HISTORY
Abraham Lincoln, The 16th President
Of The
United States of America
Born February 12th 1809,
Assassinated
April 14, 1865.
The Civil War Ended Six Weeks Later,
May 26th.
In The Same Year, The Thirteenth Amendment To
The U.S.
Constitution Abolishing Slavery Passed.
ABRAHAM
LINCOLN.
A
DISCOURSE
[ 45 Years After His Death ]
Given Through
MRS.
CORA L.
V. RICHMOND,
Pastor of the
Church of
the soul.
* * * *
Synopsis of an Address Given by the
Guide
of Mrs. Cora L. V. Richmond,
at the Regular Service of the
Church of the
Soul,
Sunday, February 2,
[1910]
Hall 309, Masonic Temple, Chicago Ill.
* * * *
The Church of the Soul holds Services in Hall 309, Masonic Temple,
Every Sunday at 11 A.M.; Sunday School at 10 A.M.
___________________________________________________________________________________
ABRAHAM
LINCOLN.
SYNOPSIS OF THE ADDRESS GIVEN BY
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
THROUGH THE INSTRUMENTALITY OF MRS.
CORA
L. V. RICHMOND
At the Regular Services of the
Church of the
Soul,
Sunday, Feb. 13, 1910, Hall 309,
Masonic
Temple, Chicago.
With a brief introduction by the
President
of the Board of Trustees of that church--- Mr. Waldo Dennis.
Introduction.
It was Sunday, Feb. 13, and therefore
Lincoln birthday-Sunday.
The regularly announced subject for the day, “Apollyon, the Destoyer,”
had been postponed, as I supposed, that the opportunity might not be
lost
of saying a few of the many things his life and character would
naturally
suggest. But suddenly the speaker announced, “What is to be said
to you on this occasion will not be of Lincoln, but by him.”
I was thrilled with joy and
expectation. Even
as a boy, at the end of the rebellion, as I poured over the life of
Lincoln
a great love went out to him. And again as I read what Miss
Tarbell
has gathered from the four quarters of the earth, my love consecrated
itself
to him anew. Through my adoration for him, I suffered with him in
all his crushing, torturing load of anxiety he carried as President,
and
I rejoiced with him in his relief and gratitude, when came the final
triumph.
And how I enjoyed every personal fact
about his boyhood,
the boyhood that was a prophetic revelation of the man, boy and man
alike,
characterized by a kindness that was angelic, and by an integrity that
was as simple and natural as it was unswerving; the unmistakable divine
life that was sent for the crisis needing his sweet patience and great
wisdom. To me Lincoln was the greatest man of our country, its
second
savior, commissioned from on high to redeem it from its sin of chattel
slavery. He was my soul’s adoration. And now I was to be
vouchsafed
this great blessed privilege, the privilege of hearing Lincoln declare
himself. That what he would say would be both profound and vital,
I was very sure.
And dear reader, when you have perused
the following
reproduction of what he said, perhaps you will understand the
satisfaction
that was mine. My spirit waited, expectant, eager to meet his, in
the inspiration which it was his to give.
In a line written [ed: posted] to Mrs. Richmond
the day following the address, Mr. Dennis wrote: “I am full of
to-day’s
services; the discourse by the dear Lincoln—and my heart goes out to
you
for making it possible, and to him for the inspiration; isn’t it
wonderful!
An instance of the highest mental phenomena known to the world.”
Address.
“With malice toward none, with charity
for all.”
“My country is the world, my countrymen
are all mankind.”
In the larger life of the spirit I
would say:
My country is the Universe, my countrymen are all souls.
Hero worship has ever been the curse of
the past;
people have mistaken the source of power and achievement; have
substituted
the human for the divine. One must not mistake his own part in
the
great fulfillments of the Infinite Purpose.
The great tide of loving and grateful
remembrance
must reach one even in the life of higher realities than earth can
give;
but the day of human birth and death are of small account compared with
the life that lies between and beyond them.
Grateful for all that the human heart
hath given,
in the personal and collective remembrance of the day just past, let us
turn from the personal to the national, from the national to the
universal
view of what the century has wrought for humanity.
Those who have followed the history of
the nation
that led up to the struggle between the North and the South, will
readily
grasp the idea that the signs indicating the approach of that conflict
were portentous and many; long before the immediate cause was
precipitated
upon the nation; that the very existence of chattel slavery, presumably
protected by the constitution, was a perpetual menace to the existence
of a representative government, and that the extension of slavery into
the then new states of the southwest meant the immediate forfeiture of
the liberty that had been gained. When, therefore, the struggle
in
Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, resulted in the admission of those states
without
slavery, or with compromise, it meant the approach of the final
struggle
of the South to gain supremacy.
A life-long abhorrence of chattel
slavery, a few
occasions for aiding in the struggle in the southwestern and border
States,
a wish that somehow and sometime in the near future the great blot
would
be removed from the escutcheon of the nation, this was all the
preparation
the one addressing you had for the duties into which he was ushered by
the great swirl of that political crisis: but others there were who
were
more perfectly prepared by years of experience and steadfast
maintenance
of the rights of all people to “life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness.”
It was necessary, at that juncture,
that one be chosen
to represent the side of the nation that had been newly awakened to the
perils of the hour, who was not known; whose name had not been so
closely
identified with the struggle in the past between the slave-holders and
the advocates of the abolition of slavery. It was thought that
the
one so chosen could give no offense to either section of the
country.
But the very fact that the newly awakened Republican party succeeded,
the
very fact that the victory was with the non-slave holding North, made
the
South aware that slavery, as a political power, was doomed. From
that time the subsequent results were inevitable.
Perhaps you are aware into what a great
and goodly
company the results of that election ushered the almost unknown
President:
The Congress of the United States held at that time the flower of
American
statesmanship; they were the strong hosts sent on in that hour of the
nation’s
need to upbear the hands of him who might have faltered, but for their
great and wise patriotism: Sumner, who had already tasted the violence
born of slavery; Wilson, Wade, Howard; but why name them? Their
work
bespoke their great insight and wonderful ability to cope with the
rapidly
culminating events. Let no one suppose that any other than that
master
mind of statesmanship---William H. Seward---that mind who dared
to
say that if the Constitution of the United States made slavery legal
there
was a “higher law” that made Freedom under the Constitution the
inalienable
right of every man born in this fair land. The cabinet was chosen
from the intrepid and far-seeing ones who gave to the one entrusted
with
executive power the strength of a mighty people, aroused as never
before
in the history of the country.
Not only were there in both houses of
Congress the
best minds that the nation could at that time produce, and in the
cabinet
the finest ability and the true spirit of statesmanship, but here was
ever
the unfailing help from above---the guidance not born of human
councils,
or of the earth; the Infinite Helper. There were His
messengers---not
dimly recognized as angels afar off---but veritable advisors and
friends
to whom one might turn with confidence and trust; for one can never
seek,
with the highest motive, for guidance, that the guidance does not come.
It is never oppression that strikes the
first blow---not
only in the act of oppression, but when brought face to face with Truth
and Freedom, strikes the first deadly blow to slay.
Slavery was doomed; and slavery struck
the first
blow at the heart of the nation. You know what followed, but
perhaps
you do not know how the human brain faltered and the human hand
hesitated,
and the human heart was wrung with anguish because of the inability to
cope with the mighty problems of the hour. War! That was
the
fearful thing that had been thrust upon us. When you praise over
much the feeblest man of that day-- the man who would have failed but
for
the statesmen whom the people sent to sustain him, please remember that
success crowned the Cause of the nation as the Cause of freedom, and
that
equal ability and perhaps equal sincerity in another cause, not of
freedom,
might not have led to victory.
Then, when the war was upon us and
there had been
defeat, the army and the people constituted the hosts that were led to
victory---not by the President but by one of the most modest,
unassuming
and peace-loving men whom the world has ever seen ---Ulysses S.
Grant---
without whom there could have been no day of final emancipation, no
victory
of the nation.
All this is now past history; yet
the one addressing
you remained long enough before being summoned from the mortal form to
realize, in some degree, the dangers into which the nation had been
plunged
during that dread ordeal of war and the almost equally dread ordeal of
victory and peace.
Chattel slavery was removed, but the
negro was not
free from the persecutions and abuses of an enslaving dominant race,
nor
had he yet overcome the long continued influence of servitude.
There
was much--- oh, so much, to do--- the problem of reconstruction, the
proper
balance between justice and mercy. Have these problems yet been
solved?
With all the rapid advancement of the negro in education and
preparation
for citizenship, is there equality and protection for that race before
the law throughout this country?
Other slaveries there are, imminent
then, precipitate
now. Perhaps you will recall the last message ever sent to the
Congress
of your country by the President of that time: Sounds of war had
been silenced by the loud acclaim of triumph and peace; your victorious
armies had entered the conquered capital of the erstwhile Southern
Confederacy;
the flag of the nation floated over the entire country; not yet united
but ready for reconstruction. There were other slaveries: In that
message to the especial Congress, convened to consider the problems of
peace--- the new peace ---there was one sentence, a warning as well as
a prophecy.
“I would warn the laboring man
against the
ever encroaching power of wealth.” Alas, that warning, justified
then, has been more than realized in the years that have intervened:
and
you are upon the very verge ---nay, you are in the very midst of the
conflict.
For the time labor is silenced or perhaps deadened in perception, by
the
newly awakened activity of the government in bringing to the bar of
justice
the greatest offenders against the people ---the gigantic trusts and
monopolies.
The secret of all this financial
power and
combination is not new: Andrew Jackson met and overcame it once when
the
Republic was comparatively new. During the war between the North
and South the one addressing you wrote to the Senator who was afterward
chairman of the reconstruction committee. “I have more difficulty
with Wall street than with the entire southern Confederacy.”
which
meant that Wall street was speculating upon the needs and misfortunes
of
the nation. This was not all: Contractors for the supplies of the
army and navy; “shoddy” productions of all kinds, found
their
way into the various departments. While your young men were
fighting
the battles for the preservation of the nation, these cormorants of
greed
and corruption were robbing the public treasure; the “sinews of war”
were
grudgingly supplied at usurious rates by Wall street and “neutral
nations”
of Europe.
From that time there has been one
continuous tide
of ruinous “prosperity” ---I do not mean that the legitimate
prosperity
and increase of the wealth by natural development is ruinous ---the
prosperity
born of speculation, of gambling in all the natural products of the
country.
The “strike” on the one hand, and the
“lockout” on
the other are the unfailing result of a system of corruption of men in
high places who have abused the confidence reposed in them and have
used
their vast influence to favor these acts and institutions of
oppression.
Anything that oppresses is wrong; and
when a system
becomes so oppressive that the government is obliged to take action
against
some of the foremost citizens of the country, it proves the existence
of
a great wrong.
All the great nations of the past
perished because
of corruption; Egypt for a thousand years led the world after her
conquests,
in the arts of peace; Rome, once the name that Paul quoted, “I too am a
Roman citizen,” became the plaything of a corrupt and dishonorable
“System.”
We have the examples of all the nations
of the earth.
Wars of conquest may bring temporary victory, but no nation can
permanently
exist that expects to gain by aggressive warfare the fair possessions
of
other nations.
The days of crude and brutal force as
the principal
factor in the “civilization” of the world are nearly over; and soon the
nation will awaken from its long struggling dream of material power by
“right of conquest” to that larger dream of the ideal
nation
whose Supreme Song is for that Liberty born of Justice.
If your boasted Republic is anything
more than a
mere name, if the Liberty you prize so highly is to be purified from
the
enslaving corruptions of partisan politics and financial exploitation,
if the ballot is to remain (aye and be extended to the other half of
creation---
woman) if the Dove of Peace now circling over the nations of the earth
---not finding a resting place from the contending floods of war and
oppression
---shall finally rest over this fair land it will be when you shall
have
arisen to the bright ideals of the greater day, the larger
Republic:
