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Address of the Union and Emancipation Society of Manchester to Mr. Johnson.
Sir: We have heard with profound regret that your late distinguished President, Abraham Lincoln, has fallen a victim to a vile conspiracy, and that he has been suddenly removed from you midst by the hand of a cowardly assassin.
We have watched his career from the period of his election in 1860 down to his lamented death, as well through all the darkest hours of the struggle in which your country has been engaged as at the time when success seemed to be within his grasp, and we have ever recognized in him a self-denying patriotism, a devotion to the principles of right and justice, and a determination to surmount, by constitutional means, every obstacle which stood in the way of the final triumph of those principles. His unswerving faith never forsook him in the hour of depression and gloom, and he has left behind him a noble example, of magnanimity and moderation, in the hour of victory, which cannot fail to secure the admiration of the whole civilized world.
Elected on the basis of a limitation of the area of slavery in the United States, he gradually and cautiously developed an anti-slavery policy, which re suited in the issue of an emancipation proclamation, by which every slave in the rebel States is now free; and he lived to see adopted by Congres an amendment to the Constitution abolishing forever slavery in the United States.
He has not been permitted to witness the final achievement of this great work, but his name will ever be associated in history with the removal of this from your national escutcheon.
It is not alone or chiefly on grounds of philanthropy that we have sympathized in his objects and aims. From the period when we beheld a section of your community, when defeated at the ballot-box, appealing to the arbitrament of the sword, without even the pretence of a grievance, excepting the alleged danger to the institution of slavery, we regarded free constitutional government as on its trial, and we have received with unvarying satisfaction the uniform consistency with which he always upheld the maintenance of the Union as paramount to every other consideration.
In the recollection of these things we desire now, through you, to express our deep sympathy with your loyal-fellow cititens in the grievous loss you have sustained—a loss which, at this important crisis in your country’s history, cannot fail to produce serious and anxious concern.
In the midst of gloom, however, we are consoled by the reflection that the world is ruled by principles, not by men; and that while the most distinguished statesmen are constantly passing away, the principles which they have propounded are immortal.
Mr. Lincoln, it is true, has departed, but he has bequeathed to posterity an example which cannot fail to exercise a powerful influence on the future of your country.
The Constitution places you in the office of Chief Magistrate of the Union at a solemn crisis in your national affairs, which has no parallel in the past history of the nation; but we cheerfully recognize the fact that the same ballot which secured the triumphant re-election of Mr. Lincoln also placed you in the distinguished position to become his successor; and our faith in the instincts of a great people forbid us to doubt that the noble principles which animated him will ever find a response in your heart.
For and on behalf of the Union and Emancipation Society of Manchester.
THOMAS BAYLEY POTTER,
President.
FRANCIS TAYLOR,
For self and other Vice-Presidents.
SAMUEL WATTS,
Treasurer.
JOHN H. EASTCOURT,
Chairman of Executive.
JOHN C. EDWARD,
EDWARD OWEN GREENING,
Honorary Secretaries.
His Excellency Andrew Johnson,
President of the United States.
At a public meeting held in the Free Trade Hall, Manchester, April 28th, 1865, it was moved by Alderman Heywood, ex-mayor, seconded by the Rev. S. A. Steinthall, and passed unanimously—
That the address to President Johnson, expressive of sympathy with the American people in the loss they have sustained by the lamented death of President Lincoln, be adopted, and that the chairman be authorized to sign it on behalf of this meeting.
FRANCIS TAYLOR,
Chairman.