Our Martyred President: an Address Delivered in Rochester, New York, on 15 April 1865
OUR MARTYRED PRESIDENT: AN ADDRESS DELIVERED
IN ROCHESTER, NEW YORK, ON 15 APRIL 1865
Rochester Democrat, 17 April 1865.
Douglass delivered these impromptu remarks on 15 April 1865 in the
Rochester City Hall during a public memorial service for President Abraham
Lincoln, who had died that morning from wounds inflicted by the assassin
John Wilkes Booth. Mayor Daniel David Tompkins Moore, who called the
meeting for 3:00 P.M., presided and was the first speaker. As the bells of the
city tolled, City Hall became “crowded with citizens long before the hour
named. A good many ladies were among the audience. Hundreds were unable
to obtain admission.” The Reverend Ezekiel Gilman Robinson, president of
Rochester Theological Seminary, Judge John C. Chumasero, and the Rever-
end R. Bethell Claxton, rector of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, each remarked
on the meaning of Lincoln’s death. Douglass, seated in the rear of the hall,
had not been invited to participate in the program. His presence was soon
noted, however, and a friend recalled that “his name burst upon the air from
every side, and filled the house.” Acceding to the wishes of the assembly,
Douglass went to the platform and offered his own meditations on the events
of the day. “I have heard Webster and Clay in their best moments,” Douglass’s
friend continued, “Channing and Beecher in their highest inspirations; I never
heard truer eloquence! I never saw profounder impression. When he finished,
the meeting was done.” Douglass himself acknowledged that, although he
had made many speeches in Rochester “which had more or less touched the
hearts of my hearers, . . . never till this day was I brought into such close
accord with them.” The meeting concluded with the unanimous adoption of
resolutions of grief and a prayer by the Reverend Mr. Robinson. Douglass,
Life and Times, 409-10; Holland, Frederick Douglass, 311; Amy Hanmer-
Croughton, “Anti-Slavery Days in Rochester," Publications of the Rochester Historical Society, 16: 151-52 (1936); F. DeW. Ward, Ecclesiastical History
of Rochester, N. Y., . . . From August, 1815, to July, 1871 (Rochester,
1871), 83—84.
Mayor Moore1Mayor Daniel David Tompkins Moore (1820-92) was born in Marcellus, New York, and apprenticed at age fifteen to the printing office of a Rochester newspaper. On the death of his brother, he succeeded to the proprietorship of the Jackson (Mich.) Weekly Gazette. In 1864 Moore purchased the Rochester Genesee Farmer and three years later founded Moore's Rural New-Yorker in the same city. This last venture, which attracted a large circulation owing to its high literary standards, relocated to New York City in 1868. Eventually forced to sell his journal, Moore later worked as the horticultural editor for various newspapers and periodicals. While residing in Rochester, he served as a city councilman in 1863 and 1864 as well as mayor for a one-year term. Landmarks of Monroe County, New York (Boston, 1895), 159; William F. Peck, History of Rochester and Monroe County, New York; From the Earliest Historic Times to the Beginning of 1907, 2 vols. (New York, 1908), 1: 198, 343, 349; Rossiter Johnson, ed., The Twentieth Century Biographical Directory of Notable Americans, 10 vols. (Boston, 1904), 7: 447. and Fellow Citizens: This call to address you on this occa-
sion was quite unexpected to me, and one to which I find it almost impossi-
ble to respond. If you have deep grief in the death of Abraham Lincoln,2Abraham Lincoln died at 7:22 A.M. on 15 April 1865. On the previous evening, he had attended a performance of Our American Cousin at Ford’s Theatre in Washington. D.C. At 10:00 P. M., Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth entered the president's unguarded box and shot Lincoln in the head from behind with a derringer pistol. Fatally wounded, Lincoln was carried out of the theater and across the street to the house of William Peterson, where he was placed upon a bed in a rear room. The president never regained consciousness and died surrounded by surgeons, cabinet members, congressmen, and other federal officials. Louis J. Weichmann, A True History of the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln and of the Conspiracy of 1865, ed. Floyd E. Risvold (New York, 1975), 147-58; Benjamin P. Thomas, Abraham Lincoln: A Biography (1952; New York, 1968), 520-21; Francis Wilson, John Wilkes Booth: Fact and Fiction of Lincoln's Assassination (Boston, 1929), 112-17; Neely, Abraham Lincoln Encyclopedia, 11-13.
and feel in it a severe stab at Republican institutions, I feel it on all these
accounts and more. I feel it as a personal as well as national calamity; on
account of the race to which I belong and the deep interest which that good
man ever took in its elevation. This is not an occasion for speech making,
but for silence. I have scarcely been able to say a word to any of those
friends who have taken my hand and looked sadly in my eyes to-day. A
dreadful disaster has befallen the nation. It is a day for silence and medita-
tion; for grief and tears. Yet I feel that though Abraham Lincoln dies, the
Republic lives; (cheers;) though that great and good man, one of the
noblest men [to] trod God’s earth, (applause,) is struck down by the hand of
the assassin, yet I know that the nation is saved and liberty established
forever. (Loud applause.) The human mind naturally turns from a calamity
like this, and endeavors, through its tears and anguish, to catch some gleam
of hope—some good that may be born of the tremendous evil. And I think
it is not inconsistent with this tearful occasion to discover through the
blinding mists that rise from this yawning gulf, the beautiful bow of prom-
ise spanning the gloom and giving hope to all. (Applause)
Only the other day, it seemed as if this nation were in danger of losing a
just appreciation of the awful crimes of this rebellion. We were manifesting
almost as much gratitude to Gen. Lee for surrendering as to Gen. Grant for
compelling him to surrender!3At Appomattox Court House, Virginia, on 9 April 1865, Robert E. Lee, general in chief of the armies of the Confederate States, surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to Union forces commanded by Ulysses S. Grant. Even more than the evacuation of Richmond, Virginia, one week before, this act signaled the effective collapse of the Southern rebellion. Robert Edward Lee (1807-70) was the son of Revolutionary hero Henry “Light-Horse Harry" Lee and a scion of one of Virginia's most distinguished families. He graduated from West Point in 1829 and throughout his military career attracted the praise of superiors, particularly for his service under Winfield Scott in the Mexican War. When Virginia seceded, he followed his beloved state into the Confederacy. Despite lackluster performance early in the war, Lee was given command of the main Confederate force in the Virginia theater in June 1862. From then on, Lee campaigned brilliantly, defeating Federal forces often twice the size of his own and staving off Confederate defeat in the East for nearly three years. After his surrender he returned to Richmond as a paroled prisoner of war. In September 1865 he became president of Washington College (now Washington and Lee University) in Lexington, Virginia. Lee scrupulously avoided involvement in the political controversies of Reconstruction. Douglas Southall Freeman, R. E. Lee: A Biography, 4 vols. (New York, 1934-35); Charles Bracelen Flood, Lee: The Last Years (Boston, 1981); Burke Davis, To Appomattox: Nine April Days, 1865 (New York, 1959), 96-101, 379-87; Long, Civil War Day by Day, 663-64, 670-71; DAB, 11: 120-29. (Cheers) It seemed to me that Gen. Lee was
about the most popular man in America. (Applause and laughter.) The
crimes of treason and slavery were [line obliterated] amnesty and oblivion
in behalf of men whose hands are red with the best blood of the land. (Loud
cheers.) Republics have proverbially short memories. I was afraid the
American people were growing weak. It may be in the inscrutable wisdom
of Him who controls the destinies of Nations, that this drawing of the
Nation’s most precious heart’s blood was necessary to bring us back to that
equilibrium which we must maintain if the Republic was to be permanently
redeemed. (Applause)
How I have to-day mourned for our noble President, I dare not attempt
to tell. It was only a few weeks ago that I shook his brave, honest hand,4Douglass attended Abraham Lincoln‘s second inauguration in Washington, D.C., on 4 March 1865. Following the address, Douglass went to the White House to attend the reception in the East Room. Guards attempted to bar his entry because he was black, but Lincoln intervened and Douglass joined the receiving line. When Douglass shook hands with the president, Lincoln remarked that he had seen him in the audience at the inaugural ceremonies and asked his opinion of the address. Douglass replied, “Mr. Lincoln, that was a sacred effort." This was the third and final time that Douglass and Lincoln met. Douglass, Life and Times, 398-404; Benjamin Quarles, Frederick Douglass (Washington, D.C., 1948), 233 (hereafter cited FD); Margaret Leech, Reveille in Washington, 1860-1865 (New York, 1941), 370; Christopher N. Breiseth, “Lincoln and Frederick Douglass: Another Debate,” Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, 68: 9-26 (February 1975).
and looked into his gentle eye and heard his kindly voice uttering those
memorable words—words which will live immortal in history, and be read
with increasing admiration from age to age:
Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray that this mighty scourge of
war may speedily pass away. Yet if God will that it continue until all the
wealth piled by the bondman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited
toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn by the lash shall be
paid by another, drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years
ago, so still must it be said, that the judgments of the Lord are righteous
altogether.5With only minor differences, this paragraph accurately quotes a passage from Abraham Lincoln’s second inaugural address, delivered on 4 March 1865. Basler, Collected Works of Lincoln, 8: 333. (Long continued applause.)
Brave good words are those; and I think, with Dr. Robinson,6Born on his family's farm near Attleboro, Massachusetts. Ezekiel Gilman Robinson (1815-94) graduated from Brown University in 1838 and from Newton Theological Institute in 1842. Although he considered himself temperamentally unsuited to pastoral duties, Robinson served as minister to Baptist churches in Norfolk, Virginia (1842-45), Cambridge, Massachusetts (1845-46), and Cincinnati, Ohio (1848-53). He held a more congenial post as professor of biblical interpretation at Western Baptist Theological Institute in Covington, Kentucky, from 1846 until 1848 when the school broke up over the slavery question. Beginning in 1853 Robinson held a professorship at Rochester Theological Seminary and became the school‘s president in 1860. His success as a fund-raiser for the seminary led to his appointment as president of Brown University. During his seventeen years in that office, he more than doubled Brown‘s endowment while simultaneously stiffening the university‘s academic and disciplinary policies. Robinson also edited the Christian Review from 1859 to 1864 and published several collections of his sermons, addresses, and essays. Blake McKerey, Rochester: The Flower City, 1855-1890 (Cambridge, Mass., 1949), 41, 88, 97, 197; Historical Catalogue of Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, 1764-1894 (Providence, 1895), 1, 13, 126; ACAB, 5: 285; DAB, 16: 43-44. that if
treason expects to gain anything by this hell-black assassination, it will be
awfully disappointed.7In an address that preceded Douglass's at the meeting, the Reverend Ezekiel G. Robinson declared, “If treason expected to reap any advantage from this foul and unnatural murder, never would treason be more disappointed." Rochester Democrat, 17 April 1865. To-day, to-day as never before this North is a unit!
(Great applause.) To-day, to-day as never before, the American people,
although they know they cannot have indemnity for the past—for the
countless treasure and the precious blood—yet they resolve to-day that
they will exact ample security for the future! (Cheers) And if it teaches us
this lesson, it may be that the blood of our beloved martyred President will
be the salvation of our country. Good man we call him; good man he was. If
“an honest man is the noblest work of God,”8Douglass quotes Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man, Epistle IV, line 248: “An honest Man's the noblest work of God." we need have no fear for the
soul of Abraham Lincoln. (Applause)
This new demonstration of the guilt of slavery, teaches another lesson.
Hereafter we must not despise any hand or any arm that has been uplifted in
defence of the Nation’s life. Let us not be in too much haste in the work of
restoration. Let us not be in a hurry to clasp to our bosom that spirit which
gave birth to Booth.9Born into a Maryland family of theatrical distinction, presidential assassin John Wilkes Booth (1838-65) made his stage debut in Baltimore at age seventeen. By the early 1860s some critics, including his older brother Edwin, a more accomplished and prominent tragedian, considered Booth to be one of the country's more promising young actors, noted for his passionate and athletic performances. Temporarily retiring from the stage in 1863. Booth returned to give several notable performances in 1864 and 1865, including one at Ford’s Theatre less than a month before the assassination. Unlike other members of his family, Booth abhorred Lincoln's emancipation policies and strongly supported the Southern cause, believing the war to be a contest against Northern tyranny. Although he did not join the Confederate army, he had, by the fall of 1864, concocted a plot to kidnap Lincoln, transport him to Richmond, and use him as a hostage, either to end the war in the South’s favor or to exchange him for Confederate prisoners. The capture of Richmond and Lee's surrender at Appomattox rendered that plan obsolete. Exactly when Booth decided to revise his plans to include assassination is not known, but on the evening of 14 April 1865 he achieved the immortality he so desperately desired by murdering Lincoln at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. After the crime Booth fled through Maryland to Virginia, where he and a fellow conspirator, David E. Herold, eventually took refuge in Richard H. Garrett’s barn outside Port Royal. On 26 April pursuing federal agents set the barn ablaze when Booth refused to surrender. Although the circumstances surrounding Booth‘s death remain controversial, it is generally accepted that he was the man who perished in the conflagration. Wilson, John Wilkes Booth; Lloyd Lewis, Myths after Lincoln (New York, 1941), 131-58; DAB, 2: 448-52. When we take to our arms again, as brethren, our
Southern foes, let us see to it that we take also our Southern friends.
(Cheers) Let us not forget that justice to the negro is safety to the Nation.
When the tall heads[?] of this Rebellion are swept off (as they will be)
(applause), in their tracks will spring up another race, their luckless sons,
to whom the wretched traitors will bequeath some infernal passions like
that which has caused our great bereavement. By their hand other officers
of the government will be stricken down. Where is our remedy? It is here:
know no man hereafter in all these States[?] by his complexion, but know
every man by his loyalty (cheers), and wherever there is a patriot in the
North or South, white or black, helping on the good cause, hail him as a
citizen, a kinsman, a clansman, a brother beloved! (Great applause.) Let us
not remember our enemies and disenfranchise our friends. The black man
will not only run everywhere to bring us information and to warn us of
dangerous plots, through marsh and fen and forest, will not only bear
exposure and privation, and lead and feed our fugitive prisoners, and bind
up their wounded feet, sheltering them by day and piloting them in the
darkness, will not only build for you ramparts of earth and solid stone, but
they offer you ramparts of flesh, and fight the battles of the nation amid
contumely and persecution. (Cheers.) For the safety of all, let justice be
done to each. I thank you, gentlemen, for the privilege of mingling my
sorrows and hopes with yours on this memorable occasion.