Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB
[graphic]

this continent. On Wednesday last, a funeral took place in Washington, which closed the law-courts, banks, and places of business in this chief city of British America; invested our streets with subdued silence; called out visible tokens of mourning; and opened halls and churches, where words of sorrow and sympathy might find utterance. All this was spontaneous. It was the spontaneous "tribute of respect (I quote here from our mayor's proclamation) to the memory of the late President of the United States, and of sympathy with the bereaved members of his family; and an expression of the deep sorrow and horror felt by the citizens of Montreal, at the atrocious crime by which the President came to an untimely death." A great crime had been committed, which moved the common human heart of this continent to great horror, and great sorrow and great sympathy for those more immediately afflicted.

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

On the evening of Good-Friday, the anniversary of our Lord's crucifixion, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States of America, was mortally shot by the hand of an assassin. This deed will stand throughout historic time as one of the dark and tragic events of history; signal and memorable as indicating to what enormity of crime defeated hate and rage will drive men. The mode of the murder was deliberate and characteristic. All in front of the private box where the President was seated with his wife and friends, all in front was light and publicity. A large concourse of people was there, drawn by the expectation of seeing their beloved Chief Magistrate, who, on his part, went at personal inconvenience, lest the people should be disappointed by his absence. The flaming jets of gas shed the brilliancy of their light upon the assemblage. In contrast with this, the passage in rear of the box was all darkness and secrecy. There prowled the assassin marking his victim. Lock and door had been previously tampered with, to facilitate the horrid purpose on hand.

[ocr errors]

And when the moment came for the dreadful deed to be done, -standing in the darkness behind his victim, - the murderer fired the fatal shot. The bullet lodged in the President's brain, and instantly deprived him of conscious existence. The physical mechanism of the strong frame maintained its action some hours longer; but, before eight o'clock next morning, heart and lungs had ceased all function. The earthly life of Abraham Lincoln had closed for ever.

This murder, in the method of its accomplishment, is somewhat symbolic of the attempt made four years ago on the life of the nation. That attempt broke the peace and disturbed the order of this hitherto peaceful, industrious, and prosperous continent. The same evil influence which moved to that attempt, pulled the trigger behind President Lincoln's head, and lodged the bullet in his brain. If the head of Queen Victoria stood in the way of the accomplishment of its purposes, it would share a like fate, if a like opportunity offered. The spirit of the slave power brooks no opposition. Habituated to the exercise of arbitrary rule, it chafes at the moral and constitutional restraints of a free, political, and social order. Hence its armed revolt against the pre-existing peaceful political order four years ago, as soon as the result of the election declared that it should no longer dominate the national affairs with a view to its own extension. The Constitution guaranteed its sway within existing limits, unmolested by interference from without. Dissatisfied with this, it sought extension into territories hitherto free, and untainted by slaveholding institutions. The slave power, be it still borne in mind, revolted against the result of an election in which itself took active part. In the prescribed constitutional way, the nation decided against the territorial extension of slavery by the election of Mr. Lincoln; and, from the hour this decision was first made known, the slave power conspired against the national existence.

After the manner of the assassin, it worked in secrecy and the dark. Disregarding the sacred obligations involved in high national trusts, it made use of its official opportunities to destroy the nationality it had undertaken to serve. By stealthy distribution of the military stores and naval resources of the nation, the slaveholders then in offices of high trust crippled its power for self-protection. By various intrigue abroad, the slave power misrepresented the actual issue at stake, and involved foreign opinion in one of the most stupendous political delusions of modern times. After such manner did it work, in secrecy and the dark; and by strategem and device sought to make sure the blow it was preparing to strike at the national life.

[ocr errors]

Sic semper tyrannis—thus may it always be with tyrants were the words of the assassin of President Lincoln. Sic semper tyrannis, this is the motto of the State of Virginia. All honor to Virginia, oldest of the States, mother of many Presidents and illustrious men! All honor to Virginia, for the wisdom and excellence she has given to the world in so many of her sons! Within her borders, Virginia has the elements of enduring greatness; but conjoined with these she had the one element of social and political blight, — I mean the institution of slavery. -I Contact with this institution inevitably obscures the moral perceptions, and induces a strange inversion of the moral order. Evil is put for good, and good for evil; bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter; slavery for liberty, and liberty for slavery. Only on this ground can we account for the use of the motto in this case. If the irresponsible control of man over man is not of the nature of tyranny, I know not what is. If the If the deprivation of man of his natural rights, his right is his own person, to the fruits of his skill and toil, and to the sacred privileges of domestic life, if the actual deprivation of these rights, through the irresponsible act of another, is not actual tyranny, I know not what is. But the insti

tution of slavery legitimates all this,-so far as its code can legitimate any thing. This motto, Sic semper tyrannis, floating over the Capitol at Richmond, and over the slave-breeding farms and slave-auction marts of Virginia, if understood in its true import, ought to have struck awe to the heart of every slave-trader and slave-owner. But its import was not discerned. Its significance was obscured through the distorting moral influence of slavery. Hence comes its utterance from the lips of the assassin who, from the darkness behind, fired that deadly ball into the brain of President Lincoln, the emancipator from bondage of four millions of human beings.

The assassination of Mr. Lincoln was not a thought born of last week or last month. It was plotted from the beginning of the insurrection, more than four years ago. It will be remembered, that, after much persuasion, he was induced, by friends who had taken pains in gathering undoubted information concerning the plot, to change his plan and time for proceeding to Washington for his first inauguration. His friends had obtained possession of facts relating to a plot for assassination, and they would be satisfied with nothing short of a private night-journey in advance of the public journey proposed. He yielded in this matter to the most urgent solicitation of friends; and thus, in all probability, prevented the conspirators from accomplishing their deadly purpose at that time. He yielded; but would on no account consent to go, until he had fulfilled two public engagements on the next day, - both of which he averred he would keep, though it should cost him his life. It was on one of these occasions, at the raising of the national flag at Independence Hall, Philadelphia, on Washington's birthday,- that he uttered these memorable words: "If this country cannot be saved without giving up the principle involved in the Declaration of Independence, I would rather be assassinated on the spot than surrender it." Thus spake Abraham

Lincoln in the month of February of the year eighteen hundred and sixty-one.

The statements made at the time, and preserved still as record of history, inform us that the "character and pursuits of the conspirators were various. Some of them were impelled by a fanatical zeal, which they term 'patriotism;' and they justified their acts by the example of Brutus, in ridding his country of a tyrant. One of them was accustomed to recite passages, put into the mouth of the character of Brutus, in Shakspeare's play of Julius Cæsar;' others were stimulated by the hope of pecuniary reward." Again, it was stated that "the list of the names of the conspirators presented a most astonishing array of persons high in Southern confidence, and some whose fame is not confined to this country alone. Statesmen laid the plan, bankers indorsed it, and adventurers were to carry it into effect. They understood Mr. Lincoln was to leave Harrisburg at nine o'clock by special train; and the idea was, if possible, to throw the cars from the road at some point where they would rush down a steep embankment, and destroy in a moment the lives of all on board. In case of the failure of this project, their plan was to surround the carriage on the way from depot to depot in Baltimore, and assassinate him with dagger or pistol-shot." *

Subsequently an advertisement appeared at the South, making fervent appeal to slaveholding States to advance a large sum of money to promote the "patriotic purpose"-this was the term used of "reaching" the President of the United States, the Vice-President, and Secretary of State, and destroying their lives. I do not say that all the men of the South sanctioned such plots, or approved of such proposals. God forbid! I am confident there are multitudes of men there who would recoil from them in

* See Rebellion Record, 1860-61, Doc. 38.

« AnteriorContinuar »