1865.] 97 



The American Philosophical Society, uniting with the whole of 

 the loyal people of the Union, deplore the sudden and violent death 

 of Abraham Lincoln, the President of the United States, and deem 

 it proper to perpetuate on their records their sorrow for this great 

 national bereavement, and their estimation of the worth and virtues 

 of the departed Magistrate and Man ; therefore. 



Resolved, That it is with unfeigned mourning we receive the dis- 

 pensation of Providence, that has so suddenly and mysteriously per- 

 mitted the removal of the Head of the Nation at a moment when he 

 had apparently united all hearts in reliance upon his ability, wisdom, 

 and mercy, and when all lovers of their country were rejoicing in the 

 certainty of an honorable peace, and the restoration of the bonds of 

 union and fraternal concord by his instrumentality. 



Resolved, That the rebellion, which has caused the sacrifice of so 

 many valuable lives and of so much property, and which has engen- 

 dered so much sectional bitterness, crowned at last in its iniquity by 

 the murder of the President, had its origin in a political and social 

 system alien to the true principles of our National Government, sub- 

 versive of human rights and human freedom ; and its success would 

 have been a great calamity, not only to the United States, but to the 

 world. 



Resolved, That bowing in humble submission to the dispensation 

 that has not permitted Abraham Lincoln to close the war on the 

 basis of mercy, charity, and amnesty, that he had publicly announced 

 should be his guides to national peace and union, we trust that in the 

 hands to which God has now committed the powers of the Govern- 

 ment, justice shall be made potent to avenge the wrongs of the na- 

 tion, and to give to mercy its appropriate power and place. 



Resolved, That this Society will, by all its influence and power, 

 support the Government in bringing the rebellion to an end, and in 

 re-establishing the rule of the Constitution and the laws. 



Resolved, That as a testimony of respect for the memory of the 

 deceased Chief Magistrate of the Republic, the chair of the presid- 

 ing officer of the Society be draped with mourning for six months. 



Mr. Chase made a communication on the relation of mag- 

 netism and the magnetic declination to gravity. 



In my first communication on the diurnal variation of the barome- 

 ter [Proceedings A. P. S., IX, 284], I expressed the belief that a 

 careful investigation would " show a mutual connection through 

 which all the secondary [disturbing] causes may be referred to a 



VOL. X. — o 



