The life and public services of Abraham Lincoln ... together with his state papers, including his speeches, addresses, messages, letters, and proclamations, and the closing scenes connected with his life and death. By Henry J. Raymond. To which are added anecdotes and personal reminiscences of President Lincoln, by Frank B. Carpenter.

STATE PAPERS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 143
representative of the American people. I could not, if I would, address
you at any length. I have not the strength, even if I had the time, for a
speech at each of these many interviews that are afforded me on my way
to Washington. I appear merely to see you, and to let you see me, and
to bid you farewell. I hope it will be understood that it is from no disinclination to oblige anybody that I do not address you at greater length.
At Syracuse, where preparations had been made to give
him a formal reception, he made the following remarks
in reply to an address of welcome from the Mayor:LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: I see you have erected a very fine and handsome platform here for me, and I presume you expected me to speak from
it. If I should go upon it, you would imagine that I was about to deliver
you a much longer speech than I am. I wish you to understand that I
mean no discourtesy to you by thus declining. I intend discourtesy to no
one. But I wish you to understand that, tlhough I am unwilling to go
upon this platform, you are not at liberty to draw any inferences concerning any other platform with which my name has been or is connected.
[Laughter and applause.] I wish you long lift and prosperity individu
ally, and pray that with the perpetuity of those institutions under which
we have all so long lived and prospered, our happiness may be secured,
our future made brilliant, and the glorious destiny of our country established forever. I bid you a kind farewell.
At Utica, where an immense and most enthusiastic
assemblage of people fiom the surrounding country had
gathered to see him, Mr. Lincoln contented himself by
saying:LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:-I have no speech to make to you, and no time
to speak in. I appear before you that I may see you, and that you may
see me; and I am willing to admit, that so far as the ladies are concerned,
'I have the best of the bargain, though I wish it to be understood that I
do not make the same acknowledgment concerning the men. [Laughter
and applause.]
The train reached Albany at half-past two in the afternoon, where Mr. Lincoln was formally received by the
Mayor in a complimentary address, to which he thus
replied:
MR. MAYOR:-I can hardly appropriate to myself the flattering terms in
which you communicate the tender of this reception, as personal to myself. I most gratefully accept the hospitalities tendered to me, and will
not detain you or the audience with any extended remarks at this time.