General Butler ceased speaking. What should be done with this great crowd of desperate men? What would they do with themselves?
Lincoln was dead; word came that Seward, with his throat cut, was dying. Men feared some dread conspiracy which would redden the North with innocent blood, and hand over the Government to treason and traitors.
Two men in this crowd said that “Lincoln ought to have been shot long ago.” A minute later one of them was dead; the other lay in the ditch, bleeding and dying. Thousands of men clutched, in their pockets, revolvers and knives, to be used on whoever said a word against the martyred President.
Suddenly from the extreme right wing of the crowd rose a cry: “The World!” “The office of the World!” “The World!”—and the mass began to move as one man toward that office. Where would this end? Destruction of property, loss of life, violence and anarchy, were in that movement, and apparently no human power could now check its progress.
Then a man stepped to the front of the balcony and held his arm aloft. His commanding attitude arrested universal attention. Perhaps he was going to give them the latest news. They waited. But while they listened, the voice—it was the voice of General Garfield—only said:
“Fellow-citizens: Clouds and darkness are around about Him! His pavilion is dark waters and thick clouds of the skies! Justice and judgment are the establishment of His throne! Mercy and truth shall go before His face! Fellow-citizens: God reigns, and the Government at Washington still lives!”
The tide of popular fury was stayed. The impossible had been accomplished. “The World” was saved; but that was not much. The safety of a great city was secured; and that was much.
Other meetings were held in New York City on that memorable day, and the magnetic speaker of the morning was called out again. In the course of an address that afternoon he uttered these words:
“By this last act of madness, it seems as though the Rebellion had determined that the President of the soldiers should go with the soldiers who have laid down their lives on the battle-field. They slew the noblest and gentlest heart that ever put down a rebellion upon this earth. In taking that life they have left the iron hand of the people to fall upon them. Love is on the front of the throne of God, but justice and judgment, with inexorable dread, follow behind; and when law is slighted and mercy despised, when they have rejected those who would be their best friends, then comes justice with her hoodwinked eyes, and with the sword and scales. From every gaping wound of your dead chief, let the voice go up from the people to see to it that our house is swept and garnished. I hasten to say one thing more, fellow-citizens. For mere vengeance I would do nothing. This nation is too great to look for mere revenge. But for security of the future I would do every thing.”
It is a remarkable fact that when the nation gave expression to its sorrow over Lincoln’s death, Garfield should have been so notably the voice which spoke that sorrow.