The last American telegrams reported Mr. Lincoln ill of small-
pox and unable to deliver his message on that account. There is good reason to hope that his illness is not serious ; but the mind naturally glances at the possible calamity which the country might sustain in his death. Few men of average abilities ever Managed to inspire a more profound trust in their integrity and firmness than Lincoln has contrived to implant in both his friends and foes, and certainly there is no man in his Cabinet, not even Mr. Chase, whom the world would trust as well. If he were to die before his term of office was out, he would be succeeded by the Vice-President, the Honourable Hannibal Hamlin, who is said to be a man of resolute character, in any case quite unlikely to be a cipher, and even more ptrongly committed to the anti-slavery policy than his chief. He has been Governor of Maine, and was United States Senator for that State when be was elected to the Vice-Presidency. Formerly a Democrat, he left the Democratic party on discovering its corrup- tion before the Republican party was formed. Let us hope, how- ever, that there will be no occasion for the curious medley of associations suggested by the substitution of a Hannibal in the political patriarchate for an Abraham.
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