it than by running backward over them? Concede that the new government of Louisiana is only to what it should be as the egg is to the fowl, we shall sooner have the fowl by hatching the egg than by smashing it. [Laughter.]

"Again, if we reject Louisiana we also reject one vote in favor of the proposed amendment to the national Constitution. To meet this proposition, it has been argued that no more than three-fourths of those States which have not attempted secession are necessary to validly ratify the amendment. I do not commit myself against this further than to say that such a ratification would be questionable and sure to be persistently questioned, while a ratification by three-fourths of all the States would be unquestioned and unquestionable.

"I repeat the question, can Louisiana be brought into practical relation with the Union sooner by sustaining or by discarding her new State government? What has been said of Louisiana will apply to other States. And yet so great peculiarities pertain to each State and such important and sudden changes occur in the same State, and withal so new and unpredented is the whole case, that no exclusive and inflexible plan can safely be prescribed as to details and collaterals. Such exclusive and inflexible plan would surely become a new entanglement.

"Important principles may and must be inflexible. In the present situation, as the phrase goes, it may be my duty to make some new announcement to the people of the South. I am considering and shall not fail to act when satisfied that action will be proper."

The President, during the delivery of the above speech, was frequently interrupted by applause, and on its conclusion, in the midst of the cheering the band ⚫ struck up a patriotic air, when he bowed and retired. Repeated calls for Senator Sumner were then made, but he was not present.

Senator Harlan, of Iowa, was called for, and after the applause had subsided he directed attention to two principles settled or to be settled by the closing contest: First, that the American people had decided that the majority of the voters of the republic should control its destinies and the incipient processes of making its laws. Second, that no part of the republic should ever be permitted by force to divide it.

The punishment of traitors lay in the hands of Congress, and the Constitution pointed out clearly what constituted treason. Those who hatched the treason should suffer the penalty, and under Congress he was willing to trust the future in the hands of the citizen elected a second time to see the laws faithfully executed.

Senator Harlan's remarks were applauded, and the assemblage dispersed after vociferous huzzas and music by the band. A larger and more enthusiastic meeting was seldom, if ever before, held in front of the execu tive mansion.

On the same day the President had issued the following important proclamation, claiming that our vesselsof-war in foreign ports should no longer be subjected to restrictions as at present, but should have the same rights and hospitalities which are extended to foreign men-of-war in the ports of the United States, and declaring that hereafter the cruisers of every nation should receive the treatment which in those ports, they accord to ours, as follows:

"WHEREAS, For some time past vessels-of-war of the United States have been refused in certain ports privileges and immunities to which they were entitled by treaty, public law, or the

comity of nations, at the same time that vessels-of-war of the country wherein the said privileges and immunities have been withheld have enjoyed them fully and uninterruptedly, in the ports of the United States, which condition of things has not always been forcibly resisted by the United States, although, on the other hand, they have not at times failed to protest against and declare their dissatisfaction with the same. In the view of the United States no condition any longer exists which can be claimed to justify the denial to them by any one of said nations of the customary naval rights such as has heretofore been so unnecessarily persisted in; now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, do hereby make known that if, after a reasonable time shall have elapsed for the intelligence of this proclamation to have reached any foreign country in whose ports the said privileges and immunities shall have been refused as aforesaid, they shall continue to be so refused, then and thenceforth the same privileges and immunities shall be refused to the vessels-of-war of that country in the ports of the United States, and this refusal shall continue until the war vessels of the United States shall have been placed upon an entire equality in the foreign ports aforesaid with similar vessels of other countries. The United States, whatever claim or pretence may have existed heretofore, are now at least entitled to claim, and concede an entire and friendly equality of rights and hospitalities with all maritime

nations.

"

'In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

"Done at the City of Washington, this eleventh day of April,

in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and [L. S.] sixty-five, and of the independence of the United States of America the eighty-ninth.

"By the President:

"ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

"WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State."

CHAPTER XVI.

THE ASSASSINATION, AND ITS EFFECTS UPON THE COUNTRY. Threats of Assassination.-Details of the arrangements made by the Conspirators. Booth's strange conduct and excited manner on the day of the Assassination.-President Lincoln's last hours among his family and friends.-Goes to the theatre.-The Deed.-Statements of Major Rathbone, Miss Harris and others.-The Death-bed scene. The attack on Secretary Seward.-The news in Washington.-Its effects on the Nation. The Editorial of the New York World.-Public emotion in New York and elsewhere.-Rev. Dr. Bellows' discourse.-Remarks of the Roman Catholic Archbishop.-Rev. H. W. Beecher's discourse.-The effect of the news upon Europe.-The reception in London.—The scene of its announcement in the Liverpool Exchange.-Official condolences.-Letter from the French Government.-Tribute of the Italian Chamber of Deputies.-Belgium joins in the general grief.-A commemorative service in Berlin.

GOOD FRIDAY, the 14th of April, has become a day ever memorable in American annals. Being the anniversary of Major Anderson's evacuation of Fort Sumter, the opening scene of the terrible four years' civil war, just ended, it had been appointed as a day of national thanksgiving and rejoicing-in singular forgetfulness of the fact that, from earliest times it was, to the Christian world, a commemoration of the death of the Saviour. Richmond was ours; the rebel General Lee and his army were prisoners; Johnston's army on the eve of surrender; and this day General Anderson, amid the thunder of echoing cannon, and the cheers and congratulations of loyal men, raised the beloved flag of his country over the ruins of Sumter, from which, four

years before, he had been driven, by the overpowering force of armed treason.、

President Lincoln was already planning ways of peace; the reduction of the national army, and of the heavy expenditures of the War Department; the reconstruction and restoration of the southern States, to the Union from which they had madly torn themselves; the softening of all the asperities, and the healing of all the wounds, social and political, which had been engendered by this terrible civil strife—such were his first thoughts and cares.

At the first breath of returning peace, the sword had turned to the olive-branch in his hand; and his great heart gladly threw off the armor of defence, for the garment of mercy. This hour of triumph was, to him, not so much a lessening, as a change of responsibility. In that hour, he was relieved from these responsibilities, and set free from all the cares of earth, by the sudden act of an assassin-which, when we consider its success, the ease with which it was accomplished, and the rapidity of the murderer's escape, is almost without a parallel in history.

In a public concourse, and in the presence of hundreds, the chief of a great nation was murdered in an instant, and for a long time no trace of the recognized assassin could be found, although he must have galloped in the dead hour of night past officers and sentries, apparently unquestioned and unchecked.

A plot, the whole extent and ramifications of which have never yet been fully made known, had long been formed to assassinate the President and the prominent Originating apparently in the

members of the Cabinet.