link to Talbot Project home page link to De Montfort University home page link to Glasgow University home page
Project Director: Professor Larry J Schaaf
 

Back to the letter search >

Result number 84 of 106:   < Back     Back to results list   Next >  

Document number: 8965
Date: Thu 27 Apr 1865
Recipient: PETIT DE BILLIER Amélina
Author: TALBOT William Henry Fox
Collection: British Library, London, Manuscripts - Fox Talbot Collection
Last updated: 1st September 2003

Lacock Thursday

27 April 1865

My Dear Mlle A.

What an event is the assassination of President Lincoln! And who can tell what consequences may follow! Poor man! I rather liked him, he was so honest and well intentioned and acted as well as he could, in a very difficult position, according to his lights! How hard upon him to be cut off in the moment of his Triumph! And yet to say the truth I am not greatly surprised – The page of history has not been written in vain, and we see in it, often recorded, similar events during the fury of revolutionary times. Who knows whether this assassin may not have lost friends and relatives and large estates during the irruption of the Northern armies, and this may be his revenge! Or perhaps he thought that he could paralyze the North by striking down its Head and he was probably well aware that by the laws of the United States Mr Lincoln would be succeeded as President by the Vice President, one Johnson, who is considered weak and incapable and a drunkard; his accession therefore to supreme power (which has now taken place) would have the same ruinous effect as the succession of a weak heir to an able and despotic Conqueror.

Adieu – Your Affte

H. F. Talbot

Result number 84 of 106:   < Back     Back to results list   Next >