South, though less boastful and confident. For four years war raged fiercely, success alternating with defeat. There were many despondent hours and dark days, and the President was urged to various measures for the good of the country, which he declined. Fault was found with him in various quarters; he was termed slow, obstinate, wrongheaded; but the end proved his consummate wisdom. He was a born leader of men. He understood his fellow-countrymen, the drift of events, and the needs of the time as no one else understood them. He steadily refused to proclaim emancipation until the occasion was ripe (September 22, 1862), and he was the man who knew when that would be.

The Fugitive Slave Law was repealed in June, 1864, and, about that date, Lincoln said in an interview: "There have been men base enough to propose to me to return our black warriors of Port Hudson and Olustee, and thus win the respect of the masters they fought. Should I do So, I should deserve to be damned in time and eternity. Come what may, I will keep my faith with friend and foe. My enemies pretend I am now carrying on this war for the sole purpose of abolition. So long as I am President, it shall be carried on for the sole purpose of restoring the Union. But no human power can subdue this Rebellion without the use of the emancipation policy, and every other policy calculated to weaken the moral and physical forces of the Rebellion."

The war, which had cost a million of lives, and millions on millions of money, practically closed with the fall of Richmond, April 9, 1865. But, while the popular rejoicing was at its height, the assassination of the great Presi

dent shocked the nation, and filled its heart with mourning. No single event has, it is safe to say, ever so filled the country with anguish and a sense of bereavement. The whole people were stunned and distressed beyond expression. Lincoln had grown upon them steadily and rapidly until they had all learned to admire, to trust, to love, and to revere him. He had become to every man, woman, and child as a near and dear personal friend. He was a most exalted character, one of the noblest representatives of humanity, a credit to his kind, an almost matchless man. He was the Father of his Country as much as Washington had been. The one gave us a republic; the other preserved it, when assailed by domestic enemies. As Emerson puts it, "By his courage, his justice, his even temper, his fertile counsel, his humanity, he stood a heroic figure in the center of a heroic epoch."

We are still

As time goes on, his reputation will grow. too near him to measure his greatness. He was such a man as nature produces only at long intervals; he was of the grandest type of men, of whom there have been few in the world. Sprung from the humblest, a mere backwoodsman, without education, training, or any kind of assistance or advantage, he learned, as by intuition, to use his native language, the greatest of all tongues, as the ripest scholars could not. In force and fitness of expression he has hardly been surpassed. His letters and speeches are models, the classics of unstudied effort, the oracles of the popular heart. Queer, raw, angular, awkward, homely of feature, no one could be long in his presence and hear him speak without feeling his unquestionable superiority. One forgot his physical defects and his strange uncouth

ness in the power and spirit of his wonderful individuality. He was as good as he was great, as broad as he was tender. He will not be forgotten; he is unforgetable. Even if America should decline and decay, he would make it remembered. He will always be recalled as the greatAmerican. If ever mortal were, Abraham Lincoln is booked for immortality. His fame is fixed in the center The future will revere him as an ideal of hu

of ages. inanity.

CHAPTER XLVI.

ANDREW JOHNSON AND ULYSSES S. GRANT, SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES.

Johnson's Early Life and Hard Struggles - A Tailor Who was more than the Ninth Part of a Man - His Views of Slavery and Secession - His Personal Courage and its Good Effects Politically His Disagreement with Congress about Reconstruction -- The Impeachment Trial - Grant in the Mexican War His Incompetency in Business - Finding his Place in the Civil War - His Extraordinary Success in the Field Called to Command the Army of the Potomac - His Political Mistakes and Alleged Greed of Power.

A

NDREW JOHNSON'S chief claim to distinction in

the future will probably be that he was elected Vice-President on the ticket with Abraham Lincoln, and that he succeeded him as President, after his assassination, April 15, 1865. His early life was very creditable, denoting what industry, energy, and perseverance may accomplish against extreme poverty, want of education, and every kind of obstacle. Born at Raleigh, N. C., December 29, 1808, he learned the trade of a tailor,— his father, who died when he was a child, had been a constable, a sexton, and a porter, and followed it for many years at the little town of Greenville, Tenn. He was a