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[241] of March 2, in which you express the confidence in him and speak of the distrust of me.1 I was at the theatre with him the last time he had been there before his assassination. I mentioned to him the purport of your letter. He at once said, “I wish you would show me that letter.” I sent it to him, and he returned it in an envelope on which he had written your name and under cover to my address, with his frank in the upper right-hand corner, where with us the frank is written. I send them as autographs, which may interest some of your friends.

To F. W. Bird, April 25:—

I have seen a good deal of the new President, and have conversed on questions of business and of general policy. His manner has been excellent, and even sympathetic, without any uncomfortable reticence. On Saturday the chief-justice and myself visited him in the evening, especially with the view of conversing on negro suffrage. Suffice it to say that he is well disposed, and sees the rights and necessities of the case, all of which I urged earnestly. Both of us left him light-hearted. Wade has also seen a good deal of him. He tells me that the President does not disguise his hostility to the Louisiana scheme. I am confident that our ideas will prevail; therefore, be not disheartened, nor in any way relax your energies. Forward!

To Mr. Bright, May 1:—

Just this moment I have read your letter of April 14, sent to me at Boston, in which you tell me something of the last hours of our good friend. Now that he is gone, we long for his voice and his thoughts more than ever before. I wish he could have spoken on the Canada question, and touched again the chords of justice. I do not doubt that Richard Cobden will be placed very soon among England's greatest men. He will be known now better than ever, as the prejudices of life will be hushed. Your letter is dated the very day when our President was assassinated. Now while I write you we are filled with the emotion which that transcendent event is calculated to excite. Family and friends may mourn; but his death will do more for the cause than any human life, for it will fix the sentiments of the country, perhaps of mankind. In my mind, few have been happier. You will note the tranquillity with which the vast power he held passed to his successor. Mr. Johnson was at the bedside of the dying President only two minutes, about two o'clock in the morning. The heart of Mr. Lincoln ceased to beat at twenty-two minutes after seven o'clock in the morning. I left the bedside at once, and going to the door in the gray of a drizzling morning found General Halleck just getting into his carriage, which had been within call all night. I got in with him, and asked him to set me down at Mr. Seward's. He said that he must first stop at Mr. Johnson's. Here the general went in to tell the new President that he “must not go out without a guard;” and this was the way he first knew of the post he then occupied. A few hours later he took the oath before the chief-justice.

1 The reference is to the feeling among English people that Sumner had become unfriendly to their country.

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