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

Governor of the Department

[Translation.]

Alcaldia Municipal of Lima,
Lima, May 22, 1865.

Most Excellent Sir: The honorable municipality over which I have the honor to preside has been profoundly affected at the painful catastrophe which, in the person of his Excellency Abraham Lincoln, has deprived the world of an honest man, the United States of an unblemished ruler, and liberty of its most decided champion.

There is not a single heart that has remained indifferent in presence of so heinous a crime, and the municipality of Lima would think itself wanting in one of its most precious duties—gratitude to the great men who recognize and sustain the true rights of humanity—if it did not hasten to manifest to your excellency the indignation which the crime has caused to it, and the profound grief which its consummation has deserved from it. Lincoln is dead, sir, but he will eternally live in the heart of the good patriots and of the honest men of the earth. His name will be written in letters of gold, in order to record the value of virtue in rulers, while that of his assassin will be pronounced with horror so long as morality exists in the world.

Will your excellency deign to accept this sincere manifestation of the sentiments which animate the municipality, and my own private ones, although it is very painful to improve so sad an opportunity to subscribe myself your attentive servant,

ANTO. G. DE LA FUENTE.

His Excellency the Minister Plenipotentiary
of the United States of North America.