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

Working Classes of Wigan

Wigan, May 17, 1865

Resolutions passed at a meeting held by the working classes of Wigan.

At a meeting of the working classes, held in the Public Hall, Wigan, on the 17th day of May, 1865, the following resolutions were enthusiastically adopted:

1. That this meeting tenders its heartfelt sympathy to Mrs. Lincoln upon the loss of her noble and devoted husband, and to the people of the United States in their sudden deprivation of a wise, just, and merciful head; that, expressing its utmost abhorrence and detestation of the foul and treacherous assassination of President Lincoln, and the attempt upon the life of Mr. Secretary Seward, it at the same time expresses its conviction that it was but the culminating point of a crime, if possible, of still darker hue—the attempt to perpetuate the bondage of millions of men, and to achieve the destruction of a great nation; that it expresses its gratitude to Almighty God for the termination of the rebellion, and the destruction of the institution of slavery in the United States, rejoices at the complete falsification of the statements that American institutions were a failure, and expresses its warmest wishes for the welfare of the great American republic, and its desire that the bond of brotherhood between the two people (England and America) may grow ever stronger, and the possibility of war between them ever more remote.

2. That the chairman be requested to send the foregoing resolution to Mr. Adams, the American minister in London, desiring him to forward it to the American government and to Mrs Lincoln.

Signed on behalf of the meeting:

timothy coop,

Chairman.