at least entitled to claim and concede an entire and friendly equality of rights and hospitalities with all maritime nations. In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed. Done at the City of Washington this eleventh day of April, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-five, and of the independence of the United States of America the eightyninth. [L. 8.] By the President: WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State. A. LINCOLN. Nor were these the only measures adopted which indicated that the war was over, the rebellion crushed, and the era of peace and good feeling about to be ushered in. On the 13th, the Secretary of War announced that, "after mature consideration and consultation with the Lieutenant-General upon the results of the recent campaign," the Department determined upon the following measures, to be carried into immediate effect, viz. : First. To stop all drafting and recruiting in the loyal States. Second. To curtail purchases of arms, ammunition, quartermaster's and commissary's supplies, and reduce the expenses of the military establish ment in its several branches. Third. To reduce the number of general and staff officers to the actual necessities of the service. Fourth. To remove all military restrictions upon trade and commerce, so far as may be consistent with public safety. This determination of the Government, announced in the newspapers of the 14th of April, afforded the country a substantial and most welcome assurance that the war was over. The heart of the nation beat high with gratitude to the illustrious Chief Magistrate, whose wisdom and patience had saved his country; but whose glory, not yet complete, was, before another sun should rise, destined to receive the seal of immortality. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1865. by DERBY & MILLER, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York. PRESIDENT LINCOLN FN ERING R.CHMOND. CHAPTER XXI. THE PRESIDENT'S ASSASSINATION. THE CONDITION OF THE COUNTRY.-ASSASSINATION OF THE PRESIDENT.MURDEROUS ASSAULT UPON SECRETARY SEWARD.-THE FUNERAL PROCESSION FROM WASHINGTON TO Springfield, ILLINOIS.-FATE OF THE ASSASSINS. ESTIMATE OF MR. LINCOLN'S CHARACTER.-CONCLUSION. THE war was over. The great rebellion which, for four long years, had been assailing the nation's life, was quelled. Richmond, the rebel capital, was taken, Lee's army had surrendered, and the flag of the Union was floating, in reassured supremacy, over the whole of the National domain. Friday, the 14th of April, the anniversary of the surrender of Fort Sumter in 1861, by Major Anderson to the rebel forces, had been designated by the Government as the day on which the same officer should again raise the American flag upon the fort, in presence of an assembled multitude, and with ceremonies befitting so auspicious an occasion. The whole land rejoiced at the return of peace and the prospect of renewed prosperity to the whole country. President Lincoln shared this common joy, but with a deep intensity of feeling which no other man in the whole land could ever know. He saw the full fruition of the great work which had rested so heavily on his hands and heart for four years past. He saw the great task-as momentous as had ever fallen to the lot of man—which he had ap proached with such unfeigned diffidence, nearly at an end. The agonies of war had passed away-he had won the imperishable renown which is the high reward of those who save their country, and he could devote himself now to the welcome task of healing the wounds which war had made, and consolidating, by a wise and mag. nanimous policy, the severed sections of our common Union. Mr. Lincoln's heart was full of the generous sentiments which these circumstances were so well calculated to inspire. On the morning of Friday, a Cabinet meeting was held, at which he was even more than usually cheerful and hopeful, as he laid before the Secretaries his plans and suggestions for the treatment of the conquered people of the Southern States. And after the meeting was over he talked with his wife, with all the warmth of his loving nature, of the four years of storm through which he had been compelled to pass, and of the peaceful sky on which the opening of his second term nad dawned. His mind was free from forebodings, and filled only with thoughts of kindness and of future peace. But Mr. Lincoln had failed to estimate aright one of the elements inseparable from civil war-the deep and malig nant passion which it never fails to excite. Free from the faintest impulse of revenge himself, he could not appreciate its desperate intensity in the hearts of others. Mr. Seward, with his larger experience and more practical knowledge of human nature, had repeatedly told him that so great a contest could never close without passing through an era of assassination-that if it did not come as a means of aiding the rebel cause, it would follow, and seek to avenge its downfall, and that it was the duty of all who were responsibly and conspicuously connected with the Government, to be prepared for this supreme test of their courage and patriotic devotion. Mr. Seward himself, had acted upon this conviction, and had stood at his post always prepared for sudden death. Mr. Lincoln was unwilling to contemplate the possibility of such a crime. To all remonstrances against personal exposure, he replied that his death could not possibly benefit the rebel cause, but would only rouse the loyalty of the land to fresh indignation, and that no precautions he could take would defeat the purpose of his murder, if it were really entertained. He continued, therefore, his habit of walking alone from the Executive Mansion to the War Department |