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

Members of the Protestant Church and London Society for the Abolition of Slavery

[Translation.]

Montauban and Toulouse, May 3, 1865.

Sir: We appear, in our two-fold capacity, as members of the French Protestant church and as correspondents of the London Society for the Abolition of Slavery, to express to you our profound and painful sympathy, felt on hearing of the atrocious crime committed on the person of your honorable President, Mr. Abraham Lincoln.

In him the United States has lost the most upright and the best of citizens; the blacks, a wise and firm supporter of their emancipation; and humanity a strong defender of order, justice, and liberty. The death of none of our contemporaries could have caused more regret, or produced a more universal mourning; and this homage has been well deserved, for Abraham Lincoln, next to Washington, will leave to history a name the most worthy of respect. He knew how to reconcile moderation with the maintenance of right, and the sentiments of a faithful Christian with the highest virtues of the citizen.

We bow to the mysterious ways of Providence, and we hope that this event sad as it is, may tend, in the hands of him who can bring good from evil, to hasten the re-establishment of the great American Union, and to remove the last remaining obstacles to the complete emancipation of the slaves.

The conscientious portion of humanity had already declared for the north, because it upheld a just and holy cause, and it will become bolder advocates after this horrid crime that has soiled southern partisans; and we are happy in thinking that the greater part of the rebels themselves will wash their hands of this stain, and hasten to recognize the legitimate authority of their country and its proper laws.

Have the kindness, sir, to be our interpreter of our sympathies to Mrs. Lincoln and to the American nation, and accept for yourself the expression of our respectful and devoted sentiments.

• G. DE FELICE, D. D.,
  Professor of Theology at Montauban.
• FRANK COURTOIS,
  Banker in Toulouse.
• ARMAN COUTOIS,
  Banker in Toulouse.

Although I do not belong to the committee for slave emancipation, I am happy to join in the sentiments expressed by my friends in the preceding letter, and take pleasure in embracing this occasion to manifest my profound affection for the American people.

LAFORGUE,

President of the Toulouse Consistory.

The United States Minister, Paris.