Part 29 (2/2)

In the midst of the play, a half-crazed actor, who was familiar with the theatre, entered the President's box, shot him in the back of the head, jumped to the stage, and, shouting ”Sic semper tyrannis!” (So be it always to tyrants), rushed through the wing to the street. There he mounted a horse in waiting for him, and escaped, but was promptly hunted down and killed in a barn where he lay in hiding. The martyr-President lingered some hours, tenderly watched by his family and a few friends.

When on the following morning he breathed his last, Secretary Stanton said with truth, ”Now he belongs to the ages.” A n.o.ble life had pa.s.sed from the field of action; and the people deeply mourned the loss of him who had wisely and bravely led them through four years of heavy trial and anxiety.

Wise and brave as the leaders.h.i.+p of Abraham Lincoln was, however, the drain of the Civil War upon the nation's strength was well-nigh overwhelming. Nearly 600,000 men lost their lives in this murderous struggle, and the loss in wealth was not far short of $8,000,000,000.

But the war was not without its good results also. One of these, embodied later in the Thirteenth Amendment to the Const.i.tution, set free forever all the slaves in the Union; and another swept away for all time the evils of State rights, nullification, and secession. Webster's idea that the Union was supreme over the States had now become a fact which could never again be a subject of dispute. The Union was ”one and _inseparable_.”

[Ill.u.s.tration: Map of the United States showing the Southern Confederacy, the Slave States that did not Secede, and the Territories.]

The immortal words that Lincoln uttered as part of his Second Inaugural are worthy of notice, for in their sympathy, tenderness, and beautiful simplicity they reveal the heart of him who spoke them. This inaugural address was delivered in Was.h.i.+ngton on March 4, 1865, only about six weeks before Lincoln's a.s.sa.s.sination. It closed with these words:

”With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as G.o.d gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

REVIEW OUTLINE

THE MEXICAN WAR.

CONFLICT OVER THE EXTENSION OF SLAVERY.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN IN HIS KENTUCKY HOME.

THE LINCOLN FAMILY MOVES TO INDIANA.

THE FURNITURE AND THE FOOD OF THE BACKWOODS PEOPLE.

LITTLE ABE'S BUSY LIFE.

HIS PERSONAL APPEARANCE.

BACKWOODS MAKEs.h.i.+FTS.

HIS SCHOOL LIFE; HIS READING HABITS.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN AS A BOATMAN.

”HONEST ABE.”

HIS PHYSICAL STRENGTH.

HIS KINDNESS AND SYMPATHY.

HE IS ELECTED TO THE STATE LEGISLATURE.

THE GREAT DEBATE WITH STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN AS PRESIDENT.

HE ISSUES THE EMANc.i.p.aTION PROCLAMATION.

HIS a.s.sa.s.sINATION.

TO THE PUPIL

1. Explain the conflict between the North and the South over the extension of slavery.

2. Form mental pictures of the following: the ”camp”; the furniture and the food of the backwoods people; and Abraham Lincoln's personal appearance.

3. What were his reading habits?

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