The Gavelyte, February 1909

cgDAit VILLE OLLEGE. saw his hnpes attained, hE>ard his prayers answered, and tasted the. delicions sweets of a true and irnpe, ishable victory, whose fame immortalized him be– cause uf his unselfish ancl unstintecl contributions to its success. The SPcond campaign for th!:' prPsidency, and this time with General ~IcCIPllan as Iii;-; c·ompetitor was passPd and won with a popular majority of nt->arly 500,000. The second inauguration hc.1cl taken place and the close of the Civil War had bPen . t:>aled at Appommattox and the whole .world was c·ongratnlating Mr. Lincoln and the Republi~ on the issue, while the pre::,;i– d.. nt with the load of the mighty confl ict removed was like a new man, l1ou.\ ant in spirit 2.nd setting r1hout for plans of liberal and just recon– !'-truetion, whieh might have repr1:1ssed the hitter spirit after the war long yt-'ars ago, if thPy had been carried out. Providence hac finished his task and had a higher glory for him than to settle the momentous questions of the war and the latPr y1:1ars The circumstance:-; of his death h we been so often rea.ri and told that thl:'re i:-1 no n!:'ed to repeat thP ~ad events at Ford's Theatre and in the dying h11urs f0llowing, wlwn th,-, whole wnrlrl was staggered at the inane, and wicked deed of .John Wilkes B,io th. PPrhaps one of the best PvidPnces of the feeling of the world is to bP, found in a cartoon whic;h appeared in THE LONDON TIMES the day after Lincoln's assassination. '!'hat paper had been a bitter and irrf>JJressible Pnemy to Mr. Lincoln. I1ut on that sad day it ap– pear1:1d with a eulogy hl'aded by a cartoon with ''Columhia" weeping at the dead pr1:1sid1:1nt':- side and ''Brittania" on the rther sirle ot the catafalque <1ffering a wreath and saying "the whole world weeps with you to-day." During the \\'ar, arno,:ig the many qul'stioni:; personal and national, which vexed Mr. Lincolr., none annoyed him more than General McClellan's _ delay and tbe neces:-ity of his rrcall, the emancipation of the slaves, (not that Linc·oln did not beli,-,ve in it,) but he was harassed from the very begin– ing for premature action; and the eternal annoyance of "peanut'' politicians. Forty-threP yflarf:l and more since his death have brought even his en..,miE>s to ac:kuowlt:>dge the wiAclom and rectitude of hh policies, the nation to claim him without reg<.1rd to sectional lines as a precious and common hE>ritagP, and thP world to numbPr hir, Hmong the tnwst of the tnw, the sincerl', t 11f thP ~inci>rP, and thP pun,l't of thf> pure. Whiff> the stati>ment of Stanton at Mr. Lin :·oh's death-bed is most befitting on thi8 centrnary, " ow hfl IH•long:-; to t lw :,gP, ." 1111· I \I•