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

Independent Ministers of the Counties of Carmarthen, Cardigan, and Pembroke

Pembroke, July 5, 1865

Resolutions of the independent ministers of the counties of Carmarthen, Cardigan, and Pembroke on the death of President Lincoln.

A resolution passed unanimously at the annual association of the independent ministers of the counties of Carmarthen, Cardigan, and Pembroke, held at Maenclochog, Pembrokeshire, June 6, 1865, Rev. Evan Lewis Brynberian presiding; and also at the annual association of the independent ministers of the counties of Glamorgan, Monmouth, Radmor, and Brecon, held at Neath, Glamorganshire, July 5, 1865, Rev. Dr. Rees, of Swansea, presiding.

(These two associations represent 289 ministers and 438 churches.)

That this conference desires to inform our fellow-citizens, and especially our fellow-countrymen in America, of our deep interest in the past history and our full confidence in the future progress of the United States. That we acknowledge in the late war the righteous judgment of God on the northern and southern States, and also on Great Britain, in the distress occasioned by the war, and see in it an instance of retributive providence, as a temporal judgment for the commencement, continuance, and defence of the polluted system of slavery, reducing the man created in God’s image to the status of the animal..

That we have personally and socially prayed for the speedy termination of the war in the complete overthrow and everlasting destruction of the slave system, and the progress of liberty and virtue in America.

That we congratulate the American people on the quashing of the rebellion; and desire that they may have wisdom from above in the reconstruction of the Union on principles and by laws acknowledging that men of all colors and languages are equal.

That in common with the whole civilized world we have felt deeply indignant on reading the account of the treacherous murder of the benevolent President, Abraham Lincoln; and while deeply sympathizing with the sorrowing widow so mysteriously bereaved of her husband, and the nation so suddenly deprived of her leader, we earnestly pray that that “righteous man has not been taken away from the evil to come.”

That we see in the whole history of the “irrepressible conflict” between slavery and freedom in the States a fresh proof that “righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.”

And, lastly, we trust that with the restoration of peace there will be a vigorous renewal of those philanthropic and religious efforts that have made America so conspicuous in the past for moral reformations and religious revivals; so that she may become in the future still more eminent for powerful and more enduring revivals, having been freed from the curse of slavery, that defiled with its touch everything with which it came in contact; and that she may be a free country, living in peace at home and in peace with all other nations, according to the wish so beautifully expressed by the ever to be remembered Abraham Lincoln on his reinauguration as President, on the 4th of March, 1865.

• EVAN LEWIS, Chairman.
• THOMAS REES, Chairman.
• SIMON EVANS, Secretary.
• ELLIS HUGHES, Secretary.