The Sun. — 1865-05-12 (London, England)

THE EDITOR OF THE MONTREAL GAZETTE. Sir,—Although it is beneath the dignity of a Government, or the humblest servant of a Government, to notice any Charge made against it which is preposterous for its littleness and meanness, yet, as I know of no one nowoutside of Confederate and Federal lines who can better speak upon the subject which prompts this note, I beg leave to address the public through your columns. In a despatch addressed to Major-General Dix, dated Washington, April 24, 2 p.m., and marked official (in which Mr. Secratary Stanton announces the capture of Macon, Georgia, in violation of an acknowledged armistice, and states his permission for the Federal commander to rectify his dishonourable act), the following language occurs : "This Department has information that the President's murder was organised iu Canada and approved at Richmond. One of the assassins now in prison, who attempted to kill Mr. Seward, is believed to be one of the St. Albansi raiders. "E. M. STANTON, Secretary of War."  (The italics are mine.) My object in writing this is to say that I, as an officer of the service of the Confederate States of America, in their behalf, deny everything which Mr. Stanton means by the assertion that the " President's murder" was "approved at Richmond:, I assert that no official of the Confederate States authorised, or was cognisant, of that assassination ; and I make this assertion because I have heard both the President and Secretary of State express views concerning the policy of the Confederate States in conducting this war so utterly at variance with the unmanly charge of the Federal Secretary that I know they neither prompted nor sanctioned the deed. It is my high privilege to know most of the members of the Confederate States' Government, and to have had frequent official intercourse with them. And for them (as their own self-respect will not permit them to notice it) I aver, upon the faith of a Christian and the honour of a gentleman, my belief that they were as little the promoters of the murder as Secretary Stanton or Vice-President Johnson.  A few days before I left Wilmington (a broken invalid) I had the honour of conversing with the President and Mr. Benjamin, and the remembrance of the high, noble sendMonts expressed by both increases the wonder how Mr. Stanton, who knows them, and the other members of the Confederate States' Government personally so well, could lend himself to this low slander, when he must ha-ve known it to be such. In denying it indignantly, contemptuously-, I fear that I am even in my own humble person condescending too far ; but I think this despatch should not go uncontradicted to the world, although, perhaps, our past record would have been it best rebuke. Whether President Lincoln's murder was " organised" in Canada or not is a !natter of which lam equally ignorant and careless. I believe this statement to be false—l know it to be so, so far as it involves any imputation of instigation, complicity, or remotest connection on the part of myself or of any other Confederates, so far as my knowledge extends. As the act of an individual whose motives are, as yet, undeclared and unknown, it was a daring one, concerning the perpetrator more than any one else, and each one may criticise it as his feelings dictate. But as the act of a Government would be a cowardice which I would scarcely have believed that even Mr. Stanton could have charged upon the Confederate authorities. If he have any proofs let the world have them, and judge between the two GovernInents.—l am, respectfully, &c.,