Papers Relating to Foreign Affairs, Accompanying the Annual Message of the President to the First Session Thirty-ninth Congress
Mr. Perry to Mr. Seward
Sir: On the evening of the 5th instant I had the honor to receive an official communication from the president of the cabinet of ministers, the Duke of Valencia, referring to the death of President Lincoln, and transmitting to me the declarations of the Spanish senate and of the congress of deputies on this mournful subject.
I replied to that communication yesterday, and you will find both papers, translated from the original Spanish, enclosed.
[Page 531]I transmit also sheets from the official journal of the senate and deputies containing these debates in full and accompanied also by translations.
Copies in Spanish of the original notes exchanged between the head of the Queen’s government and myself will also be forwarded.
With sentiments of the highest respect, sir, your obedient servant,
Hon William H Seward, Secretary of State, Washington.
The Duke of Valencia to Mr. Perry
Sir: The horrible crimes committed on the persons of the President and Secretary of State of the United States have caused a painful and profound sensation in the Spanish nation, which is united to that great republic by the ties of a true friendship and cordial sympathy.
Although, at the first moment this sad news reached us, I hastened to make known to you personally the profound grief of her Majesty the Queen, my august sovereign, and of her government at that immense misfortune, I have to-day the honor to transmit to you the annexed copies of the declarations made by the senate, and the congress of deputies, associating themselves to the great sorrow of that generous nation, for the abominable crime perpetrated on the person of its illustrious and respected President.
The affliction which the death of that eminent statesman has produced to the government of her Majesty is in part relieved by the welcome news that the life of the Secretary of State for foreign affairs is happily not in great danger, but, on the contrary, that there are well-founded hopes he may obtain a prompt and complete recovery. Please God it may be so, for the good and prosperity of that noble country of which you are the most worthy representative.
I avail myself of this occasion to renew to you the assurance of my most distinguished consideration,
The Chargé d’Affaires of the United States of America,
[Translation.]
Presidency of the Cabinet of Ministers—Congress of Deputies.
Excellency: The congress of deputies in the session of yesterday has declared unanimously that it associates itself to the profound sorrow of the United States for the abominable murder of their worthy President, Abraham Lincoln. The which we communicate to your excellency for the information of her Majesty’s government and the consequent effects. God guard your excellency many years.
The President of the Cabinet of Ministers.
It is a true copy:
[Translation.]
Presidency of the Cabinet of Ministers—Senate.
Excellency: The senate, in session of to-day, has unanimously declared that it associates itself to the profound grief produced in the United States by the horrible crime committed on the person of their worthy President, Abraham Lincoln. God guard your excellency many years.
President of the Cabinet of Ministers.
It is a true copy:
Mr. Perry to the Duke of Valencia
Sir: Deeply sensible to the prompt and feeling manifestation of sympathy which your excellency was pleased to make to me, personally, in name of her Majesty the Queen, and of her government, on learning the horrible crimes committed on the persons of the President and Secretary of State of the United States, I had the honor to correspond also personally, informing you that I had made haste to transmit them to my government, and that I begged your excellency to convey to her Majesty the Queen the expressions which my heart anticipated for those sentiments of gratitude and consolation with which they will surely be received by the President and government of the United States.
Yesterday I received the welcome note of your excellency, in which you communicate to me the declarations made by the senate and congress of deputies, both legislative bodies associating themselves unanimously to the profound grief of the United States for. the abominable crime committed on the person of their lamented President, Abraham Lincoln.
I can assure your excellency that these noble and spontaneous manifestations, so worthy the generous Spanish nation, will be fully appreciated by the government of the republic and by the whole people.
I take a sad but true satisfaction in sending them to-day to my government, and while I wait the appropriate replies from Washington, would request your excellency to be so good as to communicate to the senate and to the congress of deputies the expression of my profound acknowledgment.
I avail myself of the occasion to renew to your excellency the assurance of my most distinguished consideration and respect.
His Excellency the President of the Cabinet of Ministers.
[Untitled]
The Count of Vistahermosa said:
Senators: The circumstance that this body has not been in session till to-day, since the unwelcome news reached Madrid of the infamous assassination committed on the person of the worthy President of the United States, Mr. Lincoln, has prevented me from addressing the senate as I do at this moment, in the persuasion that it will know how to associate its sentiments of grief and indignation to those produced in the whole civilized world by the crime which has snatched from life a person so illustrious and so distinguished for his eminent services.
When all peoples in both hemispheres rise with one voice to condemn the cowardly assassins who have blackened the brilliant pages of that wonderful war, just when the country already saw peace on the horizon, and when, undoubtedly, that peace is owing to the efforts, the constancy, and the skill with which the lamented Mr. Lincoln has directed those events, it seems just that the senate should manifest expressly and spontaneously its profound sorrow and regret at an event as terrible as it has been unexpected; an event which has left on the minds of senators, as upon those of all the civilized world, a deep furrow of execration.
If I shall not have interpreted the sentiments of the senate in a manner worthy of its elevated character, let it supply my shortcomings; and address to the government of that republic a manifestation such as our president considers fit, informing the Queen’s government of this manifestation, and making it extensive to the illustrious widow who has seen snatched away so prematurely the companion of her life, so that the world may know that if the Spanish senate cares for the rights and immunities of people, it watches no less carefully over the rights of the kings and heads of government who rule the destinies of other nations.
I therefore call upon the government of her Majesty to give the proper explanation of what has been done in this important question.
The President of the Cabinet of Ministers, (the Duke of Valencia,) said:
The government of her Majesty seconds with much pleasure the motion made by the senator, Count of Vistahermosa. As soon as the government learned officially the horrible crime committed in the United States, we went to her Majesty’s presence to inform her of it, so that she might give me such orders as she thought fit.
Her Majesty ordered me to go and visit the representative of the United States at Madrid, and to express to him the grief and the indignation which her Majesty had felt at a crime so horrible, as well as all the interest which her Majesty felt for the leaders of the republic and for the people of the United States.
In fulfilment of the royal precept, I went to the house of the representative of the United States and made to him in the name of her Majesty and of the government that manifestation, [Page 533] which he gratefully acknowledged, and I requested him to transmit the same to his government, so that the latter, with which Spain maintains and seeks to maintain such good relations, and he also labors to maintain them for the good of both nations, should be made aware of the sentiments which animate the Queen and her, government. At the same time an official communication, signed by the minister of state, was sent to Señor Tassara, her Majesty’s minister plenipotentiary in Washington, making known to him the same manifestation. This is what her Majesty’s government can say in reply to the senator.
The Count of Vistahermosa said:
Though I was already aware from what had been said in the congress of deputies that this had been the course of her Majesty’s ministers, I thought it right to make this motion so that the whole senate, in whose sentiments I trust I am not mistaken, might have an opportunity to join in this profound sorrow for the unmerited misfortune which has folien upon the people of the United States, and I request the Chair for this purpose to consult the opinion of the house.
The President of the Senate (the Marquis of Duero) then said, from the chair:
I am certain that the senate authorizes me at this moment, and with the senate all Spaniards of the provinces beyond seas and of the peninsula, to declare that the impression produced by the horrible crime committed against the President of the republic of the United States has been unanimous, and that we join ourselves to the manifestations which the civilized world is now making on account of this sad event, desiring solemnly to make known the sincere wishes of Spain for the prosperity and peace of the American republic.
The question will now be put, whether the senate approves this declaration.
The secretary of the senate, Sevilla, having put the question, it was resolved affirmatively by a unanimous vote.
[Untitled]
The Deputy Señor Lasala (opposition) said:
Public attention has been occupied in these days by the events which have given rise to inevitable discussion in the senate and in this house, and by another, also a bloody event, occurring in a foreign land, to which I beg now to call the attention of the congress.
When other governments and parliaments are making manifestations on account of this horrible event, it seems natural that in the Spanish parliament, in the parliament of the nation, which, by Cuba and Porto Rico, is neighbor to the United States, something should be said, and that the initiation should be taken by the liberal opposition to the government of her Majesty.
That country which had been great in peace has not been less great in war. In that war, perhaps the most gigantic which history records, it seems, indeed, that in order so immense a pyramid of corpses should be grandly crowned, it was necessary that the body of the President of the United States should fall by the ball of an assassin.
The government of her Majesty—I wish to do it justice—I suppose will have manifested its sentiments, but I desire to know in what form; because if it should not have been in some solemn form expressing adequately these sentiments of the whole country, I shall feel obliged to make use of my right as a deputy and put this manifestation into some other form.
The President of the Cabinet of Ministers (Duke of Valencia) said:
Her Majesty’s government some days since, by extraordinary and unofficial channels, learned the crime which had been committed in the United States, but did not wish to take any official step while the information it had received should not be confirmed; but as soon as it was known officially the government made haste to lay this intelligence before her Majesty
On taking the orders of the Queen, I received the charge from her Majesty to go and visit the chargé d’affaires of the United States in Madrid, and to express to him the profound sorrow, the immense affliction, which the Queen and the government had experienced by the horrible crimes committed on the person of the President of that republic, on that of thè minister for foreign affairs, and on that of the son of the latter. At the same time an official communication was sent to him by the Department of State in similar terms, and a copy of the same was also sent to her Majesty’s minister in Washington, so that he should communicate the same sentiments to the new President of the republic.
We have not laid these papers before the house because it was not customary to do so. We wished that the initiations should be taken by the deputies themselves, and it is immaterial whether this comes from the benches of the opposition or from this side, because in this case i there can be but one general and unanimous sentiment in the whole house, as there is in the whole nation, for the whole nation cannot do otherwise than lament a horrible crime, an assassination perpetrated in this way on the person of the chief of a friendly nation, united to Spain in the best relations, and which, throughout the whole time of the war, has been giving and is now giving us the most positive proofs of the good sentiments which animate it in respect to all questions and all the interests of Spain. The government, therefore, associates itself to the motion made by the deputy, and would wish that the whole house and all [Page 534] Spain should manifest these same sentiments, not only because this is just, but also oil ac-count of the reciprocity of sentiments which ought to exist between that nation and Spain.
The Deputy Señor Clavos (ministerial) said:
The president of the cabinet of ministers has very properly undertaken to express, not only in the name of the government of the Queen but in that of the majority of this house, the perfect identity of sentiment which animates all of us with respect to the proposition made by the honorable deputy who has just spoken. In this point, as the president of the cabinet has well said, there can be no diversity of opinion whatsoever among any of the deputies who sit in this chamber. The abominable crime of which the illustrious personage who presided over the American union has been the victim, is a thing which must wound painfully the fibres of all who have any sentiments of morality, and profoundly all those who have any political instinct.
It is evident that this poison which corrodes the entrails of European societies has infiltered itself beyond the Atlantic, and that it reaches all peoples. Consequently, if in the past we are afflicted by the crimes committed in Europe against crowned heads, on this occasion the future ought to afflict us still more, seeing that we discover the disease to have extended to all humanity.
We who glory in being partisans of the principle of authority, we ought to feel this worse than any. In fact we believe that the principle of authority is a species of reflex of the divine power, understanding this phrase in its right sense, in the sense in which it seems to me it cannot be denied by anybody, considering the public power in its august social manifestation, not precisely in kings, as is vulgarly believed, but in whomsoever represents it socially and legitimately, is sacred.
This principle, then, is for us incarnate in the person of the president of a republic, as it is in that of our own august sovereign, or in that of any crowned head of Europe.
We therefore join ourselves to this worthy, opportune, and most fitting manifestation; and I think in so saying I interpret faithfully the sentiments of the majority, (by many deputies, yes, yes,) and I may say we are perfectly agreed to what has been said by the deputy Lasala and by the president of the cabinet.
To us it is most grateful, seeing that we are divided on other questions in which our opinions differ, to be perfectly united on this point, which is of great interest, for the question is the condemnation, present and future, of those sacrilegious attacks against a principle alike sacred to every member of this house.
The President of the Cabinet of Ministers said:
I omitted to state to the congress that the latest information of the government is that the Secretary of State for foreign affairs, who has been wounded most severely, as well as his son, it is hoped may both recover from the sad condition to which they were reduced and that the assassin is arrested.
The Deputy Señor Lasala:
Both times the President of the cabinet has risen he has satisfied me completely. This is what I hoped for from the government of her Majesty on this occasion; and without entering now into any considerations upon the origin of power, it seems to me that in point of fact the house is now ready to make the manifestation which the president of the cabinet has indicated. I, personally, ought not to propose it. And although there are here many persons more competent, better authorized and more conspicuous than I am on these benches and on the other side of the house, they would not have authority sufficient to make this manifestation.
But there is in this chamber one person who can make it, (the orator is interrupted by the president of the Congress,) and at this moment he is interrupting me to say that he will make it.
The President of the Congress of Deputies (from his chair) said:
Gentlemen deputies, I consider it my privilege as well as duty to interpret on this occasion the sentiments of you all, of the whole congress and of the nation, declaring that this house associates itself to the profound affliction which has fallen upon the United States in the horrible crime committed upon the person of the President of that republic, and which has just occupied the attention of this house.
The question being then put whether the house adheres to the declaration made by its president, it was agreed to without a dissenting voice; and on motion of deputy love and Hevia, it was ordered to be entered on the record with the adhesion of the house by an unanimous vote.