Page:The Civil War in America - an address read at the last meeting of the Manchester Union and Emancipation Society.djvu/90

84 Moved by Alderman, seconded by the Rev. , supported by , Esq.:

“,—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 your midst by the hands 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 recognised 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 civilised world.

“Elected on the basis of a limitation of the area of