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

German National Verein in London

Seyd’s Hotel, Finsbury Square, London,
May 6, 1865.

Resolution of the German National Verein in London.

Sir: At to-day’s meeting of the German National Verein in London, to which meeting the Germans resident in London were invited, it was resolved to express at the same time our joy at the victory of the free States of the Union, and our horror of the crime perpetrated upon the life of your noble President, whose fidelity to the cause of humanity we admired, long before his kindness to the conquered and his glorious martyrdom reconciled to him even those who had so long been his antagonists.

We consider it an important sign of our time that, as this great and good man, who held the helm of your state during this tempest, had, by his own energy and virtue, risen from the working class, so your actual worthy President, like-wise, shows us a workman of former days, raised to the bead of a grand and mighty community, by his own merit and the free election of his people.

Germany has assisted the giant straggle of freedom in your hemisphere, not by idle sympathy, but with blood and treasure; because, throughout the country the feeling is universal that, as a reverse of the North must have given the severest blow to the growth of democratic institutions in Europe, so your glorious conquest will powerfully influence and accelerate the triumph of our own freedom. America, during these four years, has fought the battle of liberty for all mankind; for the cause of liberty is the same cause everywhere. The abolition of slavery and the reconstruction of your state into a powerful republic will conduce to the elevation of the laborer, and to the establishment of such forms of government as will secure to the will of the true majority the sway over the destinies of every nation in Europe.

May we be allowed to convey to your excellency these sentiments of our countrymen, and to sign, with the expression of our highest consideration,

The committee of the German National Verein in London.

• GOTTFRID KINKEL, Chairman.
• L. LEFFLER, Secretary.

His Excellency the Ambassador of the United States of America at the Court of St. James.