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

Synod of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of Scotland

Glasgow, May 10, 1865

Resolutions of the synod of the R. P. church in Scotland.

To the honorable Andrew Johnson,
President of the United States of America:

Honored Sir: The following resolutions were unanimously passed at the meeting of the synod of the Reformed Presbyterian church in Scotland, held in Glasgow, 10th May, 1865. As clerk to that synod, I have been instructed to forward them to you, as expressive of our sympathy with your great nation in the crisis through which it had been passing.

JOHN KAY, Clerk to R. P. Synod.

1. That this court, recognizing the duty of Christian churches to consider those momentous evolutions of Providence which may seriously affect the moral and spiritual welfare of mankind, record an expression of deep sympathy with the people of the United States, under the attempts made on the life of their Secretary of State, and more especially under the loss of their chief ruler, President Lincoln, by a foul assassination, and deplore it as an event which would have been painful and startling under any circumstances, but which is much more distressing from the gravity of the crisis in which it occurred, and from the evidence which the deceased President had given of a firm purpose, in combination with great benignity of temper—the very qualities that seem chiefly requisite to meet the remaining difficulties of the American government in its efforts to restore peace and order and unity throughout its extensive dominions.

2. Although this court never could regard with any feelings but the deepest abhorrence the attempt to rear a government with slavery as its corner-stone, and while due regard must be had to the interests of law and justice, the hope is confidently cherished that the American government will he enabled to signalize the reality of its success in restoring the “Union,” and to give the world some assurance of its own conscious strength, by adherence to the same magnanimous and merciful policy to the vanquished, which Abraham Lincoln would appear to have recommended and inaugurated.

In name and by authority of the synod of the Reformed Presbyterian church in Scotland.

WILLIAM McLACHLIN,

Moderator.

JOHN KAY,

Clerk of Synod.