[Speech on the presentation to Congress of Carpenter's painting of President Lincoln and his Cabinet, at the time of his first reading of the Proclamation of Emancipation, January 16, 1878.]
Let us pause to consider the actors in that scene. In force of character, in thoroughness and breadth of culture, in experience of public affairs, and in national reputation, the cabinet that sat around that council-board has had no superior, perhaps no equal in our history. Seward, the finished scholar, the consummate orator, the great leader of the senate, had come to crown his career with those achievements which placed him in the first rank of modern diplomatists. Chase, with a culture and a frame of massive grandeur, stood as the rock and pillar of the public credit, the noble embodiment of the public faith. Stanton was there, a very Titan of strength, the great organizer of victory. Eminent lawyers, men of business, leaders of states, and leaders of men, completed the group.
But the man who presided over that council, who inspired and guided its determinations, was a character so unique that he stood alone, without a model in history, or a parallel among men. Born on this day, sixty-nine years ago, to an inheritance of extremest poverty, surrounded by the rude forces of the wilderness; wholly unaided by parents; only one year in any school; never, for a day, master of his own time until he reached his majority; making his way to the profession of the law by the hardest and roughest road; yet, by force of unconquerable will and persistent, patient work, he attained a foremost place in his profession,
"And, moving up from high to higher, Became, on fortune's crowning slope, The pillar of a people's hope, The centre of a world's desire."
At first it was the prevailing belief that he would be only the nominal head of his administration; that its policy would be directed by the eminent statesmen he had called to his council. How erroneous this opinion was, may be seen from a single incident. Among the earliest, most difficult, and most delicate duties of his administration, was the adjustment of our relations with Great Britain. Serious complications, even hostilities, were apprehended. On the 21st day of May, 1861, the Secretary of State presented to the President his draught of a letter of instructions to Minister Adams, in which the position of the United States and the attitude of Great Britain were set forth with the clearness and force which long experience and great ability had placed at the command of the Secretary.