Viewing page 19 of 339

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

Freedoms Memorial

A monument is proposed to be erected in the city of Washington, by contributions from the Colored regiments of the National Army, & the Freedmen of all the United States, in honor of Abraham Lincoln, the great Emancipator, and in testimony of the gratitude of Four Millions of American Citizens to whom, under his administration & by the blessings of almighty God, the "inalienable" right of Freedom has been restored. He has fallen, the Martyr of Liberty, & it belongs espially to those for whose right he so nobly contended, at once to vindicate his memory & to prove that they are capable of appreciating the greatness of their deliverance & of the sacrifice by which it has been sealed. The first contribution was made on the day after the Presidents Assination, by an old Negro woman, an emancipated Slave, who gave five dollars to build a monument to good Massa Lincoln". It was her first earnings as a free woman! and was placed in the hands of the Western Sanitary Commission - with a note which was published in the Missouri Democrat May 2nd 1865. The suggestion was thus brought before and recommended by Bvt. Major Genrl. J. W. Davidson