ROBERT G. INGERSOLL'S GREAT SPEECHES COMPLETE. INGERSOLL'S EULOGY ON LINCOLN. (Delivered in the Auditorium, Chicago, Feb. 12, 1892.) LADIES AND Gentlemen: — Eighty-three years ago to-day two babes were born-one in the woods of Kentucky amid the hardships and poverty of pioneers; one in England, surrounded by wealth and culture. One associated his name with the enfranchisement of labor, with the emancipation of millions, with the salvation of the Republic. He is known to us as Abraham Lincoln. The other broke the chains of superstition and filled the world with intellectual light and he is known to us as Charles Darwin. Because of these men the nineteenth century is illustrious. Every generation has its heroes, its iconoclasts, its pioneers, its ideals. The people always have been and still are divided, at least into two classes-the many, who with their backs to the sunshine, worship the past and the few' who keep their faces to the dawn-the many, who are satisfied with the world as it is; the few, who labor and suffer for the future, for those to be, and who seek to rescue the opressed, to destroy the cruel distinctions of caste, and to civilize mankind. Yet it somtimes happens that the liberator of one age becomes the oppressor of the next. His reputaton becomes so great-he becomes so revered and worshipped that the followers in his name attack the hero who endeavors to take another step in advance. In our country there were for many years two great political parties, and each of these parties had conservatives and extremists. The extremists of the Democratic party were in the rear, and wished to go back; the extremists of the Republican party were in the front, and wished to go forward. The extreme Democrat was willing to destroy the Union for the sake of slavery, and the extreme Republican was willing to destroy the Union. for the sake of liberty. Neither party could succeed without the vote of the extremists. This was the political situation in 1858-60. The extreme Democrats would not vote for Douglas but the extreme Republicans did vote for Lincoln. Lincoln occupied the middle ground, and was the compromise candidate of his own party. He had lived for many years in the intellectual territory of compromise-in a part of our country settled by Northern aud South. ern men-where Northern and Southern ideas met. and. the ideals of the two sections were brought together and compared. The sympathies of Lincoln, his ties of kindrd, were with the South. His conviction, his sense of justice, and his ideals, were with the North. He knew the horrors of slavery; and he felt the unspeakable ecstacies and glories of freedom. He had the kindness, the gentleness. of true greatness, and he could not have been a master; he had the manhood and independence of true greatness, and he could not have been a slave. He was just, and he was incapable of putting a burden upon others that he himself would not willingly bear. He was merciful and profound, and it was not necessary for him to read the history of the world to know that liberty and slavery could not live in the same nation or in the same brain. The Republc had reached a crisis, the conflict between Liberty and Slavery could no longer be delayed. From the heights of philosophy-standing above the contending hosts, above the prejudices, above the sertimentalities of this day-Lincoln was good enough and brave enough and wise enough to utter these prophetic words. |