[From the Bradford Review, Saturday, April 29, 1865.]
assassination of president lincoln.
Many a time during the past four years has mournful news been brought us from the north; but never during the whole of the war has any intelligence of such evil import for America arrived, as that which sent a shudder of horror through the length and breadth of England on Wednesday afternoon. President Lincoln was assassinated on the 14th of April. No remark of ours can add anything to the intensity of feeling which those few words will excite throughout this nation, and the civilized world. For ourselves, we record the event with the bitterest sorrow for the dead, the most burning indignation against his murderer.
From the scanty details which arrived on Wednesday, it appears that the President was at Ford’s theatre, Washington, on the evening of Friday, April 14th, with Mrs. Lincoln and some friends. A man suddenly appeared in the back of the box, fired at Mr. Lincoln, and lodged a bullet in the back of his head. The assassin then leaped from the box on to the stage, brandishing a large knife, and escaped at the back of the theatre. The whole affair was the work of a moment, and the audience did not realize the fact that the President was shot till the villian had escaped from the building. Mr. Lincoln was carried home insensible, and remained in that state all night. No hope was entertained from the first. About half-past seven o’clock next morning he died.
About the same hour that the President’s murder took place, a man came to Secretary Seward’s house and demanded to see him, pleading pressing business. He was met by Frederick Seward, Mr. Seward’s second son, and an Assistant Secretary of State. After some colloquy had taken place between them, the fellow suddenly struck young Seward with a “billy” on the head, injuring the [Page 363] skull, and striking him down insensible. He then rushed into the Secretary’s sick-room, wounded Major Seward, his eldest son, stabbed two male nurses, who were also present, and next attacked Mr. Seward himself. He stabbed him repeatedly in the throat and face. He then effected his escape from the house. It is not certain that Secretary Seward’s wounds are mortal, but it is feared that they will prove such.
This is the story of a deed scarcely paralleled in the world’s history for brutal atrocity or wickedness. We look with fear and trembling for its results on the immediate future of America. The policy of President Lincoln, resolutely persevered in during four long terrible years, had almost completed the suppression of a gigantic rebellion. So far, the President was successful; the first part of his great work was almost complete. But the second part was yet to be effected, and it presented difficulties absolutely stupendous. The settlement of the south—the organization of its society on an entirely new basis, the creation of a new system for it, the healing of the wounds caused by the war—this was the task which Mr. Lincoln had to perform in his second term of office. Yet gigantic as this undertaking was, the people of the North, and the millions of well-wishers to America in this country and elsewhere, looked with trusting confidence to its adequate performance by the great, pure, single-hearted man who, with unequalled moral courage and resolute perseverance, had steered the vessel of the state through such a time of trial as the world had never before witnessed. And now he has gone—gone with his work but half finished—gone in the midst of another great crisis in his country’s history, when the eyes and hopes of all were turned on him, as the man above all best calculated to conduct the nation through the critical time—gone, having lived long enough to see his country’s enemies vanquished and broken, but falling before the Angel of Peace had spread her glorious wings over the land. Abraham Lincoln has died a noble martyr in the cause of America and of liberty.
Nor should we forget to recognize the heavy loss which the United States have, we fear, sustained in Mr. Seward. He was a statesman of the true American type, with some of the faults and very many of the virtues of his nation. For the people to be deprived of his services just when his great chief is struck down, and to lose him, too, in the same horrible manner, is a fearful intensification of the calamity. As we have said above, it is not certain that his wounds are mortal. We sincerely hope and pray that this may not prove so.
The crime is one which stands in horrid pre-eminence above all ordinary murders, and perhaps in its double brutality cannot be paralleled in history. Who were the assassins? What impelled them to the commission of the crime? It is stated that the murderer of the President is a “rabid secessionist” named Wilkes Booth; and that his accomplice, who struck down Mr. Seward and his son, is a man of similar character. Whoever these cowardly wretches may be, they have assuredly earned for themselves the eternal execrations of civilized humanity. We do not believe that there is a single man in all the south, even, but will join in denouncing the deed, and in pursuing its perpetrators to the expiation of their monstrous guilt. What will be the ultimate result of the event it is impossible to say. The people of the north are just now engaged in working out a great problem, the settlement of which will have a mighty influence on the cause of liberty throughout the world. How the death of President Lincoln will affect this settlement, how it will modify the future policy of America, both toward the south and to other nations, what will be its effects on commerce, it is hard to indicate; but certainly it will have a marked influence in shaping these great questions. The hour of greatest trial for the north has arrived. Let us hope that the remarkable love of order which was displayed at the election a few months since, and on other recent occasions, will restrain the people, and enable them to pass through the crisis unharmed. They deserve—we have no doubt they will receive—the sympathy of all free peoples.
[Page 364]We confess that to us the blow is so sudden and so terrible that we find ourselves, as yet, scarcely able to realize its truth, utterly incapable of tracing its results. We had a deep respect and love for this man, who, quietly and unpretendingly, was doing a great work. We attempt no estimate of Mr. Lincoln’s character. If he was not a man of brilliant qualities or showy accomplishments, yet he possessed great grasp and force of intellect, honesty and singleness of purpose, unsullied integrity, unshaken perseverance, firmness in authority, an ambition utterly unselfish, the qualities, in short, which go to make the truest and noblest patriot. In him, the preserver and restorer of the republic, the United States have lost a man worthy to rank with George Washington, the founder of it. There was a grandeur about his simple purity and truth which never attaches to more selfish men, however great the height to which they may attain. The weapon of a vile and cowardly assassin has deprived us of one of the greatest men of modern times. England will mourn for him, mourn with her kinsfolks across the ocean.
We of course presume that Mr. Vice-President Johnson will at once become President. In the first section of article II of the Constitution, it is declared: “In case of the removal of the President from office, or of his death, resignation, or inability to discharge the powers and duties of the said office, the same shall devolve on the Vice-President.” In accordance with this provision, Vice-President Tyler, in 1841, became President on the death of General Harrison, who died exactly a month after his inauguration. Again, Vice-President Fillmore, in 1850, succeeded President Taylor on his death. * * * * We have the fullest confidence that the American people will be ready to assist their new head in contending with the difficulties of the position in which he is so suddenly placed.
Some facts respecting Mr. Johnson’s previous career have been published, which tend to prove that although he may be rough and lacking cultivation, he is still a man of mental powers and of energy. He educated himself while working hard for a livelihood as a journeyman tailor; and from this humble position he rose, by dint of perseverance and political talent, to the high position he now holds. In 1835, when in his 27th year, he was elected to the Tennessee legislature. Eight years afterward, in 1843, he entered Congress, in which he served till 1853. He was then chosen Governor of Tennessee, and was re-elected in 1855. In 1857, at the expiration of his second term of office, he was elected Senator of the United States for Tennessee. Mr. Johnson was, at that time, a democrat and a slaveholder; but when the rebellion began, he liberated his slaves, declared for abolition and the Union, and has since adhered firmly to the cause he then took up. He is said to be a man of decision and daring; and in his military government of Tennessee, to which he was appointed by Mr. Lincoln, he gave many proofs of his administrative power, and of some truly noble qualities.
Mr. Lincoln was born in February, 1809, and was consequently in the fifty-sixth year of his age. Mr. Seward was born in Florida, in New York state, in July, 1801; he will therefore be in his sixty-fourth year.