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

Mr. Motley to Mr. Seward.

Legation of the United States, Vienna, April 30, 1865.

No. 102.]

Sir: The impression created in this capital by the horrible murder and attempts to murder just committed in Washington has been intense.

The whole diplomatic corps, with scarcely an exception, have called upon me as representative of the United States, and their warm and sincere expressions of sympathy at our national loss, of cordial good-will for the Union, and, more important than all, of decided respect and admiration for the character of our lamented President, have been most grateful to my heart.

The journals of the capital—all of them, as I have often had occasion to remark, conducted with great ability—have vied with each other in eloquent tributes to the virtues of Mr. Lincoln, in expressions of unaffected sympathy for the great cause of which he was the impersonation, and of horror at the accursed crime by which one of the best of men has been taken from the world.

I enclose, marked A and B, the correspondence between the minister of foreign affairs and myself in relation to this event.

I send, further, a translation, marked C, of the report taken from the journals of the day of the action taken on the subject in the Reichsrath.

Dr. Berger, the member who pronounced the brief but feeling eulogy upon Mr. Lincoln, is one of the most distinguished and eloquent members of the house.

I have the honor to remain, sir, your obedient servant,

J. LOTHROP MOTLEY.

Hon. William H. Seward,
Secretary of State.