Year: 1865

IlMES,


A crime so horrible as assassination is
held in detestation and adherence by every
civilized people. The savage tribes of Am
erica, by whom it is systematically prac-
ticed, resort to it only to avenge the mur-
der of relative. Unless under peculiar
circumstances, it carries with it the pre-
sumption of cowardice, the exceptions be-
ing where the horrid deed is done in pub
lie, and the perpetrator places his own life


in imminent hazard, either from the fury of
the populace or those more regular steps
which lead through judicial process to a
felon's death. The assassin of Mr.. Lincoln
could hardly hope to escape, though the
murderer--in intent, if not in fact of Mr.


Seward had more chance liz his favor
There are not wanting, in recent times,
plenty of instances of attempts being made
to assassinate royal or other eminent polit-
ical personages but they have almost in
variably miscarried from one cause or an
other The attempts on the life of Napo-
leon III. are fresh in the public reccollec-
ton but though they have been more than
once repeated, the Emperor of the French
still lives. We are many Of US old enough
to remember the plot of Fiaschi to murder
|
when the Duke of Wellington found it nee
essary to secure his windows with thick
iron shutters Not all the virtues OF our
own Queen and the love which is borne her
by her subjects have protected her, at all
times, from attempts upon her life. In 1910
a madman shot at the Queen and the Prin-
cess Royal and at another time, a cap
tain OF dragons assaulted her Majesty by
horsewhipping her. The successful attempt
IN recent times to assasslnat, a statesman
i'll the case of Mr.. Percival, shot by Belling-
ham, in the lobby of the House of Com
mons, in 1911. Bellingham acted from a
sense of personal injury A Russian mer-
chant, he attributed his ruin to Percival,
and took this means Of revenge At still
later date, within about twenty years, an
attempt was made on the life of Sir Robert
Peel, and the ball intended for him struck
and killed his private secretary, Mr.. Drum
mond. In 1920, was formed the Cato-street
conspiracy, with Thistlewood at its head,
for the purpose of assassinating the whole
British Cabinet, at dinner to be given at
| Lord Hatrowby's house in Grosvenor square
| The conspiracy was denounced by govern
ment spies, and Thistlewood was executed
| for the crime. About twenty years before
this time, a madman named Hadfield fired
from the pit of Drury Lane Theatre at
George III. in his box, and, missing his
| aim, was tried for treason, but not convc-
ted, on account Of his irresponsible condi-
ton. He was kept in confinement for safe
! ty. This was the second attempt on the
life Of that king, Margaret Nicholson hav-
ing, in 1856, attempted to stab his Majesty
with knife as he was alighting from his
carriage near ST james Palace. The wo-
man was treated as maniac and confined
in Bethlehem Hospital All these attempts
to assasslnate royal and distinguished po-
lltlcal personages taken together were not
attended with as much success as the two
which were made simultaneously at Wash
ington last Friday night. The success of
those attempts is more unusual than the
acts themselves. And the reasons for that
success are plain An English King may
be fired at, as we have seen, from the pit
of theatre, or an Emperor of the French
may encounter an attempt at assassination
the moment he passes out of the opera i'll
to his carriage but at Washington an ass
ASSN can get Immediately behind the Chief
Magistrate in his box at the theatre, and
make sure of his murderous purpose Per-
cival was shot in the lobby of the House
of Commons, and Sir Robert Peel was shot
at in the street; but at Washington the
assassin, with clumsy lie in his mouth,
finds ready admission to the sick chamber
of feeble and emaciated minister of State,
and strikes blows which he intended to be
mortal. This strange facility of access to
great political personages having proved
fatal, may cause the notions of primitive
simplicity which were thought to comport
with the character of that Republic to be
revised, and it may henceforth be found
necessary to surround the President of the
United States with that protection which is
accorded to Kings and Emperors in Europe
In this way the manners of the Republican
court of W ashington may undergo change
| Whatever may have been the motive for
the assassination of President Lincoln and
the attempt on the life of Secretary Sew
ard, they can but inspire horror in all right
minded persons everywhere. So far as the
cause of the South is identified with these
acts, it will suffe in the estimation of the
world There is nothing to be gained to
any cause by so horrible a crime as ass
assination, and much to be lost. One of
the effects will be, in this case, to exasper-
ate the North against the South, and to
cause it to insist on much harder condi-
tions, when the question of final reconcilia-
tion comes to be discussed, than it other
wise would have done There were two
parties in the North one in favor of mild
measures such as foregoing the right of
contscating the property of men who had
been in arms against the Washington gov
ernment the other insisting on the hang
ing of Jefferson Davis whenever he should
be caught, and similar measures to extreme
severity. The malignants," as they were
not inaptly called, were likely to have been
greatly in the minority but the temper of
the North will be exasperated by the ass
assination of their President and the mur-
derous attack upon Secretary Seward, and
mild and merciful councils will be likely to
be forgotten in the bad feeling that will
once more become predominant Outside
the United States these assassinations will
iniure the cause of the South in the estima-
ton of the world, precisely in the proper
ton that Southerners may be found to have
been in the plot or to have approved of the
crime after its perpertration That the
death of Mr.. Lincoln will alter the war pol
icy of the Northern States cannot be sup