The Sun.
London, England, 1865-05-02 00:00:00

'he Assassination of President Lincoln.

. A meeting of the Americans in London was held
on yesterday afternoon, at St. James's Hall, for the
purpose of giving expression to their feelings in re-
lation to the untimely death of their late President.
The hall wore the same emblems of mourning as on
Saturday last, with the addition of an immortelle
which hung beneath the Stars and Stripes. The
meeting was well attended, but not at all so nume-
rous as that of Saturday. Though the requisition
which convened it was addressedto Americans alone,
a large proportion of the assembly consisted of our
countrymen who wished by their presence to testify
their sympathy and regard. The proceedings were
most harmonious. The chair was taken shortly after
three o'clock, amid applause, by his Excellency
Charles Francis Adams, Minister of the United States.
Among those present were :—Lord Houghton, Mr
Cyrus Field, Judge Winter, Dr. Black, Mr. Fuller,
Mr. E. C. Fisher, United States' Sanitary Commis-
sion, Rev. Crammond Kennedy, Mr. Morse, Consul
of the United States ; Mr. Nunn, Deputy Consul
of the United States; Mr. B. Howard, New York,
late United States' Army; Mr. Mason Jones,
Mr. Henry Bergh, late Secretaire de la Lega-
tion des Etats Unis d'Amerique St. Petersburg; Dr.
Coffin, Mr. H. Thornton, Mr. J. B. Stephenson, Mr.
C. M. Lampson, Dr. F. Robinson (Scots Fusileer
Guards), Dr. Charles R. Nicoll(Grenadier Guards),
Dr. Ludlow, Mr. E. G. Tinker and Mr. Ward, New
York; Mr. H. Stevens and Mr. B. F. Stevens,Ver-
mont ; Dr. Storrs, Mr. Peach, and Mr. Massey, New
York ; Mr. Phillips, Wisconsin ; Alderman Salo-
mons, M.P., Mr. Potter, M.P., Rochdale ; Mr. G.
J. Abbott, Consul of the United States for the Shef-
field and Bradford district Rev. J. Shaw, Boston;
Mr. J. Holmes Goodenow, United States' Consul at
Constantinople ; Mr. G. Grant, Mr. G. Ralton,
Philadelphia, Consul-General of Liberia; Captain
Richardson, San Francisco ; Mr. C. Stratton
(General Tom Thumb) and Mrs. Stratton ; Mr. J.
M'Henry, Capt. Tomkins, Mr. H. Brough, &c.
The CHAIRMAN, on rising to address the meeting,
was greeted with renewed applause. He said—l
have been desired to call you together, my country-
men, for the sake of giving some common form of
expression to our emotions, stirred up as they have
been by the late fearful calamity. In presence of
such an awful event we are forcibly impressed not
merely with the commonplace idea of mortal vicissi-
tude, but with the more solemn duty of keeping our-
selves wholly free from the indulgence of any un-
worthy passion. (Applause.) The ordinary jars of
human life are hushed before such a catastrophe.
A great Virginian statesman once said that "he
trembled for his country when he reflected that God
is just." The dreaded visitation appears to have
come upon us in the third and fourth generation.
Let us endeavour to bear ourselves with patience
and humility. But, while acknowledging our short-
comings, let us draw closer and closer together while
we unite in one earnest wail of sorrow for our loss
—(applause)—for I may be permitted to observe
that in this loss the bereavement is wholly our own.
We are entirely to bear the responsibility of it.
The man who has fallen was immolated for no act of
his own. It may well be doubted whether, during
his whole career, he ever made a single enemy.
(Loud cries of " Hear, hear.") In this peculiarity
he shone pre-eminent among statesmen. No ; he
who perpetrated the crime had no narrow purpose.
It was because Abraham Lincoln was the faithful
exponent of the sentiments of a whole people that
he was stricken down. (Renewed cries of " Hear,
hear.") The blow that was aimed at him was meant
to fall home upon them. The ball that penetrated
his brain was addressed to the heart of each and
every one of us. (Applause.) It was a fancied
short way of paralysing the Government which we
have striven so hard to maintain. It was then for
our cause that Abraham Lincoln died, and not his
own. If he was called a tyrant who was elevated
to his high post by the spontaneous voices of a
greater number of men than had ever been given in
any republic before, it was only because he was
obeying the wishes of those who elected him. It is
we who must stand responsible for his deeds. It is
he who has paid the penalty for executing our will.
Surely, then, this is the strongest of reasons why
all of us should join, as with one voice, in a chorus
of lamentation for his fall. (Applause.) It was
one of the peculiar merits of Mr. Lincoln that he
knew how to give shape in action to the popular
feelings as they developed themselves under his
observation. He newer sought to lead, but rather
to follow, and thus he succeeded in the difficult task
of successfully combining conservatism with pro-
gress. (Hear, hear.) This, surely, was not like
tyranny. (Hear, hear.) His labour was always
to improve. Hence it was that he conducted a war
of unexampled magnitude, always bearing in
mind the primary purpose for which it had been
commenced, at the same time that he associated
with it broader views as the opportunities occa-
sionally offered. He had pledged himself at the
outset to accomplish certain objects, and he
never forgot that pledge. The time had at
last arrived when he might honestly claim that
it would be fulfilled. It was in that very moment
he was taken away. On the very same day of the
year when the national flag, which just four years
ago had been lowered to triumphant enemies at
Fort Sumter, was once more lifted to its original
position by the hand of the same officer who had
suffered the indignity that commenced the war
Abraham Lincoln fell. His euthanasia is complete.
For him we ought not to mourn. His work was
done ; he had fought the good fight, he had finished
his course. The grief is all for ourselves alone.
And now we, the nation, who stand around his body
may well cry, " Go up, go up, with your gory tem-
ples twined with the evergreen symbols of a patriot's
wreath, and bearing the double glory of a martyr's
crown. (Loud applause.) Go up, while for us here
remaining on earth your memory shall be garnered
in the hearts of us and our latest posterity, in com-
mon with the priceless treasures heaped up by the
great fathers of the republic, and close by that of
the matchless Washington." (Renewed applause.)
Bat, although we profoundly lament this loss, it
must not be presumed that we do so as having no
hope. We have parted with a most faithful servant.
But the nation has not lost with him one atom of
the will which animates others of its servants as fully
as it did him. (Applause.) It is one of the notable
features of this great struggle that it is not particular
men who have attempted to lead on the people, but
rather that the people have first given the tone, to
the level of which their servants must come up, or
else sink out of sight and be forgotten. (Cheers.)
They have uniformly designated to them their
wishes. To one man they have said " Come up,"
and to another " Give way," and in either case
they have been as implicitly obeyed. Whoever it
be that is employed, the spirit that must animate
him comes from a higher source. The cause of the
country, then, does not depend on any man or any
set of men. It has now called to the front the
individual whom it had already elevated to the se-
cond post in the Government. He had been pointed
out for that place by a sense of his approved fide-
lity to the Union at the moment when all around
him were faltering or falling away. (Cheers.) In
the national Senate he stood, Abdiel like, firm and
determined in encountering with truth and force the
fatal sophistry of Jefferson Davis and his associates,
and in denouncing the course of action which was
leading them to their ruin. (Hear, hear.) Four
years of intense and continued trials within the
borders of his own State have
effort to reconstruct the
government
which they had overthrown. No one has braved
edifice beenclvirssed in the
greater dangers to his person and to all that is held
most precious to a man in this world than he. Those
four years have not been passed without at once
proving the firmness of his faith and the Progressive
nature of his ideas. He, too, has been susceptible
to the influence of the national opinion. He, too,
has gradually been brought to the conviction that
slavery, which he once defended, has been our bane
and the cause of all our woe. (Loud cries of
" Hear, hear.") And he, too, will follow his prede-
cessor in making the recognition of the principle of
human liberty the chief pathway to restoration. It
may be that he will colour his policy with a little
more of the sternness gathered from the severity of
his own trials. He may give a greater prominence
to the image of Justice than to that of Mercy in