Wilkes Booth, the murderer of Mr. Lincoln, left behind him,
in the care of his brother, amongst various bonds and samples, a very curious letter in vindication of the act he was meditating. It is a curiously fanatical document,.—fanatical to the last degree on behalf of slavery and the South. He refers to his pride in aiding in the execution and capture of John Brown, and says, "I thought then, as now, that the Abolitionists were the only traitors in the land, and that the entire party deserved the same fate as poor old Brown, not because they wish to abolish slavery, but on account of the means they have ever endeavoured to use to effect that abolition." "Looking at African slavery from the stand-point held by the noble framers of our Constitution, I for one have ever considered it one of the greatest blessings, both for themselves [the blacks] and us, that God ever bestowed upon a and the letter of a man with culture. It is curiously penetrated with the deeply-rooted idea of the South—for the last ten years at least—that all the aggressions of slaveholders to extend slavery are noble, all the aggressions of Abolitionists to extirpate it diabolic. He signs himself, "A Confederate doing duty upon his own responsibility," which is a very good definition of a slave power in general, and a murdering slave power in particular. To feel no responsibility except to yourself, is the secret of Cain.
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