John Williams James, Chairman to Abraham Lincoln, December 8, 1864

[Letter above refered to. ]

Respected Sir: In conveying to you our congratulations on your re-election to the important dignity of chief magistrate of America, we do so with the utmost sincerity and of heartfelt emotion, in witnessing your success.

The solemn and deliberate verdict given by the people of America in this great crisis is, to us, the most convincing proof that your conduct during your tenure of office has met with their hearty approval, and that the measures enacted by your government have been wholly in accordance with their wishes.

This unmistakable record of their free and unbiased opinion we consider to be pregnant with the most important results, and a lesson worthy of consideration to the other nations of the civilized world.

With a frightful and desolating civil war raging in every direction, with party spirit rampant in all its worst moods, with households rent in twain, father against son and brother against brother, yet have the people pronounced their judgment without shrinking from future consequences, and by the efficient agency of the ballot-box, as Professor Smith has stated, the national decision has been pronounced with majestic calmness under circumstances the, most perilous and exciting.

The friends of freedom may well take heart and rejoice that popular representative government can pass through so fiery an ordeal, and come out of it stronger and more purified for future action.

As Welchmen we feel proud that so many of our countrymen, who have made America the country of their adoption, have responded so voluntarily to the call made upon them, and that they have fought and died so nobly in defence of what we deem the great principles of freedom.

We regard your triumphant re-election as the death-blow to the festering blot of slavery, so long mixed up with and so deadly in its influence upon your institutions, and we look forward with sanguine wishes, that but a short time will elapse ere this constant weapon of attack, in the hands of your enemies, will be completely destroyed.

We earnestly hope that Providence will vouchsafe to you yet many years of life, and that when the battle shall have been won, when strife shall have ceased and peace reigneth in the laud, you will be able to look back upon the mighty struggle of the past with the conscientious feeling of having done your duty, and of having been the humble instrument in the accomplishment of the great work of freeing the slave, so that hereafter he may stand before his Maker as a man and a brother.