withhold the bolt which smite the slave-system with destruction; and we were thenceforward willing to allow the President all the latitude of time, phraseology, and every honorable device that statesmanship might require for the achievement of a great and beneficent measure of liberty and progress. Fellow-citizens, there is little necessity on this occasion to speak at length and critically of this great and good man, and of his high mission in the world. That ground has been fully occupied and completely covered both here and elsewhere. The whole field of fact and fancy has been gleaned and garnered. Any man can say things that are true of Abraham Lincoln, but no man can say anything that is new of Abraham Lincoln. His personal traits and public acts are better known to the American people than are those of any other man of his age. He was a mystery to no man who saw him and heard him. Though high in position, the humblest could approach him and feel at home in his presence. Though deep, he was transparent; though strong, he was gentle; though decided and pronounced in his convictions, he was tolerant towards those who differed from him, and patient under reproaches. Even those who only knew him through his public utterances obtained a tolerably clear idea of his character and his personality. The image of the man went out with his words, and those who read them, knew him. I have said that President Lincoln was a white man, and shared the prejudices common to his countrymen towards the colored race. Looking back to his times and to the condition of his country, we are compelled to admit that this unfriendly feeling on his part may be safely set down as one element of his wonderful success in organizing the loyal American people for the tremendous conflict before them, and bringing them safely through that conflict. His great mission was to accomplish two things: first, to save his country from dismemberment and ruin ; and second, to free his country from the great crime of slavery. To do one or the other, or both, he must have the earnest sympathy and the powerful co-operation of his loyal fellow countrymen. Without this primary and essential condition to success his efforts must have been vain and utterly fruitless. Had he put the abolition of slavery before the salvation of the Union, he would have inevitably driven from him a powerful class of the American people and rendered resistance to rebellion impossible. Viewed from the genuine abolition ground, Mr. Lincoln seemed tardy, cold, dull, and indifferent ; but measuring him by the sentiment of his country, a sentiment he was bound as a statesman to consult, he was swift, zealous, radical, and determined. Though Mr. Lincoln shared the prejudices of his white fellow-countrymen against the negro, it is hardly necessary to say that in his heart of hearts he loathed and hated slavery. The man who could say, "Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war shall soon pass away, yet if God wills it continue till all the wealth piled by two hundred years of bondage shall have been wasted, and each drop of blood drawn by the lash shall have been paid for by one drawn by the sword, "I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. I cannot remember when I did not so think and feel judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether" gives all needed proof of his feeling on the subject of slavery. He was willing, while the South was loyal, that it should have its pound of flesh, because he thought that it was so nominated in the bond; but farther than this no earthly power could make him go. Fellow-citizens, whatever else in this world may be partial, unjust, and uncertain, time, time! is impartial, just, and certain in its action. In the realm of mind, as well as in the realm of matter, it is a great worker, and often works wonders. The honest and comprehensive statesman, clearly discerning the needs of his country, and earnestly endeavoring to do his whole duty, though covered and blistered with reproaches, may safely leave his course to the silent judgment of time. Few great public men have ever been the victims of fiercer denunciation than Abraham Lincoln was during his administration. He was often wounded in the house of his friends. Reproaches came thick and fast upon him from within and form without, and from opposite quarters. He was assailed by Abolitionists; he was assailed by slaveholders; he was assailed by the men who were for peace at any price; he was assailed by those who were for a more vigorous prosecution of the war; he was assailed for not making the war an abolition war; and he was most bitterly assailed for making the war an abolition war. But now behold the change: the judgment of the present hour is, that taking him for all in all, measuring the tremendous magnitude of the work before him, considering the necessary means to ends, and surveying the end from the beginning, infinite wisdom has seldom sent any man into the world better fitted for his mission than Abraham Lincoln. His birth, his training, and his natural endowments, both mental and physical, were strongly in his favor. Born and reared among the lowly, a stranger to wealth and luxury, compelled to grapple singlehanded with the flintiest hardships from tender youth to sturdy manhood, he grew strong in the manly and heroic qualities demanded by the great mission to which he was called by the votes of his countrymen. The hard condition of his early life, which would have depressed and broken down weaker men, only gave greater life, vigor and buoyancy to the heroic spirit of Abraham Lincoln. He was ready for any kind and any quality of work. What other young men dreaded in the shape of toil, he took hold of with the utmost cheerfulness.

A spade, a rake, a hoe,

A pick-axe or a bill;

A hook to reap, a scythe to mow,

A flail, or what you will.

ALL DAY LONG HE COULD SPLIT HEAVY RAILS

in the woods, and half the night long he could study his English grammar by the uncertain flare and glare of the light made by a pine knot. He was at home on the land with his axe, with his maul, with gluts and his wedges; and he was equally at home on water with his oars, with his poles, with his planks and with his boathooks. And whether in his flatboat on the Mississippi river, or at the fireside of his frontier cabin, he was a man of work. A son of toil himself he was linked in brotherly sympathy with the sons of toil in every loyal part of the Republic.

Had Abraham Lincoln died from any of the numerous ills to which flesh is heir; had he reached that good old age of which his vigorous constitution and his temperate habits gave promise; had he been permitted to see the end of his great work; had the solemn curtain of death come down but gradually, we should still have been smitten with a heavy grief and treasured his name lovingly. But dying as he did die, by the red hand of violence; killed, assassinated, taken off without warning, not because of personal hate, for no man who knew Abraham Lincoln could hate him, but because of his fidelity to Union and liberty, he is doubly dear to us, and will be precious forever.

Fellow-citizens, I end as I began, with congratulations. We have done a good work for our race to-day. In doing honor to the memory of our friend and liberator we have been doing highest honor to ourselves and those who come after us. We have been fastening ourselves to a name and fame imperishable and immortal. We have also been defending ourselves from a blighting slander. When now it shall be said that the colored man is soulless; that he has no appreciation of benefits or benefactors; when the foul reproach of ingratitude is hurled at us, and it is attempted to scourge us beyond the range of human brotherhood, we may calmly point to the monument we have this day erected to the memory of Abraham Lincoln.