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  3. 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
  4. Document 41

Inhabitants of Copiapo

[Translation.]

Copiapo , June 5, 1865.

Sir: The people of Copiapo, in a reunion held yesterday in this city for the purpose of paying a just tribute of grief to the memory of the illustrious President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, wantonly assassinated in Washington on the 14th of April last, have commissioned us to address ourselves to you as the representative in Chili of that great nation, for the purpose of manifesting to you how profound has been their grief for this melancholy event, and how sincerely they accompany the North American people in their mourning for the loss of the great man whose political genius saved the Union from the formidable designs of its enemies, and emancipated millions of men who had groaned in slavery.

If there be anything which can mitigate the bitter sorrow for a loss so immense, it is the consideration that the cause defended by Abraham Lincoln has been definitely consolidated; and that the hand that dealt the fatal blow to the elect of the people, while it severed, it is true, a precious existence, inscribed from that moment the name of the victim in the book of immortality, wounding to the death the inhuman principle of slavery, in whose name was perpetrated the execrable crime which has caused abundant tears to be shed by the republicans of the whole world.

In complying with the commission, at once grateful and painful, of communicating [Page 28] to you the resolutions of this community, we have the honor to express to you our own especial sorrow at this bereavement, and to subscribe ourselves with every consideration, your most obedient servants,

  • RAFAEL VALDEZ.
  • EMILIO G. BEECHE.
  • CARLOS GONSALEZ UGALDE.
  • MANUEL CONCHA, R.
  • EMILIO ESCOBAR.
  • PEDRO L. GALLO.
  • JAVIER VERGARA.
  • JOSÉ R. ROJAS, 2d.
  • JOSÉ RAMON CORBALAN.
  • RAMON FRITIS.
  • J. EDWARDS.

Thomas H. Nelson, Esq., Minister of the United States.