ar as it could be spared without injustice being done to the
country, Booth must have expected to find his act condemned by every
rational Southern man as a worse than useless crime, as a blunder of the
very first magnitude. Had he succeeded in getting abroad, Secession
exiles would have shunned him, and have treated him as one who had
brought an ineffaceable stain on their cause, and also had rendered
their restoration to their homes impossible. The pistol-shot of Sergeant
Corbett saved him from the gallows, and it saved him also from the
denunciations of the men whom he thought to serve. He exhibited,
therefore, a species of courage that is by no means common; for he not
only risked his life, and rendered it impossible for honorable men to
sympathize with him, but he ran the hazard of being denounced and cast
off by his own party. This places him above those who would have
assassinated their country, but who took care to keep themselves within
the rules of honorable action, as the world counts honor. He perilled
everything, while they staked only their lives and their property. Their
success would have justified them in general estimation, but his success
would have been his ruin. He was fortunate in meeting death so soon, and
not less so in the mode of his exit from the stage of life. All
Secessionists who retain any self-respect must rejoice that one whose
doings brought additional ignominy on a cause that could not well bear
it has passed away and gone to his account. It would have been more
satisfactory to loyal men, if he had been reserved for the gallows; but
even they must admit that it is a terrible trial to any people who get
possession of an odious criminal, because they may be led so to act as
to disgrace themselves, and to turn sympathy in the direction of the
evil-doer. No fouler murder ever was perpetrated than that of which
Booth was guilty; and had he been taken alive and sound, it is possible
that our conduct would not have been of such a character as it would
have been pleasing to think of after our just passion should have
cooled. We should recollect, that, a hundred and sixty years after its
occurrence, the shouting of Englishmen over the verdict of _Guilty_
rendered against Charnock and his associates, because of their part in
the Assassination Plot, is condemned by the greatest of English
historians, who was the last man to be suspected of sympathizing with
men who sought to murder William III. A d