with so vigorous a grasp, and so pilot the ship of state among the fearful breakers as to bring her safe to port with colors flying and not a spar lost. Alas! that the firm hand should now be nerveless, the bold heart cold and lifeless, and that the cup of joy should be so rudely dashed from the lips of the great people whom he had so faithfully served in the crisis of their destiny!

The assassination seems unquestionably to have been the result of a conspiracy to which various southern sympathizers were parties. The villain whose hand struck down President Lincoln is stated to be a person named J. Wilkes Booth, a brother of Edwin Booth, the actor, and in his trunk was found a letter which showed that the horrid deed was to have been perpetrated on the fourth of March, when Mr. Lincoln's second term of office began. It has, therefore, been no sudden inspiration of frenzy caused by the fall of Richmond, but the deliberate calculation of cold blooded miscreants. The intention was not consummated sooner because some expected instructions, or aid, or encouragement, had not been received from Richmond. We cannot believe that the designs of the conspirators were known to and approved by the heads of the southern government, but it is not at all impossible that some leading secessionists may have aided in the conspiracy and encouraged its execution. It was known that the earlier attempt when Mr. Lincoln was about to take office was known to and

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approved by many persons of influence and standing, and more than one influential fanatic in the course of the war has openly offered rewards for the heads of northern abolitionists. The murder was at length effected in the most cruel and barbarous manner. Seated in the theatre at Washington, beside his wife and another lady, and attended by only one officer, a stranger suddenly made his appearance at the door of the box, and stated that he had despatches from General Grant. That general had been advertised to be present on the same evening, but he and his wife had gone to Burlington on a visit. The simple state of the republican President permitted the stranger easily to get access to his victim, who it would seem never turned his head-his thoughts probably far away on those fields of battle where so many have died that the republic might live. The assassin instantly raised his pistol and shot the President in the back of the head, the bullet lodging in the brain. We have as yet no details of the scene of consternation in the theatre, the anguish of Mrs. Lincoln, and the despair of the people when they saw one so beloved so basely smitten; but there needs no description. It is easy to imagine it all—all except the unutterable anguish of the woman who has been the support and solace of the President during many weary months of anxiety and suffering. To his wife Mr. Lincoln was tenderly attached. His first action after receiving the notice of his election by the Chicago convention

of 1860 as the candidate of the republican party was to leave his political friends with whom he had been waiting for the news, and proceed home saying,

There's a little woman down at our house would like to hear this. I will go and tell her.' The barbarians were not content with this one noble victim. About the same time another, and even more callous, southern fiend proceeded to the residence of Mr. Seward, and, under pretence of carrying medicine to the sick chamber, managed to get access to the chamber where the secretary of state lay suffering from his recent accident. Mr. Frederick W. Seward, the son of the secretary, attempted to prevent him, but was cruelly wounded. A male attendant was stabbed - through the lungs, and then the miscreant sprang forward to the bed and stabbed with many wounds the statesman who lay helpless. When the cries of the nurse and of a young daughter who was by her father's bedside brought Major Seward, another son, to his father's apartment, the assassin likewise fell upon him and severely wounded him. Most foul deed that ever pen recorded or demon perpetrated! A sick man lying helpless on his couch of pain thus barbarously assailed, a son eager to save a father's life thus foully wounded! It illustrates in a yet more awful manner the innate barbarism of that system of society based on slavery which can breed criminals of so deep a dye. The official report of Mr. Stantont which will be found elsewhere, expressly states tha'

these deeds of horror were the result of a conspiracy among the rebels, and the greatness of the enormities must now prove to the world that the attempt to set fire to New York, and to destroy in one horrible holocaust the women and children, the aged and infirm, of a populous city was no hallucination of the federal government, but a grim reality of desperadoes — the spawn of the slave power. These are specimens of that chivalry of the south over which some English men and women have been heretofore shedding maudlin tears. It is a chivalry which can murder a gentle and noble man in presence of his wife; which can stab a father with furious blows on his sick bed in presence of a little daughter who ministers to his wants, and which can ruthlessly sacrifice two sons as they strive to save a father's life.

The election of Mr. Lincoln was hailed with delight by the people of the northern states, little dreaming that their right to elect him would have to be sustained in so fearful a manner, and when the time. came for him to proceed to Washington to execute the functions of President the whole country watched his progress with intense satisfaction. As he passed eastwards he had to make speeches at almost every town of any note, and many of the expressions which then fell from his lips were sufficiently remarkable. When passing through Indiana he thus spoke of state

rights. By the way, in what consists the special sacredness of a state? If a state and a county in a given case should be equal in extent of territory and equal in number of inhabitants, in what as a matter of principle, is the state better than the county? On what principle may a state, being not more than onefiftieth part of the nation in soil and population, break up the nation, and then coerce a proportionably larger subdivision of itself in the most arbitrary manner? What mysterious right to play tyrant is conferred on a district of country with its people by merely calling it a state?' In New Jersey he made use of a characteristic expression, which has been frequently quoted since. 'I shall do all that may be in my power to promote a peaceful settlement of all our difficulties. The man does not live who is more devoted to peace than I am, none who will do more to preserve it; but it may be necessay to put the foot down firmly.' How firmly, the south, the north, we and all men now know. When raising a flag in Philadelphia, he asked whether the Union could be saved upon the Declaration of Independence, and in answering his own question uttered words which sound prophetically after the occurrence which has so troubled the country-If this country cannot be saved without giving up that principle I was about to say I would rather be assassinated on this spot than surrender it'- and his last words on the occasion were -'I have said nothing but what I am willing to live