Harned/Whitman Box 6 Folder 35 Lincoln Material "Walt Whitman Last Night" 1880 (LC 317g-k-numbered as 295e)317g Proof or offprint of, WALT WHITMAN LAST NIGHT. 1p. 15-1/2 x 16cm. With directions for publisher and printer. Mounted and bound with other material in a single volume entitled "Lincoln Material." [(p.55)] 83 [* Re-numbered as 295e*] [*I send you an authentic copy, so that if you care to you can print in Friday morning's paper (as I deliver it on the evening previous) W.W.*] WALT WHITMAN LAST NIGHT April 15, 1880, at Association Hall, Philadelphia How often since that dark and dripping Saturday—that chilly April day, now fifteen years bygone—my heart has entertain'd the dream, the wish, to give of Abraham Lincoln's death its own special thought and memorial. Yet now the sought-for opportunity offers, I find my notes incompetent, (why, for truly profound themes, is statement so idle? why does the right phrase never offer?) and the fit tribute I dreamed of waits unprepared as ever. My talk here indeed is less because of itself or anything in it, and nearly altogether because I feel a desire, apart from any talk, to specify the day, the martyrdom. It is for this, my friends, I have called you together. Oft as the rolling years bring back this hour, let it again however briefly be dwelt upon. For my own part, I hope and intend, till my own dying day, whenever the 14th or 15th of April comes, to annually gather a few friends, and hold its tragic reminiscence. No narrow or sectional reminiscence. It belongs to These States in their entirety—not the North only, but the South—perhaps belongs most tenderly and devoutly to the South, of all: for there, really, this man's birth-stock. There and thence his antecedent stamp. Why should I not say that thence his manliest traits—his universality—his canny, easy ways and words upon the surface—his inflexible determination and courage at heart? Have you never realized it, my friends, that Lincoln, though grafted on the West, is essentially, in personnel and character, a Southern contribution? [*To printer don't mind the different type*] [*77*]