Papers Relating to Foreign Affairs, Accompanying the Annual Message of the President to the Second Session Thirty-eighth Congress, Part IV, Appendix to diplomatic correspondence of 1865; the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, late president of the United States of America, and the attempted assassination of William H. Seward, Secretary of State, and Frederick W. Seward, Assistant Secretary, on the evening of the 14th of April, 1865; expressions of condolence and sympathy inspired by these events

Students of the School of Medicine

undated

[Translation.]

Citizen Ambassador: At the news of the horrid death of one whom two worlds admired yesterday, and lament to-day, the young men of the schools extend the expression of their grief to the United States representative. We openly proclaim our sympathy for the brave defender of that great cause of justice, called in America, emancipation of slaves, in Europe, liberation of the oppressed.

In President Lincoln, we weep for a fellow citizen; for no country is shut up now; and our country is that where there are neither masters nor slaves; where every man is free, or is fighting to become free.

We are the fellow citizens of John Brown, of Abraham Lincoln, and of Mr. Seward. We young people, to whom the future belongs, must have the courage to found a true democracy; and we will have to look beyond the ocean to learn how a people who have made themselves free can preserve their freedom.

He who died was a citizen of that republic, where the great men are not conquerors who violate the rights and privileges of the people, but the founders and guardians of their independence, like Washington and Lincoln.

Honesty and simplicity, energy in their struggles, moderation in victory, respect for liberty, always and everywhere; these are the admirable qualities of Lincoln, of all of the elect of the American people. How magnificent compared with the meanness of those elect of God, whom ignorant or servile historians adduce as worthy examples in our old Europe.

To murder such men is to kill the law itself. In a republic, where laws are made by a free people, all those who are intrusted with the administration of the laws, and those who take a solemn oath to obey them, and never violate them, these men are sacred; to kill them is to commit the most detestable of crimes, and such murderers are termed assassins, as their victims, like Lincoln and Seward, are called martyrs of justice and liberty.

The President of the great republic is dead, but the republic itself shall live for ever.

In the name of those who composed the meeting.

A. REY,

Student of Medicine.