_Resolved_, That the members of this Board express their profound and respectful sympathy with the bereaved family of the deceased, and with the associates of the departed in the Cabinet, as well as all the members of the national councils, in the tragic and deplorable events in which they share so largely.
HYPOCRISY OF COPPERHEAD NEWSPAPERS--COMPLICITY WITH ASSASSINATION--THE LEADERS AND THEIR VICTIMS.
During the month of February, by Executive clemency, a number of Copperheads were released from confinement in Washington, where they had been placed as a measure of public safety. The _Times_ published, and other Copperhead papers echoed the following. That paper now, in a very pious spirit, piteously urges, and the prints of like character also echo it, that "there should be no more party strife," "no more rancor," that it has not stabbed the President since he was shot, and the office is now draped with deep mourning. Aminadab Sleek is going to them as a comforter, and as tears mitigate woe, he bears with him an onion. The _Times_ says:
"We submit that this fact should damn this Administration, not only for all time, but, if there be justice hereafter, to all eternity. There is not a single civilized government in existence to-day, against which can be charged a similar display of tyranny. With the title of being the freest government of modern ages, we have shown ourselves to be one whose disregard of right and whose outrageous assumptions of power are only paralleled in the reign of despots.
The liberty of fifty men may seem a small affair; but the matter has not so much reference to the magnitude of the offence as it has to the principle which underlies it. The moment Mr. Lincoln, or Mr. Seward, or any other man, dares to deprive one person of his liberty without due process of law, that moment has the government been changed from one of the people to an autocracy--a tyranny. If any man to-day is free in this country, it is not because he is a good citizen, surrounded by the protection of the laws, but simply because Seward or Lincoln has not chosen to order his incarceration.
The epitaph of posterity upon this people is easily anticipated. It will be--died 24,000,000 of whites, who lost their liberties and lives in an attempt to give a fictitious freedom to 4,000,000 negroes."