President Greets Salvador Ambassador

April 24, 1862

President Lincoln tells Lorenzo Montufar, the new ambassador from Salvador: “At any time the arrival of a Minister from San Salvador would be an interesting event. It is peculiarly so now. Republicanism is demonstrating its adaptation to the highest interests of society—the preservation of the State itself against the violence of faction. Elsewhere on the American continent it is struggling against the inroads of anarchy, which invites foreign intervention:

Let the American States, therefore, draw closer together and animate and reassure each other, and thus prove to the world that, although we have inherited some of the errors of ancient systems, we are nevertheless capable of completing and establishing the new one which we have now chosen. On the result largely depends the progress, civilization, and happiness of mankind.