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Lincoln's Last Speech:
On the night of April 11, two days after Lee's surrender to Grant, Lincoln gave his last speech. A crowd gathered outside the White House, calling for the President.
Lincoln stood at the window, just above the main door. Reporter Noah Brooks held a light so that the president could read. Tad gathered his father's pages as they fluttered to the floor.
In his speech, Lincoln hinted at his plans for the postwar South, and for the first time in public introduced the view that:
"It is also unsatisfactory to some that the elective franchise is not given to the colored man. I would myself prefer that it were now conferred on the very intelligent, and on those who serve our cause as soldiers."
The Last Speech He'll Ever Make:
In the crowd at Lincoln's speech that night was John Wilkes Booth. On hearing Lincoln's endorsement of black suffrage, the actor snorted, "That's the last speech he'll ever make."
"We meet this evening, not in sorrow, but in gladness of heart."
-- Abraham Lincoln, April 11, 1865 |