Lincoln’s Last Wish
“Springfield! how happy four years hence will I be, to return there in peace and tranquillity!”—(To the Marquis of Chambrun, April, 1865.)
Assassination
At Springfield, immediately upon the election for President, Lincoln began to receive letters with lethal menaces. His friends took them as serious, and two or more carried weapons, and escorted him closely that no one with a dagger might reach his side. Calling on his stepmother for the farewell, she reiterated the general, and rising, fears. At Philadelphia, detectives and others whispered of a plot matured at Baltimore, and in his speech at raising the flag over Independence Hall he said pointedly:
“If this country cannot be saved without giving up this principle—liberty to the world—I was about to say I would rather be assassinated on the spot than surrender it.... I have said nothing but what I am willing to live by, and, if it be the pleasure of Almighty God, to die by.”—(Speech, Philadelphia, February, 1861.)