Inhabitants of Oldham
At a public meeting of the inhabitants of the borough of Oldham, in the county of Lancaster, convened upon a requisition to the worshipful the mayor, held at the Town Hall in Oldham on Monday, the 1st day of May, 1865, Josiah Radcliffe, esq., mayor, in the chair, it was
Resolved, That this meeting desires to express its deep and unqualified abhorrence of the foul and atrocious crime which has been perpetrated on the person of the President of the United States, as well as the diabolical attempt to assassinate Mr. Seward, while helpless and prostrated on a bed of sickness. The tragic event has suddenly deprived the people of the United States of a Chief Magistrate whom they had learned to love and revere, and thus plunged them into the deepest sorrow and distress. It has also caused all right-minded people in every land to feel the strongest horror and disgust at its cowardly and dastardly character. We denounce not only the instrument of Mr. Lincoln’s death, but all who may have aided and abetted him, and who may be so lost to honor and justice as to approve of such a diabolical deed. We desire to acknowledge our sympathy with the people of the United States, who have been thus ruthlessly deprived of a wise and good ruler at a time when his moderation and sagacity were so needful to the cause of peace. While we are conscious that the cruel act which we all deplore is so eminently calculated to rouse the deepest indignation, still we trust that in the order of Providence the same wise forbearance which President Lincoln has manifested may be shown by his successor, President Johnson, and that peace and harmony may be speedily restored to the whole country.
It was also
Resolved, That, in accordance with the deep sorrow which animates our own breasts, we feel constrained to express our heartfelt sympathy and condolence with Mrs. Lincoln in her sudden and overwhelming bereavement, and we trust she may be enabled to derive some consolation from the fact that she has the sympathy of the whole civilized world, and from the consciousness that her husband was actuated by the noblest motives and the most generous designs; that he harbored no resentment in his lofty soul, but sought to heal the wounds which have lacerated his country by kindness and conciliation, and by a Christian forbearance, which ought to have disarmed the malice of all, and which have won for him the approbation of mankind.
It was further
Resolved, That the mayor be requested to forward the foregoing resolutions to his excellency Mr. Adams, the American minister at London, as the expression of the feeling of the people of Oldham, in public meeting assembled, on the tragic event which has recently been enacted in the United States.