THE ASSASSINATION OF LINCOLN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume II, Issue 547, 14 August 1865, Page 5

THE ASSASSINATION OF LINCOLN.

(From tho London Standard!) Is the hour of his triumph, in the midst of the exultations which hailed him as the conqueror in the bloodiest struggle t!iat ever defiled a Christian land, the hand of an assujsiu has gent Abraham Lincoln to his last account. The fate which hus threatened most of those when civil war has elevated to despotic power, which cut short the plans of Gesur, which Nauolcnn and Louis Philippe s » narrowly «•?- cap.d, which has more than >>iu c <•!• s- iy appr"«i'.h"d tlic present occupant of this throne—that l;it<- tut* ft*ar«»f which disturbed the lit'eof Willi mi of Orange ami shook •he iior nerves of ('r.-mweil, h:i •> overtaken the President ot the Lnited >tate-> in the instant in which the crowning \ntory<f his annitv seemed to have phic-'d the destinies *»t Ameriei in hihand>. It is not in such an hour, in pr-'seii'V 01' adealh so sulJ<-;t ;t:<d -o awlul, thai \v«,- ea:i hr;nu ourselves to di.-eus.* tli»' character and enndue- of the man who lies de;.d m tin* A tew limir.; onlv belorii the tidings lvachvd this country, when we thought >f him a- <-uj<i\ing ilu- sweets «>i an unparalleled sir cess, anil iikely t<- wwld fa' years to c 'inc a power ni'ir l extensive und 111f»r*; ah-ulute than that of many despotic kin[»s, we «'aiivas>ed with freedom, and we hope and ifhe/e with such ju>rav as human discernment can render, the temper he h id displaved and the deeds lie- It id done. Now lie is removed beyond the reach of human judgment and the sense of human criticism, lie has gone to answer for his actions before a tribunal which can weigh intentions in well as overt acts ; which cannot bo biassed by earthly success or inflamed by earthly passions ; which can demand from the master of legions an account of every life unjustly taken and every pang inllict;d in wanton cruelty : which can distinguish between the errors of a failing judgment and tho crimes ol a malignant heart—ami all that remains for mort:tl men, for his warmest friends and his bitterest enemies, is to pray that God may have mere}* on his soul. From exultant Massachusetts and desolate Virginia, from the splendid churches of New York and the smoking ruins of Columbia, from the victorious hosts of Grant and tho starving women and children who cower beside tho ashes of their homes in the track of dherman's devastating army, one common prayjr must go up, when the sta'.tling news has Wn told, " Hay (iod have mercy on Abraham Lincoln's sou.;." Those who regard him as the champion of a holy cause; those who applauded him a3 the agent of his country's ambition or his party's vengeance ; those who believed him to be a honest aud well-intentioned, though most weak and erring man, placed in a position whore weakness was more fatal than wickedness; even thoso wh > had learnt to curse him as the author of unutterable miseries to their country and their families, must unite in deploring the end to which he has come, and in condemning the act which has taken a lawless vengeance into private hands. Thi is not the time in which we can dis-uss his public policy or his private character; in which we can cither repeat or retract what, we have hitherto said of lr.m. All we need now say is, that we, in cemmon with nil geneioug men, lament that the great enemy of a cause very dear to our hearts should have fallen by a 111111 derer's hand. The motives of thac murderer it is at present im-po-siblo to ascertain. The slanderous malignity of certain persons who, for olivious ends, would fasten tho stigma of as-assination upon the enemies who have so often and so gallantly met anil beaten the Federal arrni -s O'l the field of b,title, is simply beneath rebuke or refutation. There is no nation ; the world so perfectly free from tho stain of murderous cowardice as the people of the Confederate States. Subjected, as they have been, to atrocities forbidden by the common ode of Christian nations ; having seen defenceless districts given up to pill ige

and outrage, unresisting cities tired, women systematically abandoned to the licence of the soldiery, prisoners of war assassinated in cold blood, citizens butchered on their own thresholds, by tho invaders, they have never allowed themselves to be provoked to uao the utmost rigours ol warfare, far less to exceed them. The cruelties practised on Confederate prisoners have never, even when tho exchange was suspended, been retaliated on tho numerous captives in Confederate prisons. Never have the}' even taken life for life. No Northern town lias been burnt only once, by way of formal retribution for a thousand euch crimes, seme of the public buildings of Chambersburgh were lired. No Northern woman has ever received the slightest allront from Confederate soldiers. The worst rullhins among Mr. Lincoln's h.'ivo never burn in I he least personal danger. Uulh-r himself quitted New Oilcans unharmed and uiithreater'., after refusing a challenge from a Countryman of I ho ladies r> whom ho hid oilered the toul and cowardly outrage which has alir;cd ever! acting infamy to I:is name. Those who wirdi to iusinu ill 1 a charge of murderous tendencies against Urn South are torccd to r-cur to the famous ease of Uroolu'S— who seaiidali-ud the moderation of l'oVi"!i and rhf deecncy of Nf.v York by thrashing a .-vnatorial shin di-rer with a gutta-percha cmo: poor evidence ur which to I'OM the attempt toatlaeh th i-guilt of tin present murd< r to the >outh. We d-> not. mean U say that it is impossible that some - outhern hand r.n; not have mingled in tin; plot. Some husband <■ father, whoso nearest and dearest haw suMered th last indignity at the hands of Lincoln's soldiery somo iir.'.r relative of those who were butchered a l'almvr i with the sanction and approval ot the con: mander-in-ehi si' of all the Federal armies ; some dea frieml of the gallant Captain Healo, so late! "> murdered hv the immediate order of the Presidentj may hav- maddened by brooding over tho : wrongs into this criminal act of personal vengeaua 1 But if the assassin was moved by merely political nu

tive??, it is quite as likely that he was not as that ho was a Southern partisan. The person now arrested and accused is a son of an Englishman, well-known as an actor; an actor himself, as might have been suppo.<od from the melo-dramatie air he assumed, and the familiarity with theatrical arrangements which facilitated perhaps his entrance and certainly his escape. If we are to by the facts that" hi appeared on the singe nt Xew Orleans dnrincr the reign of Butler we m«ist that he is no very earnest Secessioaist. And the s lection r>f the helpless Seward as the second victim—the murder of the member of the Cabinet least bitter in his hatred against the South —appears to suggest similar suspicions. The immediate effect of Mr. Lincoln's death is to throw the control of affair-* into the hands of that section of the Republican p;rhr which has from first to last thirsted most, eagerly for Southern blood. The most brutal and despicable member of that party was selected in the very wantonness of insolent power as tho candidate of the Tl'-pubHeans for the "VicePresidency ; not because they wished to honour him, but by way of defying and mortifying their opponents. Now the effect of his political outrage reejils upon themselves. The drunken tailor of Tennes-ee, tho one man more brutal than Butler, more savage than Brownlow— the meanest, most, vulgar, most ignorant °f American politicians, reaps the !>.-n r --it of the assassin's crime, and becomes, until Murvh, 18(59, President of the United States. That such a consummation should have been by a Southerner is not credible. President- Andrew Johnson has, in his drunken orgies, and in thr> speeches delivered when he has been sufficiently M-ln.-r for articulate speech, given v«-nt to his ferocity in such menaces and execraiions as those which, according to Macaulay, came from tho lips of Jrffrcvs in cups. ! lis acees?i.>n brings to the surface such men as Sumner and Brownlow, Butler and Beecher, who are eager to hang the soldiers and ttat* sim n ol the South, confiscate her lands, and tread down her white citi/ens under (ho feet of tho negroes. Xo South >rner. therefore, killed Lincoln to make Johnson President. The nl-imate result may possibly be advantageous to tho South, by reuniting her people in a desperate resistance, and giving the North over to anarchy and civil contlict. But assassins do not lor>k so far beforehand 'i lie immediate resultof the murder is the. triumph of tho party of vengeance ; and if, therefore, the purpose of the assassin was political, he must have struck his blow in the interest of the extreme Abolitionists; if lie was a Southerner the act was not a political assassination, but a personal revenge.