Address of Condolence

[Translation.]

To his Excellency Andrew Johnson,
Vice-President of the United States, Washington:

Honored Sir: We just receive the appalling news of the assassination of the President of the United States, Mr. Abraham Lincoln. We are also aware that our address cannot reach the excellent man who has now fallen, as it were, a victor on the field of battle, a victim of his republican honesty, uprightness, and conciliatory mind.

Permit us to express our most profound sympathy and grief over this event. The Swiss people abhor from the bottom of their hearts such a mode of warfare determined on—but, we would gladly believe, not with the consent of the people—by the partisans of the South. Switzerland, however, is fully confident that even if this new viccissitude should again disturb the hopes of a speedy peace, the triumph of the cause of the North, and of the democratic republic, will be the more complete.