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Show MR. WATTERSON'S SPECULATIONS. It is not very profitable to try to speculate as to what Mr. Lincoln's course would have been had he lived through his second term, for it was not to be. True, he had a much more level head, a much kindlier heart, a clearer and more merciful mer-ciful judgment than his successor; then, too, had he lived "the deep damnation of his talcing off" would not have embittered and intensified the furious passions of the north and it would have been easier for reason to sway men's minds. But had he lived the hate which had followed him so long would have continued. Why even Mr. Wat-terson Wat-terson will remember that notwithstanding the terms dictated by General Grant at Appomatox, he was more hated for years thereafter by the South than any other Northern general, except Butler. He was hated because he compelled the surrender, and even the mercy in his heart which I dictated those terms the South was years In recognizing. rec-ognizing. A war had been fought out with a fury unquenchable, it left only sick and graves and broken hearts along its bloody trail, and only time could heal the wounds and erase the hideous hid-eous scars. All that can safely be said of what . Mr. Lincoln would probably have done Is that "he would have done right as God gave him to see the right." But, as we said at the beginning, it was not to be. Years ebbed and flowed while the stage was being set for that unparalleled tragedy, and Mr. Lincoln's death was to be a somber picture in the closing act. And while in anguish his countrymen cried out: "art tlTdu dead? Could not the grave forget thee and lay low Some less majestic, less beloved head?" Ii availed nothing, for while human slavery was to be obliterated in the United States, that was not to be all. It was meant to show this free people that when National wrongs are committed in this country the penalty is for the whole nation na-tion to pay, and that while tricks of expediency may .postpone the accounting, stiirat last the full Principal with accumulated interest will always have to be paid. |