THE MURDER OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN.

Otago Witness, Issue 714, 5 August 1865, Page 9

THE MURDER OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN.

A LETTER FROM BOOTH THE

ASSASSIN.

(From tbe Boston Advertiser, April 27th )

The 101 l owing letter was given over to the U. S. Marshal of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, by John S. Clarke, a brother in-law^ of Booth, it was left with Mr Clarke, in November, 1864, in a sealed envelope, marked for safe keeping. la January last, Booth called at the house, asked for the package, and it is supposed added his signature, which appears to be in a different ink from that used in writing the letter. The \ sealed package was kept by the family until after the assassination, when its contents were examined and surrendered to the proper authorities at once. Marshal Milward furnished the letter to the Philadelphia Inquirer for publication. It hints at a plot to kidnap and carry off some one, probably the President, and it will be remembered that a pair of handcuffs -was found in Booth's trunk at his hotel. The first conception of violence seems to have

easily found its fruition in murder. Doubts have been expressed a 9 to the genuineness of the letter, of -which thw purports to be a copy, but the attendant circumstances are such that we see no reason to disbelieve the statement^ above.

, , 1864.

My Dear Sir: — You may use t\m as you think best. j»nt ns son>e may wi-h to know when, who, •> ««rl why, aud as I kaow not how to direct, I give it (in the words of your master) "To whom it mat concern"." — Right or wrong, God judge me, nit man. For be my motive good or bad, of one thing I am sure, the lasting condemnation of the North.

I love peace more than life. Have loved the Union beyond expression. For four years have I waited, hoped, and prayed for the dark clouds to break, and for a restoration of our former sunshine. To wait longer would be a crime. All hope for peace is dead. My prayers have proved as idle as my hopes. God's will be done. I go to see and share the bitter end. I have ever held the South were right. The very nomination of Abraham Lincoln, four years ago, spoke plainly of war — war upon Southern rights and institutions. Hi* election proved it. " Await an overt act." Yes, till you are bound and plundered. What folly ! The South was wipe. Who thinks of argument or patience when the finger of his enemy presses on the trigger ? In a foreign war I. "too, could say, " country right or wro;ig." But iv a struggle such as ours (where the brother tries to pierce the brother's heart), for God's sake, choose the right. When a country Hue this spurns justice from her side she forfeits the allegiance ot every honest freeman, and should leave him, untrammeled by any fealty soever, to act as his conscience may approve.

People of the North, to hate tyranny, to love liberty and justice, to strike at wrong and oppression, was the teaching of our fathers. The study of our early history will not let me forget it, and may it never.

This country was formed for the white, not for the black man. And looking- upon Africau slavery from the same stand point held by the noble framers of our Constitution, I, for one, have ever considered it one of the greatest blessings (both for themselves and us) that God ever bestowed upon a favored nation. Witness heretofore our wealth and power ; witness their elevation and enlightenment above their race elsewhere. I have lived among it most of my life, and have seen less harsh treatment from master to man than I have beheld in the North from father to son. Yet, Heaven knows, no one would be willing to do more for the negro race tlvm I, could I but see a wav to still better their condition.

But Lincoln's policy is only preparing the way for their total annihilation. The South are not, nor have they been, fighting for the continuance of slavery. The first battle of Bull Run did away with ttiac idea. Their causes since for war have been as nobla and greater far than those that urged our fathers on. Even should we allow they were wrong at the beginning of this contest, cruelty and injustice have made the wrong become the right, and they stand now (before the wonder and admiration of the world) as a noble band of patriotic heroe- i.jreafter, reading of their deeds, Tn. vm ,i . Isc will be forgotten.

When I aided ia the capture and execution of John Bru a n (who was amurdorer on our western bom^s, and who was fairly tried and convicted, before an impartial judge aud jury, of treason, and who, by the way has since bc&a made a g'^d), I .v,is proud of my little share in the trans iction, for I deemed it my duty, and that I was helping our common country to perform an act of justice. But what was a crime in poor John Brown is now considered (by themselves) as the greatest aud only virtue of the whole republican party. Strange transmigration ! Vice to become a virtue simply because more indu'g- in it. I thought then, as now, ti a- \he abolitionists were the only traitors in the land, and that ihe entire party deserved the same fate of poor old Brown, not because they wish to abolish slavery, but on account of the means they have ever endeavored to use to effect that abolition. If Biown were living, I doubt whether he himself would set slavery against the Union. Most or many in the North do, and openly curse the Union, if the South are to return and retain a single right guaranteed to them by every tie which we once revered as sacred. The South can make no choice. It is either extermination or slavery for themselves (worse than death) to draw from. I know my choice. I have also studied hard to discover upon what grounds the right of a State to secede has been denied, when our very name, United States, aud the Declaration of Independence, both provide for Secession. But there is no time for words. I write in haste. I know how foolish I shall be deemed for undertaking such a step as this, where, on the one side, I have many friends and everything to make me happy ; where ray profeßsion alone has gained me an mii come of more than twenty thousand dolI lars a year, and where my great personal

ambition in my profession has such a great field for labor. On the other hand, the South bave never bestowed upon me onekind word ; a place now where I have no friends, except beneath the sod; a place where I must either become a private «oldier or n begcar. To give up all of the former for the lnt'.pr, be -ides my mother and si»ters whnm I love so dearly (although thjy so widely differ from me ia opinion), seems insane; but God is my judge. I love justice more than I do a country that disowns it ; more than fame and wealth; more (Heaven pardon me if wrong), more than a happy home. I have never been upon a battle field ; but 0, my countrymen, could you all but see the reality or effects of this horrid war, as I have seen them (in every State, save Virginia) lknow you would think like me, and would pray the Almighty to create in the Northern mind a sense of right and justice (even should ifc possess no seasoning of mercy), and that He would dry up this sea of blood between us, which is daily growing wider. Alas! poor country, is she to meet lier threatened doom ? Four years ago, I would have given a thousand lives to see her remain (as I had always known her) powerful and unbroken. And even now I would hold my life a* naught, to see her what she was. 0 my friends, it the fearful scones of the past four years had never been enacted, or if what has been had been but a frightful dream, from which we could now awake, with what overflowing hearts could we bless our God and pray for His continued favor. How I have loved the old flag can never now be known. A rew years since, and the entire world could boast of none so pure and spotless. But I have of late been seeing and hearing of the bloody deeds of which she has been made the emblem, and would shudder to think how changed she had grown. O how I have longed to see her break from the mist of blood and death that circles round her folds, spoiling her beauty and tarnishing her honor. But no, day by day has she been dragged deeper and deeper into cruelty aud oppression, till now (in my eyes) her once bright red stripes look like bloody gashes on the face of heaven. I now look upon my early admiration of her glories as a dream. My love (as things stand to-day) is for the South alone. Nor do I deem it a dishonor in attempting to make for her a prisoner of this man, to whom she owes so much of misery. 'If success attends me, Igo penniless to her side. They say she has found that " last dif eh " which the North have so long derided, and been endeavoring to force her in, forgetting they are our brothers, and that it's impolitic to goad au enemy to raadnets. Should I reach her in safety and find it true, I will proudly beg permission to triumph or die iv that same '* ditch " by her side. A Confederate, doing duty upon his own responsibility. J. Wilkes Booth.