Mr. Lincoln prepared the way for the reorganization of the government. Under him the old order of things was overthrown and the introduction of a new order became possible. Through his agency the Constitution of the United States has been brought into harmony with the Declaration of Independence. The system of slavery has perished, the institutions of the country have been reconciled to the principles of freedom, and in these changes we have additional guarantees for the perpetuity of the Union.
A just eulogy of Mr. Lincoln is a continuing encomium of the Republican Party. By the election of 1860 he became the head of that party and during the four years and more of his official life he never claimed to be better nor wiser than the party with which he was identified. From first to last he had the full confidence of the army and of the masses of the voters in the Republican Party, and of that confidence Mr. Lincoln was always assured. Hence he was able to meet the aspirations of rivals and the censures of the disappointed with a good degree of composure. To the honor of the masses of the Republican Party it can be said that they never faltered in their devotion to the President and in that devotion and in the fidelity of the President to the principles of the party were the foundations laid on which the greatness of the country rests.
The measure of gratitude due to Mr. Lincoln and to the Republican Party may be estimated by a comparison of the condition of the country when he accepted power in March, 1861, with its condition in 1885, and in 1893, when we yielded the administration to the successors of the men who had well-nigh wrecked the Government in a former generation.
The Republican Party found the Union a mass of sand; it left it a structure of granite. It found the Union a by-word among the nations of the earth, it left it illustrious and envied, for the exhibition of warlike powers, for the development of our industrial and financial resources in times of peace, for the unwavering fidelity with which every pecuniary obligation was met; for the generous treatment measured out with an unstinted hand to the conquered foe; and, finally, for the cheerful recognition of the duty resting upon the Republican Party and upon the country to enfranchise, to raise up, to recreate the millions that had been brought out of bondage.