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

Municipal Council of Kendal

Kendal, undated

Address of the corporation of Kendal to Mrs. Lincoln.

The corporation of Kendal approach Mrs. Lincoln with their respectful expression of sincere condolence on the incalculable loss she has so suddenly and so painfully sustained.

It having pleased the Almighty Ruler of events to permit the newly re-elected head of the American people to be removed on the threshold of his continued possession of the chair of state, thus overturning a nation’s plans for its own government, the corporation feel that, in the solemn presence of such a lesson of the instability of the schemes of man, the death of the President must have come upon his afflicted family as a national as well as a domestic bereavement. But it is with regard to the latter deep sorrow that the corporation venture to offer their sincere sympathy to Mrs. Lincoln and her children. The amiability and kindliness of the departed President was not limited to his connexions, but extended to his opponents; his prayers for peace, and the dignity of his benevolence in the hour of successful triumph, have left behind a light pure and bright for those who succeed him.

[seal.]

JOHN WHITWELL,

Vice-Mayor of Kendal.