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.

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. 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 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.

horror. But the secret plot and the published appeal were both the product of a state of society familiarized with violence and disregard of human life through familiarity with slave institutions. The acts of Preston Brooks and Wilkes Booth were inspired by the same social and political ideas.

The dreadful purpose, then, of assassinating Mr. Lincoln, has borne more than a four years' waiting. And now, in its actual execution, it has horrified the world. Four years ago, Mr. Lincoln was, comparatively, an untried man, untried, I mean, in the great responsibilities which devolved upon him as President of the United States, during the most critical period in the history of the country. The weight of those responsibilities we can but dimly understand. How they pressed by night and by day, amid the divided councils of friends and the constant obloquy of enemies, we can but poorly imagine. Amid the varying fortunes of the four years' war, and the complications of foreign diplomacy, this hitherto untried man met the daily exigencies of the occasion in such manner as to strengthen general confidence in him from day to day, and from year to year. The secret of his success lay in the simplicity and sincerity of his purpose. The honesty of his intention was so clear, that it could not be even suspected. And this honesty of purpose was sustained by a practical sagacity truly wonderful. His integrity and wisdom, rooted and grounded as they were in a generous nature, quickened and moved by religious faith, supported and directed Mr. Lincoln throughout his whole administration of public affairs, and won for him that always increasing confidence which resulted so decisively in his second election. His predominating qualities of character designated him as the providentially appointed man for the time. He was a self-made man, as the phrase goes. His name indicates his English ancestry; and his great perseverance and practical qualities of character indicate fidelity to his Anglo-Saxon lineage.

One of the most critical problems to be solved in his presidential career related to the enslaved men at the South, and the treatment thereof. As Abraham Lincoln, his honest instincts would strike the fetters from the slave. As President of the United States, he was restrained by constitutional limitations. For these limitations he had a due regard, as he was bound to have; but as from time to time they became clearly weakened and broken, in law and fact, by insurgent action, then the honest instincts of the man found their justifiable expression in the acts of the President, who was always ready to give the slave the benefit of the breach. Step by step, with an honest and pure wisdom, he walked the straight and trying path of emancipation. And one thing specially noteworthy here is, that he never took a backward step on this path. New circumstances might arise, out of which a cry would come to reverse the order and withdraw the promise. In such cases President Lincoln had only one answer, and that was an emphatic refusal. His word was, that no slave set free in the inevitable progress of events, by authority of the United States, should ever be returned to bondage. His maxim was, "In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free." No man deplored the war more than he. But the action of the slaveholding States in challenging arbitrament by the sword left him without choice in the matter. If defeat in a fair election justifies armed revolt by the defeated party, then there is clearly an end to all political order on this continent. If any question of abstract right is raised, whether in relation to the individual or the State, and if one party in the matter challenges the arbitrament of the sword in advance of discussion in the constitutional assemblies and tribunals of the land, then there is nothing left for the other party but to accept the challenge, and allow the sword to settle the question. President Lincoln's heart was for peace,- for peace on a permanent basis. But, like all thoughtful observers,