so much to prove their devotion to the great principles of freedom. Italy, beyond any other nation, knows how to fraternize with the United States; for "Liberty and Union" have been alike the watchwords of the people of both countries.

The history of your own renowned land proves that in a divided country liberty exists but in name. Your ancient republics were rivals to each other; and, while city took up arms against city, and family against family, the people were enslaved.

Six centuries ago, your glorious poet, the immortal Dante (to whose fame you have just rendered a tribute and an homage worthy of his countrymen), with a divine inspiration, foresaw that in the union of Italy could real liberty only be found; and while his descendants of the nineteenth century are proving his dream to be a reality, the lesson conveyed by the past experience of Italy has not been lost upon the American nation.

For the union of the States and the liberty of the people, the American war has been waged; and although in its prosecution blood has been shed like water, and treasure lavished without stint, yet we deem its vast cost as trifling in comparison with the grand result obtained in the preservation of our Union, and the enfranchising of four millions of slaves.

Well, as in Italy you justly idolize the noble Garibaldi, as the paladin and hero of Italian emancipation; so we in America honor the martyr, Abraham Lincoln, as the Saviour of his Country. Alike in their entire freedom from private or political selfishness; alike in their pure and spotless patriotism; alike in holding the first place in the hearts of their countrymen, posterity will regard them as apostles of liberty, second to none that the annals of history record.

I have the honor to be, gentlemen,

(Signed)

Your obedient servant,

T. B. LAWRENCE, Consul-General.

SPEECH OF EDOUARD LABOULAYE:

ON THE DEATH.OF MR. LINCOLN.

THE

HE murder of Mr. Lincoln has excited a profound emotion through all Europe. The atrocity of such a cold-blooded murder; the honesty and innocence of the victim; the death which arrested, in the very midst of victory, the man who seemed to have conquered the right of finishing the work of pacification which he had so nobly begun,-explain but too well the universal sympathy in the presence of this cruel and unexpected end. Friends, enemies, and indifferent persons, all to-day render full justice to the prudence, firmness, and moderation of Mr. Lincoln; all execrate the wretch who cut off so beautiful a life. Far from me be the thought of casting on the South the weight of such a crime. A people of soldiers is not a people of assassins; and I am not astonished that at the news of the assassination Lee was unable to resist his grief, and the brave Ewell wept like a child. War teaches us to respect, and often even to love an enemy. But if I do not accuse the South, I accuse slavery, and the passions which it lets loose. All those acts of violence, which, for forty years past, have disturbed America, and rejoiced those who hate liberty, -street duels, negroes burned alive, the beating of Mr. Sumner, the plots against Mr. Lincoln, -all these misdeeds have come from the same poisoned source: they have been brought forth by the pride of dominion.

Slavery ends as it began, by a crime. May this crime be the last! May this abominable institution, once more dishonored, disappear at last before the contempt and abhorrence of the human race! It would be the noblest homage that could be rendered to the memory of Lincoln.

I shall not make the eulogy of the President: I have neither the time nor the strength; but I would like to recall some of his words and actions, and to show what was the unity and simplicity of his life. Death sets each one in his place: it plunges into forgetfulness those minions of fortune who have lived only to achieve their ambition, or to satisfy their wretched vanity; but it elevates the truly great men, and casts over these noble figures an indescribable splendor and serenity. Disdained and insulted yesterday, they are respected and admired on the morrow: they are more powerful in their tomb than in their palace. Mr. Lincoln was one of these heroes, who are ignorant of themselves; his thoughts will reign after him. The name of Washington has already been pronounced, and I think with reason. Doubtless Mr. Lincoln resembled Franklin more than Washington. By his origin, his arch good nature, his ironical good sense, and his love of anecdote and jesting, he was of the same blood as the printer of Philadelphia. But it is nevertheless true, that, in less than a century, America has passed through two crises in which its liberty might have been lost, if it had not had honest men at its head; and that each time it has had the happiness to meet the man best fitted to serve it. If Washington founded the Union, Lincoln has saved it. History will draw together and unite those two

names.

A single word explains Mr. Lincoln's whole life; it was duty. Never did he put himself forward; never did he think of himself; never did he seek one of those ingenious combinations which puts the head of a State in bold relief, and enhances his import

ance at the expense of the country: his only ambition, his only thought, was faithfully to fulfil the mission which his fellow-citizens had intrusted to him. He wished to be the first magistrate of a Republic, neither more or less: always ready to hold cheap what affected only himself; but always resolved to exact of each one that he should respect the Constitution, and bow before the sovereignty of the laws.

Hence arose in Mr. Lincoln that mixture of gentleness and firmness which is already found in his first speech, his adieu to the little city of Springfield, where, as a lawyer, he had deserved the esteem and love of his fellow-citizens, and which he addressed to his friends who had followed him to the cars, February 11, 1861, as he was about to set out for Washington.

Having reached Washington, - by foiling a plot laid by the partisans of slavery, he addressed to Congress, March 4, 1861, a speech of finished wisdom. The Southerners, carried away by passion, and the wits of Europe, could not at that time find disdain or insults enough for this peasant, this wood-chopper, this mechanic, with ugly figure, rough hair, and large hands, who dared take his place in the Capitol; but, now that events have opened the blindest eyes, how just and sensible does this speech of a true patriot appear! How much blood and how many tears would have been spared, if men had listened to the voice of this good man!

The President declared that he would insure respect to the Constitution. He was not charged with abolishing slavery; he was charged with maintaining the sovereignty of the Union, and the rights of the State. This mission he would fulfil to the end. Moreover, why separate? If a minority could secede from the majority, to-morrow a nucleus of malcontents might be formed in this minority which had become independent, and the conclusion of secession would be perpetual and incurable anarchy.

"No, my fellow-citizens," he added, "we cannot separate. We cannot remove our respective sections from each other, nor build an impassable wall between them. A husband and wife may be divorced, and go out of the presence and beyond the reach of each other; but the different parts of the country cannot do this. They cannot but remain face to face, and intercourse, either amicable or hostile, must continue between them. Is it possible, then, to make that intercourse more advantageous or more satisfactory after separation than before? Can aliens make treaties easier than friends can make laws? Suppose you go to war, you cannot fight always; and when, after much loss on both sides, and no gain on either, you cease fighting, the identical question as to terms of intercourse are again before you. In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-citizens, and not in mine, is the momentous question of civil war. The Government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to oblige you to destroy the Government, while I shall have the most solemn one to preserve, protect, and defend it.' We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection."

We know how the South responded to this touching appeal. I will not write the history of the war. I will only say, that as long as Mr. Lincoln hoped to save the Union without touching slavery, he did not proclaim emancipation. In Europe, this moderation has been imperfectly understood: the President has been often reproached for what was to him a claim of honor. Whatever were Mr. Lincoln's personal sentiments, however opposed he was to slavery, he set the duty of the magistrate before every thing. He had found slavery in the Constitution that he had sworn to maintain; as president, he had not the right, therefore, to touch it.