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Bee Hive Office, 10 Bolt Court, Fleet street, London.
At a meeting of the working men of London, held at St. Martin’s hall, on Thursday evening, May 4, 1865, Mr. Thomas Bayley Potter, M. P. in the chair, it was
Unanimously resolved, That in addition to expressing their deep sympathy with the people of America for the great loss they have sustained, this meeting also desires to convey to the President, government, and people of the United States, their congratulation on the decisive successes which have lately attended the federal arms, affording a just hope of a speedy suppression of the rebellion, and the entire extinction of the accursed slave institutions, and therefore adopt the following address:
To the President, government, and people of the United States:
We, the working men of London, send you greeting! For more than four years have we watched, with the deepest anxiety, the momentous and stupendous struggle in which you have been engaged; we have sympathized with your reverses, rejoiced over you successes, and hailed with delight your late decisive triumph over the men who raised the standard of rebellion, not for the advancement of liberty, but that they might establish in your midst an empire with the avowed object of maintaining, extending, and perpetuating the accursed slave institution, for so long a period the dark spot in your national history. We were about to congratulate you on your late glorious victory, and on the extirpation from your great republic of that foul stain of slavery, when we were shocked at receiving the intelligence that the man who had done so much to bring about this desired end, gradually and constitutionally, who had pursued steadfastly his anti-slavery policy, braving alike the opposition of the open foe, the fears of the timid, the prejudice of the ignorant, and the abuse of the aristocrat, had fallen a victim to the fiendish attack of an assassin, on the eve of witnessing the consummation of his great and glorious labor, and while the words of conciliation and mercy to the vanquished enemy were yet hovering on his lips.
People of America, we deeply feel with you the great loss you have sustained by the untimely death of your late illustrious President, Abraham Lincoln, who had endeared himself to his country and mankind, especially to the toiling millions of the civilized world, not less by his pure and stainless character than by his great services to his country in its time of agonizing trial. We feel that the loss of such a man is ours as well as yours. We feel that the loss of such a man is not only a loss to the nation over which he presided, but a loss to the world at large. Raised by the force of his own character and genius from a humble position in the ranks of industry to be the first citizen of a great and glorious republic, his memory will be endeared to, and enshrined in, the hearts of the toiling millions of all countries, as one of the few uncrowned monarchs of the world. Abraham Lincoln has been sacrificed in the cause of negro emancipation, and the freedom of the slave has been consecrated by the blood of his deliverer.
People of America, in your grief and affliction we the working men of London, offer you our heartfelt sympathy. We also have to lament the recent loss of a man among us whose life was devoted to our interests, and whose political career, like that of your Abraham Lincoln, though less troubled, was equally pure and stainless, Richard Cobden. May we, acting in the spirit of these two great men, draw closer the bonds of unity between us, and may peace and good will always exist between our respective nations. That man is a traitor to humanity and freedom who would lift his voice or his pen to provoke hostile proceedings between England and America; that man, be he peer or plebian, be he in the senate or on the platform, or in the press, who would say or write anything in favor of a war between the two countries is little less a miscreant than that assassin who has so lately struck down the foremost man amongst you. Be assured, whatever you may have heard to the contrary, either in a parliament with which we have nothing in common, and in which we are not yet represented, or in the leading articles of the corrupt and venal portion of the press, the working men of Great Britain have always been sound upon the great struggle in which you have been engaged, and, while you have been fighting, they have been anxiously watching and awaiting that time, now it would appear so happily approaching, when the rights and dignity of labor shall be acknowledged to exist equally in the black man as in the white. It was for this Abraham Lincoln lived and labored. It was for this Abraham Lincoln died the martyr of freedom. May his glorious example be as a beacon light to his successor. May he and those associated with him in the government, carry out the principles and policy of Abraham Lincoln, tempering justice with mercy, and triumph with conciliation, and the blood and treasure poured out during the last four years, will not have been sacrificed and expended in vain.
Accept, people of America, the pledge of sympathy and the hand of fellowship and fraternity, from the working men of England’s great metropolis.
Signed on behalf of the meeting:
THOMAS BAYLEY POTTER,
Chairman.
THOMAS BAYLEY POTTER, M. P.,
P. A. TAYLOR, M. P.,
EDMOND BEALES, M. A.,
JOHN ROBERT TAYLOR,
PROFESSOR BEELY,
MASON JONES,
F. W. EDGE,
S. ENGLANDER,
J. A. NICHOLAY,
E. D. ROGERS,
Committee.
GEO. POTTER,
W. S. NORTHHOUSE,
Honorary Secretaries.
And forty-two other names.