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

Inhabitants of Monteroduni

[Translation.]

Province of Molise, District of Isernia,
Monteroduni, May 1, 1865.

To his Excellency Andrew Johnson,
President of the United States of America:

The entire world, with different feelings, has anxiously awaited the termination of the great contest, the civil war that has lacerated the limbs of the great and happy republic. Tyranny and double-faced diplomacy attempted to rivet the chains of slavery upon the universe; democracy struggled to break the fetters and crush the head of despotism with them, and sound the hymn of victory and liberty. The hour of victory has struck for liberty; tyranny, pale with rage, gnaws its own viscera, and trembles upon its tottering throne.

Long live the government of Washington! Long live the great republic of the United States! They overthrew the slaveholders of the south, who had ruled the country for three quarters of a century; but the brave republicans broke off the manacles of millions of slaves, raised them to the dignity of manhood, and now embrace them as men and brothers.

But amid the victorious jubilation came the horrid rumor of Abraham Lincoln’s barbarous assassination! He was the honored parent of the new-born liberty; but you, Mr. Johnson, will be the foster-father of the new republic. Lincoln is dead; but grateful humanity will erect a splendid monument to the memory of the sublime martyr of liberty, and will appease his spirit by scattering the ashes of the cursed assassin Booth to the four winds of heaven, and destroying; tyranny and slavery that prompted him to the horrid deed.

GIUSEPPE GIACOMO.	PASQUALE D’ELIA.
ANTONIO GUGLIELMI.	SALVATORE SCIOLI.
SALVATORE GUGLIELMI.	FRANCESCO SCIOLI.
ICILIO D’ELIA.	NICOLA TRIVISON.
DOMINICO FORTE.	SILVIO FORTE.
CLODOMIRO DE GIAOOMO.	ANDREA SCROLI.