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

Constitutional Rights Association of Florence

[Translation.]

Florence, May 9, 1865.

Constitutional Rights Association to the President of the United States.

Sir: At the very moment when all the friends of liberty and civilization on this side the ocean were rejoicing over the approaching close of a contest sustained by you for the great humanitarian principle of the abolition of slavery, sad news arrived to alloy our joy, and we learned with horror of the assassination of the man elected by the American nation as its chief.

Thus the martyrdom of him who promulgated the solemn decree of emancipation (true sign of equality among men) consecrated the second great epoch of your history, not less glorious than that of your independence itself.

America, discovered by our sailors, illustrated by our historians, celebrated by our poets, is for Italy more than a friend—she is a sister, towards whom she looks anxiously during the revolution through which she is passing in her reconstruction.

We Italians, associated to maintain and keep alive the sacred fire of liberty, send a word of affection and condolence, trusting that the federal flag which was kept aloft by the iron strength of President Lincoln, and which is now drooping over the tomb, too soon, alas! opened for Honest Old Abe, may not again be attacked by internal enemies or rebellious citizens.

Prof. EMILIO CIPRIANI,

President.