to the institutions of our fathers, and their unfaltering purpose to transmit them unimpaired to their children and children's children for a perpetual inheritance, can but feel assured that even in the dire extremity now under consideration they would have proven true to their trust, and would have found a way to restore all of the machinery of government provided for in the Constitution. The people are above the Constitution even as the maker is above the thing made. The rebel armies had been so completely overcome that they could no longer have formed even a nucleus around which the traitors in the North could have organized an opposition that could have been regarded with other than feelings of contempt by our victorious hosts. The time had passed; the opportunity was gone. No wonder the conspirators in Canada gnashed their teeth with rage and disappointment because "the boys had not been allowed to act when they wanted to." They had amongst their many schemes concocted during the summer of 1864, such as making raids, liberating rebel prisoners of war held in Northern prisons, burning cities, spreading pestilence, and poisoning reservoirs, been led also to consider this scheme of assassinations. All of these things were to be done in aid of the rebellion. As their cause became desperate on account of the continued success of our arms, so did they become desperate in planning to retrieve. As early as January, 1865, they received a communication from Jefferson Davis suggesting these things and urging them to stop at nothing, however desperate, and plainly intimating that Lincoln ought not to be allowed to live; but it was not until the latter part of March, 1865, that they were prepared to present to him a definitely-prepared plan for the accomplishment of their purposes that he could accept and sanction. They had thus been long delayed, and now they were compelled to realize that their work was a failure. No wonder that they all, from Jefferson Davis down, felt and expressed grievous disappointment. It reminds us of Milton's description of the malignant schemes, failures, disappointments, and rage of the Prince of Devils in his contests with the Almighty. CHAPTER V. UNRAVELLING THE PLOT.--PURSUIT AND CAPTURE OF BOOTH AND HEROLD.--DEATH OF BOOTH.