GDG- Lincoln and Mid East

[Dennis Lawrence]

Padischah Abd ul Aziz Khan [1]
October 2, 1861

Abraham Lincoln,

President of the United States of America.

To His Imperial Majesty Abd ul Aziz Khan,

Padischah of the Empire of the Ottoman Family.

Great and Good Friend: I have received the letter which Your Majesty has 
been pleased to address to me, communicating intelligence of the demise of 
Your Majesty's honored brother, His late Imperial Majesty Abd ul Mejid 
Khan, and of your own accession to the throne of your ancestors. Assuring 
you of my deep sympathy at the death of your august brother, who was the 
constant friend of the United States, I beg leave to offer to Your Majesty 
my sincere and hearty congratulations upon your accession to his throne, 
with my best wishes that your reign may be happy and glorious to yourself 
and prosperous to your realm. Permit me also to assure Your Majesty of my 
constant and earnest desire to maintain the amity and good correspondence 
which have always subsisted and still prevail between the two nations, and 
that nothing shall be omitted on my part to cultivate and promote the 
friendly sentiments always entertained and cherished by this Government in 
its relations with His late Majesty. And so I recommend Your Majesty to the 
protection of the Almighty.

Written at Washington, the second day of October, Anno Domini 1861. Your 
Good Friend, ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

By the President:

WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.
Annotation

[1]   Copy, DNA FS RG 59, Communications to Foreign Sovereigns and States, 
III, 179-80.