case Mr. Lincoln should die, Mr. Johnson should exercise supreme authority?' It would almost seem that those journals had a presentiment of the new afflictions which were to fall upon America."

From the MONITEUR.

"The news of the double assassination of Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Seward has excited in France a movement of general indignation. Public opinion is unanimous in branding with reprobation a crime so odious, and in paying a tribute of regret to the memory of the President of the United States."

From the DEBATS.

'People, it observes, now ask themselves what are likely to be the political consequences of the death of President Lincoln. We do not think that this catastrophe will sensibly modify the situation. Without doubt, we are far from rendering the Southern cause responsible for the crime of a few fanatics, but the fact is not the less true that the horror inspired by an act so atrocious can only have the effect of diminishing the sympathies which the Separatists might still meet with in Europe; already vanquished materially, or nearly so, they are now undergoing a moral defeat also. All that is to be feared is that the North in its exasperation may allow itself to be hurried into taking reprisals, or at least that the feelings of conciliation towards the Secessionists, of which it was beginning to afford proofs, may give place to sentiments of quite a different nature, and that it may profit by its victory to impose rigorous conditions on the South. We have, however, too much confidence in the good sense of the North to conceive serious apprehensions on that subject. Its legitimate indignation will not make it deviate from the line of moderation and prudence which it has so far followed; it will understand that the best way of honouring the memory of Mr. Lincoln is not to depart from the political traditions of that statesman."

The eminent French historian, M. Henri Martin, writes as follows to the Siècle, upon the assassination of Mr. Lincoln:

"Slavery, before expiring, has gathered up the remnants of its strength and rage to strike a coward blow at its

conqueror. The Satanic pride of that perverted society could not resign itself to defeat; it did not care to fall with honour, as all causes fall which are destined to rise again; it dies as it has lived, violating all laws, divine and human. In this we have the spirit, and perhaps the work of that famous secret association, the Golden Circle, which after preparing the great rebellion for twenty years, and spreading its accomplices throughout the West and North, around the seat of the Presidency, gave the signal for this impious war on the day when the public conscience finally snatched from the slaveholders the government of the United States. The day on which the excellent man whom they have just made a martyr was raised to power, they appealed to force, to realize what treason had prepared. They have failed. They did not succeed in overthrowing Lincoln from power by war; they have done so by assassination. The plot appears to have been well arranged. By striking down with the President his two principal ministers, one of whom they reached, and the General-in-Chief, who was saved by an accidental occurrence, the murderers expected to disorganize the Government of the Republic and give fresh life to the rebellion. Their hopes will be frustrated. These sanguinary fanatics, whose cause has fallen not so much by the material superiority as the moral power of democracy have become incapable of understanding the effects of the free institutions which their fathers gloriously aided in establishing. A fresh illustration will be seen of what those institutions can produce. The indigna tion of the people will not exhaust itself in a momentary outburst; it will concentrate and embody itself in the unanimous, persevering, invincible action of the universal will; whoever may be the agents, the instruments of the work, that work, we may rest assured, will be finished. The event will show that it did not depend upon the life of one man or of several men. The work will be completed after Lincoln as if finished by him; but Lincoln will remain the austere and sacred personification of a great epoch, the most faithful expression of democracy. This simple and upright man, prudent and strong, elevated step by step from the artizan's bench to the command of a great nation, and always without parade and without effort at the height of his position, executing without precipitation, without flourish, and with invincible good sense, the most colossal acts, giving to the world this decisive example of the civil power in a republic, directing a gigantic war, without free institutions being for

an instant compromised or threatened by military usurpation, dying finally at the moment in which, after conquering, he was intent on pacification-and may God grant that the atrocious madmen who killed him have not killed clemency with him, and determined instead of the peace he wished, pacification by force-this man will stand out in the traditions of his country and the world as an incarnation of the people and of modern democracy itself. The great work of emancipation had to be sealed, therefore, with the blood of the just, even as it was inaugurated with the blood of the just. The tragic history of the abolition of slavery which opened with the gibbet of John Brown, will close with the assassination of Lincoln. And now let him rest by the side of Washington, as the second founder of the great republic. European democracy is present in spirit at his funeral, as it voted in its heart for his re-election, and applauded the victory in the midst of which he passes away. It will wish with one accord to associate itself with the monument that America will raise to him upon the capital of prostrate slavery."

M. Peyrat writes as follows in the Avenir National :

"Abraham Lincoln receives his reward, the only one he would have longed for if ambition of any kind could have entered the heart of that great citizen; the two worlds are mourning his death. What is especially striking and noteworthy in the effect produced here by this unexpected news, is the universal conviction that the death of one man, however great he may be, can neither disturb the affairs nor shake the institutions of the American Republic. Among a really free people there are neither necessary nor providential men, there are citizens. All the better for that nation if those citizens are great, devoted, and honest, like Lincoln; but, as it is the institutions there which make the men, the greatness of a citizen is never detrimental to the welfare of the nation. With the theory of providential men we commence with Washington, but we never know with whom to finish. With the theory which subordinates men to institutions, and which makes them, especially the greatest, the servants of the right, we commence with Washington and finish with Lincoln, or rather do not finish; we go from honest man to honest man, from good citizen to good citizen. We see Andrew Johnson, when installed as President twelve hours after the death of Lincoln, bow

before the national representation, speak not of his rights, but of his duties, and declare that he will faithfully fulfil them. The United States have the freest, the gentlest, and at the same time the strongest government on earth. What distinguishes them above all is not so much the courage with which they have conquered their independence as the wisdom with which they have constituted their liberty. That a nation driven to desperation should overthrow its oppressors is one of the commonest facts of history; what is more rare is that a nation, energetic enough to gain its rights, should be vigilant and firm enough to retain them. To conquer liberty merely to lose it, to possess and not know how to make use of it, that is to say, not know how to be free, such has been the sight afforded more than once by European democracy. But to strengthen liberty after having conquered it, to guarantee it by vigorous institutions, to form around it by good laws an impenetrable rampart, and preserve it thus from its own errors, is a secret which antiquity never possessed, which Europe is but little acquainted with, and which the new world has revealed to the old. The guarantee of liberty is fidelity to principles; they are the compass which in great political crises should serve as guides to the men who rule the destinies of nations. And it is because he was devoted to liberty, even to martyrdom, that Lincoln is mourned in the two worlds, and that he has, as we said three days ago, his place marked out by the side of Washington. He was not, we admit, what is called a man of genius, and, far from regretting this, we ought to rejoice at it, for he has shown what may be done, even without great talents, by elevation and firmness of character, political honesty, and devotion to the cause of justice and liberty.”

MR. LINCOLN'S LAST SPEECH.

The following is the full text of the speech delivered at Washington on the evening of the 11th of April, 1865, by President Lincoln :—

"We meet this evening not in sorrow but in gladness of heart. The evacuation of Petersburg and Richmond, and surrender of the principal insurgent army, gives hopes of a righteous peace, whose ioyous expression cannot be

restrained. In the midst of this, however, He from whom all blessings flow must not be forgotten. A call for a national thanksgiving is being prepared, and will be promulgated throughout the country. Nor must those whose harder part gives us the cause of rejoicing be overlooked; their honours must not be parcelled out with others. I myself was near the front, and had the high pleasure of transmitting much of the good news to you, but no part of the honour for the plan or execution is mine. To General Grant, his skilful officers and brave men, it all belongs. The gallant navy stood ready, but was not in reach to take active part. By these recent successes the reinauguration of the national authority, the reconstruction of which has had a large share of thought from the first, is pressed much more closely upon our attention. It is fraught with great difficulty. Unlike a case of war between independent nations, there is no authorized organ for us to treat with; no one man has authority to give up the rebellion for any other man. We simply must begin with, and mould from, disorganized and discordant elements. Nor is it a small additional embarrassment that we, the loyal people, differ among ourselves as to the mode, manner, and measure of reconstruction. As a general rule, I abstain from reading the reports of attacks upon myself, wishing not to be provoked by that to which I cannot properly return an answer. In spite of this precaution, however, it comes to my know ledge that I am much censured for some supposed agency in setting up and seeking to sustain the new States Government of Louisiana. In this I have done just so much and no more than the public knows. In the annual message of December, 1863, and accompanying proclamation, I presented a plan of reconstruction, as the phrase goes, which I promised, if adopted by any State, would be acceptable to and sustained by the Executive Government of the nation. I distinctly stated that this was not the only plan which might possibly be accepted, and I also distinctly protested that the Executive claimed no right to say when or whether members should be entitled to seats in Congress from such States. This plan was in advance submitted to the Cabinet, and approved by every member of it. One of them suggested that I should then, and in that connection, apply the emancipation proclamation to the excepted parts of Virginia and Louisiana; that I should drop the suggestion about apprenticeship for freed people, and that I should omit the protest against my own power in regard to the admission of