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

Conference of French Pastors

[Translation.]

Paris, April 27, 1865.

Letter addressed to madam, the widow of the late President of the United States, and sent to the care of the United States Minister at Paris.

Madam: We learn with stupor the horrible crime which has plunged in mourning your family arid all the people of the United States, and which has changed rudely into lamentations the song of triumph and thanksgivings. The name of Abraham Lincoln embodied, in our estimation, one of the greatest causes with which heart can be inspired, and it is just at the moment when that cause is crowned with victory, after a cruel struggle, that he to whom the triumph is mainly due, perishes, the victim of an unaccountable fanaticism. Only this was wanting to complete the horrors of slavery, the consecration of victory, and the glory of the defender of liberty. Madam, we do not seek to console you with the idea of the glory henceforth attached to the name of your husband, whom future ages will rank, as we do now, among the benefactors of the human race. But directing your attention, as well as our own, to something higher, let us adore the mysterious will of God who has deigned to make of Abraham Lincoln one of those powerful workers that he employs in the accomplishment of his designs, and who has allowed him to be taken away from this world after the gloom and labor of the combat. We associate ourselves from the bottom of the heart in your grief, which is not only a national mourning but extends throughout humanity.

We pray God to console you as He alone can do, and show you, by faith, him whom we mourn in that eternal glory of the kingdom of Heaven, where God gathers all his children, illustrious or obscure, around Jesus Christ, who gave his life to save the world. We pray that the indignation excited by the horrible act may not change the thoughts of charity which ought to crown the work of emancipation. May God now finish that work, and confer his benedictions on the people of the United States, who have been so cruelly tried, and on you, madam, whose grief we share, and on the many thousand souls who have each borne their tribute of suffering in this violent intestine commotion of the country.

In the name of the conference of pastors, ministers of the Holy Evangel, and the members of the consistories of the two national churches of France, (Re-formed Church and Church of the Confession of Augsburg.)

• L. VALETTE, Pastor,
• President of the Conference.
• DECONNICH, Vice-President.
• CAHOUS, Pastor, Secretary.
• H. BLAWE, Minister,
  H. E. Secretary.

His Excellency the Minister of the United States.