[From the Temps, May 2, 1865.]
The succession of Lincoln has been settled without a moment’s uncertainty, by the application pure and simple of the Constitution, the wisdom of which once more displays itself on the present occasion. It may be easily imagined, on the day after the commission of a political crime, in the midst of the difficulties of internal pacification, what confusion and perterbation might be occasioned by general elections, of which nobody could foresee the consequences. On this point there can be no doubt the presidential chair had scarcely been vacant a few hours, when Andrew Johnson was installed at the White House.
The horror of a crime which the excitements of the struggle could in no way palliate, the painful feelings occasioned by the extinction of a pure glory in all its lustre, would at first produce a kind of stupor. No one can manifest too much grief for the murder of an eminent patriot, which has nothing of the effect of the heroes of Franconi, but the highest praise that can be bestowed on Lincoln is just this, that having arrived at the period of great trouble, he did nothing to make himself indispensable, and that his disappearance has nothing in it threatening [Page 145] to stability, which is a condition too often attached to the existence of one man. It would be, then, to misconceive the real grandeur of the character of Lincoln to dwell upon the commonplaces of funeral orations instead of giving ourselves up without faltering to the examination of the questions which the succession gives rise to.