Yet now the sought-for opportunity offers, I find my notes
incompetent, (why, for truly profound themes, is statement so idle?
why does the right phrase never offer?) and the fit tribute I dream'd
of, waits unprepared as ever. My talk here indeed is less because
of itself or anything in it, and nearly altogether because I feel a
desire, apart from any talk, to specify the day, the martyrdom. It is
for this, my friends, I have call'd you together. Oft as the rolling
years bring back this hour, let it again, however briefly, be dwelt
upon. For my own part, I hope and desire, till my own dying day,
whenever the 14th or 15th of April comes, to annually gather a few
friends, and hold its tragic reminiscence. No narrow or sectional
reminiscence. It belongs to these States in their entirety--not the
North only, but the South--perhaps belongs most tenderly and devoutly
to the South, of all; for there, really, this man's birth-stock. There
and thence his antecedent stamp. Why should I not say that thence his
manliest traits--his universality--his canny, easy ways and words upon
the surface--his inflexible determination and courage at heart? Have
you never realized it, my friends, that Lincoln, though grafted on
the West, is essentially, in personnel and character, a Southern
contribution?
And though by no means proposing to resume the secession war to-night,
I would briefly remind you of the public conditions preceding that
contest. For twenty years, and especially during the four or five
before the war actually began, the aspect of affairs in the United
States, though without the flash of military excitement, presents more
than the survey of a battle, or any extended campaign, or series, even
of Nature's convulsions.
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