seen treason strike through a fitting instrument, and we have beheld him fall, like a bright star falling from its sphere.

Now, there is none but would say, if the question came up, What should be done with the individual who assassinated the Chief Magistrate of the Nation? he is but a man-one man, after all; but if asked, What should be done with the assassin? what should be the penalty, the forfeit exacted? I know what response dwells in every bosom. It is, That he should pay the forfeit with his life. And hence we see there are times when mercy and clemency without justice become a crime. The one should temper the other, and bring about that proper means. And if we should say this when the case was the simple murder of one man by his fellow-man, what should we say when, asked, What should be done with him, or them, or those who have raised impious hands to take away the life of a Nation composed of thirty millions of people? What would be the reply to that question? But while in mercy we remember justice, in the language that has been uttered I say, Justice toward the leaders, the conscious leaders; but I also say, Amnesty, conciliation, clemency, and mercy to the thousands of our countrymen whom you and I know have been deceived or driven into this infernal Rebellion.

"And so I return to where I started from, and again repeat that it is time our people were taught to know that treason is a crime, not a mere political difference, not a mere contest between two parties, in which one succeeded and the other has simply failed. They must know it is treason; for if they had succeeded, the life of the Nation would have been reft from it; the Union would have been destroyed. Surely the Constitution sufficiently defines treason. It consists in levying war against the United States, and in giving their enemies aid and comfort. With this definition it requires the exercise of no great acumen to ascertain who are traitors. It requires no great perception to tell who have levied war against the United States; nor does it require any great stretch of reasoning to ascertain who has given aid to the enemies of the United States. And when the Government of the United States does ascertain who are the conscious and intelligent traitors, the penalty and the forfeit should be paid. (Applause.)

"I know how to appreciate the condition of being driven from one's home. I can sympathize with him whose all has been taken from him; with him who has been denied the place that gave his children birth. But let us, withal, in the restoration of true Government, proceed temperately and dispassionately; and hope and pray that the time will come, as I believe, when all can return and remain at our homes, and treason and traitors be driven from our land (applause); when again law and order shall reign, and the banner of our country be unfurled over every inch of territory within the area of the United States. (Applause.)

"In conclusion, let me thank you most profoundly for this encouragement and manifestation of your regard and respect; and assure you that I can give no greater assurance regarding the settlement of this question than that I intend to discharge my duty, and in that way which shall, in the earliest possible hour, bring back peace to our distracted country. And I hope the time is not far distant when our people can all return to their homes and firesides, and resume their various avocations."

A few days later the President said, in a speech to a delegation to him from Indiana:

"As my honorable friend, Governor Morton, knows, I long since took the ground that this Government was sent upon a great mission among the nations of the earth; that it had a great work to perform, and that, in starting it, it was started in perpetuity. Look back for one single moment to the Articles of Confederation, and then come down to 1787, when the Constitution was formed. What do you find? That we, 'the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect government,' etc. Provision is made for the admission of new States, to be added to the old ones embraced within the Union. Now turn to the Constitution, we find that amendments may be made by a recommendation of two-thirds of the members of Congress, if ratified by three-fourths of the States. Provision is made for the admission of new States; no provision is made for the secession of old ones. The instrument was made to be good in perpetuity; and you can take hold of

it, not to break up the Government, but to go on perfecting it more and more as it runs down the stream of time. We find the Government composed of integral parts. An individual is an integer, and a State itself is an integer, and the various States form the Union, which is itself an integer; they all making up the Government of the United States. Now we come to the point of my argument, so far as concerns the perpetuity of the Government. We have seen that the Government is composed of parts, each essential to the whole, and the whole essential to each part. Now, if an individual (part of a State) declare war against the whole, in violation of the Constitution, he, as a citizen, has violated the law, and is responsible for the act as an individual. There may be more than one individual; it may go on until they become parts of States. Some time the Rebellion may go on increasing in number till the State machinery is overturned, and the country becomes like a man that is paralyzed on one side. But we find in the Constitution a great panacea provided. It provides that the United States (that is, the great integer) shall guarantee to each State (the integers composing the whole) in this Union a republican form of government.

"Yes, if rebellion has been rampant, and set aside the machinery of a State for a time, there stands the great law to remove the paralysis and revitalize it, and put it on its feet again. When we come to understand our system of Government, though it be complex, we see how beautifully one part moves in harmony with another; then we see our Government is to be a perpetuity, there being no provision for pulling it down, the Union being its vitalizing power, imparting life to the whole of the States that move around it like planets around the sun, receiving thence light and heat and motion. Upon this idea of destroying States my position has been heretofore well known, and I see no cause to change it now, and I am glad to hear its reiteration on the present occasion. Some are satisfied with the idea that States are to be lost in territorial and other divisions; are to lose their character as States. But their life-breath has only been suspended; and it is a high Constitutional obligation we have to secure each of these States in the possession and enjoyment of a republican form of govern

ment. A State may be in the Government with a peculiar institution, and by the operation of rebellion lose that feature; but it was a State when it went into rebellion, and when it comes out without the institution it is still a State. I hold it a solemn obligation in any one of these States, where the rebel armies have been beaten back or expelled, I care not how small the ship of State; I hold it, I say, a high duty to protect and to secure to them a republican form of government. This is no new opinion. It is expressed in conformity with my understanding of the genius and theory of our Government. Then, in adjusting and putting the Government upon its legs again, I think the progress of this work must pass into the hands of its friends. If a State is to be nursed until it again gets strength, it must be nursed by its friends, not smothered by its enemies. Now permit me to remark that while I have opposed dissolution and disintegration on the one hand, on the other I am equally opposed to consolidation or the centralization of power in the hands of a few."

These opinions were received with general favor among the loyal people of the Nation, and the expressions of confidence in the new Executive were almost unbounded, and certainly exceptional. For days and weeks deputations, committees, individuals from the loyal States, from the cities, the country, the business communities, the Churches, gathered around the new President, pouring words of confidence into his ears, and proffering their cordial support. Sad events fed common sympathy; doubt and gloom developed sentiments of earnestness and selfsacrificing; and the President was made to feel that he was upheld by the hearts and hands of a patriotic people. Selected from among scores and hundreds of others of every grade of helpful earnestness and confidence, the following letter from the Governor

of Pennsylvania exhibits the common spirit of the

moment:

"EXECUTIVE CHAMBER, HARRISBURG, PA., April 25, 1865.

"SIR, I have just returned from reverently attending the remains of our martyred President on their passage through this Commonwealth, and I avail myself of the first moment to assure you that, as Pennsylvania has throughout steadily and effectively sustained the Government in its efforts to crush out the existing Rebellion, so she and her authorities may be relied on to stand heartily by your Administration, and that with an earnestness and vigor enhanced by the just horror which all her people entertain of the base and cowardly assassination to which your predecessor has fallen a victim.

"I know that it is unnecessary to give you this assurance; but looking to the vast responsibilities that have been suddenly cast upon you, it has seemed to me that an express word of hearty encouragement from your friends. can not be otherwise than agreeable to you. I should have visited Washington to say this much to you in person; but I am unwilling just at this moment to incur the danger of interfering with the just discharge of your public duties by occupying your time.

"I am, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant, "A. G. CURTIN.

"To the PRESIDENT."

The representatives of foreign nations were also eager to have opportunities for expressing their good wishes to the new Executive, and much of Mr. Johnson's time for several weeks was taken up in receiving and replying to foreign ministers, earnest patriots at home, and friends of the Union throughout the world.