MALTA AND THE AMERICAN PRESIDENTS
Abraham Lincoln
The 16th President of the USA
Abraham Lincoln (1809-65), President of the United States during the
most turbulent period of their history,
held strong views on Malta’s political
destiny. This Kentucky
lawyer, assassinated
for his unswerving
anti-slavery militancy,
saw the Maltese under British rule as
slaves to be liberated.
Writing in 1853
from Springfiled, Lincoln asked scathing
questions: “What right
has Britain to annex
Gibraltar and Malta?
Is not this illicit appropriation a justification
of the right to privacy
and robbery”? In this
context, Lincoln queries the claims of
”presumptuous little Britain” to usurp
other nations. Hence, independence for
the whole of Ireland. “As a matter of
principle, “ he writes “it is impossible to
admit the voracious greed of one nation
to the detriment of another. True liberty
will never exist before the recognition to
all peoples of their legitimate independence.”
Lincoln wrote these prophetic
words to Macedonio Melloni (17981854), an Italian scientist and patriot.
Giuseppe Mazzini (1805-72) immediately
translated Lincoln’s letter to propagate
his plans for the liberation and unification of Italy. Mussolini, in 1920, not surprisingly, published the entire translation
prepared by Mazzini.
The great American’s
prose has an immensely
predictive
ring to it. The disappearance of the British
and Austrian empires
are presented as historical
imperatives.
Nor does it fail in its
contemporary realism.
The Serbs, occupying
parts
of
Dalmatia
claimed by Italy, are
branded by Lincoln as
a people who “to their
credit have almost no
other glory but assassination and crime,
and exterminations and vandalism”. Could
have been written in 1999, rather than
1853.
Lincoln’s original message, together
with Mazzini’s translation, are preserved in
the Zuccolini family archives in Modena.
Dr. Giovanni Bonello
EMBASSY OF MALTA
WASHINGTON D.C.