To the Editor of the Sun:
Allow me through your valuable paper to make a few remarks upon an article which appeared in the “Citizen” this evening, with references to the dastardly murder of President Lincoln.
The writer most unblushingly labors to lay the perpetration of this awful crime at the doors of what he terms the “radical Republican party,” saying that “these extremists clamor for the blood of every southerner, and the confiscation of all southern property,” and that they were deeply dissatisfied with the moderate policy lately foreshadowed by Lincoln and Seward.
I would like to ask from what source the writer draws his valuable information. Do we not all know that the Northern people were filled with joy at the prospect of a speedy restoration of peace, and that the magnanimity which Mr. Lincoln has treated General Lee and his officers has not only met their most hearty acquiescence and greatest approval, but has elicited the warmest admiration of right thinking men everywhere; and it may be safely affirmed that at no period of his administration has Mr. Lincoln been more respected abroad and popular at home then since the capture of Richmond, and I look upon the article that charges them with the committal of this foul deed as a wanton insult in their hour of sorrow.
We may well pause before charging any people or nationality with such a crime, but the ill concealed joy at the Southern people here, in fact their open jubilance, as manifested by the gay decoration of their vessels in our harbor this afternoon, leaves us but little room for conjecture; at least we can safely draw the inference, that if not privy to the deed they most heartily approve of it. I would ask what possible sympathy can Southern people expect, or are they entitled to, from any man with a spark of humanity in him, after their barbarous exhibitions of joy which we have witnessed this day over the blackest deed, the foulest act, which has cast its dark shadow over modern history.
The great, good man’s blood cries aloud for vengeance, and justice calls, I hope not in vain, for the craven villain who is guilty of the atrocity, that he may receive that punishment which is due to so heinous a deed.
I thank you, Mr Editor, for having allowed me so much of your valuable space, and I hope that subsequent events will not only bring the murderer to justice but reveal to us the motives by which he was actuated.
Honoring you for the just and independent manner with which you have ever, since the commencement of this terrible conflict, advocated the cause of right and humanity.
I am Sir, Yours, very truly, J Mc—-, Dartmouth, Saturday Night, April 15.
“Halifax Morning Sun – Apr 19, 1865” (Page one column 5, at top.) https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=dw5aoL0HVgwC&dat=18650419&printsec=frontpage&hl=en
