Page:The Civil War in America - an address read at the last meeting of the Manchester Union and Emancipation Society.djvu/91

Rh Slavery in the United States, he gradually and cautiously developed an Anti-Slavery policy, which resulted in the issue of an Emancipation Proclamation, by which every slave in the rebel States is now free; and he lived to see adopted by Congress an amendment of the constitution abolishing for ever Slavery in the United States.

“He has not been permitted to witness the final achievement of this great work, but his name will ever be associated in history with the removal of this dark stain from your national escutcheon.

“It is not alone, or chiefly on grounds of philanthropy that we have sympathised in his objects and aims. From the period when we beheld a section of your community, when defeated at the ballot box, appealing to the arbitrament of the sword, without even the pretence of a grievance, excepting the alleged danger to the institution of Slavery, we regarded free constitutional government as on its trial, and we have viewed with unvarying satisfaction the uniform consistency with which he always upheld the maintenance of the Union as paramount to every other consideration.

“In the recollection of these things, we desire now, through you, to express our deep sympathy with your loyal fellow-citizens in the grievous loss you have sustained: a loss which, at this important crisis in your country’s history, cannot fail to produce serious and anxious concern.

“In the midst of gloom, however, we are consoled by the reflection that the world is ruled by principles—not by men; and that while the most distinguished statesmen are constantly passing away, the principles which they have propounded are immortal.

“Mr. Lincoln, it is true, has departed, but he has