The Sun.
London, England, 1865-05-01 00:00:00

little too vindictive in their tone, and unjust to tliE
Southei:n leaders, whom they erroneously supposed
to have instigated the crime, the exasperation was
natural, and need not be harshly criticised. On Suu-
day all the churches and chapels of the Christians
and .all the synagogues of the Jews were hung with
black, and were on no previous occasion within the •
memory of man attended by such multitudes of
earnest and sorrow-stricken people. Yesterday and -
to-day the same deep and earnest feeling prevailed,
and even the news of the 'capture of Mobile and the
surrender of Gen. Joseph E. Johnston and his army
to Gen. Sherman, which at any other time would
have driven the people frantic with joy, fell upon
inattentive and preoccupied minds. Of what avail
were victories when he who had patiently organised
them was not alive to know of the triumph? Of what
use was Mobile when Abraham Lincoln lay in his
bloody shroud? And who cared for Johnston and
his army when the greatest rebellion and the greateA
war in history had culminated iu the greatest crime •
that had ever afflicted a people ?
At the first shock of the calamity there was an
uneasy, widespread, and irrepressible doubt whether
the necessary installation of Vice-President Johnson
as successor to Mr. Lincoln was not an additional
drop of gall in, the overflowing cup of the national
sorrow. But the impression gradually wore off.
Mr. Johnson was de jure and de facto the Presi- •
dent., •He had made an unseemly exhibition of
limself, it is true, before the Senate and the world
on the 4th of March ; but people argued that he
was never known to be a lover of strong drink ; that
he might have been in temporary ill health, and
been affected by a slighter stimulant than under
ordinary circumstances would have left any per-
ceptible trace in his speech or manner, and that it
' was harsh to visit any man with condign punishment
for so venial an offence as the taking of an extra
glass, more especially when the offence was not
habitual and was not likely to be repeated. There
was a talk for awhile that General Grant ought to
be proclaimed Dictator, but it scarcely outlived the
day of the national tragedy ; and all men—even
the bitterest opponents of Mr. Johnson—reconciled
themselves to the duty and necessity of quietly
accepting him as the constitutional chief magistrate
of the Republic, and of according to him in his diffi-
cult and delicate position the fullest confidence and
support.
The little that is known of Mr. Johnson as a
politican and statesman is not, it must be con-
fessed, reassuring. Unlike Mr. Lincoln, who was
shrewd, sagacious, patient, and merciful, Mr. John-
son, if he may be judged by his speeches prior and
subsequent to the war, and during his recent admi-
nistration of the affairs of Tennessee, of which he
was appointed the military Governor by the late
President, is violent and unforgiving. With the pro-
verbial zeal of converts, he, who was once an ardent
supporter of the Southern idea of State rights, is
now the inveterate, it might almostbe said, the rabid
enemy of them. He is also a sturdy, if not obstinate
friend of the Monroe doctrine, and as such not to be
so safely intrusted as Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Seward
with the irritating question of the French in Mexico,
and the establishment of a monarchy on the North
American continent. But in his case, as in many
others, the weighty responsibilities of high position
may help to modify and cool down the prejudices
that were comparatively harmless in the unofficial
politician, but cease to be harmless in the Chief of
the State. Mr. Johnson has a great opportunity.
The rebellion is visibly moribund—and not likely to
be revived, unless a truculent and remorseless sys-
tem of terrorism and vengeance be employed against
the landed proprietors and most eminent men of
the South. The path of Mr. Lincoln was in_ this re-
spect the path of safety. He never uttered a vin-
dictive word, never penned a vindictive sentence,
against the Southern people,' or any of their leaders
civil or military. President Johnson should note
the fact, and profit by it. And it is in this respect
satisfactory to observe that the savage feeling ex-
pressed against the South as soon as the news of the
murder of the President was received has greatly
abated during the four days which have elapsed
since its perpetration, and- that there is a more ge-
neral, though not yet universal, disposition to en-
courage the hope that perhaps the awful crime was
the act of insane or semi-insane individuals—and
had no countenance or privity from any Southern
statesman or_ official. It was certainly not to the
interest of the South that so dartardly a blow should
be struck ; and if the assassin or assassins should by
any chance sueceed iu reaching the Southern lines,
and be by the Southern people delivered up to the
justice of the North, it would be a consummation at
which every friend of the South, as well as every
well-wisher to the American Union, would most
heartily and unfeignedly rtjoice.
Up to the time at which I write all efforts to arrest
the man Wilkes Booth, who was certainly the as-
sassin of the President, unless the clearest seeming
evidence of his identity be fallacious, have been in
vain. There was at one time an idea that he and
he alone committed the murder of the President, and
the still more hideous attack—if anything more
hideous than the assassination of Mr. Lincoln be
possible—upon Mr. Seward, his son, and attendants;
but it now appears that this could not have been the
case. It is supposed that certainly two, and pro-
bably five or six people, were engaged in a conspiracy
to simultaneously murder Mr. Lincoln, Mr. John-
son, Mr. Seward, Mr. Stanton, Mr. Welles, and
General Grant ; and that their schemes were frus-
trated by accidental and unforeseen circumstances.
Upon this subject all manner of contradictory ru-
mours, not worth repeating, are afloat. Had Mr.
Johnson as well as Mr. Lincoln met his death at
the hands of the conspirators the country might
have been convulsed with anarchy in addition to
grief, and the Government thrown open to the
seizure of any bold soldier who might have been
tempted by the prize. In case of the death both of
President and Vice-President the election of succes-
sors to these officers devolves upon Congress, and
not upon the people ; and had such an election been
made amid the passions which the double murder
would have provoked, there is no knowing to what
deplorable lengths the public exasperations might
have been carried before Congress could have agreed
upon the candidates, and much reason to believe that
under such circumstances all eyes would have been
turned towards Grant and Sherman as the only
possible saviours of the country.
It should be noted as among the remarkable cir-
cumstances of the time, and as one that shows the
in
abiding faith the American people maintain the
stability of their institutions, that although the pre-
mium on gold rose nominally about 20 per cent. on
Saturday, when the news of the murder_ was fresh
in the public imagination, it fell on Monday morn-
ing on the partial resumption of business to nearly
it previous rate, and is at this moment but half per
cent. above the closing price of the night of the catas-
trophe. It should also be noted that the British popu-
lation of Canada, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia,
and, in fact, of the whole of the proposed British
American Confederation, without waiting to hear
or see what would be done in the States of the
Union, convened public meetings in all their prin-
cipal cities and towns, and passed resolutions of
condolence and
sympathy with the American people
in the hour of their great loss and affliction. They
thus touched a tender chord in the American heart,
and did more by that spontaneous act to silence for
years to come the silly braggarts who now and then
talk of invading or "annexing" Canada, than might
have been accomplished by all the efforts of all the
statesmen who ever took pen in hand either to argue
the subject or to deprecate its discussion. Nor was
the meeting of the British residents of New York I
convened to-day at the Astor House by Mr. Archi-
bald, the British Consul, less gratifying to the
Americans of all shades of politics, for the ready,
cordial, and respectful sympathy displayed in the
resolutions and by the several speakers who intro-
duced and supported them. A week ago the Aie:
ricans, in the hour of joy and victory, .were a n
..
vided people, split into parties and factiorens.unl
aLve. ited
day they are united as they never
ncoln has
before. Their grief for Abraham
I made them but one family.
martyr of their
the tomb of
peffare. for
wallhommmthoery
diloffokere
him
muse
awhile. If they disaPPear
chastening of their great ly and m the
ah sa Beforevt he
_e m a
ar t
misfortune theylisten to
uponnc differences
the councils of wisdom and prudence, and find in
their new President a man as honest, as sincere, as
merciful, and as politic as he whom they have lost,
the blood of the illustrious deed may yet bear pre-
cious fruit for the pacification and regeneration of
America.

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