The Assassination: 
"We Wish It to Be Distinkly Understood, We Weep!"

SAINT'S REST 
(wich is in the Stait uv Noo Jersey),
April the 20th, 1865.

The nashen mourns! The hand uv the vile assassin hel bin raised agin the Goriller -- the head uv the nashen, and the people's Father hez fallen beneath the hand uv a patr  --  vile assassin.

While Aberham Linkin wuz a livin, I need not say that I did not love him. Blessed with a mind uv no ordinary dimensions, endowed with all the goodness uv Washington, I alluz bleeved him to hev bin guilty uv all the crimes uv a Nero.

No man in Noo Jersey laments his untimely death more than the undersined. I commenst weepin perfoosely the minit I diskivered a squad uv returned soljers comin round the comer, who wuz a forcin constooshnel Dimekrats to hang out moumin.

Troo, he didn't agree with me, but I kin overlook that-it wuz his misforchoon. Troo, he hung unoffendin men, in Kentucky, whose only crime wuz in bein loyal to wat they deemed their guverment, ez tho a man in this free country coodent choose wich guverment he'd live under. Troo, he made cold- blooded war, in the most fiendish manner, on the brave men uv the South, who wuz only assertin the heaven-born rite uv roolin theirselves. Troo, he levied armies, made up uv pimps, whose chiefest delite wuz in ravishin the wives and daughters uv the South, and a miscellaneous burnin their houses. Troo, he kept into offis jist sich men ez wood sekund him in his hell-begotten skeems, and dismist every man who refused to becum ez depraved ez he wuz. Troo, he wood read uv these scenes uv blood and carnage, and in high glee tell filthy anecdotes; likewise wood he ride over the field uv battle, and ez the wheels uv his gorjus carriage crushed into the shuddrin earth the bodies uv the fallen braves, sing Afrikin melodies. Yet I, in common with all troo Dimekrats, weep! We weep! We wish it to be distinkly understood, we weep! Ther wuz that in him that instinktively forces us to weep over his death, and to loathe the foul assassin who so suddenly removed so much loveliness uv character. He hed ended the war uv oppression -- he hed subjoogatid a free and brave people, who were strugglin for their rites, and hed em under his feet; but I, in common with all Dimekrats, mourn his death!

Hed it happened in 1862, when it wood hev been uv sum use to us, we wood not be so bowed down with woe and anguish. It wood hev throwd the guverment into confusion, and probably hev sekoored the independence uv the South.

But, alas! the tragedy cum at the wrong time!

Now, we are saddled with the damnin crime, when it will prodoose no results. The war wuz over. The game wuz up when Richmond wuz evacuated. Why kill Linkin then? For revenge? Revenge is a costly luxury-a party so near bankrupt ez the Dimokrasy cannot afford to indulge in it. The wise man hez no sich word ez revenge in his dictionary-the fool barters his hope for it.

Didst think that Linkin's death wood help the South? Linkin's hand wuz velvet -- Johnson's may be, to the eye, but to the feel it will be found iron. Where Linkin switched, Johnson will flay. Where Linkin banished, Johnson will hang.

Davis wuz shocked when he heard it -- so wuz I, and, in common with all troo Dimekrats, I weep.