THE DIPLOMATIC HISTORY OF THE WAR FOR THE UNION SEW E 415.6 5523 V. 5 HOUGHTON MALIN&60. ...... A 401847 ARTES 1837 SCIENTIA LIBRARY VERITAS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN ·PLURIBUS-UNUM TUEBOR SIQUAERIS-PENINSULAM AMOENAM CIRCUMSPICE E 4156 S523 V. 5 Eng by Ritchie Millia 18. Sewn & d Secretary of State THE WORKS OF WILLIAM H. SEWARD EDITED BY GEORGE E. BAKER "Nature and Laws would be in an ill case, if Slavery should find what to say for itself, and Liberty be mute; and if tyrants should find men to plead for them, and they that can waste and vanquish tyrants, should not be able to find advocates." MILTON. IN FIVE VOLUMES VOL. V. NEW EDITION BOSTON HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY New York: 11 East Seventeenth Street The Riverside Press, Cambridge 1884 THE DIPLOMATIC HISTORY OF THE WAR FOR THE UNION, BEING THE FIFTH VOLUME OF THE WORKS OF WILLIAM H. SEWARD. EDITED BY GEORGE E. BAKER. BOSTON: HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY. New York: 11 East Seventeenth Street. The Riverside Press, Cambridge. 1884. Copyright, 1883, BY GEORGE E. BAKER. All rights reserved. The Riverside Press, Cambridge: Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co. PREFACE TO VOLUME V. HISTORIES of the late war, springing from various sources, viewed from different standpoints, and written in varied interests, already abound. The present volume, in its own way, gives what may be called the diplomatic view of the conflict. Without such a record the student of history would miss an important element. This volume, we need not say, covers a period of our country's history not second in importance to that which gave us the Consti- tution. And it may be added that Washington and Hamilton were not more necessary to the formation of the Union than were Lincoln and Seward to its preservation. In the preparation of this volume we have been encouraged in the belief that material of history was being gathered which would otherwise be inaccessible to the public. The contents of the volume require but few prefatory remarks. The MEMOIR makes but slight pretensions to a Biography. It aims simply to recite, in a brief way, the great events of the period of which Mr. Seward was so large a part. Their narration may seem a biography. THE DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE OF THE WAR, as published by Congress, filled more than twenty large volumes. Large edi- tions of the later volumes were printed. It also reappeared in news- papers, magazines, pamphlets, and books, and was eagerly read by millions of patriotic people. The effect was not unlike that pro- duced on the public mind, at another crisis in our country's his- tory, by the publication of Hamilton's letters in the "Federalist.” Congress, it is hoped, following illustrious precedent, will at some iv PREFACE TO VOLUME V. early day publish an edition of the "Diplomatic Correspondence of 1861-9" for the use of coming generations. The DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR, in this volume, is made from the Diplomatic Correspondence, being those portions of Mr. Seward's almost daily despatches to our Ministers abroad, designed to give them authentic annals of the progress of the war. views given were usually those also of the Executive. The The SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE embrace ninety-eight of Mr. Seward's despatches, selected with the desire of giving as fair and as full a view as possible of Mr. Seward's philos- ophy; as well as a history of the diplomatic relations of the coun- try during the war. The Trent affair, the officious interference of France and England in the forms of recognition and mediation, the rebel cruisers, the Alabama claims, the invasion of Mexico by France, are among the subjects quite fully presented in the "Selec- tions." Questions of international law are discussed. Under the head of OCCASIONAL SPEECHES and MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS the remainder of the volume partakes more of a domestic character. Mr. Seward's attention was not wholly devoted to for- eign affairs. His public speeches made both before and after his retirement from office, are as interesting as they are pertinent. Many of them, in their familiar style, serve to show the cheerful tone and the great versatility of his mind. However impromptu some of them may appear, none of them will be found lacking in wise and patriotic counsel. DOCUMENTS and PAPERS, identified with our country's history, emanating from, or bearing the name of Mr. Seward, fill the con- cluding pages of the volume. C., } WASHINGTON, D. C., June 1, 1883. THE EDITOR. CONTENTS OF VOLUME V. THE DIPLOMATIC HISTORY OF THE WAR FOR THE UNION. MEMOIR. BIOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL: PAGE 1 Mr. Seward, Secretary of State - Frederick W. Seward, Assistant - William Hunter, Second Assistant- Officers, Clerks and Subordinates of the Department of State Minister and Consuls - Despondency of Ministers and Friends Abroad Mr. Seward Never Despairs A Similar Feeling in 1776 John Adams Treaties, Large Number and Important - Naturalization Russia China Isthmus Canal - Rebel Emissaries - Memorandum. Fort Sumter A Cabinet Opinion - Napo- leon Threatens to Interfere An Unofficial Mission to Europe - Mr. Seward's Posi- tion in the Cabinet and in Politics-W. W. Seaton's Interview - Pro-Slavery In- fluences Eradicated - Emancipation in District of Columbia- The Trent Affair- Dangers Averted — Mr. Seward's Wise Diplomacy — Treaty for Suppression of Slave Trade Its Success - New Orleans Under General Butler, a Provisional Court of Justice Instituted Emancipation Proclamation of September, 1862- Amend. ments Suggested by Mr. Seward Adopted in Cabinet Proclamation of January 1, 1863 - Resignation Offered Senatorial Caucus Presidential Election of 1864 - Alabama Claims Instituted - Mediation Offered and Sought in Rebel Interest - Ex- tradition Slave Traders - Arguelles - The Assassination and Calamities of 1865 Tributes of the Nations - Remarkable Thanksgiving Proclamation - Impeachment William M. Evarts-Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments Reconstruction Alaska Immigration - The Monroe Doctrine Mexico France - Presiden- tial Election of 1868-Speeches Voyage to West Indies Annexation of San Domingo and Danish Islands - Treaty with China- Private life Visits Alaska, Pacific Coast, and Mexico 1869 - Journey Round the World-1870-1 Auto- biography Book of Travels Interoceanic Canal Treaties Nicaragua - Da- Colombia - Intercontinental Telegraph - Russian Telegraph Atlantic Ca- ble Mr. Seward's Death, October 10, 1872 - Funeral - Tomb - Inscription — The Legislature of New York, Ceremonies, 1873 Charles Francis Adams - John A. Dix-Eulogies - Statue in New York City - Presentation Ceremonies, 1876 – Conclusion. rien DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR: .39 No Idea of a Sedition Shows Itself. Insurrectionary Movements Fort Sumter- Dissolution of the Union - Bull Run Panic Manassas Effect in Europe — A Lesson Captain Wilkes Boards a British Steamer The Trent Affair - Diplo- macy Vigor of our Government 1862 Campaigns The French in Mexico - Slaves Emancipated by our Armies - An Emancipating Crusade Success in the West Burnside and Pope's Victories - Earl Russell's Opinion Slave Trade Treaty Lord Lyons-Important Strokes in the West Hostile Attitude of Eng- A - vi CONTENTS OF VOLUME V. · >> App · · land - Blockade Successful - Army Movements and Successes - Fremont, Banks, McClellan and Sherman Magnitude of Union Forces - Corinth and Richmond Capture of New Orleans - Effect on France and England - Chickahominy Farra- gut, Halleck, Goldsborough - Seven Days' Battles Seven Days' Battles - General Butler in New Orleans -Military Situation - Large Preparations - Threatening Action of Great Britain Antietam Foreign Intervention Rejected War on the Ocean Contemplated — Recognition Threatened Alabama Claims Mooted, Nov., 1862 - Armies Advan- cing, Slavery Retreating — Grant, Rosecrans, Curtis — Garibaldi — Proclamation of Freedom 1863 Policy Unchangeable - Burnside and Hooker's Repulses - Sher- man at Vicksburg Congress Diligent - Confidence Reviving - European Credul- ity-Neutrality Laws Persistently Violated by Great Britain Gettysburg Vicksburg Charleston General Meade Draft Riots- The Situation — Re- sumé- Negro Soldiers Efforts to Induce British Government to Prevent Sailing of "Iron Rams Our Prospects, Contrasted with those of Europe - Will soon be no Slavery to Contend with - Absurdity of Building a State on Human Bondage Mediation of England -Value of Slaves A New Campaign - Navy Increasing Farragut Recognition - Emigration from the South to the Territories — Public Impatience - Amendment of Constitution General Grant in Command — General Banks on the Mississippi — Mexico - The Wilderness - Chancellorsville — General - Butler-Eighth Day of very heavy Fighting General Sherman in Georgia General Sheridan - General Averill - Red River - Army of the Potomac - Severe Conflicts General Sigel - General Hunter General Canby - Assaults on Peters- burg — Congress - Destruction of the Alabama by the Kearsarge - Comments Invasion of Maryland — General Wadsworth The Capital Threatened — 6th and 19th Corps-Siege of Petersburg and Richmond - Rebel Emissaries on the Canada border Election of 1864 — Atlanta General Logan - Mr. Seward Visits Gen- eral Grant — Malvern Hill -- General Hancock - Mobile Admiral Farragut Captain Winslow · Rumors - Cabinet Armistices Enlistments Numerous Shenandoah Valley - Public Credit Good-Loans Freely Taken The Atlantic Cable Completed - Brighter Prospects - The Rebel Steamer Georgia Captured Winchester General Sheridan - Gold Falls 30 per cent. — Staunton Jefferson Davis General Meade — Elections Steamers Chesapeake, Philo Parsons, and Island Queen - St. Albans Raid — Canadian Conduct — Notice to Great Britain Sheridan's Ride - Cedar Creek - General Rosecrans Rebel Government Consid- ering emancipation and Arming of Negroes - General Thomas - The Rebel Florida Sunk Union policy as to Slavery - Counter Revolution Considered Rebel In- trigues Army Successes Downfall of Slavery Manifest Savannah Admiral Porter Fort Fisher- Henry S. Foote - Francis P. Blair, Senior, Visits Rich- mond, Results - Interviews, Conferences - Stephens, Hunter, and Campbell, Rebel Commissioners-Amendment of the Constitution — General Terry — Admiral Dahl- gren General Schofield Army of the Potomac Rebel Debt Delusion - Mili- tary Convention, Grant and Lee Overtures General Stoneman Richmond Falls - General Weitzel — Flight — Surrender Collapse Assassination of Pres- ident Lincoln Attempt on Secretary Seward Mr. Frederick W. Seward Wounded- Mr. Hunter Mr. Adams Passports for Rebels - Pardons. M SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE: 187 Secretary Black's View of the Late Election Mr. Seward's Instructions to Bu- chanan's Ministers - The Paris Declaration - Privateering structions to Mr. Judd - Nature of the Union - Mr. Sanford Maritime War-In- Counteracting the CONTENTS OF VOLUME V. vii Civilization. Arguments J P Efforts of Rebel Agents in Europe. Mr. Sanford's Selection as Minister to Brus- sels Free Trade The New Tariff - Rebel Arguments in Europe Mr. Adams -Exhaustive View of the Situation - The late Election - Buchanan's Adminis- tration Union and Disunion Contrasted A Physical Impossibility — The Presi- dent's View and Duty - Loyalty and Diligence of Mr. Adams - His Grandfather, John Adams -Recognition Intervention War Position of Great Britain Mr. Burlingame-Austria Vienna - The Union - Reply to Rebel Lincoln's Administration - Forbearance and Conciliation Mr. Day- ton - France Misunderstanding by the Imperial Government - The Agents of the Confederacy in Paris An Elaborate Statement of the Case Unanswerable Arguments The Crisis Fort Sumter Attacked Surrender Slavery Consid- ered — A Revolution - Foreign Interference Extent, Progress, and Termination of the War Mr. King - Rome · Sedition and Aliens - Mr. Wood - Denmark The Cabinet a Unit Mr. Dayton - France Our Policy - Mr. Adams - Great Britain A Permanent Policy Developed Mr. Clay — Russia - Slavery the Cause of the War - Mr. Marsh — Italy - The Union a Necessity — Mr. Fogg - Switzer- land - Recognition to be Prevented Mr. Dayton-France - Mr. Pike — Nether- lands Mr. Adams Great Britain Mediation Inadmissible - Mr. Dickinson Nicaragua Foreign Intervention - Mr. Adams - The Queen's Proclamation Mr. Dayton - France - Mediation Declined - The United States Sovereign — Mr. Adams British Views Inadmissible - Foreign War - The Blockade · Mr Adams Lord John Russell Reservation - Congress of Paris -The Trent Affair -- Inter- national Law - Lord Lyons - Captain Wilkes- Mr. Mercier- Mr. Thouvenel - Mr. Hulseman — Mr. Motley — Austria — An Emancipating Crusade Mr. Wood - Despondency Faith - Mr. Sanford Belgium Slavery and Cotton - Re- view of the Situation - Foreign Intervention Foreign Intervention Mr. Dayton - Erench Scepticism Intervention Slavery and Colonization - Mr. Adams- Slavery Discussed — In- tervention Considered Mr. Cameron Procla- Foreign and Domestic Affairs mation of September, 1862 - Emancipation — Immigration - Limit to Civil War Volunteers in Excess - Mr. Dayton - Details of a Conspiracy The Situation Reviewed Emancipation Policy Mr. Pike The Higher Law The Slavery Question the experimentum crucis of Politics. Proclamation of January 1, 1863 France and the Union Mediation Sympathy of British Artizans - Russia Mr. Dayton Our Policy of Non-Intervention The British Courts - The Alex- andra — British Aggressions Indemnities - Review - Mr. Marsh Italy - Mr. Adams A Crisis - War with Great Britain - Alliance of France and England Consequences Serious Topics Discussed Mr. Dayton - France and Mexico The Emperor The "Moniteur." Mr. Adams - Rebel Cruisers Earl Russell - Our Navy The Alabama, 1863 Claims Presented - Maximilian — Mr. Pike - Negro Emigration — The Conduct of the War, 1864 — The War our own Affair England and the Irish - Religion - Mr. Bigelow - France and Mexico Mr. Adams Death of the President - Tributes Montholon Intervention French Views Monarchy in Mexico. - Maximilian Our Views - Mr. Drouyn de l'Huys Mr. Kilpatrick, Chili — Mr. Wright, Prussia - Naturalization — Mr. Adams Alabama Claims - Reply to Lord Stanley - The Rebel Cruisers — Inter- national Law. The Relations of the United States and Great Britain Reviewed at Length Mr. Adams The Alabama Claims Lord Stanley — A Joint Commis- Mexico-France- Mr. Camp- Mr. King Surratt Diplo- Maximilian's Capture Jpdat M sion A Mixed Commission - Two Commissious bell Maximilian -- Juarez General Sherman matic Duties Alabama Claims, delay - The Irish People A - M ― · viii CONTENTS OF VOLUME V. - Juarez · Mr. Campbell - Intercession for Maximilian Mr. Johnson, Minister to England - Instructions Unsettled Questions Considered - Naturalization Serious Complaints - The Irish- The Alabama Claims - A Joint Commission. OCCASIONAL SPEECHES AND MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS: J .483 Occasional Speeches - The Fall of Vicksburg, July 7, 1863 - The Progress of the War The Cemetery at Gettysburg, November 18, 1863- The Fall of Atlanta, September 3, 1864 The Allies of Treason - Politics - Perseverance in the War Election Auburn, November 7, 1864 Chicago, London, and Richmond - Niagara St. Albans The Assurance of Victory Reëlection of President Lincoln Assassination, 1865 President Johnson and his Cabinet Subjuga. tion Restoration of Union The President's Message The Nervous Man Joint Committees Joint Resolutions · The Freedmen's Bureau - The Situation and the Duty, 1868 Mexico Reconstruction - Reconciliation The Thir- teenth Amendment - A Hopeful View Alaska Speech at Sitka August 12, 1869 The North Pacific Coast - British Columbia - Our North Pacific States- Speeches in Mexico Reception of the Chinese Embassy — Mr. Burlingame — The Darien Canal - A Corporation - Peter Cooper - A Visit from Syracuse Friends, April, 1870 The Destiny of America. MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS: J 594 Proclamation of Emancipation, 1863 — Amendments of Constitution — 1865 — The "Thirteenth Amendment" Correspondence with Governors of Reconstructed States Repudiation of Rebel Debts - Provisional Governors - The Fourteenth Amendment - Fugitive Slaves in 1861 and General McClellan -TREATIES Nat- uralization — Alaska — Chinese - Suppression of Slave Trade - Darien - Cabinet Paper on the Reinforcement of Fort Sumter, the Argument Governor Hicks Rebel Emissaries - John Forsyth — Immigration, Rights of Aliens The Union and the Church A Vindication - Dr. Thompson The Clerks of the Depart- ment SEWARD." SEE INDEX.. • .617-626 MEMOIR. 3. MEMOIR. MR. SEWARD entered upon his duties as Secretary of State on the 5th of March, 1861. His son, Frederick W. Seward, was ap- pointed Assistant Secretary on the 6th. William Hunter, who had been in the Department of State since May, 1829, was retained as chief clerk, and subsequently made sec- ond Assistant Secretary, which office he still holds. At different times during his life he was the acting Secretary of State. 1 Of the subordinates in the department who began with Mr. Sew- ard, nearly all continued to the close of his second term, eight years. The correspondence 2 occurring at the termination of their official relations with Mr. Seward discloses something of the spirit in which the duties of the department were discharged by all, even the humblest, of its officers during those eventful years, as well as the appreciation they received from their venerated and distin- guished chief. While despising political cant about "economy," Mr. Seward conducted the affairs of the department with an inexpensiveness that attracted the notice of Congress. Its sphere of duties was at the same time greatly enlarged. Mr. Seward's coadjutors abroad were well chosen for their ability and patriotism, such men as Charles Francis Adams, Henry S. Sanford, William L. Dayton, Anson Burlingame, George P. Marsh, J. Lothrop Motley, Thomas Corwin, Carl Schurz, and John Bige- low. Their despatches ³ to the Secretary of State, as published by Congress, bear ample proof of the fidelity and industry which characterized this important branch of the public service during the Mr. Seward never failed to acknowledge and commend the war. 1 1883. 3 2 See post, page 614. 3 See Diplomatic Correspondence, as published by Congress, 1861-1869, 21 vols. 4 MEMOIR. zealous and faithful manner in which they seconded his efforts to maintain just and peaceful relations between the United States and all the nations of the world. His consular system, which at an early period became self-sustaining, was perfected and made an im- portant branch of foreign intercourse. With notable exceptions, the ministers abroad were inclined to regard the success of their government despairingly. Their despatches to Mr. Seward, reflecting the general sentiment at for- eign courts, were full of criticisms on the conduct of the war, and weighed down with gloomy forebodings of its final result. Mr. Seward, on the other hand, never despaired. Patiently, and with great ability, he answered the doubting epistles of his correspond- ents, explaining what to them was dark or seemingly unwise, and re-inspiring them with hope of the salvation of the Union; at the same time furnishing them with facts and arguments to counteract. the plots and misrepresentations of its enemies. Never for a moment himself doubting the triumph of the Re- public, it was with deep regret that he saw any indulgence of de- spondency among those who represented it in foreign lands. Grave apprehensions of foreign interference were more rife abroad than at home. These Mr. Seward labored constantly to allay, while with no less assiduity he sought to remove all grounds for such disheart- ening fears.¹ John Adams, during the Revolutionary War, encountered among his foreign correspondents doubts of the success of the cause of in- dependence not unlike those Mr. Seward so often had occasion to remove or allay. In a letter to the Count de Vergennes, dated July, 1780, Mr. Adams says: "Most people in Europe have wondered at the inactivity of the American army for these two years past; but it is merely from want of knowledge or attention." After our de- feat on Long Island, in 1776, Mr. Adams rebuked the despondency of his friends in very similar language to that used by Mr. Seward. Mr. Adams says: "The panic which is spread on this occasion is weak and unmanly; it excites my shame and indignation. But it is wearing off. If our whole army had been cut to pieces, it would have been shameful to have been so intimidated as some are or pretend to be. Congress I hope will stand firm.” The duties of the Department of State, as we have intimated, 1 See despatch to Mr. Wood, April 22, 1862, page 315. THE DEPARTMENT. 5 -TREATIES. LO were very arduous during the war. Mr. Seward alludes to this in one of his despatches, when he says:- "You can readily imagine how vast a machinery has been created in the War Department, in the Navy Department, and in the Treasury Department respec- tively. The head of each is a man of busy occupations, high responsibilities, and perplexing cares. You would hardly suppose that a similar change has come over the modest little State Department of other and peaceful days; but the exac- tions upon it are infinite, and out of all that offers itself to be done, I can only select and do that which cannot be wisely or safely left undone.” Mr. Seward, during his administration, negotiated forty-four trea- ties; among which were those for the suppression of the slave trade, with Great Britain in 1862; for the acquisition of Alaska, with Russia, in 1867; extending our relations with China, in 1868; to facilitate the construction of a canal across the Isthmus, and to se- cure the interests of the United States therein, with Nicaragua, in 1867; to secure the rights of naturalized citizens in various coun- tries, in 1868. Three important treaties failed to receive the ap- proval of the Senate: one for the annexation of the Danish islands, one for the cession of the Bay of Samana in San Domingo, and the other for the construction of a canal across the Isthmus of Darien. Believing with Lord Bacon that only nations that are liberal of naturalization are fit for empire, Mr. Seward claimed before the governments of Europe, for all persons not convicted or accused of crime, an absolute political right of self-expatriation and a choice of new national allegiance, with all its exemptions and privileges. On these principles he negotiated a number of treaties regulating nat- uralization. After an experience of nearly ten years, the following tribute to the wisdom and sagacity which negotiated the treaty with Germany in 1868, among others, is found in the annual message of President Hayes of December 3, 1877. "Numerous questions in regard to passports, naturalization and exemption from military service have continued to arise in cases of emigrants from Germany who have returned to their native country. The provisions of the treaty of Feb- ruary 22, 1868, however, have proved to be so ample and so judicious that the legation of the United States at Berlin has been able to adjust all claims arising under it, not only without detriment to the amicable relations existing between the two governments, but it is believed without injury or injustice to any duly nat- alized American citizen. It is desirable that the treaty originally made with the >rth-German Union in 1868, should now be extended, so as to apply equally to the states of the Empire of Germany.” 6 MEMOIR. Mr. Seward, in 1856, thus describes the Department of State as it then was: 1 "It is the depository of the seals of the Republic. It directs and regulates the merely executive operations of government at home, and all its foreign relations. Its agents are numbered by the hundred, and they are dispersed in all civilized countries of the world. From the chief here in his bureau to the secretaries of legation in South America, Great Britain, France, Russia, Turkey, and China, there is not one of these agents who has ever rebuked or condemned the exten- sion or aggrandizement of slavery. There is not one who does not even defend and justify it. There is not one who does not maintain that the flag of the United States covers with its protection the slaves of the slaveholding class on the high seas." Mr. Seward had been in office but a few days when formal over- tures were made to him by the secessionists for negotiations toward a settlement of existing difficulties. The commissioners representing the secessionists at first asked for an unofficial interview with the Secretary of State. This he promptly declined. They subsequently presented at the Depart- ment a sealed communication to which he replied in a "Memoran- dum "2 reviewing their case with entire frankness, while explicitly repudiating their positions. The subject of "the evacuation or re- inforcement of Fort Sumter" was closely connected with these quasi negotiations, and became a matter of grave dispute. Mr. Seward expressed his opinion thereon at length in a confi- dential paper submitted to the President in Cabinet Council, on the 15th of March, 1861. It was during the darkest days of the Rebellion, when thickening disasters were befalling our armies in the field, and treason was ac- tive at Washington and in the North, with rebel emissaries and their allies plotting mischief on the Canadian border, and our for- eign relations in their most critical condition, that Napoleon com- municated, in an autograph letter, his intention to intervene in the contest with all the strength he could command. Mr. Seward re- plied to this threat in decided but becoming language. He furthermore conceived the idea of sending to Europe, in an unofficial capacity, three representative and influential men to meet the impending danger of foreign intervention. He chose for this 1 See vol. iv. page 265. 2 See page 610. 8 See page 606. HIS POSITION IN THE CABINET. 7 mission Archbishop Hughes,¹ Bishop McIlvaine and Mr. Thurlow Weed.2 Mr. Seward, on assuming the responsible duties of his office, ab- solved himself from all party allegiance that might in any manner embarrass him. He especially renounced all aspirations for the presidency, and surrendered all ambition except that of saving the Union. Nevertheless, misapprehensions prevailed in regard to his views and his course, and his position in the President's Cabinet. It was never his habit to explain or defend his official conduct in the news- papers before the public. We find him, however, in July, 1862, when the tide of misrepresentation was at its height, departing some- what from his rule, engaging in a conversation with the editor 3 of the "National Intelligencer," in which he gave emphatic contradic- tion to a number of false and mischievous accusations current at that time in the newspaper press. "The honorable Secretary," says Mr. Seaton, "freely admitted that he felt, perhaps more sensibly than others, the importance of avoiding misapprehensions. in public affairs, because it devolves upon him to daily counteract the effect abroad of publications which often are not more inconsiderately made than they are speedily corrected at home. The armies of the government, which are strong as they are brave, need reinforcements, and the world needs to know that they are promptly coming in response to the call of the government. Every rumor of division of counsels, and of conflict among or about generals, every private jeal- ousy, and even the utterance of every private grief, however unavoidable, tends to defeat these important objects. "The Secretary, therefore, felt fully authorized and at liberty to say, that he never exercised nor assumed a power or a duty in the progress of this war with which he was not specially charged by the President, and in the performance of which he was not always in free communication with him. That neither to the President nor to any other person has he ever expressed distrust of the President or of any of his associates in the government; but, on the contrary, has uniformly supported and defended them all. That he has not been quick or willing to en- tertain complaints against any general, whether Scott or McDowell, Fremont or McClellan, or Halleck, or Grant, or Buell, or Dix, or Sigel, or Shields, or Banks, or Blencker, but has exerted his best endeavors to sustain them all, more when they encountered defeats than when they achieved victories. That he has neither introduced nor encouraged any test question in the Cabinet concerning men or measures, or even said or thought of insisting on the appointment, or approval, or rejection of any man, or the adoption or rejection of any measure as a condition of adherence to the administration, to the war, or to the cause of the country. 1 Congress in 1776 appointed as one of three Commissioners to Canada, Rev. John Carroll, afterward Archbishop of Baltimore. 2 See Autobiography of Thurlow Weed. 8 Hon. W. W. Seaton. MEMOIR. 8 He has never seen any intemperance in debate in the Cabinet, and has discour- aged it in public bodies and journals, equally whether it appeared in favor of his own views or against them. That he never proposed or even thought of requiring the removal or the overruling of the propositions of any member of the Cabinet, nor has he proposed or thought of resigning his own place in it, nor has ever one word of unkindness or distrust passed between the President or any of his official advisers and himself. He is content, as he hitherto has been, to remain where he is, so long as this causeless and iniquitous war continues, and so long as the chosen chief magistrate of the country requires it, even though his advice should be overruled, which happens very rarely; and then in cases which his own judg- ment, better informed, sometimes approves. At the same time he would not, if he could, for any reason prolong his stay in the place he now holds one hour beyond the time when the President should think it wise to relieve him. And when he shall retire from it, it will be with the determination he has more than once heretofore expressed, under no circumstances whatever to be a place-holder in the service of his country, even, although, as he most confidently expects, it shall emerge in its full strength and greatness from its present troubles. He hopes no one of his fellow-citizens thinks so unkindly of him as to suppose that he would be content to exercise power in a fraction of it, if it should consent to be divided." The substance of this conversation was generally published, and served to allay many floating rumors prejudicial to the administra- tion. Mr. Seward, in common with all men holding places of power in the government, was subject not only to misrepresentation, but to gross calumny. His friends seemed more troubled by the assaults made on his reputation than he; to one of these friends he ad- dressed the following letter: ¹- October 8, 1866. SIR :- I thank you for the kind attention you have manifested in writing to me your letter of the 4th instant. In that friendly communication you give me a report of certain speeches made in your neighborhood with a view to affect the private character of the President of the United States, and also my own. I am not appointed or authorized to vindicate the President against personal calumnies. The entire experience of the United States thus far shows that cal- umny of the Chief Magistrate is a chronic form of party activity, and that it has always failed of lasting effect. So far as I myself am concerned, it is only necessary to say that I have no re- membrance of a time during my public life in which less charitable views of my public and private character were taken by those who differed from me than those which are now presented by opponents of the policy which it is my duty to maintain. My first complaint of unkindness at the hands of any of my fellow-citizens re- mains yet to be made, and I think it may with safety be still longer deferred. 1 To Sumner Stebbins, M. D., Unionville, Chester County, Penn. See also letters to Rev. J. P. Thomp- son, D. D., post, page 613. INCIDENTS OF PATRIOTISM. 9 } Mr. Seward's patriotism was manifested in various ways during the war. In August, 1862, when the needs of the country were pressing heavily upon its loyal citizens, he addressed the several persons holding positions in the Department of State, as follows:- August 12, 1862. TO THE ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE, and other persons in the service of the Department of State : — There are thirty-two of us now employed in this department, of whom fifteen are between the ages of eighteen and forty-five. I think we should furnish at least that number of volunteers for the military service, either personally or by volunteers enrolled through our exertions respectively. I propose to furnish three such volunteers, and I invite your immediate consideration of the means of find- ing the others. The places of those who personally volunteer will be retained for them until the expiration of their time of service.¹ When asked for "words to encourage enlistments" he responded: "I give them, the United States, the greatest of all nations if they stand to- gether the most miserable if they fall asunder.” The colored men inquired of him as to their duty in view of the fact that the wages offered to them as soldiers were less than those received by white soldiers. He sent them this reply:- "The duty of the colored man to defend his country whenever and wherever and in whatever form, is the same with that of the white man. It does not de- pend on, nor is it affected by, what the country pays us or what position she as- signs us; but it depends on her need alone, and of that she, not we are to judge. The true way to secure her rewards and win her confidence is not to stipulate for them, but to deserve them. Factious disputes among patriots about compen- sations and honors invariably betray any people, of whatever race, into bondage. If you wish your race to be delivered from that curse, this is the time to secure their freedom in every land and for all generations. It is no time for any Amer- can citizen to be hesitating about pay or place." The total eradication of pro-slavery influences from the govern- ment was one of the responsibilities thrown upon the new adminis- tration. One of Mr. Seward's earliest acts was to instruct the recently appointed Marshal of the District of Columbia to cease re- 1 A newspaper at the time remarked: "The clerks responded to the proposition with enthusiasm, and we understand that twelve of them have already been enrolled, and that the others will be promptly forthcoming. A little incident which occurred yesterday still further illustrates Secretary Seward's patriotism. During the morning he sent a note to Capt. Harrover (who is engaged in recruiting district soldiers), requesting him to send to his office eight recruits. They were sent, and as soon as they ap- peared before the Secretary he handed one of them a neat little package, upon which they retired and opened the mysterious envelope, when to their surprise, they discovered a fifty-dollar treasury note for each one of them.” MEMOIR. 10 ceiving into the jail of the District, fugitive slaves to be delivered up to their masters, according to a long-standing municipal ordi- nance. The effect of this was to relieve the fears of thousands of fugitives from Virginia and Maryland, who flocked to the District and were sustained for a considerable time by rations furnished by the government. At the same time he instructed General Mc- Clellan ¹ that slaves escaping into our lines should receive military protection, and not be liable to arrest. The Mayor of Washington received similar orders. 1 In 1850, Mr. Seward introduced a Bill into the Senate of the United States, to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia. It received only five votes 2 while its author was denounced as an in- cendiary and a traitor. Among the early acts of the administration (April, 1862), was the appointment of three commissioners to carry out the Act of Congress for the emancipation, with compensation to their owners, of all the slaves in the District. The result left no slave at the seat of Government, and notably fulfilled the predictions of Mr. Seward in 1850, and put to flight the forebodings of his enemies.3 On the 15th of April, 1861, the President issued his proclama- tion calling for 75,000 militia, to suppress the treasonable combina- tions which had become too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of law. To this call, the loyal people promptly re- sponded. The troops hastened to the city of Washington to se- cure its possession in the hands of the government. In passing through Baltimore, they met with armed resistance from a mob. The Governor of Maryland became alarmed and addressed a letter to the President, asking that no more troops be sent through that state. To this extraordinary request, the Secretary of State replied in a public letter,4 remarkable for its eloquence and patriotism. On the 8th of November, 1861, Captain Charles Wilkes, of the U. S. Steamer San Jacinto intercepted on the ocean, H. B. M. mail packet boat Trent, having on board four rebel emissaries bound for England. Having boarded the Trent, an officer of the San Jacinto, with an armed guard, arrested the rebels Mason, Sli- dell, McFarland and Eustis, and transferred them to the San Ja- 1 See Order of December 4, 1861, page 599. 2 In 1862, the vote in the Senate was ayes 29, nays 14; in the House, ayes 92, nays 38. 3 See Vol. i. p. 111; vol. iv. p. 20; Wilson, vol. ii. p. 298. • See page 609. THE TRENT AFFAIR. 11 cinto. The Trent then proceeded on her voyage. Captain Wilkes conveyed his captives to Boston, where they were consigned to Fort Warren, then a receptacle for political prisoners. When this trans- action became known to the British government, immediate prepa- rations were made for war. In the United States, the act was hailed as a victory. The Secretary of the Navy publicly applauded Captain Wilkes, and the House of Representatives did the same. The Secretary of State, upon whom the chief responsibility in the matter rested, saw, more clearly than others, that a breach of inter- national law had been committed by the commander of the San Jacinto. The President coincided with Mr. Seward, and it was at once resolved to restore the rebel captives to the protection of the British flag.¹ Mr. Seward's reasons for adopting this course are ably presented in his correspondence with Mr. Adams and the British and French ministers.2 On the publication of the correspondence a complete change in public opinion ensued. Mr. Seward was regarded everywhere as a peace-maker and a wise diplomatist. Great Britain accepted his solution of the threatening difficulty in proper terms, while the other European powers concurred.³ Thus was settled one of the most formidable questions that con- fronted our government during the civil war. Mr. Adams in his Oration 4 reviews the transaction with a power of eloquence height- ened by his intimate knowledge of the facts and circumstances. While the excitement caused by the Trent affair was still alive, the British government, through Lord Lyons, asked permission to send a detachment of troops to Quebec across the state of Maine from Portland, Quebec at the time being blockaded with ice. Mr. Seward courteously granted the request although he was aware that these soldiers were probably originally intended to act in hostility to the United States. The prompt courtesy of Mr. Seward in this case helped to restore good feeling between the two countries.5 1 Mr. Webster, Secretary of State, in 1851, said "I cannot bring myself to believe that these Govern- ments (England and France) or either of them, dare to search an American merchantman on the high seas to ascertain whether individuals may be on board bound to Cuba and with hostile purposes.' Private Correspondence, p. 477. 2 See pages 295-310. The points of International Law presented in the "Trent Case," are concisely discussed by Dana in his Notes to Wheaton. * See page 35. 5 It is a coincidence in history, that in 1790, Lord Dorchester asked leave of President Washington to march a British army from Detroit to the Mississippi River. See Hamilton's Works, vol. iv., page 48. 12 MEMOIR. Despite the existence of the war, and the accumulation of labors. it brought upon Mr. Seward, he found time to negotiate a treaty with Great Britain for the suppression of the slave-trade. On the 20th of May, 1862, it was ratified, and Congress proceeded at once to give effect to its provisions. The result was the total eradica- tion of the nefarious traffic. In 1866, Mr. Seward was able to sug- gest the withdrawal of the naval forces, no longer required to en- force the provisions of the treaty. Many attempts had heretofore been made, ineffectually, to negotiate a treaty not subject to na- tional jealousies nor in conflict with the interests and policy of our slave-holders. In 1817, Wilberforce urged the matter upon the at- tention of John Quincy Adams, who, when he became Secretary of State in 1824, negotiated a similar treaty. But it failed to receive the confirmation of the Senate. The subject often wore a threaten- ing aspect. In negotiating the present treaty, Mr. Seward and Lord Lyons removed every embarrassment. "Had such a treaty," said Mr. Seward, " been made in 1808, there would have been now no sedition here and no disagreement between the United States and foreign nations." On another occasion he remarked, "The African slave-trade which has been so long clandestinely carried on from American ports was a mercenary traffic without even the poor pretext that it brought laborers into our country, or that other and worse pretext that it was necessary to the safety or prosperity of any state or section. It was carried on in defiance of our laws by corrupting the administration of justice. The treaty contains. no provisions that can embarrass an honest and lawful trade, and none that can inflict a wound upon the national pride. It was freely offered by this government to Great Britain, not bought or solicited by that government. It is in harmony with the sentiments of the American people. It was ratified by the Senate unanimously, and afterwards distinctly approved with not less unanimity by both houses of Congress. Not a voice has been raised against it in the country." Under Mr. Seward, "corrupting the administration of justice' ceased. Slave-traders were hanged in New York or delivered to their own governments for punishment.¹ It was indeed through his very peremptory instructions that the laws of the United States against this crime, were, for the first time, rigidly enforced, against powerful influences, and execution carried into effect. 1 See the case of Arguelles, page 19. THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION. 13 After the capture of New Orleans by the Union forces, in May, 1862, a large number of foreign-born persons, not naturalized, re- siding there, made numerous claims and raised a variety of ques- tions which, through the ministers and consuls of their respective countries, were brought to the attention of the Secretary of State. Many of these questions were of an intricate and delicate character. The military authorities in Louisiana failed to render any satisfac- tory solution of them. Mr. Seward conceived the idea of establishing a provisional court in New Orleans, to be entirely independent, with powers un- limited, and whose decisions should be conclusive in all cases. An executive order to this effect was issued on the 20th of October, 1862, proclaiming that whereas "The insurrection which has for some time prevailed in several of the States of the Union, including Louisiana, having temporarily subverted and swept away the civil institutions of that State, including the Judiciary and the judicial author- ities of the Union, so that it has become necessary to hold the State in military occupation; and it being indispensably necessary that there shall be some judicial tribunal existing there capable of administering justice, I have therefore thought it proper to appoint, and I do hereby constitute a provisional court, which shall be a court of record for the State of Louisiana, and I do hereby appoint Charles A. Peabody of New York to be a provisional judge to hold said court . . . his judgment to be final and conclusive. BY THE PRESIDENT: WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.” All causes, civil and criminal, including causes in law, equity, rev- enue and admiralty, were within the powers of this court, and no review of its judgments by any other court was allowed. Its au- thority and the validity of its acts were considered in the Supreme Court of the United States and fully sustained.¹ The Saint Albans raid added not a little to the duties and re- sponsibilities of the Secretary of State. He sent an agent to Mon- treal and engaged able counsel 2 to endeavor to secure the rights and property of the citizens of Vermont in the courts of her neigh- boring province, but without avail. 3 The Emancipation Proclamation of September 22, 1862, and that of January 1, 1863, both ³ received the hearty approval of Mr. Sew- ard. At a cabinet meeting held to consider the September procla- mation, Mr. Seward suggested two important amendments to Mr. 1 See Albany Law Journal, Vol. III, page 348. 2 George F. Edmunds, now United States Senator. › See post, pages 345, 594. 14 MEMOIR. Lincoln's draft of the document. He had at a previous meeting advised a delay in issuing the proclamation, for the reason that we were then humbled by repeated defeats of our armies, and that a better impression would be made if the proclamation came after a victory, when it would not appear as a token of despair. The Pres- ident accepted the advice and now 1 that a grand success had been achieved at Antietam 2 the day had come. He called upon the members of his Cabinet for their views and criticisms on his impor- tant paper. Mr. Seward suggested that it would be better to leave out all reference to the act being sustained during the present administra- tion, and not merely say the government "recognizes" but that the army and navy will "MAINTAIN" the freedom proclaimed. Mr. Lincoln characterized the suggestion as "very judicious," and favored its adoption. The modification was concurred in unan- imously. Mr. Seward then further proposed that in the passage relating to "colonization," it should plainly appear that the colonization proposed was to be only with the consent of the colonists and the consent of the States in which colonies might be attempted. This suggestion also was adopted. When the first day of January, 1863, arrived, nearly all opposi- tion had ceased, and the public mind was prepared for the great proclamation. At noon on that day, Mr Seward took the engrossed copy to the executive mansion, where, in the council chamber of the President, it was signed by Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Seward, and after- ward received the seal of the United States at the Department of State, and was deposited among the archives. During the period of gloom and excitement which succeeded the appalling defeat of the Union army before Fredericksburgh, De- cember 13th, 1862, a caucus of Republican senators gathered and hastily passed resolutions advising the President to change the chief member of his Cabinet, and appointed a committee to lay the reso- lution before him. Learning of the action of the caucus, Mr. Seward instantly wrote his resignation, and placing it in the President's hands, withdrew from the department. When the senatorial committee arrived at the executive mansion they found the President had convened all 1 September 22, 1862. 2 September 19, 1862. THE CABINET. 15 MEDIATION. the remaining members of the Cabinet to meet them and discuss the question. They were informed that if they proposed to take the untenable ground that Cabinet appointments or changes were to be dictated by Congress or caucuses, it would be making a radi- cal change in the national system, in which the Cabinet were not prepared to acquiesce. The action of the caucus was the more un- reasonable in this case, because the Secretary of State was in no wise responsible for the military disasters. Rather than consent to the proposed change, the whole Cabinet were prepared to resign their seats. The Secretary of the Treas- ury had already placed his resignation in the President's hands, and the others would follow his example. Meanwhile, as the news got abroad, protests and animadversions upon the uncalled-for action of the caucus began to pour in through the press and the mails. More sober counsels then prevailed, and those who had taken part in the caucus began to explain and modify their course. The following letters show the result:- EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, December 20, 1862. HON. WILLIAM H. SEWARD AND HON. SALMON P. CHASE. Gentlemen: - You have respectively tendered me your resignations as Secretary of State and Secretary of the Treasury of the United States. I am apprised of the circumstances which may render this course personally desirable to each of you; but, after most anxious consideration, my deliberate judgment is, that the public interest does not admit of it. I therefore have to request that you will resume the duties of your departments respectively. Your obedient servant, A. LINCOLN. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, WASHINGTON, December 21, 1861. Sunday Morning. My Dear Sir: I have cheerfully resumed the functions of this department, in obedience to your command. With the highest respect, your humble servant. WILLIAM H. SEWARD. THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. Mediation between the government of the United States and the rebels was offered by different foreign powers, at several stages of the war. The disloyal element of the North encouraged such pro- positions, while the government repelled every offer of the kind. Mr. Seward had promptly rebuked the first suggestion of foreign ar- bitration in his letter to the Governor of Maryland in April, 1861.1 1 See page 609. MEMOIR. 16 Early in 1863, the Emperor of France made a formal presenta- tion of the subject to our government through M. Mercier, the Min- ister of France residing at Washington.¹ Under date of February 6, 1863, Mr. Seward prepared a des- patch 2 to Mr. Dayton of remarkable ability, giving the reasons for declining to enter into diplomatic discussion with the insur- gents. In the autumn of 1864, the canvass for the Presidential election opened under very trying circumstances. The war was still raging with varied fortunes. The Union party nominated Mr. Lincoln for reëlection. The opposition presented as their candidate, Gen- eral George B. McClellan, who had been retired from the com- mand of the Union army two years before. The platform of the opposition declared the war to be a failure. General McClellan repudiated its treasonable features in accepting his nomination. He nevertheless received the support of the disloyal element of the North and the secret aid of the insurgents. Mr. Seward, in a speech 3 at Auburn, November 7, 1864, portrayed the situation in a clear and convincing manner. The election resulted in the choice of Abraham Lincoln by an electoral vote of 212, to 21 for General McClellan. Andrew John- son was elected Vice-President. As early as November, 1862, Mr. Seward had directed that rec- lamation should be made on the British government for the dam- ages inflicted upon American commerce by the Alabama and other vessels of British origin. In 1863, propositions for "any fair and equitable form of arbitrament" began to be discussed. In 1865 (August 30), Lord John Russell announced that “ Her Majesty's government must decline either to make reparation and compensation for the captures made by the Alabama or to refer the question to any foreign state." On the 27th of August, 1866, Mr. Seward presented to the British government a list of individual claims on account of the pirate Alabama. Then followed a series of negotiations and corre- spondence between the two governments which continued until the close of Mr. Seward's administration as Secretary of State. The several vessels built in Great Britain and devoted to the ser- vice of the confederates were a constant source of anxiety to the 1 See page 376. 2 See page 376. 3 See page 505. THE ALABAMA CLAIMS. 17 Department of State, and a frequent topic of correspondence be- tween the Secretary and our ministers abroad. He did not hesitate to denounce all these vessels, their officers and crews, as pirates 1 because they belonged to no nation or lawful belligerent. The destruction of the Alabama by the Kearsarge in June, 1864, and the capture of the Florida in the waters of Brazil in October of the same year, elicited from Mr. Seward despatches of remark- able interest. Owing to a change of ministry in Great Britain, during the con- troversy, and to other causes, more or less delay occurred in the negotiations. The propositions made by Great Britain, through Lord Stanley, for arbitration were declined by the United States, because they contained reservations and limitations incompatible with the rights, interest and honor of our country. Mr. Seward nevertheless ex- pressed a confident opinion that Great Britain would not finally re- fuse to satisfy our just and reasonable claims which involve the sacred principle of non-intervention - a principle, he added of not more importance henceforth to the United States, than to all other commercial nations.2 On another occasion he said, "I feel bound to declare my opinion before the world that the justification offered by Great Britain for the course pursued by her ministry cannot be sustained before the tribunal of nations." 3 On the 4th of July, 1871, a treaty was proclaimed by Mr. Sew- ard's successor, Mr. Fish, providing for an amicable settlement of all causes of difference between the two countries by a joint.high commission. This commission instituted a tribunal of arbitration which met at Geneva, in Switzerland, in 1872. This tribunal was empowered to determine whether Great Britain had failed to fulfil any of its duties toward the United States during the Rebellion, and, if so, to fix the proper sum of money to be paid, in gross, to the United States in satisfaction of the various claims presented. The 1 Mr. Webster, Secretary of State in 1851, defined a pirate thus: "An armed vessel fitted out obviously and flagrantly for warlike purposes, found sailing on the high seas without a commission from any acknowledged government might be regarded as a pirate." (Private Correspondence, p. 477.) 2 See Despatches to Adams, August 27, 1866, January 12, 1867, and August 12, 1867. 3 During the rebellion of the South American States against Spain and the administration of James Monroe, John Quincy Adams being Secretary of State, a similar course of privateering or piracy ema- nated from the United States. Baltimore, in 1820, rivalled Liverpool in 1863, in sending out piratical cruisers like the Alabama and the Florida. But the vigor of Monroe's administration in efforts to sup- press and restrain the unlawful enterprises was in marked contrast with the feeble attempts of the British government in 1861-1864. See Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, Vols. IV., V. 2 18 MEMOIR. tribunal awarded fifteen and one-half millions of dollars to the United States, under the power conferred. The British govern- ment promptly paid the sum which had been thus awarded. This ended a controversy originated and managed, on Mr. Seward's part, with great ability and unwearied zeal met as he often was, in his demands, by peremptory rebuffs from Lord John Russell. 1 Mr. Seward, as we have seen, never remitted his efforts to secure a settlement of our claims against Great Britain. Negotiations of other treaties were vigorously prosecuted about the same time at home and abroad. The title to the island of San Juan, which was finally awarded to the United States by the arbitrator, was included in the subjects under discussion. The difficult questions with Great Britain, Germany and other nations relating to naturaliza- tion, were carefully considered, and several treaties thereon were negotiated. Not only did no act or word of Mr. Seward, during his admin- istration, ever prolong for one day the existence of slavery, but his hand and seal are to be found on the treaty which put an end to the slave-trade throughout the world; on the Emancipa- tion Proclamation, a military measure, and on the constitutional amendment that forever abolished slavery throughout the United States. The records of the Department of State under Mr. Seward bear witness to the recognition of Hayti and its black representatives ; the abolition of the foreign and the internal slave-trade; the aboli- tion of slavery in the District of Columbia and throughout the Union. Mr. Seward, ever mindful of human rights, instructed our ministers abroad, that the decree of emancipation reached even foreign lands. In July, 1868, he wrote as follows:- "The great change of the political relations between the races in this country has made it the duty of this government to see that no unjust or unnecessary discriminations are made in foreign countries 1 Mr. Evarts, at Toronto in September, 1879, then Secretary of State, in a public address, recognized Mr. Seward's services in diplomacy in the following terms: "You have very justly attributed to my predecessor, Mr. Seward, a great part, entitling him to the gratitude of the people of England, as well as to the gratitude of the people of his own country — I mean his skilful management of the relations be- tween the two nations during the dark night of our civil war; and when that war ended, his benevolent diplomacy finally succeeded in bringing about between the two nations a solution of the causes of diffi- culty which, but for that solution, might have disturbed their peace for many years - I mean the con- sent to peaceful arbitration of the grievance growing out of the Alabama difficulties. He thus gave a signal instance both of a forethought and a benevolence in diplomacy that have seldom been equalled in the history of international negotiations." EXTRADITION. 19 SLAVE-TRADERS. between citizens of the United States of different birth, extraction, or color." To such lengths did Mr. Seward's opposition to slavery go, as we have seen in our progress, that he did not hesitate, the President con- curring, to surrender a noted Cuban slave-trader, named Arguelles, to the Spanish authorities for punishment, notwithstanding there was no extradition treaty existing between Spain and the United States to warrant such a surrender. Although this criminal was a most atrocious offender, and although Mr. Seward's course had the approval of the President, much indignation was manifested in cer- tain quarters and Mr. Seward was bitterly denounced. Resolutions of inquiry into the matter were introduced into Congress. Mr. Seward in his reply, through the President, vindicates his course in a few words: "There being no treaty of extradition," he says, "be- tween the United States and Spain, nor any act of Congress direct- ing how fugitives from justice in Spanish dominions shall be de- livered up, the extradition in the case referred to in the resolution of the Senate is understood by this Department to have been made in virtue of the law of nations and the Constitution of the United States. Although there is a conflict of authorities concerning the expediency of exercising comity towards a foreign government by surrendering, at its request, one of its own subjects charged with a commission of crime within its territory, and although it may be conceded that there is no national obligation to make such a sur- render upon a demand therefor, unless it is acknowledged by treaty or by statute law, yet a nation is never bound to furnish asylum to dangerous criminals who are offenders against the human race; and it is believed that if, in any case, the comity could with propriety be practised, the one which is understood to have called forth the resolution furnished a just occasion for its exercise." The President alluded to this case in his annual message to Con- gress in 1864, declaring that he entertained "no doubt of the power and duty of the Executive, to exclude enemies of the human race. from an asylum in the United States." The case was briefly, this: José Agustin Arguelles, a slave- dealer, sold in Cuba three hundred negroes, stolen from Africa. He then fled to New York, expecting there to enjoy the spoils of his villany. The Spanish police pursued him. His arrest and trial in Cuba would cause the release from bondage of the three hundred 20 MEMOIR. negroes. No treaty of extradition existed at the time between the United States and Spain, and no power seemed to be vested in any functionary of the United States government to cause the arrest and surrender of the great criminal, a fugitive from justice. He was, nevertheless, arrested in the City of New York by the United States Marshal. The Spanish Minister at Washington was in- formed by Mr. Seward while the arrest was going on, that if a suit- able officer be sent to New York by the Captain-General of Cuba, such steps as may be proper would be taken to place in his charge, for the purpose indicated in the confidential note of the Spanish Minister, Don José Augustus Arguelles. The Captain-General ac- cordingly designated one of his aides-de-camp as the person to re- ceive Arguelles, and requested that he be put on board a steamer for Havana. On the 19th of May, 1864, the Captain-General an- nounced the arrival of Arguelles at Havana in charge of a confiden- tial officer. In the course of the proceedings, Mr. Seward, in an interview with the agents of the Cuban government, remarked that "so far as depends on me, as Secretary of State, Spanish slave-dealers who have no immunity in Havana will find none in New York." The Captain-General requested the Spanish Minister at Washing- ton to convey to Mr. Seward the thanks of the Cuban government for his services to humanity, in this affair, because he had assisted in the exposure and punishment of a crime totally distinct from any political matter. The result of Mr. Seward's action, said the Captain-General, will be the liberation of more than two hundred human beings, who, but for the return to Cuba of Arguelles, must have remained in slavery. To Mr. Seward they owe the recovery of their freedom.1 The melancholy events of 1865 can hardly be more fitly recorded in this volume, than in the words of the following despatches: SIR, MR. F. W. SEWARD TO MR. ADAMS. (Circular. No. 1345.) DEPARTMENT OF STATE, WASHINGTON, April 10, 1865. I regret to state that a serious accident has occurred to the Secretary of State and that his injuries are so severe as to render it impossible, for the pres- ent, that he should give any attention to matters of official business.2 It is hoped 1 See Dip. Cor. XXXVIII. Con. 2d Sess., Part 2, p. 60, 1864. 2 Having been thrown from his carriage. THE ASSASSINATION. 21 that in a few days he will so far have recovered from its effects as to be able to resume, in some degree, his official duties. Your recent despatches will then be submitted to him. Until that time their consideration is necessarily deferred. I am, sir, your obedient servant, F. W. SEWARD, Acting Secretary. MR. HUNTER TO MR. ADAMS. (Circular. No. 1352.) DEPARTMENT OF STATE, WASHINGTON, April 17, 1865. SIR, The melancholy duty devolves upon me, officially to apprise you of the assassination of the President at Ford's theatre, in this city, in the evening of the 14th instant. He died the next morning from the effects of the wound. About the same time, an attempt was made to assassinate the Secretary of State in his own house, where he was in bed suffering from the effects of the late accident. The attempt failed, but Mr. Seward was severely cut, on the face es- pecially, it is supposed with a bowie-knife. Mr. F. W. Seward was felled by a blow or blows on the head from the assassin, and for some time afterward was apparently unconscious. Both the Secretary and Assistant Secretary are better, especially the former. Andrew Johnson has formally entered upon the duties of President. I have been authorized temporarily to act as Secretary of State. I am, sir, your obedient servant, W. HUNTER, Acting Secretary. Mr. Seward's only allusion to the "casualties" which deprived the department of the services of both the Secretary and Assistant Secretary of State for several weeks, was drawn out by way of ex- cuse for an omission to fully acknowledge the manifold expressions which were transmitted to the department from governments, pub- lic authorities, civic, ecclesiastical and educational corporations and associations, as well as from public assemblies of citizens, and from individual citizens, of their feeling of sympathy and condolence with the government and the people of the United States in the calamity which they had suffered in the lamented death of the late President Abraham Lincoln. "Owing," says Mr. Seward, "to some peculiar casualties, the efficiency of the department was impaired at the time these despatches were received.¹ They obtained only a simple and formal acknowledgment from the presiding secretary." "Our government, simply constructed, with adaptation to the transaction of necessary affairs in the ordinary course of adminis- tration, found itself (in the condition of this department, which then existed) inadequate to the immediate acknowledgment of ¹ See Despatch to Mr. Adams, Nov. 4, 1865. 22 MEMOIR. such various and vast obligations suddenly and unexpectedly in- curred."... "Nevertheless the President earnestly desires that rec- ognition shall even now be made of the sympathies and condolences which were then poured in upon us with a profusion that did honor to human nature." Under the direction of Mr. Seward all these testimonies were printed in a handsome quarto volume of 930 pp., entitled "Tributes of the Nations to Abraham Lincoln." 1 One of the first mental efforts of Mr. Seward, after his convales- cence from the terrible wounds of the assassin, was the preparation of the following proclamation of Thanksgiving to be issued by the President. In this view, the document has additional interest. PROCLAMATION. Whereas, it has pleased Almighty God, during the year which is now coming to an end, to relieve our beloved country from the fearful scourge of civil war, and to permit us to secure the blessings of peace, unity and harmony, with a great enlargement of civil liberty; and whereas, our Heavenly Father has also, during the year, graciously averted from us the calamities of foreign war, pesti- lence and famine, while our granaries are full of the fruits of an abundant season; and whereas, righteousness exalteth a nation, while sin is a reproach to any peo- ple: NOW, THerefore, be it known, that I, Andrew JoHNSON, President of the United States, do hereby recommend to the people thereof, that they do set apart and observe the first Thursday of December next as a day of national thanksgiving to the Creator of the Universe for these great deliverances and blessings. And I do further recommend that on that occasion, the whole people make confession of our national sins against His Infinite goodness, and with one heart and one mind implore the Divine guidance in the ways of national virtue and holiness. Dated, Oct. 28, 1865. Mr. Seward and General Scott obtained information, during the winter of 1860-61, that the assassination of President Lincoln was contemplated by the enemies of the government, even at that early period. Measures of protection were immediately instituted which to many seemed unnecessary. The reality of the danger and the wisdom of the precautions taken, at the time of Mr. Lincoln's first inauguration, found a sad verification in his death at the threshold of his second term. There is trustworthy evidence that President Buchanan, acting 1 The only similar collection, perhaps, are the "Addresses to President Washington" on his retirement from public life, never yet compiled and published. IMPEACHMENT. 23 AMENDMENTS. under the secret advice and counsel of Mr. Seward, contributed not a little to the safe inauguration of Mr. Lincoln in 1861. John H. Surratt, suspected of being an accomplice in the murder of Mr. Lincoln, fled from the country, and finally found refuge in Italy. The vigilance of the Department of State, through its agents abroad, followed him until he was captured¹ and returned to the United States. The Papal government promptly surrendered the fugitive, although no treaty of extradition existed between that government and the United States.2 In the prosecution of Surratt in the courts of the District of Columbia, the Department employed able lawyers and spared no efforts to secure a conviction. But the jury in each of the two trials failed to agree on a verdict. Mr. Seward actively opposed the attempted impeachment of the President. He took high grounds against the proceeding, regarding it as an attempt on the part of the prosecutors to depose the con- stitutional President of the United States, and install in his place one of their own number- a virtual usurpation of executive power under the forms of law by the legislature. He accordingly heartily approved the course of Senators Fessenden, Trumbull, and Grimes who were influential in defeating the ill-advised measure. The argument of Mr. Evarts against impeachment, before the Senate, Mr. Seward pronounced to be worthy of a place in history with the best forensic efforts in the trial of Warren Hastings. To Chief Justice Chase, also, he ascribed high honor for the wise and im- partial manner with which he presided over the High Court of Impeachment. On the 18th of December, 1865, Mr. Seward issued his proclama- tion announcing that the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, abol- ishing slavery in the United States, had received the ratification of the requisite number of States, by their legislatures, and was now a part of that sacred instrument, the fundamental law of the Union, a measure which he believed necessary to secure our entire and com- plete national independence. Throughout his life, an advocate of universal suffrage for the exile and the emigrant, and even for the slave, Mr. Seward had the satisfaction also of proclaiming the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which aimed to give the right of suffrage, along with equal civil rights, to all, without distinction of color or previous condition of servitude. This proclamation bears 1 November 25, 1866. 2 See Arguelles, page 19. 24 MEMOIR. date July 28th, 1868. The amendment excluded from office all who had before the war heid office and afterward engaged in the Rebellion; it made the debt of the United States valid and sacred, while the Confederate debt was repudiated. 1 His proclamation announcing the ratification of the 13th Amend- ment may be well regarded as the crowning act of his public life. He had brought all his influence to bear upon Congress to secure its favorable action, and it was especially appropriate that this great '. ordinance should be proclaimed by him. The 14th Amendment also bears his name and seal.2 While this amendment was under consideration in Congress he proposed as a substitute the following, substantially, "All persons born in the United States after the date of President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation shall be entitled to vote on arriving at the age of twenty-one years, and this should enter into reconstruction.” During the year 1866, the nation was convulsed with conflicting ideas of reconstruction. Mr. Seward, in speeches at Auburn and in New York, gave full expression of his views. 3 A convention of citizens who favored "the restoration of the Southern States and their representation by proper men in Con- gress" was held in Philadelphia, August 14, 1866. Mr. Seward's approval of the call for this convention was solicited. In a favora- ble response to the inquiry, he reiterated the sentiments of his Au- burn and New York speeches. In a letter dated July 11, 1866, Mr. Seward expressed these views : "After more than five years of dislocation by civil war, I regard a restoration of the unity of the country as its most immediate as well as its most vital interest.* That restoration will be complete when loyal men are admitted as representatives of the loyal people of the eleven States so long unrepresented in Congress. Noth- ing but this can complete it. Nothing more remains to be done, and nothing more is necessary. Every day's delay is attended by multiplying and increasing inconveniences, embarrassments, and dangers at home and abroad. Congress possesses the power exclusively. Congress, after a session of seven months, still omits to exercise that power. What can be done to induce Congress to act? This is the question of the day.” Mr. Seward, entertaining these views, welcomed every effort made 1 See post, pages 595, 598. 2 In a letter to the editor of this volume, dated Auburn, May 2, 1870, Mr. Seward says: "When the reconstruction question arose about the 14th Amendment, I proposed one, that all persons born in the United States after the date of Mr. Lincoln's proclamation abolishing slavery should be entitled to vote on arriving at the age of twenty-one years, and this should enter into reconstruction." 3 See post, pages 529, 558. ALASKA. 25 IMMIGRATION. to stimulate the action of Congress. In this light he approved the call of the Philadelphia Convention. Congress, however, occupied different grounds, and an apparent alienation arose between him and his former political associates. While slavery had the controlling influence in our government, projects for the acquisition of northern territory received little favor. The war of the Rebellion precluded the administration of 1861-65 from giving much attention to the subject, although Mr. Seward during that time did not lose sight of the peaceful enterprise. In March, 1867, formal negotiations were instituted for the pur- chase of Alaska, and before the month closed, a treaty for that object was signed by Mr. Seward and Mr. de Stoeckl, the Russian Min- ister.¹ The Senate ratified the treaty with but little opposition, and having been ratified by Russia, a proclamation thereof was made on the 20th of June, 1867. The appropriation for the sum named as the purchase-money was made by Congress on the 27th of July, 1868. Formal possession by the United States took place in Au- gust, 1868.2 Our Minister to Russia, at the time of the negotiation, although he was intrusted with no part in it, regarded the treaty as "a brill- iant achievement which adds so vast a territory to our Union ; whose ports, whose mines, whose timber, whose furs, whose fisher- ies, are of untold value; and whose fields will produce many grains, even wheat, and will become hereafter the seat of a hardy white population." 3 Immigration was always regarded by Mr. Seward as a chief source of the nation's wealth and prosperity, and as one of the prin- cipal replenishing streams appointed by Providence to repair the ravages of war and the wastes of national strength and health. Congress, in July, 1864, passed an act giving the Department of State supervision of the whole subject. Under the operations of the law immigration was encouraged and the welfare of the immigrant protected. This was consistent with the policy Mr. Seward had all his life advocated, and which, like his policy of freedom, had en- countered objections, political, religious, and social. He, early in 1 See post, page 601. 2 The United States derives a revenue of nearly half a million from Alaska already. Its postal reve- nue is larger than that from any other territory, and exceeds that of a few States. › See Alaska and Its Resources. By W. H. Dall. Lee and Shepard, Boston. 1870. Also speech in the Senate, on Alaska, 1867, by Charles Sumner. ? 26 MEMOIR. the war, issued a circular to our consuls abroad, calling their atten- tion to the Homestead Act, and requesting them to make public that in no country in the civilized world are such opportunities. offered as in the United States, to active, industrious, and intelli- gent men, for the acquisition of abundant means of support and comfortable homesteads for themselves and their families.¹ In 1868, Congress failed to make the necessary provision for the support of the Bureau of Immigration, which Mr. Seward had or ganized in 1864, and it was discontinued. Some of its duties have since been assumed by the Bureau of Statistics in the Treasury De- partment. Consistently with his efforts to encourage immigration he stead- ily opposed all schemes for the colonization in foreign lands of colored men, and discouraged the emigration of the emancipated In this he differed from President Lincoln. race. Having advocated the recognition of the independence of Hayti and Liberia, he had the satisfaction of receiving Ministers from those countries on equal terms with those of other foreign powers.2 The return of peace seemed only to increase the arduous duties of the Department of State. An increasing number and a greater variety of questions pressed for consideration. The Paris Exposition of 1867 was, to our countrymen especially, a great success. Under the management of the Department of State, exhibitors from the United States enjoyed facilities which lightened their labors and relieved them of many embarrassments. A conference for the establishment of uniform coinage was held in Paris, the same year, in which the Department was actively inter- ested. In 1866, Mr. Seward was able to congratulate the country that, while sentiments of reconciliation, loyalty, and patriotism had in- creased at home, a more just consideration of our character and rights, as a nation, had been manifested by foreign governments. The somewhat mysterious course of France toward Mexico was a subject of much anxiety to Mr. Seward. The introduction, into. a neighboring Republic, of a monarchical form of government, under a European prince supported by French arms, could but excite the gravest apprehensions. Mr. Seward had plainly indicated to the 1 See Vol. I., p. 289. 2 Hayti, March 3, 1863; Liberia, May 18, 1864. THE MONROE DOCTRINE APPLIED. 27 gov- French government (September 26, 1863) that such a proceeding must lead to war between France and the United States. The French Minister intimated that if war must be the result his ernment would naturally select their own time to commence hostil- ities, which would be the present, while the United States was burdened with domestic difficulties. No such intimidation moved Mr. Seward. Striving ever to maintain a strict neutrality with France and Mexico while the war between the two nations had a legitimate character, he maintained that the United States could not renounce the doctrine that the continuance of free republican in- stitutions throughout America was required for the safety of our own institutions, and for the attainment of that destiny to which we as a nation aspire. This was the sentiment of the people.¹ Con- gress attempted to give it expression in a resolution which passed the House of Representatives, but received no action in the Senate. This action served to increase the sensibilities of the French gov- ernment on the subject, and to renew the correspondence between its Minister of Foreign Affairs and Mr. Seward, who took occasion to say that the question in its decision rested with the executive branch of our government, and not with Congress, and that the President did not at the present contemplate any change in the policy so far pursued. Mr. Seward's positions were controverted by the House, and res- olutions adverse thereto were adopted. The Senate took no action and expressed no opinion in the matter. The original declaration of the House was regarded by France as a menace of hostilities. Mr. Seward's explanation served to relieve the question of its war- like character, and to renew the peaceful relations of the two coun- tries. After the war had been declared to be at an end (on the 2d of April, 1866), the occupation of Mexico by the French was no longer to be tolerated. Mr. Seward had already repeatedly notified the imperial government of France that the presence of a foreign army in an adjacent and sister Republic was inconsistent with the policy of the United States and with the doctrine proclaimed by President Monroe. On the 9th of April, 1866, assurances were 1 The "Monroe Doctrine," which had hitherto been a cherished theory, became, under Mr. Seward, an irreversible fact. See Mr. Seward's speeches in Senate on Clayton and Bulwer treaty, Vol. I., page 376. Globe App. 1855, 1856. 28 MEMOIR. given by the French government that its troops should, within a reasonable time, be withdrawn from Mexico. Many delays oc- curred in the fulfilment of this promise, and it was not until March 19, 1867, that it was fully accomplished. Maximilian was captured and shot on the 19th of June, 1867, by the Mexicans, notwithstand- ing the earnest efforts of Mr. Seward to save his life.¹ The Republic of Mexico, having been delivered from foreign intervention, soon reëstablished her constitutional system of gov- ernment. In 1868, General Ulysses S. Grant was nominated by the Re- publican party as its candidate for President. Horatio Seymour was his opponent. Neither the candidate, of the Democrats nor the platform on which he stood were such as to claim the support of the true friends of the Union and its restoration. Mr. Seward, in a speech 2 of great solemnity, on “the situation and the duty," at Auburn, a few days before the election (October 31, 1868), made the path of duty very clear for those who had been accustomed for many years to follow his counsels in political af- fairs.3 This was the twelfth presidential canvass in which he had participated, and he felt that it might be his last. His words, on this occasion, reached beyond the approaching election, and became the farewell address of his political life. In January, 1866, Mr. Seward made a voyage to the West In- dies, visiting St. Thomas, Santa Cruz, San Domingo, Hayti, and Cuba, in all of which places he was received with demonstrations of hospitality and respect on the part both of the people and the authorities. In addressing the President of the Republic of San Domingo, he said that "the United States regarded the neighbor- ing Republics founded, like that of the United States, upon the principle of the equal rights of man, as buttresses, which it was in the interest of the American people and government to multiply and strengthen as fast as it could be done without the exercise of fraud or force." Mr. Seward's policy of extending the jurisdiction of the United States over the North American continent received a signal illus tration in the acquisition of Alaska. Believing that a further step 1 See despatches to Mr. Campbell, U. S. Minister to Mexico. 2 See page 540. 3 General Grant was elected President, receiving 214 electoral votes. Mr. Seymour received 80. THE DANISH ISLANDS.-TREATY WITH CHINA. 29 in that direction could be wisely taken, he entered into negotiations in January, 1866, with the Danish Minister, General Raasloff, for the purchase of the islands of St. Thomas and St. John in the West Indies. Neither the Minister nor his government at first listened to Mr. Seward's proposals with favor, but rejected them. He re- newed them as opportunity offered, and in October, 1867, Denmark consented to part with her islands for the sum of seven million five hundred thousand dollars. In January, 1868, the cession was approved by the people of the islands, almost unanimously.¹ Both houses of the Danish Rigsdag ratified the cession, and the treaty was signed at Copenhagen on the 30th of June, 1868. The Senate of the United States, however, withheld its approval, and the whole negotiation failed. Mr. Seward likewise favored the annexation of San Domingo and Hayti to the United States. He was convinced that the time had arrived when such a proceeding would receive the consent of the people interested, and also give satisfaction to all foreign nations. In his desire to obtain a foothold for his government in the West Indies, as well for defence in time of war as for the interests of com- merce in time of peace, he early in 1868 laid before the Committee on Foreign Relations, in the Senate, an offer he had received, from San Domingo, of the sale of the Bay of Samana, one of the finest harbors in the world. He strongly advocated the purchase, and took some important steps toward securing it. The interests of the South American States and of the Republic of Mexico received much attention from Mr. Seward, during the last year of his administration. In the summer of 1868, Mr. Anson Burlingame, who had left the service of the United States, appeared in Washington with a Chi- nese Legation. They were introduced to the President, who wel- comed them to the capital in a speech prepared by the Secretary of State. After a few days' stay in Washington, the embassy, with Mr. Seward, proceeded to his home in Auburn, where a treaty with China was concluded. Mr. Burlingame being the recognized chief of the Chinese Legation, the negotiations were carried on by him and Mr. Seward. The treaty was signed by Mr. Seward, Mr. Bur- lingame, and his Chinese associates, and, in time, duly ratified. By it the United States gained great commercial advantages, while, 1 The vote was 1,244 for annexation to the United States, and 28 against. 30 MEMOIR. prospectively, four hundred millions of people were emancipated from the bondage of a subtle combination of false philosophy and traditional conceit.¹ The negotiation of this great treaty was, in some degree, made more easy and successful through the influence of our treaty with Russia, whereby Alaska had been acquired, and some troublesome international questions had been settled. Mr. Seward retired from the Department of State on the 4th of March, 1869. In August of that year he visited Utah, California, and Alaska, delivering a speech at Sitka 2 which attracted, everywhere, much at- tention. He also made interesting speeches 3 at Victoria in British Colum- bia, and at Salem in Oregon, on the route. He spoke of his journey as a visit to "Our North Pacific States - a term full of prophecy. While in California, in 1869, he did not hesitate to protest against the almost unanimous feeling pervading that community against Chinese immigration. He condemned the policy of exclusion, and persistently maintained that immigration was an element of civili- zation, especially to the Pacific coast, and that the attempt to sup- press its "invigorating forces" would ultimately prove a failure.4 In the autumn of 1869, it became known that Mr. Seward was about to visit Mexico. The government of Mexico, represented by President Juarez, was anxious to honor the man who had done so much, while he was Secretary of State of the United States, to up- hold the Republic of Mexico when its life was menaced by foreign intervention, and through whose instrumentality victory at last crowned her efforts for independence. He was therefore received and entertained as the guest of the nation during the entire period of his stay in the Republic - nearly three months. Commissioners were appointed and an escort provided to accom- pany Mr. Seward across the continent. Señors Rendon and Cañedo had charge of the party from Manzanilla to Guadalajara, where they were met by Mr. Bossero, who was the special commissioner during the remainder of the journey and the stay at the capital. Not only the general government of the Republic, but the gov- 1 Secretary Seward's views of Chinese immigration are found in Article V. of the treaty. 2 See page 559. 3 See page 569. 4 See Chinese Immigration, by George F. Seward, late Minister to China. Scribners, Publishers. 1881. MR. SEWARD'S VISIT TO MEXICO. 31 ernments of the several States through which he passed, greeted him with hospitalities and courtesies, while there were many spon- taneous and touching marks of popular enthusiasm and gratitude. Passing through the States of Colima, Jalisco, Guadalajara, Gua- najuato, and Queretaro, he made a short stay at the capital of each. After leaving the city of Mexico, like cordial demonstrations of welcome and hospitality greeted him in each of the States through which he passed on his way to the Gulf - Puebla, Tlascala, and Vera Cruz. The following sketch of this remarkable tour appeared in the New York Times" at the time :- "Mr. Seward and party left San Francisco by steamer and landed at Man- zanillo in November, 1869. Thence the party, including Mr. F. W. Seward and wife, went to Colima, Guadalajara, Leon, Guanajuato, and Queretaro, which will ever be memorable as the spot where Maximilian met his death. Mr. Seward spent some time at this historical place, and then proceeded by slow stages onward to the city of Mexico. At a distance of about two miles from the city, he was met by the Minister of Foreign Relations, President Juarez, Minister Romero, Hon. Thomas H. Nelson, United States Minister to Mexico, and an escort of about four hundred soldiers. The reception was enthusiastic, and the greetings extended to the distinguished American were extremely gratifying to him. He was conducted in all the pomp of military display to the capital, and there formally installed in one of the handsomest houses in the city, which had been especially prepared for his accommodation. He was here bidden to make himself perfectly at home during his stay at the capital, and the freedom of the city was heartily extended to him. "Mr. Seward visited Chapultepec, and surveyed the battle-field whereon the Mexicans and the Americans contended in 1845; also the palace of Maximilian, which was occupied by him during his brief reign in Mexico. Mr. Seward was everywhere followed by admiring throngs, who expressed their gratification at his visit in the most enthusiastic manner. "From the 15th of November to the 20th of December, Mr. Seward was en- tertained with all manner of ovations and fêtes throughout Mexico. His recep- tion was admitted to have been the grandest ever given to any foreigner. He was regarded everywhere with the utmost respect and veneration. "His health was excellent, and he bore the fatigues of the journey remarkably well. "At a grand dinner given at the palace, speeches were made by Mr. Seward and other distinguished gentlemen, and toasts were drank to the honor and pros- perity of the two Republics. "On the 18th of December, 1869, Mr. Seward left the city of Mexico by spe- cial train. He was escorted out of the city and bidden farewell by President Juarez, his Cabinet, and the principal dignitaries of the capital." Mr. Seward in his journey through Mexico had frequent calls to 32 MEMOIR. address the people and authorities of that interesting and recently distracted Republic. A few of these occasional speeches¹ find a place in this volume, illustrating his views of the country and its government, and their claims to the good will and confidence of our own Republic.2 In 1870, Mr. Seward conceived and carried out the idea of mak- ing a voyage around the world, notwithstanding his infirmities, the effects of his injuries in 1865, and his advanced age, threescore years and ten. Several of his speeches on the route were full of vigor and interest. On this extended and interesting journey, he received many cour- tesies at the hands not only of the officers of his own government, but from those of the various nations through which he passed. Sovereigns and ministers welcomed him and conversed with him as one with whom they had held long and friendly official intercourse. Many enthusiastic demonstrations of popular feeling and affecting marks of individual regard greeted him in almost every clime. Arriving at home in October, 1871, he remained at Auburn dur- ing the ensuing months, surrounded by his neighbors and friends and frequent visitors from abroad. He commenced the preparation of his autobiography, and proceeded on it as far as the year 1834. Learning of the popular desire and impatience for an account of his travels around the world, he concluded to take up that literary task first, postponing the completion of his autobiography to a later pe- riod. The volume of travels thus prepared, edited by his adopted daughter, Olive Risley Seward, was published by D. Appleton & Company in 1873, and was widely read. Mr. Seward, while Secretary of State, on rare occasions went be- fore the people to reiterate in public speeches those great principles which it had been his life work to proclaim and defend. It was, however, his uniform habit to address his fellow-citizens of Auburn on the night before election. His words on these occasions, more or less studied or ex tempore, were always gathered up and cir- 1 See p. 579-587. 2 A volume entitled Our Sister Republic, a Gala Trip through Tropical Mexico in 1869-70, etc., by Col. Albert S. Evans, published by the Columbian Book Co., Hartford, Conn., gives an extended account of Mr. Seward's pleasant experience in that country. s Ile celebrated his seventieth birthday (May 16, 1871), on his journey, in Egypt. 4 The autobiography thus left unfinished in 1871 was subsequently printed. It forms the commence- ment of the volume entitled Autobiography, Life and Letters of William H. Seward, published by his son, Frederick W. Seward. INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 33 1 culated throughout the Union in newspaper and pamphlet. The speeches of 1864 and 1868-years of presidential elections are preserved in this volume. His speeches in 1856 and 1860 may be found in previous volumes. In 1872, he was too infirm to speak in a public assemblage, but in several letters, made public, he left no ground for any charge of a waning interest in the triumph of Re- publican principles. Horace Greeley, whose name had been for so many years associ- ated with Mr. Seward's, was the candidate adopted by the Demo- cratic party to defeat the reëlection of President Grant. The election resulted in the choice of President Grant for the second time. He received 278 electoral votes. Mr. Greeley died before the electoral votes were cast. There were eighty votes di- vided among the opponents of President Grant. Mr. Seward's labors were heavily increased during the war in thwarting the efforts of influential but disloyal citizens, at home. and abroad, to involve the country in foreign war.2 By wise and vigorous measures he was able to counteract their best laid plans. In some cases he was compelled to resort to imprisonment of prom- inent offenders, who, at the close of the war, instituted against him suits at law. * In the project of a canal between and connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans at the Isthmus, Mr. Seward had for many years. been deeply interested. In 1850 he had sustained the Clayton and Bulwer Treaty 3 which attempted to define the relations of the two powers to the enterprise. In 1856, Mr. Seward, in the Senate, said, "We are the centre of one system, an American one; Great Britain is the centre of an- other, an European one. Almost in spite of ourselves we are stead- ily extending and increasing our control over these continents. Not- withstanding her tenacity, she is constantly losing her dominion here. This is within the order of nature. It was for three hundred years the business of European nations to colonize, discipline, and educate American nations. It is now the business of these nations to govern themselves. The decline of European power here prac- 1 See post, pp. 505, 540. 2 "Some citizens, whose disaffection to our form of government has lost them the public confidence, preferring everything to insignificance, have in their despair talked of a dissolution of the Union. These, however, are so few that our madhouses will hold them, should acts follow their words of insanity.". Jefferson. 3 See Vol. I., p. 376, Vol. III., pp. 605, 623. 3 34 MEMOIR. tically began with the fall of Canada out of the control of France, in 1763. It has steadily continued, until now only some relics, pos- sessing little vitality, remain. Without any war on our part, Great Britain will wisely withdraw and disappear from this continent. within a quarter of a century, or at least within a half a century." In 1862, he made the canal a subject of correspondence with our Ministers to England and France. In 1863 he had overcome all the difficulties heretofore presented. by the government of Nicaragua in the matter. In 1868 he projected a treaty with the United States of Colom- bia, and was so desirous of securing some satisfactory arrangement with that government that he sent Mr. Caleb Cushing, as a special agent, to join our Minister at Bogota in the negotiations. A treaty, embodying the Monroe Doctrine, was agreed upon and signed by the Ministers. It met Mr. Seward's approval, and on the 15th of February, 1869, he transmitted the same to the Senate of the United States. In its 6th Article, it secured to the United States absolute control of the proposed inter-oceanic canal at the Darien crossing. The treaty was rejected by the Senate of Colombia through French and English influences, and for unknown reasons failed to receive the approval of the Senate of the United States.2 A company was organized in New York to construct the canal. The corporators met at the house of Peter Cooper, who with Messrs. Roberts, Garrison, Schell, and others had, through the influ- ence of Mr. Seward, become interested in the project. Mr. Seward and Mr. Wm. M. Evarts were also present at the meeting. 3 The remarks of the former, to be found among the "Occasional Speeches" of Mr. Seward, in this volume, beside their intrinsic interest, have an historical value. The project of an "Inter-continental Telegraph" engaged the at- tention of Mr. Seward in the year 1862. On the 14th of May, 1864, he submitted his views thereon to Congress. The submarine cable between Cape Clear and Cape Race on the Atlantic was not yet in successful operation. Mr. Seward urged 1 Globe, Appendix, Vol. XXXIV., p. 79. 2 See Appleton's Cyclopædia for 1869, pp. 108, 704; also Inter-Oceanic Canal, 1880, Putnams, Publish- ers; also Secy. Evarts' Report, March 8, 1880, Ex. Doc. No. 112, Senate 46th Cong., 2d Sess. 3 See p. 589. RUSSIAN TELEGRAPH. — DEATH. 35 upon Congress the construction of a line of telegraph from some point in one of our Northwestern States or Territories across the border of the United States and through British Columbia and Rus- sian America; thence across Behring Strait; and thence by an in- land route to the mouth of the Amoor River, and thence to Irkoutsk in Siberia. This, with the completion of the Atlantic cable, would perfect a circuit around the earth. Congress granted, July 1, 1864, in accordance with the recom- mendation of Mr. Seward, to Mr. Perry McDonough Collins, the right of way through the public lands of the United States, with other important facilities for the extension of the line. Mr. Seward's letter to Hon. Z. Chandler, Chairman of the Com- mittee on Foreign Relations, produced a marked effect. The completion of the Atlantic cable, however, caused the sus- pension of the Inter-continental.¹ Mr. Seward died on the 10th of October, 1872. His remains were followed to their last resting place by thousands of sincere mourners. They were deposited in the Fort Hill Cemetery at Au- burn. The tomb is of white marble supporting a cross horizontally, upon which rests a wreath of oak and laurel leaves. At the head is a cinerary urn of classic design, around which twines a vine of ivy. On the face of the tomb is the simple inscription WILLIAM H. SEWARD, BORN MAY 16, 1801. DIED OCTOBER 10, 1872. On the base of the urn is the only inscription 2 which he desired for his grave, HE WAS FAITHFUL. The Legislature of New York, in January, 1873, made becoming arrangements to commemorate the death of Mr. Seward. The day fixed for the memorial proceedings was the 18th of April, 1873. On that day the Legislature, the Governor, John A. Dix, the Lieu- tenant-Governor, the Speaker, and other distinguished persons, as- sembled in the North Reformed Church of Albany, where an address was delivered by Hon. Charles Francis Adams, of Massachusetts, the late Minister to England. Appropriate religious services, with music, formed a part of the proceedings. 1 See Despatches to Clay, Russia, March, 1867. 2 See vol. i. pp. lxxx., 409. 36 MEMOIR. Governor Dix, on introducing Mr. Adams, made the following remarks: A quarter of a century ago, this very month, and within these walls, William H. Seward delivered a memorial discourse on the character and public services of John Quincy Adams.¹ And to-day the son of Mr. Adams is here to pronounce a similar discourse on Mr. Seward. Thus, with these two kindred ceremonies are associated the names of three eminent statesmen, who have shared largely in the confidence and respect of their countrymen, and who, by their distinguished talents and the purity of their lives, have contributed as largely to their country's welfare and reputation." Governor Dix, presiding on this occasion of honor to Mr. Seward, was a quarter of a century before in the Senate of the United States, and in 1849 retired from that body to give place to Mr. Seward then his political opponent. Soon after Mr. Seward's death, prominent citizens of New York originated the project of a monument to his memory, which took the form of a statue. A committee conferred with Mr. Randolph Rogers, the sculptor, then on a visit in this country, as to the charac ter of the proposed memorial. Subsequently, steps were taken to initiate the enterprise. A commission was given to Mr. Rogers in 1874, and he at once set to work upon his model. The result of his labors is the fine bronze statue which was presented to the city on the 28th of September, 1876. The sculptor, it is thought, has per- formed his work admirably. In pose, the work is dignified, and although the upper portion of the figure is singularly erect, there is no suggestion of stiffness. Mr. Seward is represented in a sitting position. He has just been writing, and the hand holding the pen has fallen to his side, while he looks forward with an expression suggestive of deep thought. These are the main features of the work, but the details are in no way neglected. The base of the pedestal is of New England granite, and the upper portion of varie- gated Spezzia marble. The inscription is simple. In the upper tablet, fronting the plaza formed by the junction of Broadway, Fifth Avenue, and Twenty-third Street, is the name "William H. Sew- ard;" and on the larger tablet beneath is inscribed "Governor, United States Senator, Secretary of State of the United States." The presentation and unveiling was witnessed by thousands of people. Mr. William R. Martin, the president of the Department 1 See Vol. III., p. 75. HIS STATUE. CONCLUSION. 37 of Public Parks, made the introductory speech. Hon. John Bigelow made the formal presentation of the statue, on the part of the citi- zens, and it was received by the Mayor, Hon. W. H. Wickham, on behalf of the city of New York. The orator of the day was the Hon. William M. Evarts. The arrangements which had been made for the ceremonies were carried out under the control of the De- partment of Parks. The southwestern angle of Madison Square, where the statue is erected, was suitably enclosed; a spacious stand, draped with American flags, was there for the accommoda- tion of the speakers and principal guests; the statue was veiled with the nation's ensign. "The sculptor has executed a life-like portrait statue of the late eminent American statesman, Mr. Seward. The statue is in every way naturalistic; there has been no attempt to make it anything but a portrait of the man, and this it may fairly lay claim to. He is seated in an attitude of meditation, and in a costume such as, in all probability, he was daily accustomed to wear." 1 "Called to the Department of State," says a friendly writer, "at a period when our foreign relations were fraught with peril and environed with difficulty, Mr. Seward so administered them that, while calmly maintaining the internal sovereignty and the external rights of the government which he represented, the jealous ministers of rival nations publicly acknowledged his fairness and his can- dor, and were able only to cavil at those assertions of the unabated power and dignity of the Republic which, made with unflinching confidence in an hour of unprecedented trial, touched the hearts of his countrymen as the expression of a faith which was then in very deed the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things unseen, but which events have since shown to have been well founded. Just men may have misunderstood Mr. Seward, but his only enemies have been the enemies of right and of the country. At the hands of some of these he suffered in common with our good President, whose death the whole world mourned. "That his life was sought with the President's was an additional testimony to his faithfulness and ability. Men seek to kill only whom they fear and hate. That Mr. Seward escaped the murderous attempts made by the assassins, who struck at his country through him, was an occasion of rejoicing throughout the land. (C Through all his public life, Mr. Seward was the unrelenting foe of wrong and oppression, and one of the earliest and most earnest advocates of the cause of free- dom; a statesman who recognized his responsibility to a higher law than that of state necessity, and who yet endeavored to secure the blessings of liberty to all by peaceful methods, and to obtain for all the protection of the law without the violation of the law." 1 The London Art Journal of September, 1877. DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. April 10, 1861. - The presidential election took place on the 6th of November last. The canvass had been conducted in all the Southern or slave States in such a manner as to prevent a perfectly candid hearing there of the issue involved, and so all the parties existing there were surprised and disappointed in the marked result. That disappointment was quickly seized for desperate purposes by a class of persons until that time powerless, who had long cherished. a design to dismember the Union and build up a new confederacy around the Gulf of Mexico. Ambitious leaders hurried the people forward, in a factious course; observing conventional forms, but vio- lating altogether the deliberative spirit of their constitutions. When the new federal administration came in on the 4th of March last, it found itself confronted by an insurrectionary combination of seven States, practising an insidious strategy to seduce eight other States into its councils. April 22, 1861.- Five months ago sedition showed itself openly in several of the Southern States, and it has acted ever since that time with boldness, skill, and energy. An insurrectionary govern- ment, embracing seven members of this Union, has been proclaimed under the name of "the Confederate States of America." That pretended authority, by means chiefly of surprise, easily seen here to have been unavoidable, although liable to be misunderstood abroad, has possessed itself of a navy yard, several fortifications and arsenals, and considerable quantities of arms, ordnance, and mili- tary stores. On the 12th of April, instant, its forces commenced an attack upon, and ultimately carried, Fort Sumter, against the brave and heroic resistance of a diminutive garrison, which had been, through the neglect of the former administration, left in a condition to prevent supplies and reinforcements.1 1 See despatch to Wood, May 1, 1861. 42 DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. The President improved the temporary misfortune of the fall of Fort Sumter by calling on the militia of the States to reinforce the Federal army, and summoning Congress for its counsel and aid in the emergency. On the other hand, the insurrectionists have met those measures with an invitation to privateers from all lands to come forth and commit depredations on the commerce of the country. May 4, 1861. The insurgents have instituted revolution with open, flagrant, deadly war to compel the United States to acquiesce in the dismemberment of the Union. The United States have ac- cepted this civil war as an inevitable necessity. The constitutional remedies for all the complaints of the insurgents are still open to them, and will remain so. But, on the other hand, the land and naval forces of the Union have been put into activity to restore the Federal authority and to save the Union from danger. There is not now, nor has there been, nor will there be any, the least idea existing in this government of suffering a dissolution of this Union to take place in any way whatever. July 26, 1861. Our army of the Potomac on Sunday last met a reverse equally severe and unexpected. For a day or two the panic which had produced the result was followed by a panic that seemed to threaten to demoralize the country. But that evil has ceased. The result is already seen in a vigorous reconstruction on a scale of greater magnitude and increased enthusiasm. The ex- aggerations of the result have been as great as the public impa- tience, perhaps, which brought it about. But the affair will not produce any serious injury. The strength of the insurrection is not broken, but it is not formidable. The vigor of the government will be increased, and the ultimate result will be a triumph of the Con- stitution. Do not be misled by panic reports of danger appre- hended for the capital. July 30, 1861. You will be pained by the intelligence of a re- verse of our arms near Manassas Junction, and I fear it will, for a time, operate to excite apprehensions and encourage the enemies of the Union in Europe; but the blow has already spent its force here without producing any other effect than renewed resolution and confidence in the success of the government. The lesson that war cannot be waged successfully without wisdom as well as patriot- ism has been received at a severe cost; but, perhaps it was neces- sary. It is certain that we are improving upon it. DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. 43 July 30, 1861. You will receive the account of a deplorable reverse of our arms at Manassas. For a week or two that event will elate the friends of the insurgents in Europe as it confounded and bewildered the friends of the Union here for two or three days. The shock, however, has passed away, producing no other results. than a resolution stronger and deeper than ever to maintain the Union, and a prompt and effective augmentation of the forces for that end, exceeding what would otherwise have been possible. The heart of the country is sound. Its temper is now more favorable to the counsels of deliberation and wisdom. August 12, 1861. The shock produced by the reverse of our arms at Bull Run has passed away. The army is reorganized; the elections show that reaction against disunion has begun in the revo- lutionary States, and we may confidently look for a restoration of the national authority throughout the Union. If our foreign relations were once promptly reëstablished on their former basis, the disunion sentiment would languish and per- ish within a year. August 15, 1861.- We learn, in a manner which obliges us to give unwilling credit, that the Sumter, an armed steamer, well known through all the American seas to be a privateer fitted out for and actually engaged in depredations upon the commerce of the United States by some disloyal citizens, under the command of an officer named Semmes, on or about the 17th of July last entered the port of Curaçoa, and communicated directly with the local author- ities of that island. September 2, 1861.-Steadily for the period of four months our forces have been coming into the field at the rate of two thousand a day, and the same augmentation will go on nearly at the same rate until 500,000 men will be found in the service. Our supplies of arms are running low. We have now reached a new and important stage in the war. The enemy is directly before us, invigorated and inspirited by a victory, which it is not the part of wisdom for us to undervalue. But that victory has brought with it the necessity for renewed and decisive action with proportionate results. The demoralization of our forces has passed away. I have already stated that they are increasing in numbers. You will learn through other channels that they are equally perfecting themselves in discipline. Commander 44 DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. Stringham and General Butler's success at Hatteras was not merely a brilliant affair. It brings nearly the whole coast of North Caro- lina under the surveillance of our blockade. . . . Disunion, by sur- prise and impetuous passion, took the first successes, and profited by them to make public opinion in Europe. Union comes forward more slowly, but with greater and more enduring vigor. This na- tion, like every other, in the present as in all other cases, stands by its own strength. Other powers will respect it so long as it exhibits its ability to defend and save itself. September 5, 1861. Reports grossly exaggerated a disaster which was sufficiently afflicting in its real proportions. The ex- ultation of persons and classes in foreign nations prejudiced against our country and its institutions is one of the penalties we pay for the civil discord into which we have fallen. But even a very limited experience of human nature will enable us to practise the necessary equanimity in such a crisis. Changes of habit and policy are necessary to national growth and progress. We have had little reason to expect that such changes in our case should always be effected without the occurrence of some disorder and violence. Let . us be content that the country has virtue enough to pass the ordeal safely, and that when it is passed our prosperity will be greater and more assured than ever. September 5, 1861.-I can well understand the depression you experienced on hearing of the reverse of our arms at Bull Run, and the unfavorable comments on our course which this misfortune elicits in Europe. There is, however, no occasion for apprehension of an unfavorable issue of the present civil contest. Whatever speculations on the subject may be made at home or abroad, you may be assured that it is not in our day that treason is to prevail against the government of our country, based as it is on the rights of man and his capacity of self-government. September 7, 1861. We have already forgotten the reverse of our arms at Bull Run, which affected you so deeply, and the pros- pect of the restoration of the authority of the Union is entirely satis- factory. Our volunteer army will, I have no doubt, vindicate its character and win back the confidence of the country and its friends. November 22, 1861. It is a matter of regret that we cannot consistently offer special inducements to military gentlemen in Italy who are unable to defray their own expenses in coming to join our DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. 45 armies; but we are forbidden to do so by urgent considerations. First, we do not need to solicit foreign aid, and we naturally desire to avoid the appearance of doing so. Secondly, we wish to abstain from intrusion into the domestic concerns of foreign states, and, of course, from seeming to do so. Thirdly, our own countrymen are coming forward with just claims upon all positions requiring skill in the art of war, and we must avoid jealousies between native and foreign defenders of the Union. Already the forces in the field exceed half a million, and the officers charged with organizing them report to us that those recently recruited will swell the number to seven hundred thousand. If the insurrection should continue, it would be more difficult to keep them down to a million than to lift them up to that figure. November 23, 1861.I have regretted quite as much as you have my inability at this moment to give advices to you and each other of our representatives abroad of the course of events occurring at home, and of the general drift of our correspondence with other nations; but this domestic commotion has ripened into a transac- tion so vast as to increase more than fourfold the labors of adminis- tration in every department. You can readily imagine how vast a machinery has been created in the War Department, in the Navy Department, and in the Treasury Department, respectively. The head of each is a man of busy occupations, high responsibilities, and perplexing cares. You would hardly suppose that a similar change has come over the modest little State Department of other and peaceful days; but the exactions upon it are infinite, and out of all that offers itself to be done, I can only select and do that which cannot be wisely or safely left undone. 1 November 30, 1861. Captain Wilkes, in the Steamer San Ja- cinto, has boarded a British colonial steamer, and taken from her deck two insurgents who were proceeding to Europe on an errand of treason against their own country. Lord Lyons has prudently refrained from opening the subject to me, as, I presume, waiting instructions from home. We have done nothing on the subject to anticipate the discussion, and we have not furnished you with any explanations. We adhere to that course now, because we think it more prudent that the ground taken by the British government should be first made to us here, and that the discussion, if there 1 November 8. 46 DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. must be one, shall be had here. In the capture of Messrs. Mason and Slidell on board a British vessel, Captain Wilkes having acted without any instructions from the government, the subject is there- fore free from the embarrassment which might have resulted if the act had been specially directed by us.¹ January 14, 1862. — You will have learned already of the action of this government in the case of the Trent, and you will be able to calculate as wisely as we upon the signs of peace between us and Great Britain. It hardly can be necessary to say that the counsels of prudence will be pursued here until the point of national safety and honor compel a change of disposition. The condition of affairs is that the insurrection does not advance, while the cause of the Union steadily gains important advantages. Our arms continue to be steadily successful, and when we shall have completed our financial arrangements I trust that the cause of the Union will become as hopeful as it is just. January 20, 1862. — We have reason to be satisfied with our course in the Trent affair. The American people could not have been united in a war which, being waged to maintain Captain Wilkes's act of force, would have practically been a voluntary war against Great Britain. At the same time it would have been a war in 1861 against Great Britain for a cause directly the oppo- site of the cause for which we waged war against the same power in 1812. January 20, 1862. The tone of the public virtue is becoming sounder and stronger every day. Military and naval operations go on with success, hindered only by the weather, which, for almost a month, has rendered the coasts unsafe and the roads impassable. I have observed that the British people were satisfied with the vigor and the energy of the preparations which their government made for the war which they expected to occur between them and ourselves. It may be profitable for us all to reflect that the military and naval preparations which have been made by this government to put down the insurrection have, every day since the first day of May last, equalled, if not surpassed, the daily proportion of those war preparations which were regarded as so demonstrative in Great Britain. 1 See post, pages 295-310. DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. 47 January 23, 1862.-Practically, the whole coast of the insurrec tionary States is falling into the possession of the Federal forces. The expedition under Burnside is in Albemarle Sound, and we trust that it will produce, some decisive results. The government is coöperating with the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company in restoring this important communication be- tween Baltimore and the Ohio, which will soon be effected. But the great events of the day are, first, the determined vote of Congress to sustain the government by a tax of one hundred and fifty millions of dollars, which will be adequate to preserve the na- tional finances during the vigorous prosecution of the war. And secondly, the removal of the obstructions raised by the in- surgents on the banks of the Cumberland River, to prevent the entrance of Federal columns into Eastern Tennessee. The victory of General Thomas at Mill Spring was a very gratifying affair; but its brilliancy is surpassed by its strategic importance. You will see at once that it opens the way to Eastern Tennessee, and so to the cutting off of supplies and reinforcements for the insurgent army of the Potomac. You will not err in assuming that this great move- ment is one having no isolated purpose, but that it is a part in a general system which contemplates the bringing of all the Federal forces promptly into activity, with a view to the complete restora- tion of the Federal authority throughout the country. It is not in our power to control the policies of European cabinets. They acted precipitately in May last, and thus aggravated and prolonged our troubles. It is to be hoped that they will allow them- selves now to understand the resources and the energies which have enabled us to recover from those injuries and to hem in the insur- rection on all sides, so that it must be soon exhausted and defeated. The spirit of the nation, however, is sufficiently roused so as to en- able us to meet and overcome all adverse designs, of whatever kind, from whatever quarter. February 10, 1862. Cloudless skies, with drying winter winds, have at last succeeded the storms which so long held our fleets in embargo and our land forces in their camps. The Burnside expedition has escaped its perils, and is now in activity on the coast of North Carolina. The great victory at Mill Spring, in Kentucky, has been quickly followed by the capture of Fort Henry, on the Tennessee River, and the interruption of the ! 48 DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. railroad by which the insurgents have kept up their communications between Bowling Green and Columbus; and the divisions in the West are all in activity with prospects of decisive achievements. It is now nearly one year since the insurgents began their des- perate undertaking to establish a confederacy of the fifteen slave States. At some time within the previous six months they had virtually displaced the flag of the Union in thirteen of those States by stratagem or by force, and it stood in apparent jeopardy in the fourteenth State. But the process of preparation has steadily gone on in the loyal States, while that of exhaustion has been going on in the disloyal. Only eleven of the slave States are practically subject to the insur- gents, and already the flag of the Union stands, as we think, irre- movably fixed upon some points in every one of the thirty-four States, except Texas, Alabama, and Arkansas. Congress has come. fully up to the discharge of its great responsibility of establishing the finances of the country on a safe and satisfactory foundation. What is the operation of the war? We have entered Virginia, and already five thousand slaves, emancipated simply by the ap- pearance of our forces, are upon the hands of the Federal govern- ment there. We have landed on the coast of South Carolina, and already nine thousand similarly emancipated slaves hang upon our camps. Although the war has not been waged against slavery, yet the army acts immediately as an emancipating crusade. -I February 17, 1862. I am not prepared to recognize the right of other nations to object to the measure of placing artificial obstruc- tions in the channels of rivers leading to ports which have been seized by the insurgents in their attempt to overthrow this govern- ment. The active campaign of our land and naval forces has begun. The great preparations which have been made so diligently and so carefully, in defiance of popular impatience at home and political impatience abroad, are now followed by results indicative of a com- plete and even early decision of the contest in favor of the govern- ment. February 28, 1862. - The successes of the Union army in the West having brought the whole of Missouri and a large portion of Tennessee under the authority of the United States, and having DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. 49 already opened a passage for us into Alabama, Mississippi, and Arkansas, it has been determined to-day to permit the restoration of trade upon our inland ways and waters under certain limitations and restrictions, which may continue until the pacification of the country shall take place. March 8, 1862. You will have noticed our successful advance down the Mississippi and along its banks. Next week we shall ascertain the strength of the obstructions at Memphis. After pass- ing that port the river will be entirely open to us to New Orleans. I suppose I hazard nothing of publicity here by informing you that General Butler with an adequate land force, and Captain Porter with a fleet, are already in motion to seize and hold New Orleans. The armies on the Potomac are also expected to try conclusions soon. You will, I am sure, need no instructions to use this information in the way best calculated to free our unhappy domestic strife from its European elements of mischief. When that shall be done, all will be well. I learn that the insurgents have withdrawn from their front on the Potomac, above and below this city, and are breaking up their camps and retreating before our army toward Richmond. Thus ends the siege of Washington, and thus advances the cause of the Union. March 10, 1862. Attention has been directed to the extraordi- nary proceedings which are taking place in Mexico. We shall be just to ourselves, and at the same time shall practise the prudence that will avert any new complication in our affairs. To-day the insurgent army is retreating from the position it has so long and so uselessly held in front of the capital. The war is retiring within the limits of the States which began it with reck- less haste, and which have hitherto carried it on with intemperate zeal, under the expectation that they would escape from the scourge it was inflicting upon States less disloyal than themselves. March 15, 1862. Since the date of my last despatch the Union forces have gained decided advantages. The financial and moral as well as the physical elements of the insurrection seem to be rapidly approaching exhaustion. Now, when we so clearly see how much of its strength was derived from the hope of foreign aid, we are brought to lament anew the precipitancy with which foreign powers so unnecessarily conceded to it belligerent rights. 50 DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. March 17, 1862. — The occupation of so many of the Southern ports having been effected by our forces, and all of the others being now effectually invested, I apprehend that the illicit traffic which has been so flagrantly carried on from British ports will come to an end. March 25, 1862. The events of the week have been striking and significant: the capture of Newbern by Burnside, with the consequent evacuation of Beaufort and Fort Macon by the insur- gents, and the destruction by themselves of their own piratical steamer Nashville; the rout of the insurgents, on their retreat from Winchester to Strasburg, by Shields; the victory of General Pope at New Madrid; and the bombardment of Island No. 10, in the Mis- sissippi, by Commodore Foote. A movement of the main army of the Potomac down the river to Fortress Monroe is quietly going on, and demonstrations will soon be made against Norfolk and Richmond. We suppose our ocean expedition against New Orleans must, at this time, have reached the mouth of the Mississippi. March 26, 1862. We have already, with a strong hand, recov- ered the control of nearly all of the coast of the insurrectionary States, and we have recaptured four of the great ports which were wrested from us by the insurgents, or betrayed into their hands before the government assumed its attitude of self-defence. While doing this we have effected a release of all our land and naval forces from the sieges in which they were held by the rebels. All these forces are, as is supposed, safely acting aggressively. Our means are ample, our forces numerous, our credit sound, and our spirit buoyant and brave. The reverse of all this is the true con- dition of the insurgents. They are reduced from aggression to defence. Distracted between many exposed points, they have con- sumed most of their resources; their credit is nearly prostrate; their forces, always exaggerated, are now very feeble; and they are considering, not so much how they shall carry on the war they so recklessly began, as how they shall meet and endure the calamities it is bringing upon them. It is under these circumstances that our army of the Potomac, under General McClellan, to-day, is descend- ing that river, an hundred thousand strong, to attack and carry Nor- folk and Richmond; that another army, under General Fremont, is moving upon Cumberland Gap, to cut off the communication of DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. 51 the insurgents with the more southern States; that a third army, under General Halleck, equal in numbers and efficiency with that of the Potomac, is descending both banks of the Mississippi, flank- ing what has hitherto proved to be an irresistible naval force, which is making its way upon the river itself to New Orleans; while a fourth column of land and naval forces, under General Butler and Captain Porter, deemed adequate to any emergency, is already believed to be ascending the river from the Belize to attack New Orleans. Burnside has really left nothing to be done to rescue the ports between Norfolk and Charleston. Charleston cannot long hold out; and the fall of Savannah is understood to be only a ques- tion of days, not of weeks. Mobile cannot stand after the fall of these and of New Orleans, and all the ports between those cities. are already in our possession. April 1, 1862.- Earl Russell, in the House of Lords, expressed the belief that this country is large enough for two independent nations, and the hope that this government will assent to a peaceful separation from the insurrectionary States. A very brief sojourn . among us, with an observation of our mountains, rivers, and coasts, and some study of our social condition and habits, would be sufficient to satisfy him, on the contrary, that the country is not too large for one such people as this, and that it is, and must always be, too small. for two distinct nations, until the people shall have become so de- moralized by faction that they are ready to enter the course which leads through continued subdivision to continued anarchy. All the British speculations assume that the political elements which have been brought into antagonism here are equal in vigor and endurance. Nothing, however, is more certain than that freedom. and slavery are very unequal in these qualities, and that when these diverse elements are eliminated, the former from the cause of sedi- tion, and the latter from the cause of the government, then the government must prevail, sustained as it is by the coöperating sentiments of loyalty, of national pride, interest, ambition, and the permanent love of peace. April 3, 1862. -The late achievement of the Merrimack in Hampton Roads at first perplexed and alarmed all our naval agents and officers. They have, however, made preparations for her com- ing out again, and they express entire confidence in their ability to master her. Meantime the blockade is actually becoming a siege, ر 52 DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. which we trust will soon result in occupation of the insurrectionary ports. April 8, 1862. Our armies, held everywhere in the leash, are at the point of being let loose. Important transactions must occur within a few days. It is the part of wisdom to be neither sanguine of success nor disturbed with apprehensions of failure. If the tide of military success shall continue to flow full and strong, we can consent to wait the reluctant but inevitable return of maritime nations to the fraternal positions they abandoned when faction un- dertook to undermine their fidelity as the most effectual way to compass our destruction. I have just signed, with Lord Lyons, a treaty which I trust will be approved by the Senate and by the British government. If rat- ified, it will bring the African slave-trade to an end immediately and forever. Had such a treaty been made in 1808, there would now have been no sedition here, and no disagreement between the United States and foreign nations. We are indeed suffering deeply in this civil war. Europe has impatiently condemned and deplored it. Yet it is easy to see already that the calamity will be compen- sated by incalculable benefits to our country and to mankind. Such are the compensations of Providence for the sacrifices it exacts. April 14, 1862. It is known that all the free States are loyal to the Union; that the insurrection had its spring in the slave States, and that it aims to separate them all from the Union, and embrace them in a new sovereign confederacy. There is not one regiment or battalion, or even company of men, which was organ- ized in, or derived from, the free States and Territories, in arms anywhere against the Union. Some regiments derived from the border slave States are found in the slave States in hostilities against the Federal authorities, while others equally or more numer- ous are supporting them there. Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia, all border slave States, respectively, have contributed large bodies of men to the armies of the Union. Missouri, a border slave State west of the Mississippi, has been cleared of all organ- ized military bodies of insurgents, and for some time past has ceased to be troubled by guerillas. The battle of Pea Ridge, in which General Curtis beat Van Dorn, Price, McIntosh, and McCul- lough, has firmly established General Curtis and the national colors in the northwestern part of Arkansas, an interior slave State. No DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. 53 K f insurrectionary forces remain in Kentucky, also a border slave State. All the fortified positions of the insurgents have been abandoned, and the southern border of Tennessee, an interior slave State, has been crossed by the advancing armies of the nation, which, after the victories of Fort Henry, Fort Donelson, the occupation of Bowl- ing Green, Nashville, Murfreesborough, and Columbus, a few days since captured the fortified position of Island No. 10, in the Missis- sippi, with one hundred heavy guns, thirty pieces of field artillery, six thousand prisoners; and on the same day, after a two days' con- test, repulsed and beat the insurgent army, said to be eighty thou- sand strong, at Pittsburg Landing, with the loss of their chief, General A. S. Johnston. Four days afterwards General Mitchell, with a column of the same Federal army, by a forced march, occu- pied, without loss, Huntsville, in the State of Alabama, one of the Gulf slave States, and captured some two hundred prisoners, fifteen locomotive engines, and many railroad carriages, which will be very useful in future operations. Immediately afterwards he captured Decatur and the Chattanooga Junction, and thus got possession of one hundred and ten miles of the railroad. This stroke is impor- tant, as it cuts off the great artery of connection by railroad be- tween Memphis and Richmond and the southeastern slave States. Jacksonville, in Eastern Tennessee, has been visited by our forces, and thus it is seen that they are approaching Knoxville, the prin- cipal city in that always intensely loyal part of the State of Ten- nessee. April 19, 1862.- All the grievances which disturb our people and tend to alienate them from Great Britain seem deducible from the concessions made by her to the insurgents at the beginning of this civil war. All the explanations we receive from Great Britain seem to imply a conviction that this civil war must end in the over- throw of the Federal Union. The ultimate consequence of such a calamity would be that this great country would be divided into factions and hostile states and confederations, as Greece and Italy and Spanish America have been. You can do no more in the present conjecture than to give his lordship, from time to time, fresh and accumulating evidence of our purpose and our ability to pursue to a successful end the course which we have learned from our British ancestry, namely, to hold the constituent States of our great realm in perpetual and indissol- uble union. 54 DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. The western part of Virginia has been cleared of insurgents and General Frémont has put his army in motion. From Monterey and Moorfield two columns are advancing. General Banks is ascending the valley of the Shenandoah, while General Blenker's division is on the march from Warrenton towards Strasburg, to unite with Gen- eral Banks in the moment which promises to cut the Virginia and Covington Railroad first, then the Southwestern Valley Railroad of Virginia, and thus sever communication which connects Richmond, the seat of the insurrection, and Knoxville, before named. Gen- eral McDowell, with the army covering Washington, occupies the region between Washington and the Rappahannock, and the news comes to-day that the insurgents are abandoning their entire line on that river and retiring to the vicinity of Richmond. The East- ern Shore of Virginia has been relieved by General Lockwood's brigade from the small insurgent force which early organized itself there. General McClellan on the York River, and General Wood at Fortress Monroe, with the main body of the army of the Poto- mac, lay siege upon Yorktown, which is defended by the insurgent leaders Lee, J. E. Johnston, and Magruder. General Burnside occupies the cities and sounds and coasts of eastern North Carolina, and besieges Fort Macon, which is cut off from all succor. These forces have cleared all the insurgent bodies out of a slave territory once occupied by them, containing one hun- dred and fifty thousand square miles and a population of three mil- lions. One half of the coast of South Carolina, the whole coast of Georgia, and the harbors, cities, and coasts of East Florida, are occupied by the army which lately was under the command of Gen- eral Sherman, who has been replaced by General Hunter; and the fortresses of the Florida reef, situate at Key West, the Tortugas Islands, and at the harbors of Tampa Bay and Cedar Keys; Fort Pickens, commanding the entrance to Pensacola; Ship Island, Bi- loxi, and Pass Christian, on the coast of Mississippi, as well as the head of the delta of the Mississippi River, all are occupied and se- curely held by national forces. Fort Pulaski, on the Savannah River, after a bombardment of several days, surrendered yesterday. There is scarce a harbor on the whole coast, from the Chesapeake to the Mississippi, which is not hermetically sealed by a force occu- pying some island or headland, as well as by the blockading squad- DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. 55 ron. Charleston, St. Mark's, Apalachicola, and Mobile, although not yet occupied by troops, are closely blockaded by our fleet. New Orleans is threatened by the bomb fleet of Captain Porter, who is ascending the Mississippi River, and by the iron-clad flotilla of Captain Foote, which has just sailed from the late investing stronghold of No. 10, and is now with General Pope's army under convoy, descending the same river. A few days, we think, will complete the opening of the Mississippi, and restore to the north- western States that natural passage for their immense commerce with the other States and with foreign countries which the insur- gents have so insanely attempted to close, in violation of all the laws of trade and even of nature itself. The national forces, among whom there is not one conscript or involuntary soldier, according to the official returns, consist of seven hundred and eleven thousand men. They are amply provided with arms of precision, with artillery, with wagons, and other transports; horses, tents, clothing, and all the provisions and apparel of war. Provisions are cheap and abundant. The magazines contain cloth- ing and tents for several months' supply, and the people still press upon the quartermaster-general their offers of additional supplies. An order from the Secretary of War to receive no more volun- teers is bringing back upon him remonstrances and entreaties, not only from individuals but from states, under which he is constrained to accept regiments newly filled. Twenty-five thousand prisoners, carefully guarded in the loyal states, are astonished at finding them- selves better fed, better clothed, and more humanely treated than when bearing arms against their country at the call of factious and treasonable chiefs. These chiefs have for months past been resort- ing to levies en masse, or to drafts, forcing the young and the aged, loyal and the disloyal-all alike, and however unwilling into their unlawful service. Perhaps a million of men, thus variously brought into the field, are now in arms in a country which, one year ago, had a military force of only twelve thousand men. All the troops of the Union are well equipped, well drilled, and disciplined; they are good marksmen, and have patriotism and courage. They make much and skilful use of the bayonet, and always with success. They are everywhere advancing. They have taken every position they have approached, and have won, with an important exception, not only M 56 DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. every battle but even every skirmish in which, within the last three months, they have engaged. Missouri, Kentucky, a great part of Tennessee, Western Virginia, and Eastern Florida, have been abandoned by the insurgent leaders. The national flag has been planted securely at one or more points in every state except Texas. The richest part of the territory claimed by the revolutionists for the seat of their pretended con- federacy has been reclaimed from their rule and their attempts at taxation; and there is left to support the enormous expenses of the insurrection only the states which produce little else than cotton; and what cotton they now have on hand the insurgents threaten to burn, because they have no outlet for its exportation, and no hope of rescuing it from the returning allegiance of the people to the na- tional Union. It is believed that this survey of the military position of the gov- ernment may serve to satisfy Great Britain that those statesmen here and abroad who, a year ago, mistook a political syncope for na- tional death and dissolution, altogether misunderstood the resources, the character, and the energies of the American Union. The blood that at first retreated to the heart is now coursing healthily through all the veins and arteries of the whole system; and what seemed at first to be a hopeless paralysis, was in fact but the beginning of an organic change to more robust and vigorous health than the nation has ever before enjoyed. April 22, 1862. Mr. Mercier proposed in a very proper manner that he would visit Richmond if we should not object. Of course the President approved, being satisfied that he would not in any way compromit the relations existing between the French govern- ment and our own. It is impossible not to see now that the insur- rection is shrinking and shrivelling into very narrow dimensions. I hope that Mr. Mercier may come back prepared with some plan to alleviate the inconveniences of his countrymen in the south, who are not acting against this government, and, in that way, against the peace and harmony of the two countries. The real difficulty is, that the southern ports are, and even the whole southern country is, now actually in a state of siege, and com- munication in anything like a normal manner is impossible. General McDowell has entered Fredericksburg, and General Banks is marching successfully quite through the valley of Virginia. 1 DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. 57 We have reason to expect Savannah to come into our possession within the next ten days, and Fort Macon to fall about as soon. The insurrectionary leaders have made a conscription of all between eighteen and thirty-five. They issue new paper which sells for gold at the rate of one hundred dollars for twenty. April 26, 1862. Our generals are crowding the insurgents be- fore them in northern and western Virginia. We hear, at last, of course through insurgent organs, of the beginning of the bombard- ment of the forts on the Mississippi, below New Orleans, by Cap- tain Porter. We constantly expect the surrender of Fort Macon. But the exciting care of the hour is divided between Yorktown and Corinth. Battles there are imminent. The gain of either of these fields would have a decisive effect. The loss of both seems hardly possible, although calculations upon particular results in war are always uncertain. April 28, 1862.-To-day the country is assuming that the fate of this unnatural war is determined by the great event of the cap- ture of New Orleans, which was effected by a naval expedition on the 24th instant. I trust that the anticipation will be sustained. Captain Bullock, of Georgia, is understood to have written that he has five steamers built, or bought, armed, and supplied with ma- teriel of war in England, which are now about leaving or are on their way to aid the insurgents. We are prepared to meet them. But the reflection occurs, are the maritime powers of Europe willing that the suppression of this insurrection shall be forever associated in the memory of mankind with the conviction that the sympathies of Europe were lent to the abortive revolution? May 5, 1862. — I advised you by telegram, sent out by the last steamer, of the capture of New Orleans. I have now to inform you that Fort Macon has surrendered to our siege, and that Yorktown has just been relinquished to our army on the eve of an anticipated bombardment. General McClellan is marching up the Peninsula towards Richmond, and General McDowell is opening his way downward towards the same capital from Fredericksburg. If our information is correct, the insurgent army is evacuating Corinth. The spurious congress of the insurgents has suddenly ad- journed. Their fiscal system must by this time have exploded, and their military connections are everywhere broken. It is a very 58 DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. pleasant addition to this news that two of the British steamers lately fitted out at Liverpool with ammunition and arms for the in- surgents have been captured by our blockading fleet. Thus the tide of success seems to be flowing full and strong. Acting upon the confidence which it has produced, we have opened New Orleans to correspondence, and we are taking measures for an early opening of that and some other ports to trade under necessary limitations. These concessions occur simultaneously with our ratification of a treaty with Great Britain designed to effect the suppression of the African slave-trade. May 12, 1862. — The progress of the national arms continues so auspiciously as to excite the insurgents to desperation and to require of their abettors in Europe extreme activity and diligence to rescue a cause which, without foreign intervention, seems already lost. You may now assume that the Mississippi in its whole length is restored to the Federal authority. Richmond is practically held in close siege by General McClellan. Norfolk, with all the coasts and tributaries of Hampton Roads, is cleared of insurrectionary land forces and naval forces. Our navy, already large and effective and daily increasing, is now released from two very arduous and ex- hausting sieges in which it has been so long engaged. I enclose a copy of a proclamation of the President, of this date, opening the ports of Beaufort, Port Royal and New Orleans, which have recently been blockaded. The treasury regulations to which it refers will immediately follow. May 19, 1862. The principal military event of the past week has been the recovery of the important port and town of Pensacola. Of our seaports there yet remain in the occupation of the insur- gents only Wilmington, in North Carolina, Charleston, in South Carolina, Mobile, in Alabama, Galveston, in Texas - all of which are, nevertheless, very effectually blockaded. Preparations are made for their immediate recovery. Thus we expect that, within the next four weeks, the authority of the Union will be entirely restored along the whole Atlantic and Gulf coasts of the country. Trade resuming its legitimate character will begin anew on the first of June at the several ports of Beaufort, Port Royal, and New Orleans, and we shall not be slow in extending the same benefits to other ports. The temptations to contraband trade are rapidly passing away, and it is to be hoped that that great and DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. 59 } disturbing annoyance will speedily cease to irritate at home and abroad. The conflict henceforth will be between land forces in the interior of the country, and perhaps the battles impending at Richmond and Corinth may close the unnatural war. It would be idle to speculate on the probabilities of the results of those combats. May 26, 1862. — The defeat of General Banks at Winchester yesterday, and his withdrawal across the Potomac, are just now the prominent incidents of the war. A careful consideration of the affair results in the satisfactory conclusion that the movement of the enemy was one of merely energetic strategy. We suffer by it, however, only a temporary and local inconvenience, not at all likely to work any serious or extensive injury to the national cause. Abundant provision has been made for repairing the losses sus- tained, and recovering the little ground that has been given up. June 2, 1862. My despatches of last week gave information of the surprise and capture of Colonel Kenley's small force at Front Royal, and of an attack by Jackson with a superior force upon General Banks, and his well-conducted retreat from Winchester across the Potomac, at Williamsport. I mentioned that all due preparations had been made to retrieve these misfortunes, and that I thought they would be followed by no serious results. The week which began so inauspiciously was filled with events indicative of a general and speedy triumph of the Union armies. First. Recruiting, except under heavy restrictions, had been suspended for some months by order of the government. The re- verses alluded to favored a removal of those restrictions, and an order for renewal of enlistments, with a view to reinforce our army in Virginia and supply the waste which had occurred in all the armies. The country responded at once, with even greater enthu- siasm than a year ago. This is a third uprising of the people in behalf of the Union, inspired by confidence in the administration and in the land and naval forces. General Banks's army, which was reduced to six thousand men, and so unfortunately put hors de combat, swelled in the course of the week to twenty thousand men, and it is now, in its turn, pursu- ing the enemy who had driven it out of the valley of Virginia. Large forces were also sent into the valley from the east, the south, and the west, to meet the retiring insurgents, and, as we trust, to bring the war in that quarter to a prompt conclusion. 60 DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. While these transactions of minor importance were engaging the most careful consideration of the government, the attention of the nation, and of the world, so far as it occupies itself with our affairs, was all the time fixed upon two points, Corinth and Richmond, where battles seemed imminent, which, resulting in our favor, must be decisive of the painful controversy. The insurgents, demor- alized and broken, on the 28th day of last month, evacuated the former position with all its advantages and its prestige, and thus the war in the Mississippi valley may be deemed virtually ended. During the early part of the week General McClellan fought battles and won advantages at Richmond of great moment. On Saturday the insurgents, availing themselves of a severe storm which, flooding the valley of the Chickahominy, seemed likely to divide our forces, attacked our left on the south side of that river with a superior force and caused it to break, with some loss of ordnance and stores. Reinforcements, however, were soon brought forward, and the position lost was regained. The two armies bivouacked on the field at night. The battle was renewed the next morning with the result of a repulse of the insurgents at every point. The army of General McClellan will be rapidly strengthened, although it is already deemed adequate to the capture of Richmond. A wholesome moral sentiment is already rapidly revealing itself in the insurrectionary region. It shows itself somewhat slowly indeed, but nevertheless distinctly at Norfolk. Regiments for the Federal army are forming in North Carolina. In Arkansas, Alabama, and Louisiana there are unmistakable signs of returning loyalty. No American now indulges any doubt that the integrity of the Union will be triumphantly maintained. June 6, 1862. During the past week General Pope has cut off the railroads on which Beauregard's army was retreating from Corinth, and has made captures of prisoners, arms, vehicles, &c., on a scale so large that that great force may be considered as no longer existing. With these successes the entire commands of the Missis- sippi and its banks must by this time have been abandoned by the insurgents. Jackson, with the forces which expelled General Banks from the valley of Virginia, was met and repulsed at Harper's Ferry, and is now, in his turn, harassed by the Union forces in his flight from Northern Virginia. DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. 61 A fearful battle the greatest and the most desperate one in the whole war- was fought at Fair Oaks, seven miles in front of Richmond, on Saturday and Sunday last (May 31 and June 1). The enemy was driven at all points, and the Federal advance now rests within four miles of that city. A final combat is expected to take place within a few days. I forbear to speculate upon its probable result or consequences, since certainty must so soon be developed. June 9, 1862. — You will receive herewith information of a naval conflict at Memphis, resulting in the surrender of the city and in the restoration of the national commerce throughout the whole navigable courses of the Mississippi and its tributaries. Of all the important ports and towns, only Mobile, Savannah, Charleston, and Richmond remain in the hands of the insurgents. The investment of the three former is going on successfully. Floods have swollen the Chickahominy, which, in ordinary seasons, is only a few yards wide, into a river two miles in breadth. This inunda- tion now for a few days delays the operations against Richmond, but they will be prosecuted with vigor as soon as the condition of the field shall permit. June 24, 1862. "The statesmen of France, including the Em- peror, are no less skeptical about the restoration of the Union since. the capture of New Orleans than they were before. In England they still point to the delays at Richmond and Corinth, and they enlarge upon the absence of displays of Union feeling in New Or- leans and Norfolk." Ah, well! skepticism must be expected in this world in regard to new political systems, insomuch as even Divine revelation needs the aid of miracles to make converts to a new religious faith. Corinth had already fallen on the very day when its supposed possession by the insurgents was deemed by the British public a ground for withholding their faith. A battle had also then been fought at Richmond, which, we think, was prepara- tory to the surrender or evacuation of that city. Trade has actively begun at New Orleans, and cotton is shipped from Memphis to New York. Unbiased observers would discern no sign of a possible. recovery of the Mississippi and its immediate and remote tribu- taries by the insurgents. Unbiased thinkers would conclude that the authority of the nation whose naval and merchant marine navi- gate every river in the United States would not long be denied by 62 DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. the people living on their borders, especially if it should be content with defending them against dangers, carrying their mails, and dis- tributing among them rewards and honors, while it left them in the possession of rights of self-government in a degree elsewhere un- known. June 27, 1862. Our military and naval forces at Charleston were kept at figures only necessary to aid in maintaining the blockade while conflict has been challenged at some important strategic points. We learn that our generals, perhaps too impul- sive, have, without instructions, made an attack and have been repulsed at Charleston. While the affair may serve to encourage the languishing hopes of the insurgents, it no more than Jackson's late raid in the Shenandoah valley affects the actual progress of the The operations against Richmond continue to go on to the satisfaction of the military department. war. June 30, 1862. — The reports from the army near Richmond concerning the events of the past few days are somewhat imperfect, owing to a temporary interruption of telegraphic communication. General McClellan, at the commencement of his operations in the vicinity of Richmond, used for his supplies and communications the line formed by the York and Pamunkey rivers, and the railroad from the point where it crosses the latter stream at White House to his camps on the Chickahominy. At the period when this line was adopted the James River had not yet been opened by our gun- boats. In carrying out his plan of operations against Richmond, General McClellan has been, as rapidly as practicable, transferring the greater portion of his force to the south side of the Chickahominy. This, on the one hand, left his line of communication by way of the White House more or less exposed, but, on the other, brought him nearer to the James River, and enabled him to open a new line of communication there. On Thursday and Friday of last week, not unexpectedly to him, the enemy assailed the force which still occu- pied the north side of the Chickahominy, thus precipitating the movement above described as in progress. A severe engagement ensued, with considerable loss of life, but little or none of material. He succeeded, however, in completing the transfer of his troops and supplies to the south side of the Chickahominy and in opening com- munication with our fleet on James River. His position now, there- DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. 63 fore, as compared with his previous one, is advanced nearer to Richmond, and covers ground hitherto held by the enemy, and he has exchanged one main line of communication for another. From the west all accounts are satisfactory. The power of the enemy to attempt offensive demonstrations of any magnitude is practically destroyed. The fortifications at Vicksburg are the only obstacles remaining to our complete control of the navigation of the Mississippi River, and in view of the preparations now making no doubt is entertained of their early reduction. The loyal sentiment is becoming gradually developed in the regions occupied by the troops of the United States. July 7, 1862.- I fear that the press, speaking as it does under the influence of a hundred various forms of excitement arising out of the incidents of the last ten days, will bewilder, if it does not for the moment confound, our representatives abroad. The military situation is, however, clearly intelligible, and ought to be satisfactory to the cool and candid judgment of the country. From the Mississippi we learn that, after a long and vigorous bombardment of Vicksburg, Commodore Farragut passed the batter- ies at that place from below, and joined himself to the fleet which lay above it. Thus the last obstacle of the navigation of the Mis- sissippi has been overcome, and it is open to trade once more under the flag of the Union from the head waters of its tributaries near the lakes and Prince Rupert's Land to the Gulf of Mexico. White River and the Yazoo have been cleared of all hostile arma- ments. We have a rumor that Vicksburg has actually been taken. But the report is premature, although we have no doubt but the capture has, before this time, occurred. The fleet under Commodore Goldsborough has been efficient in seizing and bringing into port many British vessels carrying contra- band, and insured at Lloyd's against the perils of the blockade. So that it may be expected risks of this kind will sensibly diminish. On the coast all is safe and well. In the west General Halleck is pushing a force from Corinth east- ward without any show of organized resistance to capture Chatta- nooga and close the only remaining railroad communication between Richmond and the valley of the Mississippi. This achievement will effect deliverance of eastern Tennessee, distinguished for its loyalty, and so crown the pacification of the whole region west of the Alle- 64 DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. ghany mountains, north of Georgia and Alabama, and south of the Ohio River. But it is the vicinity of Richmond that has been the scene of military events of the intensest interest during the last two weeks, and it is that quarter that now chiefly engages the attention of the government. General McClellan's original design for the capture of Richmond embraced a march up the peninsula from Fortress Monroe and Yorktown, supported by naval forces on both the York and the James River. The sudden appearance of the Merrimack, with her terrible power of mischief, obliged him to confine his march to the bank of the York River, with the aid of a fleet in that river alone. He had, then, the Chickahominy, with its variable flow, and its almost impassable swamps, between him and Richmond. The Pamunkey, the chief tributary of the York, afforded him navigation only to the White House, where he held his forces, twenty miles from Richmond, without any other coöperation from our naval force on both rivers there than protection they afforded to his rear. A large force that was intended to be auxiliary to the army of the Po- tomac was retained in front of Washington, necessarily, as it was thought, with a view to the safety of the capital against forces sent to menace it from Richmond. While General McClellan was thus obtaining a foothold on the peninsula north of the Chickahominy, the insurgents succeeded in obstructing the James River a distance of seven miles below Richmond, and in constructing fortifications at Fort Darling, up a precipitous elevation on the south bank of the James River, which rendered it impossible for the fleet on that river to remove the obstructions without the aid of a land force to carry that fort. General McClellan was steadily, and, as it seemed, suc- cessfully, moving his army across the Chickahominy to change his base to the James River, below Fort Darling, on Wednesday last, when the insurgents concentrated large forces upon what was yet the front of the moving column, and a series of battles began which filled up seven successive days, at the end of which the general, with his army, and substantially all his material, had reached and estab- lished himself at Harrison's Bar, upon the bank of the James River, in full coöperation with the fleet of seventeen gunboats, while the insurgents have not one man-of-war. This movement, which was a meditated, prepared one, undoubtedly became a retreat when the enemy pressed upon the withdrawing forces. The change of base DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. 65 involved a loss of communication for a time between the army and the government and the country. During this suspense, which lasted seven days, extravagant reports of disasters and losses, and the wildest alarm for even the safety of the army itself, obtained currency, and oppressed the public mind. At length we have the results so far as they affect the military situation. There have been immense losses, but more severe on the part of the insurgents than on that of the Union. The efficiency of the army of the latter is improved. That of the former, it is believed, is even more reduced. Every one of the battles was a repulse of the insurgents, and the two last, which closed the series, were decided victories. The army of the Potomac is rapidly receiving reinforcements from several sources, while the fleet is thought already equal in effect to an ad- ditional army. General Pope, having taken command of all the troops in Virginia, is pushing them forward from the north to cut off the railroad communication beyond the Rappahannock, and threatens them on the approach from the northwest. Within the next thirty days our navy, already large, will receive an augmenta- tion of ten new iron-clad vessels, each equal to the Monitor. the same time the President, upon the invitation of the governors of twenty of the thirty-four states, has called out three hundred thousand men, a force amply sufficient to save all that has been gained, and speedily close the civil strife. At You will read with interest and admiration General McClellan's modest conduct; his firm and decisive despatches and proclamation. The government and popular bodies who have heretofore been so efficient in filling up the armies are already in activity, and the prompt success of the call is deemed assured. The destruction of human life which has occurred is a sad and painful theme. But it brings its compensation in a military and in a political view, as- pects in which it is now our stern duty to contemplate it. The delusion that the soldiers of the Union would not fight for it with as much courage and resolution as its enemies will fight against it, has been one of the chief elements of the insurrection. It has now been effectually dispelled. Secondly. If, as fatalists argue, a certain quantity of human blood must flow to appease the dreadful spirit of faction, and enable a discontented people to recover its calmness and its reason, it may be hoped that the needful sacrifice has now been made. 5 66 DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. Thirdly. If the representative parties had now to choose whether they would have the national army where it is and as it is, or back again where it was and as it was, it is not to be doubted that the insurgents would prefer to it the position and condition on the Pa- munkey, and the friends of the Union the one now attained on the bank of the James. Fourthly. The insurgents and the world abroad will see that the virtue of the people is adequate to the responsibilities which Providence has cast upon them. July 9, 1862. Mr. Stuart,¹ in a very courteous manner, verbally expressed to me the opinion of her Majesty's government, that Major-General Butler's order concerning the females in New Orleans who gave offence to the Union soldiers was an improper one in respect to the expressions employed in it, whatever constructions might be placed upon them, and their hope, therefore, that it might be disapproved. "" I answered him that we must ask his government, in reading that proclamation, to adopt a rule of construction which the British nation had elevated to the dignity of a principle and made the motto of their national arms, "Honi soit qui mal y pense.' That it was not until a gross construction of the order was brought to the knowledge of this government that we saw that the proclamation contained un double entendre. That gross meaning the government of course rejected, and it regretted that in the haste of composition a phraseology which could be mistaken or perverted had been used. I was happy, however, to inform him that all sensibility about the order seemed to have passed away, and no complaints were now heard of any impropriety of conduct on the part of the ladies of New Orleans. I explained also to Mr. Stuart the ground of the sensibility of our army to female discourtesy. Our soldiers are mainly young American citizens of education and respectability. Chivalrous respect to the sex is a national sentiment. Hitherto it has been met by gentle and respectful courtesy by those to whom the homage is so properly paid. It has not been expected that dis- loyalty to the common government of both parties would be regarded as a plea for a change of national manners. Happily all classes of citizens easily learn to meet the changes which this unhappy civil war brings upon us. 1 Of the British Legation. Lord Palmerston called Mr. Adams' attention to the same subject. DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. 67 July 12, 1862. We have carefully ascertained the character and the results of the recent battles before Richmond, and have considered and adopted such measures as the new exigencies have seemed to us to require. What I have before written to you is in the main confirmed. The seven days' battles were accepted by our army upon a compulsory change of base. Our losses were large, but much less than the first reports represented. They amount to about 12,000 men. The losses of the insurgents were greater. Each battle was, in fact, a victory of our army, although the flank movement from the field towards the new base gave the whole series the character of a retreat. The result is that the new base is a safer one, and the new position an impregnable one. The Federal army, with General McClellan, now thus safely lodged on the north bank of the James River, twenty-five miles below Richmond, num- bers eighty thousand to ninety thousand, and a force which is not very much disproportioned to the insurrectionary army which occu- pies that city. The Federal army, however, has the coöperation of a very large naval force. The Federal army in front of this city, adding those which will probably be consolidated with it, is nearly equal in numbers. This last force is now under command of Major- General Pope, who has achieved great successes in the western states, and is esteemed an officer of great ability. A general mili- tary command over all the land forces of the United States will be given to Major-General Halleck, who will come from the western department to this capital. July 28, 1862. Our assault upon Richmond is for the moment suspended. No great and striking movements or achievements are occurring, and the government is rather preparing its energies for renewed operations than continuing to surprise the world with new and brilliant victories. The tone of the insurgents has been sud- denly emboldened, while recent expressions of grief and sorrow, which naturally and justly follow battles attended by great losses of cherished lives, for the moment have seemed to indicate that the friends of the Union are less resolute and hopeful than heretofore. Cotton, the great want of Europe, has not flowed out of the ports which we have opened as freely as was unreasonably expected by the manufacturers, and their disappointment seems ripening into despondency. It is not upon isolated events, much less upon transitory popular 68 DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. impulses, that governments are expected to build their policies in regard to foreign countries. August 8, 1862. — At no former period of our history have our agricultural, manufacturing, or mining interests been more pros- perous than at this juncture. This fact may be deemed surprising in view of the enhanced price for labor, occasioned by the demand for the rank and file of the armies of the United States. It may, therefore, be confidently asserted that, even now, nowhere else can the industrious laboring man and artisan expect so liberal a recom- pense for his services as in the United States. August 13, 1862. We are at the present moment in a state of uncertainty in relation to the renewal of military operations. Ex- aggeration of the forces of the insurgents and depreciation of our own have been the busy occupation of too many among us since the disappointment of our expectations at Richmond. It was una- voidable, because it is natural for men, and especially for masses, to be disturbed and demoralized, at least for a time, by the failure of sanguine expectations. You are entitled, however, to the informa- tion that in my opinion our forces in the field, although not dem- onstrative, are adequate to the task of holding the vast territories we have recovered. The new volunteers, 300,000 in number, are beginning to move to-day for the places of rendezvous to reinforce the army in the field, and forty days will suffice to bring forward also the 300,000 militia which have been called for by the President. Within the same time our naval preparations will begin to show important results. Much, however, is dependent on the military operations of the hour, while the preparations for a vigorous cam- paign are going forward. It is impossible to speculate with confi- dence on the chances of the war movements which are taking place to-day. The construction of iron-clad ships is going on, on a scale and with a vigor that promises as complete a naval defence as any other nation possesses. When I have told you of our large preparations, I have told you all that is important to be known, except that General Halleck evinces great skill, activity, and grasp, in reorganizing our forces for renewing military operations. Richmond is at this moment the centre of our anxieties. Our plans for operations against it are not so settled and decisive as to allow me to communicate them, for the reason that they may be modified by discoveries of the plans of the DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. 69 insurgents. General Pope had on Saturday, the 9th, a successful engagement with a portion of the insurgent army. There is every reason to expect important military occurrences, and, perhaps, a de- velopment of the plan for a new campaign before the departure of the next steamer. All that can be said now is, that the popular spirit is sound, and we expect that the tone of public confidence will be highly improved as the new levies, now moving from their homes, reach and join and reinforce the apparently sedentary forces in their camps. August 15, 1862. This government, when it considers the mili- tary and naval forces that it has at its control, the success that it has achieved already in the present unhappy civil war, and the favorable prospects of the campaign which it is now preparing, is not disposed to be disturbed by apprehensions of interference by foreign powers. Doing all that it ought and can to preserve peace with foreign nations, it will not suffer itself to be alarmed by fears. of wrong on their part, whether victory continually attends our arms, or at times manifests its habitual caprice. - August 18, 1862. General Halleck, upon taking command of the army, made a careful survey of the entire military position, and concluded thereupon to withdraw the army of the Potomac from the Peninsula, and to combine all our forces in front of Richmond. The measure was a difficult and delicate one. It is believed to have been substantially accomplished without any casualty. Our new levies are coming in in great numbers and in fine spirits. The gloom has passed away from the public mind. Although our ar- rangements for resuming offensive operations are yet incomplete, we have much confidence in being able to do so speedily and with decisive effect. The disturbed condition of affairs in New Orleans is giving way slowly, and commerce is reviving there. Discontents, which naturally enough found utterance in the loyal states in a brief season of despondency through which we have passed, have died away already, and with them the apprehensions of organizations to embarrass the Union. It is represented to us that the popular determination to maintain the war has at no time been as unanimous and as earnest as it is now. August 23, 1862. The tide of military success which had been so strong, and had continued in our favor so long, was checked at Richmond, by what has practically proved a drawn battle. 70 DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. The country for a time, unaccustomed to reverses, seemed at first. to be confounded by their disappointment. Disputes about respon- sibilities for the failure, apprehensions, multifarious and passionate counsels, succeeded, encouraging the insurgents and their agents and sympathizers abroad. The period that has intervened since that event has been marked by few exciting or striking events. Guerilla bands have been emboldened, but have not effected any material change in the military position. The fall of the Missis- sippi has obliged the sea-going part of our fleet that was engaged at Vicksburg to fall down the river, and owing to the same cause the canal that had been made to divert the stream has not yet proved effective. The assault upon Vicksburg has, therefore, been temporarily suspended. A combined land and naval attack by the insurgents upon Baton Rouge has been successfully resisted. The casualties of the service insensibly reduced our armies so much that, after the battles before Richmond, we found ourselves obliged to let them remain comparatively inactive. The period of inactivity has, nevertheless, been well improved. The President, early in July, called for six hundred thousand troops. The country has responded with earnestness and alacrity. The new levies began to enter into the field a week ago. During that period about thirty thousand of them have joined the different armies, and the increase is now going on, and will continue, at the rate of five thousand or more daily. The army of the Potomac became divided in the battles before Richmond. The large body under the command of General Mc- Clellan has rested on the banks of the James River, unable to renew the attack without reinforcements, while the small body under General Pope was not deemed competent to march southward, and it was even doubtful whether it would be strong enough to protect this capital if the insurgents should abandon Richmond. General Halleck, the new commander of all the forces, therefore, de- termined to withdraw General McClellan's army from the James River, and to combine it with Pope's on the line of the Rappahan- nock, and in front of Richmond. The operation was one of ad- mitted delicacy and difficulty. It is not yet fully completed. The first part of it has been accomplished with consummate ability and entire success. The whole of General McClellan's forces-100,000 strong-have evacuated their position on the James River, and are now on their way to the new front on the Rappahannock. Whether DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. 71 the junction shall be successfully effected is the question which remains undecided, but which will be solved probably before this despatch will have left the Department. Our condition may be summed up in the few words, that we are reorganizing and preparing for a new campaign, which we believe will be successful, and which, we trust, will close the war, with the return of the authority of the Federal Union. Rumors of intrigues abroad for foreign intervention or mediation reach the government continually, but they do not at present pro- duce any real uneasiness. August 23, 1862. It is a day of uncertainty and suspense, but not altogether unmingled with apprehension. General McClellan has safely retired his great army from the James River, and is rap- idly moving it around to reinforce the small force with which Gen- eral Pope is holding the Rappahannock, midway between this capi- tal and Richmond. The insurgents have brought their main force from Richmond up to confront General Pope, with a purpose of attacking him before he can be joined by General McClellan and by the new levies now coming into the field. The telegraph reports skirmishes, but as yet no battle. The question is, or seems to be, which side can practise superior energy and despatch. You will read of guerrilla demonstrations and partial successes in the west. But the disturbers will find themselves obliged to en- counter the volunteers now pouring into that region from the loyal western States, and it may be expected that the Union arms will again be everywhere assuming the offensive within the coming month. Our naval force has destroyed all the insurgents' iron-clad vessels which have thus far appeared, and have just now been aug- mented by the addition of the Ironsides. September 6, 1862. Recruiting here is now very rapid, and there is likely to be no deficiency of volunteers which will not be supplied by a light draft, or if the time be extended the army will be filled with volunteers without draft. At the same time it is very manifest that labor has advanced and is advancing in price, and there was never before a time when this country presented so great inducements to emigrants. Our two armies in Virginia, which were so long and so unfor- tunately separated, have been brought together at last in front of this capital, but not without a loss of some six thousand or eight DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. 72 thousand men, and, for the moment, the gathering of the insurrec- tionary forces on the Virginia side of the Potomac, seeming to threaten Maryland and even Pennsylvania. September 8, 1862. You will have learned, before this despatch shall reach you, that our late campaign in Virginia has failed; that the insurgent forces, escaping our armies, have returned to the oc- cupation of northern Virginia; and have even crossed the upper Potomac and taken up a position at Frederick, in Maryland, where they seem to be threatening alike Washington, Baltimore, and Har- risburg. In a correspondence like this, which, however confidential in its character, still wears an aspect of being addressed to foreign governments, it would be indiscreet and injudicious to attempt to explain the causes of this very serious reverse. I must be content, therefore, with saying that it seems to have resulted from the fact that our two reunited armies in Virginia were only partially com- bined and not at all consolidated. There has been, at least, mili- tary error somewhere, and an inquiry has been instituted to ascer- tain where it lies, and with whom the responsibility for the reverse belongs. Our information from the west is that the insurgents are equally bold and adventurous in that quarter, and that although no great disaster has occurred there, new energies of the government are necessary to save the states of Tennessee and Kentucky for the Union, if not to prevent inroads into Ohio. It is not deemed necessary or even practicable, in an emergency where every hour may bring reasons for changes of measures before adopted, to attempt to give you a programme of intended military operations. I confine myself, therefore, to the statement, in general terms, that our armies in Virginia are at last fully consolidated, and that they are already in the positions deemed most advantageous for the restoration of the fortunes of the war. The same is true of our forces elsewhere. The three hundred thousand volunteers called for by the President have already been mustered in the service, and near half of them are in the field. Recruiting still goes on with the utmost spirit, and a considerable portion of the three hundred thou- sand men expected to be raised by draft are already coming forward as volunteers. The draft will fill up the complement without great delay. Nowhere, either on the part of the army or of the people, does there appear the least sign of indecision or of despondency, DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. 73 although, of course, the country is, for the moment, filled with deep anxiety. We hear, officially and unofficially, of great naval preparations which are on foot in British and other foreign ports, under cover of neutrality, to give to the insurgents a naval force. Among these reports is one that a naval armament is fitting out in England to lay New York under contribution. I think that the vigor of our naval department in building a navy upon a sudden emergency can hardly be surpassed; nevertheless, its progress seems slow to us, under the circumstances. In addition to the Monitor and other iron vessels, already known to you, we have the Ironsides now ready for duty, and a new Monitor is expected to be put into service within the next ten days. Others will soon follow, and we are doing what we can to be prepared for every possible adverse contingency that can affect the situation of the country either at home or abroad. We cannot but regret that the course of administration in Great Britain is such as to render our relations with that country a source of con- stant and serious apprehension. But it is not perceived here what more can be done than we are doing to preserve an international peace, which, perhaps, cannot be sufficiently valued until, without fault on our part, it shall have been broken. September 13, 1862.- Military affairs here have taken an un- favorable direction during the last three weeks. The army of the Potomac, which was in command of General McClellan, having evacuated its position on the James River, reached the Potomac, near Alexandria, unpursued and in safety. The army of Virginia, under General Pope, which was advanced to the Rappahannock, through some mistake on his part was flanked by the insurgents in large force, and retired to Manassas. Here it became involved in a series. of severe engagements, in which it was not supported by the army of the Potomac, as it is supposed it might have been. Both armies, thereupon, returned to this city. An inquiry has been instituted to ascertain where the responsibility for these unnecessary reverses be- longs. In the mean time the insurgents, executing a long-cherished design, advanced on the south side of the upper Potomac, which at this season is fordable at many places, and, crossing it at and above Edward's Ferry, occupied Frederick. When there, menacing equally Washington, Baltimore, and Harrisburg, in Pennsylvania, they put forth an appeal, on Wednesday last, to the people of Maryland to 74 DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. rise and join the insurrection. Our troops having recovered from a temporary disorganization, an army was immediately organized and despatched, under General McClellan, to meet the insurgents at Frederick. The last information we have is that they have proinpt- ly evacuated Frederick and advanced westward to Hagerstown. This retreat is supposed to indicate an abandonment of any designs to strike Baltimore or to advance on the north side of the river to the Potomac, while it still leaves them a choice of entering Penn- sylvania or of recrossing into Virginia at or above Harper's Ferry. Acting upon the same general aggressive policy, the insurgents are advancing towards and threatening Cincinnati. These bold movements very naturally produce much excitement and considera- ble alarm. On the other hand, the armies of the Union are receiv ing immense reinforcements, and our military authorities express much confidence in their ability to retrieve the losses sustained and prosecute a vigorous and decisive campaign. Although cheerfully indulging these expectations, I do not think it profitable to dwell upon them. I might give you more details of the military position, but it is likely to change any day. Our forces are being largely augmented, and our generals are confident of their ability to retrieve our losses and restore the former fortunes of the war. While the government indulges this expectation we must abide by results, and news of these will probably reach you sooner than this despatch. Just at the moment when the mail is about to close authentic in- formation reaches the government that the insurgent forces which have been approaching and menacing Cincinnati and Louisville have receded, and are retreating in Kentucky. The alarm in that quar- ter has passed. The insurgent army, which has been threatening Washington, Bal- timore, and Pennsylvania, evacuated Frederick on the 12th instant. I now give you a despatch which has just been received from Major General McClellan, which shows the position of the two armies at the present moment. September 15, 1862. Yesterday we had information that the insurgents in the west had receded and were retreating without waiting to confront the forces prepared to receive them, and to-day we have General McClellan's report of a decisive battle fought by him with the insurgent army in Maryland, with the DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. 75 results of their retreat and flight, panic stricken and demoralized. ¹ It is especially cheering to know that the new volunteers which had been incorporated into McClellan's army without having previously been under fire, and without even having been at all drilled, disci- plined or exercised, exhibited a perfect courage and steadiness in the conflict. The nation will acquire new courage, and its persevering resolution to preserve its integrity will be fortified by this great and auspicious victory. Since my previous despatches were put into the mail General Mc- Clellan reports that the battle yesterday mentioned in his telegram proves to have been a complete victory. The enemy was routed, and he fled during the night. McClellan is in pursuit. A report recently received from General Shepley, Governor of Louisiana, shows the entire freedom of the cotton market in New Orleans. September 16, 1862. At the time when your application was received here the efficiency of our armies had been impaired in a vig- orous though eminently successful campaign. It soon became prob- able, and more lately it unhappily was proved, that we must fail in the pending movement upon Richmond. Such a disappointment was not unlikely to be followed by positive disasters, the extent of which could not be foreseen. That failure was sure to encourage the emissaries of insurrection in Europe, and the public mind too readily yielded to apprehensions of intervention in some form which must increase the national embarrassment. Under these cir- cumstances, popular remedies were suggested and urged upon the President. Chief among them was some sort of Executive mani- festo or declaration of a determination to make the war more ener- getic, severe, sanguinary, and destructive in the insurgent States. At the same moment a change long clamored for in the insurgent councils was adopted there, namely, that of withdrawing their arm- ies from their own region, and rapidly throwing them forward upon not this capital alone, but the loyal States of Maryland, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. For the moment the war on our part, which had until now been an aggressive one, was to be one of defence, attended with all the alarms and apparent if not real dangers of invasion. The President, in this emergency, decided to bring together the armies of the Potomac and Virginia, and consolidate them on some 1 At Antietam. 76 DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. k line in that state between this capital and Richmond; to reinforce and augment not only that consolidated army but also all the other forces at his command with six hundred thousand men, to be raised. as volunteers, with a draft, if necessary, and be thus prepared to meet and, with promptness and without display of words, to roll back the tide of invasion and complete the war by a vigorous campaign on the coasts, on the Mississippi, and through the mountain passes of east- ern Tennessee. The disasters which were threatened in Virginia actually occurred. The insurgents drove the army of Virginia back upon the line of fortifications and the capital, but not without losses probably equal to our own. They then advanced from Manassas to the fordable passes of the Potomac, crossed that river and entered Frederick, and invited Maryland to rise up and join the treasonable confederacy. There they threatened equally Washington, Baltimore and Pennsyl vania. In like manner they gathered forces in Kentucky, in the rear of the army of General Buell, who was investing Chattanooga, and advanced towards the Ohio River, thus threatening the loyal States of Ohio and Indiana, which lie on the north bank of that river. The insurrectionary congress recently assembled approved these aggressive movements, and solemnly proclaimed a purpose to carry the war into the loyal states and inflict upon them, with increased severity, all the rigors of desolating warfare. Under such changed circumstances, which could not have been foreseen, when you applied for leave of absence, the President thought the national interests required the watchful care of all our trusted representatives in Europe, and he thought it might be es- pecially unfortunate if the mission at St. Petersburg were left with- out the presence of a Minister of the highest grade and authority known in the diplomatic service. Hence his reluctance to accede to your wishes. It is now hoped that your absence will not be produc- tive of injury to the public service. Having thus related the military events culminating in the inva- sion of the loyal states, it is only just that I should bring the narra- tion down to this point. The volunteers are coming in as freely as was expected. More than seventy thousand have reached this city; ten thousand or more are in Baltimore and its vicinity. Sixty thousand have joined the army of the west, and the whole proposed augmentation will be rapidly effected. The insurgents have receded DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. 77 and are retiring from their late advance towards the Ohio. General McClellan has just met the invaders of Maryland and driven them back towards the Potomac. The loyalty of Maryland has not been disturbed, and Pennsylvania is freed from the apprehensions of danger. With steadiness of purpose, prudence in council, and activ- ity and energy of execution on the part of our commanders, great advantages may be derived from recent misfortunes, and the reck- lessness of the insurgents may result in the speedy ruin of their always desperate cause. September 19, 1862. On the 6th instant Robert E. Lee, claim- ing to be general commanding all the insurgent armies, startled the country by appearing in Fredericktown with a force, as he alleged, of two hundred thousand men. He immediately proclaimed deliv- erance to the people of Maryland, and invited them to join the treasonable confederacy which he served. To-day without having gained a hundred adherents in the state, and after being defeated in two pitched battles, he is recrossing, under the fire of the Federal troops, into Virginia. This result is indicative of the moral sound- ness of the Union cause, as well as of the physical strength which it commands. September 19, 1862. Your despatch in which you [Mr. Day- ton] express so much confidence in the stability of the Union, has arrived just at the moment when General McClellan is driving the combined insurgent armies from the Maryland bank of the Potomac back into Virginia. A republican education has, indeed, made all of us politicians; but it must now be confessed that the same edu- cation has also made us soldiers, as cheerful to fight the battles of our country as we are bold to discuss its affairs. has ever exhibited such voluntary armies. I think no nation September 22, 1862. The aggressive movement of the insur- gents against the loyal states is arrested, and the renewed and rein- vigorated forces of the Union are again prepared for a new and comprehensive campaign. The financial strength of the insurrec- tion is rapidly declining, and its ability to bring soldiers into the field has been already taxed to its utmost. On the other hand, the fiscal condition of the country is sound, and the response to the calls for new levies is being made promptly, without drawing seriously upon the physical strength of the people. 78 DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. It has never been expected by the President that the insurgents should protract this war until it should exhaust not only themselves but the loyal states, and bring foreign armies or navies into the conflict, and still be allowed to retain in bondage, with the consent of this government, the slaves who constitute the laboring and pro- ducing masses of the insurrectionary states. At the same time, the emancipation of the slaves could be effected only by executive authority, and on the ground of military necessity. As a pre- liminary to the exercise of that great power, the President must have not only the exigency, but the general consent of the loyal people of the Union in the border slave states where the war was raging, as well as in the free states which have escaped the scourge, which could only be obtained through a clear conviction on their part that the military exigency had actually occurred. It is thus seen that what has been discussed so earnestly at home and abroad as a question of morals or of humanity has all the while been prac- tically only a military question, depending on time and circum- stances. The order for emancipation,¹ to take effect on the first of January, in the states then still remaining in rebellion against the Union, was issued upon due deliberation and conscientious consider- ation of the actual condition of the war, and the state of opinion in the whole country. No one who knows how slavery was engrafted upon the nation when it was springing up into existence; how it has grown and gained strength as the nation itself has advanced in wealth and power; how fearful the people have hitherto been of any change which might disturb the parasite, will contend that the order comes too late. It is hoped and believed that after the painful experience we have had of the danger to which the Federal connection with slavery is exposing the Republic there will be few indeed who will insist that the decree which brings the connection to an end either could or ought to have been further deferred. The interests of humanity have now become identified with the cause of our country, and this has resulted not from any infraction of constitutional restraints by the government, but from persistent unconstitutional and factious proceedings of the insurgents, who have opposed themselves to both. 1 See post, page DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. 79 You are well aware how long political controversy has been wearing a gulf to divide opinion in our country on the subject of interference with slavery in the slaveholding states. You know how deep that gulf has become, and how confessedly impassable it is except under the pressure of absolute, immediate, and irretrieva- ble danger to the Union itself. Notwithstanding many respected counsellors at home, and all our representatives abroad, have long and earnestly urged an earlier adoption of such a measure as the President has at last accepted, it was nevertheless wisely delayed until the necessity for it should become so manifest as to make it certain that, instead of dividing the loyal people of the Union into two parties, one for and the other against the prosecution of the war for the maintenance of the Union, it would be universally accepted and sustained. It is now apparent that the measure will be thus sustained. September 27, 1862. The law of compensation, which makes reaction always follow effort, and which measures progress by the balance between advance and retreat, applies as well in war as in peace. We had a series of brilliant and most effective victories during the months of February, March, April, May and June. On the first of July we incurred a failure at Richmond, which was fol- lowed by considerable reverses during that month and the following months. This change in the tide of the war produced some popu- lar consternation and alarm. Our new levies, however, began to come in about the first of September, and we have since that time been able to meet successfully an invasion of the loyal states, which was projected with much deliberation by the insurgents during the summer, and assumed a menacing form with the opening of the autumn. None of our really important positions have been lost, and we expect soon to resume aggressive movements with vigor and effect. October 8, 1862. - Your despatch of September 17 has been received. The unfavorable aspect of our affairs under which it was written has given place to another which illustrates the strength and vigor of the Union and the loyalty and enthusiasm of the people. The repulsion of the insurgents from Maryland, Cincinnati, and Ohio, with the recent triumphs of the national arms in Missouri and Mississippi, need no explanations to show their importance. October 13, 1862. There is an opinion in foreign circles that 80 DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. does appear unaccountable, namely, that this government, with the loyal people that are sustaining it, are desiring, or being prepared to desire, a compromise with the insurrection. No country in the world has ever poured out, in an equal period, so much of its treas- ure and its blood to save its integrity and its independence. These precious streams have flowed from springs as free as they are abundant. They are renewed now as freely and as plentifully as before. Temporary and partial disappointments not only produce no despair or despondency, but they stimulate and invigorate. Our cause is now, as it was in the time of our great revolution, the cause of human nature. It deserves and it yet will win the favor of all nations and of all classes and conditions of men. October 13, 1862. I do not dwell upon the military situation of our own country and its prospects. They are changed much for the better since your despatch was written. But this is so appar- ent as to need no special effort on my part to make it manifest. Careful and candid observers, I think, would agree that the civil war is at its crisis, and that the country is not likely to be either divided or to lose its invaluable institutions. October 18, 1862. — The military and political situations in this country are in perfect contrast with the imaginary ones which were expected to win the advantages of European intervention. Instead of being in possession of or threatening Philadelphia and New York, and occupying Cincinnati, Louisville, New Orleans, Balti- more, and Washington, the invading armies of the insurgents in the east, in the west, and in the south, are in the retreat before the national forces, and as rapidly as possible evacuating all the loyal border States. October 18, 1862. It is not now doubted here that the battles of South Mountain and Antietam, followed by the retreat of the insurgents from Maryland, and by the President's proclamation of warning to the insurgent States, have well sustained the reaction abroad which has been already mentioned. At the same time you will need to know the present military and political conditions of the country, and the expectations of the Presi- dent based upon them. I do not think that I can better describe these conditions than by saying, on the whole, that there has been only this change since the month of June last, namely, that whereas at that time it was believed here that the government had virtually DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. 81 suppressed the revolt, the reverses and successes of our arms within the period that has intervened have now brought about the convic- tion that the revolt, practically speaking, has failed. The battle of Corinth was a great conflict, and it has produced large results. It leaves us but little trouble to relieve the Mississippi River of insur- gent forces, and we are rapidly preparing the land and naval expe- ditions necessary for that purpose. The invasion of Kentucky seems to have virtually come to an end with the defeat of the insurgents at Corinth and at Perryville. They are leaving the state with as much haste as they rushed through it towards Louisville and Cincinnati. Their demonstrations against Missouri have been equally unsuccessful. General Mc- Clellan is being rapidly reinforced, and reconnoissances which he has made truly indicate a new trial of strength between his army and that of Lee near Winchester. Only the impossibility of finding room for more workers upon our iron-clad navy delays the de- spatch of vessels of that class believed to be sufficient without the present navy to recover all the ports of the country which are yet remaining in the possession of the insurgents. Charleston and Mobile will be early visited with that view, and thus we may rea- sonably expect to relieve ourselves of the inconveniences which result to the national cause from the success of British-built and equipped vessels in carrying arms and supplies to the insurgents, since we are compelled to despair of any other correction of that great wrong. October 21, 1862. The present military situation here may be described in a few words. Our spring campaign, so fruitful in vic- tories, closed with reverses in the last weeks of July. An insurgent invasion of the loyal states began with successes in August and was arrested in September. Our armies are now renewed, our naval force increasing, and a decisive campaign will soon be opened. The insurgents excited in European capitals the most sanguine hopes of the success of their campaign of invasion, promising nothing less than the capture and capitulation of Washington, with the occupa- tion of Cincinnati, Louisville, New Orleans, Baltimore, and Phila- delphia. They built high hopes of recognition upon this magnifi- cent, though precarious, foundation. From Europe we hear little that is definite, but there is manifestly some difficulty there in digesting disappointments. The abuses of the neutrality proclaimed 6 82 DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. by the government, which are daily committed by British subjects in British ports and on the high seas, have become not merely annoying, but deeply injurious. We are doing everything possible to prevent a ripening of these disturbances into a war upon the ocean, which would probably leave no nation free from its desolat- ing effects. October 25, 1862.- Kentucky and Missouri, like Maryland, are free again. The war retires into Tennessee, as it has into Virginia. Expeditions up and down the Mississippi are nearly in readiness. General McClellan is preparing operations in Virginia, not so rapid- ly as our impatience demands, but, doubtless, with his customary care and comprehensiveness. General Mitchell will not long be idle before Charleston. The delays of our new iron-clad vessels are painful and mortifying, but one cannot see where to charge fault. October 27, 1862. The military events which seem to require a notice, when the mail is departing, are, first, the escape of the insurg- ents from Kentucky back into the mountains of Tennessee. General Buell's proceedings are, in some military quarters, thought to have been unnecessarily dilatory; he has been relieved, and General Rose- crans, a very vigorous and accomplished officer, assumes the vacated command. Second, General Schofield has defeated the insurgents in Arkansas, in which state they were attempting to make a stand after their second expulsion from Missouri. Third, General Mc- Clellan is on the eve of crossing the Potomac to challenge the insurgents as a beginning of the new campaign in Virginia. Fourth, reinforcements are going to our forces in North Carolina, South Carolina, and New Orleans. These reinforcements will have all needful naval coöperation. There are various political manifesta- tions in North Carolina, Virginia, and Louisiana, which are not des- titute of significancy, but it would be premature, perhaps, to specify them. It must suffice to say that it is a mistake to assume, as seems to be so freely assumed in Europe, that the President's proclamation of warning to the insurgent states will be either unfruitful or even unheeded. November 3, 1862. The military transactions which I have to relate are not striking, although they are not unimportant. The navy have reduced to occupation two new positions on the southern coast - Sabine Pass and Galveston. The blockading fleet has cap- DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. 83 tured three of the steamers which were fitted out in England and despatched from British ports with arms and other supplies for the insurgents. General McClellan's army has crossed into Virginia, and its ad- vance has already had some skirmishing with the insurgents in the rear of Leesburg, which is again occupied by the national forces. The telegraph announces the destruction of another half dozen American vessels on the high seas by the steamer 290. The Presi- dent is obliged to regard these destructions as being made by British subjects in violation of the law of nations after repeated and ample notice, warning, and remonstrances had been given by you to the British government. It is presumed that you have already brought the subject in that light to the notice of her Majesty's government. The legal proofs in support of a claim for indemnity will be collected and transmitted to you as speedily as possible. It is hardly necessary to advise one so well acquainted as you [Mr. Adams] are with the working of our system of popular elec- tions against being disturbed by the exaggerations of the political canvass which closes to-day. No apprehensions of any change of the policy of the country in regard to the suppression of the insurrection are indulged here. November 10, 1862. At the present we are apprehending no in- surmountable obstacles to complete success. Our army in Virginia, as you will learn from the newspapers, is already approaching the Rapidan, without having encountered serious opposition. General Grant is advancing into the heart of Mississippi. General Rose- crans is moving forward in Tennessee. Expeditions by land and water, greater in force than any preceding one, will soon be on their way to the southern coast. November 18, 1862. The military movements, though import- ant, are not striking. Major-General Burnside, now in command of the army of the Potomac, has put it in motion, and events of some significance may be expected within a few days. A part of Major- General Banks' expedition is already afloat, and the whole will probably reach the important destination within a week. Some suc- cessful movements have been made in North Carolina and in Louisiana. Major-General Grant is advancing with apparent suc- cess in Mississippi, and additional columns to move by land and water are proceeding towards the Gulf from Cairo and St. Louis. 84 DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. General Rosecrans is advancing towards the enemy in East Tennes- see, and an iron navy is nearly ready to reduce the last remaining insurrectionary ports into Federal occupation. Of all the insurgent menaces which lowered upon us so thickly in September and Octo- ber there is only one that now gives us anxiety, and that is the in- vasion by iron-clad vessels, which are being built for the insurgents by their sympathizers in England. November 28, 1862. More iron-clads are necessary for the taking of Charleston. The building of them has seemed slow, but they are now beginning to move to their proper field of duty. The Ironsides and the Passaic have gone there, and eight more, I think, will reach Charleston in time to anticipate the fleets that are now fitting out in Europe. November 30, 1862. I have expected to be able to inform you that General Burnside has advanced across the Rappahannock. His preparations are ready, and the movement is imminent. He has a large and fine army. General Banks' latest day assigned for embarkation has passed. I trust he will be on his way when this despatch leaves the coast. The Passaic has at last left her port. The Secretary of the Navy reckons confidently on the rapid completion and despatch of suffi- cient iron-clad auxiliaries to reduce Charleston. The gold speculation seems to have passed its zenith, and to be decidedly declining. More of moderation and self-reliance is manifested by the people now than at any time since the war began. Congress has come together in, I think, a good, practical, and patriotic temper. The President's message grasps the subject of slavery earnestly and confidently. It would be unbecoming even if it were possible, to predict the reception which his bold suggestion It is some- of gradual and compensated emancipation will meet. thing to know, perhaps it is all that can be known now, that the great problem of the civil war maintains its importance, and secures the consideration it deserves. While the people hesitate, doubt, and divide upon each new suggestion that is made for the solution of the problem, they no longer shrink from contemplating and studying it. If they seem to the world to be slow in reaching it, the world ought to be reassured of their success by the reflection that no nation ever advanced faster in a task so complicated and so difficult. The great DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. 85 question heretofore has been: Can the constitutional Union endure through the trial? There is no longer any ground for despondency on that point. When we compare the military and naval conditions of the country now with what they were when Congress came to- gether a year ago when we compare the condition of our foreign relations now existing with that which prevailed when Congress as- sembled a year ago-we see evidences of strength, power, and stability which then it would have seemed presumptuous to expect. December 15, 1862. The excitement which attended the late political canvass having subsided, the public mind returns again from its wanderings to engage itself with the military situation. The army under General Burnside, which had been some time gathering upon the north bank of the Rappahannock, crossed that river on Friday and Saturday last in perfect order, and with signal exhibitions of heroism. The insurgents were dislodged from the town, and retired to their defences upon the hills beyond it. At the moment when I am writing, however, General Burnside, for reasons not yet explained, has withdrawn his forces to the north side of the river, and the two armies are now separated from each other by its shores. General Burnside had, when he commenced crossing the river, one hundred and thirty thousand men under his command. The addition of General Sigel's corps gave the com- manding general last night fifteen thousand more, and to-day he will receive still another fifteen thousand. It is not easily understood how a general could handle a force larger than this. Major-General Banks sailed from New York fifteen days ago with reinforcements for New Orleans, and we suppose that he must before this time have reached and taken command in that city. With the additional forces which are now descending through the valley of the Mississippi under Generals Grant and Curtis and a very large land and naval expedition that is waiting at Cairo, as I understand, only for a slight rise of the river, it is expected that the Mississippi will be entirely freed from the insurgents, and become a base for operations eastward through Alabama and westward to the Rio Grande. Generals Curtis and Grant have had satisfactory suc- General Rosecrans, who is in command at Nashville, and is expected to operate against Chattanooga and the passes in East Ten- nessee, has been less demonstrative than was expected, but we have no reason to apprehend any ultimate failure of his projected campaign. cesses. 86 DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. The political atmosphere begins to exhibit phenomena indicative of a weariness of the war, and a desire for peace on both sides. There are suggestions, perhaps as yet all of them visionary, of terms or bases of conciliation. No propositions or intimations, however, have come from the insurgent faction, and of course none have been communicated by the government. The public mind has been recently too much disturbed by incidental and collateral questions to study closely the progress of the war, and to measure the exhaus- tion of the insurgents. We are, therefore, without any conclusive evidence of their actual temper at this moment. The return of members of Congress from Louisiana, and the hold- ing of elections for the same purpose in North Carolina and Vir- ginia, have nevertheless an undoubted significance. The intended demonstration of iron-clad steamers is yet withheld for want of sufficient vessels. We continually see new vessels launched, and the workmen engaged in preparing them. But we do not find ourselves in possession of the overawing force of that kind which is necessary for watching at Hampton roads, and reach- ing at the same time Mobile and Charleston. The Passaic, when she arrived at the place of rendezvous, was found to be somewhat incomplete. She was sent up to the navy yard here, and will go out in good condition to-day. The Montauk goes to sea to-day or to-morrow. The "290" still escapes us, but the navy redoubles its exertions for her capture. December 26, 1862. The Secretary of War has, I think, adopted a policy which does not contemplate the acceptance of bodies of troops organized in foreign countries, even with the con- sent of their sovereigns. The Secretary of War still retains under consideration the offer of General Garibaldi. It involves some considerations upon which the convenience of that Department must necessarily be consulted. It is a source of high satisfaction to know that the General has been so far relieved of his painful wound as to justify a hope of his rapid convalescence. December 29, 1862. The proclamation of freedom to the slaves of the insurgent states will be promptly issued on the first day of January next; and it seems probable that a state of things will arise in the Gulf states that will be calculated to undermine the hopes that have been built there upon foreign intervention. Finally, DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. 87 we are inaugurating a system of administration in New Orleans, under Major-General Banks, which we expect will relieve the con- dition there of much of the uneasiness which it is supposed affected the disposition of foreign powers. The military situation remains unchanged since my last despatch. January 2, 1863. Affairs have remained unchanged, but not without prospect of change and improvement. For the moment, two opposing armies seem to be fixed on the banks of the Rappa- hannock. There will be, before long, a change there. Our iron- clad fleet is at last afloat, and it will, I think, be heard from soon. Our two western armies, as well as that of General Banks at New Orleans, are becoming active. The proclamation of the President adds a new and important element to the war. Its probable results are doubtless exaggerated by one portion of the people, but not more than they are underesti- mated by another. Assuming, as I believe, its policy to be an un- changeable one, it is not at all to be doubted that, sooner or later, it will find and reach a weakness in every nook and corner of the insurrectionary region. The very violence with which it will prob- ably be met will, after a little, increase its efficiency. January 5, 1863. — Our iron-clad steamers are now gathering upon the southern coast. We have lost the Monitor by her foun- dering at sea, and the accident justly produces a profound national regret. Her achievements had made her an object of pride - I might almost say an object of affection. But every one feels that she had already vindicated the invention and compensated the cost of her construction. Her place will be easily filled by another ves- sel, in which the fault to which we owe the loss of the Monitor has been corrected. With the exception of the army of the Potomac, all our forces. are now in a condition of activity. We are yet in a state of sus- pense about the result of a series of battles which occurred on the 31st December, and 1st, 2d, and 3d of January, in the neighbor- hood of Murfreesboro'. The telegraph thus far tells us of wonder- ful bravery, attended with varying phases of battle, and of great loss of life on both sides. The forces of General Sherman, belonging to the army of Gen- eral Grant, having descended the Mississippi, are besieging Vicks- burg. Our latest advices do not inform us that the fleet under DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. 88 Admiral Farragut has as yet passed up the river from New Orleans. The force operating in Arkansas has been eminently successful. While it would be unwise to promise immediate and decisive operations of our naval forces, I think you may rest assured that at least the rigor of the blockade already experienced at Charleston and Mobile is likely to be increased to such a degree as to defeat the aids which are proceeding to those ports from Europe. - January 12, 1863. The information concerning military events announced by my last despatches has been in part confirmed. Gen- eral Rosecrans obtained a decisive and profitable victory at Mur- freesboro'. General Sherman, on the other hand, was repulsed at Vicksburg. You will find the information of the press on the result of the affair confused and unsatisfactory. It is, therefore, proper for me to say that directions have been given to Major-General Grant to reorganize and renew the expedition immediately and in a very effectual manner. Our small force at Galveston seems to have been surprised and dislodged at the moment when reinforcements were about to enter the harbor to secure the occupation of the place. The misfortune is not a serious one. Large land forces and an iron-clad fleet are advancing towards Charleston, and it will be not unreasonable to expect the occurrence of some important events there any time after the close of the pres- ent week. January 13, 1863. The public attention is now fastened upon the financial measures which are engaging the consideration of Con- gress. As is customary with fiscal questions, they excite the utmost anxiety. There is, however, good ground to expect a settlement of the subject upon a practical and acceptable basis. Our advance in the great national transaction in which we are engaged is seen in the fact that Congress is, for the first time, found seriously engaged with the proposition to aid some of the slaveholding states in their efforts for emancipation. A bill of that character, affecting the State of Missouri, has passed the House of Representatives, and is now under consideration in the Senate. January 14, 1863. A new campaign has been begun, with alternating successes and disappointments. The victory at Mur- freesboro' was a great one, and it has been followed by very bene- ficial results. Our army in Arkansas continues to be successful. DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. 89 January 15, 1863. - Four weeks ago we encountered a repulse at Fredericksburg. It has been followed by no serious consequences. The army on the Rappahannock still detains its antagonist there, and leaves us opportunity for operations in other quarters. Two weeks ago General Rosecrans obtained a victory at Murfreesboro', which practically secures Tennessee to the Union. But, on the other hand, General Sherman has been repulsed in his first assault upon Vicksburg, and we have suffered an inopportune surprise and dis- lodgment at Galveston. These, however, are not decisive events. We are only at the beginning of a new campaign. Forces are again concentrating at Vicksburg, adequate, as we trust, to the capture of that place, and a land and naval demonstration against Charleston is imminent. January 19, 1863. General McClernand has attained a very important success in Arkansas. An official despatch from him con- firms this information. It is thought that it must result in freeing the west side of the Mississippi from the presence of the insurrection- ary forces. January 23, 1863. We are on the eve of important movements, which as yet are but imperfectly understood by the public. A part of the force which so brilliantly carried the Post of Arkansas is understood to have ascended the White River. The remainder, con- siderably augmented, is supposed to have already returned to the siege of Vicksburg. A long and very severe storm has suspended projected move- ments of the army of the Potomac, at Fredericksburg, and delayed for a few days the expedition against Charleston. We learn to-day that the two iron-clad vessels which encountered the storm on their way to the scene of war, not only are safe, but have proved their adaptation to the trials of the seas. January 26, 1863. - Major-General Burnside was prevented by a severe storm from renewing hostilities last week on the Potomac. The hindrance will continue until the condition of the roads near the Rappahannock shall have mended. Meantime General Burn- side has tendered his resignation, and he is now replaced by Major- General Hooker. The expedition against Charleston was delayed by the storm, but the forces are now being put in motion. It is understood here that General McClernand's forces, with Commodore Porter's fleet, after their brilliant achievements in 90 DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. Arkansas, have returned to the siege of Vicksburg, and have been adequately reinforced by General Grant. February 4, 1863. We have entered upon new campaigns, whose events cannot fail to affect public opinion abroad as well as at home. We have boundless and excited discussions, as might be expected among a free people, and all these discussions are over- heard with exaggeration of the tone of the disputants in foreign countries. Nevertheless, it may very well be doubted whether any other government, whatever its constitution, has gone more steadily, more firmly, more dispassionately, or more energetically through trials equal to those we have already surmounted. The re- The results of military operations during the last three months are sufficiently manifest to have a determinate value. verses were the repulse at Fredericksburg and the repulse at Vicks- burg. Each of these reverses was practically fruitless to the insur- gents. The successes were the battle at Murfreesboro' and the capture of the Post of Arkansas. Each of these not only weakened the insurgents, but enlarged the field of Federal authority. It is understood that the expeditions at Charleston and Vicksburg are now in full activity, and we shall not long wait for important results. It is never easy to know what value to put upon popular expec- tations and popular fears as omens of ultimate success. It could not be concealed that there has been a season of deep anxiety since the reverse at Fredericksburg. It is apparent that there is now a measured return of public confidence. The last change is probably not more reliable than the one which preceded it. However this may be, it is certainly cheering to perceive that the idle specula- tions upon mediation and the spasmodic demands of certain impul- sive politicians for armistices and concessions have failed to pervert the public mind, and that there remains the same firm determina- tion to maintain the Union that was everywhere manifested at the beginning of the contest. February 10, 1863. — The public journals contain the details of the recent surprise of the Mercedita at Charleston, which show that the idea of the insurgents that they had raised the blockade at that port was illusory. The activity of the forces in that vicinity, and also of the forces at Vicksburg, will not escape your attention. The battle at Fort Donelson was a decided triumph of the Union arms, and greatly strengthens the position of General Rosecrans. DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. 91 There is good reason to expect that the important bills designed to enable the President to prosecute the war with vigor and dili- gence will pass the Congress by decisive majorities. February 24, 1863. The military and naval conditions remain. unchanged. Congress is diligent in loyal and effective legislation. Some little excitement has followed the publication of the recent correspondence with the French government, but the effect seems to be not unwholesome. You will give no credit to rumors of aliena- tion between Mr. Mercier and this government. The Canada's advices of the organization of the British Parlia- ment, telegraphed, are not different from what was anticipated. It is manifest that the national interest is absorbed by the expectation of military achievements regarded as imminent. March 2, 1863. Experience has shown that it has been impos- sible to conform the policy of the government, in a crisis of civil war, to the views and wishes of European statesmen, who reasoning from present European interests, regard a peace, however ob- tained and at whatever cost, preferable to a prosecution of the war at all; and who, at every stage of the controversy, see only the diffi- culties, embarrassments, and disappointments of the nation, and take no notice of the contraction and exhaustion of the insurgents. March 16, 1863. — The hopeful view of European opinion con- cerning our affairs is happily coincident with a returning calmness and firmness of public confidence at home. Nothing was ever more preposterous than the idea engendered here, and sent abroad to per- plex Europe, that an American Secretary of State would employ a plenipotentiary of the Emperor of France to negotiate with American insurgents, and that a plenipotentiary of such a power would accept such a mission. Happily, European credulity is be- coming unable to bear the tests enforced upon it. March 24, 1863. There is no certain news, though in the main encouraging reports come from the Mississippi. The demonstration on Charleston is delayed by reason of casualties that befell some of the machinery at sea. The promptest possible means have been taken to repair the difficulty. Confidence is manifestly reviving in the country, and unmistaka- ble signs of exhaustion appear in the insurrectionary region. You will not give credit to newspaper statements about a decision in no case to employ private armed ships. The President, as you might well imagine, considers — he does not yet decide. 92 DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. March 25, 1863. Since the adjournment of Congress a very marked change of the public temper has become perceptible. It has acquired a confident tone. The nervous impatience that de- manded activity, even if it feared disaster, appears to have passed away, and the people seem disposed to rely for success on the strength and perseverance of the national forces and the exhaustion. of the insurgents. It is undeniable that the revolutionary paper has depreciated to the standard of five or six dollars for one; that the revolutionary agents are reduced to the necessity of impressing their supplies, and that want and destitution have begun among the people. While these changes have occurred there, the loyal regions are exhibiting an equal and contrasted change. The government paper has improved at the rate of forty per centum, and is now being so rapidly absorbed by the permanent funds as to leave us no apprehensions of a failure of money for all needful military and naval operations. The appeals of political parties in the elections of last autumn manifestly awakened all the doubts, fears, and dis- loyal passions that were existing in the country, and the display was so great as for a time to alarm patriotic men here, while it encouraged the enemies of the country abroad. There is a manifest reaction, and no calm and considerate man now apprehends any factious opposition or resistance to the government. It can hardly be expected that the true condition of things will be apprehended in Europe; but it is nevertheless apparent that the war is devastat- ing and exhausting the insurrectionary regions, while it has not yet affected the resources or sensibly impaired the prosperity of the whole country. April 7, 1863.—The weather has been such as to preclude all operations in Virginia. Movements at Charleston, if not begun, are certainly imminent. The reaction of opinion in favor of the measures of the government continues and gains strength. Public sentiment is cheerful and hopeful. The public mind here seems deeply moved by the toleration of hostile naval preparations in Great Britain, and is likely to demand some form of decided and earnest resistance. Private armed ves- sels are offering themselves to cooperate with the navy in main- taining sieges and blockades. April 10, 1863. It is thought expedient that the most direct and energetic measures should be adopted to arrest by judicial DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. 93 proceedings the clearance and departure of the hostile vessels which are being built, equipped, and manned in the ports of Great Britain. You will therefore sanction and authorize such prosecu- tions whenever, upon legal advice, it shall seem expedient. This government has heard with surprise and regret that a loan has been made in London to the insurgents, with conditions of security and payment openly hostile to the United States, and it has good reason for assuming that most or all of the moneys thus loaned are paid to British subjects residing in Great Britain for advances in money, labor, arms, military stores and supplies used in the fitting out of those hostile expeditions, in violation of the Queen's proclamation and of the enlistment acts of Great Britain, as well as of treaties and the law of nations. April 13, 1863. You will find the newspaper reports from the west quite confused. The War Department has regular advices, and is confident of ultimate and not long delayed success at Vicksburg. The late reconnoissance at Charleston is regarded by the navy as establishing the invulnerability of the monitors, and, of course, their ability to reduce the land fortifications at that place. The only obstacle now remaining to be overcome is the obstructions in the channel. The attention of the fleet is now engaged upon this point. With reference to his (Earl Russell's) inquiries when the new Congress will come in, and when the present executive administra- tion will go out, it may be proper for you, without directly recurring to them, to let him understand that no Congress and no adminis- tration are likely to come into this capital which shall be less strenuous than the present authorities in favor of the American Union, or less opposed to admitting foreign intervention in the affairs of the American people. It is true that this people, like every other, are moved by debates concerning the measures and policy of those who are conducting their affairs. But when any party betrays a want of devotion to the integrity or to the indepen- dence of the country, it loses the public confidence at once. Had this truth been understood in Europe at the first, much and de- plorable suffering in both countries would have been averted. May 19, 1863. In reviewing the late movement of General Hooker across the Rappahannock, all critics approve of the plan, and admit that it was reasonably expected to be successful. Thus far 94 DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. there is no intelligent agreement upon the cause of the failure. Cer- tainly it was not for the want of men, material, or courage on the part of the army. The War Department will not fail of its duty in reorganizing and renewing this important portion of the campaign. Meantime it is consolatory to know that the losses and damages of the national army, especially when the relative conditions of the two parties are considered, are not disastrous, and that the result seems. to have neither demoralized the troops nor discouraged the country. The intelligence from the valley of the Mississippi continues to be favorable thus far. Large portions of Louisiana and Mississippi have been reclaimed. The recent effective movements of our cavalry arm are giving us a surprise as pleasing and as full of promise as the naval successes with which the campaign of last year was opened. You will not fail to notice the growing confidence of the public in the national finances. The sales of government stocks at par now reach the figure of ten millions weekly. In singular contrast with this improvement of the public credit, it is now discerned that the insurgents are actually driven to the importation of bread for their armies from Europe, through the hazards of the blockade. It is not easy to perceive how a purely agricultural country can long carry on a war when it has to import not only its material of war but its provisions, while it puts its governing population into the armies, and has continually to guard against the desertion or resistance of its laborers. It is obvious that this condition of things is becoming in- tolerable. The best negro laborers are now sold in Georgia at two thousand dollars each, insurrectionary currency-equal, it is sup- posed, to five hundred dollars national currency. Before the war their value was three times greater. I can give you, of course, no special information concerning our internal affairs. We are in the midst of a great campaign. Impor- tant marches and protracted sieges engage the attention of the gov- ernment and of the country. News of the results, sped by the tele- graph, would outstrip anticipations travelling by slower processes. The country, although it exhibits the same mercurial temper which it has maintained throughout the whole war, is, nevertheless, sound in its resolution to suppress a needless and dangerous insurrection ; and the government is performing its painful duty with no abate- ment of energy, and no diminution of confidence. May 24, 1863. — The suspense in which we have been held DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. 95 through a considerable period, filled with tantalizing delays and an- noying though not disastrous disappointments, has been relieved at last by splendid successes obtained by General Banks, and still more brilliant victories won by General Grant, all of which seem to prom- ise most important results. I need not indicate the favorable influence which this change of our military situation will exercise in Europe to you, who know by experience even more trying than my own that the opinions and sympathies of states, not less than those of individuals, concerning any cause, are chiefly determined by the success obtained by those to whom the responsibilities of its defence are confided. June 8, 1863. — You will have already learned of the active operations which have been instituted by General Grant and Gen- eral Banks upon the Mississippi. We are awaiting the results with much anxiety. The tone of the public mind is generally pure, and the confidence of the country in our financial system is perhaps the best possible evidence of the confidence of the people in the ultimate success of the government. June 16, 1863. — The military situation in the southwest remains unchanged. The sieges of Vicksburg and Port Hudson are con- tinued. There has been a change on the line in Virginia. Lee has moved westward from Fredericksburg, and General Hooker's army has, of course, changed position and attitude. But the object of Lee's strategy is not yet developed. June 22, 1863. -- Reports from Vicksburg and Port Hudson state that the sieges of those places still continue. We learn to-day, through the insurgent press, that the Fingal, which, during her long imprisonment at Savannah, had been converted into an iron-clad ship-of-war, was last week captured by two of our iron-clad ships, on her attempting to leave the port and enter upon her work of piracy. I informed you by the last mail that Lee's insurgent army had been put in motion, and that General Hooker had consequently taken a new position with the army of the Potomac. These changes have been attended by much activity of the cavalry of both armies, thus far unfruitful of important results. While due efforts have been made to prepare against surprise upon our part, the enemy's plan of attack has not yet been satisfactorily ascertained. June 29, 1863. — You may not be able to discover the true condi- 96 DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. tion of military affairs through the confusion produced by the cross- lights of the press. Our official information represents the sieges of Port Hudson and Vicksburg as going on successfully. Two of the three corps of the insurgent army, lately encamped on the Rap- pahannock, have forded the upper Potomac, and are in Maryland and Pennsylvania. The position of the third corps is not certainly known. General Hooker has, at his own request, been relieved, and is replaced by General Meade, an officer who enjoys the confidence of the army and of the War Department. He is moving vigorously, and, judging from present appearances, a meeting of the two armies is likely to occur in Pennsylvania, or on the border of Maryland. You will have heard much of cavalry raids, and other subordinate movements of the two armies, but they have thus far been unfruit- ful of any important results. July 6, 1863. — The two opposing armies in Pennsylvania are understood to be about equal in numbers. Seven corps constitute the army of the Potomac, while the insurgent forces are divided in three corps. On Wednesday, the third instant, the two advanced United States corps unexpectedly encountered two of the insurgent corps northwest of Gettysburg, and a severe conflict ensued, which resulted in a withdrawal of our forces to a favorable position in rear of the town, where they threw up defences, and were joined by the other portions of the army during the night and morning. On Thursday, the whole insurgent army, being in line, offered battle, which was accepted. It continued throughout Thursday and Fri- day. It was unquestionably the most sanguinary conflict of the war, and resulted in the withdrawal of the insurgents from the field on the morning of Saturday, the 4th, and the retreat towards the Potomac began on that night, and was continued at the date of the last advices. Our cavalry is harassing the retiring enemy in the rear, while General Meade is operating, with the aid of reinforce- ments, upon the enemy's flank. From Vicksburg we have encouraging despatches of the date of Monday, the 29th of June. I cannot inform you of the movements of General Rosecrans in any other way so well as by giving you his last despatch, which is as follows: "Our movement commenced on the twenty-fourth (24th) June. Have driven Bragg from his intrenched positions at Shelbyville and DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. 97 Tullahoma. Either of them is stronger than Corinth. Have pressed him through the mountains. Incessant rains and the im- passable state of the roads alone prevented us from forcing him to a general battle. Sheridan's division occupied Cowen yesterday at three (3) P. M. The enemy has retreated towards Bridgeport and Chattanooga. Every effort is being made to bring forward supplies and threaten the enemy sufficiently to hold him. As I have already advised you, Tullahoma was evacuated Tuesday night. Our troops pursued him and overtook his train at Elk River. He burned the bridge. In that operation our loss in killed and wounded will not exceed five hundred. The loss of the enemy may be safely put at one thousand killed and wounded, one thousand prisoners, seven pieces of artillery, and five or six hundred tents. The country is filled with deserters from the Tennessee troops, and it is generally thought a very large portion of these troops will never leave their native state. Nothing but most stringent coercion can detain them. It is impossible to convey to you an idea of the continuous rains we have had since the commencement of these operations, or the state of the roads." July 9, 1863. —The steamers of the 4th and 8th have carried to Europe intelligence of the defeat of General Lee in three pitched battles, equalling in the magnitude of forces, and surpassing in sever- ity, the conflicts of Waterloo and Solferino. The defeated army, however, was not destroyed nor captured. A decisive battle is now gathering at Antietam, and information of its result will probably go out with this despatch. The fall of Vicksburg¹ on the 4th of July, undoubtedly to be fol- lowed soon by the fall of Port Hudson, must completely revolution- ize the contest on the Mississippi. Our land and naval forces, re- lieved from the labor of protracted sieges, become a movable power, adequate to the practical restoration of commerce, or, in other words, the Union, through the centre of our territory, from our northern boundary to the Gulf of Mexico. Indications already appear, that the work of internal dissolution is begun in the insurgent confederacy. Practically, it has lost all the states west of the Mississippi, and is confined to the Atlantic states, south of Cape Henry, and the Gulf states. Its capacity to raise new levies and new armies, if not exhausted, is greatly diminished. 1 See speech on fall of Vicksburg, page 485. : 7 98 DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. July 11, 1863.—I have the pleasure of stating that our naval force is steadily and rapidly increasing. The navy has already in actual service forty-four thousand men. New, better, and more effective steamships, iron-clads, as well as others, are coming from the docks; and we do not distrust our ability to defend ourselves in our harbors and on the high seas, even if we must unhappily be pre- cipitated, through injustice in Europe, into a foreign war. The fall of Vicksburg releases a large naval force for effective service, while the free navigation of the Mississippi, now immediately expected, will restore to us our accustomed facilities for foreign conflict. The same great event relieves the army of General Grant, which num- bers one hundred thousand men, from the labors and fatigues of' a siege, and gives us movable columns for uncompleted purposes of the war. The capture of Vicksburg, the occupation of Tullahoma, and the defeat of the insurgents in Pennsylvania, are the achievements of the campaign which was proposed in the last autumn. The army which has performed them is still strong and effective. It will now be reinforced, easily and cheerfully, by the people, with an addition of three hundred thousand men. On the other hand, the insurgents have within the last month sustained an aggregate loss of fifty thousand men, which, I think, it will be very difficult, if not im- possible, to replace, and, without their being replaced, their military strength can hardly be deemed permanently formidable. July 13, 1863.- Europe waited patiently for the end of a siege of eleven months at Sevastopol, and a year for a result of a like op- eration in Mexico. Forty-five days' delay at Vicksburg, and a sim- ilar delay at Port Hudson, have proved too severe an exaction upon the magnanimity of parties in Europe who desire the ruin of the United States. At the moment when I write, the scene in this country has altogether changed. Vicksburg, with all its defenders and material, has fallen, at last, into our possession. Rosecrans has driven the insurgents of Tennessee within the interior lines. The army of the Potomac has retrieved its fortunes and prestige, and the forces of General Lee are understood to be hemmed in between a flood in their front and a victorious army in their rear. Charleston is again under siege of iron-clads. Our army is being renewed by a levy of three hundred thousand men, which will swell the aggregate to eight hundred thousand, while the insurgent resources are manifestly very much diminished. Under these circumstances, the public mind, im- DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. 99 patient of rest, is already agitating the conditions on which peace shall be conceded. While, however, this is the exact condition of affairs in America, we have warnings, apparently authentic, of a pur- pose on the part of the Emperor of the French to employ all his in- fluence to procure a recognition of the insurgents by other powers; and failing in this, to proceed alone in that injurious policy. We hear, also, of a debate upon recognition in the British Parliament, but the steamer which bore the news of the debate did not wait for the decision. Upon this statement of our case, as it is developed here, you will be able to determine for yourself the probabilities of a new foreign complication, and the spirit in which it will be met, if it must come to embarrass us. – July 14, 1863. We have advices from Port Hudson of the 3d of July. The siege was then vigorously maintained, and there is rea- son to believe that reinforcements, if thought necessary, have since been supplied by General Grant. The 8th of July gave us our last intelligence from Vicksburg, and it enables me to correct some of the details of the results of the capitulation contained in my recent telegram. More than twenty-seven thousand (27,000) prisoners had already then been paroled, and the task was not yet completed. There were found in various parts of the city, concealed and other- wise, sixty-six thousand (66,000) stand of small arms, and still new searches discovered new deposits of the same sort. The whole amount of ordnance captured, including siege and sea-coast guns, exceeded two hundred (200). The supply of ammunition surpasses belief. It would have sufficed for six years of defence, if used at the rate that it was consumed during the siege. The military stores, chiefly clothing for soldiers, are estimated at five millions of dollars, insurrectionary currency. General Sherman was in hot pursuit of Johnston's forces. The insurgent army, under Bragg, has been driven out of Ten- nessee into Alabama. Rear-Admiral Dahlgren was expected to assault Morris Island, which is one of the defences of Charleston, on the 9th. Lee's insurgent army has retreated before General Meade, and is now understood to be compactly posted near the fords of the Poto- mac, and wholly lies between the banks of that river and the Union army. Lee's losses in the late battles are believed to have been thirty-three thousand (33,000) men. A solution of the problem of Uor M 100 DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. invasion is expected hourly, and therefore I refrain from conjecture concerning it. There is some popular disturbance at New York arising out of the draft. The journals of that city, going out by to-morrow's steamer, will give you, probably, the full development of the movement. At present it does not seem to be formidable, although the occurrence of it is a subject of much regret. July 20, 1863. The insurgent army, under Lee, is understood to be either stationary or moving in the valley of the Shenandoah. The army of the Potomac, under General Meade, is in Virginia, pre- liminarily occupied in observing the proceedings of the insurgents. The first reports of the battle of Gettysburg appear to have been substantially free from exaggeration. It is not doubtful that Lee suffered a loss of more than thirty thousand (30,000) men. The unconditional surrender of Port Hudson was communicated to you by telegraph. General Sherman's pursuit of Johnston through Jackson, in Mississippi, is reported as having been crowned with im- portant results. But the details are not yet officially confirmed. We hear that the raid of Morgan into Indiana and Ohio is result- ing disastrously to the insurgents. The movements of the national land and naval forces, in approaching Chattanooga, are very vigor- ous, and thus far reasonably successful. The riot in New York developed features which impair, at least for the moment, its political effect. It yielded to the presence rather than to the power of the military force which was promptly gath- ered there by the War Department. There are apprehensions of a renewal of such resistance when the execution of the draft shall be resumed, and a sympathy with the resisters reveals itself in some other cities and towns. It is not easy to discern how far these ap- prehensions are just. I think, however, that by a firm yet prudent course further disturbance will be averted, while the law of Con- gress will be executed and the national authority fully maintained. August 12, 1863. — Whenever the United States have complained of the premature decrees of Great Britain and France, which ac- corded the character of a belligerent to the insurgents, the statesmen of those countries have answered, that from the first they agreed in opinion that the efforts of the government to maintain the Union, and preserve the integrity of the Republic, could not be successful. With a view to correct this prejudgment of so vital a question, I ad- DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. 101 ✔ dressed a circular letter to the representatives of the United States in foreign countries on the 14th day of April, 1862, in which I re- viewed the operations of the war on sea and land, and presented the results which had attended it down to that period. The prejudice which I then attempted to remove still remains, and it constitutes the basis of all that is designedly or undesignedly injurious to this country in the policy of foreign nations. The insurgents have been enabled to protract their resistance by means of sympathy and aid they have received from abroad, and the expectation of further and more effective foreign assistance is now their chief resource. A new effort, therefore, to correct that prejudice is demanded equally by a prudent concern for our foreign relations, and by the paramount in- terests of peace and humanity at home. In the battles of August, 1862, the Union forces suffered some severe and appalling reverses. But they resulted in the reunion of the army which had been called in from the Peninsula, below Rich- mond, with the army which had its position between that strongly fortified seat of the insurrection and this capital. The wisdom of this reunion was soon to be vindicated. The insurgent army, flushed with its recent successes, and expecting that a sympathetic interest of slavery would produce an uprising of the people of Maryland in its favor, for the first time crossed the Potomac River. Harper's Ferry, with many prisoners, fell into its hands, rather through acci- dents in preparing for its defence than because it was indefensible. Nevertheless, the expectation of recruits signally failed. General McClellan, commanding the now consolidated forces of the army of the Potomac, was reinforced by fresh levies from Pennsylvania, and by detachments called in from neighboring forts. He drove the in- surgents from their positions at South Mountain and Crampton's Gap. About the middle of September the two opposing armies con- fronted each other at Sharpsburg, and a pitched battle was fought on the banks of the Antietam and Potomac. It was well sustained on both sides. Men of one race and training directed the armies whose rank and file were substantially of one blood, and even nearly equal in numbers. The arrogant assumption of superior valor and heroism which the insurgents had brought into the contest, and had cherished throughout its early stages, perished on that sanguinary field. The insurgent army, shattered in the conflict, abandoned the invasion of Maryland, and sought refuge and opportunity to recover 102 DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. its wasted strength in Virginia, behind its accustomed barrier, the Potomac. While Lee was thus attempting Maryland, the equally bold and alarming enterprise of carrying the war through Kentucky into Ohio was assigned to Bragg, who was in command of the insurgent army on the southern border of Tennessee. He, with great rapidity, moved from Chattanooga, turning the left flank of General Buell, and, appealing for reinforcements to the slavery-inspired sentiments which existed in Kentucky and Tennessee, directed his forces against Louisville and Cincinnati. An uprising of the farmers of Ohio con- fronted and turned away the devastation from the latter city. Gen- eral Buell followed the main column of invasion, outmarched it on the way to Louisville, and obliged it to take a direction eastward. The two insurgent columns, being united at Perryville, were at- tacked by General Buell. The battle, like all of our contests, was obstinate and bloody. Bragg, after severe losses, retreated through a comparatively barren region, and Buell was obliged to abandon the pursuit by the complete exhaustion of all the sources of supply. The insurgent commander crossed the Cumberland Mountains, and then, marching westward, took up a position at Murfreesboro', for- tified there, and proceeded to recruit his wasted forces. Van Dorn and Price were at the same period in command of very considerable forces in Mississippi and Alabama, and to them was as- signed the third part in the grand invasion of the loyal states which the cabal at Richmond had decreed. This was an attempt, as they called it, to deliver, but in fact to subjugate, western Tennessee and Kentucky. General Rosecrans received the assault of those portions of the insurgent forces at Corinth, defeated them with great slaughter, and drove them backward, so that they neither reached nor approached the region which they were appointed to invade. General Rosecrans, called to succeed General Buell in command of the army of the Cumberland, then entered Nashville, which the in- surgents had before invested in carrying out their general scheme of invasion. He raised the siege, and prepared for offensive action. In the last days of the year he issued from Nashville, and delivered a sanguinary battle at Stone River, which gave him possession of Murfreesboro'. Bragg retreated to Shelbyville and Tullahoma, and there again rested and intrenched. A long period of needed rest was now employed by the respective parties in increasing the DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. 103 strength and efficiency of their armies; but this repose was broken by frequent skirmishes, and by cavalry expeditions, which pene- trated hostile regions, sometimes hundreds of miles, and effected breaches of military connections and a destruction of military stores upon an extensive scale, while they kept up the spirit of the troops, and hardened them for more general and severe conflicts. Vicksburg then remained in the hands of the insurgents, the principal key to the navigation of the Mississippi River- a naviga- tion which was confessed on all sides to be absolutely essential to the United States, and, when reopened by them, fatal to the insurrec- tion. The duty of wresting that key from the insurgents had been devolved on the navy, with the aid of a considerable land force then encamped on the west bank of the Mississippi River. But new and unforeseen difficulties continually baffled the enterprise, and seemed to render it impossible. General Grant, who was at the head of the Department and of the army of the Tennessee, at length as- sumed the active command of the troops investing the stronghold, and these were adequately reinforced. The naval squadron on the Mississippi, under command of Rear-Admiral Porter, was also steadily increased until more than one hundred armed vessels were employed upon the river, including many iron-clad gunboats of great power. Part of the Gulf squadron, under Admiral Farragut, gallantly running the batteries of Port Hudson under a fierce fire, coöperated with the river fleets. Laborious and persevering at- tempts were made to open an artificial channel for the river oppo- site Vicksburg, as had been done with such signal success at Island No. 10. But the various canals projected and executed failed, and only a few small steamers of no considerable power were thus enabled to pass the city. Combined land and naval expeditions were also sent forth, which, with infinite pains and endurance, attempted to turn the enemy's works by navigating the various bayous and sluggish rivers, whose intricate network forms so singular a feature of the military topography of the banks of the Mississippi. All these attempts having failed from physical obstacles found to be insurmountable, General Grant and Admiral Porter at last put afloat armed steamers and steam-transports, which ran through the fires of the long line of shore batteries which the insurgents had erected at Vicksburg, and its chief supports, Warrenton and Grand Gulf. At the same time the land forces moved down the right DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. 104 The bank of the river to a point below Grand Gulf, where they crossed in the steamers which had effected so dangerous a passage. batteries of Grand Gulf for several hours resisted a bombardment by the gunboats at short range, but they fell into the hands of the Admiral as soon as General Grant's forces appeared behind them. General Grant, through a series of brilliant manoeuvres, with marches interrupted by desperate battles day after day, succeeded in dividing and separating the insurgent forces. He then attacked the chief auxiliary column under Johnston and drove it out of Jackson, the capital of Mississippi. Having destroyed the railroad bridges and military stores there, General Grant turned at once to the west. Numerous combats ensued, in all of which the loyal arms were suc- cessful. Loring, with a considerable insurgent force, was driven off towards the southeast, while Pemberton, after a loss of sixty pieces of artillery and many prisoners, regained his shelter within the fortified lines of Vicksburg, with an army now reduced to between thirty thousand and forty thousand men. During those movements the heavy batteries of the insurgents which were established near the mouth of the Yazoo River, and which constituted an important part of the defensive system of Vicksburg, were taken and razed by Rear-Admiral Porter, who thereupon sent a detachment of his fleet up that important tributary of the Mississippi, and effectually destroyed the numerous vessels and stores which were found within and upon its banks. General Grant, during these brilliant opera- tions, had necessarily operated by a movable column. He now re- established his communications with the river fleets above as well as below Vicksburg, invested the town, and, ignorant of the numbers enclosed within its defences, attempted an assault. Though bravely and vigorously made, it was nevertheless unsuccessful. He there- upon sat down before the fortifications, to reduce them by the less bloody, but sure, methods of siege. Pemberton made a gallant defence, hoping for relief from Johnston. Strenuous efforts were made by the chiefs at Richmond to enable Johnston to render that assistance. They detached and sent to him troops from Bragg's army on the frontier of Alabama, and from Beauregard's command in South Carolina, and in doing this they endangered both of those armies. All the capable free men of Mississippi were called to the rescue of the capital of their state, and to save the stronghold of the treasonable confederacy which was besieged within their limits. DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. 105 Moreover, the besieged post was in the very centre of the slave population of that confederacy, and the President's proclamation of freedom would be sounded in their hearing if the stronghold should fall. But the effort required was too great for the demoralized and exhausted condition of the insurgents. Johnston did not arrive to raise the siege, nor did success attend any of the attempts from within to break the skilfully drawn lines of General Grant. On the fourth of July General Pemberton laid down his arms and sur- rendered the post, with thirty thousand men, two hundred pieces of artillery, seventy thousand small arms, and ammunition sufficient for a six years' defence. This capture was as remarkable as the famous one made by Napoleon at Ulm. On the same day an insurgent attack upon General Prentiss, 'at Helena, situated on the right bank of the Mississippi, in the State of Arkansas, was repulsed with the loss of many prisoners on the part of the assailants. As if the anniversary so identified with the nation's hopes was appointed to be peculiarly eventful, Lee, who had again entered Maryland, and passing through that state had approached the Susquehanna, threatening Harrisburg, Pittsburg, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, fell back, after pitched battles con- tinued for three days at Gettysburg, and resumed his retreat, with an army even worse shattered than before, to his accustomed posi- tion on the Rappahannock. On the eighth of July the insurgent garrison at Port Hudson, six thousand strong, after enduring a long siege with the utmost courage, surrendered unconditionally to General Banks; and thus the United States recovered from the insurgents the last of the numerous posts by which for more than two years they had effectu- ally destroyed the navigation of the Mississippi. This great river, which in time of peace contributes relatively as much towards a supply of the increased wants of mankind as the Nile did to those wants in the time of the Roman Empire, is now again opened to the inland commerce of the country. Steamers descend the river and its tributaries from the navigable floods to the Gulf of Mexico. It is not to be doubted that the insurgent losses in these operations. upon the Mississippi amount to fifty thousand men and three hundred pieces of artillery, a large portion of which were of heavy calibre. Johnston's army, which, at the time of the surrender, was advanc- ing to threaten the besiegers, at once fell back to Jackson, and it • 106 DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. was again driven from that capital by a detachment which General Grant had committed to the command of General Sherman. In retiring, Johnston fired many buildings filled with munitions of war, and abandoned a large quantity of railroad locomotives and cars, which had been detained at that place by reason of the rail- roads north, south, east, and west of Jackson having been previously cut by the government forces. General Sherman now desisted from the pursuit of Johnston and returned to Vicksburg, where a portion of the army is enjoying re- pose, not more necessary than well earned, while others are engaged in expelling from the vicinity of the Mississippi roving bands of the insurgents who infest its banks and fire from thence upon passing steamers. It is reported that Johnston, with the troops at his command, now said to be twenty-five thousand, has fallen back to Meridian, on the eastern border of Mississippi, a hundred and twenty miles east of Vicksburg, so that the state, whose misguided people were among the earliest and most intemperate abettors of the insurrection, is virtually abandoned by its military agents. In Louisiana, General Banks succeeded General Butler. After spending some months in organizing the Department and disciplining the new levies which constituted its force, General Banks made a rapid and successful series of marches and contests, in which he drove the insurgent troops out of the Attakapas and Teche regions, well known as the richest portions of that very productive state, captured Alexandria and Donaldsonville, the seats of its fugitive seditious executive and legislative authorities, crossed the Missis- sippi at Bayou Sara, and there receiving an additional column which was ascending from Baton Rouge, invested Port Hudson, which, excluding Vicksburg, was the only remaining stronghold of the insurrection on the great river. It will be remembered that on the 22d day of September, 1862, the President issued a proclamation requiring the insurgents to lay down their arms and return to their allegiance, under the penalty that in all the districts where the insurrection should be still main- tained with the support of the people, he would on the first of January then next proclaim as a military measure the freedom of the slaves. The warning was generally rejected and defied, but the proclamation which it heralded was duly issued. As the national armies advanced into the insurrectionary territories, slaves in con- DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. 107 pro- siderable numbers accepted their freedom and came under the tection of the national flag. Amidst the great prejudice and many embarrassments which attended a measure so new and so divergent from the political habits of the country, freedmen with commenda- ble alacrity enlisted in the Federal army. There was in some quar- ters a painful inquiry about their moral capacity for service. That uncertainty was brought to a sudden end in the siege of Port Hud- son. The newly raised negro regiments exhibited all necessary valor and devotion in the military assaults which were made, with desperate courage, and not without fearful loss, by General Banks. This protracted operation engaged nearly all of General Banks' available forces. While it was going on, insurgent troops which were called up from Texas re-occupied much of the southwestern portion of Louisiana which he had before reclaimed. The surrender of Port Hudson, however, set his army at liberty, and he has already made considerable progress in restoring the national author- ity thus temporarily displaced. The complete occupation of the Mississippi by the national forces has effectually divided the insurrectionary region into two parts; and among the important features of this division, one which is of the highest practical significance is, that the field of military opera- tions of the insurrection is chiefly on the eastern side of the river, while its supplies have been mainly drawn from the prairies of Arkansas and Texas, which stretch away from the western shore. These prairies can no longer supply the insurgents with cattle for sustenance and use in the field, and, on the other hand, arms, ord- nance, and ammunition can no longer be sent from the eastern manufactories and deposits to forces employed or in garrison in the west. The value of the acquisition of the Mississippi in this respect was illustrated only a few days since in the capture by General Grant, near Natchez, of five thousand beeves and two thousand mules which had crossed to the eastern bank, and at the same time many hundred thousands of cartridges and other stores which had just been landed at the western end of the same ferry. A vigorous blockade has been maintained at Charleston; and although fast steamers of light draught, and painted with obscure colors, occasionally succeed in slipping through the blockading squadron in the morning and evening twilight, many are destroyed, and more are captured. An attack by the fleet made on the sev- 108 DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. enth day of April last, upon the forts and batteries which defend the harbor, failed because the rope obstructions in the channel fouled the screws of the iron-clads and compelled them to retire after passing through the fire of the batteries. Those vessels bore the fire of the forts, although some defects of construction were revealed by the injuries they received. The crews passed through an unexampled cannonade with singular impunity. Not one life was lost on board of a monitor. The defects disclosed have been remedied, and an attack is now in progress, with good prospect of ultimate success, having for its object the reduction of the forts in the harbor by combined sea and land forces. We occupy more than half of Morris Island with land forces, which, aided by bat- teries afloat and batteries ashore, are pushing siege works up to Fort Wagner, a strong earthwork which has been twice assaulted with great gallantry, but without success. On the 17th of June the Atlanta, which was regarded by the insurgents as their most. formidable iron-clad vessel, left Savannab, and came down the Wil- mington River. The national iron-clads Weehawken, Captain John Rogers, and Nahant, Commander John Downes, were in readiness to meet her. At four o'clock fifty-four minutes the At- lanta fired a rifle-shot across the stern of the Weehawken, which struck near the Nahant. At 5.15 the Weehawken, at a range of three hundred yards, opened upon the Atlanta, which had then grounded. The Weehawken fired five shots, four of which took effect on the Atlanta. She surrendered at five o'clock and thirty minutes. Our lines have not changed in North Carolina. All attempts of the insurgents to recapture the towns from which they had been expelled had been repulsed. Much damage has been inflicted upon their communications, and valuable military stores have been de- stroyed by expeditions into the interior. North Carolina shows. some symptoms of disaffection towards the insurgent league. Sim- ilar indications are exhibited in Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, and Texas. The situation on the York and James rivers has remained un- changed since the withdrawal of the army of General McClellan from the Peninsula a year ago. Attempts by the insurgents to retake Williamsburg and Suffolk have been defeated, but the garri- son at the latter place has been withdrawn, for purely military reasons, to a more defensible line. DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. 109 I now return to the army of the Potomac, which was left resting and refitting after putting an end to the first insurgent invasion of Maryland. General McClellan recrossed the Potomac and entered Virginia in November, and obliged the invading forces under Lee to fall backward to Gordonsville, south of the Rappahannock. When the army of the Potomac reached Warrenton it was placed under command of General Burnside. He marched to Falmouth, hoping to cross the Rappahannock at Fredericksburg, and to move at once upon Richmond. Delays, resulting from various causes, without fault of the General, permitted the insurgents to occupy the heights of Fredericksburg, and when, at length, in December, Gen- eral Burnside crossed the Rappahannock, his assault upon Lee's well fortified position failed. He skilfully recrossed the river with- out loss. General Hooker succeeded to the command, and it was not until the beginning of May that the condition of the river and roads permitted a renewal of offensive operations. The General crossed the Rappahannock and accepted a battle, which proved equally sanguinary to both parties, and unsuccessful to the army of the Potomac. The heights of Fredericksburg were captured by General Sedgwick's corps, but the whole army was compelled to return to the north bank of the river. After this battle, Lee, in the latter part of May and in June, withdrew his army from General Hooker's front, and ascended the south bank of the Rapidan, towards the sources of the Rappahannock, entered the Shenandoah valley, and once more tempted the fortune of war by invading the loyal states. A severe cavalry engagement at Beverly Ford unmasked this move- ment. The army of the Potomac broke up its camps and marched to the encounter. The militia of Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New York flew to arms, and occupied Baltimore, Harrisburg, and the line of the Susquehanna. The two armies met at Gettysburg, in Pennsylvania, and after a fierce contest of three days' duration, and terrible slaughter on both sides, the insurgents recoiled from the position held by General Meade, who had then been only four days in com- mand of the army of the Potomac. On the 4th of July, the day of the surrender of Vicksburg, Lee retreated, passing through Cham- bersburg and Hagerstown to Williamsport, where the proper dispo- sition to attack him was made by General Meade. Deceived con- cerning the state of the river, supposed to be unfordable, General Meade, hourly expecting reinforcements, delayed the attack a day 110 DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. too long, and the insurgents, partly by fording and partly by float- ing bridges, succeeded in withdrawing across the river by night, with their artillery and a great part of their baggage. Much of this baggage, as well as of the plunder which Lee had collected, was destroyed by cavalry, or thrown out of the wagons to make room for the wounded whom Lee carried off from the battle-field. He had buried most of his dead of the first day's conflict at Gettys- burg. The remainder, together with those who fell on the second and third days of the battle, in all forty-five hundred, were buried by the victorious army. Many thousand insurgents, wounded and captives, fell into the hands of General Meade. It is not doubted that this second unsuccessful invasion cost the insurgents forty thousand men. Our own loss was severe, for the strife was ob- stinate and deadly. General Meade crossed the Potomac. Lee retired again to Gordonsville, where he is now understood to be in front of our forces. While the stirring events which have been related were occur- ring in the east and in the west, General Rosecrans advanced upon Bragg, who, with little fighting, hastily abandoned his fortified positions of Shelbyville and Tullahoma, in southern Tennessee. General Rosecrans took, and yet holds them, while Bragg with severe loss in a hurried retreat has fallen back to Chattanooga. It is understood that his army had been already much weakened by detachments sent from it to reinforce Johnston, with a view to a raising of the siege of Vicksburg. I must not overlook the operations of cavalry. General Stone- man, in connection with the movement upon Chancellorsville, made a rapid and effective passage through the insurgent country, from the Rappahannock to the York River, which will be remembered among the striking achievements of the war. While our forces were operating against Vicksburg and Port Hudson, Colonel Grierson, with a force of fifteen hundred men, left Corinth, on the northern border of the State of Mississippi, and made an expedition, in which he broke military communications, destroyed stores, and effected captures through the length and breadth of the state, and finally, without serious loss, joined the army of General Banks, then en- gaged in the siege of Port Hudson. John Morgan, hitherto the most successful of the insurgent par- tisans, recently passed around the lines of General Burnside, and DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. 111 crossed the States of Tennessee and Kentucky. Moving northward, and avoiding all large bodies of our troops, he reached the Ohio River at Brandenburg, below Louisville, and seized two steamboats, with which he crossed into Indiana. Thence proceeding rapidly eastward, subsisting on the country and impressing horses as his own gave out, he traversed a portion of Indiana and nearly the whole breadth of Ohio, destroying railroad stations and bridges, and plundering the defenceless villages. The people rallied to arms under the calls of their governors. Some of them occupied the most important points, while others barricaded the roads or hung upon the rear of the intruders. Morgan found no disaffected citi- žens to recruit his wasted ranks, and when he reached the Ohio his force was prevented from crossing by the gunboats and driven back- ward with great slaughter. His force was between two thousand five hundred and four thousand horse, with several pieces of artil- lery. Only some three hundred succeeded in recrossing the Ohio and escaping into the wilds of western Virginia. Many perished in battles and skirmishes, and the remainder, including Morgan him- self, his principal officers, and all his artillery, were finally captured by the national forces. An attempt has just been made by the insurgents to invade eastern Kentucky, which probably was begun with a view to make a diversion in favor of Morgan's escape, but the forces, after penetrating as far as Lexington, have been routed by detachments from General Burnside's army and pursued, with the capture of many prisoners and of all their artillery. This review of the campaign shows that no great progress has been made by our arms in the east. The opposing forces there have been too equally matched to allow great advantages to accrue to either party, while the necessity for covering the national capital in all contingencies has constantly restrained our generals and for- bidden such bold and dangerous movements as usually conduct to brilliant military success. In the west, however, the results have been more gratifying. Fifty thousand square miles have been reclaimed from the possession of the insurgents. On referring to the annexed map it will be seen that since the breaking out of the insurrection the government has extended its former sway over and through a region of two hundred thousand square miles, an area as large as Austria or France, or the peninsula of Spain and Portugal. The insurgents lost in the various field and siege operations of 112 DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. the month of July, which I have described, one third of their whole forces. Jefferson Davis, the leader of the sedition, has since proclaimed a levy of all the able-bodied men within his military lines. This, if carried into effect, will exhaust the whole material of which soldiers can be made. The insurgents estimate the total number of con- scripts thus to be gained at from 70,000 to 95,000. Our armies now confront the insurgents at all points with superior numbers. A draft for three hundred thousand more is in progress to replace those whose terms of service have expired, and to fill up the wasted ranks of our veteran regiments, and the people, just so fast as the evidence of the necessity for that measure is received and digested, submit with cheerfulness to the ascertained demands. Our armies everywhere are well equipped, abundantly fed, and supplied with all the means of transportation. The soldiers of two years' service bear themselves as veterans, and show greater steadiness in every conflict. The men, accustomed to the camp, and hardened by exer- cise and experience, make marches which would have been impossi- ble in the beginning of the contest. The nation is becoming familiar with arms, and easily takes on the habits of war. Large voluntary enlistments continually augment our military force. All supplies are abundantly and cheaply purchased within our lines. The country shows no sign of exhaustion of money, material, or men. A requisition for 6,200 re-mount horses was filled, and the animals. despatched from Washington, all in four days. Our loan is pur- chased at par by our own citizens, at the average rate of $1,200,000 daily. Gold sells, in our market, at 123 to 128, while in the insur- rectionary region it commands 1,200 per cent. premium., Every insurgent port is either blockaded, besieged, or occupied by the national forces. The field of the projected confederacy is divided by the Mississippi. All the fortifications on its banks are in our hands, and its flood is patrolled by the Federal fleet. Missouri, Kentucky, Delaware, Maryland all slave states- support the Federal government. Missouri has already in conven- tion ordained the gradual abolition of slavery, to take effect at the expiration of seven years. Four fifths of Tennessee, two thirds of Virginia, the coasts and sounds of North Carolina, half of Missis- sippi and half of Louisiana, with all their large cities, part of Ala- bama and the whole sea-coast of Georgia and South Carolina, and DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. 113 no inconsiderable part of the coast of Florida, are held by the United States. The insurgents, with the slaves whom they yet hold in defiance of the President's proclamation, are now crowded into the central and southern portions of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama, while the pioneer slave- holding insurgents beyond the Mississippi are cut off from the main force. On the other hand, although it is less than six months since the laws or customs of the United States would allow a man of African descent to bear arms in defence of his country, there are now in the field twenty-two thousand regularly enlisted, armed, and equipped soldiers of that class, while fifty regiments of a thousand each are in process of organization, and 62,800 persons of the same class are employed as teamsters, laborers, and camp followers. These facts show that, as the insurrection continues, the unfortu- nate servile population, which was at the beginning an element of its strength, is being transferred to the support of the Union. August 25, 1863. According to Richmond newspapers, Fort Sumter was reduced to a mass of ruins on Saturday, the 22d instant, by the combined land and naval attack of the Union forces. They also state that General Gilmore, having ascertained that by means of his rifled projectiles he could easily bombard Charleston, though at a distance of nearly five miles, had given the customary notice for the withdrawal of the women and children, and it is pre- sumed that the bombardment has taken place accordingly. - August 31, 1863. The siege of Charleston is proceeding with apparent success. The movements of General Rosecrans and Gen- eral Burnside, in their operations with regard to East Tennessee, are as difficult as they are important. Our information from them is satisfactory. The interests of the Union in Texas are not over- looked. You will have already learned that the expectations of the insur- gents which were built on a riot in New York, such as often hap- pens in all great cities, have been disappointed. The reinforcement of the army and the increase of the navy are going on with all rea- sonable success. The riot proceeded upon a false assumption of in- terested persons that the country was wearied and exhausted by this unfortunate civil war. It is now perceived that it is as prosperous and as strong as it has been at any former period of its history. It desires peace, but not immoderately. 8 DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. 114 September 5, 1863. No fortunate military incident has occurred to revive the hopes of the insurgents, while Union sieges and marches have gone on favorably. The insurgents have burned much and lost more of the cotton that they had pledged to Euro- pean creditors, while the price of gold in their currency has risen, within two months, from 1,000 per cent. to 1,600 per cent., which is the last reported rate. The insurgent financiers last winter adopted wheat instead of gold for the standard of values, and fixed that of wheat, if I remember rightly, at five dollars per bushel. It is now reported that the farmer refuses to thresh his wheat, and the government agents are considering whether the power to appro- priate at five dollars does not also include the necessary prelimi- nary power to thresh the grain. You have rightly assumed that the safe occupation of New Or- leans, so long as it is maintained, is sufficient guarantee for the suc- cess of the government. We are, however, not without some concern on that subject; for in the first place we have no clearly reliable assurances that the British government will prevent the departure of the iron rams, which are being prepared in British shipyards for that or some similar purpose. And next, notwithstanding the great energy of the Navy Department, it has not yet brought out the vessels upon which we can confidently rely for adequate defence against such an enterprise. Nevertheless, Mr. Adams is making the best possible efforts with reference to the first point, and our naval means, which certainly are neither small nor inefficient, are rapidly increasing. September 7, 1863. We continue to have favorable reports of our military and naval operations. Fort Sumter has virtually been destroyed, and the besieging officers report that the siege of Charles- ton is going on favorably. General Rosecrans on the right, and General Burnside on the left, have occupied Stevenson, Kingston, and Knoxville, and thus effect- ually broken the chief military connection between the insurgents at Richmond and their Confederate forces in the Gulf states. I need not expatiate on the strategic importance of this movement. The United States forces are advancing successfully towards Little Rock, in Arkansas. A new expedition is ready to proceed from New Orleans to Texas. There is no change in the position of the opposing forces in Vir- ginia. DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. 115 All local resistance of the draft seems at an end, and the United States armies are now being effectually augmented. September 22, 1863. The opening of the campaign is attended with some embarrassments, which, in the excitement of the moment, are likely to be exaggerated. The expedition of General Franklin to Sabine Pass was only one of three designed to reëstablish the na- tional authority in Texas. Its repulse may retard, but it is not thought that it endangers, the success of the plan. Official despatches from the army of the Cumberland have been received of a date so late as two o'clock P. M. of the 21st. They are inexplicit, but the general effect is thought to justify the expectation of our continuing to hold our important positions in Tennessee. September 28, 1863. It seems desirable that you should have a correct view of the present military situation. We feel entirely safe in the occupation of New Orleans and the Mississippi. The forces are marching to occupy Texas. We have a sufficient force in front of this capital, as we suppose, to assure us against aggressive movements of the insurgents in this quarter. We trust that Rosecrans will be safe in Chattanooga until the large reinforcements, which are going to him from three points, shall reach him there. Once at Chattanooga, we think we shall have the principal forces of the insurgents confined and practically harmless. within the circle of Georgia and Alabama. Charleston is not neg- lected. October 20, 1863. Recent domestic military events have no striking importance. Our forces in East Tennessee have made suc- cessful advances. General Rosecrans has remained unmolested while fortifying and being reinforced at Chattanooga. The attempts of the insurgents to break his communications have failed, and they have suffered some disasters. Lee's army having crossed the Rapi- dan, General Meade withdrew to Centreville, where he observes the enemy. The siege of Charleston continues. We have heard favor- able reports from General Banks' movement against Texas. The annual elections have taken place in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Iowa, and the results, compared with those of the previous year, are auspicious to the Union. The President has called for three hundred thousand troops by voluntary enlistment, with the alternative of a draft, and the public sentiment cheerfully sustains the call. 116 DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. – November 9, 1863. The progress of military operations in the several departments is, on the whole, not unsatisfactory. The elec- tions for the year have closed with manifestations of confidence in the government, contrasting strongly with the despondency and distrac- tion which attended the last meeting of Congress. Only one question seemingly agitated the public mind, namely, the principles in regard to slavery on which the Federal authority shall be restored in the in- surgent region. I have already told you that, in the President's opinion, this question is as yet premature, because, as yet, neither of the insurgent states is actually asking restoration. I have now to add that, according to present indications, the question, when it shall arise, is likely to be attended with much less difficulty than is now generally apprehended. It is, perhaps, the most gratifying result of the war for the Union that, wherever its flag advances, convictions of the importance of emancipation meet it. No desire for the resto- ration or the preservation of slavery is manifested by the citizens who adhere or reaccede to the Union. On the other hand, the friends of the Union in the insurrectionary states manifest an une- quivocal determination, even before reorganizing the state govern- ments, to suppress slavery as an institution now proven to be eco- nomically useless and politically dangerous and revolutionary. We are, therefore, likely to find no slavery to contend with, when the war for the Union has come to an end. On the whole, we can now contrast our prospects with those of Europe without dissatis- faction. November 28, 1863. — Desirous to inform you as fully as we are possessed ourselves of the gratifying successes which have crowned the national arms in Georgia, I cannot perform this duty in any other way so effectually as I can by giving you a copy of a graphic report which was received last night from Quartermaster General Meigs, who, being accidentally in attendance upon General Grant's army, was an eye-witness of the great transaction. You will justly expect that this auspicious event will be followed by movements for the restoration of the civil authority in the states which have been heretofore the theatre of the civil war. There are not wanting cheering indications that slavery will be willingly made a sacrifice by the loyal citizens of those states to re- gain and perpetuate the blessings of the Union. December 15, 1863. The brilliant and signal defeat of the in- - DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. 117 surgents, which occurred on the 24th and 25th days of November, in front of Chattanooga, was followed by the rapid movement of rein- forcing columns of the army at that point to the support of General Burnside, at Knoxville. The siege of that town was immediately raised, and thus the great Alleghany ridge, next in military impor- tance only to the great river channel of the west, is effectually re- claimed by the national government. Congress assembled on the 7th instant, and the session was inau- gurated on the 9th by the delivery of the President's annual mes- sage. It was well received by the national legislature, and it seems to be no less satisfactory to the loyal people of the United States. The confidence of our fellow-citizens in the stability of the Union, which has been rapidly reviving since the great victories of July, has been entirely restored by the expositions of our moral, material, and physical resources, which are furnished by the heads of the sev- eral departments. Through what seems a fortunate coincidence, the insurgent chief at Richmond has put forth an explanation of the present state of the rebellion simultaneously with the publication of the message of the President of the United States. It would be difficult, I think, to decide which of the two documents, namely, that message, or the ap- peal of the insurgent leader to his misguided faction, most clearly il- lustrates the absurdity of the attempt to build up an independent state on the foundation of human bondage within the existing bound- aries of this firmly established and compactly organized free Amer- ican republic. European statesmen will doubtlessly collate them. I shall be surprised if that process does not result in producing a universal conviction that the American people are, and must con- tinue henceforth to be, one indivisible nation. - January 7, 1864. At home the question first in practical impor- tance is the renewal of our army, rendered necessary by an early expiration of the first enlistments. The process of renewal is suc- cessful. The second question is that of reorganization in the insurrection- ary states. Not time enough has elapsed to enable us to judge whether the plan suggested by the President will be generally adopted. It meets, however, less opposition than the policy in re- gard to slaves announced in the annual message of 1862-63, and 118 DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. there is reason to hope that if it shall not prove acceptable it will open the way to some other plan that will be at once feasible and satisfactory to the country. Major-General Butler reports that 8,000 citizens of Virginia, within the military district under his command, have already taken the oath of allegiance proposed in the President's recent proclamation. February 1, 1864. - There are some indications of a movement concerted in the insurgent region, and extending into Great Britain, to bring a supposed influence of her Majesty's government or of Parliament to bear upon this government, by some form of media- tion or representation, with a view to obtain concessions or terms for the insurgents as conditions of the abandonment by them of their wicked and unnatural war against the United States. February 1, 1864. - The President does not distrust the friend- ship of the King of Italy. The correspondence between Jefferson Davis and the Holy Father, although it necessarily assumes some significance in Italian and certain other continental circles, pro- duces no effect here. The temper of the people has become too calm and firm to be disturbed by foreign speculations upon our do- mestic affairs. February 4, 1864. Our civil war is exhibiting a new phase! There is manifestly a very general confidence in a speedy success of the Union, and a willingness to make all the material contributions and sacrifices necessary to secure that consummation. On the other hand there are discouragement and alarm, attended by unmistaka- ble financial embarrassments, in the region of the insurrection. The most reliable test of despondency on the part of the insur- gents is the depreciated estimate they now put upon slaves. I have noticed that one hundred and fifty or two hundred dollars of United States currency is the highest price which the most marketable slave commands, either in Virginia or in Georgia. The Richmond. papers declare that board and clothing are a full equivalent for the hire of the best servants in that market. I need not say that this is a confession that slaves as property are absolutely worthless. If this is true, how long can it be before they become an incumbrance and a source of danger? It is specially to be remarked that other prop- erty is not depreciated. Provisions, clothing, and, I believe, even lands retain the market value they had before the war. Is not this an indication that the slave states are already assimilating their economy to that of the free states? . . . DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. 119 February 15, 1864. We are about beginning a new campaign. Enlistments are large, and the popular spirit is loyal and earnest. Proofs come in from all quarters that slavery will be cheerfully sur- rendered to the fate it has provoked. There is no part of the insurrectionary region where a slave's entire valuation to-day exceeds a year's purchase as that property was rated three years ago. Capital, of course, now avoids investment in slaves. When slaves cease to be remunerative as property, they must immediately become an incumbrance; they can no longer be an element of aris- tocratic strength. February 23, 1864.- Military proceedings are satisfactory. The army is already largely renewed. About 200,000 men have been enlisted since the 1st of November, including the reënlistment of 75,000 out of 80,000 whose first term of service will expire in the coming spring and summer. The reoccupation of Florida strikes a severe blow at the insurrec- tion, by cutting off its chief source of meat supplies. General Sher- man's flank movement from the Mississippi across the country towards Atlanta is thus far eminently successful. Admiral Farragut is again active in the Gulf. The navy is increasing. The Dictator will soon try her destined element. The process of reconstruction seems to be going on successfully. The canvass for the presidential election is opening. That elec- tion will probably be the first one held in forty years in which slav- ery will have been held by all parties as incapable and unworthy of political defence. Of course the occurrence of the canvass at this conjuncture is a subject of some anxiety among thoughtful citi- zens, who would desire to confine the public mind to the duties of the war, if it were possible. Nevertheless, this anxiety seems to be rather of a speculative character, and, judging from existing indica- tions, the nation has all the constancy and fidelity necessary to se- cure its passage safely through this new political trial, as it has already surmounted so many others. February 29, 1864. The military situation is gaining interest. The first success of the expedition to Florida has been followed by a painful reverse. Our information is imperfect, but we have rea- sons for hoping that the ground that has been gained in that state will not be lost. It is not doubted that Longstreet is retiring from the position he 120 DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. has held in the front of Knoxville. We are waiting with much inter- est the results of General Sherman's movement in Alabama. Our earliest information concerning him is expected through insurrec- tionary channels. April 4, 1864. We are still expecting that the ships-of-war on which the insurgents are relying will not be suffered to depart from European ports. In the confusion incident to national legislation and to the speedy organization of vast forces, it has happened that superior advan- tages have been unconsciously afforded to military enlistments over enlistments for the naval service. In consequence of this error the navy is now suffering for the want of twelve thousand seamen, while the armies of the United States are filled to the entire sat- isfaction of the government. Measures have, however, been taken. to correct this inequality promptly, and I do not apprehend any inability to maintain our blockade and to restore the national pres- tige on the ocean. You¹ intimate a dissatisfaction with the military operations of the season, and you seem to apprehend a recognition of the insurgents by maritime powers if we shall not be more success- ful. I do not think that this country can again be alarmed by the fear of foreign recognition of the insurgents. We believe that the war has passed the crisis when recognition could guarantee suc- cess to the enemy. Recognition could, therefore, in our view, only enlarge the field of war. At the same time, I am sure that I need not say that we are no less earnestly desirous than we have been, at all times heretofore, to guard against any new complication in our foreign affairs. I think that the discontent with our military operations, which you are experiencing, is the consequence of expec- tations unreasonably excited by the press of the United States. The defeat of General Seymour at Olustee, in Florida, was a sur- prise and was a disaster, but it was no more than that; it drew neither serious consequences nor strategic embarrassments after it. All our armies have been renewing themselves by the reënlistment of veterans, whose terms of service were to expire in the spring, summer, and autumn. With a view to this end, many regiments have received furloughs of thirty days upon their reënlistment, and thus the armies in the field have been temporarily much reduced dur- 1 Mr. Dayton. DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. 121 ing the inclement season, so that necessarily only two great military movements have hitherto been attempted or even meditated. The first of these was a movement of Sherman through central Missis- sippi, from Vicksburg to Meridian, with a view to break up the communications of the enemy, and relieve this government from the necessity of maintaining a large force on the banks of the Missis- sippi River during the coming campaign. Grierson's and Smith's movements were merely diversions auxiliary to, but not indispensa- ble to the success of this purpose; and Admiral Farragut's demon- stration against Mobile was a movement of the same character. Sherman accomplished all that he proposed, and so the one end of all these movements was attained. The Adjutant-General is now placing colored troops in the garrisons on the river, while the veteran forces are proceeding to active duty elsewhere. The other movement which, as I have said, was contemplated in the inclement season, was an expedition up the Red River, to scatter the insur- gents and destroy stores and communications on the west side of the Mississippi, so far as the border of Texas. The movement is now in progress, and thus far has been attended with success. We last heard of the combined land and naval force at Natchitoches, in Louisiana. It is not surprising that the enemy took alarm at these movements, and attributed to our generals designs more stupendous and much more hazardous than those really entertained. Our own press, of course unenlightened, gave license to its imagination, and promised achievements which were not even meditated by our commanders. It is not unlikely that similar expectations may be based upon the reports of the press concerning the campaign which General Grant, who now is in command of all the military forces of the country, is organizing. It will be well, therefore, to be on your guard in this respect. What you may be assured of is, that our forces in the field and fit for duty are, independently of the new conscription, eight hundred thousand men; that they are distrib- uted with a view to hold all the country we have reclaimed, and to bring the insurgents into battle whenever the circumstances are favorable. We do not expect cheap or easy victories, but we look for firm and steady progress. In this view the operations of the present year, although they have disappointed the public, have not been unsatisfactory to the government. It is the insurgents and not we who are the weaker for what has thus been done. 122 DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. I ought not to overlook the important fact disclosed by the elec- tions in Tennessee, Arkansas, and Louisiana, namely, that the population of several of the insurgent states, where it has not already been reclaimed to the Union, has been successfully divided, whereby the insurrectionary armies are continually reduced, and our own considerably augmented. If you study the publications of the day you will learn that free labor is already asserting its ability to produce cotton on the banks of the Mississippi, and upon the sea islands. There is a development of another kind too important to be overlooked. A great number of the people of the insurgent states, wearied of the war, and despairing of the restoration of order and peace there, are emigrating to the western territories. Governor Doty, of Utah, a very intelligent pioneer, estimates the augmenta- tion of the population of the territories, during the present year, at 500,000— equal to one seventieth part of the population of France. It can hardly be necessary for me to point out to your sagacious observation the value of these facts, as showing that every wound which is inflicted on the Union in one part results in our increase of strength in every other part. We need not fear that a political system which is so vigorous will perish. April 11, 1864. - As the season advances, public impatience for military movements arises and utters itself often in terms of discon- tent, which may mislead the friends of our country abroad. The movements of the armies in Louisiana and Arkansas still continue to be reported favorably. Much is said of insurgent raids in Ken- tucky, which are of no particular effect or significancy. If the armies of the Potomac and Cumberland had been prepared to ad- vance, the rains which have fallen and rendered the roads impassa- ble would have arrested progress. You will take notice of an order of Lieutenant-General Grant, which indicates the 16th instant as the day on which the repose of the forces will come to an end. If we may rely upon recent expressions, the country is fast reaching a res- olute and unanimous determination to persevere in the present poli- cy of the government. The election which has just passed in Connecticut indicates an exhaustion of the opposition. The people of Maryland have called a convention to abolish slavery in that state. The Senate of the United States have by a constitutional majority sustained a proposition to amend the Federal Constitution by abolishing slavery. The House of Representatives, which, as you DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. 123 will remember, was elected in the reactionary period of 1862, has, by a very large majority, rebuked and censured a member for remarks favorable to secession. The financial bills are still lingering in Congress. But the dis- position of a large majority is conciliatory, as well as patriotic, and I do not apprehend a failure of the measures which are necessary to sustain the public credit. In regard to the tone of the insurgents I need say only that the desertions of soldiers as well as of citizens continue in such degree as to indicate a waning of popular confidence in the success of the con- spiracy against the Union. April 18, 1864.- Nothing important has occurred here in regard to the position of the war. There are raids, which merely indicate preparations for general operations. A recent raid of the insurgents upon Fort Pillow, as is said, has been marked by atrocities which cannot be contemplated without a shudder. These barbarities assume very grave significance, as showing that the Africo-Ameri- can troops are to be denied by the insurgents when victorious the privilege of quarter. So it seems to be established that slavery claims its independence of civilization to the very last, even while appealing to Christian nations for sympathy and aid. I may say to you very confidentially that it is expected that a general movement of the Union forces east of the Mississippi will begin before I shall have an opportunity to write to you again. April 25, 1864. The season has arrived when we may expect to have our attention engaged by the operations of the military forces. Major-General Banks has encountered a check on his march from Natchitoches. Although we have no detailed report, it is not to be doubted that his advanced corps sustained a severe defeat on the first day, rallied with great vigor on the second, and finally beat the insurgents in a fair field fight, on the third day of the prolonged en- gagement which took place on the 8th, 9th, and 10th of the present month. We do not know the relative losses of the combatants; but we learn very directly that Major-General Banks expects to renew his march upon Shreveport on the 28th instant. An iron ram floated down the Roanoke River, past our fort at Plymouth, and it is understood that supplies and reinforcements are cut off from that outpost. We have some anxiety for the safety of 124 DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. the garrison. We understand that it consists of about 2,000 men. The post has no considerable strategic importance. May 3, 1864.-There has been a high excitement in the money market, producing, of course, some uneasiness in regard to the fiscal condition of the government. This uneasiness has compelled Con- gress to increase customs by fifty per cent., and it is stimulating that body to enact, as speedily as possible, the laws necessary for aug- menting the internal revenue. The country responds cheerfully and quite unanimously to these healthful measures. Advices received yesterday from Major-General Banks and Gen- eral Steele are understood at the War Department as removing all grounds for apprehension for the safety of the forces under their re- spective commands, in Louisiana and Arkansas. It is understood here that their forces were to be put in motion again on the 28th of April last. Advices from North Carolina inform us that the insurgents have withdrawn from that state, and are joining the main rebel army in Virginia. We also learn that the insurgent corps which had been operating against our lines in Alabama and Mississippi are now join- ing the main body in the vicinity of Atlanta, in Georgia. On our side there has been a noiseless but effective gathering of forces at the point, and the common expectation is that a collision may occur at any time. I hardly need say that our military author- ities are satisfied with the position. We have accepted a contribu- tion of 85,000 volunteers for one hundred days from the northwest- ern states, to supply garrisons, and leave the regular forces free for active operations in the field. It is observed with great pain that the insurgents seem to have adopted as a principle the extermination of such of the colored troops as may fall into their hands as prisoners of war. If the anti- slavery sentiment of foreign nations has any sincerity whatever, this atrocious principle cannot fail to be earnestly condemned and exe- crated. May 3, 1864. Your despatch of the 15th of April contains infor- mation particularly new and interesting in regard to the proceedings which have culminated in the departure of the Archduke Maximilian from Trieste, with the intention to establish an imperial monarchy in Mexico. Every thinking observer must be fully satisfied, even without special evidence, that those events had their origin in a con- DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. 125 ! spiracy of Mexicans against the independence and freedom of their own country. Nevertheless it will be fortunate for the future of Mexico, and for the cause of republican government there, if the his- tory you have given me of the details of the conspiracy shall soon become generally known. 1 You have very clearly explained the motives and sentiments which have induced so many of the influential statesmen and au- thorities of Europe to favor the subversion of the Mexican Repub- lic. All these motives and sentiments resolve themselves into a jealousy of the advancement of the United States. Their great prosperity and progress have necessarily provoked this political an- tagonism. You very justly lament the pertinacity with which the American people continue their suicidal division in presence of the apparent overthrow of their influence in Mexico, but it is the same. blindness of faction which led us into the civil war. Only time and events can cure it, and these we may well believe are doing their work. No appeal to the reason or to the patriotism of the insur- gents is heard so long as they entertain hopes of success in their des- perate enterprise. The loyal people of the United States seem to have no need for new or increased devotion to the national cause. At all events, considerations of foreign and remote dangers can scarcely be expected to gain serious attention, when the immediate domestic perils of the conflict absorb the popular mind. I know no other way for us than to contemplate the situation calmly, do our whole duty faithfully, meet every emergency as it rises, with pru- dence, firmness, and force, if necessary, and trust in God for a safe issue of the contest. May 9, 1864.-Successive reports leave us no longer grounds for doubting that the combined land and naval expedition against Shreve- port has failed, not without very serious sacrifices of men and mate- rial, although, we yet hope, without the loss of any of the cardinal strategic positions, and without demoralization of the forces in Arkansas and Louisiana. Major-General Canby has been des patched to the field to do what may be found necessary for the safety of the cause west of the Mississippi. Some unimportant incidents have occurred on and near the banks of that river, but all is believed to be well in that quarter. During the last week there has been a general advance of our 1 Mr. Adams. 126 DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. forces against the insurgents on the long line which extends from Chattanooga to the Potomac, and this movement is yet in progress. No accurate or full accounts of it have reached the government, and the partial statements which you will read in the journals of this date, Monday, May 9, are not in all respects reliable. Possibly the telegraph will enable the press at Boston to give, before the depart- ure of the mail, more definite information than has been hitherto received. What has happened, so far as is known to the govern- ment, is, that on Wednesday morning, the 4th instant, the army of the Potomac, numbering about 100,000, crossed the Rapidan at three fords, and advanced to a line stretching through the Wilderness. from Germania ford to Chancellorsville. The several corps had not. fully completed their line of battle on Thursday morning, when they were vigorously assailed between the left and centre. A severe but indecisive battle occurred. It was renewed on Friday; a reserve force of 30,000 men, under Major-General Burnside, reached the field and was engaged at noon. The entire insurgent army, under Lee, Hill, and Longstreet, was encountered in a conflict which lasted from morning until night, with vicissitudes, several times, so unfortunate for our forces as to excite serious apprehension, but end- ing in the withdrawal of the enemy from the attack, leaving the army of the Potomac in possession of its ground. The nature of the field forbade the use of artillery. Our losses are reported at twelve thousand; the enemy's not mentioned. I am disposed to think it was one of the most severe and critical battles of the whole war. There was skirmishing on Saturday and bearers of despatches report that they heard heavy cannonading yesterday. We have accounts directly from the field written on Saturday evening and yesterday, Sunday morning, but they are not official. They state that our army still hold their position, and that it is understood there that the enemy are retiring, as if satisfied that they cannot longer resist our advance. General Sigel has been advancing up the valley of the Shenan- doah, and is in position, if required, to cross the mountains and join the army of the Potomac. General Butler has landed at a point on the James River just above the mouth of the Appomattox, thirty miles below Richmond and ten miles above Petersburg. He has broken up a portion of the railroad which connects those two places, but not without some fight- ་ DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. 127 ing. General Sherman advanced on the 4th with a large army from Chattanooga. Advices coming directly from him on Saturday, at four o'clock, say that he was then in Tunnel Hill, with the enemy before him at Buzzard's Roost Point, above Dalton, and that Mc- Pherson, with an auxiliary force, was operating against the connec- tion between Atlanta and Dalton, by movements to Villanow, through Resaca. What we do not hear is perhaps more encouraging than the in- formation which actually reaches us. Neither General Grant, nor General Butler, nor General Sherman, makes the least sign of dis- couragement or apprehension, or demands reinforcement, but they leave us to infer that they are able, and are determined to persevere in the campaign as at first designed. May 16, 1864. We receive advices of laborious and heroic ef forts made by our land and naval commanders in Louisiana to save their forces and material in that state and in Arkansas, and to re- store the prestige of the government in the region west of the Mis- sissippi. Major-General Canby has been very vigorous and success- ful in sending reinforcements to Generals Banks and Steele from the shores of the Mississippi, and it is presumed that the new commander will very soon reach the field in person. It is not true, as repre- sented in rebel journals, that General Steele surrendered his army at Camden to Richard Taylor on the 27th ultimo. General Steele's aid has arrived here, having left the General with his command safe at Little Rock on his return from Camden. Major-General Sherman seems to have inaugurated his new cam- paign in Georgia with his usual sagacity and diligence. He has brought General Schofield down from Knoxville through Cleveland, and upon the flank of the enemy at Dalton, while Sherman moved against him in front from Ringgold, over Tunnel Hill, and General McPherson struck at Resaca at the enemy's communications with his base at Atlanta. Thus assailed, Johnston abandoned Dalton, and was then pressed in flank and rear by Sherman and Schofield until Saturday, the 14th, when a severe engagement took place in front of Resaca. General Sherman took eight guns and one thousand prisoners, and Johnston retreated southward from Resaca. Sherman is pressing upon him and expecting confidently to take Rome. The three days' sanguinary battles between the army of the Po- tomac and the insurgent forces in the old Wilderness closed on 128 DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. Friday, the 6th instant. During the night of that day Lee left his position and retired southward towards Spotsylvania Court-House. General Grant advanced. He brought the enemy again into battle. on Sunday morning, the 8th, drove him out of his intrenchments, and forced him across the Po. Here the enemy again threw up for- tifications. On Monday, General Grant, against very obstinate resistance, and not without considerable loss, marched across the Po and formed in line of battle. On Tuesday, the 10th, the rebels accepted cheerfully the challenge, and made several vigorous assaults upon our positions, but they were repelled. Our lines were main- tained and portions of the enemy's lines of defence were wrested from him. It seems to myself like exaggeration when I find that in describing conflict after conflict in this energetic campaign, I am re- quired always to say of the last one that it was the severest battle of the war. Six thousand of our men were placed hors du combat in this battle of the 10th of May. Wednesday, the 11th, was spent in skirmishing. Thursday, the 12th, brought a new and severe con- flict, with results encouraging to the Union arms. A division, a brigade, and a regiment were captured, with forty guns. At eight o'clock on the night of that day General Grant sent a despatch to the War Department, in which he modestly expressed himself, con- cerning the state of the campaign, in these words: "We have now ended the eighth day of very heavy fighting. The result to this time is much in our favor. Our losses have been heavy, as well as those of the enemy. I think the loss of the enemy must be greater. We have taken over five thousand prisoners, while he has taken from us but few, except stragglers." The battle was continued on Friday, the 13th, with decided advantage to the Union army. On the morning of the 14th it was ascertained that Lee had again retired. Yesterday morning, the 16th, General Grant reports from the army that there had been continual rains for five days; roads had become impassable, even so that ambulances can no longer make their way with their wounded from the battle-fields to the hospitals at Fredericksburg. General Grant waits for twenty-four hours of dry weather, when he will advance. The enemy last night were in position across the direct road which leads from Fredericksburg to Richmond, and our army is confronting them. The Lieutenant-General writes cheerfully, hope- fully, even to the tone of confidence. We have now nine thousand DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. 129 prisoners in our hands, captured in these battles, including four hundred officers. Major-General Butler has been very active and successful in in- tercepting Lee's expected reinforcements below Richmond. He has destroyed the insurgent railroad communications between Weldon. and Richmond and between Petersburg and Richmond; and at the date of our last advices had threatened Fort Darling, which protects the river approach to that place against our iron-clads. They have made five successive sorties, sometimes at night, other times by day, and have been as often repulsed. Their iron-clads have come down from Richmond and been driven back by our fleet. General Butler writes in fine spirits. During the last week Major-General Sheridan made an expedi- tion with 13,000 cavalry in the interior of Virginia, surrounded the insurgent army, destroyed the insurgent railroad communications. and telegraph communications through the Virginia Central, and Orange and Alexandria railroads, with an immense quantity of mili tary stores, and finally crossing the peninsula joined Major-General Butler below Richmond on the James River on Saturday last. General Averill, sent by Major-General Sigel through the valley and across the mountains, has destroyed the rebel communication by the Virginia and Tennessee railroad at New Creek, and thus Lee is supposed to be cut off from supplies and reinforcements by railroad, except on the circuitous route of the railroad passing from Richmond through Danville to Raleigh. On the other hand, we are rapidly sending forward no inconsid- erable reinforcements to General Grant, and are thus supplying the dreadful waste which the army of the Potomac has suffered in conflicts which they have waged, not only with the greatest heroism, but also with compensating advantage to the national cause. The reinforce- ments already sent amount to 30,000 men. May 21, 1864. — For several weeks we have been suffering pain- ful apprehensions lest by means of the subsiding of the waters in the Red River we might be obliged not merely to forego the effort to maintain our position on its banks, but even to leave our iron- clad fleet to be destroyed, or to fall into the hands of the insurgents. We have just now been relieved from these fears. An artificial rise of the river at the rapids above Alexandria was effected, and the fleet has safely descended to the Mississippi. The expedition of 9 • 130 DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. Major-General Banks has failed, but the failure is believed not to have materially impaired our own strength, or given to the insur- gents any new advantage. The return of the fleet and the land forces to the Mississippi reassures our control of the navigation of that great river. We hear from Major-General Sherman, who has taken Rome, and is at Kingston, that having there repaired the waste of his army, and renewed his supplies, he would move to-day, and resume his march upon Atlanta, with an army of 80,000 effective men. Lieutenant-General Grant had severe conflicts during the last week, by way of manoeuvre and reconnoissance. On Friday night the insurgents withdrew from their strongly intrenched position at Spottsylvania Court-House, retreating, as is supposed, across the North Anna River. The army of the Potomac was already on its advance, which of course was continued; and thus far there has been no serious conflict. Our position is now at Milford station, on the railroad from Fredericksburg to Richmond, and along the south side of the Mattapony River. Rappahannock station was used as our depot for supplies at the beginning of the advance. Since the battles of the Wilderness we have used Fredericksburg. To-day we change our station from that place to Port Royal, on the Rappahannock. Major-General Butler has had some severe conflicts with the enemy, but he still holds his position on the south bank of the James, and to the extent that he succeeds in detaining the enemy's force in his front, he contributes to the success of the main army of the Potomac in its advance upon Richmond. If we may rely upon the official reports of the operations of cavalry which reach us, the enemy's connections are broken up beyond his ability to restore them before the event of the campaign must be determined. General Sigel with a portion of his forces was defeated on the Shenandoah, but the loss incurred has been fully compensated by the successful operations of General Crook in another portion of western Virginia. Congress is maturing the tax bill with great care, and I think in a form that will be effective to sustain the national credit. The bank bill is still a subject of serious debate, but it will ultimately assume a satisfactory shape. The importations are enormous, and the shipment of gold is increased by the high rates of interest · DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. 131 adopted by the banks of England and France. Nevertheless, the government stocks are well sustained, and the new loan bearing five per cent. interest is taken up at the rate of four or five millions a week. The flood of immigration is on the increase. Ultimately the na- tion cannot fail to be the gainer that sends out its gold and receives in exchange free men from foreign countries to extract the metals from its mines, and to expand cultivation over newly reclaimed territories. May 31, 1864. Major-General Canby is vigorously reorganiz- ing the forces west of the Mississippi, with a view to new operations. Major-General Sherman, finding the insurgents under Johnston strongly fortified at Altoona, made a detour to the right with a design to pass that place. Johnston went out and met General Sherman near Dallas, and was driven back with very severe loss to the insurgents, and without effectually checking Sherman's advance. He proposes to reach the railroad again between Altoona and Atlanta. General Lee, on retiring from Spottsylvania, took up and forti- fied a very advantageous position near Hanover Junction, south of the North Anna, and General Grant thereupon again cast away his base, which was then at Port Royal, on the Rappahannock, and finding a passage east of Lee's new position, threw his whole forces across the Pamunkey River near Hanover town, and when last. heard from the army stood in order of battle, three miles south of the last named river, which is a tributary of the York River. This new position was gained with no other conflict than a successful cavalry engagement. At that place he has been joined by the portion of the command of General Butler which could be spared without exposing the position we have hitherto held at Bermuda Hundred, on the James River between Petersburg and Richmond. This reinforcement from Butler's army was effected by means of steam navigation down the James and up the York and Pamunkey rivers. Thus all the contending forces are within a circuit of twenty miles around Richmond. Major-General Hunter has succeeded General Sigel in command of the auxiliary forces, whose field of operation is in the Shenan- doah valley and western Virginia. Movements are in progress there which, if successful, will materially aid the operations of the Lieutenant-General before Richmond. I have heretofore mentioned the reinforcements which were sent to him. These reinforcements 132 DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. have been augmented. All the wounded, all the prisoners, and all the unnecessary impedimenta of the army of the Potomac, have been sent away by General Grant. The passing week may be ex- pected to be filled with important events. June 6, 1864. The result of the operations of the last week is that, in the west, General Canby has gathered in and so disposed of the forces which constituted General Banks' expeditionary force as to secure important strategic points, and prepare an aggressive movement of considerable importance. General Sherman writes us yesterday afternoon, from the vicinity of Dallas, as follows: that "the enemy, discovering us moving round his right flank, abandoned his position last night and marched off. McPherson is moving to-day for Ackworth, Thomas on the direct Marietta road, and Schofield on his right. It has been raining hard for three days, and the roads are heavy. An exami- nation of the enemy's abandoned line of works here shows an im- mense line of works, which I have turned with less loss to ourselves than we have inflicted upon them." There has been much manoeuvring by the armies in front of Richmond, attended with battles in which we have lost seven thou- sand five hundred men, and inflicted equal injury upon the enemy. General Grant's headquarters are at Cold Harbor. His line stretches from Bethesda church, on the Tolopotomy, to Cold Har- bor. Assaults are made, first by the one party and then by the other, thus far always leaving our line unbroken and perhaps a little advanced, while the enemy, though repulsed in all their at- tacks, yet retain the exterior line of their defences of Richmond. The communications of General Grant with his new base on the Pamunkey are perfect. Abundant supplies are conveyed to him, with reinforcements equal to the great waste which unavoidably occurs in the army of the Potomac. The obstinacy exhibited by the two parties has not been surpassed in the whole course of the war. We have, as yet, no advices of the movement recently instituted in the valley of the Shenandoah. Congress has passed the currency bill, and thus disposed of — I think in a manner which will be satisfactory - the very trouble- some conflict between the new national banking system and the old one of state banks. DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. 133 June 14, 1864. We receive mingled news of successes and reverses in desultory military movements beyond the Mississippi, but nothing has occurred there to change the attitude we held at the date of my last review of the campaign. John Morgan, with what was practically a guerilla mounted band, lately passed over the border from Virginia into Kentucky and committed some depredations in the interior of that state, of no great significance. He was hotly pursued from the start by Gen- eral Burbridge, and was finally defeated near Cynthiana, with the dispersion of his forces. General Hunter, with his flying column, met and defeated the enemy in a pitched battle at Piedmont, and then seized and occu- pied Staunton, in the valley of Virginia. He made important captures there of prisoners, arms, ordnance, and military stores. At the date of our last advices he had effected a union of the forces under his immediate command with the detachments under com- mand of General Crook and General Averill, who have very thor- oughly broken up the chief military communications of the enemy in that part of the country. We learn that on the one hand Gen- eral Sheridan, with a considerable cavalry force, has gone out to meet and strengthen General Hunter, while Breckenridge, with some insurgent levies, has gone to resist Hunter's attempt to effect a junction with the army of the Potomac in front of Richmond. The very severe but heroic battle which was fought on the 3d of June at Cold Harbor resulted in satisfying Lieutenant-General Grant that Richmond could not be entered directly from that point without unnecessary waste of military power; he therefore immedi- ately began his preparations to seize a new and better position, and at the same time effect a junction with the forces yet remaining under command of Major-General Butler on the south bank of the James River. The movement began on the evening of the 12th, and we are now anxiously waiting for information of the result. - June 20, 1864. No significant military event has occurred in the region beyond the Mississippi since my last notice of the cam- paign. A considerable force which was sent out by General Wash- burn, under command of General Sturgis, encountered the insur- gents, led by Forrest, and was repulsed and routed. This reverse excited apprehensions here for the safety of General Sherman's com- munications. Later information assures us that, although the de- 134 DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. feat of Sturgis was complete, yet the losses were greatly exagger- ated. General Sherman, on hearing of it, promptly assured us that he had taken adequate measures to guard against any serious em- barrassments which might otherwise result from that unfortunate occurrence. During the last week we were kept well apprised by General Sherman of his own position, and the uncertain attitude of his opponent, Johnston. Last night General Sherman announced that Johnston had again retreated, and that our whole army are pursuing the insurgents as far as the Chattahoochee River, where we understand Johnston will probably make a new stand for the defence of Atlanta. We have heard from General Hunter's flying column only through the insurgent papers at Petersburg and Rich- mond. From these reports we infer that he is still operating, either against Charlottesville or against Lynchburg. The insurgents claim to have defeated Sheridan's cavalry on the Virginia and Tennessee railroad, near Gordonsville, with severe loss, but this is erroneous; he obtained a victory, with substantial fruits, in the engagement in which he is reported to have been beaten. But afterwards, on ar- riving at Gordonsville, he found that place too well defended by an infantry force to be carried by assault; he therefore retired, and when he was last heard from was at West Point, on the York River, it is supposed in communication with General Grant. You will read in the newspapers Lieutenant-General Grant's modest but clear account of his success in transferring the army of the Poto- mac, without any loss, from its position in front and within fifty yards of the enemy on the north bank of the Chickahominy, across that river, and also across the James River, to the south bank of the James, below Petersburg, at the same time reinforcing General But- ler at Bermuda Hundred. The movement, as I before wrote you, began on the evening of the 12th instant, and was entirely com- pleted on the 15th. Immediately upon obtaining his new position, Lieutenant-General Grant began a series of assaults against Peters- burg. The place was found strongly defended. Some of the outer intrenchments have been carried, with a considerable capture of prisoners and guns, and these defences are still held; yet the enemy has not been displaced from Petersburg. It is understood that Lee has strongly reinforced Beauregard, who defends Petersburg, and that he has recovered the railroad which connects that place with Richmond, and which at one time fell into the hands of General DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. 135 Butler. Some of the prisoners state that they have just arrived from Tennessee, and this fact implies that Lee has been reinforced from Johnston's army; but the evidences of it are not conclusive. I do not know that I could say more to render the military situation intelligible; but, in view of the discredit with which all accounts of our operations are met in Europe, I may not improperly add that our commanding generals, and all our military authorities, regard the progress which the armies have made with satisfaction. June 28, 1864. - Lieutenant-General Grant having, as it is be- lieved, safely and firmly established himself before Petersburg, and having made all prudent attempts to carry the town by assault, his operations there have now become simply strategic. He has already destroyed all the railroad and river communications of Petersburg and Richmond. It is not true that General Hunter has been de- feated; on the contrary, it is satisfactorily known that his opera- tions have been successful. We have news from Major-General Sherman that he met a repulse, with a loss of three or four thousand men, in a general assault yesterday upon the enemy's line in the Keewan Mountains. Perhaps I could in no better way relieve you of any apprehen- sions concerning the safety of our two great armies than by stating the fact that, notwithstanding the vicissitudes of battle, not only are our supplies and material regularly furnished to both armies in their advanced positions, but the headquarters of each are in direct and immediate telegraphic communication with this capital. July 4, 1864. — After a session of seven months Congress will ad- journ at noon to-day. It has in the main responded to the calls of the President for men and money to continue operations indispensa ble to suppress the insurrection. Theoretically, larger revenues ought to have been levied than those which Congress has imposed ; but, practically, those revenues are expected to satisfy the conditions upon which the public credit can be permanently established. The debates have been as loyal and harmonious as could reasonably have been expected in the legislative assembly of a confederate republic, in a great civil war. Congress has not confined itself to military measures. It has provided for carrying on the work upon the Capi- tol and other public buildings, for establishing steam mail commu- nications with Brazil, for encouraging immigration, for prosecuting the construction of the inter-oceanic continental railroad, and has 136 DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. given its sanction to the preparation for building an inter-continental or world's telegraph line across Behring Straits in connection with Great Britain and Russia. General Sherman surprised us yesterday with the agreeable infor- mation that he has flanked the insurgent forces on Kenesaw Moun- tain, and advanced to Marietta on the way towards Atlanta. During the last week, Lieutenant-General Grant's operations upon the communications of the insurgent army now at Petersburg and Richmond have been eminently successful. I am desirous, in my correspondence, to give you only facts, not anticipations. • You will read in the papers of a rebel raid at Martinsburg, threat- ening the Baltimore and Ohio railroad. The movement is not fully developed, but no serious embarrassment to our operations is appre- hended from it. So, also, you will see accounts of insurgent movements on the Mississippi and Red rivers. I am satisfied that our military author- ities have in hand counter operations which promise us the needful security for Sherman's base on the Mississippi. Upon a careful review of the whole field, the prospects of this great campaign are regarded as auspicious. July 8, 1864. We are informed of the destruction of the pirate ship Alabama by the Kearsarge in an engagement off Cherbourg on the 19th June last. This event has given great satisfaction to the government, and it appreciates and commends the bravery and skill displayed by Captain Winslow and the officers and crew under his command. Several incidents of the transaction seem to demand immediate attention. The first is, that this government disapproves the proceeding of Captain Winslow in paroling and discharging the pirates who fell into his hands in that brilliant naval engagement, and in order to guard against injurious inferences which might result from that error if it were overlooked, you are instructed to make the fact of this disapprobation and censure known to her Maj- esty's government, and to state at the same time that this govern- ment, adhering to declarations heretofore made, does not recognize the Alabama as a ship-of-war of a lawful belligerent power. Secondly, the presence and the proceedings of a British yacht, the Deerhound, at the battle, require explanation. On reading the statements which have reached this government, it seems impossible DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. 137 to doubt that the Deerhound went out to the place of conflict by concert and arrangement with the commander of the Alabama, and with at least a conditional purpose of rendering her aid and assist- ance. She did effectually render such aid by rescuing the commander of the Alabama and a portion of his crew from the pursuit of the Kearsarge, and by furtively and clandestinely conveying them to Southampton, within British jurisdiction. We learn from Paris that the intervention of the Deerhound occurred after the Alabama had actually surrendered. The proceeding of the Deerhound, there- fore, seems to have been directly hostile to the United States. Statements of the owner of the Deerhound are reported here, to the effect that he was requested by Captain Winslow to rescue the drowning survivors of the battle, but no official confirmation of this statement is found in the reports of Captain Winslow. Even if he did make such a request, the owner of the Deerhound subsequently abused the right of interference by secreting the rescued pirates and carrying them away beyond the pursuit of the Kearsarge. More- over, we are informed from Paris that the Deerhound before going out received from Semmes, and that she subsequently conveyed away to England, a deposit of money and other valuables of which Semmes in his long piratical career had despoiled numerous Ameri- can merchantmen. The Deerhound is understood to belong to the royal yacht associa- tion, with certain naval privileges conferred by law, and recognized as belonging to the naval force of Great Britain. Her proceedings are therefore regarded with the more concern, since they have a semi-official character. Again, it is observed that, so far as can be discovered, the crew of the pirate, excepting two traitorous officers from the United States, were chiefly British subjects, and all of them had been enlisted for the Alabama in British ports. All of them have been periodically paid their wages, nearly two years, by other British subjects, resid- ing and keeping an office openly in the British port of Liverpool. It is further represented upon British authority, very manifestly hostile to the United States, that the surgeon of the Alabama who was lost in the vessel was a British subject. It is stated on like authority that Semmes, the pirate commander, has openly avowed at Southampton, as if it were to the honor and renown of the British nation, that the best gunners of the Alabama had been trained in a British govern- 138 DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. mental school of artillery. It is related on the like authority that the same Semmes has avowed, manifestly to the satisfaction of a considerable portion of the British public, that the pirate crew who escaped would continue to receive wages in England, and would remain there in his unlawful service until he should, in August next, take to the sea again in a new Alabama, understood to be forth- coming from a British port. Once more, it is stated that the wounded pirates were received at once and cared for in a national British naval hospital, in or near to Southampton. While these occurrences were happening in England, the escaped commander of the Alabama is said to have been the object of hospi- talities and demonstrations from British subjects in Southampton, which could have been reasonably bestowed only upon the supposition that, in robbing or burning or sinking American merchantmen on the high seas, in all quarters of the globe, and finally in engaging the Kearsarge off the port of Cherbourg, he was acting with the implied consent and in the interest of Great Britain as an enemy of the United States. This government experiences much pain in reviewing these extraordinary incidents of the late naval engage- ment. The President earnestly desires, not only a continuance of peace, but also to preserve our long existing friendship with Great Britain. He is, therefore, indisposed to complain of injuries on the part of British subjects whenever he can refrain consistently with the safety, honor, and dignity of the United States. In this spirit we are ready, as we are desirous, to learn that many of the state- ments to which I have referred are erroneous. But when we have made considerable allowances in that way, there yet remain very large grounds for representation on our part to her Majesty's gov- ernment. I desire, however, to be understood as speaking with sincerity and frankness when I say, that this government does not for a moment believe that any of the proceedings which I have related were adopted under any orders or directions, or with any knowledge, on the part of her Britannic Majesty's government. On the contrary, I have to declare, without reservation, my belief that the proceedings herein recited of the pirate Semmes and of the yacht Deerhound, and of the British subjects who have sympathized with and unlaw- fully aided and abetted the pirates, are the unauthorized acts of DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. 139 individuals, and that those proceedings will be regretted and disap- proved by her Majesty's government. The President will expect you¹to carefully gather information, to weigh it well, and then to make a proper representation to her Majesty's government upon the whole subject I have thus pre- sented. The Secretary of the Navy will give special instructions to Captain Winslow to answer your inquiries. Unless the cases shall be materially modified by the result of your inquiries, you will be expected to say, in the first place, that the incidents I have related, if unexplained, seem to confirm the sound- ness of the opinion heretofore held and insisted upon by this govern- ment, that the Alabama is justly to be regarded as a vessel fitted out by British subjects, engaged in making unlawful war against the United States. Secondly, this government is of opinion that Semmes and his confederates having been rescued by unlawful intervention of the Deerhound, and conveyed within the jurisdiction of Great Britain, they ought to be delivered up to the United States. Thirdly, it will be your duty to remonstrate against the conduct of any British authorities or subjects who may be engaged in fur- nishing supplies or paying wages to the escaped pirates of the Alabama, and to ask for their conviction and punishment. Fourthly, the occasion will warrant you in asking her Majesty's government, with earnestness, to adopt such measures as shall be found necessary to prevent the preparation, equipment, and outfit of any further hostile naval expedition from British shores to make war against the United States. If, however, you find the facts estab- lished by your inquiries to differ materially from the statements thereof, herein assumed to be true, you will be at liberty to modify your representations accordingly; or if you prefer you will report the result of your inquiries and apply to this government for further and specific instructions. July 12, 1864. The insurgent movement in the Shenandoah valley, which I mentioned in a late despatch, developed at the close of last week. A column, reported at 30,000 or 40,000, under Breck- inridge, passed the Potomac fords above Harper's Ferry, crossed the South Mountain, and entered Frederick, in Maryland, Saturday, the 9th instant. Major-General Wallace, with about 7,000 men, hastily 1 Mr. Adams. 140 DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. drawn from Baltimore, met the whole or a considerable portion of the enemy's force at the bridge at Monocacy, which opens the way equally to Washington and Baltimore. A deadly conflict was maintained from nine in the morning to five in the afternoon. Our forces, over- powered by double their number, gave way and retreated to Ellicott's Mills. Insurgent cavalry on Sunday spread themselves over a portion of Maryland, extending from the Gunpowder Creek, on the north, to the border of this city on the south, and from the Potomac eastward, approaching the Washington branch of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad, threatened Baltimore and Washington. They captured and destroyed a train of cars on the railroad at Gunpowder Creek, and broke the telegraph line at that point. The main column is believed to have been moving across the country from the bank of the Potomac near Rockville, towards Bladensburg, at a distance of per- haps eight miles north of this city. The enemy's cavalry approached and skirmished with our cavalry and pickets immediately in front of our north line of fortifications, which extends from the west branch of the Potomac to Bladensburg, on the east branch. The enemy's column is understood to be about 20,000. Arrangements have been made for the defence of Baltimore. But this morning it is reported that there is no considerable force in the vicinity of that place. Vigorous measures have been taken to improve the defences of Washington, and every hour increases our strength. It is supposed now that the force of the enemy has not yet effected a concentration. Last night passed off without an assault, and this morning telegraph- ic communication between Washington and the north is completely restored. Our communication with General Grant at Petersburg has not been interrupted. The railroad between Baltimore and Philadelphia will be speedily repaired. In the mean time communi- cation is carried on between Baltimore and Philadelphia through the canal which connects with the Delaware. General Hunter is at Martinsburg, but not yet in communication by telegraph. General Grant still persists in his siege of Petersburg and Richmond. Gen- eral Sherman has crossed the Chattahoochee, and there are indica- tions that the enemy will retire from Atlanta. July 14, 1864.—I sympathize with you¹ as the whole American people do, in the grief and sorrow which you express on the occa- 1 Mr Motley. DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. 141 sion of the death of General Wadsworth. He was an eminent type of the sublime virtue which is saving and regenerating the Repub- lic. There is scarcely a family in the country which has not been bereaved, and you may therefore be sure of universal sympathy when you mourn for one near to yourself who was stricken down upon the battle-field. July 18, 1864. My despatches were delayed last week by reason of the interruption of the postal and telegraphic lines between this city and Philadelphia. An insurgent force, of unascertained strength, was then in front of this capital, but it had not excited serious. alarm. The enemy withdrew by night, on the 12th instant, and has since retired into Virginia. Not only the actual number of the intruding force, but also its expectations and purposes, yet remain a subject of earnest speculation. I express on these points conclu- sions which I have drawn chiefly from my own inquiries and observations. General Hunter, in May last, leaving a considerable portion of his command at Harper's Ferry and its vicinity, proceeded up the valley of Virginia to operate upon the western and southwestern military communications of Richmond. He effected his object. Before that time, however, Lee had organized a column and sent it out to resist and chastise Hunter. This column is understood to have been twenty-two thousand men, besides cavalry. It largely exceeded Hunter's forces. Hunter retired before it, and proceeded safely to the Ohio River. There he gathered transport, and put his weary column in motion upon the river, designing to disembark at Parkersburg, and return thence by railroad to Harper's Ferry. A season of unusual drought intervened, and the waters of the Ohio fell, rendering the moving of the transports slow and difficult. The residuary force at Harper's Ferry was not formidable, and so, prac- tically, the valley was left open for the insurgent columns which Hunter had left behind him at Lynchburg. That column remounted the dismounted cavalry with horses taken in its progress, and was probably reinforced by recruits also, and thus strengthened came down the valley. General Sigel retired before the intruders, first from Martinsburg to Harper's Ferry, and then across the Potomac to Maryland Heights, on the opposite bank. The enemy once more broke the Baltimore and Ohio railroad, and unopposed made their way over the upper fords of the Potomac, crossed the South Moun- 142 DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. tain, and arrived at Frederick. In the meantime Hunter's forces, arriving at Parkersburg, were making their way, although too late, yet with good success towards Harper's Ferry, and General Grant, at Petersburg, sent up the 6th army corps to insure the safety of Baltimore and Washington. The 19th army corps, from Red River, then at sea, were under orders to join the army of the Potomac on the James River. Orders were now given, that this 19th corps, on coming in at Fortress Monroe, should, without disembarkation, pro- ceed to Washington. While the enemy approached Frederick, Gen- eral Wallace, combining a few troops that could be spared from the garrison at Baltimore with Ricket's division, the only portion of the 6th corps that had yet arrived, then proceeded to Frederick, expecting there to effect a junction with Hunter; but he had not yet reached Harper's Ferry. General Wallace, with his very scanty forces, on the 9th instant took a position in front of the bridge at Monocacy, which is a key equally to Washington and Baltimore. The enemy, with a force double that of Wallace, and also a great advantage of position, after a bloody battle, which lasted eight hours, carried the bridge, and Wallace fell back along the line of the railroad to Elli- cott's Mills. The loss of the enemy was at least equal to our own in that protracted and heroic conflict. The enemy, however, en- countered no opposing force in Maryland. They scattered their cavalry northward, eastward, and southward, and struck the Penn- sylvania Central railroad, and then the Philadelphia and Baltimore railroad at Gunpowder Creek, the suburbs of Baltimore, the suburbs. of Washington, and the Washington branch of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad, near Bladensburg. Their infantry and artillery forces were under command of Early, who was supported by Breck- inridge and McCausland. They deployed in a south-easterly direc- tion from Rockville to Leesburg, which is on the continuation of what is known in this city as 7th street. From this line they threw forward a considerable force for observation, and thus menaced Fort Stevens. This observing force remained in that position from Monday morning until Tuesday evening, and the space between them and the fortifications was a scene of uninterrupted skirmishes between the cavalry and sharpshooters of the respective parties. While the enemy were making these demonstrations, the fortifications which were threatened were duly manned by the troops belonging to DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. 143 the garrison, by newly raised levies, and by portions of the 6th corps and of the 19th corps, which had by this time begun to debark at the wharves. A force of 2,000 men sent out from Fort Stevens on Tuesday evening assaulted the enemy with spirit and decision. They retired to their main line. In this engagement each party lost about 300 killed and wounded. That night the enemy's sharp- shooters were replaced by cavalry pickets, and on Wednesday morning, the 13th, their cavalry disappeared. At the same time, the insurgents withdrew from the vicinity of Baltimore, and a col- umn of considerable strength was despatched on the afternoon of the 13th from this city to pursue the enemy across the Potomac. graphic connection was promptly restored, and the railroads in all directions, although not altogether repaired, are carrying their freights and passengers to and from Philadelphia with almost their customary punctuality. Tele- Doubtlessly the enemy thought, when he found the valley open to him, that a raid into Maryland would yield him supplies of provis- ions and horses to compensate the risk and cost. Doubtlessly he thought it possible that he might surprise the government in a defenceless condition at Baltimore and Washington. Doubtlessly, also, he reckoned upon some political effect to result from a panic, to be excited by even the menace of Washington. Finally, it is well established that he expected through that panic to oblige the general government to raise the siege of Petersburg. General Grant is still persevering in the siege. The news that General Sherman has at last pursued the enemy from all his moun- tain fastnesses, and is now between the Chattahoochee and Atlanta, is confirmed. His communications still remain unbroken, and the forces which protect them have suffered no discomfiture. He is now advancing upon Atlanta. We are preparing to call out additional forces, in the hope of clos- ing the war with the present campaign. Insurgent emissaries have appeared on the Canada frontier. They are ostentatiously making it known to the timid and the treacherous that they have come with offers of peace. Credulous persons believe them. But thus far, although there are channels enough for any overtures, none have been made to the government. It is not unlikely that the real object of the pretended commission- ers is an intrigue, with a view to effect upon the annual election. 144 DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. The Florida, making Bermuda her base, has been committing dep- redations off the capes of the Chesapeake. A proper force has been sent out to find her. July 26, 1864. — During the past week public attention has been concentrated upon Atlanta. When General Sherman had fully crossed the Chattahoochee, the insurgent General Johnston was replaced by Hood. On the 22d instant General Sherman was dis- posing of his columns with a view to an advance. On the other hand, the enemy, after manoeuvring with skill, fell upon the column of McPherson with great vehemence. That able and mag- nanimous commander fell by the ball of a sharpshooter before the battle began. His command was assumed by General Logan. The battle became general, and was fought with great tenacity. The enemy was repulsed at every point and our forces held the battle- field. Our whole loss was about two thousand. We found one thousand of the enemy's dead on the field, and their aggregate loss was seven thousand. A large part of the city of Atlanta, although now defended by Hood's army, lies within the range of our guns. The city has four railroad military communications. The road to Chattanooga is held by our forces. The road to Augusta has been destroyed by General Sherman, throughout a distance of fifty miles. The road to Mont- gomery, in Alabama, has been effectually broken at Opelika. The road leading to Macon alone remains. It is probable that it will not escape the attention of General Sherman. ་ I have just returned from a visit to General Grant in front of Petersburg. His army is in excellent condition. While he has no fear that the enemy will attempt to assail him, he is at the same time neither idle nor embarrassed concerning a plan of operations. The insurgent raiding force which lately visited Maryland retired up the valley before General Wright. He returned to his camp near Georgetown. The enemy then retraced their steps, and are now again advancing towards Harper's Ferry. Our military authorities are on the alert. The insurgent political agents, Clay and Holcomb, who, as I wrote you last week, had appeared in Canada, attempting to practise upon the American people by protestations of a readiness on the part of the insurgents at Richmond to make peace on compatible terms, were last week brought directly to an explanation, which re- DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. 145 sulted in showing to the whole world, what was already well under- stood here, that the rebel military cabal indulges no thought of peace, except through the dissolution of the Union. How could it be otherwise? Propositions for peace must come, not through the conspirator's council chamber, but behind it. July 28, 1864. — Now, when General Sherman has Atlanta under his guns, when General Grant commands the avenues to the so- called insurgent capital, and when the nation's credit is reviving under the fiscal conduct of Mr. Fessenden, it excites a smile to read in your despatch that the latest telegraphic advices you have con- cerning affairs at home, were that our army was harmless at Peters- burg; that Sherman, with a starving army, had been repulsed on his march into Georgia; and that the resignation of Mr. Chase had unfavorably affected American securities. August 1, 1864.- Vigorous activity has been displayed in the campaign, but no great change in the military situation has occurred since my last notice thereof. The insurgent expeditionary force which visited Maryland a short time ago, then retired before our pursuit into the valley, and again assumed the aggressive when the chase was relinquished, have during the last week been oper- ating on the south side of the upper Potomac, west of Harper's Ferry. On the 29th a cavalry detachment of that force, 400 or 500 strong, marched into Chambersburg, burned a considerable portion of the town, and then made their escape before a government force, under command of General Averill. Measures have been taken to repel any further incursions without weakening our army on the James River. On the morning of the 28th ultimo Lieutenant-General Grant, by way of diverting the enemy, sent a column, under Major-General Hancock, across the James, and took possession of Malvern Hill; an engagement ensued, in which he drove three insurgent brigades from an intrenched position, captured four guns and many prison- ers, without any serious loss. On the night of the 29th this column returned to their accustomed position unobserved by the enemy. On the morning of the 30th the mine which had been prepared under the portion of the enemy's fortifications, in the centre of the cir- cumvallation of Petersburg, was exploded, and thereupon an assault was made over the breach produced by the explosion. The breach and a considerable length of parapet on the right, together with a 10 146 DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. fort in front, were taken and held by our forces. Some 300 prison- ers were captured, and a large portion of a South Carolina regiment were buried under the débris of the explosion; but the assault upon the main line failed with considerable, though not very great, loss. No important event has occurred at Atlanta since the battle of the 22d, in which it now appears that our army, although surprised, as I have before reported, was completely triumphant, yet the enemy, nevertheless, for a brief space, claimed a victory. August 8, 1864. The military campaign has, as a whole, been very successful; but it has also been attended by disappointments, accidents, and reverses. It has not yet ended, and it either is, or to the public mind seems to be, alarmingly protracted. Judging from the language of the press and of those who engage in debates, one might well believe that the people are deeply despondent, that their resolution is failing, and that new and menacing distractions are imminent. I am not altogether able to dispel this popular gloom from the region of my own mind. Nevertheless, I think it wise to remember that the country is in that peculiar state of agita- tion which is inseparable from the canvass preliminary to a presi- dential election that all the faculties of the public mind are necessarily wrought up to a high pitch of excitement, and, owing to the gravity of affairs, a higher pitch than they ever attained before. Misconception and exaggeration color every opinion on every sub- ject, and individuals and masses are thrown into that political con- dition wherein faction is so often allowed to begin the work of anarchy. I hear alarms on all sides, but as yet I hear of no formi- dable movements of disorganization. In such a case I should despair for the safety of free government among any other people. The American people are peculiarly intelligent, thoughtful, and virtuous, and the conditions of their life are especially favorable. We may surely place much reliance on the force of habit among such a people. They have resisted violent revolutionary tendencies and stringent reactionary interests for three years with so much prudence and sagacity, that I think it reasonable to expect that they will preserve their proper temper when they provide, in a con- stitutional manner, for the continuance of the government, which it is absolutely certain that in their thoughtful seasons they hold at its inestimable worth. If they can do this, there is no reason to DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. 147 apprehend that they will be unable to carry this painful civil war to a safe conclusion. The advantages of resources and means, as well as the logic of reason and morals, are in their favor. The course of events is liable to be much affected by vicissitudes, and these are not to be expected to be divided between the parties dis- proportionately to their relative advantages and merits. August 9, 1864. — The failure of our assault upon the fortifica- tions at Petersburg, which I mentioned in my last military sum- mary, proved to be more complete and more disastrous than I had then learned. We retained none of the ground gained, and our loss was 3,500 men, which greatly exceeded that of the enemy. The result protracts the siege, but is not otherwise discouraging. The enemy recently sprang a mine in front of our works, but absolutely without effect. You will find in the public papers very full reports of the opera- tions of General Sherman. They have been eminently successful and very injurious to the enemy. It seems reasonable to expect a consummation of the siege of Atlanta in a few days. Our cavalry have met with severe losses in cutting off the military communica- tions of the insurgents, but it is understood that these losses are counterbalanced by the strategic advantages gained. The public mind has been kept highly excited by the récent movements of the insurgent column which lately visited Maryland. It is understood, however, that their operations have been chiefly cavalry movements, and that the damage they have done is confined to the destruction of a considerable portion of Chambersburg. What is believed an adequate force is now advancing against the enemy in the valley of Virginia, under command of General Sheri- dan. There is at least a significant cessation of the aggressive oper- ations of the insurgents in that quarter, and at the moment I am writing we have official information that the force which destroyed Chambersburg has already been, in effect, destroyed. We have information, through the insurrectionary press, that Admiral Farragut, after a successful naval battle in the bay of Mobile, has passed the two lower insurgent forts and gone up to that city. We expect decisive news from that quarter without delay. August 15, 1864. The insurgent force which, under command of Early, threatened Washington and Baltimore in July, and then. 148 DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. retired across the Potomac, is still in the lower part of the valley, near Grafton. One detachment of it, as you have been already informed, was defeated by General Kelly at New Creek, and subse- quently another was routed with severe loss by General Averill. Since that time hostile forces are understood to have been concen- trating and retiring up the valley before the pursuit of the Union column, now under command of Major-General Sheridan. We are informed that considerable reinforcements have been sent down to Early by Lee from his army in Petersburg. In consequence of this measure, the column of Major-General Sheridan has been materi- ally strengthened, and we may expect soon to hear of a serious collision in the valley. Profound silence prevails in regard to the operations at Petersburg. The siege of Atlanta has, during the last week, been attended by no startling incident. We have not yet received any official reports of the movement against Mobile. Newspaper statements of the 7th instant, at New Orleans, represent the naval engagement to have been very brilliant and successful. They say that our fleet had passed the insurgent line of obstructions in the bay, and would proceed to cross the bar in front of the city. Richmond papers give reports from Mobile on the 9th instant. They are silent concerning operations there after the naval conflict in which Admiral Farragut passed the forts. Major-General Canby has, for strategic reasons, withdrawn our forces from Brownsville, and the blockade of that port has been reës- tablished. A new piratical vessel named the Tallahassee has appeared off the coast of New York, and committed a series of vexatious depre- dations. She is said to be an English-built vessel, and is supposed to have been armed at Bermuda. I wait for definite information of these points, to determine whether there is occasion for repre- sentations to her Majesty's government concerning the Tallahassee. Notwithstanding a seeming decline of public spirit during the politi- cal canvass, recruiting has been resumed, and is carried on with considerable success. The Alabama, or 290, was built, manned, and armed by British subjects to commit piracies against the United States. She has been DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. 149 pursuing this course of piracy two years. Her Majesty's govern- ment, condemning the enterprise, allege their exemption from responsibility on the ground that they exerted themselves, in good faith, but ineffectually, to prevent it. The Kearsarge, Captain Winslow, finds the Alabama on the high seas - engages and sends her to the bottom. The Deerhound, belonging to the royal yacht association, and by authority of law carrying the British naval ensign, intervenes to save a number of drowning men of the Alabama, with the consent of the Kearsarge, and having rescued them from the waves, without making any explanations, makes haste to convey them from the scene of the action, and to place them in safety on the British shores. And he confesses that in doing so he was actuated by a desire to withdraw them from the presence of the conquering vessel. The President is surprised that her Majesty's government do not find in these proceedings of the owner of the Deerhound cause of severe censure and regret. Leaving all the other circumstances of that strange transaction out of view as being debatable in point of fact, there is ground in the case, as it is thus presented, for grave remonstrance with her Majesty's government. This government and the whole American people are justly so full of admiration and gratitude to Captain Winslow, that they will excuse almost any error of judgment on his part that proceeds from magnanimity. Nevertheless, I hope that he has not released the pirates you have named, or any other of the pirates he has cap- tured. The insurgents refuse to recognize negro soldiers, when captured, as entitled to the customary privileges of prisoners of war; hence has resulted an absolute obstruction of all exchanges. Thousands of our citizens are languishing in the prisons of the traitors. August 22, 1864. The military immobility which had begun to wear upon the public mind has recently given way. Activity again appears, although, thus far, it has produced no decisive results. I am sure that you will read with pride and satisfaction the details of the great naval engagement in Mobile Bay. The restoration of the national flag over Fort Powell gives us Grant's passage, while the recapture of Fort Gaines marks an advance in the work of restoring . 150 DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. . the Union. Protected by these fortifications, together with Fort Morgan, the insurgents had really made no demonstration towards the creation of a naval force. The destruction of their gunboat Gaines, and the transfer of the ram Tennessee, which is secured to the national service, have materially weakened the enemy. We learn that the siege of Fort Morgan has begun, and that a portion of our fleet has assailed the land fortifications which surround the city of Mobile. On the south side of the James River General Grant has success- fully seized and he now holds the Weldon road between Petersburg and North Carolina, after having resisted two or three fierce as- saults, with great loss to the insurgents. There is no doubt of the fact that the insurgents are suffering a material reduction of their force by casualties and by desertions. General Grant has already sent to the Indian campaign a regiment of enlisted deserters from the army of Lee. General Sherman still prosecutes his operations against the enemy at Atlanta with unabated confidence. We have official reports that his cavalry have cut off the railroad connection between that place and Macon. Lee has reinforced Early, and he has thereupon moved down the valley from the neighborhood of Strasburg to Winchester. General Sheridan has retired to Charlestown, and the upper Potomac thus again becomes a theatre of war. The approach of a draft to main- tain the armies at their full strength is creating much uneasiness, and this uneasiness speaks out through the press. On the other hand, it is true, although not yet generally understood, that recruit- ing has begun in good earnest. Later returns show that the num- ber of men mustered into the army is twelve hundred per day, an increase of ten-fold per day since the proclamation calling for rein- forcements was issued. You will hardly need to be told that the reports published of armistices, pretended changes in the Cabinet, and the appointment of commissioners to negotiate with the insurgents, which figure largely in the political canvass, have no foundation in fact. August 29, 1864. — The principal military events of which in- formation has been received during the week are the capture of Fort Morgan, and the unsuccessful attempts of the enemy to re- cover possession of the Petersburg and Weldon railroad. The DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. 151 * assaults upon our forces at the latter point were made with energy, almost with desperation, and the ensuing battles are reported to have been as sanguinary and as severely contested as any during the war. The final repulse of the enemy, however, was complete. This result is regarded as a decided advantage in the campaign. In regard to the capture of Fort Morgan the mere announcement. of that important success in the Richmond newspapers is the only information that has as yet been received. September 5, 1864. The past week has been marked by im- portant military successes. Detailed information in regard to the surrender of Fort Morgan has been received. Six hundred prison- ers and sixty guns were taken. The entrances to Mobile Bay are now in our possession, rendering the blockade effective with a less number of vessels than heretofore, and enabling the naval to co- operate with the land forces in any attack upon the city itself. Atlanta has succumbed. On the 1st instant, General Sherman made a successful attack upon the enemy's principal line of com- munication. Vigorous efforts were, made to regain it. A severe and general engagement followed, resulting successfully to our arms. The victorious army now holds the city, and the enemy, weakened by heavy losses, is reported to be retreating southward. As a centre of railroad communications, and a depot of arms, manufac- tures, and supplies, Atlanta was a point which the insurgents have deemed it essentially important to hold, and the advantages accru- ing from its capture are very great.¹ The force which has been so long menacing an invasion of Mary- land and Pennsylvania from the Shenandoah valley, having been confronted and checked by General Sheridan, is retreating in the direction of Richmond. General Sheridan's force is in pursuit, and some captures of prisoners, wagons, and supplies have already been made. The enlistments under the recent call are going on, not only sat- isfactorily but with constantly increasing rapidity, and the rein- forcements thus gained are daily adding to the effective strength of the armies in the field. September 17, 1864. Your private note of the 19th of August, as I perceive, was written under the influence of wearisome waiting for good news. 1 See Mr. Seward's speech on the fall of Atlanta, post, page 491. 152 DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. Well, before this time you¹ have been relieved. Admiral Farra- gut has demonstrated the national strength and energy at Mobile. Sherman has consummated his campaign, and established the power of the Union, if not its authority, in Georgia. The political in- trigues at Niagara have exploded at Chicago, to the undoubted edi- fication of the whole people of the United States. The reinforcement of the armies is all that is desired. Peace is certainly three years and three months nearer than it was when the war began, and political movements on both sides of the line indicate a rational con- viction that peace must come soon as a fruit of the sacrifices already made, and that when it shall have come it will be attended by the firm reëstablishment of the Union. September 19, 1864. — Your despatch of the 1st of September has been received. At the time it was written there was apparent reason for apprehending that our country was becoming willing, if · not to forego, at least to hazard the vital interest of national in- tegrity in its impatience for an end of the civil war. The public mind here was at that time very despondent. A complex campaign, which had been expected to be easy as well as short, sharp, and decisive, had proved to be laborious, long, and sanguinary, without assurance of favorable result. A presidential canvass was bringing apparently into one compact and efficient organization not only all that portion of the people which, although loyal in its desires and purposes, opposes the ad- ministration upon questions of administrative policy, but also all the disaffected and disloyal citizens, who, from any perverseness of judgment, of conscience, or of sympathy, are willing, directly or indirectly, to lend aid to the insurgents. The inevitable conflict between radicalism and conservatism broadly revealed itself in the popular mass, upon which the executive government necessarily depends for political support, and personal ambitions, preferences, and prejudices coöperated, threatening ruinous disorganization. This unfortunate condition of things culminated in the last days of August. The ocean no longer breaks either the current of human intercourse or that of human sympathy.2 To European eyes our affairs wore at that time exactly the same gloomy and portentous aspect that they presented to our own. 1 Mr. Sanford. 2 The Atlantic cable telegraph was completed. DIARY, OR NOTES But I have the pleasure to inform is really unnecessary to do so, that the things which I have thus described has suc the American people now appear to be as re as on the 29th of August they seemed vacillat The capture of Fort Morgan, by combined lan came as a cheerful relief, proving that the war was not only with perseverence, but with prospect of suco sition convention at Chicago placed their candidate Clellan and Mr. Pendleton, before the people d ground that the military defence of the Union had fa been found hopeless, and that there must be a cessation ties, with a future reference to an ultimate and probably ticable convention. This extraordinary proceeding was follow a sudden and effective revelation that the platform thus adopte the convention at Chicago had been previously framed in an unl ful intrigue at Niagara, between avowed official agents of the rebe and some of their partisan sympathizers who reside within our own military lines, and that British enemies of the United States were initiated into the intrigue, and active in carrying it into effect. In the same conjuncture it happily appeared that volunteers were coming in to reinforce the army as fast as was needful, practically to lighten if not altogether avert the necessity for a draft. Finally, General Sherman surprised equally the enemy and the whole coun- try by a felicitous strategetical stroke with which he captured Atlanta, and thus achieved the great object of that part of the campaign which had been wisely assigned to him. Nor ought I to omit that the public credit, so long cramped and straitened by a combination of timid hoarders and sordid speculators in gold, broke loose, and adequate subscriptions were freely made for the government loans. These events have reinspired the public mind in the loyal states, and we have more evidences than it would seem wise to communicate that the insurrectionary states are beginning to consider with seri- ousness the question of submission to the authority of the Union. At the moment of closing the mail a gratifying despatch comes to my hands announcing a brilliant victory of our troops at Win- chester. September 20, 1864. Your despatch of the 18th of August has OTES ON THE WAR. panied by a copy of a note of Earl a new regulation in admiralty, forbidding ng of belligerent vessels in British ports. ve due consideration. In the mean time we action that the Georgia has been captured by as arrived as a prize at Hampton Roads, whence Boston. 1864. The expectation of a return of peace, scribe as prevailing in England, is equally manifest marked difference in the speculations which are On your side of the ocean it seems to be believed Union is to be dissevered. On this side it is believed even nfidently than heretofore that the Union will be effectually red. It is, however, only just to acknowledge that this in- e of public confidence has in some measure been produced by late successes of the national arms and by the developments of de political canvass. It will be interesting to know how far they modify public opinion when they become known there. On the 22d instant Major-General Sheridan delivered a short but decisive attack against Early at Flint Hill, in the Shenandoah valley. We have not yet received full details; but it is reported with mani- fest probability that the result leaves Early's large force quite powerless. September 26, 1864. — Further and signal successes have been achieved by the army in the Shenandoah valley under General Sheridan. Following up his victory at Opequan Creek and Win- chester by a vigorous pursuit of the enemy he again attacked them on the 22d at Fisher's Hill, and drove them from the position where they had intrenched themselves for a stand. This second victory was as complete in its results as the preceding one. The enemy lost heavily in killed and wounded. Sixteen guns and several thou- sand prisoners were taken. At the latest advices from General Sheridan he was still pursuing the insurgents, whose retreat is reported to be attended with disorder and demoralization. These victories relieve northern Virginia from the presence of the insurgent army, and Maryland and Pennsylvania from appre- hensions of invasion. They may also be expected to have no small influence in determining the progress of military events in the vicinity of Petersburg and Richmond. DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. 155 The increase of public confidence is illustrated by the heavy de-. cline in the price of gold, which, during the past week, has fallen nearly thirty per cent. October 4, 1864. The plot which was formed by evil-disposed refugees in Canada to seize the United States steamer Michigan, and with that means to release the prisoners of Johnson's Island, failed in its execution. No serious dangers in that quarter are apprehended. The Canadian authorities seem to have acted in a friendly and honorablę manner. General Sherman perseveres in establishing a large and strong camp at Atlanta. The insurgent Forrest is engaged in an attempt to break the General's communications, but he is believed to have taken effective means for their protection. Some free intercourse has been had between him and citizens of Georgia residing within the extended lines of our army. This is the only foundation there is for many reports of negotiations between this government and the state or the people of Georgia. The change of relations they have suffered by the fall of Atlanta is yet too recent to have worked a lasting influence upon their sentiments. No new mili- tary operations have occurred in that state. Jefferson Davis has repaired to Macon. He is credibly reported to be very censorious upon Governor Brown, of Georgia, who has furloughed the Georgia militia. The militia of that state is understood, like the reserved force in other insurgent states, to consist of boys under the age of sixteen, and of men over the age of fifty years, which are the terms of the so-called Confederate conscription. Gold is now reported as having no market sales in the insurgent states. The last quotation is 3,000 per centum. A refugee just arrived from Texas tells us he paid $70 of Confederate currency for one of gold. There are insurrectionary or guerilla movements in Missouri, but the details are vague and unreliable. On the 29th of September, General Sheridan reported that he had pursued Early's retreating forces through Staunton to Port Republic, and he now reports that he has further pursued the fugitive force through Waynesborough. That once imposing force seems to have been effectually routed and dispersed. General Sheridan thinks that the destruction of stores at Staunton and of railway communication in that vicinity will prove very injurious to the enemy at Richmond. 156 DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. Under direction of Major-General Butler, Major-General Ord, on the 29th of September, has advanced across the James River at Chapin's Bluff, carried a strong line of fortifications, and taken sixteen guns and many prisoners. Simultaneously, Major-General Birney, by direction of Major-General Butler, advanced from Deep Bottom, on the north side of the James, and scattering the insur- gent forces before him, made a lodgment in rebel fortifications six miles from Richmond. On the 30th, Major-General Warren, under direction of Major- General Meade, attacked the enemy's extreme right south of the Weldon road, while at the same time Major-General Meade made an advance from the centre of his line in front of Petersburg, and carried the enemy's works at Poplar Grove, near to Petersburg. While these assaults were going on, the enemy twice assaulted Major-General Butler at Bermuda Hundred, and was effectually repulsed. It is believed that these movements have considerable strategical significance, and it is at least certain that they tend to increase the embarrassments of the enemy at Richmond and to pre- vent his sending reinforcements to Early in the valley and to Hood in Georgia. October 10, 1864.-The enemy, on the 7th instant, attacked our cavalry on the right, in its advanced position on the northern side of the James, dislodged them, and captured two batteries of artillery. Major-General Birney, coming up with an adequate force, repelled the assaults with severe loss, and recovered the position which he still holds, within four miles of Richmond. No change has occurred on the left of our line fronting Petersburg. In Georgia, the enemy, under command of Hood, have marched northward, intending to flank the army of the Cumberland. Forrest coöperates with Hood. Thus far the enemy have gained no advantages, and Major-General Sherman writes without appre- hension of danger. The enemy's forces, which repulsed General Banks on the Red River, have advanced, under Price, into Missouri. Major-General Mower has gone up the Mississippi from Memphis to reinforce Major-General Rosecrans. Major-General Steele is reported to be moving up behind the enemy's column. But the plans of the bellig- erents are not yet developed. October 18, 1864. The defeat of the insurgents in Georgia, らな ​DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. 157 crowned by the capture of Atlanta, seems to have worked a change in their plan of operations. Hood moved his forces forward, ·with the coöperation of Wheeler and Forrest, to break Major-Gen- eral Sherman's communications with his base at Nashville. That commander, who was well understood here to be exercising his usual vigilance, now reports that Hood, after having struck the railroad in the neighborhood of Dalton and Resaca, has fallen back before our forces, and without accepting battle has abandoned his projected plan of operations. The communications have not been seriously impaired. Hood's retreat is understood to be in a south- westerly direction. Major-General Sheridan on the 7th of October began a with- drawal of his forces from Port Republic down the Shenandoah valley towards Front Royal. On the 8th, a large force of insurgent cavalry attacked his rear; a battle ensued, which resulted in a deci- sive victory in our favor. We captured eleven guns with complete equipment, and also three hundred prisoners. In the whole, thirty- six guns have been taken from Early's army, which is believed to be more than half of its complement of artillery. Major-General Sheridan destroyed the supplies of food and forage throughout the whole valley, and he is now coming into direct communication by railroad with Washington. Just now he reports that the insurgent army in the valley is understood to have passed under the command of Longstreet, and that on the 15th it reappeared in our front near Strasburg. Major-General Cook being in advance of Sheridan's forces, assaulted, broke, and dispersed the enemy, and he is under- stood to be retiring far up the valley. The defeat of Early was followed by new guerilla attacks on our military lines. A train on the Baltimore and Ohio railroad was intercepted by the outlaw Mosby between Harper's Ferry and Mar- tinsburg. On the 16th, Mosby's camp in the Blue Ridge Moun- tains was surprised and his artillery was captured, together with several prisoners. The enemy's manœuvres in Missouri are not yet fully developed, but our reports from that quarter are not unsatisfactory. State elections were held last week in Indiana, Ohio, Pennsyl- vania, and Maryland. In the two former states the results were conspicuously favorable to the Union cause. Some doubt hangs on the result in Pennsylvania and Maryland, but our latest informa- 158 DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. . tion induces a belief that these states also have given their support to the administration. If this shall prove true of Maryland the effect will be of great value, as the successful vote ratifies the new constitution, which abolishes slavery in that state. October 24, 1864. The seizure by insurgents of the steamer Chesapeake, on the high seas, bound from New York to Portland, is familiar to you. Though the vessel was ultimately released, the perpetrators of the deed escaped punishment. Braine, one of the leaders, has since found his way to Havana, and with other conspir- ators has recently seized, under similar circumstances, the steam packet Roanoke, which plies between that place and New York, and carried her to Bermuda, but not receiving the hospitality which was expected there, the vessel was taken outside the port and burned. On Saturday, the 17th of September last, Lieutenant-Colonel B. H. Hill, acting assistant provost marshal general of Michigan, was advised by a person from Canada that a party was to be sent from Windsor, on the Canadian side of the Detroit River, opposite Detroit, to a point within the jurisdiction of the United States, for hostile purposes. On Sunday evening, the 18th of September, a man came on board the Philo Parsons, while she was lying at the dock in Detroit, and requested the clerk, Mr. Walter T. Ashley, who is part owner of the Parsons, to call at Sandwich, on the Canada shore, three miles below Detroit, to receive him and a party of friends, who wished to go to Kelly's Island, about eleven miles from Sandusky, alleging that one of them was lame and could not well cross the ferry. The Philo Parsons sailed the next morning at 8 o'clock, with about forty passengers. The person referred to above, as having engaged a passage for himself and party, appeared immediately afterwards, and at his request the steamer called at Sandwich, where his friends, four in number, came on board. At Malden, on the Canada side, where the steamer always stops, about twenty miles below Detroit and near the point where the Detroit River empties into the lake, about twenty more men came on board. The number not being unusual, excited no suspicion. The only baggage of the party was an old- fashioned trunk, tied with rope, and which was afterwards ascer- tained to contain revolvers and large hatchets or hand-axes. The steamer continued on her course, and made her usual landings at DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. 159 North Bass, Middle Bass, and South Bass islands - the latter being better known as Put-in-Bay Island. These islands are nearly north of Sandusky, and about twenty miles distant. They all be- long to the United States, and are part of the State of Ohio. Cap- tain Atwood, the captain of the steamer, left her at Middle Bass Island, where his family reside. Having made these landings, the steamer went on her course to Kelly's Island, about seven miles further on, and made her usual landing there. Here four men got on board, all apparently belonging to the same party, and it has been ascertained that one, who was seen among them after the. capture of the steamer, had been several days on the island, visit- ing the inhabitants and pretending to be an agent for the sale of sewing-machines. Shortly after leaving Kelly's Island, and while she was directly on her course for Sandusky, the Philo Parsons was seized by the party who had got on board at Sandwich and Malden, and was headed to the eastward for nearly an hour, when she was turned back to Middle Bass Island for fuel, the leader of the party having ascertained from the mate and engineer that there was not enough to run many hours. Soon after the Philo Parsons reached Middle Bass Island, and while she was taking in wood, the steamer Island Queen, which performs daily trips from the Bass Islands to San- dusky and back, came alongside and was immediately seized. The engineer of the Island Queen, without giving any provocation, was shot in the face. The ball entered his cheek and passed out near the ear. One person was cut in the head with a hatchet and bled profusely. Several other persons were knocked down, and a large number were struck with the butt-ends of pistols and with hatchets, and some ten or a dozen shots were fired. The passengers on both boats were landed at Middle Bass, with a part of their baggage. After getting a supply of fuel, the Philo Parsons ran out into the lake, towing the Island Queen. At the distance of about five miles according to one statement, and at a smaller distance according to others, the Island Queen was scuttled by cutting her supply-pipe and was sent adrift. Before filling she drifted on a shoal, and was gotten off a few days afterwards, having been plundered by the party who had seized her. After the Island Queen had been scuttled, the Philo Parsons 160 DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. stood for Sandusky harbor, and was turned about and steered for Malden, where she arrived between 4 and 5 o'clock on Tuesday morning, the 20th of September. A few miles above Malden, a yawl boat load of plunder was sent ashore on the Canadian side of the Detroit River. At Fighting Island, some six miles above, the crews of both steamers were landed. The Philo Parsons arrived at Sandwich at about 8 o'clock the same morning, and a pianoforte belonging to her, a number of trucks, and the cabin furniture were put ashore at the dock, where a custom-house officer almost immediately appeared.. She was then scuttled, by cutting her injection-pipes, and cast off. She partially filled, but was taken possession of a few hours afterwards by the mate, who had come in a small steamer (the Pearl) from Ecuse, who had her towed to Detroit. The primary object in capturing these steamers was confessedly to release the insurgent officers confined on Johnson's Island. There is reason to believe that the conspiracy was organized and set in motion by prominent insurgents, who have for some time past. been residing in Canada for such purposes. Indeed, this Depart- ment has proof that Mr. Jacob Thompson has acknowledged that he was commissioned and provided with funds to carry them into effect, and had interviews with conspicuous members of the gang just before the steamers were captured. I had just prepared the foregoing statement of the transaction on Lake Erie, when information of a new and equally desperate outrage on another part of the border reached this Department. A band, said to consist of twenty-five desperate men, clandestinely armed, crossed the frontier and proceeded in several small parties, by stage-coach, to St. Albans, Vermont, in the customary way of travellers. At a concerted time they raised a scene of terror in that peaceful town, and broke into boarding-houses and other buildings and carried off large amounts of treasure, said to be two hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars, together with other valuable property. As soon as the people recovered from their surprise, they arose and hotly pursued the felons, who sought safety by returning on stolen horses across the frontier into Canada. The Canadian municipal agents seem to have coöperated with the pursuers from Vermont with alacrity and diligence. Twelve of the robbers were DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. 161 arrested, stripped of their plunder, and taken into custody by the Canadian authorities.1 It is now my duty to instruct you to give notice to Earl Russell, in conformity with the treaty reservation of that right, that, at the expiration of six months after you shall have made this communi- cation, the United States will deem themselves at liberty to increase the naval armament upon the lakes, if, in their judgment, the con- dition of affairs in that quarter shall require it. October 24, 1864. The marked military event of the last week was the battle of Cedar Creek, in the Shenandoah valley, on the 19th instant. It began during General Sheridan's absence from his command on a visit to the War Department here. Longstreet had been reinforced by 12,000 men. He surprised and assaulted Sheridan's army in its camp near Strasburg at the break of day, broke and pushed it back four miles, with a capture of 800 or 1,000 men and twenty-four guns. Sheridan was returning to the army, and at Winchester met the news of this disaster. He pushed rapidly forward, reorganized his columns, and established a new and perfect line of battle, attacked the enemy, in three hours turned the defeat into a victory, driving the enemy before him through Stras- burg to Mount Jackson, routing them and putting them to flight in all directions, so that they had not an organized regiment left on arriving at that place. Sheridan took back the twenty-four guns which had been lost, adding twenty-nine to the number, and cap- tured 2,000 prisoners, with 10 battle-flags. The pursuit was con- tinued on the 20th, with the capture of a large quantity of small- arms and much camp equipage, including 300 wagons. I know not whether it is that hope is derived or is affected to be derived by the insurgents from excitement of the political canvass in the loyal states, or from what other cause the fact, however, is observed that the enemy affect to be confident of some new and great success. On the other hand, telegraphic communication is reëstablished through General Sherman's line to Atlanta. The enemy is in retreat before him, and the military situation there is regarded as satisfactory and cheering. The invaders of Missouri are falling back before General Rosecrans, and endeavoring to escape the pursuit of General Steele. The situation at Richmond remains unchanged. The election in Maryland has resulted in the 11 1 Afterwards liberated and their booty restored to them. 162 DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. adoption of the new Constitution, which raises eighty thousand slaves to the condition of freemen. A letter from the pretended Governor of Louisiana, which has been intercepted, urges the emancipation and enrolment of negroes as soldiers in the insurgent army, and the "Richmond Enquirer " now openly advocates that desperate policy. On the other hand, we have authentic information that one hundred captured Union colored soldiers, who were compulsorily employed at work on the fortifications around Danville, rose upon their guard, disarmed them, armed themselves, and effected their escape from captivity. It is not improbable that we are reaching a new phase of this ex- traordinary civil war. November 21, 1864. We have satisfactory information that the operations of the rebel Price against Missouri have failed, and that he has retired southward beyond the line where pursuit would be consistent with the strategy of our commanders. The brief season of military repose on this side of the Mississippi seems to have come to an end. Direct communications with Major- General Sherman have ceased. We hear through the rebel news- papers that he is advancing in Georgia, and they say that on the 17th instant he was at Jonesboro. General Gillen suffered a defeat at the hands of Breckenridge in east Tennessee, with the loss of four hundred killed, wounded, and missing. Hood is manoeuvring in Alabama, on the borders of Tennessee River; but the command- ing general in that region thinks himself able to maintain his posi- tion in Tennessee. It is understood that at least one column of the enemy's force which has so long been operating under Early in the Shenandoah valley has been withdrawn to Richmond. We have good grounds for believing that the report of the death of Major- General Canby, which fills the morning newspapers, is erroneous, as I pray God it may be. The exigencies of civil war have at last brought the treasonable cabal at Richmond to a serious debate upon propositions for arm- ing, and, of course, emancipating a portion of the slave population. Thus it is seen that the so deeply deprecated irrepressible conflict has at last broken out in the very seat and citadel of slavery itself. November 29, 1864. The military situation in Shenandoah valley remains unchanged. The same is true of the siege of Rich- mond. DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. 163 Our information from General Sherman, through rebel channels, is that he has advanced in a track covering the two great railroads beyond Milledgeville and Macon, thus far encountering no serious opposition. It is understood that the rebels in Alabama and Tennessee are designing to pursue and harass Sherman. Dispositions have been made by General Thomas for such an emergency. The rebel Florida was sunk in Hampton Roads. No commu- nications on the subject of her capture have been received from Brazil. December 5, 1864. — Your despatch of the 18th of November has been received. It presents the reflections which occurred to you while awaiting the unknown result of the late national election. These reflections are wise and just. The government did not begin the war, but waited after it was begun for a clear and unmistakable position of self-defence. Moreover, the government, in deference to the Constitution, declined to give to this defensive war the char- acter of an aggressive one for the removal of slavery, although it well knew that slavery was the real cause of the rebellion. The government, pursuing this policy, has constantly made the main- tenance of the Union the principal object of its military operations. Nevertheless, the course of events has been such as to justify the assumption, that in point of fact, the war is a principal force in a popular revolution against African slavery. At the beginning of the contest the people, even in the loyal states, were by no means united, much less were they unanimous in regarding that political revolution as necessary, wise, or lawful. Hitherto, therefore, our principal danger was that of counter-revolution, to be prosecuted in the interest of slavery as a recognized constituent of our national system. A counter-revolution was plotted, and preparations to some extent were secretly made to put it in execution. We have not only discovered the conspirators, but we have also seized arms and munitions which they have gathered. The late election brought the plot to the knowledge of the people, and their decision has rendered its execution impossible. Without the aid of counter- revolution the rebellion must fail. We may therefore conclude that the country has safely passed the turning-point in the revolu- tionary movement against slavery, and that henceforth we shall see the Union rapidly recovering its moral strength and vigor. 164 DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. December 5, 1864. The military situation is exciting much in- terest. Major-General Thomas, upon whom the conduct of opera- tions in Tennessee has devolved by the departure of Major-General Sherman, has been, during the last week, withdrawing his forces from advanced points of observation to the lines of Nashville, writes. that on the 30th day of November the enemy attacked Major- General Schofield at Franklin, and was repulsed with a loss to the enemy variously stated at thirty to forty flags, and four to five thou- sand men. After thus defeating the enemy General Schofield retired without serious molestation to the defensive position towards which he was marching when the interruption occurred. On the 3d in- stant there was skirmishing on the Cumberland River below Nash- ville, at first with advantages to the enemy, but in the end the advantage was reversed. We glean from the meagre reports of the insurgent press that Major-General Sherman is advancing, as yet practically unresisted, towards the Atlantic coast. The most definite account is that he was on the 30th ultimo at or on the borders of Millen, on the Southern or Georgia Central railroad. Affairs are unchanged in front of Richmond. It is understood that Early is at last sending troops up the valley to reinforce Lee. December 13, 1864. The military situation is best described as being one of intense expectation. Lieutenant-General Grant is engaged in important movements. What has transpired concerning these movements is the marching of General Warren, on the 6th instant, with a large force directed against the Weldon railroad. The effect is not yet known. Other manoeuvres of the force at Richmond are expected without delay. We know that on the 7th Major-General Sherman had advanced to a point half-way be- tween Millen and the Savannah River. Later reports abound, but they are not reliable. Major-General Thomas is besieged by Hood, but the official reports give us no uneasiness about the safety of Nashville, or of Knoxville. Important events may soon be ex- pected in this quarter. The press has rumors, which, however, are believed to be groundless, that General Foster and Admiral Dahl- gren have cut the railroad connection between Charleston and Savannah. The intrigues of rebel emissaries, promoted during the whole. summer and autumn, have ripened into alarming menaces of the DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. 165 peace of the Canada border, and of the principal cities in the loyal states. It is an expensive guerrilla warfare prosecuted from neutral ground, and it is not likely to advance the insurrection at home or increase its popularity abroad. December 14, 1864. — I have just received information, by tele- graph, from Montreal, that the felons who proceeded from Canada into Vermont and committed the crimes of robbery, burglary, and murder at St. Albans, in that state, and who were arrested in Canada upon a requisition of this government, under the tenth article of the treaty of the 9th of August, 1842, have been set at liberty; that the stolen money which was found upon them has been restored to them; and that they are now at large near the border of the United States, in the province aforenamed. December 17, 1864. -You direct my attention to the articles in which the presses of London and Paris consoled the European ene- mies of the United States for their reverse in the presidential elec- tion, by spasmodic predictions of the failure of our armies in the val- ley of Virginia, at Richmond, in Georgia, in Tennessee, and in and beyond the Mississippi. By a singular coincidence singular coincidence my reading of these portentous warnings was interrupted by the electric news that in a large degree the belligerent forces have withdrawn from the Shenandoah valley; that Major-General Thomas, on the 16th instant, left his works and assaulted the besieging army under Hood, and in battles continuing through days, defeated and routed it, killing and wounding a yet unestimated number, and capturing fifty guns, as many flags, and certainly more than five thousand prisoners. In the same moment came the agreeable intelligence that the enemy were routed and driven from the batteries they had planted on the Cumberland, on the northern line of General Thomas' communication; that General Burbridge had got into the rear of Breckenridge and captured Abingdon, in Virginia, and defeated the enemy at Glades Springs and at Kingsport, on the Holston River, in Tennessee. General Canby reported at the same moment the success of two expeditions the one from Memphis, which destroyed Hood's communication with Jackson, Mississippi, and the other from Baton Rouge towards Mobile, which prevented all attempts to supply or reinforce Hood from that place. Simultaneously Major-General Sherman reports that he has arrived at the mouth of the Ogeechee, and taken Fort McAllister, 166 DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. with its garrison and armament of twenty-one guns, by storm. Thus he has firmly planted at the Ossabaw Sound, below Savannah, in full coöperation with the land and naval forces; thus he has invested that city and demanded its surrender. A well-appointed fleet of sixty-five vessels, carrying six hundred guns, attended by a coöperating army under Major-General Butler, departed from Hampton Roads on the 13th instant, with a destination (concealed by seal upon its orders) which will probably be revealed by the telegraph before the departure of the steamer with our outgoing mail from Boston. The pretended rebel house of representatives have passed a bill designed to force the slaves in the insurgent states to fight for the establishment of an empire having African slavery for its corner- stone. We shall see whether this desperate effort improves the condition of the insurgents. The "Richmond Enquirer" argues for the abolition of slavery with the zeal if not with the charity of Wilberforce. It seems now to be a question, whether the United States armies shall effect emancipation under the President's war proclamation, or Virginia shall abolish slavery to baffle the United States armies. So that it is manifest that slavery in Virginia must. perish in any case. December 19, 1864. In my despatch of the 14th instant, I informed you that Coursol, the provincial judge at Montreal, had set at liberty the felons who committed the crimes of robbery and murder at St. Albans. Subsequent information confirms the fact, with the addition that the money stolen, to the amount, as is under- stood, of ninety thousand dollars, which was in the custody of the law, was delivered to the felons by the police, under the direction of the same judge, and that thus richly furnished with the spoils of our citizens, they were conveyed amid popular acclamations, in sleighs which had been prepared for their escape, from the court- room, beyond the reach of fresh pursuit; that the discharge of the prisoners was placed upon technical ground, now confessed to be erroneous, equally in law and in fact; that when new warrants were issued, the police were dilatory and treacherous in the execu- tion; and that all efforts for the recapture of the culprits have thus far been unsuccessful. It is believed that they have already escaped from Canada, to find even more sure protection and favor in Nova Scotia. It is impossible to consider these proceedings as either legal, just, or friendly towards the United States. DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. 167 December 27, 1864. On the night of the 20th instant the ene- my, under the pressure of the siege, secretly withdrew from Savan- nah, and Major-General Sherman entered the city, in which he took eight hundred prisoners, one hundred and fifty guns, with abundant ammunition, three steamers, and thirteen locomotives, one hundred and ninety cars, and a quantity of cotton, variously reported at twenty-five thousand to thirty-three thousand bales. The enemy blew up their iron-clads and gunboats. General Foster, coöperat ing with Sherman, promptly cleared the river from Tybee to the wharves, and Savannah is again reposing under the protection of the flag of the Union. The enemy escaped across the river and the causeways which lead over the marshes which cover its northern bank. It is believed that General Sherman's army will not remain inactive. No significant military movement has occurred at Rich- mond. The combined land and naval expedition, under Major-General Butler and Admiral Porter, proceeded to the mouth of the Cape Fear River, but the weather being unfavorable they had not, at the date of our latest advices, been able to operate. Silence prevails in the valley of the Shenandoah, except that Major-General Sheridan has a large force engaged in a reconnois- sance upon the Orange and Alexandria railroad in the region of Gordonsville. Major-General Thomas's victory at Nashville proves the most completely successful field triumph of the war. Virtually he de- stroyed half the enemy's force, and captured nearly all of his can- non. He was still in pursuit of Hood, who was retreating south- ward when last heard from. Thomas's headquarters are at Pulaski. There he has just destroyed twenty wagons filled with ammunition, two guns, and burned ten thousand stand of small-arms. Hood's means of transportation are wasted, and his force is now reduced to fifteen thousand, exclusive of cavalry, and he has only eight cannon. Stoneman's expedition on the border, between Tennessee and Virginia, seems to be very successful. The Canadian authorities have become watchful, active, and diligent, and raids and alarms upon the frontier have suddenly ceased. Congress has adjourned for the Christmas holidays, and the 168 DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. 1 people are joyously celebrating them under the belief that the solu- tion of our terrible political problem is revealed, although not yet realized, in the extinguishment of slavery and the stability of the Union. Of all the nations, Great Britain seems to us the last that could justly or wisely become, directly or indirectly, an opponent of the United States in a civil war begun and waged and persisted in by insurgents for the extension of African slavery. January 1, 1865. The land and naval expedition delivered its attack on the 24th and 25th ultimo. The dangerous explosion of the powder-ship was accomplished with complete success, but abso- lutely without effect. The naval attack on Fort Fisher was emi- nently vigorous. About four thousand troops were landed safely, leaving as many more on transports. General Weitzel made a recon- noissance, which satisfied him that an assault could not be wisely undertaken. The troops on shore were reëmbarked, and the whole land force returned to the James River. Rear-Admiral Porter, who commanded the fleet, seems not to have been convinced that the withdrawal of the troops was indispensably necessary. The fleet, according to last advices, remains at the mouth of the Cape Fear River. The public mind is disappointed, but not seriously disturbed. Except in regard to these incidents, the news of the past week are pleasing echoes of the capture of Savannah, by Sherman; the rout of Hood, with his flight across the Tennessee into Alabama; the destruction of insurgent communications and military deposits in eastern Tennessee and southwestern Virginia, by Burbridge; a successful raid from Baton Rouge towards Mobile; and an equally beneficial reconnoissance by Sheridan on the Orange and Alexan- dria railroad. We are looking for new military movements, with as little delay as the variable winter weather will allow. Some of the St. Albans' felons have been captured in New Hamp- shire. The Canadian authorities are active, but thus far there has been no delivery of offenders to us for punishment, nor have any judicial proceedings been instituted, to vindicate British sovereignty in Canada. January 10, 1865. - Great destruction of rebel communications DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. 169 has been accomplished by General Grierson in Mississippi, and the insurgents have suffered severe loss by the burning of their store- houses at Charlotte, North Carolina. With these exceptions, no important military movements have been made during the past week. Congress resumed its labors on the 6th instant. The debates are temperate, as the measures discussed are grave. It is a circumstance of much significance that the legislature of Kentucky is earnestly debating the subject of slavery. The parties divided between the policy of immediate abolition and that of grad- ual emancipation. January 16, 1865. We learn through Richmond that Rear- Admiral Porter's fleet was again before Wilmington, and that the land forces had effected a landing on Friday last, the 13th instant. The weather was fine; the insurgents claimed to be prepared for successful defence. Major-General Butler has been relieved of his command, at the suggestion of the Lieutenant-General. The recent failure at Wilmington is under investigation in Congress. Major- General Sherman is understood to have resumed his march, but its direction is not yet revealed. Henry S. Foote, formerly United States senator from Mississippi, and recently a member of the in- surgent conclave at Richmond, was arrested on the 12th instant, on the bank of the Occoquan, on his way to this city; he yet remains in military custody. Jefferson Davis disclaims responsi- bility for the arrest. The reported agitation of the question of submission to the Union, in Georgia, is believed to be true, although not to the full extent claimed for it in the press. A constitutional convention in Tennessee submitted to the peo- ple the constitutional question of abolishing slavery. The con- vention in Missouri has definitely abolished slavery in that state. January 24, 1865. - Fort Fisher, with its subsidiary works, fell on the 15th instant, under a combined land and naval assault. The defence was maintained by three thousand men, of whom about seven hundred were killed and the remainder were captured. The loss on our side was severe. The capture must figure in history as one of the most brilliant achievements of the war. Without know- ing how far I am supported by public opinion, I confess that the hazards and losses which were actually encountered are calculated to disarm criticism upon the proceedings of Generals Butler and Weitzel in the previous expedition. It is not left doubtful that the 170 DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. 1 port of Wilmington is now effectually closed against the insurgents and their European abettors. Of all our correspondents you ¹ are the last one that needs to be informed of the importance which at- taches to this event. It seems to be true that since our fleet entered the Cape Fear River five blockade-running vessels unwarily followed it and were captured. Reports of the advance of General Terry towards Wilmington are too uncertain to be confidently accepted. Major-General Sherman's forces have passed the Pocotaligo bridge and reached McPhersonville, in South Carolina. Indications of dis- content and demoralization among the insurgents appear in their cabals and in their press. A silver dollar was sold at auction in Richmond last week for sixty-four dollars of rebel money. Negro men were sold last week at the rate of five thousand dollars in that spurious currency, the equivalent of seventy-eight dollars in gold. A growing popular confidence in the success of the Union cause has reduced the premium upon gold in our market eighty per cent. since the presidential election. January 30, 1865. - Immediately after the despatch of the mail of last week we received authentic reports from the forces in front of Wilmington, which announced that the rebels had evacuated Fort Caswell, and Smithville, and auxiliary fortifications. Our army occupied them on the 16th instant, and the naval forces im- mediately entered Cape Fear River. The entire number of guns which fell into our hands, in the combined land and naval movement in that vicinity, was one hundred and sixty-eight. Two blockade- runners were captured, and the Tallahassee was destroyed. The military column has been reinforced, and it is now operating for the capture of Wilmington. General Sherman's march in South Carolina continues exciting profound alarm in Charleston, Augusta, and Richmond. The enemy, on the night of the 25th instant, descended the James River from Richmond, with gunboats and iron-clads, expecting to pass the river obstructions which had been made to protect the lines of the army of the Potomac. Although the movement was unex- pected, it was resisted by our forts, and it altogether failed, with the loss of one of the vessels. The line has been strengthened, and no apprehension of danger in that quarter remains. The Canadian judiciary have decided in the case of the pirate 1 Mr. Adams. DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. 171 Burleigh that he shall be delivered to the United States. Military reverses have produced a high excitement in the rebel councils, and throughout the region in which they yet bear military sway. Sed- don, the pretended secretary of war, has been replaced by John C. Breckenridge. The self-styled Congress has required Jefferson Davis to confide the entire command of the rebel forces to Lee. H. S. Foote, a prominent member of that body, was arrested by the rebel military police in the attempt to pass the lines on his way to this city. A resolution to expel him was lost for want of what they call a constitutional majority, and he was then censured by the house. While these proceedings were going on at Richmond, Foote appeared at Major-General Sheridan's camp, and solicited leave to come to Washington. The request is under consideration. February 7, 1865. A few days ago Francis P. Blair, Esq., of Maryland, obtained from the President a simple leave to pass through our military lines, without definite views known to the government. Mr. Blair visited Richmond, and on his return he showed to the President a letter which Jefferson Davis had written to Mr. Blair, in which Davis wrote that Mr. Blair was at liberty to say to President Lincoln that Davis was now, as he had always been, willing to send commissioners, if assured they would be received, or to receive any that should be sent; that he was not disposed to find obstacles in forms. He would send commissioners. to confer with the President with a view to a restoration of peace between the two countries if he could be assured they would be received. The President thereupon, on the 18th of January, ad- dressed a note to Mr. Blair, in which the President, after acknowl- edging that he had read the note of Mr. Davis, said that he was, is, and always should be willing to receive any agent that Mr. Davis or any other influential person now actually resisting the authority of the government might send to confer informally with the President with a view to the restoration of peace to the people of our one common country. Mr. Blair visited Richmond with his letter, and then again came back to Washington. On the 29th instant we were advised from the camp of Lieutenant-General Grant, that Alexander H. Stephens, R. M. T. Hunter, and John A. Campbell were applying for leave to pass through the lines to Washington as peace commissioners to confer with the President. They were per- mitted by the Lieutenant-General to come to his headquarters to 172 DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. await there the decision of the President. Major Eckert was sent down to meet the party from Richmond at General Grant's head- quarters. The Major was directed to deliver to them a copy of the President's letter to Mr. Blair, with a note to be addressed to them and signed by the Major, in which they were directly informed that if they should be allowed to pass our lines, they would be under- stood as coming for an informal conference upon the basis of the aforenamed letter of the 18th of January to Mr. Blair. If they should express their assent to this condition in writing, then Major Eckert was directed to give them safe conduct to Fortress Monroe, where a person coming from the President would meet them. It being thought probable, from a report of their conversation with Lieutenant-General Grant, that the Richmond party would in the manner prescribed accept the condition mentioned, the Secretary of State was charged by the President with the duty of representing this government in the expected informal conference. The Secre- tary arrived at Fortress Monroe in the night of the 1st day of Feb- ruary. Major Eckert met him in the morning of the 2d of Febru- ary with the information that the persons who had come from Rich- mond had not accepted in writing the condition upon which he was allowed to give them conduct to Fortress Monroe. The Major had given the same information by telegraph to the President at Wash- ington. On receiving this information, the President prepared a telegram directing the Secretary to return to Washington. The Secretary was preparing at the same moment to so return without waiting for instructions from the President. But at this juncture Lieutenant-General Grant telegraphed to the Secretary of War, as well as to the Secretary of State, that the party from Richmond had reconsidered and accepted the conditions tendered them through Major Eckert; and General Grant urgently advised the President to confer in person with the Richmond party. Under these circumstances the Secretary, by the President's direction, remained at Fortress Monroe, and the President joined him there on the night of the 2d of February. The Richmond party was brought down the James River in a United States steam transport during the day, and the transport was anchored at Hamp- ton Roads. On the morning of the 3d the President, attended by the Secre- tary, received Messrs. Stephens, Hunter, and Campbell on board DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. 173 the United States steam transport River Queen in Hampton Roads. The conference was altogether informal. There was no attendance of secretaries, clerks, or other witnesses. Nothing was written or read. The conversation, although earnest and free, was calm and courteous and kind on both sides. The Richmond party approached the discussion rather indirectly, and at no time did they either make categorical demands or tender formal stipulations or absolute refusals. Nevertheless, during the conference, which lasted four hours, the several points at issue between the government and the insurgents were distinctly raised and discussed fully, intelli- gently, and in an amicable spirit. What the insurgent party seemed chiefly to favor was a postponement of the question of separation, upon which the war is waged, and a mutual direction of efforts of the government, as well as those of the insurgents, to some extrinsic policy or scheme for a season, during which passions might be expected to subside, and the armies be reduced, and trade and intercourse between the people of both sections resumed. It was suggested by them that through such postponement we might now have immediate peace, with some not very certain prospect of an ultimate satisfactory adjustment of political relations between this government and the states, section, or people now engaged in conflict with it. This suggestion, though deliberately considered, was nevertheless regarded by the President as one of armistice or truce, and he an- nounced that we can agree to no cessation or suspension of hostili- ties, except on the basis of the disbandment of the insurgent forces, and the restoration of the national authority throughout all the states in the Union. Collaterally, and in subordination to the prop- osition that was thus announced, the anti-slavery policy of the United States was reviewed in all its bearings, and the President announced that he must not be expected to depart from the posi- tions he had heretofore assumed in his proclamation of emancipa- tion and other documents, as these positions were reiterated in his last annual message. It was further declared, by the President, that the complete restoration of the national authority was an in- dispensable condition of any assent on our part to whatever form of peace might be proposed. The President assured the other party that while he must adhere to these positions, he would be prepared, so far as power is lodged with the executive, to exercise liberality. 174 DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. His power, however, is limited by the Constitution. And when peace should be made, Congress must necessarily act in regard to appropriations of money, and to the admission of representatives from the insurrectionary states. The Richmond party were then informed that Congress had, on the 31st ultimo, adopted, by a con- stitutional majority, a joint resolution submitting to the several states the proposition to abolish slavery throughout the Union, and that there is every reason to expect that it will be soon accepted by three fourths of the states, so as to become a part of the national organic law. The conference came to an end by mutual acqui- escence, without producing an agreement of views upon the several matters discussed, or any of them. Nevertheless, it is perhaps of some importance that we have been able to submit our opinions and views directly to prominent insurgents, and to hear them in answer, in a courteous and not unfriendly manner. February 7, 1865. We have unofficial information, which seems reliable, that the insurgents are evacuating Mobile and falling back towards Selma. Through insurgent channels we learn that a column of General Sherman's army has passed Murphy's Swamp, and arrived, unop- posed, within twenty miles of Branchville; that another column is threatening Augusta; while a third detachment has passed up the North Edisto River, and is threatening Charleston. Reinforcements are now reaching General Terry, and we may soon expect to hear of effective operations against Wilmington. In a recent cavalry skirmish, at Moorfield, in western Virginia, Harry Gilmour, the noted renegade partisan who led the cavalry raid into Maryland last July, was captured. The Senate's resolution, which has so long been pending in Con- gress, and which submits to the states an amendment of the Fed- eral Constitution abolishing slavery throughout the whole Republic, was, on the 21st ultimo, formally passed in the House of Represen- tatives by a constitutional majority of two thirds of the whole House, and was immediately made known to the states. It has received the assent of several of them already, and sooner or later it will doubtless become a part of the national organic law. February 13, 1865. The manoeuvres of Major-General Thomas with the army of the Cumberland, though not yet fully developed, are nevertheless exciting great alarm in Alabama. Rebel reports DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. 175 give us our only information concerning the advance of Major-Gen- eral Sherman in South Carolina. It appears certain that, on the 8th instant, he had broken communication across the Edisto, between Branchville and Augusta. Lieutenant-General Grant has extended and advanced his line to Hatcher's Run, below Petersburg, so as to materially affect the insurgent communication with North Carolina. The operation cost a severe battle, but the advantage gained is supposed to be remu- nerative. Ice in the rivers and harbors has delayed some of the troops sent forward to reinforce General Terry in his operations against Wilmington. The return of the so-called peace commissioners to Richmond seems to have been made the occasion for a vigorous effort to revive the flagging resolution of the insurgents, by exaggerating the conse- quences of our success. Our private information from Richmond is that the panic existing there does not yield to the remedies applied by the insurgent physicians. February 21, 1865. - Admiral Dahlgren, commanding the naval forces at Charleston, reported, under date of the 18th instant, that the enemy were evacuating, and he was on his way to enter that im- portant city, the cradle of disunion. The Richmond papers announce the same event, and give us the further information that General Sherman having permanently secured Branchville and Orangeburg, on Friday morning appeared above Columbia, the capital of South Carolina, which was abandoned to him by the rebel chief, Beaure- gard. We have no details of the capture of either of these positions except vague and doubtful rebel reports of three days' fighting at Branchville. The rebels claim to have removed the bullion and the female operators in the paper mint from Columbia. They admit the destruction and loss of immense quantities of government machinery and medicines. The same authorities state that Beauregard retired to a position twenty miles from Columbia, and that Sherman with a large force passed directly through Columbia to Winnsborough, thirty miles on the road towards North Carolina. They aver also that rebel soldiers plundered the town of Columbia while abandoning it to our forces. The rebel papers report a furious cannonade by our land and naval forces against Fort Anderson, a defence of Wilmington, situated on the east side of Cape Fear, and below that city. They also report significant movements of our forces from Newbern 176 DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. towards the Weldon road above Wilmington; but they say that as yet the telegraphic communication between that city and Wilming- ton has not been broken. The gold market is declining. Government stocks are in high demand. Recruiting is renewed. Exchanges of prisoners are going forward rapidly. Disaffection speaks out boldly in North Carolina, and a collision has occurred there between rebel troops and rebel deserters. February 27, 1865. On the 22d instant Major-General Schofield moved against Wilmington with the land forces on both sides of the Cape Fear River, and Admiral Porter at the same time advanced on the river, the insurgents withdrew, and the city was surrendered without having made any resistance. Mobile and Galveston, both of which are closely blockaded, are the only ports remaining in the possession of the insurgents. The air is full of reports of con- centration and reorganization on the part of the insurgents. We have no recent information from our armies in the field. The navy is engaged in repairing damages of battle; and Admiral Goldsborough is preparing for a cruise, with a considerable fleet, in European waters. March 7, 1865.- Congress adjourned on the 3d day of March, after having passed all the laws required for the military and naval defence. The session was less disturbed by party spirit than any previous one during the civil war, except the extra session of 1861. Perhaps the most memorable proceeding of the late Congress will be its submission to the states of an amendment of the Constitution for the abolition of slavery throughout the Union. Thus far eighteen states have accepted and three have rejected the amend- ment. It need not be doubted that within one or two years it will obtain the majority required to give it effect. We have rumors of military movements not unfavorable to the Union cause, but their accuracy has not yet been established. What we know is, that General Sheridan is advancing up the valley of Virginia, threatening the Virginia and Tennessee railroad; that Grant remains with the army of the Potomac before Richmond; that Sherman has advanced northward from Columbia; and that Schofield and Foster are moving coöperative forces from the coast. We expect to hear soon of a demonstration against Mobile. March 13, 1865. We have direct reports from Major-General DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. 177 Sheridan so late as the 10th. He has now been two weeks on his march. I had not, in my last circular, given the rumors brought by deserters, but they have since received such confirmation as to war- rant us in accepting their statement that he routed Early's forces at or near Waynesborough, between Staunton and Charlottesville, and captured eight guns, with thirteen hundred prisoners. More recent and reliable news is, that he has effectually destroyed the James River canal between Lynchburg and Richmond, and many bridges, with much of the track of the Orange and Alexandria railroad. The army of the Potomac presents a scene of constant and watch- ful preparation. Suffolk, in Virginia, has been reoccupied. The insurgent newspapers contain a report from Bragg that he had repulsed General Foster at Kinston, near half way between Golds- borough and Newbern, in North Carolina, and captured three guns, with fifteen hundred prisoners. Assuming the truth of this claim, it does not now seem to seriously threaten the operations of Major-General Sherman. If the suspense in which we are held in regard to him begins to be painful, it is well to remember that the time he appointed for coming to the destination whence we should be able to hear directly from him has not yet expired. The contentions at Richmond seem to border upon distraction. It is understood that the insurrectionary cabal has at last, under Virginia's dictation, passed a bill for arming slaves—not more in numbers than one quarter of the negro males between the ages of 18 and 45 — leaving to the states the question whether the negroes to be thus brought into the field shall be emancipated. You inform me that the delusion prevails in European circles that the rebel debts will be paid as a condition of peace. To correct that delusion you may safely say that, in my belief, the principal of the debt of Great Britain will be liquidated and discharged before a single dollar, even of interest, of the rebel debt will be discharged by anybody. This nation might perish, but it could not, under the present administration, incur the dishonor of begging a peace from. insurgents. March 21, 1865. The public attention is now fastening itself upon Richmond, and things surrounding it. Major-General Sheri- dan, after having destroyed all the railroad and canal avenues on the north side of the James River, from Staunton to the Pamun- key, has crossed the last-named river, and established himself at 12 178 DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. the White House. He encountered only the resistance of Early's small force, most of which he captured. With reference to imme- diate results, it may be exaggeration to put the march of Sheridan above that of Sherman through Georgia and North Carolina, but it is allowed to have been effective beyond a parallel. Sheridan's force is now practically combined with the army of the Potomac, and henceforth may be in direct coöperation. The battle of Kinston cost each party about three thousand men. The enemy have evacuated that town, and Major-General Schofield awaits there, or in its vicinity, the arrival of Major- General Sherman at Goldsborough, who on the 11th instant captured Fayetteville, and appointed yesterday, the 20th, for his entrance into Goldsborough. Johnston and Hardee are understood to be con- centrating in front of that place — perhaps at Raleigh. The army of the Potomac is still at rest before Richmond. Significant politi- cal movements occurred there last week. The effort to bring negroes into the rebel service was begun. The so-called Congress, on the eve of an intended adjournment, was detained by a message from Davis, announcing that Richmond is in imminent danger, and demanding extreme measures, and virtually dictatorial powers, in- cluding a suspension of the habeas corpus, unlimited control over exemptions, and authority to seize gold for the uses of the rebel authorities. The so-called Legislature listened and adjourned, as is understood, without reviewing the policy of which Davis com- plained, and without conceding the most, much less all, of the ex- traordinary powers demanded. We hear that troops have arrived in Mobile Bay, and that our naval forces have crossed Dog Bar, below the city. You will find in the public papers Davis's account of an attempt to bring about a military convention between Lee and Grant, to make peace or gain time. It is true, as he says, that an overture of this kind was made by the rebel agents in the conference with the President and Secretary of State at Hampton Roads, but it was firmly though courteously declined. March 27, 1865. - Major-General Sheridan is still at the White House, on the Pamunkey, repairing the waste his corps suffered in the late expedition. The enemy on the morning of the 25th made a sudden and violent assault upon Fort Steedman, situated on our siege line in DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. 179 front of Petersburg, carried the fort, and turned its guns upon its late possessors. They at the same time attacked Fort Haskell, situated on the same line, vigorously, but were repulsed. By a rapid concentration of forces Fort Steedman was regained, with all its guns, and the former condition of things was fully restored. Our loss is reported by General Grant at eight hundred, that of the enemy at three thousand, killed and wounded, and twenty-seven hundred prisoners. Independent Union columns are pressing towards Lynchburg one under Major-General Hancock, through the Shenandoah valley, the other under Major-General Stoneman, from Nashville, through Knoxville. Major-General Schofield reports that he entered Goldsborough on the 21st, and found it evacuated by the enemy. He made impor- tant captures of railroad machinery. Major-General Sherman had not arrived there on the 21st. The rebel press report a signal vic- tory gained by them over him at Averysborough on the 16th, with a loss of four hundred and fifty men on their side, and of three thou- sand on our side. They report also a victory gained by them over him at Bentonville on the 19th instant. We have no definite news from or about Sherman since he left Fayetteville. But unofficial reports from Newbern, so late as the 21st instant, allude to engage- ments of Sherman's left column with the enemy at Averysborough and at Bentonville, and the reports state that Sherman's right column fought a battle and routed the enemy at Mount Olivet, on the Wilmington railroad, below Goldsborough, and that the rebels re- treated towards Raleigh, and that General Sherman entered Smith- field, which is situate midway between Goldsborough and the former place. Perhaps the telegraph will clear up the uncertainty which these somewhat conflicting reports have created. Nothing definite concerning Mobile has been received. Continued desertions from the rebel forces indicate a great demoralization in their army at Richmond. You will find in the public journals an account of the conviction, confession, and execution of Kennedy, one of the incendiaries who went from Canada and set fire to the hotels in New York. It is reasonable to hope that the energy with which justice is being ad- ministered will bring to an end the war we have so long suffered from the British colonies on our border. 180 DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. April 4, 1865. On the 29th instant Major-General Sherman, who had come up from Goldsborough to City Point, had a confer- ence there with the President and Lieutenant-General Grant. Gen- eral Sherman immediately thereafter returned to his own com- mand. On the 28th instant the Lieutenant-General organized a large movable force below Petersburg, and so disposed of it as to oblige the rebel General Lee to weaken his batteries in intrench- ments, or leave the Southside railroad unprotected. The move- ment continued with alternating advance and retreat throughout the 28th, 29th, and 30th. On the 31st General Sheridan, in com- mand of the cavalry arm, seized the Southside railroad, and sweep- ing backwards, flanked the forces of Lee, and obtained a signal victory. On the 2d the main force, under the Lieutenant-Gen- eral's immediate command, broke through the enemy's intrench- ments below Petersburg, and then, by contracting their line to the Appomattox, above the city, completed their investment. Early on the 3d Petersburg and Richmond were evacuated. Gen- eral Weitzel entered the rebel stronghold, and the Lieutenant-Gen- eral was in pursuit of the retreating rebel army. The Lieutenant- General reports that in the engagements which preceded the evacuation of Petersburg our forces captured fifty guns and twelve thousand prisoners. Here our information concerning this great movement ends. The country has surrendered itself up to demon- strations of joy and gratitude to Almighty God. Major-Genėral Hancock, with a large force, is still in the valley of Virginia, awaiting the Lieutenant-General's orders. Major-General Stoneman, with the cavalry of the army of the Cumberland, is reported crossing the Blue Ridge, at Boone, in North Carolina, to coöperate with the armies under the Lieutenant- General and Major-General Sherman. We hear of an advance by land and sea against Mobile, but not yet of the result of that important manœuvre. April 10, 1865. The past week has been characterized by a rapid and uninterrupted series of military successes more momen- tous in their results than any that have preceded them during the war: Richmond and Petersburg, with all their communications and vast quantities of supplies and material of war, have been captured by our armies. The insurrection has no longer a seat of its pre- tended government. Its so-called officials are fugitives. Its chief DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. 181 army, after being reduced by repeated defeats and demoralization to less than one third of its former numbers, has been retreating closely pursued and hemmed in by the victorious forces of the Union, and encountering fresh losses at every step of its flight, until the triumph of the national armies finally culminated in the surrender of General Lee and the whole insurgent army of northern Virginia to Lieutenant-General Grant yesterday afternoon at half past four o'clock. Henceforth it is evident that the war, if protracted, can never resume its former character. Organized operations of campaign or siege, carried on by disciplined and effective armies, are no longer possible for the insurgents. Depredations by marauding gangs, and defence of remote and isolated inland fastnesses, may, perhaps, still be continued; but even these can endure but for a time. Not the least significant feature of these triumphs is the reception ex- tended by the inhabitants to the advancing armies of the Union; their entire acquiescence, and, in many instances, their apparently sincere rejoicings at the return of its protecting authority over the insurgent district. The insurrection has now no port or access to the sea, no fixed seat of its pretended government, no coherent civil administration, no army that is not, in consequence of repeated defeats, rapidly dis- solving into fragments, and the only ships that assume to carry its flag are those foreign-built vessels, which, from the day their keels were laid on neutral soil, have never ventured to approach within hundreds of miles of the scene of the insurrection, and have only derived their ability to rob and plunder from the concession to them of belligerent privileges by powers which have repeatedly assured us of their disposition to be neutral in the strife. April 15, 1865. The sad duty devolves upon me to announce the assassination of the President at Ford's Theatre, last night, by a pistol-shot from a person who entered his box for the purpose. The assassin escaped, but it is supposed has since been arrested. The President died at seven and a half o'clock this morning. Vice- President Johnson has assumed the functions of President, having been sworn in by the Chief Justice. About the same time an attempt was made, by, it is believed, a different person, to assassinate Mr. Seward, but the murderer only 182 DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. succeeded in inflicting painful and severe wounds, principally upon his face. Mr. F. W. Seward was beaten over the head with a heavy weapon in the hands of the person who attacked his father, and is grievously hurt. His brother was also wounded by the dagger of the assassin, as well as Mr. Hansell, a messenger of the Department of State, who was with the Secretary, and the male nurse in attendance. W. HUNTER, Acting Secretary. London, April 28, 1865.-I had the grief to receive the day before yesterday the telegraphic despatches from Mr. Stanton, the Secretary of War, and from Mr. Hunter, the chief clerk of your De- partment, announcing the afflicting event of the 14th instant, which has thrown our whole people into such deep distress. They also give a narrative of the simultaneous savage onslaught upon yourself in your sick-room, and upon your son, the Assistant Secretary, which had not at the latest date and which I yet permit myself to hope will not prove fatal to either of you. I immediately took the requisite measures to communicate the in- telligence to the different legations on the continent. It is but consistency that a rebellion which began in perjury, treachery, and fraud, should close with private assassination. The whole of the day was one of the greatest excitement. Few events of the present century have created such general consternation and indignation. Many people called personally at the legation to express their deep sympathy, and many more sent me notes of the same tenor. The notices taken by the press are almost all of them of a most honorable character. I transmit copies of the leading newspapers. There seems, at last, to be a general testimony borne to the noble qualities of the President and the friendly disposition of the Secre- tary of State. If all this eulogy be found mingled with the alloy of unworthy aspersions of the Vice President who succeeds, he has abundant con- solation in the reflection that when his predecessor began he was not a whit better treated. It is a weakness of the press and the people of this country not to value some men properly until they are lost the case of the late Prince Consort is a remarkable instance. The proceedings in the two houses of Parliament last evening DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. · 183 mark out the line proposed to be adopted by the government on this occasion. I have the honor to be, sir, your obedient servant, CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS. HON. WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State, Washington, D. C. April 27, 1865. Mr. The Secretary has been able to ride out yester- day and to-day, and it is quite probable that in the course of a fort- night he will be able to a certain extent to attend to business. F. W. Seward is reported by his physician as in a condition to inspire good hopes of his ultimate recovery, though the process must, of course, from the nature of his injuries, be slow. W. HUNTER, Acting Secretary. MR. HUNTER TO MR. ADAMS. May 2, 1865. The public press will have informed you of the honors done by the people to the remains of our lamented President, on their transit from this city to Chicago, which point they have now reached. The assassination and the other atrocious attempts have called forth gratifying expressions of condolence and sympathy from foreigners resident in the United States, and from the govern- ment and many of the cities of Canada. With reference to military events, I will mention that Macon, Georgia, was captured by General Wilson on the 13th ultimo, when he was notified by General Sherman of the truce, and withdrew. When the truce between Generals Sherman and Johnston, with the proposed terms of surrender, was reported to the President, Gen- eral Grant was promptly despatched to order the resumption of offen- sive operations, unless more satisfactory terms could be arranged, and the result was the surrender of Johnston, including all forces. between Raleigh and Chattahoochee River, upon the same terms granted to Lee. No information has been received of the interception of Jefferson Davis, who is said to have with him a large amount of gold taken from the banks at Richmond. John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of President Lincoln, was killed on the 26th ultimo, near Port Royal, on the Rappahannock, and his companion Herold captured alive. May 16, 1865. The military court convened to commence pro- ceedings for the trial of the assassins and their accomplices on the DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. 184 9th instant. Newspapers containing a report of the testimony have been forwarded to you by this mail. The report comes to us in a credible form that the rebel General Taylor surrendered with his command to Major-General Canby, on substantially the same terms accepted by Lee. It appears that Johnston, on surrendering, turned over to the national forces one hundred and fifty cannon and nine thousand stand of arms. On the 12th instant Major-General Wilson announced by tele- graph the capture at Irwinville, in Georgia, of the fugitive rebel chief, Jefferson Davis, who was surprised in camp by the 4th Michi- gan cavalry, under the immediate command of Lieutenant-Colonel Pritchard. May 30, 1865. - The Stonewall has been turned over by her insurgent commander to the keeping of the Spanish authorities at Havana; the question as to the ultimate disposition to be made of her is under consideration. An indictment has been found against Jefferson Davis for high treason, for which he will be tried before the United States court for this district. By a despatch of the 25th instant, General Canby announced to the Secretary of War that arrangements for the surrender of the insurgent forces in the trans-Mississippi Department had been con- cluded, including the men and material of the military and naval service. On the 27th instant, under the direction of the President, the Secretary of War ordered that in all cases of sentence by military tribunals of imprisonment during the war, the sentence be remitted, and that the prisoners be discharged. WILLIAM HUNTER, Acting Secretary. July 8, 1865. The military commission appointed to try the con- spirators against the lives of the late and of the present President, of members of the Cabinet and others, has brought its proceedings to a close by sentencing Mary E. Surratt, Lewis Payne, David E. Her- old, and George Atzerodt, to death by hanging; Samuel A. Mudd, Michael O'Laughlin, and Samuel Arnold to imprisonment at hard labor for life; and Edward Spangler to imprisonment for the term of six years at hard labor. The sentence against the four first-named persons was yesterday carried into effect. DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. 185 September 5, 1865. The President will neither make promises nor grant either passports or permits for return, to rebels now abroad; applications for pardons will be considered only when the persons making them are residing in the United States, and, in any case, there must be an unreserved, not a conditional appeal to the mercy and magnanimity of the government.¹ September 7, 1865. With the decline of the civil war in the United States the press, as well at home as abroad, finds its news materially abridged. Hence we have incidents, in themselves un- important, magnified into indications of solemn state purposes, and loosely drawn and conjectured speculations of forthcoming grave events. The affair at Cherbourg belongs to this class of subjects. This government has taken no thought of it, and has not been dis- posed to invest it with any the least amount of interest, and of course has no wounded sensibility about it. The government of Great Britain still maintains its twenty-four-hour rule in regard to our ships-of-war in British ports, and we have expressed our opinion and announced our course in relation to that discourtesy. France has not announced that she intends to maintain that rule, but has left us to infer the contrary, although British agents represent that her course is identical with that of Great Britain. We have taken no notice of those statements. We intend neither to seek for con- troversies nor to give voluntary offence to maritime powers, and we therefore are not looking about us for affronts or indications of dis- respect. 1 Mr. Seward had now sufficiently recovered to be able to dictate and sign his despatches. 2 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. MR. BLACK, Secretary of State during the last days of Mr. Buchanan's presidency, had addressed a circular to our ministers under date of February 28, 1861, in which he describes the situa- tion thus: "The election of last November resulted in the choice of Mr. Abraham Lincoln, the candidate of the Republican or anti-slavery party; the preceding discussion had been confined almost entirely to topics connected, directly or indirectly, with the subject of negro slavery; every Northern state cast its whole electoral vote (except three in New Jersey) for Mr. Lincoln, while in the whole South the popular sentiment against him was almost absolutely universal. Some of the Southern states, immediately after the election, took measures for separating themselves from the Union, and others soon followed their example. Conventions have been called in South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, and those conventions, in all except the last- named state, have passed ordinances declaring their secession from the Federal government. A Congress, composed of representatives from the six first-named states, has been assembled for some time at Montgomery, Alabama. By this body a provisional constitution. has been framed for what it styles the Confederate States of America.' Mr. Seward to all the Ministers of the United States. A g 261. My predecessor, in his despatch, addressed to ← February last, instructed you to use all proper 190 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. and necessary measures to prevent the success of efforts which may be made by persons claiming to represent those states of this Union in whose name a provisional government has been announced to procure a recognition of their independence by the government [to which you are accredited.] I am now instructed by the President of the United States to inform you that, having assumed the administration of the govern- ment in pursuance of an unquestioned election and of the directions of the Constitution, he renews the injunction which I have men- tioned, and relies upon the exercise of the greatest possible diligence and fidelity on your part to counteract and prevent the designs of those who would invoke foreign intervention to embarrass or over- throw the Republic. When you reflect on the novelty of such designs, their unpatri- otic and revolutionary character, and the long train of evils which must follow directly or consequentially from even their partial or temporary success, the President feels assured that you will justly appreciate and cordially approve the caution which prompts this communication. I transmit herewith a copy of the address pronounced by the President on taking the constitutional oath of office. It sets forth clearly the errors of the misguided partisans who are seeking to dismember the Union, the grounds on which the conduct of those partisans is disallowed, and also the general policy which the gov- ernment will pursue with a view to the preservation of domestic peace and order, and the maintenance and preservation of the Federal Union. You will lose no time in submitting this address to the minister for foreign affairs, and in assuring him that the President of the United States entertains a full confidence in the speedy restoration of the harmony and unity of the government by a firm yet just and liberal bearing, cooperating with the deliberate and loyal ac- tion of the American people. You will truthfully urge upon the government the consideration that the present disturbances have had their origin only in popular passions, excited under novel circumstances of very transient che acter, and that while not one person of well-balanced mi attempted to show that dismemberment of the Uni permanently conducive to the safety and welfare THE UNION BENEFICIAL TO THE WORLD. 191 state or section, much less of all the states and sections of our coun- try, the people themselves still retain and cherish a profound confi- dence in our happy Constitution, together with a veneration and affection for it such as no other form of government ever received at the hands of those for whom it was established. We feel free to assume that it is the general conviction of men, not only here but in all other countries, that this Federal Union affords a better system than any other that could be contrived to assure the safety, the peace, the prosperity, the welfare, and the happiness of all the states of which it is composed. The position of these states, and their mining, agricultural, manufacturing, com- mercial, political, and social relations and influences, seem to make it permanently the interest of all other nations that our present political system shall be unchanged and undisturbed. Any advan- tage that any foreign nation might derive from a connection that it might form with any dissatisfied or discontented portion, state, or section, even if not altogether illusory, would be ephemeral, and would be overbalanced by the evils it would suffer from a dissev- erance of the whole Union, whose manifest policy it must be here- after, as it has always been heretofore, to maintain peace, liberal commerce, and cordial amity with all other nations, and to favor the establishment of well-ordered government over the whole Amer- ican continent. Nor do we think we exaggerate our national importance when we claim that any political disaster that should befall us, and introduce discord or anarchy among the states that have so long constituted one great, pacific, prosperous nation, under a form of government which has approved itself to the respect and confidence of mankind, might tend by its influence to disturb and unsettle the existing systems of government in other parts of the world, and arrest that progress of improvement and civilization which marks the era in which we live. W. PRESTON, Esq., Madrid. The same, mutatis mutandis, to E. G. FAIR, Esq., Brussels; THEO. S. FAY, Esq., Berne; Jos. A. WRIGHT, Esq., Berlin; J. G. JONES, Esq., Vienna; J. WILLIAMS, Esq., Constantinople; GEO. M. DALLAS, Esq., London; CHAS. J. FAULKNER, Esq., Paris; JOHN APPLETON, Esq., St. Petersburg; HENRY C. MURPHY, Esq., The Hague. 192 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. ! Mr. Seward to Ministers of the United States in Great Britain, France, Russia, Prussia, Austria, Belgium, Italy, and Denmark. CIRCULAR. April 24, 1861.- SIR: The advocates of benevolence and the believers in human progress, encouraged by the slow though marked meliorations of the barbarities of war which have obtained in mod- ern times, have been, as you are well aware, recently engaged with much assiduity in endeavoring to effect some modifications of the law of nations in regard to the rights of neutrals in maritime war. In the spirit of these movements the President of the United States, in the year 1854, submitted to the several maritime nations two propositions, to which he solicited their assent as permanent principles of international law, which were as follows: 1. Free ships make free goods; that is to say, that the effects or goods belonging to subjects or citizens of a power or state at war are free from capture or confiscation when found on board of neu- tral vessels, with the exception of articles contraband of war. 2. That the property of neutrals on board an enemy's vessel is not subject to confiscation unless the same be contraband of war. Several of the governments to which these propositions were sub- mitted expressed their willingness to accept them, while some others, which were in a state of war, intimated a desire to defer acting thereon until the return of peace should present what they thought would be a more auspicious season for such interesting negotiations. On the 16th of April, 1856, a congress was in session at Paris. It consisted of several maritime powers, represented by their pleni- potentiaries, namely, Great Britain, Austria, France, Russia, Prus- sia, Sardinia, and Turkey. That congress having taken up the general subject to which allusion has already been made in this letter, on the day before mentioned, came to an agreement, which they adopted in the form of a declaration, to the effect following, namely:- 1. Privateering is and remains abolished. 2. The neutral flag covers enemy's goods, with the exception of contraband of war. 3. Neutral goods, with the exception of contraband of war, are not liable to capture under enemy's flag. MARITIME WAR. - PRIVATEERING. 193 4. Blockades, in order to be binding, must be effective; that is to say, maintained by forces sufficient really to prevent access to the coast of the enemy. The agreement pledged the parties constituting the congress to bring the declaration thus made to the knowledge of the states which had not been represented in that body, and to invite them to accede to it. The congress, however, at the same time insisted, in the first place, that the declaration should be binding only on the powers who were or should become parties to it as one whole and indivisible compact; and, secondly, that the parties who had agreed, and those who should afterwards accede to it, should, after the adop- tion of the same, enter into no arrangement on the application of maritime law in time of war without stipulating for a strict ob- servance of the four points resolved by the declaration. The declaration which I have thus substantially recited of course prevented all the powers which became parties to it from accepting the two propositions which had been before submitted to the mari- time nations by the President of the United States. The declaration was, in due time, submitted by the governments represented in the congress at Paris to the government of the United States. The President, about the 14th of July, 1856, made known to the states concerned his unwillingness to accede to the declaration. In making that announcement on behalf of this government my prede- cessor, Mr. Marcy, called the attention of those states to the follow- ing points, namely:- 1st. That the second and third propositions contained in the Paris declaration are substantially the same with the two proposi- tions which had before been submitted to the maritime states by the President. 2d. That the Paris declaration, with the conditions annexed, was inadmissible by the United States in three respects, namely: 1st. That the government of the United States could not give its as- sent to the first proposition contained in the declaration, namely: that “Privateering is and remains abolished," although it was wil- ling to accept it with an amendment which should exempt the private property of individuals, though belonging to belligerent states, from seizure or confiscation by national vessels in maritime war. 2d. That for this reason the stipulation annexed to the declaration, viz: 13 194 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. that the propositions must be taken altogether or rejected altogether, without modification, could not be allowed. 3d. That the fourth condition annexed to the declaration, which provided that the par- ties acceding to it should enter into no negotiation for any modifica- tions of the law of maritime war with nations which should not con- tain the four points contained in the Paris declaration, seemed inconsistent with a proper regard to the national sovereignty of the United States. On the 29th of July, 1856, Mr. Mason, then Minister of the United States at Paris, was instructed by the President to propose to the government of France to enter into an arrangement for its adherence, with the United States, to the four principles of the declaration of the Congress of Paris, provided the first of them should be amended as specified in Mr. Marcy's note to the Count de Sartiges on the 28th of July, 1856. Mr. Mason accordingly brought the subject to the notice of the imperial government of France, which was disposed to entertain the matter favorably, but which failed to communicate its decision on the subject to him. Similar instructions regarding the matter were addressed by this Department to Mr. Dallas, our Minister at London, on the 31st day of January, 1857; but the proposition above referred to had not been directly presented to the British government by him when the administration of this government by Franklin Pierce, during whose term these proceedings occurred, came to an end on the 3d of March, 1857, and was succeeded by that of James Buchanan, who directed the negotiations to be arrested for the purpose of enabling him to examine the questions involved, and they have ever since remained in that state of suspension. The President of the United States has now taken the subject into consideration, and he is prepared to communicate his views upon it, with a disposition to bring the negotiation to a speedy and satisfactory conclusion. } For that purpose you are hereby instructed to seek an early opportunity to call the attention of her Majesty's government to the subject, and to ascertain whether it is disposed to enter into negotiations for the accession of the government of the United States to the declaration of the Paris congress, with the conditions an- nexed by that body to the same; and if you shall find that govern- ment so disposed, you will then enter into a convention to that THE NATURE OF THE UNION: ITS BASIS. 195 effect, substantially in the form of a project for that purpose here- with transmitted to you; the convention to take effect from the time when the due ratifications of the same shall have been exchanged. It is presumed that you will need no special explanation of the sen- timents of the President on this subject for the purpose of conduct- ing the necessary conferences with the government to which you are accredited. Its assent is expected on the ground that the propo- sition is accepted at its suggestion, and in the form it has preferred. For your own information it will be sufficient to say that the Presi- dent adheres to the opinion expressed by my predecessor, Mr. Marcy, that it would be eminently desirable for the good of all nations that the property and effects of private individuals, not con- traband, should be exempt from seizure and confiscation by national vessels in maritime war. If the time and circumstances were propi- tious to a prosecution of the negotiation with that object in view, he would direct that it should be assiduously pursued. But the right season seems to have passed, at least for the present. Europe seems once more on the verge of quite general wars. On the other hand, a portion of the American people have raised the standard of insur- rection, and proclaimed a provisional government, and, through their organs, have taken the bad resolution to invite privateers to prey upon the peaceful commerce of the United States. Prudence and humanity combine in persuading the President, under the circumstances, that it is wise to secure the lesser good offered by the Paris congress, without waiting indefinitely in hope to obtain the greater one offered to the maritime nations by the President of the United States. Mr. Seward to Mr. Judd. March 22, 1861.- Contrary to what usually happens in giving instructions to a Minister going abroad, I am directed by the Presi- dent to ask you to fix your attention in the first instance, and to keep it constantly fixed, on the actual condition of affairs at home. I allude, of course, to the unlawful and unconstitutional attempt which is being made to detach several of the states from the Federal Union, and to organize them as an independent republic under the name of the "Confederate States of America." You are well aware of what you will find Europeans unable to understand, namely, that owing to the very peculiar structure of our 196 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. Federal government, and the equally singular character and habits of the American people, this government not only wisely but neces- sarily hesitates to resort to coercion and compulsion to secure a return of the disaffected portion of the people to their customary allegiance. The Union was formed upon popular consent, and must always practically stand on the same basis. The temporary causes of alienation must pass away; there must needs be disasters and dis- appointments resulting from the exercise of unlawful authority by the revolutionists, while happily it is certain that there is a general and profound sentiment of loyalty pervading the public mind throughout the United States. While it is the intention of the President to maintain the sovereignty and rightful authority of the Union everywhere with firmness as well as discretion, he at the same time relies with great confidence on the salutary working of the agencies I have mentioned, to restore the harmony and Union of the states. But to this end it is of the greatest importance that the disaffected states shall not succeed in obtaining favor or recog- nition from foreign nations. It is understood that the so-called Confederate States of America have sent, or are about to send, agents to solicit such recognition in Europe, although there is no special reason for supposing Prus- sia to be one of the nations to which application will be made. An almost electric political connection, however, exists between the several capitals of western Europe, and therefore your most efficient and unfailing efforts must be put forth directly, and even indirectly, to prevent the success of that ill-starred design. It may be well to call your attention to the fact that I have for- borne altogether from discussing the groundless complaints and pre- texts which have been put forth by the organs of disunion to justify the rash and perilous revolution which they are attempting to in- augurate. I have practised this reticence not because the point is unimportant, but because the dispute is purely a domestic one, and the President would not willingly have the archives of our lega- tions bear testimony to so un-American a proceeding as an acknowl- edgment, even by indirection, that this government ever consented to join issue upon a purely family matter of this kind with a portion of our own citizens before a foreign tribunal. Neverthe- less, should you find that any weight is given to those complaints and pretexts in the court to which you are accredited, your perfect RECOGNITION TO BE PREVENTED. 197 knowledge of all the transactions involved, will, I am sure, enable you to meet them conclusively and satisfactorily without precise in- structions on that point. Mr. Seward to Mr. Sanford. March 26, 1861. - Having spent the winter in Washington, you need not be informed of the attempts of a misguided party of citi- zens in several of the southern states, not unattended with violence and spoliation, to dismember the Federal Republic, and of their scheme to organize several of the states in a new revolutionary gov- ernment, under the name of the Confederate States of America. Formidable as this conspiracy seemed at the beginning, it is now confidently believed that the policy of the present administration in regard to it will be supported by the people a policy of concilia- tion, forbearance, and firmness-and that the conspiracy will thus fail for want of ultimate adoption by the states themselves which are expected to constitute the new confederacy. Aware of this danger, the movers in that desperate and destructive enterprise are now understood to be making every effort to gain external advantage by appeals to prejudice or supposed interest in foreign nations for a recognition of the independence of the proposed new confederacy. Under these circumstances the most important duty of the diplo- matic representatives of the United States in Europe will be to counteract by all proper means the efforts of the agents of that pro- jected confederacy at their respective courts. It was your ex- tensive acquaintance on the Continent, taken in connection with your activity and energy here, which induced the President to con- fer upon you the appointment of Minister resident in Belgium. The general considerations to be urged against such a recognition will be found in the inaugural address of the President, delivered on the 4th of March instant, and in a circular letter despatched by me on the 9th instant to our Ministers. The President, confident of the ultimate ascendency of law, order, and the Union, through the deliberate action of the people in constitutional forms, does not expect you to engage in any dis- cussion which the agents of the disunionists may attempt to initiate on the merits of their proposed revolution. He will not consent, directly or indirectly, to the interpellation of any foreign power in a controversy which is merely a domestic one. 198 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. There is some reason to suppose that the agents of the disunionists will attempt to win favor for their scheme of recognition by affect- ing to sympathize with the manufacturing interests of the European nations in their discontent with the tariff laws of the United States, and by promising to receive the fabrics of such nations on more favorable terms. You will be able to reply to such seductions as these that the new tariff laws thus complained of are revenue laws deemed by the legislature of the United States necessary under new and peculiar circumstances; that all experience shows that such laws are not and cannot be permanent; that if, as is now pretended, they shall prove to be onerous to foreign commerce, they will, of course, prove also to be unfruitful of revenue, and that in that case they will necessarily be promptly modified. The inconvenience, if any shall result from them, will therefore be temporary and prac- tically harmless. Nor will any statesman of a foreign country need to be informed that the consumption of the fabrics which it is proposed shall be favored by the so-called seceding states chiefly takes place, not within those states, but in a very large degree in the states which remain undisturbed by this unhappy attempt at revolution. It hardly need be added that the recognition which the insur- gent states desire tends through either peace or war to the establish- ment of a new government. That new government, like the gov- ernment of the United States, must levy imports on foreign mer- chandise, while it must also resort to an export duty on cotton, its great staple, for its support; and these two measures combined would constitute a policy largely prohibitive, instead of the liberal and genial one which is now promised by the disunion party. You will not fail to represent to the government of the King of the Belgians that all the interests of European manufactures and commerce are identified with the promotion of peace and the undis- turbed activity of the American people. An act of recognition in favor of a now discontented party would necessarily tend to en- courage that party to attempt to establish their separation from the Union by civil war, the consequences of which would be disastrous to all the existing systems of industrial activity in Europe, and when once they had begun, those consequences would be likely to continue indefinitely; whereas no nation in Europe can hope that their own interests would be as safe and prosperous under any RELATIONS WITH GREAT BRITAIN. 199 change of government here as they are now and have so long been under our present system. It is quite manifest already that differences and embarrassing questions may soon arise concerning the conduct of commerce, and that the commercial states of Europe may be subjected to strong seductions to violate our revenue laws and regulations. You will say generally on this subject that the government of the United States will expect the same respect to those laws and regu- lations which has hitherto been shown and which our treaties of amity and commerce entitle us to demand, and that it will not hold itself bound to favor or exempt from consequences any parties, of whatever nation, who may violate them. It does not at all distrust its ability to maintain them, or the good disposition of its allies to observe them. I shall not enlarge on these subjects, insomuch as the phase of the whole affair changes almost daily. The President willingly ex- pects to rely on your astuteness in discovering points of attack, and your practical skill and experience in protecting the interests of the United States. He will expect you, however, to communicate to this Department very fully and frequently, and you will receive prompt instructions in every new emergency. Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams. April 10, 1861. — Although Great Britain and the United States possess adjacent dominions of large extent, and although they divide, not very unequally, a considerable portion of the commerce of the world, yet there are at present only two questions in debate be- tween them. One of these concerns the line of boundary running through Puget Sound, and involves the title to the island of San Juan. The other relates to a proposition for extinguishing the interest of the Hudson Bay and Puget Sound agricultural com- panies in the Territory of Washington. The discussion of these questions has hitherto been carried on here, and there is no neces- sity for removing it to London. It is expected to proceed amicably and result in satisfactory conclusions. It would seem, therefore, on first thought, that you would find nothing more to do in England than to observe and report current events, and to cultivate friendly sentiments there towards the United States. Nevertheless the pe- culiar condition of our country in the present juncture renders these duties a task of considerable delicacy. 200 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. You will readily understand me as alluding to the attempts which are being made by a misguided portion of our fellow citizens to detach some of the states and to combine them in a new organiza- tion under the name of the Confederate States of America. The agitators in this bad enterprise, justly estimating the influence of the European powers upon even American affairs, do not mistake in supposing that it would derive signal advantage from a recog- nition by any of those powers, and especially Great Britain. Your task, therefore, apparently so simple and easy, involves the respon- sibility of preventing the commission of an act by the government of that country which would be fraught with disaster, perhaps ruin, to our own. It is by no means easy to give you instructions. They must be based on a survey of the condition of the country, and include a statement of the policy of the government. The insurrectionary movement, though rapid in its progress, is slow in revealing its per- manent character. Only outlines of a policy can be drawn which must largely depend on uncertain events. The presidential election took place on the 6th of November last. The canvass had been conducted in all the southern or slave states in such a manner as to prevent a perfectly candid hearing there of the issue involved, and so all the parties existing there were sur- prised and disappointed in the marked result. That disappoint- ment was quickly seized for desperate purposes by a class of persons until that time powerless, who had long cherished a design to dis- member the Union and build up a new confederacy around the Gulf of Mexico. Ambitious leaders hurried the people forward, in a factious course, observing conventional forms but violating alto- gether the deliberative spirit of their constitutions. When the new Federal administration came in on the 4th of March last, it found itself confronted by an insurrectionary combination of seven states, practising an insidious strategy to seduce eight other states into its councils. One needs to be as conversant with our federative system as per- haps only American publicists can be to understand how effectually, in the first instance, such a revolutionary movement must demora- lize the general government. We are not only a nation, but we are states also. All public officers, as well as all citizens, owe not only allegiance to the Union but allegiance also to the states in which THE NATURE OF DISUNION: ITS PROGRESS. 201 they reside. In the more discontented states the local magistrates and other officers cast off at once their Federal allegiance, and con- ventions were held which assumed to absolve their citizens from the same obligation. Even Federal judges, marshals, clerks, and reve- nue officers resigned their trusts. Intimidation deterred loyal per- sons from accepting the offices thus rendered vacant. So the most important faculties of the Federal government in those states abruptly ceased. The resigning Federal agents, if the expression y be used, attorned to the revolutionary authorities and delivered them public funds and other property and possessions of large The Federal government had, through a long series of for venience. ngaged in building strong fortifications, a navy yard, reasuries, and other public edifices, not in any case states, but chiefly for their protection and con- These had been unsuspectingly left either altogether or imperfectly garrisoned or guarded, and they fell, with little resist- ance, into the hands of the revolutionary party. A general officer of the army gave up to them a large quantity of military stores and other property, disbanded the troops under his command, and sent them out of the territory of the disaffected states. It may be stated, perhaps without giving just offence, that the most popular motive in these discontents was an apprehension of designs on the part of the incoming Federal administration hostile to the institution of domestic slavery in the states where it is toler- ated by the local constitutions and laws. That institution and the class which especially cherishes it are not confined to the states which have revolted, but they exist in the eight other so-called. slave states; and these, for that reason, sympathize profoundly with the revolutionary movement. Sympathies and apprehensions of this kind have, for an indefinite period, entered into the bases of political parties throughout the whole country, and thus consid- erable masses of persons, whose ultimate loyalty could not be doubted, were found, even in the free states, either justifying, ex- cusing, or palliating the movement towards disunion in the seceding states. The party which was dominant in the Federal government during the period of the last administration embraced, practically, and held in unreserved communion, all disunionists and sympathiz- ers. It held the executive administration. The Secretaries of the Treasury, War, and the Interior were disunionists. The same 202 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. party held a large majority of the Senate, and nearly equally divided the House of Representatives. Disaffection lurked, if it did not openly avow itself, in every Department and in every bureau, in every regiment and in every ship-of-war; in the post-office and in the custom-house, and in every legation and consulate from Lon- don to Calcutta. Of four thousand four hundred and seventy offi cers in the public service, civil and military, two thousand one hundred and fifty-four were representatives of states where the rev- olutionary movement was openly advocated and urged, even if n actually organized. Our system being so completely federativ representative, no provision had ever been made, perhaps could have been made, to anticipate this strange dented disturbance. The people were shocked by astounding developments of what the statute TO- nounced to be sedition and treason, but the magistracy was demor- alized and the laws were powerless. By degrees, however, a better sentiment revealed itself. The executive administration hesitat- ingly, in part, reformed itself. The capital was garrisoned; the new President came in unresisted, and soon constituted a new and purely loyal administration. They found the disunionists persever- ingly engaged in raising armies and laying sieges around national fortifications situate within the territory of the disaffected states. The Federal marine seemed to have been scattered everywhere except where its presence was necessary, and such of the military forces as were not in the remote states and territories were held back from activity by vague and mysterious armistices which had been informally contracted by the late President, or under his authority, with a view to postpone conflict until impracticable con- cessions to disunion should be made by Congress, or at least until the waning term of his administration should reach its appointed end. Commissioners who had been sent by the new confederacy were already at the capital demanding recognition of its sovereignty and a partition of the national property and domain. The treasury, depleted by robbery and peculation, was exhausted and the public credit was prostrate. It would be very unjust to the American people to suppose that this singular and unhappy condition of things indicated any extreme favor or toleration of the purpose of a permanent dissolution of the Union. On the contrary, disunion at the very first took on a spe- THE NATURE OF DISUNION: ITS PROGRESS. 203 cious form, and it afterwards made its way by ingenious and seduc- tive devices. It inculcated that the Union is a purely voluntary connection, founded on the revocable assent of the several states; that secession, in the case of great popular discontent, would induce consultation and reconciliation, and so that revolution, instead of being war, is peace, and disunion, instead of being dissolution, is union. Though the ordinances of secession in the seceding states were car- ried through impetuously, without deliberation, and even by ques- tionable majorities, yet it was plausibly urged that the citizens who had remained loyal to the Union might wisely acquiesce, so as ultimately to moderate and control the movement, and in any event that if war should ensue, it would become a war of sections, and not a social war, of all others, and especially in those states, the form of war most seriously to be deprecated. It being assumed that peaceful separation is in harmony with the Constitution, it was urged as a consequence that coercion would, therefore, be unlawful and tyrannical; and this principle was even pushed so far as to make the defensive retaining by the Federal government of its position within the limits of the seceding states, or where it might seem to overawe or intimidate them, an act of such forbidden coercion. Thus it happened that for a long time, and in very extensive dis- tricts even, fidelity to the Union manifested itself by demanding a surrender of its powers and possessions, and compromises with or immunity towards those who were engaged in overthrowing it by armed force. Disunion under these circumstances rapidly matured. On the other hand, the country was bewildered. For the moment even loyal citizens fell naturally into the error of inquiring how the fearful state of things had come about, and who was responsible for it, thus inviting a continuance of the controversy out of which it had arisen, rather than rallying to the duty of arresting it. Disunion, sustained only by passion, made haste to attain its end. Union, on the contrary, required time, because it could only appeal to reason, and reason could not be heard until excitement should in some degree subside. Military spirit is an element always ready for revolution. It has a fuller development in the disaffected than in the loyal states. Thousands of men have already banded themselves as soldiers in the cause of disunion, while the defenders of the Union, before resorting to arms, everywhere wait to make sure that it can- not be otherwise preserved. Even this cautious and pacific, yet + 204 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. patriotic disposition has been misunderstood and perverted by fac- tion to encourage disunion. I believe that I have thus presented the disunion movement dis- passionately and without misrepresenting its proportions or its character. You will hardly be asked by responsible statesmen abroad why the new administration has not already suppressed the revolution. Thirty-five days are a short period in which to repress, chiefly by moral means, a movement which is so active while disclosing itself throughout an empire. You will not be expected to promulgate this history, or to com- municate it to the British government, but you are entitled to the President's views, which I have thus set forth in order to enable you to understand the policy which he proposes to pursue, and to con- form your own action to it. The President neither looks for nor apprehends any actual and permanent dismemberment of the American Union, especially by a line of latitude. The improvement of our many channels of inter- course, and the perfection of our scheme of internal exchanges, and the incorporation of both of them into a great system of foreign commerce, concurring with the gradual abatement of the force of the only existing cause of alienation, have carried us already beyond the danger of disunion in that form. The so-called Confederate States, therefore, in the opinion of the President, are attempting what will prove a physical impossibility. Necessarily they build the structure of their new government upon the same principle by which they seek to destroy the Union, namely, the right of each individual member of the confederacy to withdraw from it at pleasure and in peace. A government thus constituted could neither attain the con- solidation necessary for stability, nor guarantee any engagements it might make with creditors or other nations. The movement, therefore, in the opinion of the President, tends directly to anarchy in the seceding states, as similar movements in similar circum- stances have already resulted in Spanish America, and especially in Mexico. He believes, nevertheless, that the citizens of those states, as well as the citizens of the other states, are too intelligent, consid- erate, and wise to follow the leaders to that disastrous end. For these reasons he would not be disposed to reject a cardinal dogma of theirs, namely, that the Federal government could not reduce the THE POLICY OF THE PRESIDENT. 205 seceding states to obedience by conquest, even although he were dis- posed to question that proposition. But, in fact, the President willingly accepts it as true. Only an imperial or despotic govern- ment could subjugate thoroughly disaffected and insurrectionary members of the state. This federal republican system of ours is of all forms of government the very one which is most unfitted for such a labor. Happily, however, this is only an imaginary defect. The system has within itself adequate, peaceful, conservative, and recuperative forces. Firmness on the part of the government in maintaining and preserving the public institutions and property, and in executing the laws where authority can be exercised without waging war, combined with such measures of justice, moderation, and forbearance as will disarm reasoning opposition, will be suffi- cient to secure the public safety until returning reflection, concurring with the fearful experience of social evils, the inevitable fruits of faction, shall bring the recusant members cheerfully back into the family, which, after all, must prove their best and happiest, as it undeniably is their most natural home. The Constitution of the United States provides for that return by authorizing Congress, on application to be made by a certain majority of the states, to assemble a national convention, in which the organic law can, if it be needful, be revised so as to remove all real obstacles to a reunion, so suitable to the habits of the people, and so eminently conducive to the common safety and welfare. Keeping that remedy steadily in view, the President, on the one hand, will not suffer the Federal authority to fall into abeyance, nor will be, on the other, aggravate existing evils by attempts at coer- cion which must assume the form of direct war against any of the revolutionary states. If, while he is pursuing this course, commended as it is by prudence as well as patriotism, the scourge of civil war for the first time in our history must fall upon our country during the term of his administration, that calamity will then have come through the agency, not of the government, but of those who shall have chosen to be its armed, open, and irreconcilable enemies; and he will not suffer himself to doubt that when the value of the im- perilled Union shall be brought in that fearful manner home to the business and the bosoms of the American people, they will, with an unanimity that shall vindicate their wisdom and their virtue, rise up and save it. 206 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. It does not, however, at all surprise the President that the confi- dence in the stability of the Union, which has been heretofore so universally entertained, has been violently shocked both at home and abroad. Surprise and fear invariably go together. The period of four months which intervened between the election which desig- nated the head of the new administration and its advent, as has already been shown, assumed the character of an interregnum, in which not only were the powers of the government paralyzed, but even its resources seemed to disappear and be forgotten. Nevertheless, all the world know what are the resources of the United States, and that they are practically unencumbered, as well as inexhaustible. It would be easy, if it would not seem invidious, to show that whatever may be the full development of the disunion movement, those resources will not be seriously dimin- ished, and that the revenues and credit of the Union, unsurpassed in any other country, are adequate to every emergency that can occur in our own. Nor will the political commotions which await us sensibly disturb the confidence of the people in the stability of the government. It has been necessary for us to learn, perhaps the instruction has not come too soon, that vicissitudes are incident to our system and our country, as they are to all others. The panic which that instruction naturally produced is nearly past. What has hitherto been most needful for the reinvigoration of authority is already occurring. The aiders, abettors, and sympathizers with disunion, partly by their own choice and partly through the exercise of the public will, are falling out from the civil departments of the government as well as from the army and the navy. The national legislature will no longer be a distracted council. Our representa- tives in foreign courts and ports will henceforth speak only the language of loyalty to their country, and of confidence in its institu- tions and its destiny. It is much to be deplored that our representatives are to meet abroad, agents of disunion, seeking foreign aid, to effect what, un- aided, is already seen to be desperate. You need not be informed that their success in Great Britain would probably render their success easy elsewhere. The President does not doubt that you fully appreciate the responsibility of your mission. An honored an- cestor of yours was the first to represent your whole country, after its independence was established, at the same court to which you THE POLICY OF THE PRESIDENT. 207 now are accredited. The President feels assured that it will hap- pen through no want of loyalty or of diligence on your part if you are to be the last to discharge that trust. You will have this great advantage, that from the hour when that country, so dear to us all, first challenged the notice of nations, until now, it has continually grown in their sympathy and reverence. Before considering the arguments you are to use, it is important to indicate those which you are not to employ in executing that mission: First. The President has noticed, as the whole American people have, with much emotion, the expressions of good will and friendship toward the United States, and of concern for their present embar- rassments, which have been made on apt occasions by her Majesty and her ministers. You will make due acknowledgment for these manifestations, but at the same time you will not rely on any mere sympathies or national kindness. You will make no admissions of weakness in our Constitution, or of apprehension on the part of the government. You will rather prove, as you easily can, by compar- ing the history of our country with that of other states, that its Con- stitution and government are really the strongest and surest which have ever been erected for the safety of any people. You will in no case listen to any suggestions of compromise by this government, under foreign auspices, with its discontented citizens. If, as the President does not at all apprehend, you shall unhappily find her Majesty's government tolerating the application of the so-called seceding states, or wavering about it, you will not leave them to suppose for a moment that they can grant that application and re- main the friends of the United States. You may even assure them promptly in that case that if they determine to recognize, they may at the same time prepare to enter into alliance with the enemies of this Republic. You alone will represent your country at London, and you will represent the whole of it there. When you are asked to divide that duty thers, diplomatic relations between the government of Great this government will be suspended, and will remain so un strongly intrenched of mankind. You will not b the President is h of the two is most e nations and 208 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. application of the Confederate States on the ground of any favor this administration, or the party which chiefly called it into exist- ence, proposes to show to Great Britain, or claims that Great Brit- ain ought to show to them. You will not consent to draw into de- bate before the British government any opposing moral principles which may be supposed to lie at the foundation of the controversy between those states and the Federal Union. You will indulge in no expressions of harshness or disrespect, or even impatience, concerning the seceding states, their agents, or their people. But you will, on the contrary, all the while remember that those states are now, as they always heretofore have been, and, notwithstanding their temporary self-delusion, they must always continue to be, equal and honored members of this Federal Union, and that their citizens throughout all political misunderstandings and alienations still are and always must be our kindred and country- men. In short, all your arguments must belong to one of three classes, namely: Firstly: Arguments drawn from the principles of public law and natural justice, which regulate the intercourse of equal states. Secondly: Arguments which concern equally the honor, welfare, and happiness of the discontented states, and the honor, welfare, and happiness of the whole Union. Thirdly: Argu- ments which are equally conservative of the rights and interests, and even sentiments of the United States, and just in their bear- ing upon the rights, interests, and sentiments of Great Britain and all other nations. We freely admit that a nation may, and even ought to, recognize a new state which has absolutely and beyond question effected its independence, and permanently established its sovereignty; and that a recognition in such a case affords no just cause of offence to the government of the country from which the new state has so de- tached itself. On the other hand, we insist that a nation which recognizes a revolutionary state, with a view to aid its effecting its sovereignty and independence, commits at wrong against the nation whose integrity is thus invade for a just and ample re I will not akes itself responsible hot sometimes happen tive one may not so r in a state as to r Majesty's gov THE ATTITUDE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 209 a case. ernment, however, will not make a pretence that the present is such The United States have existed under their present form of government seventy and more years, and during all that time not one human life has been taken in forfeiture for resistance to their authority. It must be the verdict of history that no government so just, so equal, and so humane, has ever elsewhere existed. Even the present disunion movement is confessedly without any better cause than an apprehension of dangers which, from the very nature of the government, are impossible, and speculations of aggressions. which those who know the physical and social arrangements of this continent must see at once are fallacious and chimerical. The disunionists will, I am sure, take no such ground. They will appeal, not to the justice or to the magnanimity, but to the cupidity and caprice of Great Britain. It cannot need many words to show that even in that form their appeal ought to be promptly dismissed. I am aware that the revenue law lately passed by Congress is vehemently denounced in Great Britain. It might be enough to say on that subject that as the United States and Great Britain are equals in dignity, and not unequal in astuteness in the science and practice of political econo- my, the former have good right to regard only their own conven- ience, and consult their own judgment in framing their revenue laws. But there are some points in this connection which you may make without compromising the self-respect of this government. In the circumstances of the present case, it is clear that a recog- nition of the so-called Confederate nations must be deemed equiva- lent to a deliberate resolution by her Majesty's government that this American Union, which has so long constituted a sovereign nation, shall be now permanently dissolved, and cease to exist for- ever. The excuse for this resolution, fraught, if effectual, with fearful and enduring consequences, is a change in its revenue laws -a change which, because of its very nature, as well as by reason of the ever-changing course of public sentiment, must necessarily be temporary and ephemeral. British censors tell us that the new tariff is unwise for ourselves. If so, it will speedily be repealed. They say it is illiberal and injurious to Great Britain. It cannot be so upon her principles without being also injurious to ourselves, and in that case it will be promptly repealed. Besides, there cer- tainly are other and more friendly remedies for foreign legislation 14 or M 210 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. that is injurious without premeditated purpose of injury, which a magnanimous government will try before it deliberately seeks the destruction of the offended nation. The application of the so-called Confederate States, in the aspect now under consideration, assumes that they are offering, or will offer, more liberal commercial facilities than the United States can or will be disposed to concede. Would it not be wise for Great Britain to wait until those liberal facilities shall be definitely fixed and offered by the Confederate States, and then to wait further and see whether the United States may not accord facilities not less desirable? The Union of these states seventy years ago established perfectly free trade between the several states, and this, in effect, is free trade throughout the largest inhabitable part of North America. During all that time, with occasional and very brief intervals not affecting the result, we have been constantly increasing in commer- cial liberality towards foreign nations. We have made that advance. necessarily, because with increasing liberality, we have at the same time, owing to controlling causes, continually augmented our reve- nues and increased our own productions. The sagacity of the British. government cannot allow it to doubt that our natural course here- after in this respect must continue to be the same as heretofore. The same sagacity may be trusted to decide, first, whether the so-called Confederate States, on the emergency of a military revolu- tion, and having no other sources of revenue than duties on imports. and exports levied within the few ports they can command without a naval force, are likely to be able to persevere in practising the commercial liberality they proffer as an equivalent for recognition. Manifestly, moreover, the negotiation which they propose to open with Great Britain implies that peace is to be preserved while the new commerce goes on. The sagacity of her Majesty's government may be trusted to consider whether that new government is likely to be inaugurated without war, and whether the commerce of Great Britain with this country would be likely to be improved by fla- grant war between the southern and northern states. Again, even a very limited examination of commercial statistics will be sufficient to show that while the staples of the disaffected states do, indeed, as they claim, constitute a very important portion. of the exports of the United States to European countries, a very THE ATTITUDE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 211 large portion of the products and fabrics of other regions consumed in those states are derived, and must continue to be derived, not from Europe, but from the northern states, while the chief con- sumption of European productions and fabrics imported into the United States takes place in these same states. Great Britain may, if her government think best, by modifying her navigation laws, try to change these great features of American commerce; but it will require something more than acts of the British Parlia ment and of the proposed revolutionary Congress to modify a com- merce that takes its composite character from all the various soils and climates of a continent, as well as from the diversified institutions, customs and dispositions of the many communities which inhabit it. Once more: All the speculations which assume that the revenue law recently passed by Congress will diminish the consumption of foreign fabrics and productions in the United States are entirely erroneous. The American people are active, industrious, inventive, and energetic, but they are not penurious or sordid. They are en- gaged with wonderful effect in developing the mineral, forest, agri- cultural and pastoral resources of a vast and, practically, new con- tinent. Their wealth, individual as well as public, increases every day in a general sense, irrespective of the revenue laws of the United States, and every day also the habit of liberal-not to say profuse -expenditure grows upon them. There are changes in the nature and character of imported productions which they consume, but practically no decline in the quantity and value of imports. It remains to bring out distinctly a consideration to which I have already adverted. Great Britain has within the last forty-five years changed character and purpose. She has become a power for production, rather than a power for destruction. She is committed, as it seems to us, to a policy of industry, not of ambition; a policy of peace, not of war. One has only to compare her present domes- tic condition with that of any former period to see that this new career on which she has entered is as wise as it is humane and be- neficent. Her success in this career requires peace throughout the civilized world, and nowhere so much as on this continent. Recog- nition by her of the so-called Confederate States would be interven- tion and war in this country. Permanent dismemberment of the American Union in consequence of that intervention would be per- petual war civil war. The new Confederacy which in that case 212 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. Great Britain would have aided into existence must, like any other new state, seek to expand itself northward, westward, and south- ward. What part of this continent or of the adjacent islands would be expected to remain in peace? The President would regard it as inconsistent with his habitually high consideration for the government and people of Great Britain to allow me to dwell longer on the merely commercial aspects of the question under discussion. Indeed he will not for a moment believe that, upon consideration of merely financial gain, that gov- ernment could be induced to lend its aid to a revolution designed to overthrow the institutions of this country, and involving ultimately the destruction of the liberties of the American people. To recognize the independence of a new state, and so favor, possi- bly determine, its admission into the family of nations, is the highest possible exercise of sovereign power, because it affects in any case the welfare of two nations, and often the peace of the world. In the European system this power is now seldom attempted to be exercised without invoking a consultation or congress of nations. That system has not been extended to this continent. But there is even a greater necessity for prudence in such cases in regard to American states than in regard to the nations of Europe. A revo- lutionary change of dynasty, or even a disorganization and recom- bination of one or many states, therefore, do not long or deeply affect the general interests of society, because the ways of trade and habits of society remain the same. But a radical change effected in the political combinations existing on the continent, followed, as it probably would be, by moral convulsions of incalculable magni- tude, would threaten the stability of society throughout the world. Humanity has indeed little to hope for if it shall, in this age of high improvement, be decided without a trial that the principle of international law which regards nations as moral persons, bound so to act as to do to each other the least injury and the most good, is merely an abstraction too refined to be reduced into practice by the enlightened nations of western Europe. Seen in the light of this. principle, the several nations of the earth constitute one great Fed- eral Republic. When one of them casts its suffrages for the admis- sion of a new member into that Republic, it ought to act under a profound sense of moral obligation, and be governed by considera- tions as pure, disinterested, and elevated, as the general interest of society and the advancement of human nature. PROBABLE BRITISH NON-RECOGNITION. 213 The British empire itself is an aggregation of divers communi- ties which cover a large portion of the earth, and embrace one fifth of its entire population. Some, at least, of these communities are held to their places in that system by bonds as fragile as the obliga- tions of our own Federal Union. The strain will some time come which is to try the strength of these bonds, though it will be of a different kind from that which is trying the cords of our confed- eration. Would it be wise for her Majesty's government, on this occasion, to set a dangerous precedent, or provoke retaliation? If Scotland and Ireland are at last reduced to quiet contentment, has Great Britain no dependency, island, or province left exposed along the whole circle of her empire, from Gibraltar through the West In- dies and Canada till it begins again on the southern extremity of Africa? The President will not dwell on the pleasing recollection that Great Britain, not yet a year ago, manifested by marked attention to the United States her desire for a cordial reunion which, all an- cient prejudices and passions being buried, should be a pledge of mutual interest and sympathy forever thereafter. The United States are not indifferent to the circumstances of common descent, language, customs, sentiments, and religion, which recommend a closer sympathy between themselves and Great Britain than either might expect in its intercourse with any other nation. The United States are one of many nations which have sprung from Great Britain herself. Other such nations are rising up in various parts of the globe. It has been thought by many who have studied the philosophy of modern history profoundly, that the success of the nations thus deriving their descent from Great Britain might, through many ages, reflect back upon that kingdom the proper glories of its own great career. The government and people of Great Britain may mistake their commercial interests, but they cannot become either unnatural or indifferent to the impulses of an undying ambition to be distinguished as the leaders of the nations in the ways of civilization and humanity. Mr. Seward to Mr. Burlingame. April 13, 1861. — It seems to me that our mission to Austria has not been made as useful hitherto as it ought to have been. I think, indeed, that it has generally been undervalued. The causes for 214 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. this are manifest. We are a commercial people, and of course cul- tivate acquaintance first and chiefly with other commercial nations. Situated on a long Atlantic coast, and confronting on the opposite shore the commercial countries from whence our population was first and principally derived, we have naturally fallen into relations with them of the most intimate kind. Austria is distant, and it has never been a maritime nation. • To go no further in the review of its history than 1815, the Aus- trian government has been that one of the great European powers which has maintained more studiously, firmly, and persistently than any other, the principles of unlimited monarchy, so opposite in their character to the principles upon which our own government has been established. Again, Austria is not an unique country with a homogeneous people. It is a combination of kingdoms, duchies, provinces, and countries, added to each other by force, and subjected to an impe- rial head, but remaining at the same time diverse, distinct, and dis- cordant. The empire is therefore largely destitute of that element of nationality which is essential to the establishment of free inter- course with remote foreign states. This absence of nationality is observable in the Austrian emigration to the United States. We meet everywhere here, in town and country, Italians, Hungarians, Poles, Magyars, Jews, and Germans, who have come to us from that empire, but no one has ever seen a confessed Austrian among us. So when a traveller visits Austria he passes through dis- tinctly marked countries, whose people call themselves by many different names, but none of them indicative of their relation to the empire. Our representatives at Vienna seem generally to have come, after a short residence there, to the conclusion that there was nothing for them to do and little for them to learn. • The President expects that you will be diligent in obtaining not only information about political events, but also commercial and even scientific facts, and in reporting them to this Department. Austria is an interesting field for improvement of that kind. Although Lom- bardy, with other Italian provinces, has recently been lost, yet the em- pire still has a population little inferior in number to our own; and though there are some nations whose people are more mercurial, there is no one in the whole world whose inhabitants are more in- AUSTRIA. 215 dustrious, frugal, cheerful, and comfortable; none in which agricul- ture derives more wealth from hard soils and ungenial skies; none where science, art, and taste mingle so perfectly with public and private economy. An undue portion of the country is mountain- ous. It has, nevertheless, a richness and variety of mineral and vegetable wealth unequalled in any other part of Europe. Many of its productions could, if introduced more freely, find a ready con- sumption here, while, on the other hand, we could supply Austria with materials and provisions which are now at greater cost received by her from other countries. Many of the Austrian productions and fabrics which we do receive come to us through the hands of merchants in other European states. The insignificance of our commerce with Austria results in a large degree from her policy of taxing exports as well as imports, and from monopolies, by which she labors to create a national system of navigation. The subject is one of great interest, and you can render an important service probably to both countries by applying yourself to an examination of it with a view to the negotiation of a more liberal treaty than the one now in force. Just now a pressure upon this Department, incidental to the be- ginning of a new administration, renders it impossible for me to descend into the details which must be considered in this connec- tion. It is, however, a purpose of the President that the subject shall be thoroughly investigated, and you will in due time be fully instructed. In the mean while you are authorized to communicate his disposition in this respect to the government of his Imperial Royal Majesty, and to ascertain, if possible, whether it would be willing to enter into a revision of the commercial arrangements now existing between the two nations. The President is well aware that the government of Austria is naturally preoccupied with political questions of great moment. It must be confessed, also, that painful events occurring among our- selves have a tendency to withdraw our thoughts from commercial subjects. But it is not to be doubted, in the first place, that politi- cal embarrassments would in both countries be essentially relieved by any improvement of their commerce which could be made; and, sec- ondly, that the greater those embarrassments are the more merit there will be in surmounting them so far as may be necessary to effect that improvement. It certainly is not the intention of the 216 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. President that the progress in material and social improvement which this country has been making through so many years shall be arrested or hindered unnecessarily by the peculiar political trials to which it seems likely to be subjected during the term for which he has been called to conduct the administration of its affairs. There is a peculiar fitness in efforts at this time to enlarge our trade in the Mediterranean, for it is never wise to neglect advantages which can be secured with small expense, and near at home, while prosecuting at great cost, as we are doing, great enter- prises in remoter parts of the world. I would not overlook Italy, Germany, and Hungary, while reaching forth for the trade of China and Japan. I shall allude to political affairs in Austria only so far as is neces- sary to enable me to indicate the policy which the President will pursue in regard to them. They present to us the aspect of an ancient and very influential power, oppressed with fiscal embarrass- ments, the legacy of long and exhausting wars, putting forth at one and the same time efforts for material improvement, and still mightier ones to protect its imperfectly combined dominion from dismemberment and disintegration, seriously menaced from without, aided by strong and intense popular passions within. With these questions the government of the United States has and can have no concern. In the intercourse of nations each must be assumed by every other to choose and will what it maintains, tolerates, or allows. Any other than a course of neutrality would tend to keep human society continually embroiled in wars, and render national independence everywhere practically impossible. No institutions which can be established in a country through foreign intervention can give to it security or other advantages equal to those which are afforded by the system it establishes or permits for itself; while every nation must be regarded as a moral person, and so amenable to the public opinion of mankind, that opinion can carry its decrees into effect only by peaceful means and influences. These princi- ples, hitherto practised by the United States with great imparti- ality, furnish rules for the conduct of their representatives abroad, and especially for your own in the critical condition of political affairs in the country to which you are accredited. This intimation is given so distinctly because an observance of it is peculiarly important in the present condition of our domestic DISUNION INFLUENCES IN EUROPE. 217 D affairs. We are just entering on a fearful trial, hitherto not only unknown, but even deemed impossible by all who have not been supposed to regard the career of our country, even under auspicious indications, with morbid distrust. Ambitious and discontented partisans have raised the standard of insurrection and organized in form a revolutionary government. Their agents have gone abroad to seek, under the name of recogni- tion, aid and assistance. In this case imprudence on our part in our intercourse with foreign nations might provoke injurious, possibly dangerous, retaliation. The President does not by any means apprehend that the impe- rial royal government at Vienna will be inclined to listen to those overtures. The habitual forbearance of his Majesty, the friendship which happily has always existed between the two countries, and the prudence which the government of the former has so long prac- tised in regard to political affairs on this continent, forbid any such apprehension. Should our confidence in this respect, however, prove to be erro- neous, the remarks which I shall have occasion to make with a dif- ferent view in this paper will furnish you with the grounds on which to stand while resisting and opposing any such application of the so- called Confederate States of America. Vienna, as you are very well aware, is a political centre in conti- nental Europe. You may expect to meet agents of disunion there seeking to mould public opinion for effect elsewhere. I will not detain you with a history of that reckless movement, or with details of the President's policy in regard to it. Your experi- ence as a prominent member of Congress has already furnished the former. The inaugural address of the President, with despatches to your predecessor, will be found in the archives of the legation, and will supply the latter. Certainly I shall not need to anticipate and controvert any com- plaints of injustice, oppression, or wrong, which those agents may prefer against their country before foreign tribunals. Practically, the discontented party itself administered this government from the earliest day when sedition began its incubation until the insur- gents had risen and organized their new provisional and revolution- ary government. Never, in the history of the human race, has revolution been so altogether without cause, or met with forbear- ance, patience, and gentleness so long. 218 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. Nor shall I notice particularly the apprehensions of future injus- tice and oppression which, in the absence of real cause, are put forth as grounds for the insurrection. The revolutionists will find it very hard to make any European sovereign, or even any Euro- pean subject, understand what better or further guarantee they could have of all their rights of person and property than those which are written in the Constitution of the United States, and which have never been by the government of the United States broken or violated either in letter or in spirit. They will find it quite as difficult to make either a European sovereign or subject un- derstand how they can reasonably expect to improve their political security by organizing a new government under a constitution con- taining substantially the same provisions as the one they seek to overthrow. There is reason to apprehend that the form of argument which the agents alluded to will chiefly employ will be an assumption that the independence and sovereignty of the new and irregular authority they represent is already de facto established. If this were true, still you could reply that no public interest of other states, nor even any such interest of the new Confederacy itself could suffer by a delay allowing sufficient time for the govern- ment of the United States, fully consulting the people, to acknowl- edge in the first instance the independence so claimed to have been established. The United States have a right to require such delay from all friendly powers, and a refusal of it would be an act offen- sive to their dignity and manifestly hostile. There is not the least ground to assume that the government of the United States would act otherwise than wisely, discreetly, and humanely, when it should come to act in such a case. Individual caprice finds no place in a government so entirely popular as ours, and partisan excitement sinks in great national emergencies here before the calm considerate judgment of the American people pronouncing upon considerations. exclusively of their own security, freedom, and happiness. They would, indeed, regard the effectual dismemberment of the Union as fatal to the highest hopes which humanity has ever, with apparent reason, indulged. But they are not visionary nor impracticable, and they will not lack even the magnanimity to accept the fact of their ruin, and govern themselves in conformity with it before other nations fraternally disposed need to intervene to reconcile them, or, if unfriendly, to profit by that last calamity. DISUNION INFLUENCES IN EUROPE. 219 At all events foreign governments may be expected to consult their own interests and welfare in regard to the subject in question, even though indifferent to the rights and interests of the United States. A premature declaration of recognition by any foreign state would be direct intervention, and the state which should lend it must be prepared to assume the relations of an ally of the projected Confederacy and employ force to render the recogni tion effectual. But, in point of fact, the assumption that the new Confederacy has established its sovereignty and independence is altogether un- founded. It was projected, or favored, by the late administration during the four months that it remained in power after the election, which constituted practically an interregnum. The new administra- tion, now only forty days old, has practised forbearance and concil- iation, relying hitherto, as it will hereafter rely, on the virtue and patriotism of the people to rescue the country and the Union from danger by peaceful and constitutional means, and content to main- tain the authority and defend the positions which came into its hands on the 4th of March last, without employing coercion, so un- natural, and, as it has hitherto believed and still believes, so unnec- essary for the natural security, integrity, and welfare. The so-called Confederacy has yet to secure its sovereignty either by war or by peace. If it shall, as now seems probable, have determined on war, it has only just thrown down the challenge. It must not assume that a nation so sound, so vigorous, and so strong as this, although it may forbear long, will not accept such a challenge when there is no alternative. The government of the so-called Confederate States have still greater perils to incur if they are to establish their separation by the acts and processes proper for peace. They will have at some time to refer themselves and all their action to an intelligent people, who will then have had time to reflect and to inquire what all this revolution is for, and what good it can produce. They will have to satisfy that people and mankind that a republican government can be stable and permanent which is built on the principle that a mi- nority, when defeated in the popular elections, may appeal to arms, and that a Confederacy can be relied upon by creditors or nations that admits the right of each of its members to withdraw from it and cast off its obligations at pleasure. 220 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. I have treated the subject as if it were a question of war or of peace in the election of the insurrectionists. But, in truth, both the justice and the wisdom of the war must in the end be settled, as all questions which concern the American people must be determined, not by arms, but by suffrage. When, at last, the ballot is to be employed after the sword, then, in addition to the pregnant ques- tions I have indicated, two further ones will arise requiring to be answered, namely, which party began the conflict, and which main- tained in that conflict the cause of freedom and humanity. The agents of the projected Confederacy have hitherto affected to undervalue the power which the Union can exercise for self-preser- vation, and they may attempt to mislead foreign states on this subject. It is true that the government was powerless to resist them so long as it was practically in their own hands and managed to favor their designs. Its executive department was panic-stricken, its legislature divided and distracted, its army demoralized and betrayed, its fortifications virtually surrendered, its navy dispersed, and its credit prostrated. Even the people themselves were bewil- dered by the sudden appearance of such unlooked-for and appalling dangers. All this demoralization is passing away as rapidly as it came on; and it will soon appear in this, as in all other cases, that the greatest vigor is found combined with the greatest power of elasticity. It will be deeply to be regretted if the energy of this great government is to have its first serious trial in a civil war, instead of one against a foreign foe. But if that trial cannot be averted, it will be seen that resources prudently left unembarrassed are more available than credit in foreign markets; that the loyalty of a brave and free people is more reliable than standing armies; that a good cause is worth more than allies, and self-defence is an attribute stronger than fortresses. Its assailants will have to defend themselves before an enlightened people, and even before other nations, at least so far as to show one state that the Federal Union has actually oppressed or menaced, or one citizen who fared the worse for having lived under its authority. The agents of the new Confederacy it is supposed will offer more favorable conditions to foreign commerce than the United States have thought it wise to afford. Such offers may be met with a few direct propositions. The sagacity of the Federal government is not likely to be found long at fault in giving such advantages to the in- REBELLION COMMENCED. 221 1 surrectionists. In the second place, how is a revolution to be carried on without taxes? Are the so-called seceding states abler than their sister states to endure direct taxation, or will faction reconcile men to burdens that patriotism finds intolerable? It will be well for the so-called Confederacy if, instead of making good the promises in this respect made in its name, it do not find itself obliged to levy duties as large as those of the Federal government on imports, and to add to its revenue system, what that government never has done, the ruinous feature of taxation upon exports. It is easily seen how little such a financial policy will commend the new government to the favor of European politicians and capitalists. But I must draw these instructions to a close. You will on all occasions represent that the interests of Europe and of mankind demand peace, and especially peace on this continent. The Union is the only guarantee of peace. Intervention would be war, and disunion would be only endless war. The Union is, moreover, the chief security for the stability of na- tions. When this experiment of self-government shall have failed for want of wisdom and virtue enough, either at home or abroad, to preserve it or permit it to exist, the people of other countries may well despair and lose the patience they have practised so long under different systems in the expectation that the influence it was slowly exercising would ultimately bring them to the enjoyment of the rights of self-government. When that patience disappears, anarchy must come upon the earth. Mr. Seward to Mr. Dayton. April 22, 1861.- SIR: You enter a very important foreign mission at a moment when our domestic affairs have reached a cri- sis which awakens deep solicitude. Throughout a period of eighty years law and order have prevailed, and internal peace and tran- quility have been undisturbed. Five months ago sedition showed itself openly in several of the southern states, and it has acted ever since that time with boldness, skill, and energy. An insurrection- ary government, embracing seven members of this Union, has been proclaimed under the name of the Confederate States of America. That pretended authority, by means chiefly of surprise, easily seen here to have been unavoidable, although liable to be misunderstood abroad, has possessed itself of a navy yard, several fortifications and 222 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. arsenals, and considerable quantities of arms, ordnance, and military stores. On the 12th of April, instant, its forces commenced an attack upon, and ultimately carried, Fort Sumter, against the brave and heroic resistance of a diminutive garrison, which had been, through the neglect of the former administration, left in a condition to prevent supplies and reinforcements. Owing to the very peculiar construction of our system, the late administration, Congress, and every other department of the Federal government, including the army and the navy, contained agents, abettors, and sympathizers in this insurrection. The Federal au- thorities thus became inefficient, while large portions of the people were bewildered by the suddenness of the appearance of disunion, by apprehension that needless resistance might aggravate and pre- cipitate the movement, and by political affinities with those engaged in it. The project of dismembering the Union doubtless has some sup- port in commercial and political ambition. But it is chiefly based upon a local, though widely extended partisan disappointment in the result of the recent election of President of the United States. It acquired strength for a time from its assumed character of legiti- mate opposition to a successful party, while, on the other hand, that party could not all at once accept the fact that an administrative political issue had given place to one which involved the very exist- ence of the government and of the Union. These embarrassments are passing away so rapidly as to indicate that far the greater mass of the people remain loyal as heretofore. The President improved the temporary misfortune of the fall of Fort Sumter by calling on the militia of the states to reinforce the Federal army, and summon- ing Congress for its counsel and aid in the emergency. On the other hand, the insurrectionists have met those measures with an invitation to privateers from all lands to come forth and commit depredations on the commerce of the country. To take care that the government of his Majesty the Emperor of France do not misunderstand our position, and through that misun- derstanding do us some possible wrong, is the chief duty which you will have to perform at Paris. It would have been gratifying to the President if the movements to which I have alluded had taken such a course as to leave this government free from the necessity in any event of conferring upon SYMPATHY CLAIMED FROM FRANCE. 223 them in the presence of foreign powers. In this age of social devel- opment, however, isolation even in misfortune is impossible, and every attempt at revolution in one country becomes a subject of discussion in every other. The agitators in this case, have, perhaps, not unnaturally carried their bad cause before foreign states by an appeal for recognition of the independence they have proclaimed, and which they are committed to establish by arms. Prudence requires that we oppose that appeal. The President believes that you will be able to do this in such a manner as will at once comport with the high consideration for his Imperial Majesty which this gov- ernment habitually entertains, and a due sense of the dignity and honor of the American people. The Emperor of France has given abundant proofs that he con- siders the people in every country the rightful source of all authori- ty, and that its only legitimate objects are their safety, freedom, and welfare. He is versed in our Constitution, and, therefore, he will not need demonstration that the system which is established by the Constitution is founded strictly on those very principles. You will be at no loss to show also that it is perfectly adapted to the physical condition and the temper, spirit, and habits of the American people. In all its essential features it is the same system which was first built, and has since existed with ever renewed popular consent in this part of America. The people of this country have always enjoyed the personal rights guaranteed by the great statutes of British freedom, representation concurrent with taxation, jury trial, liberty of conscience, equality before the laws, and popular suffrage. The element of federation or union was early developed while the colonies were under the authority of, and during their revolutionary contest with, the British Crown, and was perfected afterwards by the establishment of the Constitution of the United States. Practi- cally it has been voluntarily accepted by every state, territory, and individual citizen of the United States. The working of the system has been completely successful, while not one square mile of domain that we at any time had occupied has ever been lost to us. We have extended our jurisdiction from the St. Mary's River to the Rio Grande, on the Gulf of Mexico, and in a wide belt from the Missis- sippi to the Pacific ocean. Our population has swollen from four millions to thirty-one millions. The number of our states has increased from thirteen to thirty-four. Our country has risen from 224 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. insignificance to be the second in the world. Leaving out of view unimportant local instances of conflict, we have had only two for- eign wars, and the aggregate duration of them was less than five years. Not one human life has hitherto been forfeited for disloyalty to the government, nor has martial law ever been established except temporarily in case of invasion. No other people have ever enjoyed so much immunity from the various forms of political casualties and calamities. While there is not now, even in the midst of the gathering excite- ment of civil war, one American who declares his dissent from the principles of the Constitution, that great charter of Federal authority has won the approbation of the civilized world. Many nations have taken it as a model, and almost every other one has in some degree conformed its institutions to the principles of this Constitution. The empire of France, and the new kingdom of Italy especially, are built on the same broad foundation with that of this Federal Repub- lic, namely, universal suffrage. Surely we cannot err in assuming that a system of government which arose out of the free consent of the people of this country, which has been often reconsidered and yet continually upheld in preference to every other throughout a period of two hundred years, which has commanded the acceptance or the approval of all other nations, and to the principles of which even those who attempt to overthrow it adhere in the very heat of insurrection, must be regarded as one which is not only well adapted to the condition and character of the American people, but is even indispensable and in- separable from their national existence. Should it be answered that while all this has heretofore seemed true, yet that it is now disproved by the existing insurrection, you may truthfully reply that we must wait for that refutation until we see the end of the insurrection; that the insurrection proves in fact nothing else except that eighty years of peace is as much as human nature has the moderation to endure under circumstances the most conducive to moderation. The attempted revolution is simply causeless. It is, indeed, equally without a reason and without an object. Confessedly there is neither reason nor object, unless it be one arising out of the subject of slavery. The practice of slavery has been so long a theme of angry political debate, while it has all the time been, as it yet is, a SLAVERY CONSIDERED. 225 SOCIOL at I approach it with deep regret in a commu- to the action of a representative of this gov- ain from any observation whatever concern- ality, the economy or the waste, the aspects of slavery, and confine myself, by di- rection of the President, strictly to the point that the attempt at revolution on account of it is, as I have already said, without reason and without object. Slavery of persons of African derivation ex- isted practically within all the European colonies which, as states, now constitute the United States of America. The framers of our government accepted that fact, and with it the ideas concerning it which were then gaining ground throughout the civilized world. They expected and desired that it should ultimately cease, and with that view authorized Congress to prohibit the foreign slave trade. after 1808. They did not expect that the practice of African slav- ery should be abruptly terminated to the prejudice of the peace and the economy of the country. They therefore placed the entire con- trol of slavery, as it was then existing, beyond the control of the Federal authorities, by leaving it to remain subject to the exclusive management and disposition of the several states themselves, and fortified it there with a provision for the return of fugitives from labor and service, and another securing an allowance of three-fifths of such persons in fixing the basis of direct taxation and representa- tion. The legislators of that day took notice of the existence of a vast and nearly unoccupied region lying between the western bor- ders of the Atlantic States and the Mississippi River. A few slaves were found in the southwest, and none in the northwest. They left the matter in the southwest to the discretion of the new states to be formed there, and prohibited the practice of slavery in the north- western region forever. Economical, moral, and political causes have subsequently modi- fied the sentiments of that age differently in the two sections. Long ago slavery was prohibited by all the northern states, and, on the contrary, the increased production of cotton has resulted in fortify- ing the institution of slavery in the southern states. The accretions of domain, by purchase from Spain, France, and Mexico, brought regions in which slavery had either a very slight foothold, or none at all; and this new domain, as it should come under occupation, was to be constituted into new states which must be either free 15 226 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRE states or slave states. The original states their own divers practices the free states Federal legislation and action as to result in and the slave states so to direct the Have The interest became more intense because equal representation in the Senate of the United States. This con- troversy soon disclosed itself in the popular elections, and more dis- tinctly than ever before in the recent canvass, which resulted in the accession of the present administration. It is now to be observed that, from the earliest agitation of the subject until that last election, the decisions of the people were practically favorable to the interest of the class which favored the extension of slavery, and yet their opponents always acquiesced. Under these circumstances the executive administration, the national legislature, and the judiciary, were for practical purposes in the hands of that party, and the laws, with the administration and execution of them, conformed to their own policy. The opposite class prevailed in the late election so far as to bring in the Presi- dent and Vice-President, the citizens they had preferred, but no further Congress and the judiciary remained under the same bias as before. The new President could not assume his trust until the fourth of March, 1861, and even after that time, as before, the laws and the execution of them must remain unchanged. He could not, without consent of his opponents in Congress, change either, nor appoint a minister or a ministerial officer, nor draw a dollar from the treasury even for his own defence or support. It was under these circumstances that, on the very day when the election closed and its result became known, four months before the new adminis- tration was to come in, the disappointed party took their appeal from the ballot-box to arms, and inaugurated their revolution. I need not further elaborate the proposition that the revolution is without a cause; it has not even a pretext. It is just as clear that it is without an object. Moral and physi- cal causes have determined inflexibly the character of each one of the territories over which the dispute has arisen, and both parties after the election harmoniously agreed on all the Federal laws re- quired for their organization. The territories will remain in all respects the same, whether the revolution shall succeed or shall fail. The condition of slavery in the several states will remain just REVOLUTION WITHOUT OBJECT OR PRETEXT. 227 the same whether it succeed or fail. There is not even a pretext for the complaint that the disaffected states are to be conquered by the United States if the revolution fail; for the rights of the states, and the condition of every human being in them, will remain subject to exactly the same laws and forms of administra- tion, whether the revolution shall succeed or whether it shall fail. In the one case, the states would be federally connected with the new Confederacy; in the other, they would, as now, be members of the United States; but their constitutions and laws, customs, hab- its, and institutions in either case will remain the same. It is hardly necessary to add to this incontestable statement the further fact that the new President, as well as the citizens through whose suffrages he has come into the adminstration, has always repudiated all designs whatever and wherever imputed to him and them of disturbing the system of slavery as it is existing under the Constitution and laws. The case, however, would not be fully pre- sented if I were to omit to say that any such effort on his part would be unconstitutional, and all his actions in that direction would be prevented by the judicial authority, even though they were assented to by Congress and the people. This revolution, thus equally destitute of just cause and legiti- mate object, aims, nevertheless, at the dismemberment of the Fed- eral Union, and, if successful, must end in the overthrow of the government of the United States. If it be true, as the consent of mankind authorizes us to assume, that the establishment of this government was the most auspicious political event that has hap- pened in the whole progress of history, its fall must be deemed not merely a national calamity, which a patriotic government ought to try to prevent, but a misfortune to the human race, which should secure for us at least the forbearance of all other nations. It cannot be maintained that disunion would leave it still exist- ing in its true character, and for its proper ends, although in two not very unequal and similar parts. Its integrity as a Federal gov- ernment, embracing all of the American independent, contiguous, and homogeneous states, protecting them all against foreign dangers and internal commotions; securing to them all a common property, greatness, dignity, influence and happiness, is an indispensable feature of its Constitution. Dismemberment would be less effectually subversive of the char- 228 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. acter, objects, and purposes of the Union, if the two confederacies, which it is proposed shall succeed it, could severally be expected to exercise its great functions within their respective dominions. But this would be impossible. The several states are now held in Union with each other by a confessed obligation of cohesion that only their common consent could dissolve; and that moral law, hitherto recognized by all, is substituted for the central military authority which, in other systems, secures the integrity as well as the peace and harmony of states. But if the revolution shall prevail and dis- memberment ensue, the Federal obligation in that case will be bro- ken, its moral force spent, and in its place there must come up the principles which are the acknowledged elements of the revolution, namely, first, that in either confederacy each state is at liberty to secede at pleasure; and secondly, the minority in each confederacy, and even in each state, may, whenever the will of the majority is ascertained, take an appeal from the ballot to the sword. It is manifest that the success of this revolution would therefore be not only a practical overthrow of the entire system of government, but the first stage by each confederacy in the road to anarchy, such as so widely prevails in Spanish America. The contest, then, involves nothing less than a failure of the hope to devise a stable system of government upon the principle of the consent of the people, and working through the peaceful expressions of their will without de- pending on military authority. If the President were addressing his countrymen at home on this occasion, instead of one of their repre- sentatives going abroad, he would direct me to set forth the conse- quences which obviously must follow the dissolution of the Ameri- can Union. The loss of the ambition, which is a needful inspiration to a great people; the loss of the respect of mankind, and the vene- ration and respect of posterity; the loss of the enterprise and vigor which makes us a prosperous nation; and with the loss of sustained and constant culture, which makes us an intellectual people, the loss of safety, both at home and abroad, which directly involves the greatest calamity of all, the loss of liberty. It is sufficient only to allude to these possible evils on this occasion to afford you the grounds for assuring the government of France that the President regards the revolution as one which in every event must and will be prevented, since it is manifest that the evils which would result from its success would be as incurable as they would be intolerable. FOREIGN INTERFERENCE WILL BE RESISTED. 229 It is, indeed, an occasion of much regret that it has been found needful to employ force for this purpose. It is contrary to the genius and the habits of the people, as it is repugnant to the senti- ments of the government of the country and of mankind. But the President believes that the country will accept that alternative with the less regret because sufficient time has been allowed to try every expedient of conciliatory prevention, and civil war is at last proved to be unavoidable. The responsibility of it must rest with those who have not only inaugurated it, but have done so without cause and without provocation. The world will see that it is an evil that comes upon us not from any necessity growing out of administra- tion or out of our Constitution itself, but from a necessity growing out of our common nature. It must not, however, be inferred that the reluctance of the gov- ernment to employ force so long has demoralized the administration or can demoralize the American people. They are capable of a high, resolute, and vigorous defence of the Union, and they will maintain that defence with only the more firmness and fidelity, be- cause they are animated by no hostile spirit, but, on the contrary, by a friendly and even fraternal one, being satisfied that its bene- fits will result equally to those who are engaged in overthrowing and those who are engaged in defending the Union. I have thus, under the President's direction, placed before you a simple, unexaggerated, and dispassionate statement of the origin, nature, and purposes of the contest in which the United States are now involved. I have done so only for the purpose of deducing from it the arguments you will find it necessary to employ in op- posing the application of the so-called Confederate States to the government of his Majesty the Emperor for a recognition of its independence and sovereignty. The President neither expects nor desires any intervention, or even any favor, from the government of France, or any other, in this emergency. Whatever else he may consent to do, he will never invoke nor even admit foreign interference or influence in this or any other controversy in which the government of the United States may be engaged with any portion of the American people. It has been simply his aim to show that the present con- troversy furnishes no one ground on which a great and friendly power, like France, can justly lend aid or sympathy to the party 230 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. engaged in insurrection, and therefore he instructs you to insist on the practice of neutrality by the government of the Emperor, as all our representatives are instructed to insist on the neutrality of the several powers to which they are accredited. Not entertaining the least apprehension of the departure from that course by his Majesty's government, it is not without some reluctance that the President consents to the suggestion of some considerations affecting France herself, which you may urge in sup- port of it. France is an agricultural and manufacturing country. Her industry depends very largely on a consumption of her produc- tions and fabrics within the United States, and on the receipt, in exchange, of cotton, or other staples, or their equivalent in money, from the United States. The ability of the United States to thus consume and furnish depends on their ability to maintain and pre- serve peace. War here will in any case be less flagrant, and peace, when broken, will be restored all the more quickly and all the more perfectly if foreign nations shall have the sagacity, not to say the magnanimity, to practise the neutrality we demand. Foreign intervention would oblige us to treat those who should yield it as allies of the insurrectionary party, and to carry on the war against them as enemies. The case would not be relieved, but, on the contrary, would only be aggravated, if several European states should combine in that intervention. The President and the people of the United States deem the Union, which would then be at stake, worth all the cost and all the sacrifices of a contest with the world in arms, if such a contest should prove inevitable. However other European powers may mistake, his Majesty is the last one of those sovereigns to misapprehend the nature of this con- troversy. He knows that the revolution of 1775 in this country was a successful contest of the great American idea of free popular He knows government against resisting prejudices and errors. that the conflict awakened the sympathies of mankind, and that ultimately the triumph of that idea has been hailed by all European nations. He knows at what cost European nations resisted for a time the progress of that idea, and perhaps is not unwilling to con- fess how much France, especially, has profited by it. He will not fail to recognize the presence of that one great idea in the present conflict, nor will he mistake the side on which it will be found. It is, in short, the very principle of universal suffrage, with its claim to WAR: ITS EXTENT, PROGRESS, AND TERMINATION. 231 obedience to its decrees, on which the government of France is built, that is put in issue by the insurrection here, and is in this emergency to be vindicated, and more effectually than ever estab- lished by the government of the United States. I forbear from treating of questions arising out of the revenue laws of the United States, which lately have been supposed to have some bearing on the subject. They have already passed away before the proclamation of the blockade of ports in the hands of the revolution- ary party. Nor could considerations so merely mercenary and ephem- eral in any case enter into the counsels of the Emperor of France. You will, naturally enough, be asked what is the President's expectation concerning the progress of the contest and the prospect of its termination. It is, of course, impossible to speculate, with any confidence, upon the course of a revolution, and to fix times and seasons for the occurrence of political events affected by the excite- ment of popular passions; but there are two things which may be assumed as certain: First. That the union of these states is an object of supreme and undying devotion on the part of the Ameri- can people, and, therefore, it will be vindicated and maintained. Second. The American people, notwithstanding any temporary disturbance of their equanimity, are yet a sagacious and practical people, and less experience of evils than any other nation would re- quire will bring them back to their customary and habitual exercise of reason and reflection, and, through that process, to the settlement of the controversy without further devastation and demoralization by needless continuance in a state of civil war. The President recognizes, to a certain extent, the European idea of the balance of power. If the principle has any foundation at all, the independence and the stability of these United States just in their present form, properties, and character, are essential to the preservation of the balance between the nations of the earth as it now exists. It is not easy to see how France, Great Britain, Rus- sia, or even reviving Spain, could hope to suppress wars of ambition which must inevitably break out if this continent of North America, now, after the exclusion of foreign interests for three quarters of a century, is again to become a theatre for the ambition and cupidity of European nations. It stands forth now to the glory of France that she contributed to the emancipation of this continent from the control of European 232 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. states, an emancipation which has rendered only less benefit to those nations than to America itself. The present enlightened monarch of France is too ambitious, in the generous sense of the word, to signalize his reign by an attempt to reverse that great and magnan- imous transaction. He is, moreover too wise not to understand that the safety and advancement of the United States are guaranteed by the necessities, and, therefore, by the sympathies of mankind. Mr. Seward to Mr. Schurz. April 27, 1861.— You receive the President's instructions for the discharge of your very important mission at a moment when a domestic crisis, long apprehended with deep solicitude, is actually reached. For the first time since the foundations of this Federal Republic were laid with such pious care and consummate wisdom, an insurrection has developed itself, and assumed the organization and attitude of a separate political power. This organization consists of several members of this Union, under the name of "The Confeder- ate States of America." That irregular and usurping authority has instituted civil war. The President of the United States has adopted defensive and repressive measures, including the employ- ment of Federal forces by land and by sea, with the establishment of a maritime blockade. The revolutionists have opposed to these inevitable measures an army of invasion directed against this capi- tal, and a force of privateers incited to prey upon the national com- merce, and ultimately, no doubt, the commerce of the world. It seems the necessity of faction in every country that whenever it ac- quires sufficient boldness to inaugurate revolution, it then alike forgets the counsels of prudence and stifles the instincts of patriot- ism, and becomes a suitor to foreign courts for aid and assistance to subvert and destroy the most cherished and indispensable institu- tions of its own. So it has already happened in this case that the revolutionary power has, as it is understood, despatched agents to Europe to solicit from the states of that continent at least their acknowledgment of its asserted sovereignty and independence. To oppose this application and prevent its success will be your chief duty, and no more important one was ever devolved by the United States upon any representative whom they have sent abroad. There would, indeed, be no danger of the success of the unpatri- otic application if the governments addressed could be relied upon NO COMBINATIONS CAN OVERTHROW THE UNION. 233 to understand their true interests, and fulfil the obligations of na- tional justice and fraternity. But unhappily in the present con- dition of society nations are, to say the least, neither wiser nor more just or generous than individual men. You will take care that you do not yourself misunderstand the spirit in which your duty is to be performed, nor suffer that spirit to be misapprehended by the government of her Catholic Majesty. The government of the United States, in the first place, indulges no profound apprehensions for its safety, even although the govern- ment to which you are accredited, and even many others of the Eu- ropean continent, should intervene in this unhappy civil war. The union of these states, with the maintenance of their republican insti- tutions, is guaranteed by material, moral, and social necessities of this continent and mankind, that will, the President feels assured, overbear all aggressions that shall be committed upon them, no mat- ter how various its forms or how comprehensive its combinations. The trial involves only the questions how long shall the struggle be protracted, and what shall be the measure of the disasters and calamities it shall inflict. Secondly, the government neither ex- pects nor asks, nor would it consent to receive, aid or favor from Spain or any other foreign state. It asks only that such states per- form their treaty obligation, and leave this domestic controversy to the care and conduct of those to whom it exclusively belongs. Whenever this Republic shall have come to need the protection or favor of any other nation, it will have become unable and unworthy to exist, however aided from abroad. The President, in the absence of all information, is left to conjec- ture what are the influences upon which the so-called Confederate States rely to induce her Catholic Majesty's government to grant their disloyal application. The high consideration which he enter- tains for her Majesty enables him to assume that the appeal taken from this government to her royal favor, proceeds, in part at least, on the ground that the revolutionists affect to have suffered oppres- sion and wrong at the hands of the government of the United States, which entitle them to the sympathy of the Queen of Spain, if not to redress through her intervention. Her Catholic Majesty's govern- ment has not been addicted to such intervention hitherto, and the wisdom of its forbearance is seen in the revival of the energies of that great and honored nation, which now seems renewing a felici- tous career. 234 1 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. The President, however, will not rely merely on the forbearance of any foreign power, not even on that of the government of Spain. That government well understands the Constitution of the United States, and has had opportunity to learn its practical operation. It therefore knows that the several states which constitute the Federal Union can respectively practise tyranny or oppression upon individ- ual citizens, and may even hinder and embarrass the general govern- ment, while, on the other hand, that government, being armed with only a few though very important powers needful for preserving domestic peace, and defence against foreign nations, can neither oppress nor impoverish nor annoy any member of the Union or any private citizen. In the present case there are some points which will not escape consideration, namely:- 1st. The very interest which now resorts to insurrection, practic- ally speaking, has directed the administration of the Federal govern- ment from the hour when the first murmur of discontent was heard until now when it raises the flag of disunion. 2d. The Federal government, now seventy years old, has never made a foreign war, which that same interest, now so insurrec- tionary, did not urge or demand; has never extended its dominion a square mile by discovery, conquest, or purchase, except at the instance of the same party; has never exacted an irregular contri- bution, or levied an illegal or unequal tax, and only in war has im- posed a direct tax. It has divided civil, military, and naval honors and trusts between all classes and sections, if not impartially, at least with preference of the same interest. It has constructed all the defences required for the section where that interest prevails, and for forty years has accommodated that interest with special legislation and beneficial arrangements with foreign powers. The administration of the government has been so just and so tolerant that no citizen of any one of the states claiming to be aggrieved has ever been deprived by it of his liberty, except on conviction of crime by his peers of the vicinage, nor of his property without due com- pensation, nor forfeited his life under its authority except as a vol- unteer in the battles of his country. I will not pursue the subject. It is enough to show that while this government will submit its action in domestic affairs to the judgment of no other nation, it does not fear to encounter the moral opinion of mankind. THE PRINCIPLES OF DISUNION APPLIED. 235 : Will the disunionists claim that they are the discoverers of a new and beneficent system of political government, which commends itself to the patronage of her Catholic Majesty? What are the salient principles of their system? First, the government shall employ no standing military force in conducting administration of its domestic concerns, but shall always be constituted by popular suffrage, and be dependent upon it. But it shall, at the same time, be the right of the minority, when overruled in the elections, to resort to insurrection, not merely to reverse the popular decree, but even to overthrow the government itself, while, on the other hand, the government can never lawfully use force to coerce compliance with its laws. 3d. The several states, districts, intendencies, or provinces which constitute a nation, must be brought and held together not in any case by conquest or force, but by voluntary federation, which may be stipulated to be perpetual. But each constituent state, district, intendency, or province retains an inherent and absolute sover- eignty, and its people may rightfully withdraw from the Federal Union at pleasure, equally in war as in peace, leaving its common debts unpaid, its common treaties unfulfilled, its common defence frustrated. Moreover, the seceding party may seize all the Federal treasures, defences, institutions, and property found within its own limits, and convert them to its own use, simply offering to come at its own future pleasure to an equitable account. It is not to be doubted that the kingdom of Spain could be dissolved by her Catho- lic Majesty's acceptance of this new system much more rapidly than by waiting the slow effect of foreign wars or domestic maladminis- tration. Castile, and Old Castile, Leon, Andalusia and Aragon, Cuba and the Philippine Islands, would be much more easily sepa- rated on this plan than New York and Louisiana, California and Massachusetts, Florida and Michigan. Perhaps the so-called Confederate States will rest their appeal on some especial ground of sympathy with Spain and the states of Spanish America. In such a case you will need only to say that the moderation which has thus far been practised by the United States towards. Spain, and the Spanish-American states once her colonies, has been due chiefly to the fact that the several North American states of British derivation, exclusive of Canada, have been bound together 236 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. in a Federal Union, and the continuance of that Union is the only guarantee for the practise of the same moderation hereafter. Will the so-called Confederate States promise liberal or reciprocal commerce with Spain or her provinces? What commerce can there be between states whose staples are substantially identical? Sugar cannot be exchanged for sugar, cotton for cotton, or rice for rice. The United States have always been willing, and undoubtedly they will always remain willing, to establish commerce with Spain and her provinces on terms as mutually reciprocal as the government of that country itself will allow. These thoughts are presented to you by direction of the Presi- dent, not as exhausting the subject, but only as suggestions to your own vigorous and comprehensive mind, and he confidently relies on your applying all its powers to the full discussion of the subject if it shall become necessary. Mr. Seward to Mr. King. April 29, 1861. — Rome, to a degree hardly comprehended in this country, is protected by the veneration of a large portion of man- kind for his Holiness as the expounder of faith and the guardian of religion. Nevertheless, his government is surrounded by the ele- ments of political revolution. The United States are on the verge of civil war. It happens to them now, as it happened to ancient Rome, and has happened to many other republics, that they must make the trial whether liberty can be preserved while dominion is widely extended. What then shall we say or do in regard to Rome, or what ought Rome to say or do in regard to us? Assure the government of his Holiness that the President and the people of the United States desire to cultivate with it the most cordial and friendly relations; that we will not violate the friend- ship already so happily existing by any intervention in the domestic affairs of the States of the Church. Assure his Holiness that it is the settled habit of this government to leave to all other countries the unquestioned regulation of their own internal concerns, being convinced that intrusion by a foreign nation anywhere tends only to embarrass rather than aid the best designs of the friends of freedom, religion and humanity, by impairing the unity of the state exclu- sively interested. SEDITION SEEKS THE AID OF ALIENS. 237 What ought Rome to do in regard to the United States? Just what I have thus said they will do in regard to Rome. We could not ask or consent to receive more, and the government of his Holi- ness will not propose to do less, for he is a friend to peace, to good order, and to the cause of human nature, which is now, as it always has been, our cause. Let the government of Rome set this example and exercise its great influence in favor of a course of natural justice among nations, and the United States will still remain at peace with the whole world, and continue hereafter, as hitherto, to be the home of civil and religious liberty, and an asylum for the exiled and the oppressed. Mr. Seward to Mr. Wood. May 1, 1861. The one subject in all our foreign relations which most anxiously engages the President's attention is the possible action of other nations in regard to the domestic controversy which is raging within our own borders. Parties long ago found it their apparent interest to appeal to local interests and prejudices, and they have persevered in that policy so far and with such effect that masses large enough to con- trol the action of the state authorities have at last come to prefer disorganization and disunion, rather than to acquiesce in the will of the majority expressed in conformity with the provisions of the organic law. To a well balanced mind it seems very strange that a citizen ever, without the excuse of intolerable oppression, passes the first stage of sedition, for it is at that very stage that the malcontent finds himself obliged to seek aid from aliens to defeat the equal laws and overthrow the beneficent institutions of his own country. Sedition in the United States is not merely unreasonable, it is alto- gether absurd. Human ingenuity has never yet devised, nor can it devise, a form of government in which the individual citizen can retain so large a portion of the natural rights of man, and at the same time receive so ample a protection against the dangers which so often threaten the safety and even the existence of na- tions. Nevertheless, an insurrection has broken out here; a pre- tended government has been constituted under the name of the Confederate States of America, and that government now has its agents abroad seeking to obtain a recognition of its sovereignty and independence. 238 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. 5 It is hardly to be supposed that these agents will visit the capital of Denmark. They will seek the favor of powers supposed to be more capricious or more ambitious. Nevertheless, political action even of the more commanding or more active states is influenced by a general opinion that is formed imperceptibly in all parts of the Eastern continent. Every representative of the United States in Europe has, therefore, a responsibility to see that no effort on his part is wanting to make that opinion just, so far as the true position of affairs in his own country is concerned. It cannot be necessary to discuss at large the merits of the un- happy controversy. It is sufficient to speak of its nature and its probable result. The insurrection strikes at the heart of the nation. The country, so long accustomed to profound tranquillity and uni- versal loyalty, was slow to believe that a parricidal purpose could be contemplated where it felt satisfied there was no just cause for serious discontent. Our government is at once a purely representa- tive and simply Federal one. While the insurrection was gathering, the administration was practically paralyzed by the presence, in a very large proportion, of the plotters and abettors of the movement, in what, in Europe, would be called the ministry, in the legislature, in the army, in the navy, in the customs, in the post office, in the diplomatic and con- sular representations abroad. Seventy years of almost unbroken peace had brought agriculture, mining, manufactures, and trade to the highest possible state of activity, and the people shrunk intuitively from a change of that peaceful activity, for not merely war, but needless and ruinous civil war, which even threatens to take on the revolting character of servile war. The insurgents skilfully availed themselves of these doubts and fears, and by a course of affected moderation increased them. It seemed as if the nation would fall into ruins without even putting forth an effort to preserve its integrity. You could not, therefore, have been surprised at finding on your arrival in Europe that the same impression had obtained there, and that the Union of these states was assumed in European circles to be practically at an end. For a time loyal citizens occupied themselves with trying how, by compromise, to avert a civil war, rather than to accept as inevitable an event so unnatural and so fearful. i NO DIVERSITY OF OPINION IN THE CABINET. 239 The crisis, however, came at last, a few days after your departure from the country. The insurgents, with the force gathered through immense preparations around a fortress in their own locality, opened a terrible fire upon it, to prevent the handful of men which constituted the garrison from receiving supplies when on the verge of famine, and continued the cannonade, though the barracks were in flames, and the brave men, thus imperilled, were obliged to abandon defence against assault to save themselves from destruction in another form. The defending force consented to a capitulation dishonorable only to their assailants. This last and most violent pressure reached at once the very centre where the elastic force of the national spirit lay concealed. The government accepted the issue of civil war, and sent forth its appeal to the patriotism of the people. Never in any age or coun- try was such an appeal responded to with so much promptness, enthusiasm, and resolution; and certainly never did any nation disclose and offer up at once such exhaustless resources for its self- preservation. The revolution is already upon the recoil. Its failure is certain. All that remains is to see what shall be the measure of the disasters and calamities, affecting chiefly the insurgents themselves, which are to be endured before they consent to a restoration of peace, and to guarantee the inviolability of the Union. Friendly nations may for a little time, perhaps, suffer some in- convenience from the blockade of the ports of the insurgent states, which this government has found it necessary to set on foot, as they will justly take alarm at the announcement that the revolutionary party have proclaimed their purpose to employ privateers to prey upon the commerce of the country. But the embarrassments at- tending the first measure will be mitigated by the strictness and efficiency with which it will be enforced, and it will not be main- tained a day longer than is necessary. Our naval arm is already strong, and it will promptly be made stronger, so that the other evil will be, as we trust, effectually prevented. Mr. Seward to Mr. Dayton. May 4, 1861. In conversation Mr. Thouvenel, I am informed, asked Mr. Faulkner whether there is not some diversity of opinion in the cabinet of the President as to the proper mode of meeting 240 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. the difficulties which now disturb the relations of the states and the general government. Mr. Faulkner, in reply, said that he had no information on the subject. The matter is of no great moment, yet it is desirable that there be no misapprehension of the true state of the government in the present emergency. You may, therefore, recall that conversation to Mr. Thouvenel's memory, and then assure him explicitly that there is no difference of opinion whatever between the President and his constitutional advisers, or among those advisers themselves, concerning the policy that has been pursued, and which is now prosecuted by the admin- istration in regard to the unhappy disturbances existing in the country. The path of executive duty has thus far been too plainly marked out by stern necessities to be mistaken, while the solemnity of the great emergency and the responsibilities it devolves have extinguished in the public councils every emotion but those of loyalty and patriotism. It is not in the hands of this adminstration that this government is to come to an end at all— much less for want of harmony in devotion to the country. Mr. Thouvenel's declaration that the United States may rest well assured that no hasty or precipitate action will be taken on the subject of the apprehended application of the insurrectionists for a recognition of the independence of the so-called Confederate States is entirely satisfactory, although it was attended by a reserv- ation of views concerning general principles applicable to cases that need not now be discussed. In the unofficial conversation Mr. Faulkner says that he himself expressed the opinion that force would not be resorted to to coerce the so-called seceding states into submission to the Federal author- ity, and that the only solution of the difficulty would be found in such modifications of the constitutional compact as would invite the seceding states back into the Union, or a peaceable acquiescence in the assertion of their claim to a separate sovereignty. The time when these questions had any pertinency or plausibility have passed away. The United States waited patiently while their authority was defied in turbulent assemblies, and in seditious prepa- rations, willing to hope that mediation, offered on all sides, would conciliate and induce the disaffected parties to return to a better mind. OUR POLICY. 241 But the case is now altogether changed. The insurgents have instituted revolution with open, flagrant, deadly war to compel the United States to acquiesce in the dismemberment of the Union. The United States have accepted this civil war as an inevitable necessity. The constitutional remedies for all the complaints of the insurgents are still open to them, and will remain so. But, on the other hand, the land and naval forces of the Union have been put into activity to restore the Federal authority and to save the Union from danger. You cannot be too decided or too explicit in making known to the French government that there is not now, nor has there been, nor will there be any the least idea existing in this government of suffering a dissolution of this Union to take place in any way whatever. There will be here only one nation and one government, and there will be the same Republic, and the same constitutional Union that have already survived a dozen national changes, and changes of gov- ernment in almost every other country. These will stand hereafter, as they are now, objects of human wonder and human affection. You have seen, on the eve of your departure, the elasticity of the national spirit, the vigor of the national government, and the lavish devotion of the national treasures to this great cause. Tell Mr. Thouvenel, then, with the highest consideration and good feeling, that the thought of a dissolution of this Union, peaceably or by force, has never entered into the mind of any candid statesman here, and it is high time that it be dismissed by statesmen in Europe. Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams. May 21, 1861. — This government considers that our relations in Europe have reached a crisis, in which it is necessary for it to take a decided stand, on which not only its immediate measures, but its ultimate and permanent policy can be determined and defined. At the same time it neither means to menace Great Britain nor to wound the susceptibilities of that or any other European nation. That policy is developed in this paper. The paper itself is not to be read or shown to the British Secre- tary of State, nor are any of its positions to be prematurely, unnec- essarily, or indiscreetly made known. But its spirit will be your guide. You will keep back nothing when the time arrives for its 16 242 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. being said with dignity, propriety, and effect, and you will all the while be careful to say nothing that will be incongruous or incon- sistent with the views which it contains. Mr. Dallas, in a brief despatch of May 2, tells us that Lord John Russell recently requested an interview with him on account of the solicitude which his lordship felt concerning the effect of certain measures represented as likely to be adopted by the President. In that conversation the British secretary told Mr. Dallas that the three representatives of the Southern Confederacy were then in Lon- don, that Lord John Russell had not yet seen them, but that he was not unwilling to see them unofficially. He further informed Mr. Dallas that an understanding exists between the British and French governments which would lead both to take one and the same course as to recognition. His lordship then referred to the rumor of a meditated blockade by us of southern ports, and a dis- continuance of them as ports of entry. Mr. Dallas answered that he knew nothing on those topics, and therefore could say nothing. He added that you were expected to arrive in two weeks. Upon this statement Lord John Russell acquiesced in the expediency of waiting for the full knowledge you were expected to bring. go The President regrets that Mr. Dallas did not protest against the proposed unofficial intercourse between the British government and the missionaries of the insurgents. It is due, however, to Mr. Dal- las to say that our instructions had been given only to you and not to him, and that his loyalty and fidelity, too rare in these times, are appreciated. Intercourse of any kind with the so-called commissioners is liable to be construed as a recognition of the authority which appointed them. Such intercourse would be none the less hurtful to us for being called unofficial, and it might be even more injurious, be- cause we should have no means of knowing what points might be resolved by it. Moreover, unofficial intercourse is useless and meaningless if it is not expected to ripen into official intercourse and direct recognition. It is left doubtful here whether the pro- posed unofficial intercourse has yet actually begun. Your own ante- cedent instructions are deemed explicit enough, and it is hoped that you have not misunderstood them. You will, in any event, desist from all intercourse whatever, unofficial as well as official, with the British government, so long as it shall continue intercourse of A PERMANENT POLICY DEVELOPED. 243 either kind with the domestic enemies of this country. When in- tercourse shall have been arrested for this cause, you will communi- cate with this department and receive further directions. Lord John Russell has informed us of an understanding between the British and French governments that they will act together in regard to our affairs. This communication, however, loses some- thing of its value from the circumstance that the communication was withheld until after knowledge of the fact bad been acquired by us from other sources. We know also another fact that has not yet been officially communicated to us, namely: That other Eu- ropean states are apprized by France and England of their agree- ment, and are expected to concur with or follow them in whatever measures they adopt on the subject of recognition. The United States have been impartial and just in all their conduct towards the several nations of Europe. They will not complain, however, of the combination now announced by the two leading powers, al- though they think they had a right to expect a more independent, if not a more friendly course, from each of them. You will take no notice of that or any other alliance. Whenever the European gov- ernments shall see fit to communicate directly with us, we shall be, as heretofore, frank and explicit in our reply. As to the blockade, you will say that by our own laws and the laws of nature, and the laws of nations, this government has a clear right to suppress insurrection. An exclusion of commerce from na- tional ports which have been seized by insurgents, in the equitable form of blockade, is a proper means to that end. You will not insist that our blockade is to be respected, if it be not maintained by a competent force; but passing by that question as not now a practical or at least an urgent one, you will add that the blockade is now, and it will continue to be, so maintained, and therefore we expect it to be respected by Great Britain. You will add that we have already revoked the exequatur of a Russian consul who had enlisted in the military service of the insurgents, and we shall dis- miss or demand the recall of every foreign agent, consular or diplo- matic, who shall either disobey the Federal laws or disown the Federal authority. As to the recognition of the so-called Southern Confederacy, it is not to be made a subject of technical definition. It is, of course, direct recognition to publish an acknowledgment of the sovereignty and 244 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. independence of a new power. It is direct recognition to receive its embassadors, ministers, agents or commissioners, officially. A con- cession of belligerent rights is liable to be construed as a recognition of them. No one of these proceedings will pass unquestioned by the United States in this case. Hitherto, recognition has been moved only on the assumption that the so-called Confederate States are de facto a self-sustaining power. Now, after long forbearance, designed to sooth discontent and avert the need of civil war, the land and naval forces of the United States have been put in motion to repress insurrection. The true character of the pretended new state is at once revealed. It is seen to be a power existing in pronunciamento only. It has never won a field. It has obtained no forts that were not virtually be- trayed into its hands or seized in breach of trust. It commands not a single port on the coast nor any highway out from its pretended capital by land. Under these circumstances, Great Britain is called upon to intervene and give it body and independence by resisting our measures of suppression. British recognition would be British intervention, to create within our territory a hostile state by over- throwing this Republic itself. As to the treatment of privateers in the insurgent service, you will say that this is a question exclusively our own. We treat them as pirates. They are our own citizens, or persons employed by our citizens, preying on the commerce of our country. If Great Britain shall choose to recognize them as lawful belligerents, and give them. shelter from our pursuit and punishment, the laws of nations afford an adequate and proper remedy. Happily, however, her Britannic Majesty's government can avoid all these difficulties. It invited us in 1856 to accede to the declara- tion of the Congress of Paris, of which body Great Britain was her- self a member, abolishing privateering everywhere in all cases and forever. You already have our authority to propose to her our accession to that declaration. If she refuse it, it can only be because she is willing to become the patron of privateering when aimed at our devastation. These positions are not elaborately defended now, because to vin- dicate them would imply a possibility of our waiving them. We are not insensible of the grave importance of this occasion. A PERMANENT POLICY DEVELOPED. 245 We see how, upon the result of the debate in which we are engaged, a war may ensue between the United States and one, two, or even more European nations. War in any case is as exceptional from the habits as it is revolting from the sentiments of the American people. But if it come it will be fully seen that it results from the action of Great Britain, not our own; that Great Britain will have decided to fraternize with our domestic enemy either without wait- ing to hear from you our remonstrances and our warnings, or after having heard them. War in defence of national life is not immoral, and war in defence of independence is an inevitable part of the dis- cipline of nations. The dispute will be between the European and the American branches of the British race. All who belong to that race will especially deprecate it, as they ought. It may well be believed that men of every race and kindred will deplore it. A war not un- like it between the same parties occurred at the close of the last century. Europe atoned by forty years of suffering for the error that Great Britain committed in provoking that contest. If that nation shall now repeat the same great error, the social convulsions which will follow may not be so long, but they will be more general. When they shall have ceased, it will, we think, be seen, whatever may have been the fortunes of other nations, that it is not the United States that will have come out of them with its precious. Constitution altered, or its honestly obtained dominions in any degree abridged. Great Britain has but to wait a few months, and all her present inconveniences will cease with all our own troubles. If she take a different course she will calculate for herself the ulti- mate, as well as the immediate consequences, and will consider what position she will hold when she shall have forever lost the sympa- thies and affections of the only nation on whose sympathies and affections she has a natural claim. In making that calculation she will do well to remember that in the controversy she proposes to open we shall be actuated by neither pride, nor passion, nor cupid- ity, nor ambition; but we shall stand simply on the principle of self- preservation, and that our cause will involve the independence of nations and the rights of human nature. 246 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. Mr. Seward to Mr. Clay. May 6, 1861.- Nations, like individuals, have three prominent wants; firstly, freedom; secondly, prosperity; thirdly, friends. The United States early secured the two first objects by the exercise of courage and enterprise. But, although they have always practised singular moderation, they nevertheless have been slow in winning friends. That power was an early, This relationship between Russia presents an exceptional case. and it has always been a constant friend. two nations, so remote and so unlike, has excited much surprise, but the explanation is obvious. Russia, like the United States, is an im- proving and expanding empire. Its track is eastward, while that of the United States is westward. The two nations, therefore never come into rivalry or conflict. Each carries civilization to the new regions it enters, and each finds itself occasionally resisted by states jealous of its prosperity, or alarmed by its aggrandizement. Russia and the United States may remain good friends until, each having made a circuit of half the globe in opposite directions, they shall meet and greet each other in the region where civilization first began, and where, after so many ages, it has become now lethargic and helpless. It will be your pleasing duty to confirm and strength- en these traditional relations of amity and friendship. Assure his Imperial Majesty that the President and the people of the United States have observed with admiration and sympathy the great and humane efforts he has so recently made for the material and moral improvement of his empire by the extension of telegraphs and rail- roads, and by removing the disabilities of slavery. Make it your duty to inquire whether the sluggish course of commerce between the two nations cannot be quickened, and its volume increased. Russia is capable of receiving cotton and tobacco from us in much · larger quantities than we now send. The former is not a staple of that country, and although it produces tobacco, yet not of so high a quality as that which we send abroad, and of which Russia consumes more than any other nation. We can well receive from that country increased quantities of hemp and flax, tallow, and other productions in exchange. Russia is liberal to our inventors, engineers, and machinists; but vicious adventurers too often abuse this generous encouragement SLAVERY THE CAUSE OF THE WAR. 247 by fraudulent practices. See if you can devise a plan for correct- ing this evil. I suggest that it might be done by effecting free interchange of newspapers and scientific journals. A Russian landing at New York can cross this Western continent without once being required to exhibit a passport. Why will not Russia extend the same hospitality to us, and enable the American citizen, when he debarks at Revel, to cross the Eastern continent in like manner unquestioned. The American abroad is not more than the Russian a propagandist, and while Russia pursues the general policy of the present reign it can have nothing to fear from American influences. In another paper which accompanies this your attention is especially directed to the subject of amendments of the international code of maritime law in regard to neutrals, pro- posed in 1856 by the congress which was then sitting at Paris, of which body Russia was a member. If nations were now, as in ancient times, morally independent and unsocial, the President would not have occasion.to address our representatives in Europe on the painful events which are subjects of intense solicitude at home: But the world, has, in a measured degree, become one commonwealth. Nations favor or discourage political changes in other nations, and exercise influences upon their success and fortunes, sometimes from interest, sometimes from sym- pathy, and sometimes from caprice. Although this general fact is so well understood, yet the President indulges so uncompromising a sense of the national dignity and honor, that he, nevertheless, would not suffer a word on the subject to escape from the lips of one of our ministers abroad, if our discon- tented fellow-citizens who have raised the standard of insurrection had not sent out their agents to propitiate foreign powers and en- gage their coöperation in the desperate attempt they are making to overthrow the institutions and the liberties of the American people. You will, of course, meet such agents in Russia. They have some advantages in Europe of which you should be warned. What is now the insurrectionary party in the United States has been for near forty years, and until the fourth day of March last, the dominant party in the administration of this government. It has acquaintances and friendships in high places there, the growth of long intercourse in foreign courts, with the prestige of political authority. The late minister to Russia returned, however, to be the 248 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. governor of South Carolina at the moment when that state was in the very act of inaugurating the present revolution. When those agents shall present themselves at St. Petersburg, his Imperial Majesty, before granting them a hearing, will naturally address himself to you, and will ask you: What is the cause of this revolution? What is its object? Why does the government resist it? What is the present condition of the revolution, and what are its prospects? What are the probable consequences of its success, or of its failure? And, finally, what does the President desire or expect from his Imperial Majesty in regard to it? The President will not forget, nor will he allow you to forget, that he is the magistrate of the insurrectionary, as he is also of the loyal states, and in all his dealings concerning the plotters, aiders, and abettors of this great conspiracy he will constantly remember that the people in whose name they act, and whose power they abuse, are still citizens of the Republic. He believes, however, that you may answer all the questions thus contemplated without com- promising the impartiality of this government, or the dignity and honor of the Federal Union. As to the cause of the revolution, you will inform the Russian government that African slavery was found existing in nearly all the states, when, seventy years ago, they met, and by a written Constitution, established that Union. It was expected that under the operation of moral, social, and political influences then existing the practice of slavery would soon cease. The foreign slave trade was abolished to favor that end, while the vacant common domain which lay between the Alleghany Mountains and the Mississippi River was shut up against slavery by legislation then believed to be effective and eternal. Cotton soon afterward became an object of great commercial demand; the soil and climate of those states of this Union which are situate near and upon the Gulf of Mexico were favorable to its growth, and African slave labor existed therein practically to the exclusion of the labor of free white men. The raising of slaves of the African race to supply the wants of the cotton-growing states became a prominent economical interest in the grain and tobacco-growing states adjacent to the former class of states. The interest of slavery became at once the basis of the policy, and even of the polity of these two classes of states, and by political, social, and commercial connections those interests secured SLAVERY THE CAUSE OF THE WAR. 249 a strong and even controlling influence throughout the whole Union, and even in all foreign commercial countries. This interest of slavery was jealous and apprehensive of danger from the growth of the democratic element of free white labor, which all the while has been constantly augmented by native increase and immigration from Europe. The several states of the Union, whatever be their population, enjoy equal representation in the Senate. Congress may, and from manifest causes must, admit new states into the Union. The slave- holding interest naturally desired to extend slavery and multiply slave states. The free states necessarily desired, as they constitu- tionally might, to prevent the extension of slavery in regions where it did not exist or had been abolished, and so to multiply free states. The acquisitions of new domain by purchases from France, Spain, and Mexico, to be the seat of future states, opened a wide theatre for this contest, and the contest itself by degrees came to be a chief feature in the debates of Congress, and in the canvasses of the pop- ular elections. The interest of slavery was consolidated and compact in the slave states, and acquired great power by threatening that if overruled those states would secede and dissolve the Union, which the free states traditionally, as well as justly, regarded as fatal to the pros- perity, safety, and happiness of the whole American people. States- men of all classes and all parties, on that ground, continually conceded, and Congress and the judiciary constantly compromised with the slave interest in opposition to steadily advancing popular convictions of right, duty, and patriotism, until at last all legal barriers against the extension of slavery were in one way or in another thrown down. Transactions so unnatural roused the inter- est opposed to slavery to renewed effort in the popular election of the last year, and that election resulted in the choice of the present incumbent for the office of President of the United States, although without a majority of either house of Congress identified with this interest. The party of slavery, which had thus, for the first time, been dis- tinctly, though not completely unsuccessful in a popular election, instantly, and four months before the constitutional period assigned for the inauguration of the new President, took an appeal from the verdict of the people, rendered through the ballot-box, to the sword, and organized a revolution with civil war. 250 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. Such was the cause of the revolution. Its object is to create a nation built upon the principle that African slavery is necessary, just, wise, and beneficent, and that it may and must be expanded over the central portion of the American continent and islands without check or resistance, at whatever cost and sacrifice to the welfare and happiness of the human race. The government of the United States resists this revolution for reasons too many to be hastily set forth. It is absolutely unnecessary. All existing interests of slavery are protected now, as heretofore, by our Federal and state constitutions, sufficiently to prevent the destruction or moles- tation of the institution of slavery where it exists, by Federal or for- eign intervention, without the consent of the parties concerned. The policy of fortifying and extending slavery in regions where it has no existence is injurious, vicious, and eminently dangerous to our own country and to mankind. Dismemberment of the Union, however effected and for whatever cause, would be destruction of the safety, happiness, and welfare of the whole American people, and would, by its influence, render the present establishment of any popular form of government impracti- cable in an age and in a region where no other than just such a form of government is known or could be tolerated. The condition of the revolution is this, namely: In the United States the people always exercise a direct and potential influence upon the government. They were at first incredulous of the fact that a revolution so unnecessary, so unnatural, and so fatal, was seriously intended. They saw it move steadily on, but were be- guiled by the appeals of mediators, who proposed at once to avert disunion and to prevent the calamity of civil war. The govern- ment was temporarily demoralized by the presence of the conspira- tors in controlling numbers in the administration, in Congress, in the army, in the navy, and in every department of the public ser- vice. But at last, when it became clearly revealed that nothing less than subversion of the Federal Republic would satisfy the insur- gents, and that the forbearance and moderation of the government. towards them were abused to the purpose of preparing a deadly and desolating war, the loyalty of the people suddenly awakened; the government, sustained by popular enthusiasm and energy, has put forth all the necessary power; the revolution has at once been checked, and it is no longer doubtful that it will be promptly and effectually suppressed. THE UNION A NECESSITY. 251 It had its origin in disappointment; and it depends for continu- ance only on popular passions, the occasion for which has passed away, while such passions are not in harmony with the character, sentiments, and habits of the American people. When it shall be seen, as it soon will be, that the effort to over- throw the government is hopeless, the misguided citizens who have joined themselves to the revolutionary standard will resume their accustomed habits of reason and reflection, and the Union, having surmounted a new and formidable danger, will be stronger than ever before. What would be the consequences of the revolution if it could be successful? The answer is obvious. At first, division of this great and hitherto peaceful and happy country into two hostile and belligerent republics. Later, a resolution of each of those two republics into an indefinite number of petty, hostile, and belliger- ent states. Local jealousies, continually agitated, would, early or late, be aggravated by the horrors of a servile war, filling the whole country with desolation. The end w uld be military despotism, compelling peace where free governme it had proved an absolute and irretrievable failure. The equilibrium of the nations, maintained by this Republic, on the one side, against the European system on the other continent, would be lost, and the struggles of nations in that system for domin- ion in this hemisphere and on the high seas, which constitutes the chief portion of the world's history in the eighteenth century, would be renewed. The progress of freedom and civilization, now so hap- pily inaugurated, would be arrested, and the hopes of humanity which this the present century has brought forth would be disap- pointed and indefinitely postponed. What will be the consequences of the failure of the revolution? The continuance of the country in the happy career that it has pursued so auspiciously, to the repose of nations and to the improve- ment of the condition of mankind. What does the President require or expect from the Emperor of Russia? That sovereign is expected to do just what this govern- ment does in regard to Russia and all other nations. It refrains from all intervention whatever in their political affairs; and it ex- pects the same just and generous forbearance in return. It has too much self-respect to ask more, and too high a sense of its rights to accept anything less. 252 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. The high character of the government of Russia warrants these moderate and just expectations. Mr. Seward to Mr. Marsh. May 9, 1861.—I know that you will be welcome at Turin. Count Cavour, a true exponent of the sentiments of a generous sov- ereign, will be rejoiced to receive from this country a. minister who will not manifest repugnance to the aspirations of the Italian people for liberty and unity. The government of the United States prac- tises non-intervention in all other countries and in the controversies between them. You are at liberty, however, and indeed, are espec- ially charged, to assure his Majesty that he is held in high consider- ation by the President and the people of the United States. You will further assure him that it is a source of sincere satisfaction to this government that Italy seems to be even more prosperous and happy now under his government, although enjoying only short respites from revolutionary struggles for independence, than it has been at many periods long gone by, when despotism shielded that classic region from turbulence and civil commotion. You will learn from observation that government, even when its councils are inspired by patriotism and humanity, has its trials and embarrassments as well in Italy as elsewhere. How to save the country from the ambitious designs of dangerous neighbors on either hand how to reconcile the national passion for freedom with the profound national veneration for ecclesiastical authority- how to harmonize the lassitude of society in the Mediterranean provinces with the vigor that prevails along the Apennines, and how to conduct affairs with so much moderation as to win the confidence of the conservative interests, and yet not to lose the necessary sup- port of the propagandists of freedom, are tasks witnessed there which will convince the American statesman that even in that coun- try the establishment and maintenance of free government are attended with difficulties as formidable as those which sometimes produce political despondency in our own. Since the inauguration of the President it has been my duty to prepare, under his directions, instructions to many of our ministers going abroad. The burden of them all has been, not the ordinary incidents of international hospitality and commerce, which reduce RECOGNITION TO BE PREVENTED. 253 diplomacy to a monotonous routine, but the extraordinary and some- times alarming condition of our own internal affairs, threatened with the complication, most of all to be deprecated, of intervention, in some form or other, by European nations. This foreign danger arose chiefly out of the deplorable condition. of affairs at home. The administration found the government dis- organized by the presence of disunionists of high position and authority in all its departments. Some time was necessary to elimi- nate them before any decisive policy could be adopted. It was, moreover necessary to forbear from demonstrations of Federal au- thority that might be represented as aggressive, to allow the revolu tion to reveal its alarming proportions and boldly proclaim its des- perate and destructive designs. It was seen all the time that these needful delays were liable to be misunderstood abroad, and that the malcontents would endeavor to take advantage of them there. The government has, therefore, not been surprised, although it has been deeply grieved, to see the agents of the revolutionary party, perhaps even with the concur- frence of some of our own demoralized ministers in Europe, insidi- ously seeking to obtain from some of its sovereigns a recognition of the projected treasonable Confederacy. It has been no easy task to study the sophisms, arts, and applian- ces which they might be expected to use in the highly commercial circles of Belgium, Paris, and London. It was, nevertheless, neces- sary to attempt it, for human nature is at least no more moral, just, virtuous in courts than it is in private life. There is no such embarrassment, however, in the present case. It often happens that foreign observers, if candid, understand American questions quite as well as Americans themselves. Botta and De Tocqueville were off this class. So Count Cavour cannot be at any loss to un- derstand the present political condition of the United States. The American Revolution of 1776, with its benignant results, was due to the happy combination of three effective political ideas: First, that of emancipation from the distant European control of Great Britain; second, popular desire for an enlargement of the political rights of the individual members of the state upon the acknowledged theory of the natural rights of man; third, the want of union among the states to secure safety, tranquillity, aggrandize- ment, and fame. 254 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. The revolution attempted in 1861 is a spasmodic reaction against the Revolution of 1776. It combines the three ideas which were put down, but not extinguished, in that great war, namely: First, European authority to regulate political affairs in this continent; second, the aggrandizement and extension of human slavery; third, disunion, dissolution, anarchy. Any impartial thinker can see that an attempt at a revolution so unnatural and perverse as this could never have been embraced by any portion of the American people, except in a moment of frenzied partisan disappointment; that it has no one element of success at home, and that it is even more portentous to all other governments than to our own. It is painful to see faction stalking abroad in one's native land. But faction is incident to every state, because it is inherent in human nature. We prefer, if it must come, that it come in just its present form and character. It will perish by simply coming to confront the American people, for the first time brought to meet that enemy of national peace and safety in arms. The people are aroused, awakened, resolute and determined. Te) danger is, therefore, already passed. We no longer fear indeed, we hardly deprecate - the disaster of civil war brought upon us without fault. We now see that it may be regarded as a necessary trial to preserve the perfection of our Constitution, and to remove all remaining distrust of its durability and its adaptation to the universal wants of mankind. Mr. Seward to Mr. Fogg. - May 15, 1861. For the first time in our history the standard of civil war has been raised with the purpose of overthrowing the Fed- eral Republic. It is a cardinal point with the seditious in modern. revolutions to gain aid, or at least sympathy, in foreign countries. That sympathy is sought in the form of recognition of the simu- lated sovereignty set up by faction. An act of recognition carries moral weight, and material aid is expected soon to follow it. No state ought to lend its support to revolution in a foreign country except upon motives of justice and humanity. But in point of fact these motives seldom prevail, and nations generally act/in such cases upon calculations of profit or ambition, or in the wantonness of mere caprice. It is well understood here that the revolutionary fac- tion has its agents abroad, soliciting European powers to intervene SWITZERLAND. 255 in this unhappy civil war. It has therefore been my duty, under the President's authority, to instruct our representatives there how to meet them and counteract their designs. I could easily imagine that either Great Britain, France, Russia, Austria, Prussia, Belgi- um, Spain, or even Denmark, might suppose that it could acquire some advantage, or at least some satisfaction to itself, from a change that should abridge the dominion, the commerce, the prosperity, or influence of the United States. Each of them might be believed to have envious sentiments towards us, which would delight in an opportunity to do us harm. I have therefore first addressed myself to the consideration of our relations with those countries. It is otherwise with Italy and Switzerland. The former is yet hotly en- gaged in the struggle to secure freedom and unity, and the latter enviably distinguished by the rare enjoyment of both. Human nature must lose not only the faculty of reason which lifts it above the inferior beings, but also the benevolence which lifts it up to commune with superior orders of existence, when the security, wel- fare, and happiness of the United States shall have become even a matter of indifference to Italy or Switzerland. I salute Switzerland last among the European nations only because we esteem and con- fide in her most. You will say this, or anything else that may occur to you that would more pleasantly or more effectually assure the government of Switzerland of the cordial good wishes cherished for it by the Pres- ident and the people of the United States. You will, of course, need to say nothing to the government on the subject of the domes- tic difficulties to which I have already adverted. You will, never- theless, not be absolutely free from all responsibility on this head. You are in a region where men of inquiring mind and active habit. seek a temporary respite from severe studies and exhausting labors. The world's affairs are discussed freely, and the sentiments and opinions which influence the conduct and affect the prospects of nations are very often formed in the mountains and dells of Switz- erland. You will meet there, if no others, many of our own. fellow-citizens, doubtless of both classes the disloyal, sometimes, as well as those who are loyal to the Constitution and the Union. Improve the calmness and candor which the contemplation of nature inspires to dissuade the discontented American from his unnatural course and pernicious convictions, and to excite the loyal to return 256 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. home as speedily as possible to speak, to vote, and, if need be, to en- roll himself as a soldier or a sailor in the land or naval forces for the defence of his country, of freedom, and of mankind. Seventy years of tranquillity and harmony, unparalleled in the experience of states, have made us misunderstand the stage in our national career at which we have arrived. We had to prove, by demonstration in war, that these institutions are adapted to defence. against aggression, and even for aggrandizement of empire. The proof was given, and the world has nobly confessed the truth estab- lished. We assumed that faction could not gain consistency and make head under institutions so free, so equal, so just, and so beneficent. This was a mistake less in regard to our institutions than in regard to human nature itself. But self-complacent, and consequently self- deceived, we have come all of a sudden to meet the emergency of civil war, and we find ourselves obliged to demonstrate that our government is adapted to resist and overcome domestic faction. It is a momentous but necessary trial. Perhaps it has not come too soon. Certainly we have no apprehension of failure. Revolutions are seldom successful, even when they have just causes. Revolution without a good cause, amounting to absolute necessity, is never pos- sible in a country where stable government is at all known by expe- rience of its blessings. The present attempt at revolution is based on no alleged experience of oppression. It puts forth only appre- hensions of danger of oppression, which the form of the Constitution and the experience of its actual working proves to be altogether impossible. It is a revolution originating only in disappointed personal ambition. Personal ambition is the least effective of all the political agencies that can be found in an extended Federal repub- lic. The revolution aims at the life of the country. It gathers the support of only that small, though very active, class of persons who are so thoughtless as to be insensible to the importance of having a country to protect and defend, with benefit to themselves and their posterity. Against it are arrayed the larger portion of our people with whom love of country is the first and strongest of all the social passions that holy sentiment which in mature life is the strongest passion of our common humanity. Tell the Swiss Republic, then, that with God's blessing we will preserve this model of Federal Republican government by which they have reformed their institutions, and we invoke them to retain THE NETHERLANDS. 257 their own with no less fidelity. So Switzerland and the United States shall in after ages be honored as the founders of the only true and beneficent system of human government a system that harn.onizes needful authority with the preservation of the natural rights of man. Every free citizen of Switzerland who comes here, so long as he remains, is practically a citizen of the United States. He goes in and out everywhere unchallenged. Nevertheless, the American citizen in Switzerland is a stranger, and the reiterated demand for his passport at every angle in his course reminds him painfully that he is suspected. His least elevated motive for going there is trade and commerce; but the objects of most of our citizens in visiting Alpine countries are health and study of the more sub- lime and attractive features of nature, and a fervent admiration for the free people who dwell among them. In the United States there is not one man base enough to do or wish an injury to the enlight- ened government or to the people of Switzerland. Why, then, should not the government of that country make us conscious of its confidence by allowing us the enjoyment of national hospitality while we are sojourning in their beautiful country? J Mr. Seward to Mr. Pike. May 16, 1861. The government is preoccupied with the civil war which has been inaugurated with the reckless purpose of over- throwing the Constitution and the Federal Union. It has little. time to think of our foreign relations, and when it does think of them it is chiefly to consider how and in what way it can most effectually counteract the efforts of the revolutionists to procure European intervention in their favor. The Netherlands lost even their independence for a time through the disastrous operations of the French Revolution of 1789. They are slowly, but surely, recovering advantages and prestige which they enjoyed before that calamity occurred. Their policy is peace and friendship with all nations, and certainly they have always mani- fested the most liberal sentiments towards the United States. In view of these circumstances and dispositions the President does not apprehend any danger that the government of the Netherlands, or its very intelligent people, will lend aid, countenance, or sympathy to the misguided partisans who, in a frenzy of passion, are compass- ing the ruin of our country. 17 258 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. – Mr. Seward to Mr. Dayton. May 30, 1861. Mr. Sanford, who was requested by me to look to our interests in Paris in the interval which might elapse be- tween the withdrawal of Mr. Faulkner and your own arrival, has transmitted to me an account of a very interesting conversation which he has recently held with Mr. Thouvenel on our internal affairs. In that conversation Mr. Thouvenel intimated that, in view of the great commercial interests which are involved in the domestic controversy which is now agitating the United States, the French government had felt itself constrained to take measures, in conjunc- tion with the government of Great Britain, to meet a condition of things which imperiled those interests. That it had been decided that communications of a similar tenor should be addressed by both of those governments to the government of the United States, and that those communications would be forwarded in the current week. Mr. Thouvenel kindly foreshadowed the points of those communications. As those papers may be expected to arrive by, perhaps, the next steamer, I shall reserve comments upon the propositions indicated until they shall thus be fully and directly brought to the attention of the President. There are, however, some points in the conversa- tion, or suggested by it, which I cannot properly suffer to pass unnoticed. First. I desire that Mr. Thouvenel may be informed that this government cannot but regard any communications held by the French government, even though unofficial, with the agents of the insurrectionary movement in this country as exceptionable and in- jurious to the dignity and honor of the United States. They pro- test against this intercourse, however, not so much on that ground as on another. They desire to maintain the most cordial relations with the government of France, and would therefore, if possible, refrain from complaint. But it is manifest that even an unofficial reception of the emissaries of disunion has a certain though meas- ured tendency to give them a prestige which would encourage their efforts to prosecute a civil war destructive to the prosperity of this country and aimed at the overthrow of the government itself. It is earnestly hoped that this protest may be sufficient to relieve this MEDIATION INADMISSIBLE. 259 government from the necessity of any action on the unpleasant sub- ject to which it relates. Secondly. The United States cannot for a moment allow the French government to rest under the delusive belief that they will be content to have the Confederate States recognized as a bel- ligerent power by the states with which this nation is in amity. No concert of action among foreign states so recognizing the insur- gents can reconcile the United States to such a proceeding, what- ever may be the consequences of resistance. Thirdly. The President turns away from these points of appre- hended difference of opinion between the two governments to notice other and more agreeable subjects. The tone of Mr. Thouvenel's conversation is frank, generous, and cordial; and this government feels itself bound by new ties to France when her Emperor avows his desire for the perpetual union of the states. Especially does this government acknowledge that it is profoundly moved by the declaration of his Majesty, that he would be willing to act as mediator in the civil strife that unhap- pily convulses our country. These expressions of good will are just what have been expected from the Emperor of France. This gov ernment desires that his Majesty may be informed that it indulges not the least apprehension of a dissolution of the Union in this pain- ful controversy. A favorable issue is deemed certain. What is wanted is that the war may be as short, and attended by as few calamities at home and as few injuries to friendly nations, as possi- ble. No mediation could modify in the least degree the convic- tions of policy and duty under which this government is acting; while foreign intervention, even in the friendly form of mediation, would produce new and injurious complications. We are free to confess that so cordial is our regard for the Emperor and our confi- dence in his wisdom and justice, that his mediation would be ac- cepted if all intervention of that kind were not deemed altogether inadmissible. This government perceives, as it thinks, that the French government is indulging in an exaggerated estimate of the moral power and material forces of the insurrection. The govern- ment of the United States cheerfully excuses this error, because it knows how unintelligible the working of the American system and the real character of the American people are to European nations. This government knows, moreover, and painfully feels, that the 260 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. commercial interests of European states are so deeply involved in the restoration of our domestic peace as to excite the highest anxiety and impatience on their part. But it desires the French government to reflect that our commercial interests involved in the issue are even greater than their own; and that every motive that France can have for desiring peace operates still more powerfully on ourselves, besides a thousand motives peculiar to ourselves alone. The measures we have adopted, and are now vigorously pursuing, will terminate the unhappy contest at an early day, and be followed by benefits to ourselves and to all nations greater and better assured than those which have hitherto attended our national prog- ress. Nothing is wanting to that success except that foreign na- tions shall leave us, as is our right, to manage our own affairs in our own way. They, as well as we, can only suffer by their inter- vention. No one, we are sure, can judge better than the Emperor of France how dangerous and deplorable would be the emergency that should intrude Europeans into the political contests of the American people. Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams. June 3, 1861. Every instruction you have received from this department is full of evidence of the fact that the principal danger in the present insurrection which the President has apprehended was that of foreign intervention, aid, or sympathy; and especially of such intervention, aid, or sympathy on the part of the govern- ment of Great Britain. The justice of this apprehension has been vindicated by the fol- lowing facts, namely: 1. A guarded reserve on the part of the British Secretary of State, when Mr. Dallas presented to him our protest against the recognition of the insurgents, which seemed to imply that, in some conditions, not explained to us, such a recogni- tion might be made. 2. The contracting of an engagement by the government of Great Britain with that of France, without consult- ing us, to the effect that both governments should adopt one and the same course of procedure in regard to the insurrection. 3. Lord John Russell's announcement to Mr. Dallas that he was not unwilling to receive the so-called commissioners of the insurgents unofficially. 4. The issue of the Queen's proclamation, remarkable, first, for the circumstances under which it was made, namely, on FOREIGN INTERVENTION. 261 the very day of your arrival in London, which had been anticipated so far as to provide for your reception by the British secretary, but without affording you the interview promised before any decisive action should be adopted; secondly, the tenor of the proclamation itself, which seems to recognize, in a vague manner, indeed, but does seem to recognize, the insurgents as a belligerent national power. That proclamation, unmodified and unexplained, would leave us no alternative but to regard the government of Great Britain as questioning our free exercise of all the rights of self-defence guaran- teed to us by our Constitution and the laws of nature and of nations to suppress the insurrection. • I should have proceeded at once to direct you to communicate to the British government the definitive views of the President on the grave subject, if there were not especial reasons for some little delay. These reasons are, first, Mr. Thouvenel has informed our representative at Paris that the two governments of Great Britain and France were preparing, and would, without delay, address com- munications to this government concerning the attitude to be as- sumed by them in regard to the insurrection. Their communica- tions are hourly expected. Second. You have already asked, and, it is presumed, will have obtained, an interview with the British secretary, and will have been able to present the general views of this government, and to learn definitely the purposes of Great Britain in the matter, after it shall have learned how unsatisfactory the action of the British gov- ernment hitherto has been to the government of the United States. The President is solicitous to show his high appreciation of every demonstration of consideration for the United States which the British government feels itself at liberty to make. He instructs me, therefore, to say that the prompt and cordial manner in which you were received, under peculiar circumstances arising out of do- mestic afflictions which had befallen her Majesty and the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, is very gratifying to this government. A year ago the differences which had partially estranged the British and the American people from each other seemed to have been removed forever. It is painful to reflect that that ancient alienation has risen up again under circumstances which portend great social evils, if not disaster, to both countries. 262 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. Mr. Seward to Mr. Dickinson. June 5, 1861. The Spanish-American states are important characters in the interesting drama of advancing civilization. They occupy a virgin domain equal to about one-eighth of the habitable part of the globe. Its fountains of wealth are inexhaustible. Its position secures it nearly equal advantages of trade and intercourse with the listless nations of the east, and with the vigorous nations of the west. Its ports, as well as all its transit routes, are essential features in the commerce of the world. With the advantages of youth and singular exemption from foreign oppression or aggression which the Spanish-American states have enjoyed for near half a century, it might have been expected that they would within that period have become strong and influential nations. The fact, thus far, is otherwise. They are just strong enough to maintain indepen- dence without securing necessary fear or respect. With much ver- satility, respectable talent, high cultivation, and very generous aspirations, they are generally changeful and capricious. The very mention of a South American state suggests always the same inquiry: why a people so free, so virtuous, so educated, and so emu- lous, are not more secure, fortunate, and happy. Everybody wishes the Spanish-American states well, and yet everybody loses patience with them for not being wiser, more constant, and more stable. Such, I imagine, is the temper in which every foreign state finds. itself when it proposes to consider its relations to those republics, and especially the republics of Central America. I know, at least, that this has always been the temper of our best statesmen in re- gard to Nicaragua. Union, or at least, practical alliance with Nica- ragua has always been felt by them as a necessity for the United States, and yet no one ever deems it prudent to council the estab- lishment of such intimate relations. Possessing one of the conti- nental transits most interesting to the United States, Nicaragua is at once jealous of foreign intervention to render it available, and incompetent to open and maintain it herself. But Nicaragua, like the other Spanish-American states, has far better excuses for its shortcomings than it generally has credit for. That state became precociously mature, and it adopted our model of government with little of that preliminary popular education and discipline which seem necessary to enable any people to administer, maintain, and NICARAGUA. 263 preserve free republican institutions. The policy pursued by for- eign nations towards Nicaragua has not been liberal or generous. Great Britain, in her wars with Spain, early secured a position in the state very detrimental to its independence, and used it to main- tain the Indians in a condition of defiance against the creole popula- tion, while it did nothing, at least nothing effectually, to civilize the tribes whom it had taken under its protection. Unwilling to lend the aid necessary to the improvement of the country, Great Britain used its protectorate there to counteract domestic efforts and intervention from this government to make that improvement which was necessary for the interest of Nicaragua herself, and hardly less necessary for all the western nations. Our own govern- ment has been scarcely less capricious, at one time seeming to court the most intimate alliance, at another treating the new republic with neglect and indifference, and at an another indirectly, if not directly, consenting to the conquest and desolation of the country by our own citizens for the purpose of reëstablishing the institu- tion of slavery, which it had wisely rejected. It may be doubtful whether Nicaragua has not until this day been a loser instead of a gainer by her propinquity to, and intercourse with, the United States. Happily this condition of things has ceased at last. Great Britain has discovered that her Mosquito protectorate was as useless to her- self as it was injurious to Nicaragua, and has abandoned it. The United States no longer think that they want slavery reëstablished in that state, nor do they desire anything at the hands of its govern- ment but that it may so conduct its affairs as to permit and favor the opening of an inter-oceanic navigation, which shall be profitable to Nicaragua and equally open to the United States and to all other maritime nations. Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams. June 8, 1861. — This country insists, as all the world might have known that it must and would, under all circumstances, insist, on the integrity of the Union, as the chief element of national life. Since, after trials of every form of forbearance and conciliation, it has been rendered certain and apparent that this paramount and vital object can be saved only by our acceptance of civil war as an indispensable condition, that condition, with all its hazards and 264 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. deplorable evils, has not been declined. The acceptance, however, is attended with a strong desire and fixed purpose that the war shall be as short and accompanied by as little suffering as possible. Foreign intervention, aid, or sympathy in favor of the insurgents, especially on the part of Great Britain, manifestly could only pro- tract and aggravate the war. Accordingly Mr. Dallas, under in- structions from the President, in an interview conceded to him by the British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, presented our protest against any such intervention. Lord John Russell answered with earnestness that there was not in the British government the least desire to grasp at any advan- tages which might be supposed to arise from the unpleasant domes- tic differences in the United States, but, on the contrary, that they would be highly gratified if those differences were adjusted, and the Union restored to its former unbroken position. Mr. Dallas then, as he reported to us, endeavored to impress upon his lordship how important it must be that Great Britain and France should abstain, at least for a considerable time, from doing what, by encouraging groundless hopes (of the insurgents), would widen a breach still thought capable of being closed; but his lordship seemed to think that the matter was not ripe for decision, one way or another, and remarked that what he had already said was all that at present was in his power to say. Upon this report you were instructed to inform her Britannic Maj- esty's government that the President regarded the reply made by his lordship to Mr. Dallas's suggestion as possibly indicating a pol- icy which this government would be obliged to deem injurious to its rights, and derogating from its dignity. This government thought the reply of the Secretary unjustifiably abrupt and reserved. That abruptness and reserve, unexplained, left us under a seeming neces- sity of inferring that the British government might be contemplat- ing a policy of encouragement to the insurgents which would widen the breach here which we believe it possible to heal if such en- couragement should not be extended. A vital interest obliged the United States to seek explanation, or to act on the inference it thus felt itself obliged to adopt. Your despatch of the 21st of May, which has just been received, shows how you have acquitted yourself of the duty imposed upon you. After stating our complaint to his lordship, you very prop- THE QUEEN'S PROCLAMATION. 265 erly asked an elucidation of his meaning in the reply to which exception had been taken by us, and very rightly, as we think, asked whether it was the intention of her Majesty's ministers to adopt a policy which would have the effect to widen, if not to make irreparable, a breach which we believe yet to be entirely manage- able by ourselves. His lordship disclaimed any such intention. A friendly argument, however, then arose between the Secretary and yourself concerning what should be the form of the answer to us which his lordship could properly give, and which would, at the same time, be satisfactory to this government. The question was finally solved in the most generous manner by the proposition of his lordship that he would instruct Lord Lyons to give such a reply to the President as might, in his own opinion, be satisfactory, which proposition you accepted. I hasten to say, by direction of the President, that your course in this proceeding is fully approved. This government has no dispo- sition to lift questions of even national pride or sensibility up to the level of diplomatic controversy, because it earnestly and ardently desires to maintain peace, harmony, and cordial friendship with Great Britain. Lord John Russell's proposition, by authorizing the President to put the most favorable construction possible upon the response which was deemed exceptionable, removes the whole difficulty without waiting for the intervention of Lord Lyons. You will announce this conclusion to Lord John Russell, and inform him that the settlement of the affair in so friendly a spirit affords this government sincere satisfaction. Your conversation with the British Secretary incidentally brought into debate the Queen's late proclamation (which seems to us designed to raise the insurgents to the level of a belligerent state); the language employed by her Majesty's ministers in both houses of Parliament, the tone of the public press, and of private opinion, and especially a speech of the Lord Chancellor, in which he had characterized the insurgents as a belligerent state, and the civil war which they are waging against the United States as justum bellum. The opinions which you expressed on these matters, and their obvious tendency to encourage the insurrection and to protract and aggravate the civil war, are just, and meet our approbation. At the same time, it is the purpose of this government, if possible, consis- 266 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. tently with the national welfare and honor, to have no serious con- troversy with Great Britain at all; and if this shall ultimately prove impossible, then to have both the defensive position and the clear right on our side. With this view, this government, as you were made aware by my despatch No. 10, has determined to pass over without official complaint the publications of the British press, manifestations of adverse individual opinion in social life, and the speeches of British statesmen, and even those of her Majesty's min- isters in Parliament, so long as they are not authoritatively adopted by her Majesty's government. We honor and respect the freedom of debate, and the freedom of the press. We indulge no apprehen- sions of danger to our rights and interests from any discussion to which they may be subjected, in either form, in any place. Sure as we are that the transaction now going on in our country involves the progress of civilization and humanity, and equally sure that our attitude in it is right, and no less sure that our press and our statesmen are equal in ability and influence to any in Europe, we shall have no cause to grieve if Great Britain shall leave to us the defence of the independence of nations and the rights of human nature. My despatch No. 14 presented four distinct grounds on which this government apprehended a policy on the part of her Majesty's government to intervene in favor of the insurgents, or to lend them aid and sympathy. The first ground was the reserve practised by the British Secretary for Foreign Affairs in his conversation with Mr. Dallas, referred to in the earlier part of this despatch. I have already stated that the explanations made and offered by Lord John Russell have altogether removed this ground from debate. The second was the contracting of an engagement by the govern- ment of Great Britain with that of France, without consulting us, to the effect that both governments would adopt one and the same. course of proceeding in regard to the subject of intervention in our domestic affairs. You were informed in my despatch No. 10 that, as this proceeding did not necessarily imply hostile feelings towards the United States, we should not formally complain of it, but should rest content with a resolution to hold intercourse only with each of those states severally, giving due notice to both that the circumstance that a concert between the two powers in any proposition each might offer to us would not modify in the least degree the action of the United States upon it. MEDIATION DECLINED. 267 The third ground was Lord John Russell's announcement to Mr. Dallas that he was not unwilling to receive the so-called commis- sioners of the insurgents unofficially. On this point you already have instructions, to which nothing need now be added. The fourth ground is the Queen's proclamation, exceptionable first for the circumstances under which it was issued, and secondly, for the matter of that important state paper. Mr. Seward to Mr. Dayton. June 8, 1861. We appreciate highly the Emperor's assurance that he would mediate between the government and the insurgents, with a view to the maintenance and preservation of the Union, if such intervention were deemed desirable by us; and that generous offer imposes a new obligation upon us toward France, which we ac- knowledge with sincere pleasure. If mediation were at all admissible in this grave case, that of his Majesty would not be declined. But the present paramount duty of the government is to save the integrity of the American Union. Absolute, self-sustaining independence is the first and most indis- pensable element of national existence. This is a republican nation ; all its domestic affairs must be conducted and even adjusted in con- stitutional republican forms and upon constitutional republican principles. This is an American nation, and its internal affairs must not only be conducted with reference to its peculiar continen- tal position, but by and through American agencies alone. These are simple elementary principles of administration, no one of which can be departed from with safety in any emergency whatever; nor could it be departed from with the public consent, which rightfully regulates, through constitutionally constituted popular authorities, the entire business of the government. I have set them forth in no invidious, uncharitable, or ungener- ous spirit. I state them fairly and broadly, because I know the magnanimity of the Emperor of France, and I know that he can appreciate directness and candor in diplomacy. I know, moreover, that he is a friend of the United States, and desires that they may continue one great and independent nation forever. I know still further, that the principles I have thus stated will commend them- selves to his own great wisdom. To invite or to accept mediation would be incompatible with these principles. 268 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. , When all this has been said, you will then further say to Mr. Thouvenel, or to the Emperor, that if any mediation were at all ad- missible it would be his own that we should seek or accept. You may say, at the same time, that this government has no apprehen- sion whatever of its being unable to conduct our domestic affairs through this crisis to a safe conclusion; that consummation is even not far distant, if foreign powers shall practise towards us the same. forbearance from intervention which we have habitually practised towards them in emergencies similar to our own; that intervention by them would only protract and aggravate the civil war in which we are unhappily engaged; that civil war is a scourge to which we are more sensitive than any other people, but that the preservation. of national unity, which is national existence, reconciles us to every form of difficulty and to the longest possible endurance of the trial in which we are engaged. Mr. Seward to Mr. Dayton. June 17, 1861.- Every instruction which this government has given to its representatives abroad, since the recent change of ad- ministration took place, has expressed our profound anxiety lest the disloyal citizens who are engaged in an attempt to overthrow the Union should obtain aid and assistance from foreign nations, either in the form of a recognition of their pretended sovereignty, or in some other and more qualified or guarded manner. Every instruc- tion has expressed our full belief that, without such aid or assist- ance, the insurrection would speedily come to an end, while any advantage that it could derive from such aid or assistance could serve no other purpose than to protract the existing struggle and aggravate the evils it is inflicting on our own country and on foreign and friendly nations. Every instruction bears evidence of an earnest solicitude to avoid even an appearance of menace or of want of comity towards foreign powers; but at the same time it has em- phatically announced, as is now seen to have been necessary, our purpose not to allow any one of them to expect to remain in friendship with us if it should, with whatever motive, practically render such aid or assistance to the insurgents. We have intended not to leave it doubtful that a concession of sovereignty to the insurgents, though it should be indirect or unofficial, or though it should be qualified so as to concede only belligerent or other partial rights, THE UNITED STATES SOVEREIGN. 269 would be regarded as inconsistent with the relations due to us by friendly nations. Nor has it been left at all uncertain that we shall, in every event, insist that these United States must be considered and dealt with now, as heretofore, by such nations as exclusively sovereign for all purposes whatsoever within the territories over which the Constitution has been extended. On the other hand, we have not, at any time, been unmindful of the peculiar circumstances which might excite apprehensions on the part of commercial nations for the safety of their subjects and their property in the conflicts which might occur upon sea as well as on land between the forces of the United States and those of the insurgents. The United States have never disclaimed the employment of let- ters of marque as a means of maritime war. The insurgents early announced their intention to commission privateers. We knew that friendly nations would be anxious for guarantees of safety from injury by that form of depredation upon the national commerce. We knew also that such nations would desire to be informed whether their flags should be regarded as protecting goods, not con- traband of war, of disloyal citizens, found under them, and whether the goods, not contraband, of subjects of such nations would be safe from confiscation when found in vessels of disloyal citizens of the United States. This administration, free from some of the compli- cations of those which had preceded it, promptly took up the nego- tiations relating to the declaration of the Congress of Paris, just at the point where they had been suspended by President Buchanan. We found it just and humane in itself so far as it goes, and that it had only failed to be accepted by the United States because foreign nations had refused to accept an additional principle proposed by this government, yet more just and humane than any which it does contain, namely, that the property of private citizens, not contra- band, should be exempted from confiscation in maritime war. While still willing and desirous to have that further principle incorporated in the law of nations, we nevertheless instructed you, and all our representatives in foreign countries, to waive it, if necessary, and to stipulate, subject to the concurrence of the Senate of the United States, our adhesion to the declaration of the Congress of Paris as a whole and unmodified. This was done so early as the 25th day of April last, long before the date of the instructions which Mr. Mer- cier proposed to submit to us. We have ever since that time been 270 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. waiting for the responses of foreign powers to this high and liberal demonstration on our part. We have, however, received no decisive answers on the subject from those powers. It was under these circumstances that on the fifteenth day of June instant, the minister from France and the minister from Great Britain, having previously requested an interview, were received by me. Each of them announced that he was charged by his gov- ernment to read a despatch to me and to give me a copy if I should desire it. I answered that, owing to the peculiar circumstances of the times, I could not consent to an official reading or delivery of these papers without first knowing their characters and objects. They confidentially and with entire frankness put the despatches into my hands for an informal preliminary examination. Having thus become possessed of their characters, I replied to those minis- ters that I could not allow them to be officially communicated to this government. They will doubtless mention this answer to their respective states. I give you now the reasons of this government for pursuing this course in regard to the despatch from France, that you may communicate them to the French government, if you shall find it necessary or expedient. Some time ago we learned through our legation at St. Petersburg that an understanding had been effected between the governments of Great Britain and France that they should take one and the same course on the subject of the political disturbances in this country, including the possible recogni- tion of the insurgents. At a later period this understanding was distinctly avowed by Mr. Thouvenel to Mr. Sanford, who had been informally introduced by me to the French Minister for Foreign Affairs, and by Lord John Russell to Mr. Dallas, our late minister in London. The avowal in each case preceded the arrival of our newly appointed ministers in Europe, with their instructions for the discharge of their respective missions. On receiving their avowals I immediately instructed yourself and Mr. Adams "that although we might have expected a different course on the part of these two great powers, yet, as the fact that an understanding existed between them did not certainly imply an unfriendly spirit, we should not complain of it, but that it must be understood by the French and British governments that we shall deal hereafter, as heretofore, in this case, as in all others, with each power separately, and that the agreement for concerted action be- ! THE UNITED STATES SOVEREIGN. 271 tween them would not at all influence the course we should pur- sue." The concert thus avowed has been carried out. The minis- ters came to me together; the instructions they proposed to me differ in form, but are counterparts in effect. Adhering to our previous decision, which before this time has doubtless been made known to the government of France, we do not make this concert, under the circumstances, a reason for declin- ing to hear the instruction with which Mr. Mercier is charged. That paper does not expressly deny the sovereignty of the United States of America, but it does assume, inconsistently with that sov- ereignty, that the United States are not altogether and for all pur- poses one sovereign power, but that this nation consists of two par- ties, of which this government is one. France purposes to take cognizance of both parties as belligerents, and for some purposes to hold communication with each. The instruction would advise us indeed that we must not be surprised if France shall address herself to a government which she says is to be installed at Montgomery, for certain explanations. This intimation is conclusive in determin- ing this government not to allow the instruction to be read to it. The United States, rightly jealous, as we think, of their sover- eignty, cannot suffer themselves to debate any abridgment of that sovereignty with France or with any other nation. Much less can it consent that France shall announce to it a conclusion of her own against that sovereignty, which conclusion France has adopted without any previous conference with the United States on the subject. This government insists that the United States are one whole undivided nation, especially so far as foreign nations are con- cerned, and that France is, by the law of nations and by treaties, not a neutral power between two imaginary parties here, but a friend of the United States. In the spirit of this understanding of the case, we are not only not wishing to seek or to give offence to France, but, on the contrary, we desire to preserve peace and friendship with that great power, as with all other nations. We do not feel at liberty to think, and do not think, that France intended any want of consideration towards the United States in directing that the instruction in question should be read to us. Outside of that paper we have abundant evidence of the good feeling and good wishes of the Emperor, and even his anxious solicitude for the same consummation which is the supreme 272 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. 5 object of our own desires and labors, namely, the preservation of the American Union in its full and absolute integrity. Doubtless the proceeding has been the result of inadvertence. We feel ourselves at liberty to think that it would not have oc- curred if we had been so fortunate as to have been heard through you in the consultations of the French government. We think we can easily see how the inadvertence has occurred. France seems to have mistaken a mere casual and ephemeral insurrection here, such as is incidental in the experience of all nations, because all nations are merely human societies, such as have sometimes happened in the history of France herself, for a war which has flagrantly sep- arated this nation into two coëxisting political powers which are contending in arms against each other after the separation. It is erroneous, so far as foreign nations are concerned, to sup- pose that any war exists in the United States. Certainly there cannot be two belligerent powers where there is no war. There is here, as there has always been, one political power, namely, the United States of America, competent to make war and peace, and conduct commerce and alliances with all foreign nations. There is none other, either in fact, or recognized by foreign nations. There is, indeed, an armed sedition seeking to overthrow the government, and the government is employing military and naval forces to re- press it. But these facts do not constitute a war presenting two belligerent powers, and modifying the national character, rights, and responsibilities, or the characters, rights, and responsibilities of foreign nations. It is true that insurrection may ripen into revolu- tion, and that revolution thus ripened may extinguish a previously existing state, or divide it into one or more independent states, and that if such states continue their strife after such division, then there exists a state of war affecting the characters, rights, and duties of all parties concerned. But this only happens when the revolution has run its successful course. The French government says, in the instruction which has been tendered to us, that certain facts which it assumes confer upon the insurgents of this country, in the eyes of foreign powers, all the appearances of a government de facto, wherefore, whatever may be its regrets, the French government must consider the two contend- ing parties as employing the forces at their disposal in conformity with the laws of war. THE UNITED STATES SOVEREIGN. 273 This statement assumes not only that the law of nations entitles any insurrectionary faction, when it establishes a de facto govern- ment, to be treated as a belligerent, but also that the fact of the attainment of this status is to be determined by the appearance of it in the eyes of foreign nations. If we should concede both of these positions, we should still insist that the existence of a de facto government, entitled to belligerent rights, is not estab- lished in the present case. We have already heard from most of the foreign nations. There are only two which seem so to construe appearances, and France is one of them. Are the judgments of these two to outweigh those of all other nations? Doubtless each nation may judge and act for itself, but it certainly cannot expect the United States to accept its decision upon a question vital to their national existence. The United States will not refine upon the question when and how new nations are born out of existing nations. They are well aware that the rights of the states involve their duties and their destinies, and they hold those rights to be absolute as against all foreign nations. These rights do not at all depend on the appearances which their condition may assume in the eyes of foreign nations, whether strangers, neutrals, friends, or even allies. The United States will maintain and defend their sov- ereignty throughout the bounds of the Republic, and they deem all other nations bound to respect that sovereignty until, if ever, Providence shall consent that it shall be successfully overthrown. Any system of public law or national morality that conflicts with this would resolve society, first in this hemisphere and then in the other, into anarchy and chaos. This government is sensible of the importance of the step it takes in declining to hear the communication the tender of which has drawn out these explanations. It believes, however, that it need not disturb the good relations which have so long and so happily subsisted between the United States and France. The paper, as understood, while implying a disposition on the part of France to accord belligerent rights to the insurgents, does not name, specify, or even indicate one such belligerent right. On the other hand, the rights which it asserts that France expects, as a neutral, from the United States, as a belligerent, are even less than this govern- ment, on the 25th of April, instructed you to concede and guaranty to her by treaty, as a friend. On that day we offered to her our 18 274 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. adhesion to the declaration of Paris, which contains four propo- sitions, namely: 1st. That privateering shall be abolished. 2d. That a neutral flag covers enemy's goods not contraband of war. 3d. That goods of a neutral, not contraband, shall not be con- fiscated, though found in an enemy's vessel. 4th. That blockades, in order to be lawful, must be maintained by competent force. We have always, when at war, conceded the last three of these rights to neutrals; a fortiori, we could not when at peace deny them to friendly nations. The first-named concession was proposed on the grounds already mentioned. We are still ready to guarantee these rights, by convention with France, whenever she shall authorize either you or her minister here to enter into convention. There is no reservation or difficulty about their application in the present case. We hold all the citizens of the United States, loyal or dis- loyal, alike included by the law of nations and treaties; and we hold ourselves bound by the same obligations to see, so far as may be in our power, that all our citizens, whether maintaining this government or engaged in overthrowing it, respect those rights in favor of France and of every other friendly nation. In any case, not only shall we allow no privateer or national vessel to violate the rights of friendly nations as I have thus described them, but we shall also employ all our naval force to prevent the insurgents from violating them, just as much as we do to prevent them from violating the laws of our own country. What, then, does France claim of us that we do not accord to her? Nothing. What do we refuse to France by declining to re- ceive the communication sent to us through the hands of Mr. Mer- cier? Nothing but the privilege of telling us that we are at war, when we maintain we are at peace, and that she is a neutral, when we prefer to recognize her as a friend. Of course, it is understood that on this occasion we reserve, as on all others, our right to suppress the insurrection by naval as well as by military power, and for that purpose to close such of our ports as have fallen or may fall into the hands of the insurgents, either directly or in the more lenient and equitable form of a blockade, which for the present we have adopted. It is thus seen that there is no practical subject of difference between the two governments. The United States will hope that France will not think it necessary to adhere to and practise upon the speculation concerning the con- ONE COUNTRY, ONE SOVEREIGNTY. 275 i dition of our internal affairs which she has proposed to communi- cate to us. But however this may be, the United States will not anticipate any occasion for a change of the relations which, with scarcely any interruption, have existed between the two nations for three quarters of a century, and have been very instrumental in promoting, not merely the prosperity and greatness of each state, but the cause of civil and religious liberty and free institutions throughout the world. This government understands equally the interest of friendly nations and its own in the present emergency. If they shall not interfere, the attempt at revolution here will cease without inflict- ing serious evils upon foreign nations. All that they can do by any interference, with a view to modify our action, will only serve to prolong the present unpleasant condition of things, and possibly to produce results that would be as universally calamitous as they would be irretrievable. The case, as it now stands, is the simple, ordinary one that has happened at all times and in all countries. A discontented domes- tic faction seeks foreign intervention to overthrow the Constitution and the liberties of its own country. Such intervention, if yielded, is ultimately disastrous to the cause it is designed to aid. Every uncorrupted nation, in its deliberate moments, prefers its own in- tegrity, even with unbearable evils, to division through the power or influence of any foreign state. This is so in France. It is not less so in this country. Down deep in the heart of the American people deeper than the love of trade, or of freedom-deeper than the attachment to any local or sectional interest, or partizan pride or individual ambition-deeper than any other sentiment- is that one out of which the Constitution of this Union arose, namely, American independence-independence of all foreign con- trol, alliance, or influence. Next above it lies the conviction that neither peace, nor safety, nor public liberty, nor prosperity, nor greatness, nor empire, can be attained here with the sacrifice of the unity of the people of North America. Those who, in a frenzy of passion, are building expectations on other principles do not know what they are doing. Whenever one part of this Union shall be found assuming bonds of dependence or of fraternity towards any foreign people, to the exclusion of the sympathies of their na- tive land, then, even if not before, that spirit will be reawakened 276 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. which brought the states of this Republic into existence, and which will preserve them united until the common destiny which it opened to them shall be fully and completely realized. Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams. June 19, 1861. When we received official information that an understanding was existing between the British and French govern- ments that they would take one and the same course concerning the insurrection which has occurred in this country, involving the ques- tion of recognizing the independence of a revolutionary organization, we instructed you to inform the British government that we had expected from both of those powers a different course of proceeding. We added, however, that insomuch as the proposed concert of action between them did not necessarily imply any unfriendliness of purpose or of disposition, we should not complain of it, but that we should insist in this case, as in all others, on dealing with each of those powers alone, and that their agreement to act together would not at all affect the course which we should pursue. Adhering to this decision, we have not made the concert of the two powers a ground of objection to the reading of the instruction with which Lord Lyons was charged. That paper purports to contain a decision at which the British government has arrived, to the effect that this country is divided into two belligerent parties, of which this government represents one, and that Great Britain assumes the attitude of a neutral be- tween them. This government could not, consistently with a just regard for the sovereignty of the United States, permit itself to debate these novel and extraordinary positions with the government of her Britannic Majesty; much less can we consent that that government shall announce to us a decision derogating from that sovereignty, at which it has arrived without previously conferring with us upon the ques- tion. The United States are still solely and exclusively sovereign within the territories they have lawfully acquired and long possessed, as they have always been. They are at peace with all the world, as, with unimportant exceptions, they have always been. They are living under the obligations of the law of nations, and of treaties with Great Britain, just the same now as heretofore; they are, of course, the friend of Great Britain, and they insist that Great Brit- ? SOVEREIGNTY UNIMPAIRED BY REBELLION. 277 ain shall remain their friend now just as she has hitherto been. Great Britain, by virtue of these relations, is a stranger to parties and sections in this country, whether they are loyal to the United States or not, and Great Britain can neither rightfully qualify the sovereignty of the United States, nor concede, nor recognize any rights, or interests, or power of any party, state, or section, in con- travention to the unbroken sovereignty of the Federal Union. What is now seen in this country is the occurrence, by no means peculiar, but frequent in all countries, more frequent even in Great Britain than here, of an armed insurrection engaged in attempting to overthrow the regularly constituted and established government. There is, of course, the employment of force by the government to suppress the insurrection, as every other government necessarily em- ploys force in such cases. But these incidents by no means consti- tute a state of war impairing the sovereignty of the government, creating belligerent sections, and entitling foreign states to intervene or to act as neutrals between them, or in any other way to cast off their lawful obligations to the nation thus for the moment disturbed. Any other principle than this would be to resolve government everywhere into a thing of accident and caprice, and ultimately all human society into a state of perpetual war. We do not go into any argument of fact or of law in support of the positions we have thus assumed. They are simply the suggestions of the instinct of self-defence, the primary law of human action, not more the law of individual than of national life. This government is sensible of the importance of the step it takes in declining to receive the communication in question. It hopes. and believes, however, that it need not disturb the good relations which have hitherto subsisted between the two countries which, more than any other nations, have need to live together in harmony and friendship. We believe that Great Britain has acted inadvert- ently, and under the influence of apprehensions of danger to her commerce, which either are exaggerated or call for fidelity on her part to her habitual relations to the United States, instead of a hasty attempt to change those relations. Certainly this government has exerted itself to the utmost to prevent Great Britain from falling into the error of supposing that the United States could consent to any abatement of their sovereignty in the present emergency. It is, we take leave to think, the common misfortune of the two countries 278 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. * that Great Britain was not content to wait before despatching the instruction in question, until you had been received by her Majesty's government, and had submitted the entirely just, friendly, and lib- eral overtures with which you were charged. Although the paper implies, without affirming, that the insurgents of this country possess some belligerent rights, it does not name, specify, or indicate one such right. It confines itself to stating what the British government require or expect the United States to do. Virtually, it asks us to concede to Great Britain the principles laid down in the declaration of the congress held in Paris in 1856. It asks indeed a little less, certainly nothing more or different from this. The British government ask this of us to-day, the 15th of June, in ignorance of the fact that we had, so early as the 25th of April, instructed you to tender, without reservation, to Great Brit- ain our accession, pure and simple, to that declaration. We have all the while, since that instruction was sent forth, been ready, as we now are ready, to accede to the declaration, where and whenever Great Britain may be ready and willing to receive it. The argu- ment contained in the instruction seems, therefore, to have been as unnecessary and irrelevant as it is unacceptable. Lord Lyons thinks that his instructions do not authorize him to enter into con- vention with us here. You will inform the government of Great Britain of the fact, and, if they prefer, you will enter into the con- vention at London. Of course it is understood that the concessions herein made do not affect or impair the right of the United States to suppress the insurrection as well by maritime as by land operations, and for this purpose to exclude all commerce from such of the ports as may have fallen into the hands of the insurgents, either by closing the ports directly or by the more lenient means of a blockade, which we have already adopted. It is thus seen that, in the present case, there is only an embar- rassment resulting from the similar designs of the two governments to reach one common object by different courses without knowledge of each other's dispositions in that respect. There is nothing more. We propose, as a nation at peace, to give to Great Britain as a friend what she as a neutral demands of us, a nation at war. We rejoice that it happens so. We are anxious to avoid all causes of misunderstanding with Great Britain; to draw closer, instead of BRITISH VIEWS INADMISSIBLE. 279 breaking, the existing bonds of amity and friendship. There is nothing good or great which both nations may not expect to attain or effect if they may remain friends. It would be a hazardous day for both the branches of the British race when they should determine to try how much harm each could do the other. We do not forget that, although thus happily avoiding misunder- standing on the present occasion, Great Britain may in some way hereafter do us wrong or injury by adhering to the speculative views of the rights and duties of the two governments which she has proposed to express. But we believe her to be sincere in the good wishes for our welfare which she has so constantly avowed, and we will not, therefore, suffer ourselves to anticipate occasions for difference which, now that both nations fully understand each other, may be averted or avoided. One point remains. The British government while declining, out of regard for our natural sensibility, to propose mediation for the settlement of the differences which now unhappily divide the Amer- ican people, have nevertheless expressed, in a very proper manner, their willingness to undertake the kindly duty of mediation, if we should desire it. The President expects you to say on this point to the British government, that we appreciate this generous and friendly demonstration; but that we cannot solicit or accept media- tion from any, even the most friendly quarter. The conditions of society here, the character of our government, the exigencies of the country, forbid that any dispute arising among us should ever be referred to foreign arbitration. We are a republican and Ameri- can people. The Constitution of our government furnishes all need- ful means for the correction or removal of any possible political evil. Adhering strictly as we do to its directions, we shall sur- mount all our present complications, and preserve the government complete, perfect, and sound, for the benefit of future generations. But the integrity of any nation is lost, and its fate becomes doubt- ful, whenever strange hands, and instruments unknown to the Con- stitution, are employed to perform the proper functions of the people, established by the organic laws of the state. Hoping to have no occasion hereafter to speak for the hearing of friendly nations upon the topics which I have now discussed, I add a single remark by way of satisfying the British government that it 1 See Letter to Governor Ilicks. 280 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. will do wisely by leaving us to manage and settle this domestic controversy in our own way. The fountains of discontent in any society are many, and some lie much deeper than others. Thus far this unhappy controversy has disturbed only those which are near- est the surface. There are others which lie still deeper that may yet remain, as we hope, long undisturbed. If they should be reached, no one can tell how or when they could be closed. It was foreign intervention that opened and that alone could open similar fountains in the memorable French Revolution. Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams. July 21, 1861.—I have already in a previous communication informed you that this government has not been disturbed by the action of the British authorities in sending three regiments into Canada, nor by the announcement of the coming of British armed. vessels into American waters. These movements are certainly not very formidable in their proportions; and we willingly accept the explanation that they proceed from merely prudential mo- tives. Doubtless it had been better if they had not been made. But what government can say that it never acts precipitately, or even capriciously. On our part the possibility of foreign intervention, sooner or later, in this domestic disturbance is never absent from the thoughts of this government. We are, therefore, not likely to exaggerate indications of an emergency for which we hold ourselves bound to be in a measure always prepared. The Congress of the United States has by law asserted the right of this government to close the ports in this country which have been seized by the insurgents. I send you herewith a copy of the enactment. The connecting by Lord John Russell of that measure when it was in prospect with what had taken place in regard to a law of New Granada, gives to the remarks which he made to you a significance that requires no especial illustration. If the government of the United States should close their insurrectionary ports under the new statute, and Great Britain should, in pursuance of the intimation made, disre- gard the act, no one can suppose for a moment that the United States would acquiesce. When a conflict on such a question shall arrive between the United States and Great Britain, it is not easily FOREIGN WAR DEPRECATED. 281 to be seen what maritime nation could keep aloof from it. It must be confessed, therefore, that a new incident has occurred increas- ing the danger that what has hitherto been, and, as we think, ought to be, a merely domestic controversy of our own, may be en- larged into a general war among the great maritime nations. Hence the necessity for endeavoring to bring about a more perfect under- standing between the United States and Great Britain for the regu- lation of their mutual relations than has yet been attained. In attempting that important object I may be allowed to begin by affirming that the President deprecates, as much as any citizen of either country or any friend of humanity throughout the world can deprecate, the evil of foreign wars, to be superinduced, as he thinks unnecessarily, upon the painful civil conflict in which we are en- gaged for the purpose of defending and maintaining our national authority over our own disloyal citizens. I may add, also, for myself, that however otherwise I may at any time have been understood, it has been an earnest and profound solicitude to avert foreign war that alone has prompted the em- phatic and sometimes, perhaps, impassioned remonstrances I have hitherto made against any form or measure of recognition of the insurgents by the government of Great Britain. I write in the same spirit now; and I invoke on the part of the British govern- ment, as I propose to exercise on my own, the calmness which all counsellors ought to practise in debates which involve the peace and happiness of mankind. The United States and Great Britain have assumed incompatible, and thus far irreconcilable, positions on the subject of the existing insurrection. The United States claim and insist that the integrity of the Re- public is unbroken, and that their government is supreme so far as foreign nations are concerned, as well for war as for peace, over all the states, all sections, and all citizens, the loyal not more than the disloyal, the patriots and the insurgents alike. Consequently they insist that the British government shall in no way intervene in the insurrection, or hold commercial or other intercourse with the insur- gents in derogation of the Federal authority. The British government, without having first deliberately heard the claims of the United States, announced, through a proclamation of the Queen, that it took notice of the insurrection as a civil war 282 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. so flagrant as to divide this country into two belligerent parties, of which the Federal government constitutes one and the disloyal citi- zens the other; and consequently it inferred a right of Great Brit- ain to stand in an attitude of neutrality between them. It is not my purpose at this time to vindicate the position of the United States, nor is it my purpose to attempt to show to the government of Great Britain that its position is indefensible. The question at issue concerns the United States primarily, and Great Britain only secondarily and incidentally. It is, as I have before said, a question of the integrity, which is nothing less than the life, of the Republic itself. The position which the government has taken has been dictated, therefore, by the law of self-preserva- tion. No nation animated by loyal sentiments and inspired by a generous ambition can even suffer itself to debate with parties within or without a policy of self-preservation. In assuming this position and the policy resulting from it, we have done, as I think, just what Great Britain herself must, and therefore would do if a domestic insurrection should attempt to detach Ireland, or Scot- land, or England from the United Kingdom, while she would hear no argument nor enter into any debate upon the subject. Neither adverse opinions of theoretical writers, nor precedents drawn from the practice of other nations, or, even if they could be, from her own, would modify her course, which would be all the more vigor- ously followed if internal resistance should fortify itself with alli- ances throughout the world. This is exactly the case now with the United States. So, for obvious reasons, I refrain from argument to prove to the government of Great Britain the assumed error of the position it has avowed. First. Argument from a party that maintains itself to be abso- lutely right, and resolved in no case to change its convictions, be- comes merely controversial. Secondly. Such argument would be only an indirect way of defending our own position, which is un- changeable. Thirdly. The position of Great Britain has been taken upon the assumption of a certain degree of probability of success by the insurgents in arms; and it must be sooner or later abandoned, as that probability shall diminish and ultimately cease, while in any case that circumstance does not affect our position or the policy which we have adopted. It must, therefore, be left to Great Britain to do what we have done, namely, survey the entire field, with the THE BLOCKADE QUESTION. 283 and deter- consequences of her course deemed by us to be erroneous, mine as those consequences develop themselves how long that course shall be pursued. While, however, thus waiving controversy on the main point, I am tempted by a sincere conviction that Great Britain really must desire, as we do, that the peace of the world may not be unneces- sarily broken, to consider the attitude of the two powers, with a view to mutual forbearance, until reconciliation of conflicting sys- tems shall have become in every event impossible. The British government will, I think, admit that so soon as its unexpected, and, as we regard it, injurious position assumed in the Queen's proclamation became known to us, we took some pains to avert premature or unnecessary collision, if it could be done without sacrificing any part of the sovereignty which we had determined in every event to defend. We promptly renewed the proposition which, fortunately for both parties, we had tendered before that proclamation was issued, to concede as one whole undivided sover- eignty to Great Britain, as a friend, all the guarantees for her com- merce that she might claim as a neutral from this government as one of her two imagined belligerents. It seemed to us that these two great and kindred nations might decline to be dogmatic, and act practically with a view to immediate peace and ultimate good understanding. So, on the other hand, it is my duty to admit, as I most frankly do, that the directions given by the British government that our blockade shall be respected, and that favor or shelter shall be denied to insurgent privateers, together with the disallowance of the appli- cation of the insurgent commissioners, have given us good reason to expect that our complete sovereignty, though theoretically ques- tioned in the Queen's proclamation, would be practically respected. Lord Lyons, as you are aware, proposed to read to me a despatch which he had received from his government, affirming the position assumed in the Queen's proclamation, and deducing from that posi- tion claims as a neutral to guarantees of safety to British commerce less than those we had, as I have already stated, offered to her as a friend. I declined, as you have been advised, to hear the com- munication, but nevertheless renewed through you, as I consis- tently could, the offer of the greater guarantees before tendered. The case then seemed to me to stand thus: The two nations had, 281 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. indeed, failed to find a common ground or principle on which they could stand together; but they had succeeded in reaching a per- fect understanding of the nature and extent of their disagree- ment, and in finding a line of mutual practical forbearance. It was under this aspect of the positions of the two governments that the President thought himself authorized to inform Congress on its coming together on the 4th of July instant, in extra session, that the sovereignty of the United States was practically respected by all nations. Nothing has occurred to change this condition of affairs, unless it be the attitude which Lord John Russell has indicated for the British government in regard to an apprehended closing of the insurrection- ary ports, and the passage of the law of Congress which authorizes that measure in the discretion of the President. It is my purpose not to anticipate or even indicate the decision which will be made, but simply to suggest to you what you may properly and advantageously say while the subject is under consid- eration. First. You will, of course, prevent misconception of the measure by stating that the law only authorizes the President to close the ports in his discretion, according as he shall regard exigen- cies now existing or hereafter to arise. Secondly. The passage of the law, taken in connection with at- tendant circumstances, does not necessarily indicate a legislative conviction that the ports ought to be closed, but only shows the pur- pose of Congress that the closing of the ports, if it is now or shall become necessary, shall not fail for want of power explicitly con- ferred by law. When, on the 13th of April last, disloyal citizens. defiantly inaugurated an armed insurrection by the bombardment of Fort Sumter, the President's constitutional obligation to suppress the insurrection became imperative. But the case was new, and had not been adequately provided for by express law. The President called military and naval forces. into activity, instituted a blockade, and incurred great expense, for all which no direct legal provisions existed. He convened Congress at the earliest possible day to confirm these measures, if they should see fit. Congress, when it came together, confronted these facts. It has employed itself less in directing how and in what way the Union shall be maintained, than in confirming what the President had ļ A WARNING TO FOREIGN NATIONS. 285 already done, and in putting into his hands more ample means and greater power than he has exercised or asked. The law in question was passed in this generous and patriotic spirit. Whether it shall be put into execution to-day or to-morrow, or at what time, will depend on the condition of things at home and abroad, and a care- ful weighing of the advantages of so stringent a measure against those which are derived from the existing blockade. Thirdly. You may assure the British government that no change of policy now pursued, injuriously affecting foreign commerce, will be made from motives of aggression against nations which practically respect the sovereignty of the United States, or without due consid- eration of all the circumstances, foreign as well as domestic, bearing upon the question. The same spirit of forbearance towards foreign nations, arising from a desire to confine the calamities of the un- happy contest as much as possible, and to bring it to a close by the complete restoration of the authority of the government as speedily as possible, that have hitherto regulated the action of the govern- ment, will continue to control its councils. On the other hand, you will not leave it at all doubtful that the President fully adheres to the position that this government so early adopted, and which I have so continually throughout this contro- versy maintained; consequently he fully agrees with Congress in the principle of the law which authorizes him to close the ports which have been seized by the insurgents, and he will put into exe- cution and maintain it with all the means at his command, at the hazard of whatever consequences, whenever it shall appear that the safety of the nation requires it. I cannot leave the subject without endeavoring once more, as I have so often done before, to induce the British government to real- ize the conviction which I have more than once expressed in this correspondence, that the policy of the government is one that is based on interests of the greatest importance, and sentiments of the highest virtue, and therefore is in no case likely to be changed, whatever may be the varying fortunes of the war at home or the action of foreign nations on this subject, while the policy of foreign states rests on ephemeral interests of commerce or of ambition merely. The policy of these United States is not a creature of the government but an inspiration of the people, while the policies of foreign states are at the choice mainly of the governments presiding 286 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. over them. If, through error, on whatever side this civil contention shall transcend the national bounds and involve foreign states, the energies of all commercial nations, including our own, will necessa- rily be turned to war, and a general carnival of the adventurous and the reckless of all countries, at the cost of the existing commerce of the world, must ensue. Beyond that painful scene upon the seas there lie, but dimly concealed from our vision, scenes of devastation and desolation which will leave no roots remaining out of which trade between the United States and Great Britain, as it has hither- to flourished, can ever again spring up. Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams. August 17, 1861. — Your letter to Lord John Russell is judicious, and is approved. Lord John Russell's answer is satisfactory, with the exception of a single passage, upon which it is my duty to instruct you to ask the British Secretary for Foreign Affairs for an explanation. The passage is as follows:- "I need scarcely add that on the part of Great Britain the en- gagement will be prospective, and will not invalidate anything already done." A brief statement of the objects of the proposed negotiation will bring the necessity for an explanation of this passage into a strong light. We have heretofore proposed to other maritime states cer- tain meliorations of the laws of maritime war affecting the rights of neutrals. These meliorations are: 1st. That the neutral flag shall protect enemy's goods not contraband of war. 2d. That the goods of neutrals, not contraband, though found under an enemy's flag, shall not be confiscated. 3d. That blockades, to be respected, must be effective. The congress at Paris adopted these three principles, adding a fourth, namely, that privateering shall be abolished. The powers which constituted that congress invited the adhesion of the United States to that declaration. The United States answered that they would accede on condition that the other powers would accept a fifth proposition, namely, that the goods of private persons, non- combatants, should be exempt from confiscation in maritime war. When this answer was given by the United States, the British government declined to accept the proposed amendment, or fifth LORD JOHN RUSSELL'S RESERVATION. 287 proposition, thus offered by the United States, and the negotiation was then suspended. We have now proposed to resume the nego- tiation, offering our adhesion to the declaration of Paris, as before, with the amendment which would exempt private property from confiscation in maritime war. The British government now, as before, declares this amendment or fifth proposition inadmissible. It results that, if the United States can at all become a party to the declaration of the Congress of Paris by the necessary consent of the parties already committed to it, this can be done only by their accepting that declaration with- out any amendment whatever, in other words, "pure and simple. Under these circumstances you have proposed in your letter to Lord John Russell to negotiate our adhesion to the declaration in that form. It is at this stage of the affair that Lord John Russell interposes, by way of caution, the remark that "on the part of Great Britain the engagement will be prospective, and will not in- validate anything already done.” I need dwell on this remark only one moment to show that, although expressed in a very simple form and in a quite casual man- ner, it contains what amounts to a preliminary condition, which must be conceded by the United States to Great Britain, and either be inserted in the convention, and so modify our adhesion to the decla- ration of Paris, or else must be in some confidential manner implied and reserved, with the same effect. Upon principle this government could not consent to enter into formal negotiations, the result of which, as expressed in a conven- tion, should be modified or restricted by a tacit or implied reserva- tion. Even if such a proceeding was compatible with our convic- tions of propriety or of expediency, there would yet remain an insuperable obstacle in the way of such a measure. The President can only initiate a treaty. The treaty negotiated can come into life only through an express and deliberate act of ratification by the Senate of the United States, which ratification. sanctions, in any case, only what is set down in the treaty itself. I am not, by any means, to be understood in these remarks as implying a belief that Lord John Russell desires, expects, or contem- plates the practice of any reservation on the part of the United States or of Great Britain. The fact of his having given you the caution upon which I am remarking, would be sufficient, if evidence 288 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. were necessary, to exclude any apprehension of that sort. It results from these remarks that the convention into which we are to enter must contain a provision to the effect that "the engagements" to be made therein are "on the part of Great Britain prospective, and will not invalidate anything already done." I must, therefore, now discuss the propriety of inserting such a stipulation in the convention which you have been authorized to consummate. The proposed stipulation is divisible into two parts, namely: First. That the engagements of Great Britain are "pros- pective" [only]. I do not see any great objection to such an amendment. But why should it be important? A contract is always prospective, and prospective only, if it contains no express stipulation that it shall be retrospective in its operation. So much, therefore, of the stipulation asked is unnecessary, while, if conceded, it might possibly give occa- sion to misapprehension as to its effect. You will, therefore, de- cline to make such a condition without first receiving a satisfactory explanation of its meaning and its importance. The second part of the proposed condition is, that the "engage- ment will not invalidate anything already done." I am not sure that I should think this proposed condition exceptionable, if its effect were clearly understood. It is necessary, however, to go out- side of his lordship's letter to find out what is meant by the words "anything already done." If "anything" pertinent to the subject "has been already done" which ought not to be invalidated, it is clear that it must have been done either by the joint action of the United States and Great Britain, or by the United States only, or by Great Britain acting alone. There has been no joint action of the United States and Great Britain upon the subject. The United States have done nothing affecting it; certainly nothing which they appre- hend would be invalidated by the simple form of convention which they propose. I am left to conclude, therefore, that the " thing " which "has been done already," and which Great Britain desires shall not be invalidated by the convention, must be something which she herself has done. At the same time we are left to conjecture what that thing is which is thus to be carefully saved. It would be hazardous on our part to assume to know, while I have no doubt that the British government, with its accustomed frankness, and in view of the desirableness of a perfect understanding of the matter, OBSTACLES TO A CONVENTION. 289 will at once specify what the thing which has been done by her, and which is not to be invalidated, really is. You will, therefore, respectfully ask the right honorable Secretary for Foreign Affairs for an explanation of the part of his letter which I have thus drawn under review, as a preliminary to any further proceedings in the pro- posed negotiation. You will perform this in such a manner as to show that the ex- planation is asked in no querulous or hypercritical spirit. Secondly, you will perform it with reasonable promptness, so that the attain- ment of the important object of the negotiation may not be unnec essarily delayed; and, thirdly, you will assure the British govern- ment that while the United States at present see no reason to think that the stipulation proposed is necessary or expedient, yet, in view of the great interests of commerce and of civilization which are involved, they will refuse nothing which shall be really just or even non-essential and not injurious to themselves; while of course I suppose they are not expected in any way to compromise their own national integrity, safety, or honor. Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams. September 7, 1861.—I have received your despatch of August 23. It is accompanied by a note which was addressed to you by Lord Russell on the 19th of the same month, and a paper contain- ing the form of an official declaration which he proposes to make on the part of her Majesty on the occasion of affixing his signature to the projected convention between the United States and Great Britain for the accession of the former power to the articles of the declaration of the Congress of Paris for the melioration of the rigor of international law in regard to neutrals in maritime war. The instrument thus submitted to us by Lord Russell is in the following words: "Draft of declaration. — In affixing his signature to the convention of this day, between her Majesty the Queen of Great Britain and Ireland and the United States of America, the Earl Russell declares, by order of her Majesty, that her Majesty does not intend thereby to undertake any engagement which shall have any bearing, direct or indirect, on the internal differences now prevail- ing in the United States." Lord Russell, in his note to you, explains the object of the instrument by saying that it is intended to prevent any miscon- 19 290 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. ception as to the nature of the engagement to be taken by her Majesty. You have judged very rightly in considering this proceeding, on the part of the British government, as one so grave and so novel in its character as to render further action on your part in regard to the projected convention inadmissible until you shall have special instructions from this Department. Long before the present communication can reach you, my in- structions of August 17 will have come to your hands. That paper directed you to ask Lord Russell to explain a passage in a note written to you, and then lying before me, in which he said: "I need scarcely add that on the part of Great Britain the engagement (to be contained in the projected convention) will be prospective, and will not invalidate anything already done;" which explanation I stated would be expected as a preliminary before you could pro- ceed further in the transaction. You have thus been already prepared for the information that your resolution to await special instructions in the present emer- gency is approved. I feel myself at liberty, perhaps bound, to assume that Lord Rus- sell's proposed declaration, which I have herein recited, will have been already regarded, as well by him as by yourself, as sufficiently answering the request for preliminary explanations which you were instructed to make. I may, therefore, assume that the case is fully before me, and that the question whether this government will consent to enter into the projected treaty with Great Britain, subject to the condition of ad- mitting the simultaneous declaration on her Majesty's part, proposed by Lord Russell, is ready to be decided. I am instructed by the President to say that the proposed dec- laration is inadmissible. It would be virtually a new and distinct article incorporated into the projected convention. To admit such a new article would, for the first time in the history of the United States, be to permit a foreign power to take cognizance of and adjust its relations upon assumed internal and purely domestic differences existing within our own country. This broad consideration supersedes any necessity for consid- ering in what manner or in what degree the projected conven- THE CONGRESS OF PARIS. 291 tion, if completed either subject to the explanation proposed or not, would bear directly or indirectly on the internal differences which the British government assume to be prevailing in the United States. I do not enlarge upon this branch of the subject. It is enough to say that the view thus adopted by the President seems to be in har- mony equally with a prudent regard to the safety of the Republic and a just sense of its honor and dignity. The proposed declaration is inadmissible, among other reasons, because it is not mutual. It proposes a special rule by which her Majesty's obligations shall be meliorated in their bearing upon in- ternal difficulties now prevailing in the United States, while the obligations to be assumed by the United States shall not be simi- larly meliorated or at all affected in their bearing on internal differ- ences that may now be prevailing, or may hereafter arise and pre- vail, in Great Britain. It is inadmissible, because it would be a substantial and even a radical departure from the declaration of the congress at Paris. That declaration makes no exception in favor of any of the parties to it in regard to the bearing of their obligations upon internal dif- ferences which may prevail in the territories or dominions of other parties. The declaration of the Congress of Paris is the joint act of forty- six great and enlightened powers, designing to alleviate the evils of maritime war, and promote the first interest of humanity, which is peace. The government of Great Britain will not, I am sure, expect us to accede to this noble act otherwise than upon the same equal footing upon which all the other parties to it are standing. We could not consent to accede to the declaration with a modifica- tion of its terms unless all the present parties to it should stipulate that the modification should be adopted as one of universal appli- cation. The British government cannot but know that there would be little prospect of an entire reformation of the declara- tion of Paris at the present time, and it has not even told us that it would accept the modification as a general one if it were proposed. It results that the United States must accede to the declaration of the Congress of Paris on the same terms with all the other parties. to it, or that they do not accede to it at all. 292 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. You will present these considerations to Lord Russell, not as argu- ments why the British government ought to recede from the posi- tion it has assumed, but as the grounds upon which the United States decline to enter into the projected convention recognizing that exceptional position of her Majesty. If, therefore, her Britannic Majesty's government shall adhere to the proposition thus disallowed, you will inform Lord Russell that the negotiation must for the present be suspended. I forbear purposely from a review of the past correspondence, to ascertain the relative responsibilities of the parties for this failure of negotiations, from which I had hoped results would flow beneficial, not only to the two nations but to the whole world — beneficial, not in the present age only, but in future ages. It is my desire that we may withdraw from the subject, carrying away no feelings of passion, prejudice, or jealousy, so that in some happier time it may be resumed, and the important objects of the proposed convention may be fully secured. I believe that that propitious time is even now not distant; and I will hope that when it comes Great Britain will not only willingly and unconditionally accept the adhesion of the United States to all the benignant arti- cles of the declaration of the Congress of Paris, but will even go further, and, relinquishing her present objections, consent, as the United States have so constantly invited, that the private property, not contraband, of citizens and subjects of nations in collision shall be exempted from confiscation equally in warfare waged on the land and in warfare waged upon the seas, which are the common highways of all nations. Regarding this negotiation as at an end, the question arises, what, then, are to be the views and policy of the United States in regard to the rights of neutrals in maritime war in the present case. My previous despatches leave no uncertainty upon this point. We regard Great Britain as a friend. Her Majesty's flag, according to our traditional principles, covers enemy's goods not contraband of war. Goods of her Majesty's subjects, not contraband of war, are exempt from confiscation though found under a neutral or disloyal flag. No depredations shall be committed by our naval forces or by those of any of our citizens, so far as we can prevent it, upon the vessels or property of British subjects. Our blockade, being effective, must be respected. WHY NOT RETAIN BRITISH FRIENDSHIP? 29 The unfortunate failure of our negotiations to amend the law of nations in regard to maritime war does not make us enemies, although, if they had been successful, we should have perhaps been more assured friends. Civil war is a calamity from which certainly no people or nation that has ever existed has been always exempt. It is one which prob- ably no nation ever will escape. Perhaps its most injurious trait is its tendency to subvert the good understanding and break up the relations existing between the distracted state and friendly nations, and to involve them, sooner or later, in war. It is the desire of the United States that the internal differences existing in this country may be confined within our own borders. I do not suffer myself for a moment to doubt that Great Britain has a desire that we may be successful in attaining that object, and that she looks with dread upon the possibility of being herself drawn into this unhappy inter- nal controversy of our own. I do not think it can be regarded as disrespectful if you should remind Lord Russell that when, in 1838, a civil war broke out in Canada, a part of the British dominions adjacent to the United States, the Congress of the United States passed and the President executed a law which effectually prevented any intervention against the government of Great Britain in those internal differences by American citizens, whatever might be their motives, real or pretended, whether of interest or sympathy. I send you a copy of that enactment. The British government will judge for itself whether it is suggestive of any measures on the part of Great Britain that might tend to preserve the peace of the two countries, and, through that way, the peace of all nations. Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams. November 30, 1861. Your confidential note of the 15th of November, not marked as a despatch, has been submitted to the President, and I hasten to reply to it in time for the Wednesday's mail. No minister ever spoke or acted more wisely in a crisis which excited deep public solicitude than you did on the occasion of the Lord Mayor's dinner. We are impressed very favorably by Lord Palmerston's conversation with you. You spoke the simple fact when you told him that the life of this insurrection is sustained 294 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. by its hopes of recognition in Great Britain and in France. It would perish in ninety days if those hopes should cease. I have never for a moment believed that such a recognition could take place without producing immediately a war between the United States and all the recognizing powers. I have not supposed it pos- sible that the British government could fail to see this; and at the same time I have sincerely believed the British government must, in its inmost heart, be as averse from such a war as I know this government is. I am sure that this government has carefully avoided giving any cause of offence or irritation to Great Britain. But it has seemed to me that the British government has been inattentive to the currents that seemed to be bringing the two countries into col- lision. I infer from Lord Palmerston's remark that the British govern- ment is now awake to the importance of averting possible conflict, and disposed to confer and act with earnestness to that end. If so, we are disposed to meet them in the same spirit, as a nation chiefly of British lineage, sentiments, and sympathies-a civilized and humane nation - a Christian people. Since that conversation was held Captain Wilkes, of the steamer San Jacinto, has boarded a British colonial steamer and taken from her deck two insurgents who were proceeding to Europe on an errand of treason against their own country. This is a new inci- dent, unknown to, and unforeseen, at least in its circumstances, by Lord Palmerston. It is to be met and disposed of by the two gov- ernments, if possible, in the spirit to which I have adverted. Lord Lyons has prudently refrained from opening the subject to me, as, I presume, waiting instructions from home. We have done nothing on the subject to anticipate the discussion, and we have not fur- nished you with any explanations. We adhere to that course now, because we think it more prudent that the ground taken by the British government should be first made known to us here, and that the discussion, if there must be one, shall be had here. It is proper, however, that you should know one fact in the case,, with- out indicating that we attach much importance to it, namely, that, in the capture of Messrs. Mason and Slidell on board a British vessel, Captain Wilkes having acted without any instructions from the government, the subject is therefore free from the embar- 295 THE TRENT AFFAIR. rassment which might have resulted if the act had been specially directed by us.¹ Mr. Seward to Lord Lyons. December 26, 1861. Earl Russell's despatch of November the 30th, a copy of which you have left with me at my request, is of the following effect, namely: That a letter of Commander Williams, dated Royal Mail Con- tract Packetboat Trent, at sea, November 9th, states that that ves- sel left Havana on the 7th of November, with her Majesty's mails. for England, having on board numerous passengers. Shortly after noon, on the 8th of November, the United States war steamer San Jacinto, Captain Wilkes, not showing colors, was observed ahead. That steamer, on being neared by the Trent, at one o'clock fifteen minutes in the afternoon, fired a round shot from a pivot-gun across her bows, and showed American colors. While the Trent was ap- proaching slowly towards the San Jacinto she discharged a shell across the Trent's bows, which exploded at half a cable's length before her. The Trent then stopped, and an officer with a large armed guard of marines boarded her. The officer said he had or- ders to arrest Messrs. Mason, Slidell, McFarland, and Eustis, and had sure information that they were passengers in the Trent. While some parley was going on upon this matter, Mr. Slidell stepped forward and said to the American officer that the four per- sons he had named were standing before him. The commander of the Trent and Commander Williams protested against the act of taking those four passengers out of the Trent, they then being under the protection of the British flag. But the San Jacinto was at this time only two hundred yards distant, her ship's company at quarters, her ports open and tompions out, and so resistance was out of the question. The four persons before named were then for- cibly taken out of the ship. A further demand was made that the commander of the Trent should proceed on board the San Jacinto, but he said he would not go unless forcibly compelled likewise, and this demand was not insisted upon. Upon this statement Earl Russell remarks that it thus appears that certain individuals have been forcibly taken from on board a British vessel, the ship of a neutral power, while that vessel was pursuing a lawful and innocent voyage-an act of violence which 1 See Mr. Adams's oration. 296 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. was an affront to the British flag and a violation of international law. Earl Russell next says that her Majesty's government, bearing in mind the friendly relations which have long subsisted between Great Britain and the United States, are willing to believe that the naval officer who committed this aggression was not acting in compliance with any authority from his government, or that, if he conceived himself to be so authorized, he greatly misunderstood the instruc- tions which he had received. Earl Russell argues that the United States must be fully aware that the British government could not allow such an affront to the national honor to pass without full reparation, and they are willing to believe that it could not be the deliberate intention of the gov- ernment of the United States unnecessarily to force into discussion between the two governments a question of so grave a character, and with regard to which the whole British nation would be sure to entertain such unanimity of feeling. Earl Russell, resting upon the statement and the argument which I have thus recited, closes with saying that her Majesty's government trust that when this matter shall have been brought under the con- sideration of the government of the United States, it will, of its own accord, offer to the British government such redress as alone could satisfy the British nation, namely, the liberation of the four prison- ers taken from the Trent, and their delivery to your lordship, in or- der that they may again be placed under British protection, and a suitable apology for the aggression which has been committed. Earl Russell anally instructs you to propose those terms to me, if I should not first offer them on the part of the government. This despatch has been submitted to the President. The British government has rightly conjectured, what it is now my duty to state, that Captain Wilkes, in conceiving and executing the proceeding in question, acted upon his own suggestions of duty, without any direction or instruction, or even foreknowledge of it, on the part of this government. No directions had been given to him, or any other naval officer, to arrest the four persons named, or any of them, on the Trent or on any other British vessel, or on any other neutral vessel, at the place where it occurred or else- where. The British government will justly infer from these facts that the United States not only have had no purpose, but even no THE TRENT AFFAIR. 297 thought, of forcing into discussion the question which has arisen, or any other which could affect in any way the sensibilities of the British nation. It is true that a round shot was fired by the San Jacinto from her pivot-gun when the Trent was distantly approaching. But, as the facts have been reported to this government, the shot was nev- ertheless intentionally fired in a direction so obviously divergent from the course of the Trent as to be quite as harmless as a blank shot, while it should be regarded as a signal. So also we learn that the Trent was not approaching the San Jacinto slowly when the shell was fired across her bows, but, on the contrary, the Trent was, or seemed to be, moving under a full head of steam, as if with a purpose to pass the San Jacinto. We are informed also that the boarding officer (Lieutenant Fair- fax) did not board the Trent with a large armed guard, but he left his marines in his boat when he entered the Trent. He stated his instructions from Captain Wilkes to search for the four persons named, in a respectful and courteous, though decided manner, and he asked the captain of the Trent to show his passenger list, which was refused. The lieutenant, as we are informed, did not employ absolute force in transferring the passengers, but he used just so much as was necessary to satisfy the parties concerned that refusal or resistance would be unavailing. So, also, we are informed that the captain of the Trent was not at any time or in any way required to go on board the San Jacinto. These modifications of the case, as presented by Commander Williams, are based upon our official report. I have now to remind your lordship of some facts which doubt- lessly were omitted by Earl Russell, with the very proper and be- coming motive of allowing them to be brought into the case, on the part of the United States, in the way most satisfactory to this gov- ernment. These facts are, that at the time the transaction oc- tion was existing in the United States which this suppressing by the employment of land d to this domestic strife the nited riendly power, we had שול ain was titude as 298 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. It had been settled by correspondence that the United States and Great Britain mutually recognized as applicable to this local strife these two articles of the declaration made by the Congress of Paris in 1856, namely, that the neutral or friendly flag should cover enemy's goods not contraband of war, and that neutral goods not. contraband of war are not liable to capture under an enemy's flag. These exceptions of contraband from favor were a negative accept- ance by the parties of the rule hitherto everywhere recognized as a part of the law of nations, that whatever is contraband is liable to capture and confiscation in all cases. James M. Mason and E. J. McFarland are citizens of the United States and residents of Virginia. John Slidell and George Eustis. are citizens of the United States and residents of Louisiana. was well known at Havana when these parties embarked in the Trent that James M. Mason was proceeding to England in the affected character of a minister plenipotentiary to the court of St. James, under a pretended commission from Jefferson Davis, who had assumed to be president of the insurrectionary party in the United States, and E. J. McFarland was going with him in a like unreal character of secretary of legation to the pretended mission. John Slidell, in similar circumstances, was going to Paris as a pre- tended minister to the Emperor of the French, and George Eustis was the chosen secretary of legation for that simulated mission. The fact that these persons had assumed such characters has been since avowed by the same Jefferson Davis in a pretended message to an unlawful and insurrectionary Congress. It was, as we think, rightly presumed that these ministers bore pretended credentials and instructions, and such papers are in the law known as des- patches. We are informed by our consul at Paris that these despatches, having escaped the search of the Trent, were actually conveyed and delivered to emissaries of the insurrection in England. Although it is not essential, yet it is proper to state, as I do also upon information and belief, that the owner and ac officers of the Trent, including Commander™ edge the assumed characters and nam en they embarked You of presei Captain " THE TRENT AFFAIR. 299 statement of it that went up to the British government, was under- taken as a simple legal and customary belligerent proceeding by Captain Wilkes to arrest and capture a neutral vessel engaged in carrying contraband of war for the use and benefit of the insur- gents. The question before us is, whether this proceeding was author- ized by and conducted according to the law of nations. It involves. the following inquiries: 1st. Were the persons named and their supposed despatches con- traband of war? 2d. Might Captain Wilkes lawfully stop and search the Trent for these contraband persons and despatches? 3d. Did he exercise that right in a lawful and proper manner? 4th. Having found the contraband persons on board and in pre- sumed possession of the contraband despatches, had he a right to capture the persons? 5th. Did he exercise that right of capture in the manner allowed and recognized by the law of nations? If all these inquiries shall be resolved in the affirmative the Brit- ish government will have no claim for reparation. I address myself to the first inquiry, namely, Were the four per- sons mentioned, and their supposed despatches, contraband? Maritime law so generally deals, as its professors say, in rem, that is with property, and so seldom with persons, that it seems a straining of the term contraband to apply it to them. But persons, as well as property, may become contraband, since the word means broadly "contrary to proclamation, prohibited, illegal, unlawful." All writers and judges pronounce naval or military persons in the service of the enemy contraband. Vattel says war allows us to cut off from an enemy all his resources, and to hinder him from sending ministers to solicit assistance. And Sir William Scott says you may stop the ambassador of your enemy on his passage. De- spatches are not less clearly contraband, and the bearers or couriers who undertake to carry them fall under the same condemnation. A subtlety might be raised whether pretended ministers of a usurping power, not recognized as legal by either the belligerent or the neutral, could be held to be contraband. But it would disap- pear on being subjected to what is the true test in all cases namely, the spirit of the law. Sir William Scott, speaking of civil magistrates who are arrested and detained aband says: 300 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. "It appears to me on principle to be but reasonable that when it is of sufficient importance to the enemy that such persons shall be sent out on the public service at the public expense, it should afford equal ground of forfeiture against the vessel that may be let out for a purpose so intimately connected with the hostile operations." I trust that I have shown that the four persons who were taken from the Trent by Captain Wilkes, and their despatches, were con- traband of war. The second inquiry is, whether Captain Wilkes had a right by the law of nations to detain and search the Trent. The Trent, though she carried mails, was a contract or merchant vessel a common carrier for hire. Maritime law knows only three classes of vessels vessels of war, revenue vessels, and mer- chant vessels. The Trent falls within the latter class. Whatever disputes have existed concerning a right of visitation or search in time of peace, none, it is supposed, has existed in modern times about the right of a belligerent in time of war to capture contra- band in neutral and even friendly merchant vessels, and of the right of visitation and search, in order to determine whether they are neutral, and are documented as such according to the law of nations. I assume in the present case what, as I read British authorities, is regarded by Great Britain herself as true maritime law: That the circumstance that the Trent was proceeding from a neutral port to another neutral port does not modify the right of the belligerent captor. The third question is whether Captain Wilkes exercised the right of search in a lawful and proper manner. If any doubt hung over this point, as the case was presented in the statement of it adopted by the British government, I think it must have already passed away before the modifications of that statement which I have already submitted. I proceed to the fourth inquiry, namely: Having found the sus- pected contraband of war on board the Trent, had Captain Wilkes a right to capture the same? Such a capture is the chief, if not the only recognized, object of the permitted visitation and search. The principle of the law is, that the belligerent exposed to danger may prevent the contraband persons or things from applying themselves or being applied to the THE TRENT AFFAIR. 301 hostile uses or purposes designed. The law is so very liberal in this respect that when contraband is found on board a neutral ves- sel, not only is the contraband forfeited, but the vessel which is the vehicle of its passage or transportation, being tainted, also becomes contraband, and is subjected to capture and confiscation. Only the fifth question remains, namely: Did Captain Wilkes exercise the right of capturing the contraband in conformity with the law of nations? It is just here that the difficulties of the case begin. What is the manner which the law of nations prescribes for disposing of the contraband when you have found and seized it on board of the neu- tral vessel? The answer would be easily found if the question were what you shall do with the contraband vessel. You must take or send her into a convenient port, and subject her to a judicial prose- cution there in admiralty, which will try and decide the questions of belligerency, neutrality, contraband, and capture. So, again, you would promptly find the same answer if the question were, What is the manner of proceeding prescribed by the law of nations in regard to the contraband, if it be property or things of material or pecuni- ary value? But the question here concerns the mode of procedure in regard, not to the vessel that was carrying the contraband, nor yet to the contraband things which worked the forfeiture of the vessel, but to contraband persons. The books of law are dumb. Yet the question is as important as it is difficult. First, the belligerent captor has a right to prevent the contraband officer, soldier, sailor, minister, messenger, or courier from proceeding in his unlawful voyage and reaching the destined scene of his injurious service. But, on the other hand, the person captured may be innocent that is, he may not be contraband. He, therefore, has a right to a fair trial of the accusation against him. The neutral state that has taken him under its flag is bound to protect him if he is not contraband, and is therefore entitled to be satisfied upon that important question. The faith of that state is pledged to his safety, if innocent, as its justice is pledged to his surrender if he is really contraband. Here are conflicting claims, involving personal liberty, life, honor, and duty. Here are conflict- ing national claims, involving welfare, safety, honor, and empire. They require a tribunal and a trial. The captors and the captured are equals; the neutral and the belligerent states are equals. 1 302 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. While the law authorities were found silent, it was suggested at an early day by this government that you should take the captured persons into a convenient port, and institute judicial proceedings there to try the controversy. But only courts of admiralty have jurisdiction in maritime cases, and these courts have formulas to try only claims to contraband chattels, but none to try claims concern- ing contraband persons. The courts can entertain no proceedings and render no judgment in favor of or against the alleged contra- band men. It was replied all this was true; but you can reach in those courts a decision which will have the moral weight of a judicial one by a circuitous proceeding. Convey the suspected men, together with the suspected vessel, into port, and try there the question whether the ves- sel is contraband. You can prove it to be so by proving the suspected men to be contraband, and the court must then determine the vessel to be contraband. If the men are not contraband, the vessel will escape condemnation. Still, there is no judgment for or against the captured persons. But it was assumed that there would result from the determination of the court concerning the vessel a legal certainty concerning the character of the men. This course of proceeding seemed open to many objections. It ele- vates the incidental inferior private interests into the proper place of the main paramount public one, and possibly it may make the for- tunes, the safety, or the existence of a nation depend on the accidents of a merely personal and pecuniary litigation. Moreover, when the judgment of the prize court upon the lawfulness of the capture of the vessel is rendered, it really concludes nothing, and binds neither the belligerent state nor the neutral upon the great question of the disposition to be made of the captured contraband persons. That question is still to be really determined, if at all, by diplomatic arrangement or by war. One may well express his surprise when told that the law of nations has furnished no more reasonable, practical, and perfect mode than this of determining questions of such grave import between sovereign powers. The regret we may feel on the occasion is nev- ertheless modified by the reflection that the difficulty is not altogether anomalous. Similar and equal deficiencies are found in every system of municipal law, especially in the system which exists in the greater portions of Great Britain and the United States. T'he THE TRENT AFFAIR. 303 title to personal property can hardly ever be resolved by a court without resorting to the fiction that the claimant has lost and the possessor has found it, and the title to real estate is disputed by real litigants under the names of imaginary persons. It must be con- fessed, however, that while all aggrieved nations demand, and all impartial ones concede, the need of some form of judicial process in determining the characters of contraband persons, no other form than the illogical and circuitous one thus described exists, nor has any other yet been suggested. Practically, therefore, the choice is be- tween that judicial remedy or no judicial remedy whatever. If there be no judicial remedy, the result is that the question must be determined by the captor himself, on the deck of the prize vessel. Very grave objections arise against such a course. The captor is armed, the neutral is unarmed. The captor is interested, prejudiced, and perhaps violent; the neutral, if truly neutral, is disin- terested, subdued, and helpless. The tribunal is irresponsible, while its judgment is carried into instant execution. The captured party is compelled to submit, though bound by no legal, moral, or treaty obligation to acquiesce. Reparation is distant and problematical, and depends at last on the justice, magnanimity, or weakness of the state in whose behalf and by whose authority the capture was made. Out of these disputes reprisals and wars necessarily arise, and these are so frequent and destructive that it may well be doubted whether this form of remedy is not a greater social evil than all that could follow if the belligerent right of search were universally renounced and abolished forever. But carry the case one step farther. What in the state that has made the capture unreasonably refuse to hear the complaint of the neutral or to redress it? In that case, the very act of capture would be an act of war of war begun without notice, and possibly entirely without provocation. I think all unprejudiced minds will agree that, imperfect as the existing judicial remedy may be supposed to be, it would be, as a general practice, better to follow it than to adopt the summary one of leaving the decision with the captor, and relying upon diplomatic debates to review his decision. Practically, it is a question of choice between law, with its imperfections and delays, and war, with its evils and desolations. Nor is it ever to be forgotten that neutrality, honestly and justly preserved, is always the harbinger of peace, and therefore is the common interest of nations, which is only saying that it is the interest of humanity itself. 304 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. At the same time it is not to be denied that it may sometimes happen that the judicial remedy will become impossible, as by the shipwreck of the prize vessel, or other circumstances which excuse the captor from sending or taking her into port for confiscation. In such a case the right of the captor to the custody of the captured persons, and to dispose of them, if they are really contraband, so as to defeat their unlawful purposes, cannot reasonably be denied. What rule shall be applied in such a case? Clearly, the captor ought to be required to show that the failure of the judicial remedy results from circumstances beyond his control, and without his fault. Otherwise, he would be allowed to derive advantage from a wrongful act of his own. In the present case, Captain Wilkes, after capturing the contra- band persons and making prize of the Trent in what seems to be a perfectly lawful manner, instead of sending her into port, released her from the capture, and permitted her to proceed with her whole cargo upon her voyage. He thus effectually prevented the judicial examination which might otherwise have occurred. If, now, the capture of the contraband persons and the capture of the contraband vessel are to be regarded, not as two separate or distinct transactions under the law of nations, but as one transac- tion, one capture only, then it follows that the capture in this case was left unfinished, or was abandoned. Whether the United States have a right to retain the chief public benefits of it, namely, the custody of the captured persons on proving them to be contraband, will depend upon the preliminary question whether the leaving of the transaction unfinished was necessary, or whether it was unneces- sary, and therefore voluntary. If it was necessary, Great Britain, as we suppose, must, of course, waive the defect, and the consequent failure of the judicial remedy. On the other hand it is not seen how the United States can insist upon her waiver of that judicial remedy, if the defect of the capture resulted from an act of Captain Wilkes, which would be a fault on their own side. Captain Wilkes has presented to this government his reasons for releasing the Trent. “I forbore to seize her," he says, "in conse- quence of my being so reduced in officers and crew, and the derange- ment it would cause innocent persons, there being a large number of passengers who would have been put to great loss and inconvenience, as well as disappointment, from the interruption it would have THE TRENT AFFAIR. 305 caused them in not being able to join the steamer from St. Thomas to Europe. I therefore concluded to sacrifice the interest of my officers and crew in the prize, and suffered her to proceed after the detention necessary to effect the transfer of those commissioners, considering I had obtained the important end I had in view, and which affected the interest of our country and interrupted the action of that of the Confederates." I shall consider, first, how these reasons ought to affect the action of this government; and secondly, how they ought to be expected to affect the action of Great Britain. The reasons are satisfactory to this government, so far as Captain Wilkes is concerned. It could not desire that the San Jacinto, her officers and crew, should be exposed to danger and loss by weakening their number to detach a prize crew to go on board the Trent. Still less could it disavow the humane motive of preventing incon- veniences, losses, and perhaps disasters, to the several hundred inno- cent passengers found on board the prize vessel. Nor could this government perceive any ground for questioning the fact that these reasons, though apparently incongruous, did operate in the mind of Captain Wilkes and determine him to release the Trent. Human actions generally proceed upon mingled, and sometimes conflicting motives. He measured the sacrifices which this decision would cost. It manifestly, however, did not occur to him that beyond the sacri- fice of the private interests (as he calls them) of his officers and crew, there might also possibly be a sacrifice even of the chief and public object of his capture, namely, the right of his government to the custody and disposition of the captured persons. This govern- ment cannot censure him for this oversight. It confesses that the whole subject came unforeseen upon the government, as doubtless it did upon him. Its present convictions on the point in question are the result of deliberate examination and deduction now made, and not of any impressions previously formed. Nevertheless, the question now is, not whether Captain Wilkes is justified to his government in what he did, but what is the present view of the government as to the effect of what he has done. As- suming now, for argument's sake only, that the release of the Trent, if voluntary, involved a waiver of the claim of the government to hold the captured persons, the United States could in that case have no hesitation in saying that the act which has thus already been ap- 20 306 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. proved by the government must be allowed to draw its legal conse- quence after it. It is of the very nature of a gift or a charity that the giver cannot, after the exercise of his benevolence is past, recall or modify its benefits. We are thus brought directly to the question whether we are entitled to regard the release of the Trent as involuntary, or whether we are obliged to consider that it was voluntary. Clearly the release would have been involuntary had it been made solely upon the first ground assigned for it by Captain Wilkes, namely, a want of a sufficient force to send the prize vessel into port for adjudica- tion. It is not the duty of a captor to hazard his own vessel in order to secure a judicial examination to the captured party. No large prize crew, however, is legally necessary, for it is the duty of the captured party to acquiesce, and go willingly before the tribunal to whose jurisdiction it appeals. If the captured party indicate pur- poses to employ means of resistance which the captor cannot with probable safety to himself overcome, he may properly leave the ves- sel to go forward; and neither she nor the state she represents can ever afterwards justly object that the captor deprived her of the judicial remedy to which she was entitled. But the second reason assigned by Captain Wilkes for releasing the Trent differs from the first. At best, therefore, it must be held that Captain Wilkes, as he explains himself, acted from combined sentiments of prudence and generosity, and so that the release of the prize vessel was not strictly necessary or involuntary. Secondly. How ought we to expect these explanations by Captain Wilkes of his reasons for leaving the capture incomplete to affect the action, of the British government? The observation upon this point which first occurs is, that Captain Wilkes's explanations were not made to the authorities of the cap- tured vessel. If made known to them, they might have approved and taken the release upon the condition of waiving a judicial inves- tigation of the whole transaction, or they might have refused to ac- cept the release upon that condition. But the case is one not with them, but with the British government. If we claim that Great Britain ought not to insist that a judicial trial has been lost because we voluntarily released the offending ves- sel out of consideration for her innocent passengers, I do not see how she is to be bound to acquiesce in the decision which was thus made THE TRENT AFFAIR. 307 by us without necessity on our part, and without knowledge of con- ditions or consent on her own. The question between Great Britain and ourselves thus stated would be a question not of right and of law, but of favor to be conceded by her to us in return for favors shown by us to her, of the value of which favors on both sides we ourselves shall be the judge. Of course the United States could have no thought of raising such a question in any case. I trust that I have shown to the satisfaction of the British gov- ernment, by a very simple and natural statement of the facts, and analysis of the law applicable to them, that this government has neither meditated, nor practised, nor approved any deliberate wrong in the transaction to which they have called its attention; and, on the contrary, that what has happened has been simply an inadvert- ency, consisting in a departure, by the naval officer, free from any wrongful motive, from a rule uncertainly established, and probably by the several parties concerned either imperfectly understood or entirely unknown. For this error the British government has a right to expect the same reparation that we, as an independent state, should expect from Great Britain or from any other friendly nation in a similar case. I have not been unaware that, in examining this question, I have fallen into an argument for what seems to be the British side of it against my own country. But I am relieved from all embarrassment on that subject. I had hardly fallen into that line of argument when I discovered that I was really defending and maintaining, not an exclusively British interest, but an old, honored, and cherished American cause, not upon British authorities, but upon principles that constitute a large portion of the distinctive policy by which the United States have developed the resources of a continent, and, thus becoming a considerable maritime power, have won the respect and confidence of many nations. These principles were laid down for us in 1804, by James Madison, when secretary of state in the admin- istration of Thomas Jefferson, in instructions given to James Mon- roe, our minister to England. Although the case before him concerned a description of persons different from those who are incidentally the subjects of the present discussion, the ground he assumed then was the same I now occupy, and the arguments by which he sustained himself upon it, have been an inspiration to me in preparing this reply. 308 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. "Whenever," he says, "property found in a neutral vessel is sup- posed to be liable on any ground to capture and condemnation, the rule in all cases is, that the question shall not be decided by the captor, but be carried before a legal tribunal, where a regular trial may be had, and where the captor himself is liable to damages for an abuse of his power. Can it be reasonable, then, or just, that a belligerent commander who is thus restricted and thus responsible in a case of mere property of trivial amount, should be permitted, without recurring to any tribunal whatever, to examine the crew of a neutral vessel to decide the important question of their respective allegiances, and to carry that decision into execution by forcing every individual he may choose into a service abhorrent to his feelings, cutting him off from his most tender connections, exposing his mind and his person to the most humiliating discipline, and his life itself to the greatest danger. Reason, justice, and humanity unite in pro- testing against so extravagant a proceeding." If I decide this case in favor of my own government, I must dis- avow its most cherished principles, and reverse and forever abandon its essential policy. The country cannot afford the sacrifice. If I maintain those principles, and adhere to that policy, I must surren- der the case itself. It will be seen, therefore, that this government could not deny the justice of the claim presented to us in this respect upon its merits. We are asked to do to the British nation just what we have always insisted all nations ought to do to us. The claim of the British government is not made in a discour- teous manner. This government, since its first organization, has never used more guarded language in a similar case. In coming to my conclusion I have not forgotten that, if the safety of this Union required the detention of the captured persons, it would be the right and duty of this government to detain them. But the effectual check and waning proportions of the existing in- surrection, as well as the comparative unimportance of the captured persons themselves, when dispassionately weighed, happily forbid me from resorting to this defence. Nor am I unaware that American citizens are not in any case to be unnecessarily surrendered for any purpose into the keeping of a foreign state. Only the captured persons, however, or others who are interested in them, could justly raise a question on that ground. THE TRENT AFFAIR. 309 * Nor have I been tempted at all by suggestions that cases might be found in history where Great Britian refused to yield to other na- tions, and even to ourselves, claims like that which is now before us. Those cases occurred when Great Britain, as well as the United States, was the home of generations, which, with all their peculiar interests and passions, have passed away. She could in no other way so effectually disavow any such injury as we think she does by assuming now as her own the ground upon which we then stood. It would tell little for our own claims to the character of a just and magnanimous people if we should so far consent to be guided by the law of retaliation as to lift up buried injuries from their graves to oppose against what national consistency and the national conscience compel us to regard as a claim intrinsically right. Putting behind me all suggestions of this kind, I prefer to express my satisfaction that, by the adjustment of the present case upon principles confessedly American, and yet, as I trust, mutually satis- factory to both of the nations concerned, a question is finally and rightly settled between them, which, heretofore exhausting not only all forms of peaceful discussion, but also the arbitrament of war itself, for more than half a century alienated the two countries from each other, and perplexed with fears and apprehensions all other nations. The four persons in question are now held in military custody at Fort Warren, in the State of Massachusetts. They will be cheer- fully liberated. Your lordship will please indicate a time and place for receiving them. Mr. Seward to Mr. Mercier. December 26, 1861. I have submitted to the President the copy you were so good as to give me of the despatch addressed to you on the 3d of December instant, concerning the recent proceedings of Captain Wilkes, in arresting certain persons on board of the British contract mail steamer Trent. Before receiving the paper, however, the President had decided upon the disposition to be made of the subject which has caused so much anxiety in Europe. That disposition of the subject, as I think, renders unnecessary any discussion of it, in reply to the com- ments of Mr. Thouvenel. I am permitted, however, to say that Mr. Thouvenel has not been in error in supposing, first, that the 310 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. government of the United States has not acted in any spirit of dis- regard of the rights, or of the sensibilities, of the British nation, and that he is equally just in assuming that the United States would consistently vindicate, by their practice on this occasion, the character they have so long maintained as an advocate of the most liberal principles concerning the rights of neutral states in maritime war. When the French government shall come to see at large the views of this government, and those of the government of Great Britain, on the subject now in question, and to compare them with the views expressed by Mr. Thouvenel on the part of France, it will probably perceive that, while it must be admitted that those three powers are equally impressed with the same desire for the establish- ment of principles favorable to neutral rights, there is, at the same time, not such an entire agreement concerning the application of those principles as is desirable to secure that important object. The government of the United States will be happy if the occa- sion which has elicited this correspondence can be improved so as to secure a more definite agreement upon the whole subject by all maritime powers. You will assure Mr. Thouvenel that this government appreci- ates as well the frankness of his explanations, as the spirit of friend- ship and good will towards the United States in which they are expressed. It is a sincere pleasure for the United States to exchange assur- ances of a friendship which had its origin in associations the most sacred in the history of both countries. Mr. Seward to Chevalier Hulseman. January 9, 1862. I have submitted to the President the note which you left with me, which was addressed to you on the 18th of December last by Count Rechburg, touching the affair of the capture and detention of the British contract steamer Trent, by Captain Wilkes of the San Jacinto. I send you a copy of the correspondence which has passed on that exciting subject, between this government and the governments of Great Britain and France, and I have to request that you will trans- mit these papers to Count Rechburg. The imperial government will learn from them important facts, viz:- A r IMPATIENCE DEPRECATED. 311 First. That the United States are not only incapable, for a mo- ment, of seeking to disturb the peace of the world, but are deliber- ately just and friendly in their intercourse with all foreign nations. Secondly. That they will not be unfaithful to their traditions and policy, as an advocate of the broadest liberality in the appli- cation of the principle of international law to the conduct of mari- time warfare. The United States, faithful to their sentiments, and while, at the same time, careful of their political constitution, will sincerely rejoice if the occasion which has given rise to this correspondence shall be improved so as to obtain a revision of the law of nations, which will render more definite and certain the rights and obliga- tions of states in time of war. I shall esteem it a favor, Sir, if you will charge yourself with the care of expressing these sentiments to your government, and will at the same time assure Count Rechburg that the President appreci- ates very highly the frankness and cordiality which the government of Austria has practised on an occasion of such great interest to the welfare of the United States. Mr. Seward to Mr. Motley. February 17, 1862. I am very glad to learn that our disposi- tion of the Trent affair is regarded with so much favor by the Austrian government and in the diplomatic circle at Vienna. We have not been insensible to the impatience which you describe as existing in Europe for a speedy termination of our un- happy civil war, and to the possible danger of foreign intervention if it should be unreasonably protracted. It has seemed very obvious to me that this foreign impatience is most unreasoning and most unjust. Yet I have felt no disposi- sition to complain of it. It was only a reflex of the same popular impatience exhibited in our own country. In Europe it is naturally enough aggravated by the absence of those weighty political inter- ests which at home have so unavailingly counselled prudence and patience in a conflict in which not merely partial or temporary in- terests are involved, but in which the national integrity and even the national existence are at stake. Military and naval successes, however, are in good time reward- e careful and elaborate measures of the government. Popular 312 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. apprehension and distrust have already vanished before these tri- umphs so signally indicative of the complete restoration of the national authority, and we may therefore justly expect similar results in Europe. The toleration that could not be allowed there. to a republic that seemed unfortunate, will perhaps not be denied when it is seen that it can, when it becomes necessary, defend itself with powers surpassing those of a limited monarchy or despotism. Under no other form of constitution could any nation have en- countered with so much resolution and vigor a revolution so for- midably instituted for the extension of human slavery. Perhaps just now, in the light of our more cheering prospects, this extraordi- nary feature of our cause may again be recognized in Europe. In regard to the condition of our affairs in Europe, it may, per- haps, upon the whole, be considered fortunate that the Trent affair occurred, even with all its exasperations. Passion is as natural a condition for nations as for individuals. Secession is a popular ex- citement, disturbance, passion. It must needs have occurred here, for this country had submitted itself to the counsels of prudence and reason, in regard to disputed points of administration, as long as even so very practical a country as this is could submit. Human nature, it is now seen, could be content no longer. It was needful that the new popular passion should culminate before it could be expected to subside, and to do this it must have time. As no one could tell how high the passion must rise, so no one could tell how long it would require for culminating. The culmination would be the point of danger, the crisis. All other nations being in some sort related to us, must be affected by the passion which disturbed us. The more intimately related, the more profoundly they must be disturbed. Great Britain and France, most intimately related, must be the two states most vehemently excited. Excitement would rise later in those countries than here, and would subside. more rapidly. The culmination at home or abroad could be has- tened or delayed by accidents. The Trent affair was such an acci- dent. It has served to bring on the crisis. The crisis has been reached and passed at home, and, of course, abroad. Reason is beginning to regain its control here, and with it the government is beginning to recover its authority. We are having, and we shal continue to have, successes at home, and so we may reckon on pea abroad. SLAVERY DISAPPEARING. 313 Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams. - February 17, 1862. It is represented to us that equally in Great Britain and in France the cause of the Union is prejudiced by the assumption that the government which maintains it is favorable or at least not unfavorable to the perpetuation of slavery. This inci- dent is one of the most curious and instructive ones which has occurred in the course of this controversy. The administration was elected and came into its trust upon the ground of its declared opposition to the extension of slavery. The party of slavery, for this reason, arrayed itself against, not only the administration, but the Union itself, and inaugurated a civil war for the overthrow of the Union and the establishment of an exclusive slaveholding confederacy. Without surrendering the political principle, we meet them in the battlefield and in defence of the Union. The contest for life absorbs all the interest that had existed, growing out of the previous conflict. of ideas. But what must be the effect? If the Confederacy pre- vails, slavery will have a constitutional, legitimate, and acknowl- edged state, devoted to itself as the paramount object of the national existence. If the Union prevails, the government will be adminis- tered by a majority hostile to the fortification and perpetuation of slavery. Slavery in the slaveholding states will there be left in the care of the people of those states just as it was left at the organ- ization of the government in all of the states except Massachusetts, It might admit of doubt whether it would not have been able to re- cover its former strength had the slaveholding states acquiesced in the election and avoided civil war. But what ground is there to fear such a renewal of strength after having been defeated in arms against the Union? What is the operation of the war? We have entered Virginia, and already five thousand slaves, emancipated simply by the ap- pearance of our forces, are upon the hands of the Federal govern- ment there. We have landed on the coast of South Carolina, and already nine thousand similarly emancipated slaves hang upon our camps. Although the war has not been waged against slavery, yet the army acts immediately as an emancipating crusade. To proclaim the crusade is unnecessary, and it would even be inexpedient, be- 314 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. cause it would deprive us of the needful and legitimate support of the friends of the Union who are not opposed to slavery, but who prefer Union without slavery to disunion with slavery. Does France or does Great Britain want to see a social revolution here, with all its horrors, like the slave revolution in San Domingo? Are these powers sure that the country or the world is ripe for such a revolution, so that it must certainly be successful? What, if inaugurating such a revolution, slavery, protesting against its ferocity and inhumanity, should prove the victor? Who says this administration is false to human freedom? Does it not acknowledge the citizenship as well as the manhood of men without respect to color? Has it not made effective arrangements with Great Britain to suppress the slave trade on the coast of Africa? Has it not brought into life the Federal laws against the African slave trade, and is it not executing their severest penalties? Besides, is it not an object worthy of practical men to confine slavery within existing bounds, instead of suffering it to be spread over the whole unoccupied por- tion of this vast continent? Is it not favoring emancipation in the Federal district, to be accomplished at the government cost, and without individual injus- tice or oppression? Does it not receive all who come into the Federal camps to offer their services to the Union, and hold and protect them against dis- loyal claimants? Does it not favor the recognition of Hayti and Liberia? The tale that Mr. Cameron was required to give up his place because of his decided opposition to slavery is without foundation; that distinguished gentleman resigned his place only because he could be useful in a diplomatic situation, while the gentleman ap- pointed his successor, it was expected, would be more efficient in administration. His successor has no more sympathy with slavery than Mr. Cameron. These facts and thoughts are communicated to you confidentially for such use in detail as may be practicable, but not to be formally presented in the usual way to the government to which you are accredited. DESPONDENCY DEPRECATED. 315 Mr. Seward to Mr. Wood. February 24, 1862. Your despatch has just been received. The sadness and despondency with which you, on that so recent day, surveyed our condition and traced its supposed hopelessness to assumed errors of the administration in directing the conduct of the conflict, come up now in strange contrast with the observances which the government and the whole people are making in honor of the memory of the Father of our country, endeared to us now more than ever by the indications that that country is, through the policy which is thus questioned, emerging safely from its sea of troubles, foreign as well as domestic, with reassurances of an im- mortal existence. the Will you avail yourself of this auspicious change to represent to government of Denmark, in a courteous manner, that we look to its liberal administration with much confidence for an early revi- sion of the decrees which so unwisely recognized our now failing insurgents as a formidable belligerent power, and thus produced embarrassments of commerce injurious to both countries, and espe- cially prejudicial to the United States, the first and fastest friend of commercial freedom in the world. Mr. Seward to Mr. Wood. April 8, 1862. I have noticed, with much interest, the recent debates on the general subject in the British Parliament, and I regret that Mr. Cobden's ill health prevented the world from re- ceiving the great argument which was expected from him. All things cannot be done at once. We have occupation enough arising out of our civil war. Let us recover our unity and with it our prestige, and then we shall be able to reappear as reformers among the nations. Mr. Seward to Mr. Wood. April 22, 1862. You will learn with pleasure the unbroken series of successes with which the national arms have recently been favored, and will no doubt find that those successes produce some modification of public opinion in Europe concerning the probable end of the attempt of factious leaders to divide the nation and sub- vert the Federal Union. 316 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. One main element of the insurrection has been the want of faith, on the part of loyal citizens, in the zeal, energy, and wisdom of the government, and its sincere determination to suppress it. While all have professed faith in God, not many have always exercised that measure of faith in man which God requires in every case as a condition of the divine blessing upon human efforts. Many per- sons, because they were not always kept informed of the policy of the administration, have seemed to think that it had no policy and was pursuing no measures. So fast as policy and measures were disclosed, disputes, of course, arose about their wisdom and proba- ble efficiency. Despondency, resulting from these doubts and dis- putes, has tended to demoralize the nation and to encourage its enemies. While we knew that exertions were being made here which surpassed anything ever seen in history, and upon which we were confidently resting our hopes for a speedy and safe conclusion of the campaign, it was not thought to be wise to place on record with apparent acquiescence apprehensions expressed by our repre- sentatives abroad which implied convictions of failure in duty on the part of the government, and even a want of courage and hero- ism on the part of the soldiers of the Union. Now, when the crisis has probably passed, it is proper for me to state that there has been no moment when the administration has despaired of the Republic, or could, without regret, see despon- dency concerning it indulged by those who were representing it abroad.1 Mr. Seward to Mr. Sanford. May 10, 1862. -- Happily we have passed the point of danger. The revolution seems collapsing, and the United States, in posses- sion once more of their important ports, will, under needful and prudential limitations, open them to foreign trade, because they can afford to exercise liberality and humanity. I might therefore per- haps dismiss the subject you have presented in your communica- tions, but that would not be wise. We do not know and cannot foresee what may yet happen. I think it proper, therefore, that you improve the present auspicious change of our situation, and the friendly feelings which it will call forth in Europe, to impress upon the statesmen with whom you may come in contact the truth I have not failed to inculcate in every case and under every aspect of 1 See John Adams, p. 4, ante. DISUNION IMPOSSIBLE. 317 * affairs that the commerce of this country is to be enjoyed through the administration of this government over the whole of it, and not through any breach of the Constitution, or any division of the country, east or west, north or south. The country cannot be diverted from this course by any foreign persuasions, intimidation, or constraint. It can bear much and long from considerations of prudence, and yield much from motives of magnanimity; but it cannot be made to permit the loss or sacrifice of a particle of its sovereignty or of its independence. A collision between it and maritime powers is to be deprecated, and, if possible, in every case avoided; but its chief calamities would not fall upon the American continent. It betrays almost a perverse misconception of the char- acter of this people to suppose, at this stage of the contest, that a separation of the Union on the ground of slavery is either near at hand or can ever occur. Mr. Seward to Mr. Sanford. May 23, 1862. I would endeavor to fix the mind of the en- lightened government of Belgium upon a new phase of this un- happy domestic difficulty which is now distinctly presenting itself. I speak not speculatively, but from actual observation; not of what may happen, but of what is actually occurring. The insurrection in this country is consuming the products of agriculture already gathered. It is devoting to It is devoting to war the capital which ought, and which in time of peace would be employed in beneficent indus- try, and it is wasting the wealth which the inhabitants of the in- surgent states would, under other circumstances, expend in purchas- ing the fabrics of foreign art and labor. More than this, it is demoralizing and disorganizing society itself. The war employs the master in arms, and even the slave, also, so far as, with his low intelligence, he can be made useful. When not so employed, he is left to support himself and his master's family, and to provide their contributions to the supply and payment of the insurrectionary army. Thus he contributes nothing to the wealth of the state. He discovers that he has an interest in withholding his exertions from the service of a master who perverts the fruits of his labor at the very moment when he becomes sensible that the master's control over him is relaxed. He admits the hope of freedom, and contrives. how to escape from bondage. Wherever the armies or the navies 318 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. of the Union approach he becomes immediately unfaithful, and pre- pares to follow the forces which, although they have come only to restore order, have, nevertheless, come to defeat the master who holds him in servitude. The master gathers his slaves to fly with them to some new and safer field. The slave deserts him wherever and whenever facilities offer. Want soon overtakes both the mas- ter and the slave, and then the relation that has always before been thought perpetual suddenly comes to an end. Keen and sagacious minds perceive indications of a still more serious change. The slave, having become partially instructed in military operations and familiar with them, is already prepared to use the fatal knowledge for the overthrow of slavery itself. We have, within a few days, seen a slave crew seize an insurgent ship- of-war in the harbor of Charleston, skilfully bring her within the Federal lines, and deliver her and themselves up to the commander of the national forces, and thus entitle themselves to a reward in the form of prize money. Charleston is, consequently, now under martial law, and there are mysterious apprehensions of a slave in- surrection there. However much this government may desire that the states shall remove or modify the practice of slavery, it is, nevertheless, its con- stitutional duty to leave that subject exclusively to the slave states themselves, and even to guarantee them against slave insurrections, as well as other dangers, so long as those states can, by the use of ordinary agencies, be held in their constitutional relations to the Federal Union. It is very easy, however, to see that a civil war between two par- ties of the white race could not continue long in this country with- out bringing the colored race. into activity, even though that race had no special interest in the controversy. It is impossible not to see that the bondage of the African race is the remote cause of the present strife, and it is certain that whenever the slave shall inter- vene in it he will be found on the side which he justly identifies with the cause of emancipation. The civil war, through the opera- tion of the causes I have indicated, is now on the eve of becoming a social a servile war. Of course such a war would subvert the system of cotton production existing in this country. But it is upon that very system that the nations of Europe have so largely built their own vast structures of manufacturing and commercial SLAVERY AND COTTON. 319 | industry. I am satisfied that the process of subversion has already begun. Not less than one hundred of the slaves in the insurgent states every day cast off their bondage, and cease to be instruments auxiliary to those systems forever. They are of both sexes and of all ages. How long will the slave production of cotton endure this rapid process of disorganization? If the western nations had been careful to lend no direct or indi- rect aid to the revolution, the United States, through the agency of merely political motives, would have early restored the Federal authority without destroying or even deeply disturbing the consti- tution of society, and slavery, instead of being brought to the sharp trial of servile war, would have been left to be removed peacefully and gradually by the agency of the states which were chiefly con- cerned with it. Europe, on the contrary, strangely thought that by discouraging the United States it would induce them to consent to dissolution, and so save the slave production of cotton in the slave states. Europe has thus put this beneficent government upon an ordeal more solemn and fearful than any through which a nation has ever passed. It is to try, at the peril of its life, whether the American Union is by itself stronger than the slavery which encumbers it, supported by the countenance, if not the actual protection, of for- eign nations. We have accepted the trial reluctantly. We have found that the insurrection daily grows weaker, because slavery daily declines; and that the Union daily grows stronger, because, while it carefully preserves all the time the attitude of self-defence against aggression, the instincts of self-preservation, which sustain it, derive new and immeasurable strength from the concurring sen- timents of justice and humanity. If Europe will still sympathize with the revolution, it must now look forward to the end; an end in which the war ceases with anarchy substituted for the social system that existed when the war began. What will then have become of the interests which carried Europe to the side which was at once the wrong side and the losing one? Only a perfect withdrawal of all favor from the insurrection can now save those interests in any degree. The insurrectionary states, left hopeless of foreign intervention, will be content to stop in their career of self-destruction, and to avail themselves of the moderating power of the Federal government. If the nations of Europe shall 320 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. refuse to see this, and the war must therefore go on to the conclu- sion I have indicated, the responsibility for that conclusion will not rest with the government of the United States. We shall see, in that case, whether those nations, Christian nations as they are, will in this, the nineteenth century, intervene with force to maintain African slavery in America against the will equally of the people and the slaves of America. I will not push the argument so far at to inquire what would be the probable result of such an interven- tion. Europe now knows and understands the policy which this government has adopted for the gradual and ultimate relief of the nation from the evil of slavery. It has been explicitly set forth by the President and adopted by Congress. If accepted by the slave states, it will restore peace and effect the desired result, without in- volving the sacrifice of a single personal right or privilege of any section of the country or of any state. Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams. May 28, 1862. The power of a losing faction, under any circum- stances, must continually grow less; but that of the disunionists is abating under the operation of a cause peculiar to themselves, which it is now my duty to bring forward- I mean the practice of Afri- can slavery. I am aware that in regard to this point I am opening a subject which was early interdicted in this correspondence. The reason for the interdiction, and the reason for a departure from it, are, however, equally obvious. It was properly left out of view, so long as it might be reasonably hoped that by the practice of magna- nimity this government might cover that weakness of the insurgents without encouraging them to persevere in their treasonable con- spiracy against the Union. They have protracted the war a year, notwithstanding this forbearance of the government; and yet they persist in invoking foreign arms to end a domestic strife, while they have forced slavery into such prominence that it cannot be over- looked. The region where the insurrection still remains flagrant embraces all or parts of several states, with a white population of four and a half million, and a negro population of three and a half million, chiefly slaves. It is thus seen to be a war between two parties of the white race, not only in the presence but in the very midst of the REVIEW OF THE SITUATION. 321 enslaved negro race. It is notorious, we could not conceal the fact if we would, that the dispute between them arose out of the ques- tions in which the negro race have a deep and lasting interest, and that their sympathies, wishes, and interests, naturally, necessarily, inevitably, fall on the side of the Union. Such a civil war between two parties of the white race in such a place, and under such cir- cumstances, could not be expected to continue long before the negro race would begin to manifest some sensibility and some excitement. We have arrived at that stage already. Everywhere the American general receives his most useful and reliable information from the negro, who hails his coming as a harbinger of freedom. Wherever the national army advances into the insurrectionary region, African bondsmen, escaping from their insurrectionary masters, come out to meet it and to offer their service and labor in whatever capacity they may be desired. So many of these bondsmen have, even without the invitation, and often against the opposition of the Federal mili- tary and naval authorities, made their way from bondage among the insurgents to freedom among the loyalists, that the government finds itself occupied with the consideration of measures to provide them with domicils at home or abroad. Not less than a hundred such escape every day, and as the army advances the number in- creases. If the war should continue indefinitely, every slave will become, not only a freeman, but an absentee. If the insurgents should resist their escape, how could they hope to prevent the civil war they have inaugurated from degenerating into a servile war? True, a servile population, especially one so long enslaved as the Africans in the insurrectionary states, require time and trial before they can organize a servile war; but if the war continues indefi- nitely, a servile war is only a question of time. The problem, then, is whether the strife shall be left to go on to that point. The gov- eriment, animated by a just regard for the general welfare, includ- in that of the insurrectionary states, adopts a policy designed at to save the Union and rescue society from that fearful catas- he, while it consults the ultimate peaceful relief of the nation slavery. It cannot be necessary to prove to any enlightened sman that the labor of the African in the insurrectionary re- is at present indispensable, as a resource of the insurgents, for nuing the war, nor is it now necessary to show that this same is the basis of the whole industrial system existing in that 9 21 322 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. region. The war is thus seen to be producing already a disorgan- ization of the industrial system of the insurrectionary states, and tending to a subversion of even their social system. Let it next be considered that the European systems of industry are largely based upon the African slave labor of the insurrectionary states employed in the production of cotton, tobacco, and rice, and on the free labor of the other states employed in producing cereals, out of which combined productions arises the demand for European productions, materials, and fabrics. The disorganization of industry, which is already revealing itself in the insurrectionary states, cannot but im- pair their ability to prosecute the war, and at the same time result indirectly in greater distress in Europe. On the other hand, this disorganization operates far less injuri- ously at present to the Federal government and to the loyal states. Every African laborer who escapes from his service is not only lost to the support of the insurrection, but he brings an accession to the productive labor of the loyal states, and to that extent increases their ability to continue the contest in which they are reluctantly engaged. The failure of foreign importations, as heretofore, in re- turn for the exportation of southern staples, stimulates the manu- facturing industry of the loyal states. Immigration is accelerated by an activity in these states, resulting from extended manufacture and prosecution of the war. Thus has the phenomenon appeared, disappointing so many prophecies in Europe, that the war impover- ishes and exhausts only the insurrection, and not the Union. I shall not contend that these effects would be perpetual. I know there is a reckoning for every nation that has the misfortune to be involved in war, and I do not expect for the United States any exemption from that inexorable law. But it is enough for my present purpose that the penalties are neither more severe nor more imminent than the loyal states can endure while bringing this unhappy contesto its desired conclusion. Let us now suppose that any one or n European states should think it right or expedient to interven force to oblige the United States to accept a compromise of sovereignty. What other effect could it produce than to re inevitable, and even hurry on, that servile war, so completel structive of all European interests in this country, which this ernment so studiously strives to avoid? I know that the dang any foreign nation attempting such a policy, if it has ever ex ve FOREIGN INTERVENTION. 323 has passed, as I am happy in knowing that no foreign government has ever threatened such intervention, while several magnanimous governments have repudiated all unfriendly designs. I have put forward that hypothesis only by way of preface to a question not less significant, namely, what must be the effect of such a policy abroad as will encourage the insurgents with hopes of an interven- tion which is never to occur? Is not that effect visible in the obstinacy of the insurgents in their destruction of the cotton and tobacco already cultivated and liable to be brought into commerce by the return of peace, and in their studied neglect of the planting the seed of their staples, and turning so much of the African labor as they are able to save into the production of supplies of provisions and forage, to enable them to continue the war? The effect will be further developed as time goes on in opening a way for that servile war which, if it shall be permitted to come, will produce infinite suffering throughout the world, and can only at last result in an entirely new system of trade and commerce between the United States and all foreign nations. Mr. Seward to Mr. Dayton. June 3, 1862. The capture of New Orleans, Yorktown, Nor- folk, Pensacola and Corinth, and the virtual removal of the block- ade at Beaufort, Port Royal, and New Orleans, all which events have either occurred or become known at Paris since your last re- ported communications with the French minister, have not only fulfilled all the promises you had at that time made, but they have also more than satisfied the desires which his government has, within the last eight months, so constantly but so courteously pressed upon the President's attention, while they are sufficient to dispel the last doubt of the preservation of the American Union which could be indulged by candid men. Under such circumstances, the apprehension of any hostile inter- vention would be not less absurd on our part than unjust and un- generous towards France. So, also, the attitude of neutrality, so solemnly proclaimed by the Emperor a year ago, is fast resolving itself into an abstraction, in view of the fact that, virtually, there is no longer a field, on land or water, where conflict with this gov ernment can be raised by the rebels in the presence of a foreign power. 324 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE, The President, however, is not less anxious now than heretofore that the posture of the French government may be modified, The Emperor of France has not thought it unbecoming to expose to us the exigencies of his own country, resulting from this unhappy con- test. It cannot be improper on our part to allude to the suscepti- bilities of the American people. Our prestige has been impaired by our divisions, and we have consequently encountered inliffer- ence, coldness, and, as we think, injustice and injury, in our foreign relations. When we remember that we are a democratic power, that for many years we were a leading democratic state, and that the security of the constitutional republican system in other countries where it has been established has been everywhere thought depen- dent on its success here, it is not to be wondered at if we think that whatever wrong it committed against us, in the crisis through which we are passing, is a wrong suffered by us in the cause of free- dom and humanity, with which we are always accustomed to iden- tify republican institutions. We are, indeed, on the eve of domestic peace, but we have a deep interest in establishing that peace upon the firmest foundations and rendering it universal. The empire of France rests upon a democratic basis. The monarch himself has de- clared that that empire is peace. We think, therefore, that he will agree with us in the desire that whatever has anywhere occurred, during our present conflict, to produce feelings of distrust or aliena- tion between the United States and foreign countries, shall be sea- sonably corrected, in order that no such sentiments shall survive. It is an axiom of international intercourse that no government can rightfully recognize insurgents against another as lawful bellig- erents, except when the state of the contest is such as to raise the probability of a successful revolution. If a recognition based on the assumption of such a probability has at any time been made, it ought to be rescinded when the probability has failed. Does any one expect that a sovereign nation can be organized by the in- surrectionary states of the south, while the United States possess the Mississippi River, its tributaries, and its mouths, and virtually possess, also, all the navigable lakes and rivers of the country, as well those of the coast as those which are inland, together with the political capital and all the centres of manufacturing industry and commercial exchange? Does any one expect that the insurgents, without a single ship-of-war, or a place in which to launch one, or THE REBELLION AND INTERVENTION. 325 funds with which to build it, with an army demoralized, a prostrate credit, and a country exhausted of its wealth and resources, will be able to change the military position I have described? It is a palpable fact that the movers of this insurrection never en- tertained any expectation of achieving a revolution. What they did desire and hope was to open a point for foreign intervention, upon which they have relied to effect the overthrow of the Union. They were shrewd men, and therefore could not have entirely mis- calculated the conflicting forces. They began intrigues for inter- vention even before they ventured upon rebellion, and they have plied those intrigues with more assiduity and energy than they have the work of revolution. In these intrigues they have used bribes and threats as they esteemed the conditions and characters of for- eign states. Their pretended revolution was, therefore, a fraud against mankind. The toleration which they received abroad, in the beginning of the strife, may be excused upon the ground of the skill with which they practised the imposture. But now, when it has been so fully exposed and exploded, that toleration may justly be expected to be withdrawn. But our representations made to that end are met by a new form of argument, based on the assumed desperation of the insurgents. We are told that although everywhere defeated, the people of the insurrectionary region will not submit; that they are determined to carry on the war; that the belligerents will withdraw from the reach of our navy on the coasts, and the banks of rivers and lakes; that they will destroy all productions and merchandise which they cannot remove; that they will leave Federal garrisons in their cities a prey to pestilence, and will resort to inland positions inaccessible to the Federal armies, and direct from such positions a relentless guerilla war of indefinite duration. We might give the fullest credence to these representations of the insurgents, and then we might say that a campaign conducted upon the principles thus announced would have no tendency whatever to exhaust the strength or resources of this government. Resistance in such a case would cost far less of life and treasure than the nation is now expending. But I do not dwell on this point. I prefer to ask on what ground is it that a faction thus waging intestine war against the government of our country, equally with- out cause and without hope, could ask to be regarded by friendly 326 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. states as a lawful belligerent? To regard them in that light would be to subvert maxims of the law of nations universally accepted. It would be nothing less than to make every state an insidious enemy to the peace of every other state in the civilized world, with the ultimate consequence of a general war among all nations. But these menaces are ineffectual and harmless. They assume a condition of public sentiment in the revolutionary states which has no existence. Wherever the Union forces have advanced they have found a sentiment of loyalty manifesting itself just in the degree that confidence in the ability of the Federal government to guarantee the safety of the citizens was restored. This has been the case in the District of Columbia, and in the states of Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, Alabama, Arkansas, and Florida. The Federal government has either main- tained or resumed its functions in the whole or parts of all the insurrectionary communities. There is no subjugation proposed, nor is any necessary. The Federal government has only limited functions to perform, and every community in which it exercises them is, by the very terms of the Constitution, left to exercise self- government in all matters of municipal concern. The insurgents do not withdraw; on the contrary, they are driven from the coasts, banks, and shores. Their commands for the destruction of cotton and other valuables fail to be obeyed as soon as their presence is withdrawn. No one fears that the pestilence will obey their summons, and follow their direction in the pursuit of victims. There are no places inaccessible to the Federal army and navy, save in the mountainous districts, and there the people, if not altogether loyal, are at least divided. The guerilla war which they threaten must therefore be a social war, confined to portions of the insurrectionary states, leaving the loyal states in the enjoyment of profound peace. But guerilla soldiery, like all other, must have arms, ammunition, and supplies, and for these they must depend upon labor, and in this case, upon slave labor. Slaves desert their occupations, and even cast off their bondage, just as rapidly as this civil war approaches them. Troops of them are encountered on all the highways, and the Federal camps everywhere are crowded with them. Agents of foreign governments are awaiting here to receive them at our hands. Either the insurgents must allow their slaves to escape with impunity, or must prevent them by force. The at- FRENCH SCEPTICISM. 327 tempt at prevention converts the civil war at once into a servile war. Thus, instead of inaugurating a guerilla war, the insurgents are preparing for themselves the most destructive scourge ever ex- perienced among men. These facts are calculated to awaken the most serious thought. The reflections they suggest concern the highest interests of nations, and reach the noblest springs of human action. I forbear from giv- ing them an application to the merely ephemeral interests of my own country or of France. Mr. Seward to Mr. Dayton. June 20, 1862. Your despatch of May 26 has been received. It directs my attention to an article in the "Constitutionnel," in which the writer declares that the doubts of the restoration of the Union which he entertained before the capture of New Orleans have not been removed or modified by that striking event. The journal is understood to have a semi-official character, and the opinion which it thus announces is, you think, the same which is entertained by many of the statesmen of France, including the Emperor himself. The publication thus referred to has not passed unobserved in this country. I can hardly believe that the Emperor, whose influence is so great, whose principles have been understood to be so liberal, and whose sagacity is so generally acknowledged, is sceptical concerning the prospects and destiny of our country. If he is so, I am satisfied that he must have other reasons for his distrust than those which the writer in the "Constitutionnel" assigns, which are simply an imag- ined similarity between the present disturbance and the American Revolution. This is a struggle of factious leaders in the South to build up a political empire on the foundation of human slavery, in opposition to the sentiments and sympathies of all mankind, with- out any foreign aid but such toleration as they can wring from for- eign states by destroying the materials for their manufactures. The American Revolution of 1776 was an organization upon princi- ples of liberty and humanity, long cultivated in the schools of Europe, as well as in the hearts of the people of America, and was the inauguration of a new and beneficent system of civil govern- ment, ultimately sanctioned by alliances of the revolutionists with Spain and France, and expected to be acceptable to and to be adopted by all mankind. 328 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. However the fact may be, we here have no difficulty in finding an explanation of the incredulity of European statesmen. When our domestic troubles arose those politicians formed their opinions of the probable conclusion by judging us by European, not American, standards, and under the influence of European, not American, interests and sentiments. Republicanism and Federalism are, to European statesmen, if not unintelligible, at least, impracticable, principles; and durable power on the American continent is, in their esteem, a mere chimera. To them monarchy seems, if not the most beneficent system of government which could be devised, at least the only one which could assure the preservation of national sovereignty, and guarantee public tranquillity and peace. The experience of mankind has not controverted these opinions, so unfavorable to our new system of Federal self-government. True, the success of the system itself for seventy years has vindicated it, but the experiment has all the while seemed to require a longer trial in a much wider field. The civil war seemed to Europeans to come seasonably to prove that trial itself a failure, while in the Spanish-American republics the working of a similar system has inspired no hopes of its ultimate success. Nor is it to be forgotten that Europeans have not habitually contemplated America as a theatre for the develop- ment of society under new and specially adapted constitutions of government. On the other hand, material interests, where they are fixed and strong, affect, if they do not determine, the lights in which nations regard each other. For the last thirty years European nations have regarded America as a continent chiefly appointed to produce supplies of materials and provisions for their manufacturers and to consume their productions, and habit has reconciled us to that apparently merely commercial relation. The insurrection disturbed and threatened to subvert it. It is not strange that European states- men thought that the United States ought to fall into dissolution, and, indeed, assumed that they had fallen into that condition, on the first organized outbreak of faction. For a time we seemed, at least, to be about to acquiesce in that calamity. We hesitated and examined and disputed, and it certainly was not until after due consideration that the American people, as a mass, announced the conviction that the Union could be maintained, and the determination to maintain it at whatever of cost and sacrifices the occasion should require. Our refusal for a whole year to accept the fate which European statesmen THE STRENGTH OF THE UNION. 329 considered not only inevitable but beneficent to us, as well as benev- olent to their own countries, has been regarded as simply contuma- cious. They reluctantly consented to await a trial on our part of an attempt to suppress the insurrection, which attempt they felt so well assured would fail. But, encouraged by our seeming delay, they have hardly concealed their assumption of a right, and even a duty, to arbitrate between the government and its domestic enemies, and so they have measured the period they could allow us for the important trial, and even prescribed the amount of force which the government might exercise in self-defence. It is not strange that the limits thus prescribed were adopted with reference not to our needs or our rights under the law of nations, but to the supposed in- terests and wants of Europe. Deference to these limits was expected under the fear, if not under menaces, of intervention, to decide a dis- pute already pronounced unreasonable on our part, and intolerably inconvenient to foreign nations. It is freely confessed that these assumptions have caused us much embarrassment. They have encouraged the enemies, and tended to divide and dispirit the friends, of the Union. It was obvious from the first that this government wanted what every government in such cases, and especially a Federal republi- can government, without experience of war and with all its political and social forces energetically at work in the occupation of peace, must need, namely, time-time to reflect, to survey, to prepare, to organize and direct, a defensive civil war. Happily, that time was gained, and the work of restoration was begun; and it has been prosecuted to the point which assures a complete triumph. The crisis of the country has thus been passed. We have thought it our policy and our duty to inform foreign states at every stage of the affair fully, frankly, and candidly, so that they have understood or might have understood the nature and causes of the contest, the purposes of the government, and its manner of exe- cuting them, and might be as well prepared as ourselves for the conclusion which is at hand. It is by no fault of ours, nor is it more our misfortune than it is theirs, if they do not understand that the United States are no un- organized or blind popular mass, surged by the voice of demagogues, nor yet a confederacy of discordant states, bound by a flaxen bond which any one of them can sever at its caprice; but that they con- 330 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. stitute a homogeneous, enlightened nation, virtuous and brave, inspired by lofty sentiments to achieve a destiny for itself that shall, by its influence and example, be beneficient to mankind. This nation is conscious that it possesses a government the most indestructible that has ever been reared among men, because its foundations are laid in common political, commercial, and social necessities, as broad as its domain, while the machinery of that government is kept in vigorous and constant activity, because the power which moves it is perennially derived from the suffrages of a free, happy, and grateful people. It is not our fault, nor do we alone suffer in the misfortune, if foreign states are unable to see, at this moment, that through the pains and perils of a civil strife which we long strove to avert, and which we have not suffered to degenerate into a social, much less a servile, war, we are successfully readjusting a single disturb- ing element so as to bring it back again into subordination and harmony with the normal and effective political forces of the republic. It is the fault of foreign states more than it is our own if they do not now see that we have already so far suppressed the revolution. that it can no longer interfere with their rights or even their inter- ests, and so can give no stranger any cause, or even any pretext, for interfering, much less any excuse for lending moral aid or sympathy to an insurrection every day of whose continuance is a prolonga- tion of misfortunes which are felt not only here but throughout the world. Time is needful for the eradication of prejudice, and experiments, however successful, must be continued until truth is not only firmly established, but is accepted by the general judgment of mankind. Our responsibilities have ended, we are therefore content that for- eign states shall take time to weigh and accept the results of the military, social, and political events which occur here, with all the deliberation which their remoteness from the scene and their long- cherished prejudices shall render necessary. In three fourths of the territory over which our Constitution has been extended the Federal authority has never been disturbed, and has been peacefully maintained. Throughout the half of the other fourth it is maintained successfully by military power, while at the same time the opposing political authority which has been INTERVENTION. 331 attempted to be set up there is daily losing ground, vigor, and vitality. The American people must, and they will, have some system of self-government. The popular passions which faction, in an unhappy moment, succeeded in raising and directing against the government of the Union, are subsiding, and within a year from this time the attempt thus made to overthrow the most beneficent system of gov- ernment which the world has seen, and the only one which is adapted to this continent, while it holds out hopes of progress to all other nations, will be remembered only as a calamity to be deplored, and a crime never again to be repeated. Mr. Seward to Mr. Dayton. July 10, 1862.-The increased activity of European politicians. directed towards effecting some intervention in our affairs, which you have described, has not passed unobserved here. It is to be regretted because it produces unprofitable resentments among our people, and embarrasses the action of all the governments concerned. The excuses which it employs abroad are not entertained here, be- cause they are unjust in principle, and without ground in fact. If we happen to fail in one of several combined military enterprises, as every belligerent power subject to the chances of war must occa- sionally fail, it is pronounced abroad to be conclusive against the suc- cess of the whole war. If, on the other hand, we gain victory upon victory, with a rapidity and upon a scale such as only the campaigns of the first Emperor of France exhibited, the refusal of the insur- gents to render instant and universal submission to the Federal authority renders these successes in foreign eyes ineffectual and valueless. There can be no harm in asking foreign governments and states- men, under these circumstances, to consider our position, our inter- ests, our purposes, and our character, as well as their own. We are rightfully here, a nation lawfully existing, widely ex- tended, and firmly established, with peculiarly beneficent institu tions, upon a continent separate and remote from that occupied by the nations whose interference with us is so vehemently and perse- veringly urged. In maintaining our own integrity, we are defend- ing the interests and the cause not merely of popular government, but of the very institution of civil government itself. We have no 332 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. hostile or interested designs against any other state or nation what- ever, and, on the contrary, we seek peace, harmony, and commerce with them all, and, consequently in desiring to remain undisturbed by them, we are defending the peace of the world. Our policy in this emergency is a prudent, honest, direct, and generous one. We have raised large armies and a considerable navy. The reduction of Vicksburg, the possession of Chattanooga and the capture of Richmond, would close the civil war with com- plete success. All these three enterprises are going forward. The two former will, we think, be effected within the next ten days. For the third we require reinforcements, which are being rapidly and lavishly contributed at our call. The three hundred thousand additional troops will be in the field in sixty days, and within about the same period we shall have afloat as large an iron-clad fleet as any in the world. The war is becoming one of exhaustion to the insurgents, and they, not we, are hastening forward the rise of a servile population in arms on the side of the government. Under these circumstances, although we deprecate foreign interference, we deprecate it hardly less for the sake of other nations than for our own, and we deprecate it upon considerations of pru- dence and humanity, not at all from motives of fear or appre- hension. Having always contemplated the possibility of such interference, we shall be found not unprepared for it, if it must come. We have so conducted our affairs as to deprive it of all pretence of right or of provocation. We have interfered with the dominion or the ambi- tious designs of no nation. We have seen San Domingo absorbed by Spain, and been content with a protest. We have seen Great Britain strengthen her government in Canada, and we have ap- proved it. We have seen France make war against Mexico, and have not allied ourselves with that republic. We have heard and redressed every injury of which any foreign state has complained, and we have relaxed a blockade in favor of foreign commerce that we might rightfully have maintained with inflexibility. We have only complained because an attitude of neutrality encouraging to rebellion among us, adopted hastily and unnecessarily, has not been relinquished when the progress of the war showed that it was as in- jurious as it was ill-advised. Under these circumstances, if intervention in any form shall T FRIENDLY RELATIONS WITH FRANCE. 333 come, it will find us in the right of the controversy and in the strong attitude of self-defence. Once begun, we know how it must proceed. It will here bring out reserved and yet latent forces of resis- tance that can never go to rest until America shall be reconquered and reorganized by Europe, or shall have become isolated forever equally from the industrial and governmental systems of that conti- nent. European statesmen, I am sure, before waging war against us will consider their rights, interests, and resources, as well as our own. For ourselves, we do not believe that European domination is to be rebuilt here upon the foundation of African slavery. Mr. Seward to Mr. Dayton. July 15, 1862. - The Comte de Paris and the Duc de Chartres, after a year's service in the army of the United States, in which they have conducted themselves with the utmost propriety and the highest gallantry, have returned to Europe. It is not to be doubted that they carry with them the affectionate gratitude of the Ameri- can people. This, however, is a sentiment won by them, not for themselves alone, or even peculiarly, but, as in the case of Lafay- ette and Rochambeau, it is a sentiment won by them for France. You need hardly be told that the generous course adopted towards us, in what seemed a critical hour, by the Prince Napoleon (Jer- ome), made an equal impression upon the country, and its best wishes attend him wherever he goes, and whatever may be the sphere of his action. Although the policy of the Emperor during the contest has not been, in all respects, what we have claimed and wished, you are, nevertheless, not to be told now for the first time, that it has been interpreted by us in the most favorable light, and every generous, and even any forbearing, word that he has spoken to us personally or by Mr. Thouvenel, has awakened the kindest sentiments among the American people. We have wished so well to France and to her present government, that we have not suffered ourselves to attribute to the one or the other any of the unfriendly or unfeeling utterances of the press of Paris which have occasionally reached us. It appeared very early after the revolutionary war that the grati- tude of the people of the United States for the aid they had received from France in that struggle was a sentiment too strong to allow them to divide themselves into parties upon the question who 334 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. shall rule in France. That same sentiment lives at this day. We leave that question to Frenchmen, and only desire that, to whom- soever the sway is confided, he may, by ruling France wisely and well, increase her power and advance her prosperity and happiness. Mr. Seward to Mr. Webb. July 21, 1862. - Your able despatch brings into coincident re- view the aspects of slavery in the two countries, which, although very widely separated, are the two principal states on this conti- nent, and the only two which tolerate that form of human bondage. This review, at the same time, derives great interest from the fact that it is made the basis for suggesting a philanthropic scheme for effecting the relief of both countries from the evils and dangers with which you assume that this toleration of slavery afflicts them. Although the political and social conditions of Brazil and the United States are very unlike, they do not entirely disagree. Each is found in what may be called a formative and not in a settled and fixed stage. In the former there are besides the slaves of African descent many who have been brought as captives from the African coast. In the latter, practically speaking, there are only native slaves of African derivation. In Brazil the slave is generally the only laborer, and he is found in every province. In the United States slaves are exceptional from the general prevailing system of free white labor, and are found in only a section and not through- out the whole country. Under the circumstances thus described, each of these two countries has accepted the conviction of the age that the African slave trade is injurious and inhuman, and has abolished it, and thus has closed the original fountain of supplies, leaving the cut-off streams replenished only from diminutive native springs, to shrink, stagnate, and dry up, if they will. A great alteration of social laws, however inevitable and however ultimately beneficent, must necessarily be attended with immediate inconveniences, and often with violent disturbances and convulsions. Governments, in cases where the error is a fundamental one, must make the desired reform as early as possible, but at the same time with a wise moderation, so as to mitigate the immediate evil with- out losing the ultimate objects of safety and improvement. How to practise this moderation is really the problem now to be solved respectively by Brazil and the United States. SLAVERY AND COLONIZATION. 335 You tell me that the abolition of the African slave trade on the part of Brazil has resulted in producing a scarceness of labor and, of course, an enhancement of the value of the slaves; that at the same time, owing to a great increase in the world's consumption of coffee, there is an exalted demand for labor to produce it in Brazil; that owing to these circumstances the slaves are being rapidly transferred from the northern provinces, which produce little or no coffee, to the southern coffee-producing provinces; that discontent pervades, and even an organized conspiracy exists among the slaves to prevent the increase of their class, and that for this purpose they resort even to the fearful practice of infanticide. You tell me, also, what contemporaneous information confirms, that owing to some cause emigration from Europe into Brazil is practi- cally unknown, and you add that unless some remedy is applied to these evils the northern provinces will be exhausted of laborers and will relapse into their early colonial condition, and attempts will then be made to revive the enslavement of the native Indians. Casting about you for a remedy for these assumed evils in Brazil you not unnaturally turn to survey the condition and prospects of slavery as it lingers in the United States, where slaves increase rapidly in number instead of decreasing. You assume that many slaves here are by some process or other speedily to become free, and that owing to the native and exotic augmentation of free white men the slaves so becoming freedmen will be superfluous as labor- ers. I understand you, but perhaps erroneously, as also adopting an idea which to some extent prevails here, that policy requires the removal of such freedmen of African descent out of the coun- try to some other, where they could be kindly welcomed and fur- nished with homes and facilities for self-support, and in a reasona- ble time elevated to the privileges of members of the political state. Warned, as well you may be, by this humanitarian aspect of the condition of the two countries, you think that you discern the finger of God pointing to the northern provinces of Brazil as the land of promise, rest, and restoration of the slaves now in the southern states of this Republic. Thus believing, you ask from the President power to negotiate a treaty to effect removal of such freedmen from their present homes and their colonization upon most liberal principles in Brazil. The President cannot, without further consideration, accede to this request, yet you are not, there- 336 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. fore, to suppose that he undervalues either the motives which sug- gested it or the grave considerations by which you have supported it. You are aware that the question of slavery is the experimentum crucis in American politics. Slavery is the cause of this civil war, and debates upon the present treatment and ultimate fate of slav- ery give to its abettors and to the government which is engaged in suppressing it much of their relative strength. Their relative weakness results equally from the same debates. I present the condition of the debates in general review, not deeming it either necessary or important to declare opinions on the part of the government upon any of the propositions involved. If we embrace in our view the insurrectionary, as well as the loyal regions of the United States, it may justly be said that even the question whether slavery is an eradicable evil is yet open and vehe- mently discussed. In what manner and by what process slavery shall be brought to an end, whether by the civil authority of the states which tolerate it only, or whether as a military necessity of the present civil war by the Federal authority; and, in either case, whether the abolition shall be immediate or gradual, with compen- sation or without; who shall pay such compensation, and the meas- ure of it; whether the slaves emancipated shall be removed or be suf- ered to remain in their native homes; how removed, and at whose cost; whether their consent shall be required or waived; whether they shall be removed and colonized; whether they shall be colon- ized within our own jurisdiction, and on what terms, or in some region to be purchased for the purpose, and over which the Federal authority shall be extended for their protection, making them an outpost and support of the Republic, and, possibly, a burden; or whether in some central or South American country, with the con- sent of their government, and relinquishing to such government the benefits and the charges of the colony, what country or countries, in either case, shall be preferred? All these questions remain a subject of earnest but as yet very confused discussion. They are, at the same time, questions which are involved in the proposition you make. You know that, practically, the executive authority cannot lead must follow the popular will on such great and vital questions as collected in our frequently recurring elections, and expressed by the Legislature and the Senate of the Union. It must not, however, be inferred that the uncertainty of the THE QUESTION OF SLAVERY. 337 Die one. ind, which I have described, is a permanent and unchange- On the contrary, the national mind is every day more directly and earnestly fixed upon the complex problem, and it ad- vances in one day as far as once it advanced in a year. The solution of it in all its branches is therefore near at hand, but no human wisdom can foresee through what new political changes, affecting the subject, the nation is to pass before reaching that solution, and how not only the policy to be at any time adopted with a view to ultimate results, but even the results themselves, are to be affected by such changes. If now we consider the subject practically we shall see our case to be simply this: The nation has decided, and decided forever, first, that slavery shall not henceforth be extended under our flag over territories now free; secondly, that the African slave trade shall never be revived or renewed; thirdly, that slavery shall be forever abolished within the Federal District of Columbia, where it has heretofore been tolerated; fourthly, that slaves escaping or cap- tured from disloyal masters in this civil war shall not be restored to slavery, but shall be free; and fifthly, that slaves so escaping or captured by the national forces shall be employed as laborers by them, and their dependent families shall be temporarily relieved by military and naval authorities of the United States. Many such persons have even already, fallen within the control of the Federal government. But it is believed no more than the provision thus made by the government, together with casual employment by pri- vate citizens, can establish them in comfortable circumstances use- ful to the country. Thus far, therefore, the surplus for whom you propose to provide does not exist, and hence probably the uncer- tainty of the public mind in regard to a disposition of it which I have described. It is a truism that most governments seldom, and republican governments least of all, practise sufficient foresight to provide prematurely for future but not imminent emergencies. We shall grow wiser every year, every month, and every day, in regard to the questions I have been considering, because public opinion will settle and guide us as occasions for our action arise. Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams. August 2, 1862. It is indeed manifest in the tone the speeches, as well as in the general tenor of popular discussions, that neither 338 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPOND the responsible ministers, nor the House of Commons, nor tive portion of the people of Great Britain sympathize with this government, and hope, or even wish for its success in suppressing the insurrection; and that, on the contrary, the whole British na- tion, speaking practically, desire and expect the dismemberment of the Republic. I cannot deny that these sentiments must insensibly influence the administration, and give its policy a hostile direction. But these sentiments are, after all, in a great measure speculations ; and they may very well exist, and yet the government, and certain- ly the people of Great Britain, may be entirely unprepared by any responsible action to attempt to precipitate a change here whose consequences may be momentous, even to themselves. I well recol- lect that with what seemed to us far better motives, Great Britain recently wished and expected the separation of Hungary and of Venice from Austria; and yet the government passively looked on, and saw the revolutions designed to effect those ends languish and perish. It is a proverb that the earth is full of good but unexe- cuted intentions. Happily for human society, the proportion of evil intentions unfulfilled is equally great. Indeed, we can hardly be surprised at the disposition and the tendencies upon which I am dwelling, unless we shall persist, after so much opposing evidence, in our early error of conceding to Great Britain a degree of mag- nanimity which she herself does not even affect to claim, and which, perhaps, has never yet been exhibited by any nation. We cannot forget that we are a younger branch of the British family; that we have not been especially reverential of the senior branch, and have even been ambitious to surpass it in wealth, power, and influ- ence among the nations. To these facts it is to be added that, in the very heat of competition, we have broken, have abandoned the course, and have divided ourselves into suicidal factions. The suc- cess of the insurgents would make it sure that the race could never be resumed, while the triumph of the government would probably reanimate the national ambition once more. At this moment we have encountered an unexpected reverse, which encourages our eager enemies, wherever they may be, to hope for our signal and complete overthrow. 1 Did ever any nation, at once so presumptu- ous, yet so unwise, and so apparently unfortunate, secure the abso- lute forbeare of a rival it had boldly challenged? Certainly. 1 The seven days' battles before Richmond. 7 INTERVENTION DISCUSSED. 339 not, and therefore I reckon not upon any sentimental forbearance of the British government. The American people understand, as well as their government does, that none is to be expected or even desired. Still the disfavor of Great Britain is inherently illiberal; and happily the unwarrantable and too unreserved exhibition of it naturally rouses the American people to a sense of their danger, and tends to recall them from unworthy domestic strife to the ne- cessity of regaining the national prestige they have so unwisely lost. Allowing now British prejudice and passion their full effect, the government of Great Britain must, nevertheless, be expected to act. with a due regard to the safety, honor, and welfare of the British empire. Great Britain is at peace with the whole United States, and practically with the whole world. Manufactures and commerce do, indeed, suffer derangement and abatement in consequence of our civil war. This war, however, like every other, must come to an end in some way, and at some not distant time, if she continue to stand aloof; and when that end shall have come, whatever its na- ture may be, she will enjoy, at least, all the benefits that she could in any event obtain by intervention to compel a peace. Is it proba- ble that her intervention would mitigate the war, or alleviate the embarrassment she is suffering from it? The question seems to involve a preliminary one, namely: What is to be the character of her intervention? Is it to be merely a moral one, or an act of recognition, with a declaration of neutrality, but not respecting our blockade, and not refraining and restraining her subjects from vio- lating it? Shall we not, in that case, be justified in withdrawing the relaxation of the blockade we have already made, and in clos- ing the ports we have opened to her commerce? If we should do this, would her recognition of the insurgents shorten the war, or would it alleviate the embarrassment she suffers from it? But it may be answered that she would not consent to surrender these con- cessions, and would resort to force to save them. Then Great Brit- ain would violate belligerent rights allowed us by the law of nations, and would become an ally of our domestic enemies; and then she would be at war with us while, at least, some other com- mercial state would be maintaining towards us relations of neutrality and peace. Would Great Britain profit by a war with us? Cer- tainly neither nation could profit by the war while it should be in actual operation. But it is said she might divide and conquer us. 340 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. What would she gain by that? Would the whole or any part of the United States accept her sovereignty and submit to her authority? The United States, under their present organization and Constitu- tion, must always be a peaceful nation, practically friendly to Great Britain, as well as to all foreign states, and so they must always be conservative of the peace of nations. Let this organization be struck down by any foreign combinations, what guarantee could Great Britain then have of influence or favor, or even commercial advantage to be derived from this country? Even if this nation, after having lost its liberties and its independence, should remain practically passive, who is to restrain the ambitions of European states for influence and dominion on this side of the Atlantic; and how long, under the agitation of such ambitions, could Europe ex- pect to remain in peace with itself? But what warrant have the British government for expecting to conquer the United States, and to subjugate and desolate them, or to dictate to them terms of peace. A war urged against us by Great Britain could not fail to reunite our people. Every sacrifice that their independence could require would be cheerfully and instantly made, and every force and every resource which has hitherto been held in reserve in a civil war, because the necessity for immediately using it has not been felt, would be brought into requisition. I shall not willingly believe that Great Britain deliberately desires such a war, as I am sure that every honorable and generous effort will be made by the United States to avoid it. In the second place, I observe that apprehensions of a change of attitude by Great Britain are built in some degree upon the sup- posed probability that very serious reverses to the national cause may occur. None such, however, have yet occurred. We cannot and do not pretend to reckon upon the chances of a single battle or a single campaign. Such chances are, perhaps, happily beyond human control and even human foresight. But the general course of the war and its ultimate results are subjects of calculation, on a survey of forces and circumstances with the aid of experience. We cheerfully leave the study of the probabilities of this war, in this way, to all statesmen and governments whom it may concern, de- claring for ourselves that while we apprehend no immediate danger to the present military condition, the most serious reverses which can happen will not produce one moment's hesitation on the part INTERVENTION DISCUSSED. 341 of the government or the people of the United States in the pur- pose of maintaining the Union, or sensibly shake their confidence in a triumphant conclusion of the war. to me I shall not here add to the explanation which I have made on other occasions of our means and resources for meeting a final trial of the national strength and the national virtue. Rather than do this, I willingly turn away from the spectacle of servile war and war abroad — of military devastation on land, and of a carnival of public and private cupidity on the seas, which has been presented to set down with calmness some reflections calculated to avert an issue so unnecessary and so fatal, which you may possibly find suitable occasion for suggesting to the rulers of Great Britain. For what was this great continent brought up, as it were, from the depths of what before had been known as "the dark and stormy ocean?" Did the European states which found and occupied it, almost without effort, then understand its real destiny and pur- poses? Have they ever yet fully understood and accepted them? Has anything but disappointment upon disappointment, and disas- ter upon disaster, resulted from their misapprehensions? After near four hundred years of such disappointments and disasters is the way of Providence in regard to America still so mysterious that it cannot be understood and confessed? Columbus, it was said, had given a new world to the kingdoms of Castile and Leon. What has become of the sovereignty of Spain in America? Richelieu occupied and fortified a large portion of the continent, extending from the Gulf of Mexico to the Straits of Belleisle. Does France yet retain that important appendage to the crown of her sovereign? Great Britain acquired a dominion here surpassing, by a hundred- fold in length and breadth, the native realm. Has not a large por- tion of it been already formally resigned? To whom have these vast dominions, with those founded by the Portuguese, the Dutch, and the Swedes, been resigned but to American nations, the growth of European colonists, and exiles who have come hither bringing with them the arts, the civilization, and the virtues of Europe? Has not the change been beneficial to society on this continent? Has it not been more beneficial even to Europe itself than contin- ued European domination, if it had been possible, could have been? The American nations which have grown up here are free and self- 342 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. governing. They have made themselves so from inherent vigor and in obedience to an absolute necessity. Is it possible for European states to plunge them again into a colonial state and hold them there? Would it be desirable for them and for Europe, if it were possible? The balance of power among the nations of Europe is maintained not without numerous strong armies and frequent conflicts, while the sphere of political ambition there is bounded by the ocean which surrounds that continent. Would it be possible to maintain it at all if this vast continent, with all its populations, their resources, and their forces, should once again be brought within that sphere? If we, who rightfully dwell on this continent, with all the inducements to peace, harmony, and good order which so fortunate a position creates, cannot remain at peace among our- selves, even when free from foreign interference, does Europe ex- pect that we will be reduced and kept in the harmony which her interests require when the jealousies and ambitions of all Europe are engrafted upon the stock of our native dissensions? Again: Spain undertook to plant and establish here a system of Indian slavery, with what success I need not answer. Portugal, Spain, and Great Britain, with more labor, wealth, and consummate skill, undertook to establish African slavery. It has perished from the whole continent except Brazil and the United States. Now, when the social system of the United States is convulsed with the agony of slavery here, is it desirable that slavery should be revived and perpetuated, and the Republic perish for refusing it unbounded ex- pansion and duration? Is it wise for Europe to attempt to rescue slavery? Is it possible, if the attempt shall be made? On the contrary of all these suppositions, is it not manifest that these American nations were called into existence to be the home of free- men; that the states of Europe have been trusted by Providence with their tutelage, but that tutelage and all its responsibilities and powers are necessarily withdrawn to the relief and benefit of the parties and of mankind when these parties become able to choose their own system of government and to make and administer their own laws? If they err in this choice, or in the conduct of their affairs, it will be found wise to leave them, like all other states, the privilege and responsibility of detecting and correct- ing the error by which they are, of course, the principal suf- ferers. FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC AFFAIRS. 343 Mr. Seward to Mr. Cameron. August 13, 1862. The information you have given us concern- ing the antagonism to our cause and our institutions which you have discerned in Europe is confirmed by despatches and reports from nearly all our representatives abroad. We therefore accept it as a fact belonging to our case. But I trust that you as well as all our representatives abroad, are fully prepared, without special instruc- tions, to meet and oppose it as circumstances require. So far as the hostility you have described results from a dislike of our re- publican institutions, I need only say that those institutions have been adopted by our choice for ourselves, not for any other nation or people. They are forced or thrust on no other people. If they are not perfectly adapted to the condition of society which exists here, they will perish without foreign intervention; if they are so adapted, they will not fall before any combination that may array itself against them. So far as that hostility grows out of commercial and maritime losses which European nations suffer in consequence of the war, I trust that you find no difficulty in showing them, first, that the civil war has resulted from no act, choice, or policy of the overnment, but from an unnecessary, unprincipled, and wanton rebellion; that to resist and suppress that insurrection is a neces- sity for the government, while that resistance becomes a duty in the interest of government everywhere, and even in the interest of soci- ety itself. If the causes of the war, or the probable results of it, are debated, I am sure that you will have no difficulty in defending the rights of man against the aggravation and perpetuation of human slavery. To all complaints against this as a protracted war, you can answer, first, that it is those European nations which make the complaint which have protracted the war by conceding belligerent rights to the insurgents, and by exhibitions of sympathy with them, encouraging them to expect recognition, aid or sym- pathy; and, secondly, that Europe can have the war end just so soon as the ruling classes on that continent shall be content to en- dure the existence of the United States hereafter, as heretofore, one united, sovereign, inoffensive people. We certainly have all the desire to avoid controversies or contests with foreign powers which a constitutional predisposition towards peace, and a generous spirit of beneficent enterprise inspire, to say 344 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. nothing of the anxiety which, in view of our disturbed condition, alarms of foreign intervention must necessarily awaken. Under the influence of these and other motives, with which you are so well acquainted that I need not specially refer to them, we are doing all that lies in our power to prosecute the war with the vigor you so sagaciously recommend, and to win the victories you justly deem so important for foreign effect. I trust that under the energetic administration of our new commanding general¹ these results will be attained. But after all I cannot forget, in a crisis like this, that there is a power higher than any human government that regulates the course of affairs as well in war as in peace, and that gives and withholds victories at His pleasure, while He tries the virtue of na- tions. I should not despair, therefore, if our present expectations, which seem to me so reliable, should be disappointed. If, in conse- quence of that disappointment, we are destined, as you seem to imagine, to a contest with foreign powers, I trust that even in that extreme case we shall be found not altogether unprepared for the issue. When that issue comes to trial the mere politicians will sink. in Europe, and the people will arise. Politicians see only interests and ambition in the conduct of human affairs. On the contrary, every people always seek to know and to do just what is right. There is, as it seems to us, nothing new in the antagonism of Euro- pean sentiment which you describe. The world sees the same feel- ing reveal itself anew whenever a nation or people blessed above other nations divides and delivers itself over to civil strife. Prob- ably it is a divine and therefore a wise appointment. But foreign nations may be reminded that there seldom is a national division. which foreign intervention fails to heal, and a nation once healed by that severe remedy is stronger than ever before. Moreover, it is not every national impulse or any mere national prejudice, however strong, that wise governments will accept as a sufficient justifi- cation for war. I cannot believe that any European state will cross the ocean to make war with us without examining the grounds of offence, calculating the results, and counting the cost. Whenever any government does this, it will find powerful im- pulses affecting it in favor of peace and friendship with the United States. 1 General Halleck. EMANCIPATION FORESHADOWED. 345 Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams. September 22, 1862. You will receive by the post which con- eys this despatch evidences that the aggressive movement of the hsurgents against the loyal states is arrested, and that the renewed and reinvigorated forces of the Union are again prepared for a new and comprehensive campaign. If you consult the public journals. you will easily learn that the financial strength of the insurrection is rapidly declining, and that its ability to bring soldiers into the field has been already taxed to its utmost. You will perceive, on the other hand, that the fiscal condition of the country is sound, and that the response to the calls for new levies is being made promptly, without drawing seriously upon the physical strength of the people. I have heretofore indicated to our representatives abroad the approach of a change in the organization of society in the insurrec- tionary states. That change continues to reveal itself more dis- tinctly every day. In the judgment of the President the time has come for setting forth the great fact distinctly for the serious. consideration of the people in those states, and for giving them to understand that if they will persist in forcing upon the country a choice between the dissolution of this necessary and beneficent gov- ernment or a relinquishment of the protection of slavery, it is the Union, and not slavery, that must be maintained and preserved. With this view the President has issued a proclamation in which he gives notice that slavery will be no longer recognized in any state which shall be found in armed rebellion on the first of January next. While good and wise men of all nations will confess that this is just and proper as a military proceeding for the relief of the country from a desolating and exhausting civil war, they will at the same time acknowledge the moderation and magnanimity with which the government proceeds in a transaction of such great solemnity and importance. By the President of the United States of America. A PROCLAMATION. I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States of America, and commander-in-chief of the army and navy thereof, do hereby proclaim and declare that hereafter, as heretofore, the war will be 346 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. prosecuted for the object of practically restoring the constitutional relation between the United States and each of the states and the people thereof, in which states that relation is or may be suspected or disturbed. That it is my purpose, upon the next meeting of Congress, again recommend the adoption of a practical measure tendering pecuniary aid to the free acceptance or rejection of all slave states, so called, the people whereof may not then be in rebellion against the United States, and which states may then have voluntarily adopted, or thereafter may voluntarily adopt, immediate or gradual abolishment of slavery within their respective limits; and that the effort to colonize persons of African descent with their consent upon this continent or elsewhere, with the previously obtained consent of the governments existing there, will be continued. That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any state or designated part of a state, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authority there- of, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom. That the Executive will, on the first day of January aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the states and parts of states, if any, in which the people thereof, respectively, shall then be in rebellion against the United States; and the fact that any state, or the people thereof, shall on that day be, in good faith, represented in the Con- gress of the United States by members chosen thereto at elections wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such state shall have participated, shall, in the absence of strong countervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive evidence that such state, and the people there- of, are not then in rebellion against the United States. That attention is hereby called to an act of Congress entitled "An act to make an additional article of war," approved March 13, 1862, and which act is in the words and figure following: "Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That hereafter the following shall be promulgated as an additional article of war for EMANCIPATION FORESHADOWED. 347 the government of the army of the United States, and shall be obeyed and observed as such :- "ARTICLE All officers or persons in the military or naval service of the United States are prohibited from employing any of the forces under their respective commands for the purpose of re- turning fugitives from service or labor who may have escaped from any persons to whom such service or labor is claimed to be due, and any officer who shall be found guilty by a court-martial of violating this article shall be dismissed from the service. "SEC. 2. And be it further enacted, That this act shall take effect from and after its passage." Also to the ninth and tenth sections of an act entitled "An act to suppress insurrection, to punish treason and rebellion, to seize and confiscate property of rebels, and for other purposes," approved July 17, 1862, and which sections are in the words and figures fol- lowing: "SEC. 9. And be it further enacted, That all slaves of persons who shall hereafter be engaged in rebellion against the government of the United States, or who shall in any way give aid or comfort thereto, escaping from such persons and taking refuge within the lines of the army; and all slaves captured from such persons or deserted by them, and coming under the control of the government of the United States; and all slaves of such persons found on [or] being within any place occupied by rebel forces and afterwards occu- pied by the forces of the United States, shall be deemed captives of war, and shall be forever free of their servitude, and not again held as slaves. "SEC. 10. And be it further enacted, That no slave escaping into any state, territory, or the District of Columbia, from any other state, shall be delivered up, or in any way impeded or hindered of his liberty, except for crime, or some offence against the laws, un- less the person claiming said fugitive shall first make oath that the person to whom the labor or service of such fugitive is alleged to be due is his lawful owner, and has not borne arms against the United States in the present rebellion, nor in any way given aid and com- fort thereto; and no person engaged in the military or naval service of the United States shall, under any pretence whatever, assume to decide on the validity of the claim of any person to the service or labor of any other person, or surrender up any such person to the claimant, on pain of being dismissed from the service.” 348 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. And I do hereby enjoin upon and order all persons engaged in the military and naval service of the United States to observe, obey, and enforce, within their respective spheres of service, the act and sections above recited. And the Executive will in due time recommend that all citizens of the United States who shall have remained loyal thereto through- out the rebellion shall (upon the restoration of the constitutional relation between the United States and their respective states and people, if that relation shall have been suspended or disturbed) be compensated for all losses by acts of the United States, including the loss of slaves. In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed. Done at [L. S.] the city of Washington this twenty-second day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and six- ty-two, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-seventh. By the President : ABRAHAM LINCOLN. WM. H. SEWARD, Secretary of State. Mr. Seward to Mr. Fogg. August 14, 1862. I have received the Count de Gasparin's new volume, and I have made an especial acknowledgment to the dis- tinguished author of our national obligations for the timely and noble service he has rendered to our cause. Ambition is, I believe, a universal passion. Few, however, have the wisdom to direct it. When this storm of passion which has lashed the customarily peaceful elements here into such wild com- motion, perplexing and confounding the statesmen and philanthro- pists of other nations, shall have passed away, and the United States shall reappear among the nations more free, more united, more prosperous and happy than ever before, who is there in Europe that will not wish that, like the Count de Gasparin, he had had the generous sagacity to be their friend and advocate? If, indeed, a different result were possible, and if this great nation could sud- denly desist and fall off from its beneficent career, what prouder dis- tinction could human genius desire than the acknowledgment which the Count de Gasparin must, in that case, receive, that he, bound to IMMIGRATION DESIRED. 349 the country by no ties but those of a common humanity, had labored to prevent the great calamity which the world would surely then so soon perceive, and so universally deplore. Doubtless you are right in supposing that it is difficult for the truth in relation to the social condition of this country to make its way to the people of Europe against the statements of an interested or prejudiced press. But the great facts of millions of acres of unoc- cupied and fertile lands awaiting cultivators, and increasing demands for bread for our own growing armies, manufacturing towns, and mining districts, while there is a diversion by the hundreds of thou- sands of our industrial population into the occupations of war, must in the end overcome all misrepresentations and reach classes in Europe who are suffering for want of employment. It is not prac- tically true that there is a deficiency of soldiers in the country. All the early requisitions were promptly filled. Four hundred thousand have volunteered within two months under the two last calls for an aggregate of six hundred thousand, and one month more will bring in the remainder almost without a doubt. On the other hand, those who emigrate can choose peaceful labor or military service when they arrive, as the armies are always ready for recruits to fill vacan- cies. I trust, therefore, that immigration will prove more rapid than you have apprehended. The subject of favoring military immigration by offering special inducements in Europe has been often submitted to the War De- partment, but it has not yet thought it necessary or expedient to adopt any means of that kind. Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams. August 18, 1862. While the nation is convulsed with a civil strife of unexampled proportions, it would be presumptuous, peril- ous, and criminal to court or provoke foreign wars. Reviewing the whole course of the existing administration, I may safely claim that it shows that, even if the government had been left at liberty to conduct its foreign relations, altogether irrespectively of the civil war, it would yet have chosen and maintained a policy of peace, harmony, and friendship towards all nations. It is certainly our es- pecial care, under existing circumstances, to do no injustice, to give no offence, and to offer and receive explanations in a liberal spirit whenever they are possible, and thus to make sure that if, at any 350 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. time, either accidentally or through the intrigues of the insurgents, we shall incur the misfortune of collision with foreign states, our position will then be one of pure and reproachless self-de- fence. The nation has a right, and it is its duty, to live. Those who favor and give aid to the insurrection, upon whatever pretext, assail the nation in an hour of danger, and therefore they cannot be held or regarded as its friends. In taking this ground, the United States. claim only what they concede to all other nations. No state can be really independent in any other position. Willing, however, to avert difficulties by conciliatory explanations, we frankly confess to the conviction that either the insurrection must be subdued and suppressed or the nation must perish. The case admits of no composition. If we have no fear of failure, it is because we know that no other government than this could stand in this country, and that permanent dismemberment of it is impos- sible. The principal masses of the population are content with the present system, and cannot be brought to oppose or to surrender it. The faction which is attempting to destroy it, although infatuated and energetic, is, relatively to the whole people, an inconsiderable one. The natural highways of the country, extended sounds and lakes, and long, widely branching rivers, combined with its artificial roads, are bonds which can neither be removed nor permanently broken by any mere political force whatsoever. The so-called Gulf States need the free use of all these highways, and those who dwell upon their borders will not consent to be shut out from the ocean. The wealth and patronage of the whole nation are needful to perfect civilization on the Pacific coast, and the Atlantic States must for- ever derive protection and support from the recesses of the conti- nent. Those who are attempting to break up the Union must either substitute new commercial and social connection for the highways now existing, or they must invent and establish a new political system which will preserve them. Nature opposes the former project. The wit of man fails to suggest not merely a bet- ter political system, having the same objects as the present Union, but even any possible substitute for it. If it be said that these arguments are disposed of by the fact that civil war has occurred in defiance of them, I answer that the civil war is not yet ended. If it be replied that at least there is a mani- LIMITS TO CIVIL WAR. 351 fest danger of dissolution of the Union, I rejoin that the occurrence of the civil war at most proves only that in this country, as in every other, it is possible for faction to interrupt the course of civil ad- ministration and to substitute anarchy for law. I do not know that any wise man has ever doubted that possibility. Sedition is, as I suppose, a vice inherent and latent in every political state. But the condition of anarchy is not only anomalous but necessarily a tran- sient one. I do not pretend to say how long the deplorable disturb- ances now existing here may continue, nor what extreme the anarchy which prevails in the southern part of the country may reach. It may be that the storm may continue one or more years longer, and that there may be a dissolution of society in that unhappy region. But after such a convulsion every state requires repose and again seeks peace, safety, and freedom; and it will have them, if possible, under the political system which is best adapted to those ends. Alexander, Cæsar, and Napoleon, each in his time cast down established states and substituted new ones in their places. Yet the hand that made the violent change had hardly been withdrawn when the subverted states reappeared, standing more firmly than before on their ancient foundations. It is freely admitted that the salvation of the Union depends on the will and the choice of the American people, and that they are now engaged in a fierce conflict upon that very question. But sooner or later there must come a truce, because civil war cannot be indefi- nitely endured. Will there then be a reconciliation? It cannot happen otherwise. When such a time arrives, any society will pre- fer the attainable to the unattainable object, the greater to the lesser advantage, and will bury every domestic difference to save itself from the worst of all political evils-foreign conquest and domina- tion. The object of the insurgents is the fortifying and extending of African slavery. Is the object, under existing circumstances, really attainable? Is it not becoming more manifestly impossible every day that the war is prolonged? Is even the continuance of slavery itself worth the sacrifices which the war has brought? It is assumed that the insurgents, however erroneously, are determined upon that point. I reply, that it is always a class, or a sect, or a party, and not the whole country, that provokes or makes civil war, but it is not the same class or sect or party, but the whole country that ultimately makes the peace; and hence it has hap- 352 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. pened that hardly one out of a hundred attempted revolutions has ever been successful. Is not this the instruction of the civil wars of England, France, and San Domingo ? The consideration that this is a republican state has been here- tofore impressed upon the correspondence of this Department, and it cannot be too steadily kept in view by our representatives in Europe. Precisely because it is both a Federal and a republican state, with its cohesion resulting from the choice of the people in two distinct processes, the nation must cease to exist when a foreign authority is admitted to any control over its counsels. It must con- tinue to be jealous of foreign interventions and alliances, as it always heretofore has been. The nation, moreover, is an American one. It has maintained pleasant and even profitable intercourse with the states of the eastern continent; but it nevertheless is situated in a hemisphere where interests and customs and habits widely differing from those of Europe prevail. Among these differences this one at least is manifest: We neither have sought, nor can we ever wisely seek, conquests, colonies, or allies in the Old World. We have no voice in the congresses of Europe, and we cannot allow them a represen- tation in our popular assemblies. All of the American states once were dependencies of European powers. The fact that it is neces- sary to discuss the subject of this letter sufficiently proves that even if those powers have relinquished all expectation of recovering a sway here that was so long ago cast off, yet the American nations have nevertheless not realized their safety against European ambi- tion. For this reason, also, we must be left by foreign nations alone, to settle our own controversies and regulate our own affairs in our own American way. If the forbearance we claim is not our right, those who seek to prevent our enjoyment of it can show the grounds upon which foreign intervention or mediation is justified. Will they claim that European powers are so much more enlightened, more just, and more humane than we are, that they can regulate not only their own affairs but ours also, more wisely and more benefi- cially than we have done? How and where have they proved this superiority? I cannot avoid thinking that the ideas of intervention and media- tion have their source in an imperfect conception in Europe of the independence of the American nation. Although actual foreign INTERVENTION CONSIDERED. 353 authority has so long passed away, yet the memory of it, and the sentiment of dictation, still linger in the parental European states. Perhaps some of the American nations have by their willingness to accept of favors, lent some sanction to the pretension. But cer- tainly this will not be urged against the United States. We have too many proofs that our independence is by no means pleasing to portions of European society. They would, however, find it difficult to justify their dislike. That independence was lawfully won, and it has been universally acknowledged. Is our peculiar form of government an offence? It was chosen by ourselves and for our own benefit, and it has not been enforced by us, nor can it in any case be enforced, upon any other people. Our own experience has proved its felicitous adaptation to our con- dition, and the judgment of mankind has pronounced that its influ- ences upon other nations are beneficent. The severest censure has found no defect in it, except that it is too good to endure. What plea for intervention or mediation remains? Only this, that our civil war is inconvenient to foreign states. But the incon- venience they suffer is only incidental, and must be brief; while their intervention or mediation might be fatal to the United States. Are not all civil wars necessarily inconvenient to foreign nations? Must every state, when it has the misfortune to fall into civil war, forego its independence and compromise its sovereignty because the war affects its foreign commerce? Would not the practice upon that principle result in the dissolution of all political society? But it is urged that the war is protracted. What if it were so? Do our national rights depend on the time that an insurrection may maintain itself? It has been a war of fifteen months. The battle- field is as large as Europe. The dynamical question involved is as important as any that was ever committed to the issue of civil war. The principles at issue are as grave as any that ever were intrusted to the arbitration of arms. The resources opened by the govern- ment, the expenditures incurred, the armies brought into the field, and the vigor and diligence with which they are manœuvred, have never been surpassed; nor has greater success, having due regard to the circumstances of the case, ever been attained. Notwith- standing these facts, Europeans tell us that the task of subduing the insurrection is too great, that the conclusion is already foregone, and the Union must be lost. They fail, however, to satisfy us of 23 354 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. either their right or their ability to advise upon it, while they no longer affect to conceal the prejudices or the interests which dis- qualify them for any judgment in the case. Finally, the advocates of intervention are shocked by the calami- ties we are enduring, and concerned by the debts we are incurring, yet they have not one word of remonstrance or discouragement for the insurgents, and are busy agents in supplying them with materi- als of war. We deplore the sufferings which the war has brought, and are ready and anxious to end the contest. We offer the simple terms of restoration to the Union, and oblivion of the crimes com- mitted against it so soon as may be compatible with the public safety. I have expressed these views of the President to our rep- resentatives at this time, when I think there is no immediate danger of foreign intervention, or attempt at mediation, to the end that they may have their due weight whenever, in any chances of the war, apprehensions of foreign interference may recur. Mr. Seward to Mr. Dayton. August 23, 1862. — It is difficult for our people and much more difficult for foreigners to detect the real tendencies of political events. during the excitements of this attempted revolution. It found us. unprepared, and even unsuspecting and incredulous. When the war had broken out, the people, accustomed to peace, very soon became impatient, and a signal defeat, without any compensating success, produced alarm, which was followed by apparent despondency. Eu- rope, in view of these facts, naturally concluded that the contest on our part would be short and hopeless. The country, however, recon- sidered, and put forth energies which brought a series of successes which seemed to render a conclusion of the war in favor of the Union speedy and certain. Europe had scarcely time to accept this assur- ance before a failure, not a defeat, at Richmond, disappointed and disconcerted the sanguine and impatient portion of our countrymen. The government did not hesitate a day to provide for reinforcing and augmenting the national forces on a scale adequate to the pros- ecution of the war with greater vigor and certainty of success than before. But a transient gloom had fallen once more upon the na- tional mind, and presses that necessarily sympathize with a morbid public temper, and minister to it day after day, and week after week, continued to deepen that gloom, and to harass the country VOLUNTEERS IN EXCESS OF THE CALL. 355 with fears of disasters everywhere at home, and dangers everywhere abroad. Advocates of extreme and conflicting policies and senti- ments came upon the stage, and claimed the public attention with expectations of successful agitation which could have no other effect. than to divide the country and to deliver it up to the distractions of party spirit. Alarms of intervention were, of course, sounded by the conspirators abroad with much effect. It was very natural, and, therefore, by no means unexpected, that, under such circumstances, our representatives abroad, reading the American heart through the newspapers, as they necessarily must, and not feeling its stronger vibrations as the government here did, should despair of its prompt response to the President's call for three hundred thousand volun- teers. All this has now changed. The call is already answered; forty-five thousand of the new recruits are already in the field; a hundred thousand more are marching towards it, and two hundred and thirty-three thousand are in camps of rendezvous and organiza- tion. This is an excess of seventy-eight thousand over the three hundred thousand volunteers which were demanded. You have, however, already been informed that the President has called for three hundred thousand militia, to be raised by draft. The time for this draft is fixed for the 2d of September. There is only one question left undetermined, which is, namely, whether the govern- ment will accept volunteers for this force also, or insist upon the draft, now found unnecessary. Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams. September 26, 1862. — In the beginning of our domestic troubles, all the outside world was apparently in a state of profound and permanent peace. It seemed as if, unavoidably, irritation was pro- duced in several foreign countries by the derangement of our na- tional commerce, and they were not only entirely free to combine against us and enforce a dissolution of the Union, but were even being impelled by very powerful influences to enter into such a combination. Perhaps the most portentous incident which has oc- curred in the progress of this unhappy strife was the announcement made to us by the governments of Great Britain and France that they had agreed to act together in regard to the questions which it should present for their consideration. Every one knows the influ- ence that the united wills of these two great maritime powers carry 356 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. in the councils of other states. It has been for us of late a relief to perceive that although European cabinets still maintain their conventional accord, yet the fundamental political interests of the states they represent are forcing themselves into notice and temper- ing, if not modifying, the proceedings of their governments. It is, as you suggest, very plainly the interest of all the members of this Federal Union to arrest their civil war, reconcile their differ- ences, reorganize the government on its constitutional basis, and thus maintain themselves equally against possible foreign war and the still more dangerous inroads of foreign influence. But the fac- tion which has gotten up the insurrection builds its hopes of success chiefly upon foreign intervention, and it has not thus far been suffi- ciently exhausted to open the way for serious reflection in the revo- lutionary states. This whole nation, when united, was a greater and stronger power than it was believed abroad, and even greater and stronger than it supposed itself to be. The insurgent portion of it, though very unequal to the loyal, are not deficient in strength and wealth available for treason. An ambitious spirit, perhaps it would not be severe to say a malignant one, has imparted much. energy to the insurgent arms. But it no longer admits of doubt that there has been a visible process of exhaustion of men and money in the insurgent states. The waste of armies in war was unforeseen by them, as it was by the government. It is now visible. on both sides. Practically, it is not difficult to renew our armies, but the wasted forces of the insurgents cannot be replaced. They have spent three hundred and fifty millions already, and need two hundred and fifty millions more for expenditure before the beginning of the new year. Their whole actual revenue from imposts and taxes gathered within the past year is nominally twelve millions, but this was received in a currency depreciated at least fifty per cent. ; they have no resources for greater taxation. The spirit which has sustained them thus far cannot be maintained without the gain of military advantages far greater than they have hitherto obtained. In view of these facts, it is probably safe to assume that the in- surrection has reached its crisis. As you are well aware, it has never been expected by the Presi- dent that the insurgents should protract this war until it should ex- haust not only themselves but the loyal states, and bring foreign armies or navies into the conflict, and still be allowed to retain in EMANCIPATION AND THE REBELLION. 357 bondage, with the consent of this government, the slaves who con- stitute the laboring and producing masses of the insurrectionary states. At the same time, the emancipation of the slaves could be effected only by executive authority, and on the ground of military necessity. As a preliminary to the exercise of that great power, the President must have not only the exigency, but the general consent of the loyal people of the Union in the border slave states where the war was raging, as well as in the free states which have escaped this scourge, which could only be obtained through a clear convic- tion on their part that the military exigency had actually occurred. It is thus seen that what has been discussed so earnestly at home and abroad as a question of morals or of humanity has all the while been practically only a military question, depending on time and circumstances. The order for emancipation, to take effect on the first of January, in the states then still remaining in rebellion against the Union, was issued upon due deliberation and conscientious con- sideration of the actual condition of the war, and the state of opin- ion in the whole country. No one who knows how slavery was engrafted upon the nation when it was springing up into existence; how it has grown and gained strength as the nation itself has advanced in wealth and power; how fearful the people have hitherto been of any change which might disturb the parasite, will contend that the order comes too late. It is hoped and believed that after the painful experience we have had of the danger to which the Federal connection with slavery is exposing the Republic there will be few indeed who will insist that the decree which brings the connection to an end either could or ought to have been further deferred. The interests of humanity have now become identified with the cause of our country, and this has resulted not from any infraction of constitutional restraints by the government, but from persistent unconstitutional and factious proceedings of the insurgents, who have opposed themselves to both. Mr. Seward to Mr. Dayton. October 8, 1862. - Revolutions seldom admit of exact regulation. This insurrection is an appeal by force not merely to reverse a reg- ular popular judgment, but to overturn the tribunal which pro- nounced it. I admit the importance of moderation on the part of 358 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. the government. I think that all the world will agree that the government has thus far practised that virtue to the largest possible extent. It has, however, produced no abatement of the ambitious designs of the insurgents. It is manifest that they prefer a com- mon ruin, a complete chaos, to any composition whatever that could be made under any auspices. Nor does the case admit of offers of composition on the part of the Union. It is a question between the existing and only possible constitutional system of government and a resolution of society here into small, distracted, and ever-jealous belligerent states. Other unusual elements enter into the motives. of the conflict, and popular passions inflame them into a white heat. It is impossible not to see that the conflict between universal free- dom and universal slavery, which has been so long put off, has come. upon us at last in the form of a civil war, and that the parties are marshalling themselves under the banners of the Union and of the insurrection, respectively. Who has ever seen mediation or com- promise arrest a conflict of that nature when brought to the trial of arms? No such conflict was ever ended but by exhaustion of one or both of the parties. Does it require a great discernment to see on which side exhaustion must first occur? Does it require much loyalty to our institutions, or much faith in virtue, or much trust in the guidance of a beneficent Providence, to enable us to believe that that exhaustion must be rapid and complete enough to bring about a return of that portion of our people which has been misled to the constitutional government, which alone can maintain peace, preserve order, and guarantee practical freedom to all the members of the state? Where are we now? The Union is distracted, but it is not broken nor even shaken. It still maintains its authority everywhere, with local exceptions, as before. It still maintains its place in the councils of nations. It has only begun to draw upon its resources. and its forces. The insurrection is without position at home or abroad. It has nearly exhausted its resources, and it is bringing into the field the last armies available by conscription. No revolu- tion, prolonged without success, escapes the avenger of faction among its movers. That avenger is even now upon the heels of the movers of the insurrection, and it appears with terrors such as failing revolutionists were never before compelled to turn upon and confront. Let any statesman look into the elements of society in the Gulf or revolutionary States, and see what else than universal INTERVENTION THREATENED. 359 ruin of society can result from longer war against the Union. What else than the protection of the Union, duly accepted, can arrest that desolation, or restore safety even then to property, liberty, and life. Mr. Seward to Mr. Dayton. October 20, 1862.—It is desirable that the views I am now to express should be understood as official, and that, with such reserve as your discretion may deem proper, they may be made known to the French government. For this reason I do not draw under review the unofficial conversation with Mr. Thouvenel which you have related, but I base these intimations upon information of a general character which has reached this Department. The effect of this information is that Great Britain and France are seriously considering the question of recognizing the insurgents of this country as a sovereign state. Of course, the grounds of such a proceeding must involve a conclusion that the insurgents have shown their ability to maintain a national independence. We now know, although it was for a time studiously concealed from this government and the American people, that so early as the reverses which befell our army in front of Richmond, the insurgent leaders projected and began to prepare a campaign with the very compre- hensive purpose of invading the loyal free states by armies which should occupy and permanently establish themselves in the loyal border states of Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri. In this way Philadelphia and New York were to be menaced, while Baltimore and New Orleans were to be captured, and this capital was to be reduced to capitulation. We know also that the project of this campaign was confidentially communicated to parties in Europe who sympathized with the insurrection, and who became active in furnishing aid, arms, and supplies for its execution. We know further that from a natural impulsiveness, if not from deep design, the emissaries of the insurgents excited very sanguine expectations of the success of their proposed campaign in the principal European cabinets. We have learned further that, besides enlisting under the influence of that excitement many persons of assumed impor- tance as advocates of a recognition of the insurgents, a great pecuni- ary speculation in cotton was opened to others who might be moved by mercenary inducements to lend their aid to the same conspiracy against the United States. Chimerical as this scheme seemed to 360 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. calm observers here while it was being developed through the manœuvres of the insurgents, it nevertheless borrowed a certain measure of probability of success from the surprise it excited, from inaugural military advantages gained in the region of Manassas, and from a seeming, though unreal, dilatoriness of the loyal states in sending forward the new levies for which the President had called. The apparent depression thus manifested here of course was observed in Europe, and doubtless it went far to fortify the sanguine expectations of the success of the anticipated campaign which prevailed there. Those expectations thus reached such a height that all Europe was seen actually looking for nothing less than the surrender of Washington and the dissolution of the Union, when it received, through the telegraph, the very different intelli- gence of the defeats of the insurgents at South Mountain and An- tietam. In view of these facts, this government was not at all sur- prised when it heard, through the despatches of its representatives in the European capitals throughout the months of August and September, that confident expectations were prevailing there of an early recognition of the independence of the insurgents, and that European statesmen, assuming that recognition to be imminent, were benevolently engaged in considering what substitute they could propose to the United States for the loss of their venerated and invaluable Federal Union. It does, however, surprise the Pres- ident that the expectations of a recognition of the insurgents are still lingering in European capitals, in view of the disappointment and failure of the campaign, which by its successes was to prepare them for that hostile measure. Waiving the temptation to bring military events singly into a tedious review, it will be sufficient on this occasion to say that the military and political situations in this country are in perfect con- trast with the imaginary ones which were expected to win the advantages of European intervention. Instead of being in posses- sion of or threatening Philadelphia and New York, and occupying Cincinnati, Louisville, New Orleans, Baltimore, and Washington, the invading armies of the insurgents in the east, in the west, and in the south, are in retreat before the national forces, and as rapidly On the first of as possible evacuating all the loyal border states. July last the government had retained from the first the entire occupation of all those portions of the Union which had not been in THE SITUATION REVIEWED. 361 the beginning betrayed into the secession movement; and it had also regained so many of the forts, rivers, and positions, which were thus at first betrayed, that by the general consent of all observers, the revolt was deemed as practically suppressed. The projected insurgent campaign has been put into a train of military execution, and although that train is perhaps not yet ended, enough has occurred to prove the entire failure of all its objects. Not one im- portant strategic point which the government held in July last has been lost. It is still in possession or in control now, as it was then, of the coasts, the rivers, the lakes, the marts, and the forts of the country, and, except by luck and adventure, no enemy of the United States can leave the country, and no ally of the insurgents can enter it. Such is the military situation now. What are the prospects of the insurgents? Their credit and resources are practically exhausted. With a floating debt of four hundred millions, represented by paper which is at a discount of seventy-five per cent., they have neither received, nor have they the means of raising, a revenue equal to ten millions, in any form, ap- plicable either to the defraying of present expenses or the payment of interest on existing or future obligations. Their armies were raised by conscription, which left them no reserves. Those armies, wasted like our own by the casualties of war, are reduced to a con- dition of ineffectiveness, and cannot be renewed. Want and distress, hitherto unknown within the political jurisdiction of the United States, are already disclosing themselves in fearful forms throughout the entire region occupied by the insurgents. Industry has ceased, and thrift is lost. Do the leaders even propose a new campaign to retrieve the failure of the one that is approaching its end? No; they are looking out for winter quarters, and are calculating on the chances that foreign intervention may secure for them a peace which they are as yet unwilling to ask, although unable to conquer. What, on the other hand, is the condition of the government and the loyal people, whose cause it is defending. It has a revenue available in the precious metals of more than a hundred millions applicable to present expenses, and the interest on a national debt of five hundred millions. It is as punctual in all its payments and as solvent as any government now existing or that ever has existed. Its second army, just now entering the field, is larger than the first; and it has a third and even a fourth army, as large as the present 362 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE, one, in reserve, if there shall, unhappily, be occasion for it. The maritime force which has hitherto been employed with so much effect was not even a miniature or model of the navy which is now going forth from its navy yards. Our mines are yielding gold more rapidly than foreign trade can withdraw it from us; and after sup- plying our own population, including our armies, with bread, we are shipping a surplus which silences the alarms of famine in Europe. Is the national mind unsteady or its tone unsound? Let its alacrity in sending the new levies of six hundred thousand strong into the field in a period of two months answer this question. The people do, indeed, desire peace and repose, as they all along have desired these objects; but the first voice has yet to be raised in demand for peace at such a cost as a loss of the Union, or even an acre of the broad foundation that it tovers. Since the European ideas of the failure of the government were formed a new political event has occurred, which has too much significance to be over- looked. The President, practically with the consent of the Ameri- can people, has given notice to the insurrectionary slave states that if they refuse after the first day of January next to resume their constitutional relation to their sister states, and persevere in this des- olating war, slavery shall, from and after that day, cease within their borders; and national armies and navies are now going for- ward to make that announcement, if it shall become necessary, a fact. It may be true, as European statesmen so constantly insist, that the slave masters inhabiting the region in insurrection will not submit. Human nature, on the other hand, will teach those states- men that, though the masters may persist in refusing the Union, the slaves will not reject their offered freedom. If one needs aid to find out how this new but necessary operation of the war will work, he has only to look at the map of the insurrectionary region, and see that that part of the Mississippi which it embraces is in- habited by a population of whom an average of twenty per centum are white men and all the rest are African slaves. Without design on the part of the government against its most benevolent efforts, the slave masters of the insurrectionary states have brought their system of African slavery directly into conflict with the government in its struggle to maintain and preserve the American Union. They have done this under the influence of a reckless and desperate ambition. If they persist, after the reasonable and ample warning THE SITUATION REVIEWED. 363 they have received, they must lose the factitious social condition which has been the sole spring of their disloyalty and treason. Are the enlightened and humane nations Great Britain and France to throw their protection over the insurgents now? Are they to enter, directly or indirectly, into this conflict, which, besides being exclusively one belonging to the friendly people of a distant conti- nent, has also, by force of circumstances, become a war between freedom and human bondage? Will they interfere to strike down the arm that so reluctantly but so effectually is raised at last to break the fetters of the slave, and seek to rivet anew the chains which he has sundered? Has this purpose, strange and untried, entered into the counsels of those who are said to have concluded that it is their duty to recognize the insurgents? If so, have they considered, further, that recognition must fail without interven- tion; that intervention will be ineffectual unless attended by per- manent and persisting armies, and that they are committing them- selves to maintain slavery in that manner among a people where slaves and masters alike agree in the resolution that it shall no longer exist? Is this to be the climax of the world's progress in the nineteenth century The European impulses favorable to recognition of the insurgents are due chiefly to the earnestness with which they have announced their resolution to separate. In this respect they can surpass us. We, the loyal people of this Union, are less demonstrative. We are necessarily so. Time works against the insurgents and in our favor. Reason and conscience are on our side; passion alone on theirs. We have institutions to preserve, and responsibilities world-wide and affecting future ages to discharge; they have none. They are at liberty to destroy, and trust to future chances to rebuild; we must save our institutions, not only for ourselves but even for them. I trust, however, that even if the early operations of the govern- ment left room for any misapprehension on the subject, the decision and the energies which this government and the loyal people have put forth within the last three months will satisfy Europe that we are not only a considerate but a practical and persevering people. It is time that we should be understood, there. In one sense a generous one it is true, as Earl Russell has said, that we are fighting for empire. But the empire is not only our own already, but it was lawfully acquired, and is lawfully held. Extensive as it 364 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. is, none the less in every part our own. We defend it, and we love it with all the affection with which patriotism in every land inspires the human heart. It has the best of institutions - institu- tions the excellence of which is generously and even gratefully con- ceded by all men, while they are endeared to ourselves by all national recollections, and by all the hopes and desires we so natu- rally cherish for a great and glorious future. Studying to confine this unhappy struggle within our own borders, we have not only invoked no foreign aid or sympathy, but we have warned foreign nations frankly and have besought them not to interfere. We have practised justice towards them in every way, and conciliation in an unusual degree. But we are none the less determined for all that to be sovereign and to be free. We indulge in no menaces and no defiances. We abide patiently and with composure the course of events and the action of the nations, whose forbearance we have invoked scarcely less for their sakes than for our own. We have not been misled by any of the semblances of impartiality or of neu- trality which unfriendly proceedings towards us in a perilous strife have put on. When any government shall incline to a new and more unfriendly attitude, we shall then revise with care our exist- ing relations towards that power, and shall act in the emergency as becomes a people who have never yet faltered in their duty to themselves while they were endeavoring to improve the condition of the human race. Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams. ! October 25, 1862. Your despatch of October 10th shows that the President's proclamation has produced in Great Britain an im- pression similar in nature, and differing only in degree, from the effect which it has had here. Although, for obvious reasons, little was said on the subject in the correspondence of this Department in anticipation of the proclamation, yet you must have well understood that the President did not adopt the sanguine expectations of those who assumed that it would instantaneously convert the foreign enemies of our country into friends. It is not now proposed to dis- cuss with those persons the questions they so ingeniously raise, namely, whether the proclamation has not come too late, whether it has not come too early, or whether its effect will not be defeated by the fact that it is based upon military necessity, and not upon philanthropy. In regard to the first two points, they are raised by THE EMANCIPATION POLICY. 365 those for whom distasteful events are always unseasonable. In re- gard to the latter, it may be said that the Christian religion has proved none the less successful and beneficent to Europe, although it must be confessed that the mere charity inculcated by that relig- ion was not the exclusive motive of Constantine in adopting and proclaiming it. Time advances, and the national power will not lag behind it in bearing the proclamation into the homes which slavery has scourged with the crowning evils of civil war, and the most fla- grant of political crimes treason against the best Constitution and the best government that has ever been established among men. There is reason to hope that the proceeding will divide and break the insurrection. The public mind has been disturbed, and the periodical occurrence of popular elections has been attended by ex- travagant expressions, as usual. But the policy of the administra- tion will be practically acquiesced in and ultimately universally approved. Mr. Seward to Mr. Dayton. November 4, 1862. You inform us virtually that those very interpreters of public opinion, who four weeks ago could see no merit in our saving our country because the President seemed to be willing to tolerate slavery to effect that end, now pronounce the preservation of the Union to be equally undesirable because it is contingently proposed to abolish slavery in the insurrectionary states to effect that great end. When inconsistencies like this are practised in the name of enlightened nations in regard to other states, how fortunate is it that the laws of nature leave it to such states alone, under the favor of God, to regulate their own affairs, and work out their own destinies. Just about one hundred years ago two great political revolutions began, upon which were largely suspended the interests of the human race. The first was the emancipation of this continent from European authority; the second was the abolition of the European system of African slavery. With certain incidental and temporary reactions, such as are common to every great reformatory move- ment, the United States have persistently and successfully carried forward these two revolutions by gradual means and no others, never acting hastily nor resorting to aggression against any nation, any interest, or any class of men; and at the same time never 366 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. shrinking from needful self-defence when they encountered unpro- voked violence. Although Europe seems to be falling back to the very ground which it held in regard to both of these revolutions when they began, the United States will, nevertheless, steadily per- severe with their habitual energy and moderation in the tasks which the Almighty seems to have allotted to them, conscious that though the labor and the sacrifices are theirs, the benefits will be- long to mankind. Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams. November 4, 1862. — It is not pleasant to a loyal American to see a European Cabinet discussing before a European people the ques- tion whether they will continue to recognize the existence of this Republic. But this is a part of the painful experience of the evil times upon which we have fallen. While treason goes abroad from among ourselves to invite foreign nations to intervene, we have no right to expect those nations to judge us candidly, much less to judge us kindly or wisely. It would be, above all things, unreasonable to expect such charitable judgments from political parties in foreign countries, intent only on the objects of their own ambition. For- tunately we have the right to be free, independent, and at peace, whether European political parties wish us to be so or not. I think, also, we have the power to be so. While European parties, according to your representation, are even more hostile to our coun- try now than ever before, it is, on the other hand, a source of much satisfaction to know that this same country of ours not only is but also feels itself to be stronger and in better condition and position to encounter dangers of foreign intervention than it has been at any former period; and that if any additional motive were neces- sary to sustain its resolution to remain united, independent, and sovereign, that motive would be found in the intervention by a for- eign state in the great and painful domestic transactions in which it is engaged. The wheel of political fortune makes rapid revolutions. It is less than three years since all Great Britain manifested itself desirous of the friendship of the United States. A similar desire may, before the lapse of a long period, occur again. Neither politicians nor statesmen control events. They can moderate them and accommo- date their ambitions to them, but they can do no more. THE EMANCIPATION POLICY. 367 Mr. Seward to Mr. Pike. November 5, 1862. — I know not how profitable it might be for me to examine the very sagacious and patriotic views you have presented on the subject of the war, and the policy with which it is carried on by the government. It is to be remembered that the country, so far from remaining in a normal state, is undergoing all the agitation of an attempted revolution. Measures and men, even at home, are harshly judged under the influence of the hopes and apprehensions of the hour; and these are exaggerated by interests, ambitions, and passions which varying occasions stimulate. The like haste of judgment upon the same questions necessarily reveals itself in Europe, for the relations of nations are too intimate to allow a disturbance in any one state to be confined within its own limits. Perhaps it is not unwise to believe that the agitation here, which has been going on for thirty years, and which broke out into open rebellion eighteen months ago, has at last reached its crisis. The exigencies have been met, and a rapid process of exhaustion of the material as well as the moral elements of the war has been go- ing on, and the time cannot be distant when the nation will, from necessity, seek repose. Nothing can be more difficult than it is to mark the time when this condition begins to discover itself in any conflict. But if I am correct in supposing it has been reached in the present case, then I think we have occasion to congratulate our- selves upon the good position in which the cause of the Union stands. The strength of the government was never greater, its means never more completely at command, its present vigor in ap- plying them has at no time been surpassed. Our military and naval expeditions are now on the eve of their departure, and we look for success equal to that which attended the campaign of the last spring. On the other hand, we see that the material strength of the insur- gents has been much reduced, while they have not yet gained any permanent advantage anywhere. It can hardly be presumed that the European states will interfere to complicate the strife under these circumstances. Such apprehensions are the more unreasonable when we consider how difficult these states would find it to adjust new and beneficial relations with this country if divided into intensely antagonistical republics, to say nothing of such states reversing their previous policies in regard to the termination of 368 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. slavery in their colonies. Who can tell what would be the ques- tions which would arise in the British colonies lying northward of us if this Union of ours is divided? What shall come up in place of our existing relations of amity and commercial reciprocity? What shall become of the policy of extinguishing slavery in the West India colonies of Europe after a slaveholding nation shall have been established on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico? What is to be the effect of such an establishment upon the African slave trade when the new slaveholding nation desires to grasp not only Mexico, but also even the islands of all the European states within the Gulf. I know that these questions have not yet presented themselves in Europe, but it is quite another thing to suppose that they will be left to sleep while the question of intervention is considered by the governments concerned. Mr. Seward to Mr. Dayton. November 10, 1862. It is hardly necessary to inform you that this government has not attached any such importance to the specu- lations of the European press as to apprehend that the government of France combines any hidden design against the United States with the military operations it is carrying on in Mexico. To spec- ulators in the political field everything seems probable. But those who know how much of talent, wealth, energy, and force any single military movement, however simple, either at home or abroad, ex- acts, and how wrong and how dangerous it is to undervalue obsta- cles and resistance, will be able generally to presume ninety and nine out of one hundred of all the designs attributed to any great power improbable because they are impracticable. There are many people in every country who are reckless of war, its costs, its hazards, and its sufferings. I think that, on the other hand, there is no one enlightened state on either continent that does not desire to avoid war so long as it can safely preserve peace. Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams: November 10, 1862. It is a source of satisfaction to know that the expectations that Great Britain would speedily give her aid to sustain the failing insurrection here, which disloyal citizens at home and abroad had built upon the extra-official speeches of the British Chancellor of the Exchequer, were unreal and purely imaginary. THE EMANCIPATION POLICY. 369 The President trusts that the day is far distant, indeed he hopes a day may never come, when two kindred nations shall consent to apply to purposes of mutual destruction energies which, if com- bined, are capable of carrying forward to a pitch never yet fully contemplated the improvement in the condition and character of mankind. Such an apprehension could never have entered the American mind if it had not been schooled by the experiences of our unnatural civil war to fear that popular but ephemeral passion and prejudice may sometimes, in any country, overmaster all senti- ments of national prudence, truth, justice, and humanity. This government does not fail to see what Europe wants, and to see that it is just what the United States want, namely, a speedy and absolute conclusion of the war. Nor does the government fail to see that it is demanded with equal impatience on both continents. It may be possible that greater activity and energy than have been exhibited could have been put forth to secure that end. But it is believed that on a calm and critical examination it will appear that, considering the situation of the country, the very popular charac- ter, and the very complex republican form of the Constitution, the magnitude of the insurrection, the peculiarity of the moral and dynastic principles which are involved, and the foreign influences which have intervened, the progress which the government has made in suppressing the insurrection is an achievement which has never been surpassed. The conviction which I have so confidently expressed to you dur ing the last six weeks, that the insurrection is becoming exhausted, and which event seemed so strange at the time and under the cir- cumstances when it was expressed, is now becoming generally ac- cepted, and I see with pleasure that it begins to find favor in England. You did not exaggerate, in your conversation with Earl Russell, the injurious influences here of the speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Indeed, no one can even fully appreciate the importance which nations, when excited, attach to the conventional utterances of persons in authority. When it is remembered that a year ago the public mind in Great Britain, and ever that of her Majesty's government, was affected by the representation of alleged speeches and conversations of my own, delivered before my coming into my present position, it seems strange that a British minister should be willing to speak, extra-officially and without a govern- 24 370 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. ment purpose, upon an American question in a sense which might be interpreted as one of intervention, if not of menace. It was to prevent all such unfortunate proceedings on the part of the repre- sentatives of the United States that the new restraints upon our ministers and consuls, of which you have already been advised, were imposed. Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams. November 10, 1862. It is probable that the ground which the enemies of the Union in Europe will next assume, in prosecuting their war against it, will be an alleged defection of popular support of the government at the elections recently held in the loyal states. The reports of the results of these elections in the forms adopted by the press are calculated, though not designed, to give plausibility to this position. I observe that these reports classify the members of Congress chosen as union and democratic, or union and opposition. Such classifications, though unfortunate, do less harm here, where all the circumstances of the case are known, than abroad, where names are understood to mean what they express. Last year, when the war began, the republicans, who were a plurality of the electors, gave up their party name, and, joining with loyal democrats, put in nomination candidates of either party under the designation of a union party. The democratic party made but a spiritless resistance in the canvass. From whatever cause it has happened, political debates during the present year have resumed, in a considerable degree, their normal character, and while loyal republicans have adhered to the new banner of the union party, the democratic party has rallied and made a vigorous canvass with a view to the recovery of its former political ascendency. Loyal democrats in considerable number retaining the name of democracy from habit, and not because they oppose the Union, are classified by the other party as "opposition." It is not necessary for the information of our repre- sentatives abroad that I should descend into any examination of the relative principles or policies of the two parties. It will suffice to say that while there may be men of doubtful political wisdom and virtue in each party, and while there may be differences of opinion between the the two parties as to the measures best calculated to preserve Union and restore its authority, yet it is not to be inferred that either party, or any considerable portion of the people of the loyal states, is disposed to accept disunion under any circumstances, or THE EMANCIPATION POLICY. 371 1 upon any terms. It is rather to be understood that the people have become so confident of the stability of the Union that partisan combinations are resuming their sway here, as they do in such cases in all free countries. In this country, especially, it is a habit not only entirely consistent with the Constitution, but even essential to its stability, to regard the administration at any time exist- ing as distinct and separable from the government itself, and to canvass the proceedings of the one without the thought of disloyalty to the other. We might possibly have had quicker success in sup- pressing the insurrection if this habit could have rested a little longer in abeyance; but, on the other hand, we are under obliga- tions to save not only the integrity or unity of the country but also its inestimable and precious Constitution. No one can safely say that the resumption of the previous popular habit does not tend to this last and most important consummation, if at the same time, as we confidently expect, the Union itself shall be saved. Mr. Seward to Mr. Dayton. November 30, 1862. The President is far from asking the inter- ference of France, or even her good offices, in a matter which dis- turbs the relations between the United States and Great Britain, and which, if no redress is given, would be a precedent for wide infrac- tions of the law of nations. At the same time the President does not forget that in the case of the Trent, France, in a generous man- ner, appealed to the United States to redress the just complaint of Great Britain, and that both of those parties appreciated her inter- position. December 1, 1862 It is expected that you will not suffer the cloud that has recently arisen, as it were, from under your own feet, to excite any alarm about the good fortune of our country. It is to the condition of affairs at home, not the condition of opinion in Europe, that we must look if we would understand the prospects of our country. The great problem of domestic slavery in the United States presented itself for solution when the war began. It is in process of solution and so the war goes on. It is not yet solved, and so the war is not yet ended. The people of the United States are intensely engaged in the difficult task. If it questions and rejects one process of solution after another, that does not prove that it is abandoning the task. On the contrary, it is the very act of per- 372 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. and formance of the task itself. If the performer seemed slow, let the observer ask where or when did any nation advance faster in a labor so complex and so difficult. The President's message will carry the public mind still more directly and more earnestly on its great work. The war would have had no terrors for the people if they had not feared that the Union could not endure the trial of solving that problem. Apprehensions of that kind are beginning now to be dismissed. In all the elements of strength, power stability, the Union is stronger when Congress meets to-day than it was when Congress met a year ago. In all the same elements the insurrection is weaker. Revolutions do not revive their strength or their energy. They must succeed at first, or at least gain advan- tage continually, or they must perish. A year ago it seemed that any foreign nation might assail and destroy us at a blow. I am sure that no one foreign nation would now conceive such an attempt, while combination of several powers for that purpose is impossible. December 29, 1862. The circumstances calculated to excite dis- trust of the friendly feeling of France towards the United States, to which you have heretofore directed my notice, are now fixing public attention in this country as well as in Europe. Some Euro- pean observers who are unfriendly to us, or, to speak more accu- rately, who are jealous of a good understanding between France and the United States, are stimulating popular suspicions here, which, if they are without any just foundation, as the President. believes, must be very deeply regretted in both countries. The form which these suggestions take is, that France has design to make of the war against Mexico only an introduction to aggres- sions against the United States in the Gulf of Mexico or on its coasts. The interpretation which is popularly given to the Emperor's late overtures to Great Britain and Russia for mediation in our affairs favors this alarm, and is consequently causing it to receive a very wide acceptance. Satisfied that France, equally with the United States, desires that the mutual and almost fraternal sympathies that so long have pre- vailed in the two countries shall remain undisturbed, it becomes. a grave question whether it is not expedient that Mr. Drouyn de l'Huys shall do or say something to correct the impressions to which I have adverted. FRANCE AND THE UNION. 373 When the French government looks to the land and naval rein- forcements which the President has just sent to New Orleans and the Mississippi, and to the now rapid departure of our iron-clad vessels to their southern destination, it must perceive that in no case do we expect to surrender that river or any part of the Gulf coast to insurgents or to any foreign power. The same inference will be justly drawn from the important change of the war policy in regard to slavery, which will be completely announced in the President's forthcoming proclamation of the first of January next. It is very generally understood that there is some peculiar sympa- thetic relationship between Louisiana and France, which has an im- portant political significance in regard to the relations of the two countries. Nothing could be wider from the truth. New Orleans, in its early history, as a capital of the vast but wild French province of Louisiana, was French; but so was St. Louis, then as now an im- portant trading post, situated a thousand miles above New Orleans, on the Mississippi River. With the annexation of Louisiana to the United States, if not before, French immigration stopped, and American immigration set in there. New Orleans is at this day American in the same fixed sense that New York, Boston, and Cin- cinnati are. There is a small French commercial interest in New Orleans, but so there is in New York. It is as completely exotic as if it had been lately engrafted on an American stock, instead of having an American graft set upon itself, which has absorbed the chief life of the community. The French relationship existing between New Orleans and France is now merely the relationship of a social class, perhaps I might say a creation of fashion. As proof of this you may refer to the fact that the French representation of New Orleans in both houses of Congress has dwindled away year after year until a Frenchman is rarely found in it. There is another proof: Even the insurgents, when they choose in New Orleans pre- tended representatives to go to France, take not Frenchmen, but natives or persons derived from the prevailing stocks of the other states. There is now no more a hook for a French intervention to grapple to in Louisiana than there is in any other state of this Union. This fact is even more palpable now than it has been here- tofore. The war makes social and political changes here, as it nec- 374 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. essarily must. They are none the less real because they escape for a time the attention of a class of observers who fasten themselves upon events which merely strike the imagination. If you could return home you would be surprised to find Baltimore and Wash- ington so changed that you would scarcely perceive a difference in the tone of society there from what prevails in Chicago and Trenton. to There is a second consideration which the French government ought to understand. The attachment of the people of the United States to France differs from the sentiment they bear towards every other country. It is general, practically universal. But it is an attachment that has its roots not in natural affinity, nor yet in in- ternational motives. It is the fruit of two purely moral sentiments — justice and gratitude. We all have been educated to pity the fate of Louis XVI., who was our friend to admire Lafayette, who was a chivalrous knight-errant in our Revolutionary cause admire Napoleon the First, who saved and restored France by his genius and his valor. We honor and love all France, because she has constantly cherished with pride and pleasure the memories of the period when we were allies, because she has been willing that we should endure, and hopeful of our social, political, and civil institutions. The affection of the American people is attended, not by any national sense of weakness, or dependence, or fear, or of interest, but by a luxuriant Americanism, or love of independence. It is more honorable to France for being so; for there is for nations no esteem that is worthy of pride, or that can be relied upon as a bond of friendship, but that which is the outgrowth of national magnanimity. The fact that the national attachment of this country to France is so pure and so elevated, constitutes just the reason why it could be more easily supplanted by national insult or injustice than' our attachment to any other foreign state could be. It is a chivalrous sentiment, and it must be preserved by chivalrous conduct and bearing on both sides. I deduce from the two positions which I have presented a conclusion which has the most solemn interest for both parties, namely, that any attempt at dictation - much more any aggression committed by the government of France against the United States would more certainly and effectively rouse the American people to an attitude of determined resistance than a sim- FRANCE AND THE UNION. 375 ilar affront or injury committed by any other power. There is reason to believe that interested sympathizers with the insurrection in this country have reported to the French government that it would find a party here disposed to accept its mediation or interven- tion. I understand that they reckon upon a supposed sympathy between our democratic citizens and the French government. It may as well be understood as soon as possible that we have no democrats who do not cherish the independence of our country as the first element of democratic faith, while, on the other hand, it is partiality for France that makes us willingly shut our eyes to the fact that that great nation is only advancing towards, instead of having reached, the democratic condition which attracts us in some other countries. If we understand Mr. Drouyn de l'Huys, he is capable of believ- ing that the sentiments I have expressed may be maintained and avowed with the most perfect respect and the most cordial feeling towards France, because they are sentiments which, in an American, are as virtuous as devotion to the intellectual and moral ideals of France are in a Frenchman. Since I began this communication I have received, by a delayed nail, your despatch of the 12th of December, in which you have et down explanations made by Mr. Drouyn de l'Huys, which are st such as it was my object on this occasion to instruct you to licit. You know how confidingly we accept assurances of this aracter from France, and, therefore, I hardly need say that they e entirely satisfactory. Mr. Seward to all of the Diplomatic and Consular Agents of the United States. January 3, 1863. You will receive herewith a copy of a proc- mation which was issued by the President on the first day of Jan- y instant, in which he designates the states and parts of states. ich yet remain in insurrection against the United States, and gives effect to the proclamation which he issued on the 22d day of September last, and in which it was announced that the slaves within such states and districts would, as a measure of military necessity on the said first day of January, be declared forever free. Through this great act, slavery will practically be brought to an end in eight of the states of this Union and in the greater portions of 376 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. two other states. The number of slaves thus restored to freedom is about three and one half millions. The President entertains no doubt that this transaction will com- mend itself to the enlightened judgment and moral approbation of not only all Christian states, but of mankind. Mr. Seward to Mr. Dayton. February 6, 1863. The intimation given in your despatch of January 15th, that I might expect a special visit from M. Mercier has been realized. He called on the 3d instant, and gave me a copy of a despatch which he had just then received from M. Drouyn de l'Huys under the date of the 9th of January. I have taken the President's instructions, and I now proceed to give you his views upon the subject in question. It has been considered with seriousness, resulting from the reflec- tion that the people of France are known to be faultless sharers with the American nation in the misfortunes and calamities of our unhappy civil war; nor do we on this, any more than on other oc- casions, forget the traditional friendship of the two countries, which we unhesitatingly believe has inspired the counsels that M. Drouy de l'Huys has imparted. He says: "the Federal government does not despair, we kno of giving more active impulse to hostilities;" and again he remar "the protraction of the struggle, in a word, has not shaken the c fidence [of the Federal government] in the definitive success of efforts." These passages seem to me to do unintentional injustice to language, whether confidential or public, in which this governm has constantly spoken on the subject of the war. It certainly had and avowed only one purpose a determination to preserve integrity of the country. So far from admitting any laxity of eff or betraying any despondency, the government has, on the trary, borne itself cheerfully in all vicissitudes, with unwaver confidence in an early and complete triumph of the national cause. Now, when we are, in a manner, invited by a friendly power to re- view the twenty-one months' history of the conflict, we find no occa- sion to abate that confidence. Through such an alternation of vic- tories and defeats as is the appointed incident of every war, the land and naval forces of the United States have steadily advanced, re- MEDIATION. 377 claiming from the insurgents the ports, forts, and posts which they had treacherously seized before the strife actually began, and even before it was seriously apprehended. So many of the states and districts which the insurgents included in the field of their projected exclusive slaveholding dominions have already been reëstablished under the flag of the Union, that they now retain only the states of Georgia, Alabama, and Texas, with half of Virginia, half of North Carolina, and two thirds of South Carolina, half of Mississippi, and one third respectively of Arkansas and Louisiana. The national forces hold even this small territory in close blockade and siege. This government, if required, does not hesitate to submit its achievements to the test of comparison; and it maintains that in no part of the world, and in no times, ancient or modern, has a nation, when rendered all unready for combat by the enjoyment of eighty years of almost unbroken peace, so quickly awakened at the alarm of sedition, put forth energies so vigorous, and achieved successes so signal and effective as those which have marked the progress of this contest on the part of the Union. M. Drouyn de l'Huys, I fear, has taken other light than the cor- pondence of this government for his guidance in ascertaining its per and firmness. He has probably read of divisions of senti- at among those who hold themselves forth as organs of public ion here, and has given to them an undue importance. It is to emembered that this is a nation of thirty millions, civilly di- into forty-one states and territories, which cover an expanse less than Europe; that the people are a pure democracy, sing everywhere the utmost freedom of speech and suffrage; a great crisis necessarily produces vehement as well as pro- debate, with sharp collisions of individual, local, and sec ests, sentiments and ambitions; and that this heat is increased by the intervention of speculat lices, and passions from every other part of the Tis, however, through such debates that the agreement of any subject is habitually attained, its resolutions tablished. While there has been much ion and favor concerning the agents who e principles on which it shall be waged, and shall be prosecuted, M. Drouyn de l'Huys statute book of Congress and the executive 378 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. ordinances to learn that the national activity has hitherto been and yet is, as efficient as that of any other nation, whatever its form of government, ever was, under circumstances of equally grave import to its peace, safety, and welfare. Not one voice has been raised anywhere, out of the immediate field of the insurrection, in favor of foreign intervention, of mediation, of arbitration, or of compro- mise, with the relinquishment of one acre of the national domain, or the surrender of even one constitutional franchise. At the same time it is manifest to the world that our resources are yet abundant, and our credit adequate to the existing emergency. What M. Drouyn de l'Huys suggests is that this government shall appoint commissioners to meet, on neutral ground, commissioners of the insurgents. He supposes that in the conferences to be thus held, reciprocal complaints could be discussed, and in place of the accusations which the North and South now mutually cast upon each other, the conferees would be engaged with discussions of the interests which divide them. He assumes, further, that the com- missioners would seek, by means of well-ordered and profound de liberation, whether these interests are definitively irreconcilabl whether separation is an extreme that can no longer be avoided, whether the memories of a common existence, the ties of every which have made the North and the South one whole federa state, and have borne them on to so high a degree of prosperity not more powerful than the causes which have placed arms i hands of the two populations. The suggestion is not an extraordinary one, and it may wel been thought by the Emperor of the French, in the earnesti his benevolent desire for the restoration of peace, a feasible Dwhen M. Drouyn de l'Huys shall come to review it in the it must necessarily be examined in this country, I tail to perceive that it amounts to nothing less on that, while this government is engaged in suppr armed insurrection, with the purpose of maintaining tutional national authority, and preserving the country, it shall enter into diplomatic diso upon the questions whether that authori and whether the country shall not be deli be quickly followed by ever increasing ana If it were possible for the government, MEDIATION. 379 . compromise the national authority so far as to enter into such de- bates, it is not easy to perceive what good results could be obtained by them. The commissioners must agree in recommending either that the Union shall stand or that it shall be voluntarily dissolved; or else they must leave the vital question unsettled, to abide at last the fortunes of the war. The government has not shut out knowledge of the present temper, any more than of the past purposes of the insurgents. There is not the least ground to suppose that the con- trolling actors would be persuaded at this moment, by any argu- ments which national commissioners could offer, to forego the am- bition that has impelled them to the disloyal position they are occupying. Any commissioners who should be appointed by these actors, or through their dictation or influence, must enter the confer- ence imbued with the spirit and pledged to the personal fortunes of the insurgent chiefs. The loyal people in the insurrectionary states would be unheard, and any offer of peace by this government, on the condition of the maintenance of the Union, must necessarily be rejected. On the other hand, as I have already intimated, this government has not the least thought of relinquishing the trust which has been confided to it by the nation under the most solemn of all political sanctions; and if it had any such thought, it would still have abun- dant reason to know that peace proposed at the cost of dissolution would be immediately, unreservedly, and indignantly rejected by the American people. It is a great mistake that European states- men make, if they suppose this people are demoralized. Whatever, in the case of an insurrection, the people of France, or of Great Britain, or of Switzerland, or of the Netherlands would do to save their national existence, no matter how the strife might be regarded by or might affect foreign nations, just so much, and certainly no less the people of the United States will do, if necessary, to save for mon benefit the region which is bounded by the Pacific and the Atlantic coasts, and by the shores of the Gulfs of St. Lawrence and Mexico, together with the free and common navigation of the Rio Grande, Missouri, Arkansas, Mississippi, Ohio, St. Lawrence, Hud- son, Delaware, Potomac, and other natural highways by which this land, which to them is at once a land of inheritance and a land of promise, is opened and watered. Even if the agents of the Ameri- 380 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. can people now exercising their power should, through fear or fac- tion, fall below this height of the national virtue, they would be speedily, yet constitutionally, replaced by others of sterner charac- ter and patriotism. I must be allowed to say, also, that M. Drouyn de l'Huys errs in his description, of the parties to the present conflict. We have here, in the political sense, no North and South, no Northern and Southern States. We have an insurrectionary party which is lo- cated chiefly upon and adjacent to the shore of the Gulf of Mex- ico; and we have, on the other hand, a loyal people, who constitute not only Northern States but also Eastern, Middle, Western, and Southern States. I have on many occasions heretofore submitted to the French government the President's views of the interests, and the ideas more effective for the time than even interests, which lie at the bottom of the determination of the American government and people to maintain the Federal Union. The President has done the same thing in his messages and other public déclarations. I refrain, therefore, from reviewing that argument in connection with the existing question. M. Drouyn de l'Huys draws to his aid the conferences which took place between the colonies and Great Britain in our revolutionary war. He will allow us to assume that action in the crisis of a nation must accord with its necessities, and therefore can seldom be con- formed to precedents. Great Britain, when entering on negotia- tions, had manifestly come to entertain doubts of her ultimate suc- cess; and it is certain that the councils of the colonies could not fail to take new courage, if not to gain other advantage when the parent state compromised so far as to treat of peace on the terms of conceding their independence. It is true, indeed, that peace must come at some time, and that conferences must attend, if they are not allowed to precede the na- cification. There is, however, a better form for such cor than the one which M. Drouyn de l'Huys suggests. The latter would be palpably in derogation of the Constitution of the United States, and would carry no weight, because destitute of the sanction necessary to bind either the disloyal or the loyal portions of the people. On the other hand, the Congress of the United States fur- nishes a constitutional forum for debates between the alienated par- SYMPATHY OF BRITISH ARTISANS. 381 ties. Senators and representatives from the loyal portion of the people are there already, freely empowered to confer; and seats also are vacant, and inviting senators and representatives of this discontented party who may be constitutionally sent there from the states involved in the insurrection. Moreover, the conferences which can thus be held in Congress have this great advantage over any that could be organized upon the plan of M. Drouyn de l'Huys, namely, that the Congress, if it were thought wise, could call a national convention to adopt its recommendations, and give them all the solemnity and binding force of organic law. Such conferences between the alienated parties may be said to have already begun. Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Missouri-states which are claimed by the insurgents are already represented in Congress, and submitting with perfect freedom and in a proper spirit their advice upon the course best calculated to bring about, in the shortest time, a firm, lasting, and honorable peace. Representatives have been sent also from Louisiana, and others are understood to be coming from Arkansas. There is a preponderating argument in favor of the congressional form of conference over that which is suggested by M. Drouyn de l'Huys, namely, that while an accession to the latter would bring this government into a concurrence with the insurgents in disregard- ing and setting aside an important part of the Constitution of the United States, and so would be of pernicious example, the con- gressional conference, on the contrary, preserves and gives new strgth to that sacred writing which must continue through future ages the sheet anchor of the Republic. You will be at liberty to read this despatch to M. Drouyn de l'Huys, and to give him a copy if he shall desire it.¹ Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams. urch 16, 1863. You will communicate to the thirteen thousand fi hundreinhabitants of Birmingham the sincere and grateful thanks of the Prident for the sentiments which they have ex- pressed in their address which, through my hands, has been laid before him.2 You wil'say that they have truly interpreted the charac- 1 The above despatch does not appear in the government edition of the Diplomatic Correspondence. 2 The above is only one of many similar cases. 382 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. ter and nature of the contest in this country, which so largely engages the attention of foreign nations. The question which is being decided in arms is, as they have truly said, whether a nation. shall be built and established, even here in the heart of this hitherto free country, and upon this yet new and imperfectly reclaimed con- tinent, upon the principles that labor shall be not free and compen- sated, but involuntary and unpaid; and that African men, women, and children, once made captive on their native coasts by fraud or force, and imported here, thereby shall lose at once all the rights of manhood, and forever thereafter, through all generations, shall be merely lawful goods and chattels, wares, and merchandise. It is not, however, the President, nor yet the loyal people of the United States, who have raised this issue, or brought it to the trial of civil war. Lawfully standing under, and solemnly bound by, the public will and laws of the Union, to uphold a Constitution which was established with the concurrence of the insurgents themselves upon the broad foundation of human rights, this government and the American people have accepted the fearful issue only when that Constitution itself must be surrendered, if the conflict should be longer declined. We occupy at one and the same time the position of lovers of peace and defenders of humanity. The President has not for one moment believed he refuses to believe against all expositions of British and of European opinion to the contrary, no matter how assuming or how authoritative they may appear, that the deliberate judgment of the British nation has been or can vell be pronounced against the American people. Mr. Seward to Mr. Dayton. Ե May 11, 1863. This government is profoundly and agreeably impressed with the consideration which the Emperor has manifested towards the United States by inviting their concurrence in a ceeding having for its object the double interests of public and humanity. Nor is it less favorably impressed with the seti- ments and the prudential considerations which he Emperor has n sc becoming a manner expressed to the court of St. Petersburg, They are such only as appeal to the justemotions and best. sympa- thies of mankind. The enlightened and humane character of the Emperor of Russia, so recently illustrated by the enfranchisement 1 Mediation with Russia in regard to the Poles. AMERICAN POLICY OF NON-INTERVENTION. 383 of a large mass of the Russian people from inherited bondage, and the establishment of an impartial and effective administration of justice throughout his dominions, warrant a belief that the appeal will be received and responded to by him with all the favor that is consistent with the general welfare of the great state over which he presides with such eminent wisdom and moderation. Notwithstanding, however, the favor with which we thus regard the suggestion of the Emperor of the French, this government finds an insurmountable difficulty in the way of any active coöperation with the governments of France, Austria, and Great Britain, to which it is thus invited. Founding our institutions upon the basis of the rights of man, the builders of our Republic came all at once to be regarded as politi- cal reformers, and it soon became manifest that revolutionists in every country hailed them in that character, and looked to the United States for effective sympathy, if not for active support and patronage. Our invaluable Constitution had hardly been estab- ished when it became necessary for the government of the United ates to consider to what extent we could, with propriety, safety, beneficence, intervene, either by alliance or concerted action friendly powers or otherwise, in the political affairs of foreign T An urgent appeal for such aid and sympathy was made in f of France, and the appeal was sanctioned and enforced by the then existing of mutual alliance and defence, a treaty without it may even now be confessed, to the honor of France, our overeignty and independence could not have been so early se- So deeply did this appeal touch the heart of the American , that only the deference they cherished to the counsels of the of our Country, who then was at the fulness of his unap- hable moral greatness, reconciled them to the stern decision n view of the location of this republic, the characters, habits, sentiments of its constituent parts, and especially its complex unique and very popular Constitution, the American people st be content to recommend the cause of human progress by the dom with which they should exercise the powers of self-govern- ht, forbearing at all times, and in every way, from foreign alli- es, intervention, and interference. t is true that Washington thought a time might come when, our titutions being firmly consolidated and working with complete 384 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. success, we might safely and perhaps beneficially take part in the consultations held by foreign states for the common advantage of the nations. Since that period occasions have frequently happened which presented seductions to a departure from what, superficially viewed, seemed a course of isolation and indifference. It is scarcely necessary to recur to them. One was an invitation to a congress of newly emancipated Spanish-American states; another an urgent ap- peal to aid Hungary in a revolution aiming at the restoration of her ancient and illustrious independence; another, the project of a joint guarantee of Cuba to Spain in concurrence with France and Great Britain; and more recently, an invitation to a coöperative demonstra- tion with Spain, France, and Great Britain in Mexico; and, later still, suggestions by some of the Spanish-American states for a common council of the republican states situated upon the American continent. These suggestions were successively disallowed by the government, and its decision was approved in each case by the deliberate judg- ment of the American people. Our policy of non-intervention, straight, absolute, and peculiar as it may seem to other nations, ha thus become a traditional one, which could not be abandoned wit out the most urgent occasion, amounting to a manifest necess Certainly it could not be wisely departed from at this mon when the existence of a local, although as we trust only a tran disturbance, deprives the government of the counsel of a porti the American people, to whom so wide a departure from the policy of the country must in any case be deeply interesting. The President will not allow himself to think for a single mo that the Emperor of the French will see anything but respect friendship for himself and the people of France, with good for the preservation of peace and order, and the progress of h ity in Europe, in the adherence of the United States on this oc to the policy which they have thus far pursued with safety not without advantage, as they think, to the interests of n kind. Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams. July 11, 1863. Your despatch of the 26th of June has b received, together with three paper books containing a report the trial of the Alexandra. In giving you the President's views in regard to that case a THE CONTEST IN THE BRITISH COURTS. 385 the questions depending upon it, I labor under some embarrassments, resulting from an ignorance of what may have occurred in Europe since the date of your despatch. It is known here that at that time a movement in the House of Commons demanding a recognition of the insurgents by her Majesty's government was set down for the 30th of June, and that you were not altogether without apprehension that the movement, aided by a moral effect of the verdict in the case of the Alexandra, and backed by a supposed patronage in France, might prevail. Secondly, we have not altogether been able to disregard the rumors of a design of the Emperor of France to recognize the insurgents, with or without the concurrence of the government of Great Britain. Thirdly, that movement was to be based upon the ground of the demonstrated failure of the armies of the Union; but while it was going on, those armies have achieved victories which here are regarded as warranting an expectation of a complete and rapid extinguishment of the insurrection. These brilliant and important victories, howeyer, are as yet unknown in Europe. uder these circumstances, I shall assume that no act has been by the government of France or by the government of Great ain, especially by the latter, to change the relations that have tofore existed between those countries, respectively, and the ed States, and I shall confine myself to the duty of explaining ly the opinions of the President, and the policy which he will sue in regard to maritime questions in view of the result in the case of the Alexandra. First. You are authorized and expected to assure Earl Russell that this government is entirely satisfied that her Majesty's govern- ment have conducted the proceedings in that case with perfect good faith and honor, and that they are well disposed to prevent the fit- ting out of armed vessels in British ports to depredate upon Ameri- can commerce and to make war against the United States. Secondly. This government is satisfied that the law officers of the crown have performed their duties in regard to the case of the Alex- andra with a sincere conviction of the adequacy of the law of Great Britain and a sincere desire to give it effect. Thirdly. The government of the United States does not descend to inquire whether the jury in the case were or were not impar- tial. It willingly believes they were so, and it accepts the statement 25 386 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. made with so much unanimity by all the reporters of the case, that the judge who presided at the trial made the bench responsible for the verdict by the boldness and directness of his rulings against the prosecution. Fourthly. Great Britain being a free and constitutional country, and the proceedings in the case of the Alexandra having been thus far conducted by the government in good faith and according to law, the United States would not be justified in deeming the verdict rendered by the jury a cause of national complaint, provided that the government prosecutes an appeal to the higher courts until it be determined in the court of last resort whether the law is adequate to the maintenance of the neutrality which her Majesty has proclaimed, and provided also that in the mean time the Alexandra and other vessels which may be found violating or preparing to violate the law be prevented, so far as the law may allow, from leaving British ports to prosecute their work of devastation. The President is not prepared to believe that the judiciary of Great Britain will, with well-considered judgment, render nugator and void a statute of the realm which, with its counterpart in own legislation, has hitherto been regarded by both nations guarantee of that mutual forbearance which is so essential t preservation of peace and friendship. Nor shall I incur the h of producing irritation on either side of the ocean by criticisin reasoning by which the learned judge who tried the case c Alexandra justified his conclusions thereon, or by which tuas portion of the British press which approves the verdict labors to defend it. The position in which the case of the Alexandra is left by the recent trial renders it necessary to contemplate a possible affirma- tion of the rulings of the Chief Baron in the court of dernier resort. You are entitled to know, and it seems proper that you should be able to communicate to her Majesty's government, the views which the President has taken of the rights and duties of this government in that unlooked for and deeply to be deprecated event. I trust that I shall be able to express those convictions calmly and dispas- sionately without wounding the just self-respect of her Majesty's government. If the rulings of the Chief Baron of the Exchequer in the case of the Alexandra shall be affirmed so as to regulate the action of her Majesty's government, the President will, as he BRITISH AGGRESSIONS. 387 INDEMNITIES. thinks, be left to understand that there is no law in Great Britain which will be effective to preserve mutual relations of forbearance between the subjects of her Majesty and the government and peo- ple of the United States in the only point where they are exposed to infraction. The fitting out of the Alabama and the Florida, as well as of the Alexandra, will thus receive the sanction of the gov- ernment, and the United States will be without any guarantee whatever against the indiscriminate and unlimited employment of capital, industry, and skill by British subjects, in building, arming, equipping, and sending forth ships-of-war from British ports to make war against the United States. I may safely protest, in behalf of the United States, against the assumption of that position by the British nation, because this gov- ernment, with a statute exactly similar to that of Great Britain, does constantly hold itself able and bound to prevent such injuries to Great Britain. The President thinks it not improper to suggest for the consideration of her Majesty's government the question whether, on appeal to be made by them, Parliament might not hink it just and expedient to amend the existing statute in such a vay as to effect what the two governments actually believe it ought ow to accomplish. In case of such an appeal the President would hesitate to apply to Congress for an equivalent amendment of laws of the United States if her Majesty's government should re such a proceeding, although here such an amendment is not med necessary. the law of Great Britain must be left without amendment, and Deconstrued by the government in conformity with the rulings of the Chief Baron of the Exchequer, then there will be left for the United States no alternative but to protect themselves and their commerce against armed cruisers proceeding from British ports, as against the naval forces of a public enemy; and also to claim and insist upon indemnities for the injuries which all such expeditions have hitherto committed or shall hereafter commit against this gov- ernment and the citizens of the United States. To this end this government is now preparing a naval force with the utmost vigor; and if the national navy, which it is rapidly creating, shall not be sufficient for the emergency, then the United States must bring into employment such private armed naval forces as the mercantile marine shall afford. British ports, domestic as well as colonial, are 388 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. now open, under certain restrictions, to the visits of piratical ves- sels, and not only furnish them coals, provisions, and repairs, but even receive their prisoners when the enemies of the United States come in to obtain such relief from voyages in which they have either burned ships they have captured, or have even manned and armed them as pirates and sent them abroad as auxiliaries in the work of destruction. Can it be an occasion for either surprise or complaint that if this condition of things is to remain and receive the deliberate sanction of the British government, the navy of the United States will receive instructions to pursue these enemies into the ports which thus, in violation of the law of nations and the obligations of neutrality, become harbors for the pirates? The President very distinctly perceives the risks and hazards which a naval conflict thus maintained will bring to the commerce and even to the peace of the two countries. But he is obliged to consider that in the case supposed the destruction of our commerce will probably amount to a naval war waged by a portion at least of the British nation against the government and people of the United States a war tolerated although not declared or avowed by the British government. If, through the necessary employment of a our means of national defence, such a partial war shall become general one between the two nations, the President thinks that responsibility for that painful result will not fall upon the Un States. יין In stating thus frankly the views of this government, it is for me to add that it is not the President's purpose to resort to extraordinary measures of defence to which I have referred, une they shall be rendered necessary by a final decision of the British government that it cannot and will not interfere to restrain the hos- tilities which are now apprehended; nor will I allow myself to sup- pose that her Majesty's government will for a moment conceive that anything I have written upon this point is written in a spirit of mere demonstration; on the contrary, while the pacific and friendly disposition of her Britannic Majesty's government is fully appre- ciated and relied upon, it is well understood that that government is the last one in the world to yield to vehemence what cannot be conceded in equity and justice. So, on the other hand, it ought to be understood that the United States, if they could ever be pre- sumptuous, are sufficiently chastened already by the scourge of REVIEW OF THE CONTEST. 389 civil war to seek peace and friendship with Great Britain and all other nations through any concession that is compatible with the permanent interests of national life and honor. For your own information, and to enable you to maintain the na- tional rights and interests with your accustomed firmness, I have the pleasure of stating that our naval force is steadily and rapidly increasing. The navy has already in actual service forty-four thou sand men. New, better, and more effective steamships, iron-clads, as well as others, are coming from the docks; and we do not dis- trust our ability to defend ourselves in our harbors and on the high seas, even if we must unhappily be precipitated, through injustice in Europe, into a foreign war. Mr. Seward to Mr. Marsh. July 29, 1863. — The statement you have given me of a decline of confidence in the success of this government in suppressing the insurrection, which is exhibited in Europe, has been carefully con- sidered, in connection with similar information which was contained as well in a former despatch of your own as in the communications of others of our representatives on that continent. I freely confess that the fact is regarded with sincere and profound regret. It can- not be admitted, however, that this unfavorable opinion is sustained by the argument upon which, according to your statement, it is built; much less that it is sustainable independently of that reason- ing. I think I have had occasion to say heretofore that insurrec- tions are generally strong, vigorous, and energetic in their begin- nings, while well-established governments may be expected to gain strength, vigor, and energy as the struggle for self-defence, to which they are summoned, advances. Eight hundred days are not yet elapsed since this popular gov- ernment, all unused to military action, and destitute of its machin- ery and appliances, was obliged to accept civil war on land and sea. An insurrection, occupying near half of the Union, seized upon the principal military force, the most important navy yards, forts, and arsenals, and employed their guns against the government itself. Every two days of the intervening period witnessed the bringing of a new and effective ship-of-war, with a hundred seamen and ma- rines, into the naval service, as well as the gathering into camps of two thousand soldiers, practically, all of whom were volunteers. 390 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. The achievements of our land and naval forces have been equally brilliant and effective. Our marches and sieges have, I think, seldom been excelled. Certainly the area of the government's authority has been so continually enlarged, that the rebellion has retired within a compass altogether too small to maintain an inde- pendent state. We have regained the most important of our sea- ports, while we hold all others in close siege; and we are now trav- ersing, unchecked, all the great rivers and lakes of the country from their outlets to their sources. Now, at the close of two years of war, what are the respective conditions of the belligerent parties? We are bringing out new and effective ships, and increasing our naval marine, more rapidly than before, and we are gathering into camps a force adequate to repair all the waste of the war. Our national credit is stronger than it was when the war began, and is equal to that which almost any other government holds, though in a state of profound peace. Can those who forbode our downfall show us where the forces and the material and the credit of the insurgents lie concealed? To us, it seems as if they are nearing the point of exhaustion. It is, under the circumstances, eminently to be desired that the confidence of foreign nations in the success of the government should not be lost. It is to be regretted that there may be nations whose forbearance from interfering with us would give way with. their respect for our strength and power. If, however, we are destined now to encounter foreign complications, let us be thankful that they have been delayed so long. We shall be found, when they come, with an army, a navy, and a treasury not only adequate, as we think, to self-defence, but also befitting the continent and the cause we shall then be defending against nations whom we have never wronged, and who are quite as deeply interested in our friendship, as we, unhappily, are in their forbearance towards our- selves. · Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams. 1 July 30, 1863. The concurrence of many important incidents en- titles us to regard the present hour as a crisis of our civil war. The campaign in Virginia, Ohio, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Louisiana, although it had been well matured, and was prosecuted with great assiduity and unsurpassed heroism, was, nevertheless, attended, until recently, by discouraging delays, reverses, and disasters. The WAR WITH GREAT BRITAIN. 391 insurgents had gotten up with much skill and energy a loan abroad, based on an assumption of their eventual success, which seemed to promise them an available and durable credit in the European mar- ket. This achievement enabled them to employ, without stint, many artificers of Great Britain, and some other countries, in fur- nishing all the materials and machinery of land and naval warfare, while they threatened to constrain the world's manufactures into an advocacy of their sovereignty and independence. Successes like these procured for them political agencies in France and Great Britain, which, repressing the national sentiments of those coun- tries, and stifling even their sympathies with the cause of progress and humanity in Europe as well as in America, made it seem for a time, at least, probable that the two powers, which are the most do- minating and, therefore, the most interested in the stability of this nation with its free government and liberal institutions, would com- bine to overthrow, devastate and destroy whatever of government, commerce, and culture had been created on this continent. The conspiracy against our country, which thus flourished apparently unchecked in so many of the slave states, and which had effected ch startling combinations in Europe, borrowed aid which cannot condemned or deplored too much from interests in the loyal es that counselled the obtaining of peace, indolence, personal mptions and partisan advantages at the imminent hazard, if not he certain cost, of even a dissolution of the Union, and a sur- ler as well of the liberties of the country as of its hitherto sup- d well assured and beneficent destiny. This concurrence of s, favorable to the success of the insurrection, raised the hopes ts authors to a state of presumption. They broke and trampled n the cartels of military exchanges, defied and despised well- pared assaults, set on foot invasions of the loyal states, and de- nded passage and admission for a representative, on equivocal etences, at Washington. Such audacity is of itself, for a season, d in favorable circumstances, no contemptible element of politi- al force. But the imposing fabric of insurgent expectations has been sud- enly shattered. The campaigns, so long unsuccessful, have culmi- ated in victories, which, as a whole, are as demonstrative and ruitful as, perhaps, ever attended any combination of military and aval movements when the theatre was a continent. The basis has 392 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. fallen out of their fiscal system. Their pretended securities sell at the rate of nine cents on the dollar at home, where, at last, their value abroad must always be ascertained. The insurgents must hereafter base their claims on foreign nations for material and capi- tal not, as heretofore, upon promises of speculative profit, but upon the charity of contributors. France and Great Britain, re- lieved of artificial and exaggerated importunities, will have abun- dant leisure to consider the morality and justice of recognition, as well as the possible dangers and evils which may attend the attempt to renew European domination on a continent that, with very opposite ideas of government and social sentiments, is rapidly advancing to an equality in population, wealth and power with Europe itself. It begins to be seen that, although, like every other country, the United States are not exempt from faction, yet, the people need only to see and to realize any new national danger, and time to measure the amount of sacrifices required, to avert it. When they have done this, the last sacrifices are as cheerfully made as the first. Arrogance, menace, and military severity on the part of the insurgents have given place to spasmodic demands for new and final levies of men and money, now discovered to be essenti for mere self-defence. rn What is the instruction of this crisis? I do not forget that y especially civil war, is capricious. I know very well that the r bow, which appears when the clouds have parted, is not alwa sure sign that even worse tempests are not gathering in the poli skies. Nevertheless we must act upon such indications as Pi dence is pleased to favor us with, always applying to them the of experience. One of the instructions of experience is, that, ally, a short and convulsive life is appointed to factions, w nations, like individuals, though obliged to encounter many cessive and fearful dangers, are yet created to endure and fr great ends. So we regard the present stage of this contest reassuring us of the ultimate deliverance of the country, a the salvation, in their full extent, of its territory and its fr institutions. At the moment, however, when we are accepting this satisfactor view, we find that we are drifting, notwithstanding our most ear est and vigorous resistance, towards a war with Great Britain Our commerce on the high seas is perishing under the devastatio OFFENSIVE ALLIANCE OF FRANCE AND ENGLAND. 393 of ships-of-war that are sent out for that purpose from British coasts, by British subjects, and we hear of new corsairs and more formidable armaments of that kind, designed even to dislodge us from the military occupation of insurgent ports and to burn and destroy our principal cities, and these armaments, it is represented to us by imposing British authorities, the government of Great Britain is not authorized by the laws of the realm to restrain. It cannot be deemed offensive to say that at any period of our history when we were not suffering from intestine war, these injuries would not have been borne. At least it is true that they were not attempted until we were seen to have fallen upon the calamities of civil war. Great Britain might ask herself whether, if a similar opportunity for such hostilities should offer, she would consent to bear like assaults upon her commerce and her sovereignty. I know no one point of political calculation more certain than this, that just what the people of Great Britain would do, under defined circumstances, in self-defence, that is what, under the same circum- stances, the people in whose name I am writing must and will do in their own defence. I would, if properly I could, shut out from consideration another element which enters into the case. Great Britain has at no time intimated that, even with the coöperation of France, she would adopt or sanction a war or a hostile policy against the United States. Her government has on apt occasions indicated a very different and much more just disposition. We respect the govern- ment and people of Great Britain for her persistence in these indi- cations. Nevertheless we have the personal authority of the Em- peror of the French for the fact that he has announced to Great Britain that he is willing to follow, if Great Britain will decide to lead the way, in recognizing the insurgents. To give such a recog nition, under the circumstances, would be to them a demonstration more potential than a fleet or an army, while it would authorita- tively sanction the piratical enterprises of British subjects, which, even when disavowed by Great Britain, are proving intolerable to the United States. At the same time it is to be observed that Great Britain as well as France has been explicitly informed by the United States that a recognition of the insurgents would necessarily be deemed by them an unfriendly proceeding. Virtually, there- fore, France invites Great Britain to an alliance offensive and inju- 394 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. rious to the United States. Judging with the light which falls upon our position, such an alliance would be morally wrong, for of what crime against both or either of these two nations, or against any nation, are the United States accused? What unatoned wrong have they done which France and Great Britain are entitled by the law of nations to redress? The United States have fallen, not without forty years of protracted resistance, into a state of civil war which is an inconvenience to other maritime and commercial powers. Has either Great Britain or France, or any other nation, sinned less against the peace of the world than the United States? If ever a nation could plead successfully the irrepressibility of the elements of a civil strife, it is the United States on this occasion. World-planted and cherished African slavery here has audaciously risen up to overthrow a government, the most equal and just that has ever been established among men, and to erect a new one exclu- sively upon the basis of human bondage. The United States refuse to be destroyed or divided by such an agency for such a purpose. It is not easy, on this side of the Atlantic, to conceive how such a civil war can be looked upon with favor, or even with indifference, in Europe. We have, nevertheless, accepted the fact that Great Britain and France do regard this insurrection with favor on the demand of the statesmen and presses which seem most to engage the confidence of the people in those countries. France now requires us to go one step further and to accept the fact that Great Britain and herself ought to vote for the admission of the insurgents into the family of nations. The ground upon which the Emperor favors that extraordinary proceeding is, that it is expected that it would tend to bring our unhappy civil war to a close. His Imperial Majesty seems, to me, to have widely misconstrued the character of the American people. They are a brave and a jealous people; they have made it their chief duty, throughout a whole century, to achieve a national independence, and acquire a continental influ- ence, just like that which France and Great Britain have respec- tively won through the conflicts of eight centuries. The people of the United States undoubtedly desire peace, but they would neither accept a peace that the proposed combination would offer them, nor acquiesce in it if it were possible to force it upon them. European powers can dictate peace, even to Asiatic communities, only by sub- jugating them, and yet they have been undergoing the process of ALLIANCES. 395 CONSEQUENCES. moral decline since the era of Alexander. American society, on the contrary, is in the full vigor of youth; it is too enlightened not to resist extirpation or aggression by foreign powers. I forbear from pressing the consideration that such a proceeding to enforce peace, in the United States, would be immoral, or the consideration that acceptance of a peace thus compelled would be suicidal. Those who should be prepared for an attempt either to subjugate the United States by force or to divide and separate them by foreign influence, could not be expected to apprehend the sensibilities and the senti- ments which prevail among the people whom it is proposed in that extraordinary way to pacify. Certainly, however, it behooves all the parties concerned to con- sider what probably will be the consequences to themselves if the intemperate action of British subjects and the inducement of French alliance shall bring on a war between Great Britain and France and the United States. Suppose it to result in the success of the allies? I have already said that no peace accepted at their hands could endure. Are those allies strong enough to garrison the Amer- ican continent? Will they ever be prepared to guarantee the new slave state, and to hold its ambition for territory and its cupidity for slaves within bounds? And what are the bounds to be pre- scribed? Shall that new slave state be allowed to extend slavery and dominion only throughout the present territory of the United States, or are the anomalous and hateful institutions to be restored in Mexico and throughout Spanish America, including the West India Islands? It has required a term of fifty years and the coöp- erating power of the United States to arrest the African slave trade. How do the supposed allies now expect to prevent its renewal when the United States shall have relapsed into accompliceship with that dreadful traffic? Or is the arrested work of Christianizing Africa, through the missionary enginery of the Middle Passage, to be renewed and carried on to its consummation under the auspices of the supposed allies? Prudent states, even though strong in mutual alliance, must, nevertheless, always take into consideration all the chances of suc- cess and failure. Let us suppose then that the allies shall not succeed in their enterprise, and that the United States shall come unharmed out of the contest. Would there be nothing to appre- hend from the temper of a people who had been, as it would then 396 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. seem, wantonly brought into national conflict on no other pretext than their unwillingness to surrender up their sovereignty and in- dependence? Is there any possession or any interest of France or of Great Britain, domestic or colonial, that would be the better assured to its lawful sovereign after such a war, than it has been heretofore assured, through the justice and forbearance of the United States, so long as they had constituted a nation? There is, moreover, a moral opinion that pervades the world, and when it is excited it works marvellous things in the policy of peo- ples and states. The universal revolution towards popular forms of government received, from the war in which that system was inau- gurated here, an impulse which long continued to force it forward, through unheard-of convulsions in Europe, and which impelled it into triumphant success throughout this continent. Those who con- template an alliance by European monarchial states against the United States may be reasonably expected to consider how long and how far the aggressive governments are likely to be willingly sup- plied with men and the materials for a war that will be deemed to be waged for the suppression of popular institutions. Alliances may, indeed, be made by monarchs and statesmen but, after all, they must depend for support and continuance upon the allied peoples and nations themselves. France and Great Britain are now equals. Alliance between a weak state and a strong one has sometimes been preserved through several generations when the states were separate and remote; but I think there has been no case in which a voluntary alliance has permanently held two equal independent states through a long war without producing in one or in both of them changes that, had they been foreseen, would have been sufficient, by way of warning, to prevent the formation of the alliance. The statesmen of France and of Great Britain, if the project of an alliance were indeed seriously entertained, could not, I think, begin too soon to study how the expenses and the losses, and the profits and benefits, which must attend or follow it, shall be equitably allotted between the two countries. I have thus surveyed not only our domestic situation, but also the entire position of our relations with the chief maritime powers, not because it is seriously apprehended here that either alone or in alliance with France, Great Britain is now about to adopt the injurious and unfriendly measure which the Emperor of France has SERIOUS TOPICS DISCUSSED. 397 indicated, but because the survey furnishes a basis for the renewal, under the President's instructions, of a suggestion which has for some time been held in abeyance, namely, that all the misunder- standings which have arisen between the United States and Great Britain, including those which now seem to be causing the two coun- tries to be drifting towards a conflict which must be calamitous, are due to the premature recognition of the insurgents as a belligerent power, and that two years of experience have confirmed the wisdom and the justice of the protest that this government made against that extraordinary proceeding. The insurrection, notwithstanding the incalculable benefits it has received from that most unfortunate measure, has, nevertheless, languished from the very beginning, and has now descended so low that manifestly it would perish at once, if it were left, like the late insurrection in India, like the insurrection which a few years ago occurred in Canada, like the chronic insurrections in Spanish America, or even like the insurrec- tion now raging in Poland, to stand by means of its own strength, not as a recognized belligerent, but as a domestic party, aiming to revolutionize the government that it refuses to obey. I know how difficult it would be for the government of Great Britain all at once to reverse the policy of which we have never ceased to complain, even though it might be conceded that the policy bad been unnec- essarily adopted. But every new demand that is made upon that government for toleration of designs hostile to the United States relates back to the premature recognition of the insurgents as a belligerent, and strains to convert it into not merely a recognition of their sovereignty, but into actual war against the United States. Recurring to the sentiments which the President expressed in the beginning of these unhappy troubles, I am authorized to tender to Great Britain assurances of the desire of the United States for the removal of every cause of alienation, and for the reëstablishment of the relations between them on the foundations of common interest and of affections and sympathies which, if left unopposed, would hold them together in the bonds of enduring friendship. We invite her to weigh these advantages against the promised benefits of any hostile alliance that she can form against us. We are yet friends, though that friendship has been severely tried. If we must be- come enemies, the responsibility of that unhappy and fearful event. will rest on her Majesty's government and the people of Great Britain. : 398 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. It is not intended that you shall formally communicate the con- tents of this paper to Earl Russell, but that you will use its sugges- tions and arguments in your own discretion if circumstances shall seem to you to require or to favor the introduction of the serious. topics which I have thus discussed. Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams. September 5, 1863. I have bestowed the most thoughtful con- sideration upon your suggestions concerning the importance of avoiding collisions with Great Britain. Your observations concern- ing the importance of more effective measures for arresting the dep- redations of the piratical vessels seem so sagacious, that I have recommended them for the earnest consideration of the Secretary of the Navy. At the same time, you will excuse me for stating the difficulties of enduring, without a resort to extreme measures of resistance, the new invasion which is threatened from the ports of Great Britain. The navy understand that, although the capacities of the Depart- ment have been taxed to the utmost for defensive preparations and, maintaining the blockade, they neither have now, nor can seasonal bly have, vessels that can be spared from the siege of Charleston, adequate to resist the formidable rams which, virtually with the consent of the British Parliament, are within a few weeks to come forth against us from Laird's shipyard. The new vessels which the Lairds are preparing must, therefore, be expected to enter Portland, Boston, New York, or, if they prefer, must attempt to break the blockade at Charleston, or to ascend the Mississippi to New Orleans. Can the British government suppose for a moment that such an as- sault as is thus meditated can be made upon us by British-built, armed, and manned vessels without at once arousing the whole nation, and making a retaliatory war inevitable? Whatever view may be taken of the fortunes of the insurrection in Europe, it is deemed clear in this country that the factious spirit which gave it birth is rapidly declining, and the sentiment of nationality is developing itself anew, with an energy never before known. The nation, after two years of experience of war, has overcome the sense of fear, while its temper is highly excited. It believes that, though found unpre- pared, there are no limits to its ultimate ability for self-defence. It FRANCE AND MEXICO. 399 has a press and a Congress as free and as bold as the press and the Parliament of Great Britain. You have only to listen to the politi cal debates in any part of the country, to learn that the United States would accept an unprovoked foreign war now with more una- nimity and cheerfulness than at any former period. I write this with all the earnestness of conviction, and with all the concern. which one must feel who believes that any foreign war must be only inferior in the dangers it brings, to the domestic war which so many, differing from me, have thought endangered the very existence of my country. I am sure that British statesmen must know that a war between their country and the United States is unnecessary, and that it could bring no resulting benefits to Great Britain. For the interest of both countries and of civilization, I hope they will not let a blow fall from under their hands that will render peace impossible. Mr. Seward to Mr. Dayton. September 21, 1863. The French forces are understood to hold in subjection to the new provisional government established in Mexico three of the states, while all the other constituent members of the republic of Mexico still remain under its authority. There are already indications of designs, in those states, to seek aid in the United States, with the consent of this government, if attainable, and without it if it shall be refused; and for this purpose inducements are held out, well calculated to excite sympathies in a border popu- lation. The United States has hitherto practised strict neutrality between the French and Mexico, and all the more cheerfully, because it has relied on the assurances given by the French govern- ment that it did not intend permanent occupation of that country or any violence to the sovereignty of its people. The proceedings of the French in Mexico are regarded by many in that country, and in this, as at variance with those assurances. Owing to this circum- stance, it becomes very difficult for this government to enforce a rigid observance of its neutrality laws. The President thinks it de- sirable that you should seek an opportunity to mention these facts. to Mr. Drouyn de l'Huys, and to suggest to him that the interests of the United States, and, as it seems to us, the interests of France herself, require that a solution of the present complications in Mexico be made, as early as may be convenient, upon the basis of the unity and independence of Mexico. I cannot be misinterpret- 400 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. ing the sentiments of the United States in saying that they do not desire an annexation of Mexico, or any part of it; nor do they desire any special interest, control, or influence there, but they are deeply interested in the reëstablishment of unity, peace, and order in the neighboring republic, and exceedingly desirous that there may not arise out of the war in Mexico any cause of alienation between them and France. Insomuch as these sentiments are by no means un- generous, the President unhesitatingly believes that they are the sentiments of the Emperor himself in regard to Mexico. Mr. Seward to Mr. Dayton. September 26, 1863. It is well understood that through a long period, closing in 1860, the manifest strength of this nation was a sufficient protection, for itself and for Mexico, against all foreign states. That power was broken down and shattered in 1861 by faction. The first fruit of our civil war was a new, and in effect, though not intentionally so, an unfriendly attitude assumed by Great Britain, France, and Spain, all virtually, and the two first- named powers avowedly, moving in concert. While I cannot con- fess to a fear on the part of this government that any one or all of the maritime powers combining with the insurgents could overthrow it, yet it would have been manifestly presumptuous, at any time since this distraction seized the American people, to have provoked such an intervention, or to have spared any allowable means of pre- venting it. The unceasing efforts of this Department in that direction have resulted from this ever-present consideration. If in its communications the majestic efforts of the government to subdue the insurrection, and to remove the temptation which it offered to foreign powers, have not figured so largely as to impress my corres- pondents with the conviction that the President relies always mainly on the national power, and not on the forbearance of those who it is apprehended may become its enemies, it is because the duty of drawing forth and directing the armed power of the nation has rested upon distinct departments, while to this one belonged the especial duty of holding watch against foreign insult, intrusion, and intervention. With these general remarks I proceed to explain the President's views in regard to the first of the two questions men- tioned, namely, the attitude of France in regard to the civil war in the United States. FRANCE, MEXICO, AND THE WAR. 401 We know from many sources, and even from the Emperor's direct statement, that, on the breaking out of the insurrection, he adopted the current opinion of European statesmen that the efforts of this government to maintain and preserve the Union would be unsuc- cessful. To this prejudgment we attribute his agreement with Great Britain to act in concert with her upon the questions which might arise out of the insurrection; his concession of a belligerent character to the insurgents; his repeated suggestions of accommo- dation by this government with the insurgents; and his conferences on the subject of a recognition. It would be disingenuous to with- hold an expression of the national conviction that these proceedings of the Emperor have been very injurious to the United States, by encouraging and thus prolonging the insurrection. On the other hand, no statesman of this country is able to conceive of a reasona- ble motive, on the part of either France or the Emperor, to do or to wish injury to the United States. Every statesman of the United States cherishes a lively interest in the welfare and greatness of France, and is content that she shall enjoy peacefully and in unbounded prosperity the administration of the Emperor she has chosen. We have not an acre of territory or a port which we think France can wisely covet; nor has she any possession that we could accept if she would resign it into our hands. Nevertheless, when recurring to what the Emperor has already done, we cannot, at any time, feel assured that, under mistaken impressions of our exposure, he might not commit himself still further in the way of encourage- ment and aid to the insurgents. We know their intrigues in Paris are not to be lightly regarded. While the Emperor has held an un- prable opinion of our national strength and unity, we, on the con- ry, have as constantly indulged entire confidence in both. Not rely the course of events, but that of time, also, runs against the insurgents and reinvigorates the national strength and power. desire, therefore, that he may have the means of understanding the actual condition of affairs in our country. We wish to avoid any- thing calculated to irritate France, or to wound the just pride and proper sensibilities of that spirited nation, and thus to free our claim to her forbearance, in our present political emergency, from any cloud of passion or prejudice. Pursuing this course, the President. hopes that the prejudgment of the Emperor against the stability of the Union may the sooner give way to convictions which will We 26 402 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. modify his course, and bring him back again to the traditional friendship which he found existing between this country and his own, when, in obedience to her voice, he assumed the reins of em- pire. These desires and purposes do not imply either a fear of French hostility, or any neglect of a prudent posture of national self-reliance. The subject upon which I propose to remark, in the second place, is the relation of France towards Mexico. The United States hold, in regard to Mexico, the same principles that they hold in regard to all other nations. They have neither a right nor a disposition to inter- vene by force in the internal affairs of Mexico, whether to establish and maintain a republic or even a domestic government there, or to overthrow an imperial or a foreign one, if Mexico chooses to estab- lish or accept it. The United States have neither the right nor the disposition to intervene by force on either side in the lamentable war which is going on between France and Mexico. On the con- trary, they practise in regard to Mexico, in every phase of that war, the non-intervention which they require all foreign powers to observe in regard to the United States. But, notwithstanding this self-restraint, this government knows full well that the inherent normal opinion of Mexico favors a government there republican in form and domestic in its organization, in preference to any monarch- ical institutions to be imposed from abroad. This government knows, also, that this normal opinion of the people of Mexico resulted largely from the influence of popular opinion in this country, and is continually invigorated by it. The President be- lieves, moreover, that this popular opinion of the United States is just in itself, and eminently essential to the progress of civiliza on the American continent, which civilization, it believes, can will, if left free from European resistance, work harmonio together with advancing refinement on the other continents. This government believes that foreign resistance, or attempts to control American civilization, must and will fail before the ceaseless and ever-increasing activity of material, moral, and political forces, which peculiarly belong to the American continent. Nor do the United States deny that, in their opinion, their own safety and the cheerful destiny to which they aspire are intimately dependent on the continuance of free republican institutions throughout America. They have submitted these opinions to the Emperor of France, on FRANCE, MEXICO, AND THE WAR. 403 proper occasions, as worthy of his serious consideration, in deter- mining how he would conduct and close what might prove a success- ful war in Mexico. Nor is it necessary to practise reserve upon the point, that if France should, upon due consideration, determine to adopt a policy in Mexico adverse to the American opinions and sentiments which I have described, that policy would probably scatter seeds which would be fruitful of jealousies, which might ultimately ripen into collision between France and the United States and other American republics. An illustration of this danger has occurred already. Political rumor, which is always mis- chievous, one day ascribes to France a purpose to seize the Rio Grande, and wrest Texas from the United States; another day rumor advises us to look carefully to our safety on the Mississippi; another day we are warned of coalitions to be formed, under French patronage, between the regency established in Mexico and the in- surgent cabal at Richmond. The President apprehends none of these things. He does not allow himself to be disturbed by suspi- cions so unjust to France and so unjustifiable in themselves; but he knows, also, that such suspicions will be entertained more or less. extensively by this country, and magnified in other countries equally unfriendly to France and to America; and he knows, also, that it is out of such suspicions that the fatal web of national animosity is most frequently woven. He believes that the Emperor of France must experience desires as earnest as our own for the preservation of that friendship between the two nations which is so full of guarantees of their common prosperity and safety. Thinking this, the Presi- dent would be wanting in fidelity to France, as well as to our own ntry, if he did not converse with the Emperor with entire sin- ty and friendship upon the attitude which France is to assume egard to Mexico. The statements made to you by M. Drouyn de l'Huys, concerning the Emperor's intentions, are entirely satis- factory, if we are permitted to assume them as having been author- ized to be made by the Emperor in view of the present condition of affairs in Mexico. It is true, as I have before remarked, that the Emperor's purposes may hereafter change with changing circum- stances. We, ourselves, however, are not unobservant of the progress of events at home and abroad; and in no case are we likely to neglect such provision for our own safety, as every sover- eign state must always be prepared to fall back upon when nations 404 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. with which they have lived in friendship cease to respect their moral and treaty obligations. Your own discretion will be your guide as to how far the public interests will be promoted by submit- ting these views to the consideration of M. Drouyn de l'Huys. Mr. Seward to Mr. Dayton. October 5, 1863. Any statesman who has observed how inflex- ibly this government adheres to the policy of peace and non-inter- vention, would not need to be informed that the report of an alli- ance by us with Russia for European war is an absurdity. So, also, no one who knows how completely the American people suffer themselves to be absorbed in the duty of suppressing the present unhappy insurrection, and restoring the authority of the Union, would for a moment believe that we are preparing for or meditat- ing a future war against any nation, for any purpose whatever, much less that we are organizing or contemplating a future war against France, whom it is our constant desire to hold and retain as a friend, through all the vicissitudes of political fortune, and all the changes of national life. You are authorized to say to Mr. Drouyn de l'Huys that his explanations are entirely satisfactory to the President. I may, perhaps, not improperly improve this occasion by saying that the executive government of this country has no organ in the press. Its views and sentiments in regard to France, as to all other countries, can be known always by the language of its diplomatic represent- atives, for it instructs them minutely, and directs them to speak always frankly and sincerely. The Emperor has an acknowledged organ in the press. Its utterances, if unfriendly or equivocal, ne sarily produce distrust among the American people. When t see in the columns of the "Moniteur" opinions derogatory of them- selves, and calculated to give satisfaction and encouragement to their enemies, it is necessarily, but doubtless erroneously, assumed that they are inspired. Several such publications have recently ap- peared there, and it is not remembered that one utterance in the spirit of the friendship of old France has been made by that paper since our unhappy controversy exposed us to the intrigues of our domestic enemies in foreign countries. I have thus laid bare a living and fruitful root of jealousies be- tween France and the United States. We do not claim that France FRANCE, RUSSIA.. THE PRESS. 405 shall be our friend. We do not insist that she shall judge us or our cause favorably or kindly. On the other hand, it need not be said that unfavorable judgments and unkind sentiments invariably pro- duce ultimate alienation. Everybody knows that the United States are the habitual well-wishers of France, as they are of Russia. Ev- erybody knows that Russia is a well-wisher of the United States, but everybody is not satisfied that France is a well-wisher of the United States. I think everybody agrees that the responsibility for this does not rest with the United States. Where, then, does it fall? The Emperor joined Great Britain in recognizing our in- surgents as belligerents, and in attempting to derogate us from our position as a sovereign, the treaty friend of both countries, into a position of equality with the seditious disturbers of our peace. think that this proceeding was unnecessary, as we know it has been injurious. It tries the temper of the American people more severely than we have ever tried that of France in her domestic troubles, Is it wise to let the which have been more frequent than our own. unfortunate act be followed by needless manifestations of French disfavor to our cause in the war which we are so energetically en- deavoring to bring to a close? Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams. We October 5, 1863. I have had the honor to receive and to sub- mit to the President your despatch of the 17th of September, which relates to the iron-clad vessels built at Laird's ship-yards for war against the United States, and which is accompanied by a very interesting correspondence that has taken place on that subject between yourself and Earl Russell. The positions you have taken in this correspondence are ap- proved. It is indeed a cause of profound concern, that, notwithstanding an engagement which the President has accepted as final, there still remains a doubt whether those vessels will be prevented from com- ing out, according to the original hostile purposes of the enemies of the United States residing in Great Britain. You have, how- ever, exhausted the argument upon that subject; nor do I perceive that your exposition can be improved or materially reinforced. Earl Russell remarks, that her Majesty's government having pro- claimed neutrality, have in good faith exerted themselves to main- 406 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. tain it. I have not to say now for the first time, that however satisfactory that position may be to the British nation, it does not at all relieve the gravity of the question in the United States. The proclamation of neutrality was a concession of belligerent rights to the insurgents, and was deemed by this government as unnec- essary, and in effect as unfriendly, as it has since proved injurious to this country. The successive preparations of hostile naval ex- peditions in Great Britain are regarded here as fruits of that injuri- ous proclamation. Earl Russell adds, that the United States have derived some mili- tary supplies from Great Britain, and enlisted many British subjects in their cause. But it can hardly be denied that neither such sup- plies nor such men would have been necessary, if Great Britain had not, so far as she was concerned, first raised the insurgents to the position of belligerents. Neither the government of Great Britain, nor any other recognized party, has contended, or can contend, that the United States have violated any municipal law, or any treaty, or the law of nations, or even comity towards the British govern- ment, in the proceedings by which they have received as merchan- dise supplies derived from British sources, and have accepted Brit- ish subjects voluntarily residing in our own country, and volun- tarily enlisting as soldiers and seamen in maintaining the cause of the Union. It is hardly necessary to say that the United States stand upon what they think impregnable ground, when they refuse to be derogated, by any act of British government, from their posi- tion as a sovereign nation in amity with Great Britain, and placed upon a footing of equality with domestic insurgents who have risen up in resistance against their authority. It does not remain for us even to indicate to Great Britain the serious consequences which must ensue, if the iron-clads shall come forth upon their work of destruction. They have been fully re- vealed to yourself, and you have made them known to Earl Russell, within the restraints which an honest and habitual respect for the government and the people of Great Britain imposes. It seems to me that her Majesty's government might be expected to perceive and appreciate them, even if we were henceforth silent upon the subject. When our unhappy civil war broke out, we distinctly con- fessed that we knew what great temptations it offered to foreign intervention and aggression, and that in no event could such inter- FRANCE, RUSSIA. THE NAVY. 407 vention or aggression be endured. It was apparent that such ag- gression, if it should come, must travel over the seas, and therefore must be met and encountered, if at all, by maritime resistance. We addressed ourselves to prepare the means of such resistance. We have now a navy, not indeed as ample as we proposed, but yet one which we feel assured is not altogether inadequate to the purposes of self-defence, and it is yet rapidly increasing in men, material, and engines of war. Besides this regular naval force, the President has asked, and Congress has given him, authority to convert the mercantile marine into armed squadrons, by the issue of letters of marque and reprisal. All the world might see, if it would, that the great arm of naval defençe has not been thus invigorated for the mere purpose of maintaining a blockade, or enforcing our au- thority against the insurgents, for practically they have never had an open port, or built and armed, nor could they from their own re- sources build and arm, a single ship of war. Every European states- man who knows anything of our history, or even of the nature of our complex republican institutions, understands full well that we are building a navy not for ulterior, or even immediate foreign war, but for self-defence. Thus, the world is left free to under- stand that our measures of maritime war are intended to resist maritime aggression, which is constantly threatened from abroad, and even more constantly apprehended at home. That it would be employed for that purpose, if such aggression should be at- tempted, would seem certain, unless, indeed, there should be reason to suppose that the people do not in this respect approve of the policy and sympathize with the sentiments of the executive govern- But the resistance of foreign aggression by all the means in our power, and at the hazard, if need be, of the national life itself, is the one point of policy on which the American people seem to be unanimous, and in complete harmony with the President. This is no menace of war to Great Britain; it is simply an assumption of the position of self-defence against a naval enemy, from whatever quarter he may come. Need I add, that this position is not affected by the character in which the enemy may come, whether under the authority and bearing the flag of a foreign state, or as an unauthor- ized invader, defying the authority of his own state, while seeking to invade our own. If, then, we shall become engaged with such an ment. enemy, whether he comes from Great Britain, or from France, or ! 408 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. from Russia, what must be the limit of our resistance? The law of nations says that the only limit is that which can be defined by ascertaining the magnitude of the public danger. Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams. October 6, 1863. - The United States understand that the Ala- bama is a pirate ship-of-war, roving over the seas, capturing, burn- ing, sinking and destroying American vessels, without any lawful authority from the British government or from any other sovereign power, in violation of the law of nations, and contemptuously defy- ing all judicial tribunals equally of Great Britain and all other states. The United States understand that she was purposely built. for war against the United States by British subjects in a British port, and prepared there to be armed and equipped with a specified armament adapted to her construction for the very piratical career which she is now pursuing; that her armament and equipment, duly adapted to this ship-of-war and no other, were simultaneously prepared by the same British subjects in a British port, to be placed on board to complete her preparation for that career; that when she was ready and her armament and equipment were equally ready, she was clandestinely and by connivance sent by her British holders, and the armament and equipment were at the same time clandestinely sent through the same connivance by the British subjects who had prepared them, to a common port outside of British waters, and there the armament and equipment of the Alabama as a ship-of-war were completed, and she was sent forth on her work of destruction with a crew chiefly of British subjects, enlisted in and proceeding from a British port, in fraud of the laws of Great Britain, and in violation of the peace and sovereignty of the United States. The United States understand that the purpose of the building, armament and equipment, and expedition of the vessel, was one single criminal intent, running equally through the building and the equipment and the expedition, and fully completed and executed when the Alabama was finally despatched, and that this intent brought the whole transaction of building, armament and equipment within the lawful jurisdiction of Great Britain, where the main features of the crime were executed. The United States understand that they gave sufficient and adequate notice to the British government, that this wrongful enterprise was begun THE ALABAMA CLAIMS. 409 ļ and was being carried out to its completion; and that upon receiv- ing this notice, her Majesty's government were bound by treaty obligations and by the law of nations to prevent its execution, and that if the diligence which was due had been exercised by the Brit- ish government the expedition of the Alabama would have been prevented, and the wrongful enterprise of British subjects would have been defeated. The United States confess that some effort was made by her Majesty's government, but it was put forth too late and was too soon abandoned. Upon these principles of law and these assumptions of fact, the United States do insist, and must continue to insist, that the British government is justly responsible for the damages which the peaceful, law-abiding citizens of the United States sustain by the depredations of the Alabama. I can- not, therefore, instruct you to refrain from presenting the claims which you have now in your hands of the character indicated.¹ In saying this, however, it is not to be understood that the United States intend to act dogmatically or in a litigious spirit. They are seriously and earnestly desirous to maintain not only peace, but even amity, with Great Britain. They understand how unavoidably grievances have reciprocally arisen out of the diver- gence of policies which the two countries have adopted in regard to the present insurrection. This government thinks it understands, and in some measure appreciates, the difficulties and embarrass- ments under which her Majesty's government are laboring, result- ing from the pressure of interests and combinations of British sub- jects calculated to compromise the neutrality which her Majesty has proclaimed, and tending even to involve the two nations in a destructive maritime war. This government confesses very freely that it does not regard the present hour as one that is entirely favorable to a calm and candid examination of either the facts or the principles involved in such cases as the Alabama. It looks forward to a period when our intestine war shall have ceased, and the inter- ests and passions which it has awakened abroad as well as at home shall have subsided and disappeared. Though indulging a confident belief in the correctness of our positions in regard to the claims in question, and others, we shall be willing at all times hereafter, as well as now, to consider the evidence and the arguments which her Majesty's government may offer, to show that they are invalid, and 1 Earl Russell had requested that no more such claims might be presented. 410 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. if we shall not be convinced, there is no fair and just form of con- ventional arbitrament or reference to which we shall not be willing to submit them. Entertaining these views, the President thinks it proper for you to inform Earl Russell that you must continue to give him notice of claims of the character referred to when they arise, and that you shall propose to furnish him the evidence upon which they rest, as is customary in such cases, in order to guard against ultimate failure of justice. If he shall decline to receive the evidence, you will cause it to be duly registered and preserved, to be presented when a suitable occasion shall hereafter occur for re- newing and urging prosecution of the claims. Mr. Seward to Mr. Dayton. October 23, 1863. — I have the honor to acknowledge the recep- tion of your despatch of the 9th instant, which brings me the views expressed by Mr. Drouyn de l'Huys concerning the situation in Mexico. Various considerations have induced the President to avoid taking any part in the speculative debates bearing on that situation which have been carried on in the capitals of Europe as well as in those of America. A determination to err on the side of strict neutrality, if we err at all, in a war which is carried on be- tween two nations with which the United States are maintaining relations of amity and friendship, was prominent among the consid- erations to which I have thus referred. The United States, nevertheless, when invited by France or Mexico, cannot omit to express themselves with perfect frankness upon new incidents, as they occur, in the progress of that war. Mr. Drouyn de l'Huys now speaks of an election which he expects to be held in Mexico, and to result in the choice of his Imperial High- ness the Prince Maximilian of Austria to be Emperor of Mexico. We learn from other sources that the prince has declared his will- ingness to accept an imperial throne in Mexico on three conditions, namely: first, that he shall be called to it by the universal suffrage of the Mexican nation; secondly, that he shall receive indispensable guarantees for the integrity and independence of the proposed em- pire; and thirdly, that the head of his family, the Emperor of Aus- tria, shall acquiesce. Referring to these facts, Mr. Drouyn de l'Huys intimates that an early acknowledgment of the proposed empire by the United States MAXIMILIAN AS EMPEROR OF MEXICO. 411 would be convenient to France, by relieving her, sooner than might be possible under other circumstances, from her troublesome com- plications in Mexico. Happily the French government has not been left uninformed that, in the opinion of the United States, the permanent establish- ment of a foreign and monarchical government in Mexico will be found neither easy nor desirable. You will inform Mr. Drouyn de l'Huys that this opinion remains unchanged. On the other hand, the United States cannot anticipate the action of the people of Mexico, nor have they the least purpose or desire to interfere with their proceedings, or control or interfere with their free choice, or disturb them in the enjoyment of whatever institutions of govern- ment they may, in the exercise of an absolute freedom, establish. It is proper, also, that Mr. Drouyn de l'Huys should be informed that the United States continue to regard Mexico as the theatre of a war which has not yet ended in the subversion of the government long existing there, with which the United States remain in the relation of peace and sincere friendship; and that, for this reason, the United States are not now at liberty to consider the question of recognizing a government which, in the further chances of war, may come into its place. The United States, consistently with their principles, can do no otherwise than leave the destinies of Mexico in the keeping of her own people, and recognize their sovereignty and independence in whatever form they themselves shall choose that this sovereignty and independence shall be manifested. Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams. November 30, 1863.-Adhering to our American policy of non- interference in the affairs of other countries, I shall not engage in speculations upon the probable effects of the proposition of the Em- peror of France for a European congress. I may properly observe, however, in that connection, that it seems as if, abroad as well as at home, the course of political ideas, which was so rudely broken by the unhappy insurrection in this country, is resuming its natural and accustomed order. European statesmen and governments must, in the main, be so far content with governing Europe as to leave to the statesmen and govern- ments of America the responsibilities of regulating affairs on this continent. We all see clearly enough how much American affairs 412 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. have been embarrassed rather than relieved by the attention they have engaged in Europe. This return of normal ideas is very observable in this country. The efforts to substitute anarchical proceedings for the constitutional operation of the Federal government have at last been submitted to the test of popular election in the loyal states, with all the advan- tage to be gained by indirection of manner as well as by the dis- contents which a fearful civil war, so long conducted without deci- sive results, could afford. The result is, that the national habit of reliance upon the constitutional administration is restored, even at the cost of the social and political changes which it is foreseen must result from the removal of the dominating institution of slavery. Apprehensions that the aggrandizement of the United States as a commercial power can bring any practical inconvenience or danger to European states can disturb none but visionary minds. We can never be dangerous, unless we are armed. We were never so great, and yet never so completely unarmed, as we were when this civil war broke out. We were never before so shorn of national pres- tige as we are now, through the operation of domestic faction; yet we have never before been so strongly armed as we are at this mo- ment, upon land and water. If we have ever been aggressive, it was the interest of slavery that made us belligerent abroad, as it was the same interest that has now afflicted ourselves with civil war. We can be only a peaceful nation if we are left to enjoy our inde- pendence in the way that our destiny leads us. We can only be- come a disturber of the world's peace by being called into the world to defend that independence. I do not know in what way Great Britain and France may think it expedient to reverse the injurious policy they have hitherto pur- sued in regard to us, but I think that in order to direct their atten- tion with more earnestness to European affairs, they must soon come to the conclusion that it is wise to remit American affairs ex- clusively to the government of the United States. Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams. January 15, 1864. I thank you for calling my attention to the significant declaration, in a leading British journal, that, as for Great Britain, in regard to the two greatest risks and largest fields of danger, her securities are of a very opposite character that she BRITISH AGGRESSIONS. 413 INDEMNITY. depends upon peace in Europe, and war in America: upon war in America, because it is only too probable that a restoration of the national authority here, upon any terms, would be immediately fol- lowed by what are described as "most preposterous" demands upon Great Britain. That the policy which her Majesty's government have thought proper to pursue in regard to the insurrection existing in this country has resulted in producing many grave claims on behalf of our citizens is a fact which manifestly appears in the diplomatic records of both countries. That these claims are sustained here by a deep and pervading popular conviction of their justice is apparent to all who weigh, however carelessly, the daily utterances of the organs of public opinion. It is, indeed, a question of deep interest to both countries, whether this condition of things will generate, when our domestic peace shall have been restored, a policy of un- reasonable and litigious exactions upon the British government. We may safely refer to our correspondence with her Majesty's govern- ment to prove that the government of the United States does not desire such disturbed relations as a consequence of our war, while, if it be not disrespectful, I may add, that we are satisfied that her Majesty's government sincerely deprecates it. I do not apprehend, therefore, that the British government will take or pursue the policy indicated in the quarter to which I have alluded, with a view to a prolongation of our civil war. That war has its evils and dangers for Great Britain, and for Europe, as well as for the United States, and for the American continent. Whatever errors or misconcep- tions may have heretofore prevailed in Europe in regard to the causes of the insurrection, and the freedom of this government from responsibility to the country and to mankind for its existence, and even for its duration, those errors and misapprehensions are now speedily clearing away, and it is daily becoming more apparent that the insurrection has derived its main support from European sym- pathies, and rests all its future hopes upon European aid and recog- nition. I may even go further, and say that the British realm and British provinces already are seen to be the basis of the naval war which the insurgents affect to wage against our country; and that British capital and British seamen are seen to constitute the chief resource and strength of the pretended belligerent. I should not distrust the ultimate judgment of the British nation in our favor, 414 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. and against its own government, if that government should pursue henceforth a policy calculated to protract the unhappy contest. Nor will I do the government any more than the nation so great a wrong as to believe that it could deliberately lend itself to any sys- tem of administration that would be calculated to injure or en- danger the safety, peace, and welfare of a kindred and friendly nation. The President has never failed to forecast the dangers of aliena- tion between Great Britain and the United States, arising out of their civil war and surviving it; hence the earnestness of his increas- ing remonstrances against the concession of belligerent rights, and the continuance of that concession; hence his willingness to hear, and his promptness in seeking to adjust, the reasonable claims of British subjects, and meet the just expectations of her Majesty's government; hence the cheerfulness with which he has hastened to negotiate treaties designed to settle even difficulties which existed. before the war, and to change early policies that favored discord be- tween the two countries. It is his purpose to pursue this course to the end of bis administration, and so far as it shall be possible, to impress upon the habitual policy of the government a friendly and even fraternal disposition towards Great Britain, so that the two nations may go on harmoniously together, favoring everywhere the development of just principles of free, responsible government, and the progress of a humane civilization, especially in Central and Southern America, and in the portions of the Eastern world now being reopened to Western commerce. The pursuit of this policy is not unattended by many embarrass- ments. Nothing but military disasters, not now apprehended, could induce the American people to believe themselves incompetent to grapple with all the foreign dangers incident to the fullest asser- tion of their rights, and a full redress of their wrongs, while, like every other nation, they naturally view these rights and wrongs under the influence of self-esteem, perhaps not altogether free from prejudices disparaging to other nations; nevertheless, the policy is practicable, and may be successfully established. They are only superficial observers who assume that the United States are a litig- ious and contentious nation, and who reason from that assumption that, when they shall have gained the blessings of internal peace, they will be found impatient for aggressive foreign war. I know BRITISH AGGRESSIONS. 415 INDEMNITY. that we have such interpreters in our public press; but they reason from the excitement of the present hour, not from the normal temperament of the American people. We have a continent to bring forward to a higher state of development and civilization than even Europe and the United States have yet attained. We have need to extend throughout the world a foreign commerce, which is an inevitable outgrowth of our internal commerce. We have insti- tutions of self-government to maintain. These are most effect- ually maintained by commending them to the favorable opinion of mankind, and they can be so commended by showing that, in their practical operation, they do not instigate violence either at home or abroad, but are conservative of law, order, and universal peace. But it is manifestly needful to the success of the President's policy that a corresponding spirit shall direct the action of the Brit- ish government during the period which shall intervene before our domestic peace is restored. Mr. Seward to Mr. Pike. February 15, 1864. Laborious efforts have been made from time to time, chiefly by British statesmen, to prove that the conces- sion of a belligerent naval character by their government to the insurgents in this country was right, and even that it was necessary. The United States have never conceded either the justice or the necessity of that proceeding, but, on the contrary, they declared at first, and have ever since maintained, that it was as ungenerous and unfriendly as it was exceptional. Having been followed by the concurrence of the other maritime powers, as it is understood in some cases upon considerations of prudence, and in others upon the suggestions of sympathy with Great Britain, that important meas- ure has secured to none of the maritime powers any real advantage, while it has deeply affected the United States. Steadily adhering to the prudent policy which their exposed condition suggested, they are at last surmounting what other states have insisted upon regarding as fatal dangers. But, as they feel more assured of com- ing out of the revolutionary storm, the people of this country become more and more keenly sensible of the injuries which they received from friendly hands during their peril. European states- men, on the other hand, are beginning to consider what will be the form and measure of the atonement that the United States will 416 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. claim at the hands of states which unnecessarily and unkindly have lent aid and sympathies to the insurgents. It is to be expected, of course, that the United States, after pass- ing the present crisis, will seek to maintain the position they have hitherto held in the commonwealth of nations, and to improve the resources with which Providence has blessed them. But it is no secret that the President thinks justice and magnanimity are safer and surer guides for a republic than jealousy and aggression. It is, moreover, hardly to be expected of any people that they will be content to practise these virtues towards other nations which perse- vere in injurious and wantonly offensive courses. Desirous, there- fore, that when our domestic war shall cease, the natural controver- sies that grew out of it may also be brought to an end, I have been authorized, whenever circumstances seemed propitious, to invite the maritime powers to reëxamine their attitude and to resume their original relations towards the United States. I know how hard it is for a state to retrace an erroneous course so long as it can be fol- lowed without immediate peril; and therefore I am not surprised or discouraged with the failure that has thus far attended the appeals which we have made not more earnestly in the present interest of our national cause than in the ultimate interest of universal peace and harmony. But if we are right in our belief that the American Union is coming safely and purified out of the fire through which, for its early acceptance of human bondage as a political element in its organization, it was doomed to pass, then it is clear that the maritime powers would do wisely in promptly receding from the position which, in a moment of precipitancy, they unwisely adopted in regard to the insurrection. If the United States survive the struggle, all of the maritime powers must, sooner or later, revise their attitude of which we complain. The power that first perceives and performs this duty will be distinguished, and will reap the rewards of wisdom and virtue. I am obliged to confess that it is not now expected that the treaty in regard to negro emigration will be ratified. The American peo- ple have advanced to a new position in regard to slavery and the African class since the President, in obedience to their prevailing wishes, accepted the policy of colonization. Now, not only their free labor but their military service also is appreciated and ac- cepted. THE CONDUCT OF THE WAR. 417 Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams. April 22, 1864. — Your inference from the condition of things is, that this government must apply itself with the greatest possible energy to bring the civil war to a speedy and triumphant conclusion, or else it may have reason to expect conflict with Great Britain and with her allies. While, however, we accept this wise counsel, it would be unjust on my part toward the treasury, war, and navy departments if I were to withhold the expression of a thorough and deliberate conviction that the war is conducted with all the energy and skill which any administration of the government of the United States in their circumstances could command. The conflict is indeed a great one, and the ideas and interests which sustain the parties engaged in it render it fierce and obsti- nate. We must, therefore, accept the case as it is a case of severe domestic trial, with continual danger of foreign intervention. We have before us but one line of duty that is, the way of persever- ance. It is the course we have pursued hitherto. It will save us now unless we are to be lost. That this nation can be lost is a conclusion that neither our virtue nor our patriotism nor even our reason can accept. I will not say how great our confidence in the opening campaign is. Events are so near that we can more wisely wait for them than anticipate them. Nor can we prudently forget that of all human transactions those of war are, in their sequence, the most uncertain and capricious, although the ultimate results are a subject of polit- ical calculation. We have the conviction that the national cause is in a far stronger condition now than it has been at any previous stage of the civil war, while the disunion forces seem weaker than at any time heretofore. The maritime powers whose interference is to be apprehended if we shall be unfortunate, seem to me to be somewhat less at liberty to engage against us now than they have hitherto been. I think it certain that we have more friends and fewer enemies abroad now than we have had at former periods of the war. Thus time seems to be favoring us, and time is always the best friend of justice and truth. Nor is it necessary to suppress the conviction, that pacific as the temper of the American people. is, yet that the efforts and sacrifices which they have hitherto made are inconsiderable compared with what they would make if now 27 418 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. assailed by a foreign enemy. Practically there is no longer a hear- ing in the country for a man who counsels fear of the enemy at home; much less would there be a hearing for one who should counsel submission to aggression from abroad. These are the grounds upon which the President builds his hope that we shall pass safely through the trials which are before us. Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams. June 20, 1864. - Your despatch of the 2d of June has been re- ceived. The account you give in it of the credulity exercised in political circles in regard to alleged disasters of our armies is fully sustained by the concurrent expositions of the British press. I per- ceive that it is at last confessed by that press, with entire unanim- ity, that the sympathies and good wishes of the nation are with the insurgents. The British nation has arrived at this stage only now, at the moment when, for the first time, it is made clear that the success of the Union involves directly the extinction of African slavery throughout the world, while the failure of the Union would reinvigorate and perpetuate that greatest solecism of modern civil- ization. All popular sympathies and excitements seem to me to run their course briefly in England. British humanitarians no longer appeal to the world for Poland. They dismiss Garibaldi and united Italy with grace, indeed, but still without practical aid. On the contrary, they reason against military demonstration, and hope, without encouragement, for the failure of the American Union. That illusive hope they will not surrender. Nevertheless, they can- not admit even to themselves that the hope which is so precious arises out of ungenerous motives. We can afford to wait. Time, which has so slowly brought to the British politicians sufficient boldness to confess the sympathies with the armed upholders of slavery, which were heretofore denied, will not long leave the sources. of those deplorable sympathies undisclosed. Nevertheless I cannot hold the British nation altogether responsible. It is misled, not unwillingly, indeed, but still it is misled, by that portion of our own citizens who see in the ruin of slavery the removal of the basis upon which a huge fabric of political strength is permanently built. In short, the struggle in which we are engaged, while it is flagrant with civil war in the insurrectionary states, is at the same time a political revolution within the states which recognize the Union. In CIVIL WAR OUR OWN AFFAIR. 419 this respect our case is not an exceptional one. It is the experience of every nation that falls into civil war. We did well, however, at the beginning, when we disallowed an appeal to European sympa- thies, and declared that we should rely exclusively upon ourselves. It has been very difficult to convince many of our citizens of this; but we are vindicated at last. Let us hope that the strange hallu- cination of the British nation may not, when it ends, be succeeded by lasting resentments and prejudices in either country. Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams. July 28, 1864.-I wish it could be as well understood in Great Britain as it is here, that there is no more any necessity for disturb- ance, or fear of disturbance of the peace between Great Britain and the United States than there is any advantage to accrue to Great Britain from an uncertainty upon that point. The United States are unhappily engaged in a civil war, which, on the side of the gov- ernment, is an involuntary, yet an inevitable and eminently moral contest. Though this is an unusual occurrence in our experience, yet civil war is not exceptional in the general experience of na- tions. This civil war is exclusively our own affair; and if the gov- ernment and people of Great Britain had treated it as such from the first, as rigorously as they habitually treat civil war in the case of other nations, no ill feeling would have been engendered. Dur- ing the latter part of the year 1863, the government of Great Britain manifested a decided determination not only to avoid inter- vention, but also to prevent unlawful naval intervention by British subjects. This manifestation produced a very happy effect in the United States. Congress assembled on the 7th of December, and did not adjourn until the 4th of July. The Senate confirmed a treaty which I had negotiated with Lord Lyons, and during all that long session not one expression of anger or discontent towards Great Britain was uttered at the capitol. On the other hand, parliament assembled in February, and the civil war was habitually brought up for debate in terms which indicated, or seemed to indicate, a pretension and a disposition on the part of Great Britain to inter- vene, if not forcibly, yet by diplomacy, in our civil war, if not un- aided, at least with the support of one or more European allies. Questions arising in the course of the war, and affecting the rights of Great Britain or British subjects, have been invariably brought 420 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. before Parliament and the British people in combination with de- nunciations of the war itself, and propositions of intervention in favor of the insurgents. While the ministry have not concurred in this course of proceeding, they have often seemed to leave it doubt- ful whether they could successfully resist what was generally con- sidered to be a natural proclivity to intervention. Impossible as it seems to be for the British public to comprehend the real character and the actual progress of the war, there is one fact on which they are never left in uncertainty, namely, that all foreign pretensions of intervention, or even of mediation, are deemed in the United States. not only officious, but alarming. Consequently our means adopted for suppressing the insurrection take on at every stage another and special character - preparations on the largest possible scale to re- sist foreign aggression. We should not be either true Americans or true republicans if we were not even more unanimous in this policy than we are in overcoming insurgents, who, though now enemies, nevertheless are, and always must be, our countrymen and fellow- citizens. It is thus that it has happened that though, when the British parliament assembled, it found amicable dispositions pre- vailing between the governments of the two countries, yet when that body adjourned a necessity seemed to have arisen for guarding against a possible change of these relations. We read that British subjects, whose ecclesiastical and political rank and position are supposed to lend importance to their proceedings, and who have no- toriously and officiously aided and abetted the insurrection, formally appealed to the prime minister, at the close of the parliamentary struggle, to commit the British government to some form of joint or several intervention in the United States, and that this appli- cation was promptly refused. In that refusal her Majesty's gov- ernment have done, in regard to this country, only what this government, ever since the war began, has done in regard to Great Britain. She has had her domestic discontents, less grave indeed than our own, in the British islands, and in British American prov- inces, in India, and in New Zealand. She has had controversies of a serious nature in China, and especially in Japan, and diplomatic conflicts with the European powers. The government of the United States has not sought to increase these discontents, and exasperate these conflicts; on the contrary, whenever it could not lawfully or properly favor British interests, this government has been silent; GREAT BRITAIN. THE IRISH RACE. 421 } and whenever it could lawfully and properly favor them, it has given them generous and cheerful support. There is now ground for be- lieving that the traitorous insurgents have abandoned their hopes of obtaining a naval force in European ports adequate to raise our blockade, and are, therefore, leaving the British coast and the Brit- ish shores. If this fact shall prove to be true, the ministry will be sensibly relieved of an embarrassment which unnecessary and pre- cipitate toleration at the beginning of the war rendered unavoidable. If the government shall now find themselves able, as we have no doubt they are well disposed, to induce the British nation to leave the struggle in the United States to the exclusive care of the people of the United States, the peace between the two countries may be regarded as perpetual, and out of such a peace feelings of amity and friendship must come, which will be unquestionably more useful than any merely political convention that could be contracted be- tween the parties. Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams. September 16, 1864. I have read with much interest your remarks upon the sectarian riots at Belfast. It seems to me that the parliamentary orators, who seek to excite a national controversy with us on the ground of Irish emigration, might profitably study the ecclesiastical system of their own country. Religion is a con- cern of deep interest for all the people of every nation, and for a very large proportion of every people it has an interest paramount even to the affairs of civil government. From Turkey quite round the world to Japan, including all the European states and all Amer- ican countries, except the United States, spiritual controversies are a permanent fountain of political and even revolutionary conflicts. The reformers of Great Britain dwell much upon what they regard as defects of their political system, but I do not believe any political amendment whatever will avail to arrest the depopulation of Ire- land. Nothing, I think, can do that but an adoption of our own great principle of an absolute divorce between the church and the state. It is not true that, as is so often asserted, the Irish religious sectarians are as discontented and contentious after they arrive in America as they were in their native country. Some few of them, indeed, retain a disputatious character for a time, but, speaking in a practical sense, the great mass are speedily absorbed and become a loyal and effective portion of the American people. 422 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. Great Britain has, during my connection with this government, been successively represented by three sagacious ministers - Sir John F. Crampton, Lord Napier, and Lord Lyons. I do not know their opinions on the subject, but I vehemently doubt whether either of them would represent the American people to his govern- ment as likely in any case to accept foreign intervention, or in any event to submit to a subversion of the Constitution, or a dissolution. of the Union. Mr. Seward to Mr. Bigelow. September 6, 1865.— I have submitted to the President the letter which you wrote at Dieppe on the 21st of August, and which was marked unofficial. In that letter you discuss at large the present aspect of the relations between the United States and France as they are affected by the situation in Mexico. On this subject this government does not think itself called upon to volunteer opinions, counsel, or advice, or gratuitously to offer ex- planations to the governments of Europe. On the contrary, we have been content to stand upon what we have already very fre- quently set forth, while every proper care has been taken to prevent or allay irritations which might tend to bring about unexpected and undesired collisions. It is possible, however, that the French gov- ernment may think it proper to ask you for explanations to some. extent of the President's opinions and policy. This paper is intended to enable you, in such a case, to submit to the imperial government, in an earnest and yet altogether friendly manner, certain views which the President has taken of the political situation in Mexico. Those views are by no means new, and they are as distinct and full as the present condition of the question in- volved enables us to express. It can hardly be deemed necessary to repeat on this occasion what has been so often and so constantly avowed by this govern- ment, namely, that the people of the United States cherish a traditional friendship towards France. We also habitually indulge a conviction that the existence of friendly relations between the United States and France is by no means unfavorable to the inter- ests of that great nation. These sentiments have survived the many interesting national changes which, during the present century, have occurred in the two countries concerned, and they may there- FRANCE AND MEXICO. 423 fore be deemed to be independent of all merely partisan or dynastic influences in the one country or in the other. It is perceived with much regret that an apparent if not a real, a future if not an immediate, antagonism between the policies of the two nations seems to reveal itself in the situation of Mexico before mentioned. The United States have at no time left it doubtful that they prefer to see a domestic and republican system of government prevail in Mexico rather than any other system. This preference results from the fact that the Constitution of the United States itself is domestic and republican, and from a belief that not only its constituent parts ought to preserve the same form and character, but that, so far as is practically and justly attainable by the exercise of moral influences, the many American states by which the United States are surrounded shall be distinguished by the same peculiari- ties of government. I think it not improper to add, that although the Constitution of this government and the habits of the American people formed under it disincline us from political propagandism, and although they still more strongly disincline us from seeking ag- grandizement by means of military conquest, yet that the nation. has, at various times since its organization, found it necessary for expansion, and that the like necessity may reasonably be expected to occur hereafter. That expansion has thus far been effected by the annexation of adjacent peoples, who have come into the Union. through their own consent as constituent republican states under the Constitution of the United States. To these two facts may be added the general one that peace and friendship between the United States and other nations on this continent, and, consequently, the advance of civilization in this hemisphere, seem to us more likely to be secured when the other American states assimilate to our own. It is hardly necessary for me to indicate wherein the present attitude and proceedings of the French government in regard to Mexico seem to be variant from the policy and sentiments of the United States which I have thus described. I may remark, how- ever, in general terms, that France appears to us to be lending her great influence, with a considerable military force, to destroy the domestic republican government in Mexico, and to establish there an imperial system under the sovereignty of an European prince, who, until he assumed the crown, was a stranger to that country. 424 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. We do not insist or claim that Mexico and the other states on the American continent shall adopt the political institutions to which we are so earnestly attached, but we do hold that the peoples of those countries are entitled to exercise the freedom of choosing and estab- lishing institutions like our own, if they are preferred. In no case can we in any way associate ourselves with efforts of any party or nation to deprive the people of Mexico of that privilege. Passing by all historical questions connected with the subject, as not now necessarily requiring discussion, I have next to remark that this government finds itself neither less obliged nor less disposed at the present moment than it has hitherto been to adhere to its settled policy. Perhaps the French government may be supposed to have taken notice of the fact that, owing to the popular char- acter of our government, our national policy is not adopted from the choice of any President or any particular administration, and that, on the contrary, every important or cardinal policy is a result of the determination of the national will legally expressed in the man- ner appointed and prescribed by the Constitution. Experience has shown that, in every case, any policy which has arisen from such popular sources, and which has been perseveringly supported by the general national conviction through a long series of years, has been found to be essential to the safety and welfare of the Union. The intense popular interest which was awakened by the preva- lence of a civil war of vast proportions during a few years past has tended in some degree to moderate the solicitude which the situation of foreign affairs was calculated to create; but that interest is now rapidly subsiding, and it may be reasonably anticipated that hence- forth the Congress of the United States and the people in their primary assemblies will give a very large share of attention to ques- tions of extraneous character, and chief among these is likely to be that of our relations towards France with regard to Mexico. Nor does it seem unwise to take into consideration the fact that the pres- ence of military forces of the two nations, sometimes confronting each other across the border, has a tendency, which both of them may well regret, to produce irritation and annoyance. The French government has not shown itself inattentive to this inconvenience hitherto, while this government has been desirous to practise equal prudence. But a time seems to have come when both nations may well consider whether the permanent interests of international peace EXPRESSIONS OF ENGLISH SYMPATHY. 425 and friendship do not require the exercise of a thoughtful and serious attention to the political questions to which I have thus adverted. Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams. November 4, 1865. During the seasons of spring and summer, which have now passed, you transmitted to this Department the manifold expressions which were made by the government, public authorities, civic, ecclesiastical, and educational corporations and as- sociations, as well as by public assemblies of citizens and by individ- ual citizens of the realm, of their feelings of sympathy and condo- lence with the government and people of the United States in the calamity which they had suffered in the lamented death of the late President, Abraham Lincoln. The same proceedings spoke in one voice the language of indignant reprobation againt the perfidi- ous political crime of assassination, by which the eminently useful and honorable career of the late Chief Magistrate was so abruptly brought to a fearful, yet, for him, most triumphant end. Owing to some peculiar casualties,¹ the efficiency of this Depart- ment was impaired at the time these despatches were received. They obtained only a simple and formal acknowledgment from the presiding secretary, and no instructions were given you concerning the recognition of the papers alluded to by this government. I have now to inform you that all of the communications thus received were, without any delay, submitted to the President of the United States, and were read by him with profound emotions of sensibility and gratitude. It was his expectation that the parties from whom these generous and sympathetic utterances had come would be duly and promptly assured of their consolatory influence, not only upon himself but upon the whole American people. It is deeply regretted by this government that this expectation of the President was found impracticable. Our government, simply constructed with adaptation to the trans- action of necessary affairs in the ordinary course of administration, found itself, in the condition of this Department which then existed, inadequate to the immediate acknowledgment of such various and vast obligations suddenly and unexpectedly incurred. The regret, however, is in some measure mitigated by the fact 1 The attempted assassination of the Secretary and Assistant Secretary. 426 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. that these expressions of British sympathy and good will were only a part of similar manifestations of the same feelings which occurred in every part of the world. Nevertheless, the President earnestly desires that recognition shall even now be made of the sympathies and condolences which were then poured in upon us with a profusion that did honor to human nature. Mr. Seward to the Marquis de Montholon. December 6, 1865. The effect of the Emperor's suggestions when they are reduced to a practical shape seems to be this: that France is willing to retire from Mexico as soon as she may, but that it would be inconvenient for her without first receiving from the United States an assurance of a friendly or tolerant disposition to the power which has assumed to itself an imperial form in the capi- tal city of Mexico. The President is gratified with the assurance you have thus given of the Emperor's good disposition. I regret, however, to be obliged to say that the condition which the Emperor suggests is one which seems quite impracticable. It is true, indeed, that the presence of foreign armies in an adja- cent country could not, under any circumstances, but cause uneasi- ness and anxiety on the part of this government. It creates for us expenses which are inconvenient, not to speak of dangers of collis- ion. Nevertheless, I cannot but infer from the tenor of your com- munication, that the principal cause of the discontent prevailing in the United States in regard to Mexico is not fully apprehended by the Emperor's government. The chief cause is not that there is a foreign army in Mexico; much less does that discontent arise from the circumstances that the foreign army is a French one. We rec- ognize the right of sovereign nations to carry on war with each other if they do not invade our right or menace our safety or just influence. The real cause of our national discontent is, that the French army which is now in Mexico is invading a domestic re- publican government there which was established by her people, and with whom the United States sympathize most profoundly, for the avowed purpose of suppressing it and establishing upon its ruins a foreign monarchical government, whose presence there, so long as it should endure, could not but be regarded by the people of the United States as injurious and menacing to their own chosen and endeared republican institutions. INTERVENTION CONSIDERED. 427 I admit that the United States do not feel themselves called upon to make a war of propagandism throughout the world, or even on this continent, in the republican cause. We have sufficient faith in the eventual success of that cause on this continent, through the operation of existing material and moral causes, to induce us to acquiesce in the condition of things which we found existing here, while our own republic was receiving its shape and development. On the other hand we have constantly maintained, and still feel bound to maintain, that the people of every state on the American continent have a right to secure for themselves a republican govern- ment if they choose, and that interference by foreign states to pre- vent the enjoyment of such institutions deliberately established is wrongful, and in its effects antagonistical to the free and popular form of government existing in the United States. We should think it wrong as well as unwise, on the part of the United States, to attempt to subvert by force monarchical governments in Europe for the purpose of replacing them with republican institutions. It seems to us equally objectionable that European states should for- cibly intervene in states situated on this continent to overthrow re- publican institutions, and replace them with monarchies or empires. Having thus frankly stated our position, I leave the question for the consideration of France, sincerely hoping that that great nation. may find it compatible with its best interests and its high honor to withdraw from its aggressive attitude in Mexico within some con- venient and reasonable time, and thus leave the people of that country to the free enjoyment of the system of republican govern- ment which they have established for themselves, and of their adherence to which they have given what seems to the United States to be decisive and conclusive, as well as very touching proofs. I am, sir, the more inclined to hope for such a solution of the diffi- culty for the reason that when, at any time within the last four years, the question has been asked of any American statesman, or even of any American citizen, what country in Europe was the one which was least likely to experience an alienation of the friendship of the United States, the answer was promptly given, France. Friendship with France has always been deemed important and peculiarly agreeable by the American people. Every American citizen deems it no less important than desirable for the future than for the past. 428 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. The President will be pleased to be informed of the reception which the Emperor gives to the suggestions which I have now made. Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams. December 16, 1865. — There is a soreness in several of the lately disloyal states in the relations which exist between the whites and the blacks; a necessary consequence, perhaps, of past events. For this reason the municipal authorities there need the support of a small military national force. The presence, however, of that very inconsiderable force is equally acceptable to the whites and to the blacks; it meets nowhere an enemy of the United States. If In no case in the world's history has treason been so effectually suppressed and extirpated. Neither Great Britain nor France, nor both combined, if disposed to engage in war with the United States, as we trust indeed they are not, would now find an ally here. emissaries of the late rebellion, who are yet lingering in Europe, succeed in practising upon the credulity of politicians there, it is a pitiable fruit of the original error of European sympathies with our domestic enemies. Mr. Seward to the Marquis de Montholon. February 12, 1866. On the 6th of December I had the honor to submit to you in writing, for the information of the Emperor, a communication upon the subject of affairs in Mexico, as affected by the presence of French armed forces in that country. On the 29th of January thereafter you favored me with a reply to that commu- nication, which reply had been transmitted to you by Mr. Drouyn de l'Huys, under the date of the 9th of the same month. I have sub- mitted it to the President of the United States. It is now made my duty to revert to the interesting question which has thus been brought under discussion. In the first place I take notice of the points which are made by Mr. Drouyn de l'Huys. He declares that the French expedition into Mexico had in it nothing hostile to the institutions of the New World, and still less of anything hostile to the United States. As proofs of this friendly statement, he refers to the aid in blood and treasure which France contributed in our revolutionary war to the cause of our national FRENCH EXPLANATIONS. 429 independence; to the preliminary proposition that France made to us that we should join her in her expedition to Mexico; and, finally, to the neutrality which France has practised in the painful civil war through which we have just successfully passed. It gives me pleasure to acknowledge that the assurances thus given on the present occasion that the French expedition, in its original design, had no political objects or motives, harmonize entirely with expres- sions which abound in the earlier correspondence of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, which arose out of the war between France and Mexico. We accept with especial pleasure the reminiscences of our tradi- tional friendship. Mr. Drouyn de l'Huys next assures us that the French govern- ment is disposed to hasten, as much as possible, the recall of its troops from Mexico. We hail the announcement as being a virtual promise of relief to this government from the apprehensions and anxieties which were the burden of that communication of mine, which Mr. Drouyn de l'Huys has had under consideration. Mr. Drouyn de l'Huys proceeds to declare that the only aim of France, in pursuing her enterprise in Mexico, has been to follow up the satisfaction to which she had a right after having resorted to coercive measures, when measures of every other form had been exhausted. Mr. Drouyn de l'Huys says that it is known how many and legitimate were the claims of French subjects which caused the resort to arms. He then reminds us how, on a former occasion, the United States had waged war on Mexico. On this point it seems equally necessary and proper to say, that the war thus referred to was not made nor sought by the United States, but was accepted by them under provocations of a very grave character. The transac- tion is past, and the necessity and justice of the proceedings of the United States are questions which now rest only within the prov- ince of history. France, I think, will acknowledge, that neither in the beginning of our Mexican war nor in its prosecution, nor in the terms on which we retired from that successful contest, did the United States assume any position inconsistent with the principles which are now maintained by us in regard to the French expedition in Mexico. We are, as we have been, in the relations of amity and friendship equally with France and with Mexico, and therefore we cannot, 430 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. consistently with those relations, constitute ourselves a judge of the original merits of the war which is waged between them. We can speak concerning that war only so far as we are affected by its bear- ing upon ourselves and upon republican and American institutions. on this continent. Mr. Drouyn de l'Huys declares that the French army, in entering Mexico, did not carry monarchical traditions in the folds of its flag. In this connection he refers to the fact that there were at the time of the expedition a number of influential men in Mexico who de- spaired of obtaining order out of the conditions of the republican rule then existing there, and who, therefore, cherished the idea of falling back upon monarchy. In this connection, we are further reminded that one of the later presidents of Mexico offered to use his power for the reestablishment of royalty. We are further informed that at the time of the French invasion the persons before referred to deemed the moment to have arrived for making an ap- peal to the people of Mexico in favor of monarchy. Mr. Drouyn de l'Huys remarks that the French government did not deem it a duty to discourage that supreme effort of a powerful party, which had its origin long anterior to the French expedition. Mr. Drouyn de l'Huys observes that the Emperor, faithful to maxims of public right, which he holds in common with the United States, declared on that occasion that the question of change of institutions rested solely on the suffrages of the Mexican people. In support of this statement, Mr. Drouyn de l'Huys gives us a copy of a letter which the Emperor addressed to the commander-in-chief of the French expedition, on the capture of Puebla, which letter contained the following words: "Our object, you know, is not to impose on the Mexicans a government against their will, nor to make our success aid the triumph of any party whatsoever. I desire that Mexico may rise to a new life, and that soon, regenerated by a gov- ernment founded on the national will, on principles of order and of progress, and of respect for the law of nations, she may acknowl edge by her friendly relations that she owes to France her repose and her prosperity." Mr. Drouyn de l'Huys pursues his argument by saying that the Mexican people have spoken; that the Emperor Maximilian has been called by the voice of the country; that this government has appeared to the Emperor of the French to be of a nature adequate to MONARCHY IN MEXICO. 431 restore peace to the nation, and, on its part, peace to international relations, and that he has therefore given it his support. Mr. Drouyn de l'Huys thereupon presents the following as a true state- ment of the present case: France went to Mexico to exercise the right of war, which is exercised by the United States, and not in virtue of any purpose of intervention, concerning which she recog- nizes the same doctrine with the United States. France went there not to bring about a monarchical proselytism, but to obtain repara- tions and guarantees which she ought to claim; and, being there, she now sustains the government which is founded on the consent of the people, because she expects from that government the just satisfaction of her wrongs, as well as the securities indispensable to the future. As she does not seek the satisfaction of an exclusive interest, nor the realization of any ambitious schemes, so she now wishes to recall what remains in Mexico of the army corps which France has sent there at the moment when she will be able to do so with safety to French citizens and with due respect for herself. I am aware how delicate the discussion is to which Mr. Drouyn de l'Huys thus invites me. France is entitled, by every considera- tion of respect and friendship, to interpret for herself the objects of the expedition, and of the whole of her proceedings in Mexico. Her explanation of those motives and objects is, therefore, accepted on our part with the consideration and confidence which we expect for explanations of our own when assigned to France or any other friendly power. Nevertheless, it is my duty to insist that, what- ever were the intentions, purposes, and objects of France, the pro- ceedings which were adopted by a class of Mexicans for subverting the republican government there, and for availing themselves of French intervention to establish on its ruins an imperial monarchy, are regarded by the United States as having been taken without the authority, and prosecuted against the will and opinions, of the Mex- ican people. For these reasons it seems to this government, that in supporting institutions thus established in derogation of the inalien- able rights of the people of Mexico, the original purposes and objects of the French expedition, though they have not been, as a military demand of satisfaction, abandoned, nor lost out of view by the Emperor of the French, were, nevertheless, left to fall into a condition in which they seem to have become subordinate to a polit- 432 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. ical revolution, which certainly would not have occurred if France had not forcibly intervened, and which, judging from the genius and character of the Mexican people, would not now be maintained by them if that armed intervention should cease. The United States have not seen any satisfactory evidence that the people of Mexico have spoken, and have called into being or accepted the so-called empire which it is insisted has been set up in their capital. The United States, as I have remarked on other occasions, are of opinion that such an acceptance could not have been freely procured or law- fully taken at any time in the presence of the French army of inva- sion. The withdrawal of the French forces is deemed necessary to allow such a proceeding to be taken by Mexico. Of course the Emperor of France is entitled to determine the aspect in which the Mexican situation ought to be regarded by him. Nevertheless, the view which I have thus presented is the one which this nation has accepted. It therefore recognizes, and continues to recognize, in Mexico only the ancient republic, and it can in no case consent to involve itself, either directly or indirectly, in relation with or recognition of the institution of the Prince Maximilian in Mexico. This position is held, I believe, without one dissenting voice by our countrymen. I do not presume to say that this opinion of the American people is accepted or will be adopted generally by other foreign powers, or by the public opinion of mankind. The Emperor is quite competent to form a judgment upon this important point for himself. I cannot, however, properly exclude the observation that, while this question affects by its bearings, incidentally, every repub- lican state in the American hemisphere, every one of those states has adopted the judgment which, on the behalf of the United States, is herein expressed. Under these circumstances it has hap- pened, either rightfully or wrongfully, that the presence of Euro- pean armies in Mexico, maintaining a European prince with impe- rial attributes, without her consent and against her will, is deemed a source of apprehension and danger, not alone to the United States, but also to all the independent and sovereign republican states founded on the American continent and its adjacent islands. France is acquainted with the relations of the United States towards the other American states to which I have referred, and is aware of the sense that the American people entertain in regard to the obli- gations and duties due from them to those other states. We are APPEAL TO THE HONOR OF FRANCE. 433 thus brought back to the single question which formed the sub- ject of my communication of the 6th of December last, namely, the desirableness of an adjustment of a question the continuance of which must be necessarily prejudicial to the harmony and friend- ship which have hitherto always existed between the United States and France. This government does not undertake to say how the claims of in- demnity and satisfaction, for which the war which France is wag- ing in Mexico was originally instituted, shall now be adjusted, in discontinuing what, in its progress, has become a war of political intervention dangerous to the United States and the republican institutions in the American hemisphere. Recognizing France and the republic of Mexico as belligerents engaged in war, we leave all questions concerning those claims and indemnities to them. The United States rest content with submitting to France the exigencies of an embarrassing situation in Mexico, and expressing the hope that France may find some manner which shall at once be con- sistent with her interest and honor, and with the principles and interest of the United States, to relieve that situation without inju- rious delay. Mr. Drouyn de l'Huys repeats on this occasion what he has here- tofore written, namely, that it depends much upon the Federal gov- ernment to facilitate their desire of the withdrawal of the French from Mexico. He argues that the position which the United States have assumed has nothing incompatible with the existence of mon- archical institutions in Mexico. He draws to his support on this point the fact that the President of the United States, as well as the Secretary of State, in official papers, disclaim all thought of propa- gandism on the American continent in favor of republican institu- tions. Mr. Drouyn de l'Huys draws in, also, the fact that the United States hold friendly relations with the Emperor of Brazil, as they held similar relations with Iturbide, the Mexican Emperor, in 1822. From these positions Mr. Drouyn de l'Huys makes the deduction that neither any fundamental maxim, nor any prece- dent in the diplomatic history of this country, creates any necessary antagonism between the United States and the form of government over which the Prince Maximilian presides in the ancient capital of Mexico. I do not think it would be profitable, and therefore I am not 28 434 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. desirous to engage in the discussions which Mr. Drouyn de l'Huys has thus raised. It will be sufficient for my purpose, on the present occasion, to assert and to give reassurance of our desire to facilitate the withdrawal of the French troops from Mexico, and, for that purpose, to do whatsoever shall be compatible with the posi- tions we have heretofore taken upon that subject, and with our just regard to the sovereign rights of the republic of Mexico. Further or otherwise than this France could not expect us to go. Having thus reassured France, it seems necessary to state anew the position. of this government, as it was set forth in my letter on the 6th of December, as follows: Republican and domestic institutions on this continent are deemed most congenial with and most beneficial to the United States. Where the people of any country, like Brazil now, or Mexico in 1822, have voluntarily established and acquiesced in monarchical institutions of their own choice, free from all foreign control or intervention, the United States do not refuse to maintain. relations with such governments, or seek through propagandism, by force or intrigue, to overthrow those institutions. On the con- trary, where a nation has established institutions republican and domestic, similar to our own, the United States assert in their behalf that no foreign nation can rightfully intervene by force to subvert republican institutions and establish those of an antagonis- tical character. Mr. Drouyn de l'Huys seems to think that I have made a double reproach against the Prince Maximilian's alleged government, of the difficulty it encounters and of the assistance it borrows from for- eign powers. In that respect Mr. Drouyn de l'Huys contends that the obstacles and the resistance which Maximilian has been obliged to wrestle with have in themselves nothing especial against the form of the institutions which he is supposed by Mr. Drouyn de l'Huys to have established. Mr. Drouyn de l'Huys maintains that Maximilian's government is undergoing the lot quite common to new powers, while, above all, it has the misfortune to have to bear the consequences of discords which have been produced under a pre- vious government. Mr. Drouyn de l'Huys represents this misfor- tune and this lot to be in effect the misfortune and lot of govern- ments which have not found armed competitors, and which have enjoyed in peace an uncontrolled authority. Mr. Drouyn de l'Huys alleges that revolts and intestine wars are the normal condition of THE MISFORTUNES OF MEXICO. 435 Mexico, and he further insists that the opposition made by some military chiefs to the establishment of an empire under Maximilian is only the natural sequence of the same want of discipline, and the same prevalence of anarchy, of which his predecessors in power in Mexico have been victims. It is not the purpose, nor would it be consistent with the character of the United States, to deny that Mexico has been for a long time the theatre of faction and intestine war. The United States confess this fact with regret, all the more sincere, because the experience of Mexico has been not only painful for her own people, but has been also of unfortunate evil influence on other nations. On the other hand, it is neither a right of the United States, nor consistent with their friendly disposition towards Mexico, to reproach the people of that country with her past calamities, much less to in- voke or approve the infliction of punishment upon them by strangers for their political errors. The Mexican population have, and their situation has, some peculiarities which are doubtless well understood by France. Early in the present century they were forced, by con- victions which mankind cannot but respect, to cast off a foreign monarchical rule which they deemed incompatible with their wel- fare and aggrandizement. They were forced, at the same time, by convictions which the world must respect, to attempt the establish- ment of republican institutions, without the full experience and practical education and habits which would render those institutions all at once firm and satisfactory. Mexico was a theatre of conflict between European commercial, ecclesiastical, and political institu- tions and dogmas, and novel American institutions and ideas. She had African slavery, colonial restrictions, and ecclesiastical monopo- lies. In the chief one of these particulars she had a misfortune which was shared by the United States, while the latter were hap- pily exempted from the other misfortunes. We cannot forget that Mexico, sooner and more readily than the United States, abolished slavery. We cannot deny that all the anarchy in Mexico, of which Mr. Drouyn de l'Huys complains, was necessarily, and even wisely, endured in the attempts to lay sure foundations of broad re- publican liberty. I do not know whether France can rightfully be expected to con- cur in this view, which alleviates, in our mind, the errors, misfor- tunes, and calamities of Mexico. However this may be, we fall 436 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. back upon the principle that no- foreign state can rightly inter- vene in such trials as those of Mexico, and on the ground of a desire to correct those errors, deprive the people there of their natural right of domestic and republican freedom. All the injuries and wrongs which Mexico can have committed against any other state have found a severe punishment in consequences which legiti- mately followed their commission. Nations are not authorized to correct each other's errors except so far as is necessary to prevent or redress injuries affecting themselves. If one state has a right to intervene in any other state, to establish discipline, constituting itself a judge of the occasion, then every state has the same right to intervene in the affairs of every other nation, being itself alone the arbiter, both in regard to the time and the occasion. The principle of intervention, thus practically carried out, would seem to render all sovereignty and independence, and even all international peace and amity, uncertain and fallacious. Mr. Drouyn de l'Huys proceeds to remark, that as for the support which Maximilian receives from the French army, as well also as for the support which has been lent to him by Belgian and Austrian volunteers, those supports cause no hindrance to the freedom of his resolutions in the affairs of his government. Mr. Drouyn de l'Huys asks what state is there that does not need allies, either to form or to defend. As to the great powers, such as France and England, do they not constantly maintain foreign troops in their armies? When the United States fought for their independence, did the aid given by France cause that movement to cease to be truly national ? Shall it be said that the contest between the United States and the recent insurgents was not in a like manner a national war, because thousands of Irishmen and Germans were found fighting under the flag of the Union? Arguing from anticipated answers to these questions, Mr. Drouyn de l'Huys reaches a conclusion that the char- acter of Maximilian's government cannot be contested, nor can its efforts to consolidate itself be contested, on the ground of the em- ployment of foreign troops. Mr. Drouyn de l'Huys, in this argument, seems to us to have overlooked two important facts, namely: First, that the United States, in this correspondence, have assigned definite limits to the right of alliance incompatible with our assent to his argument; and secondly, the fact that the United States have not at any time THE FRENCH ARGUMENT. 437 accepted the supposed government of the Prince Maximilian as a constitutional or legitimate form of government in Mexico, capable or entitled to form alliances. Mr. Drouyn de l'Huys then arranges, in a graphic manner, the advantages that have arisen, or are to arise, to the United States, from the successful establishment of the supposed empire in Mexico. Instead of a country unceasingly in trouble, and which has given us so many subjects of complaint, and against which we ourselves have been obliged to make war, he shows us in Mexico a pacific country, under a beneficent imperial sway, offering henceforth measures of security and vast openings to our commerce, a country far from injuring our rights and hurting our influences. And he assures us that, above all other nations, the United States are most likely to profit by the work which is being accomplished by Prince Maxi- milian in Mexico. These suggestions are as natural on the part of France as they are friendly to the United States. The United States are not insensible to the desirableness of political and com- mercial reform in the adjoining country; but their settled princi- ples, habits, and convictions forbid them to look for such changes in this hemisphere to foreign, royal, or imperial institutions, founded upon a forcible subversion of republican institutions. The United States, in their customary sobriety, regard no beneficial results. which could come from such a change in Mexico as sufficient to overbalance the injury which they must directly suffer by the over- throw of the republican government in Mexico. Mr. Drouyn de l'Huys at the end of his very elaborate and able review, recapitulates his exposition in the following words: - "The United States acknowledge the right we had to make war in Mexico. On the other part, we admit, as they do, the principle of non-intervention. This double postulate includes, as it seems to me, the elements of an agreement. The right to make war, which belongs, as Mr. Seward declares, to every sovereign nation, implies the right to secure the results of war. We have not gone across the ocean merely for the purpose of showing our power, and of inflicting chastise- ment on the Mexican government. After a train of fruitless remonstrances, it was our duty to demand guarantees against the recurrence of violence from which our country had suffered so cruelly, and those guarantees we could not look for from a government whose bad faith we had proved on so many occasions. We find them now engaged in the establishment of a regular government, which shows itself disposed to honestly keep its engagements. In this relation we hope that the legitimate object of our expedition will soon be reached, and we are striv- 438 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. ing to make with the Emperor Maximilian arrangements which, by satisfying our interests and our honor, will permit us to consider at an end the service of the army upon Mexican soil. The Emperor has given an order to write in this same sense to our minister at Mexico. We fall back at that moment on the principle of non-intervention, and from that moment accept it as the rule of our conduct. Our interest, no less than our honor, commands us to claim from all the uniform application of it. Trusting the spirit of equity which animates the cabinet of Washington, we expect from it the assurance that the American people will themselves conform to the law which they invoke, by observing, in re- gard to Mexico, a strict neutrality. When you (meaning the Marquis de Mon- tholon) shall have informed me of the resolution of the Federal government, I shall be able to indicate to you the nature of the results of our negotiation with the Emperor Maximilian for the return of our troops." I have already, and not without much reluctance, made the com- ments upon the arguments of Mr. Drouyn de l'Huys which seem to be necessary to guard against the inference of concurrence in ques- tionable positions which might be drawn from our entire silence. I think that I can, therefore, afford to leave his recapitulation of those arguments without such an especial review as would neces- sarily be prolix, and perhaps hypercritical. The United States have not claimed, and they do not claim, to know what arrange- ments the Emperor may make for the adjustment of claims for indemnity and redress in Mexico. It would be, on our part, an act of intervention to take cognizance of them. We adhere to our posi- tion that the war in question has become a political war between France and the republic of Mexico, injurious and dangerous to the United States and to the republican cause, and we ask only that in that aspect and character it may be brought to an end. It would be illiberal on the part of the United States to suppose that, in desiring or pursuing preliminary arrangements, the Emperor con- templates the establishment in Mexico, before withdrawing his forces, of the very institutions which constitute the material ground of the exceptions taken against his intervention by the United States. It would be still more illiberal to suppose for a moment that he expects the United States to bind themselves indirectly to acquiesce in or support the obnoxious institutions. On the contrary, we understand him as announcing to us his im- mediate purpose to bring to an end the service of his armies in Mexico, to withdraw them, and in good faith to fall back, without stipulation or condition on our part, upon the principle of non-inter- THE AMERICAN STANDPOINT. 439 vention upon which he is henceforth agreed with the United States. We cannot understand his appeal to us for an assurance that we ourselves will abide by our own principles of non-intervention in any other sense than as the expression, in a friendly way, of his expectation that when the people of Mexico shall have been left absolutely free from the operation, effects, and consequences of his own political and military intervention, we will ourselves respect their self-established sovereignty and independence. In this view of the subject only can we consider his appeal pertinent to the case. Regarding it in only this aspect, we must meet the Emperor frankly. He knows the form and character of this government. The nation can be bound only by treaties which have the concur- rence of the President and two thirds of the Senate. A formal treaty would be objectionable as unnecessary, except as a disavowal of bad faith on our part, to disarm suspicion in regard to a matter concerning which we have given no cause for questioning our loyalty, or else such a treaty would be refused upon the ground that the application for it by the Emperor of France was unhappily a suggestion of some sinister or unfriendly reservation or purpose on his part in withdrawing from Mexico. Diplomatic assurances given by the President in behalf of the nation can at best be but the expressions of confident expectation on his part that the personal administration, ever changing in conformity and adaptation to the national will, does not misunderstand the settled principles and pol- icy of the American people. Explanations cannot properly be made by the President in any case wherein it would be deemed, for any reason, objectionable on grounds of public policy by the treaty- making power of the government to introduce or entertain nego- tiations. With these explanations I proceed to say that, in the opinion of the President, France need not for a moment delay her promised withdrawal of military forces from Mexico, and her putting the principle of non-intervention into full and complete practice in regard to Mexico, through any apprehension that the United States will prove unfaithful to the principles and policy in that respect which, on their behalf, it has been my duty to maintain in this now very lengthened correspondence. The practice of this government, from its beginning, is a guarantee to all nations of the respect of the American people for the free sovereignty of the people in every 440 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. other state. We received the instruction from Washington. We applied it sternly in our early intercourse even with France. The same principle and practice have been uniformly inculcated by all our statesmen, interpreted by all our jurists, maintained by all our Congresses, and acquiesced in without practical dissent on all occa- sions by the American people. It is in reality the chief element of foreign intercourse in our history. Looking simply toward the point to which our attention has been steadily confined, the relief of the Mexican embarrassments without disturbing our relations with France, we shall be gratified when the Emperor shall give to us, either through the channel of your esteemed correspondence or otherwise, definitive information of the time when French military operations may be expected to cease in Mexico. Here I might, perhaps, properly conclude this note. Some obscu- rity, however, might be supposed to rest upon the character of the principle of non-intervention, which we are authorized to suppose is now agreed upon between the United States and France as a rule for their future government in regard to Mexico. I shall, therefore, reproduce on this occasion, by way of illustration, some of the forms in which that principle has been maintained by us in our previous intercourse with France. In 1861, when alluding to the possibility that the Emperor might be invoked by rebel emissaries from the United States to intervene in our civil war, I observed: "The Emperor of France has given abundant proofs that he considers the people in every country the rightful source of authority, and that its only legitimate objects are their safety, freedom, and welfare." I wrote, also, on the same occasion, these words to Mr. Dayton: "I have thus, under the President's direction, placed before you a simple, unexaggerated, and dispassionate statement of the origin, nature, and purposes of the contest in which the United States are now involved. I have done so only for the purpose of deducing from it the arguments you will find it necessary to employ in opposing the application of the so-called Confederate States to the government of his Majesty the Emperor for a recognition of their independence and sovereignty. The President neither expects nor desires any intervention, or even any favor, from the government of France, or any other, in this emergency. Whatever else he may consent to do, he will never invoke nor even admit foreign inter- THE AMERICAN STANDPOINT. 441 ference or influence in this or any other controversy in which the government of the United States may be engaged with any portion of the American people. "Foreign intervention would oblige us to treat those who should yield it as allies of the insurrectionary party, and to carry on the war against them as enemies. "However other European powers may mistake, his Majesty is the last one of those sovereigns to misapprehend the nature of this con- troversy. He knows that the revolution of 1776, in this country, was a successful contest of the great American idea of free, popular government against resisting prejudices and errors. He knows that the conflict awakened the sympathies of mankind, and that ulti- mately the triumph of that idea has been hailed by all European nations. He knows at what cost European nations for a time resisted the progress of that idea, and, perhaps, is not unwilling to confess how much France, especially, has profited by it. He will not fail to recognize the presence of that one great idea in the pres- ent conflict, nor will he mistake the side on which it will be found. It is, in short, the very principle of universal suffrage, with its claim of obedience to its decrees, on which the government of France is built, that is put in issue by the insurrection here, and is in this emergency to be vindicated and more effectually than ever established by the government of the United States." In writing upon the same subject to Mr. Dayton, on the 30th of May, 1861, I said: "Nothing is wanting to that success except that foreign nations shall leave us, as is our right, to manage our own affairs in our own way. They, as well as we, can only suffer by their intervention. No one, we are sure, can judge better than the Emperor of France how dangerous and deplorable would be the emergency that should intrude Europeans into the political contests of the American people." In declining the offer of French mediation, on the 8th of June, 1861, I wrote to Mr. Dayton: "The present paramount duty of the government is to save the integrity of the American Union. Absolute, self-sustaining independence is the first and most indis- pensable element of national existence. This is a republican na- tion; all its domestic affairs must be conducted and even adjusted in constitutional forms, and upon constitutional, republican princi- ples. This is an American nation, and its internal affairs must not 442 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. only be conducted with reference to its peculiar continental position, but by and through American agencies alone." On the 2d of August, 1862, Mr. Adams was instructed by this gov- ernment in the following words: 1"Did the European states which found and occupied this continent almost without effort then under- stand its real destiny and purposes? Have they ever yet fully understood and accepted them? Has anything but disappointment upon disappointment and disaster upon disaster resulted from their misapprehensions? After near four hundred years of such disap- pointments and disasters, is the way of Providence in regard to America still so mysterious that it cannot be understood and con- fessed? Columbus, it was said, had given a new world to the king- doms of Castile and Leon. What has become of the sovereignty of Spain in America? Richelieu occupied and fortified a large portion of the continent, extending from the Gulf of Mexico to the Straits of Belleisle. Does France yet retain that important appendage to the crown of her sovereign? Great Britain acquired a dominion here surpassing by a hundred-fold in length and breadth the native realm. Has not a large portion of it been already formally re- signed? To whom have those vast dominions, with those founded by the Portuguese, the Dutch, and the Swedes, been resigned but to American nations, the growth of European colonists and exiles, who have come hither bringing with them the arts, the civilization, and the virtues of Europe? Has not the change been beneficial to society on this continent? Has it not been more beneficial even to Europe itself than continued European domination, if it had been possible, could have been? The American nations which have grown up here are free and self-governing. They have made them- selves so from inherent vigor and in obedience to absolute necessity. Is it possible for European states to plunge them again into a colo- nial state and hold them there? Would it be desirable for them and for Europe, if it were possible? The balance of power among the nations of Europe is maintained not without numerous strong armies and frequent conflicts, while the sphere of political ambition there is bounded by the ocean which surrounds that continent. Would it be possible to maintain it at all, if this vast continent, with all its populations, their resources, and their forces, should once again be brought within that sphere? 1 See ante, p. 341. THE MEXICAN QUESTION. 443 "On the contrary of all these suppositions, is it not manifest that these American nations were called into existence to be the home of freemen; that the states of Europe have been intrusted by Provi- dence with their tutelage, but that tutelage and all its responsibili- ties and powers are necessarily withdrawn to the relief and benefit of the parties and of mankind, when these parties become able to choose their own system of government, and to make and adminis- ter their own laws? If they err in this choice, or in the conduct of their affairs, it will be found wise to leave them, like all other states, the privilege and responsibility of detecting and correcting the error, by which they are, of course, the principal sufferers." upon a On the 8th of May, 1862, Mr. Dayton was instructed to express to Mr. Thouvenel "the desire of the United States that peaceful relations may soon be restored between France and Mexico basis just to both parties, and favorable to the independence and sovereignty of the people of Mexico, which is equally the interest of France and all other enlightened nations." On the 21st of June, 1862, Mr. Dayton was authorized to speak on behalf of the United States concerning the condition of Mexico. in these words: "France has a right to make war against Mexico, and to determine for herself the cause. We have a right to insist that France shall not improve the war she makes to raise up in Mexico an anti-republican or anti-American government, or to main- tain such a government there." Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams. March 23, 1866. At the present moment discussion between the United States and Great Britain of the international questions which arose during the war of the insurrection here, has little prac- tical effect. The changing condition of states will bring those ques- tions again prominently into view at no very distant period. Then it will be all-important that the record of the country shall be found complete and satisfactory. Your correction of the Attorney General's late misstatement in debate will then be appreciated at its just value. I will take care that it shall, in the mean time, be correctly published here. The suggestion has been often made among us that it would be wise to adopt the British practice of bringing members of the Cabi- net into Congress. I confess that when I recollect how unfortunate 444 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. for the real interests equally of the United States and of Great Britain, were certain speeches which were made in Parliament dur- ing the war (as it now seems, without any necessity) by Earl Rus- sell, by Mr. Gladstone, and by the Attorney General, I think that it is doubtful whether our Constitution could be improved in that respect. Neither has Great Britain a wound, or the scar of a wound, which during that trying period was inflicted by any words unnecessarily spoken by the President of the United States, nor have the United States a wound, or the scar of a wound, which was made by any words unnecessarily spoken by the Queen. The result of this re- flection seems to be, that when governments speak to or of each other, it is important that their words should be duly considered, and not passionately or impulsively uttered. Mr. Seward to Mr. Kilpatrick. June 2, 1866. — The policy of the United States in regard to the several Spanish-American states, is, or ought to be, well known now, after the exposition it has received during the last five years. We avoid in all cases giving encouragement to expectations, which, in the varying course of events, we might find ourselves unable to fulfil; and we desire to be known as doing more than we promise rather than falling short of our engagements. On the other hand, we maintain and insist, with all the decision and energy which is compatible with our existing neutrality, that the republican system which is accepted by the people in any one of those states shall not be wantonly assailed, and that it shall not be subverted as an end of a lawful war by European powers. We then give to those repub- lics the moral support of a sincere, liberal, and, as we think it will appear, a useful friendship. We could claim from foreign states no concession to our own political, moral, and material principles or in- terests, if we should not conform our own proceedings, in the need- ful intercourse with foreign states, to the just rules of the law of nations. We therefore concede to every nation the right to make peace or war, for such causes other than political or ambitious as it thinks right and wise. In such wars as are waged between nations which are in friendship with ourselves, if they are not pushed, like the French war in Mexico, to the political point before mentioned, we do not intervene, but remain neutral, conceding nothing to one SPANISH-AMERICAN REPUBLICS. 445 belligerent that we do not concede to the other, and allowing to one belligerent what we allow to the other. Every complaint made by Chilian agents of an attempt on the part of Spain to violate the neutrality of the United States, has been carefully and kindly investigated, and we have done the same, no more and no less, in regard to the complaint instituted against the neutrality of the agents of Chili. We certainly thought that it was an act of friendship on our part that we obtained assurances from Spain, at the beginning, and at other stages of the present war, that, in any event, her hostilities against Chili should not be prosecuted beyond the limits which I have before described. We understand ourselves now and hence- forth ready to hold Spain to this agreement, if, contrary to our pres- ent expectations, it should be found necessary. In this we think we are acting a part certainly not unfriendly to Chili. It was thought to be an act of friendship when we used our good offices with both parties to prevent the war. We have thought we were acting a friendly part using the same good offices to secure an agreement for peace without dishonor, or even damage, to Chili. Those who think that the United States could enter as an ally into every war in which a friendly republican state on this continent becomes in- volved, forget that peace is the constant interest and the unwavering policy of the United States. They forget the frequency and variety of wars in which our friends in this hemisphere engage themselves entirely independent of all control or counsel of the United States. We have no armies for the purpose of aggressive war; no ambition for the character of a regulator. Our Constitution is not an impe- rial one, and does not allow the executive government to engage in war except upon the well considered and deliberate decree of the Congress of the United States. A Federal government consisting of thirty-six equal states, which are in many respects self-governing, cannot easily be committed by its representatives to foreign wars, either of sympathy or of ambition. If there is any one characteris- tic of the United States which is more marked than any other, it is that they have from the time of Washington adhered to the principle of non-intervention, and have perseveringly declined to seek or contract entangling alliances, even with the most friendly states. 446 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. Mr. Seward to Mr. Wright. May 29, 1866. — The progress of events is probably outrunning that of speculation upon the question of war in Europe. Your proceedings in expressing your congratulations to Count Bismarck upon his escape from the assassin are heartily approved by the President. Magistrates and ministers are essential in every gov- ernment. Such assassination is a crime, because whatever may be its excuses or pretexts, it is purely an individual act, not a social effort for redress of errors or wrongs in administration. It is a private crime against all political society of whatever form or nature. You are instructed to express these opinions, in the name of the United States, to the government of Prussia. September 24, 1866. I thank you for the interesting extract of Count Bismarck's speech, concerning the settlement of the German question, which you have given to me. It speaks in the tone of true nationality. Will you suggest informally to Count Bismarck the inquiry, whether it would not be deemed consistent now with the dignity and greatness of Prussia to recognize the principle of naturalization as a natural and inherent right of manhood. In reflecting upon the subject, I am not able to believe that Prussia, any more than the United States, can or need to rely upon compulsory military service by subjects who have incorporated themselves as members of for- eign states. Secondly, I know of no circumstances which would tend to place Prussia on an elevation so high among the modern nations as the adoption of that principle which lies at the basis of the Ameri- can Republic. Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams: August 27, 1866. You will herewith receive a summary of claims of citizens of the United States against Great Britain for damages which were suffered by them during the period of our late civil war, and some months thereafter, by means of depredations upon our commercial marine, committed on the high seas by the Sumter, the Alabama, the Florida, the Shenandoah, and other ships THE ALABAMA CLAIMS. 447 of war, which were built, manned, armed, equipped, and fitted out in British ports, and despatched therefrom by or through the agency of British subjects, and which were harbored, sheltered, provided, and furnished as occasion required, during their devastating career, in ports of the realm, or in ports of British colonies in nearly all parts of the globe. The table is not supposed to be complete, but it presents such a recapitulation of the claims as the evidence thus far received in this Department enables me to furnish. Deficiencies will be supplied hereafter. Most of the claims have been from time to time brought by yourself, as the President directed, to the notice of her Majesty's government, and made the subject of earnest and continued appeal. That appeal was intermitted only when her Majesty's government, after elaborate discussions, refused either to allow the claims, or to refer them to a joint claims commission, or to submit the question. of liability therein to any form of arbitration. The United States, on the other hand, have all the time insisted upon the claims as just and valid. This attitude has been, and doubtless continues. to be, well understood by her Majesty's government. The con- siderations which inclined this government to suspend for a time the pressure of the claims upon the attention of Great Britain were these: The political excitements in Great Britain, which arose during the progress of the war, and which did not immediately subside at its conclusion, seemed to render that period somewhat unfavorable to a deliberate examination of the very grave questions which the claims involve. The attention of this government was, during the same period, largely engrossed by questions at home or abroad of peculiar interest and urgency. The British government has seemed to us to have been similarly engaged. These circumstances have now passed away, and a time has arrived when it is believed that the subject may receive just attention in both countries. The principles upon which the claims are asserted by the United States have been explained by yourself in an elaborate correspond- ence with Earl Russell and Lord Clarendon. In this respect, there seems to be no deficiency to be supplied by this Department. Thus, if it should be the pleasure of her Majesty's government to revert to the subject in a friendly spirit, the materials for any new discussion S 448 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. on your part will be found in the records of your legation, properly and duly prepared for use by your own hand. It is the President's desire that you now call the attention of Lord Stanley to the claims in a respectful but earnest manner, and inform him that, in the President's judgment, a settlement of them has become urgently necessary to a reëstablishment of entirely friendly relations between the United States and Great Britain. This government, while it thus insists upon these particular claims, is neither desirous nor willing to assume an attitude unkind or unconciliatory towards Great Britain. If on her part there are claims, either of a commercial character, or of boundary, or of com- mercial or judicial regulation, which her Majesty's government esteem important to bring under examination at the present time, the United States would, in such case, be not unwilling to take them into consideration in connection with the claims which are now pre- sented on their part, and with a view to remove at one time, and by one comprehensive settlement, all existing causes of misunder- standing. In asking an early attention to the subject, it is supposed that you may, with propriety, dwell upon some of its important features, which, although they have heretofore been indicated by you, may nevertheless not hitherto have sufficiently engaged the attention of the British government. In the beginning of the year 1861, the people of the United States had, by means of commercial enterprise at home and abroad, built up and realized the enjoyment of a foreign trade second only among the nations, and but little inferior to that of Great Britain. They had habitually refrained from wars, and especially from intervention in the political affairs of other nations. Mutual recollections of an- cient conflicts which for three-fourths of a century had held the two countries in a state of partial alienation and irritation had subsided, and what was supposed to be a lasting friendship had been estab- lished between the United States and Great Britain; at this moment a domestic disturbance rose in our country, which, although it had severe peculiarities, yet was in fact only such a seditious insurrection as is incidental to national progress in every state. In its incipient stage, it was foreseen here that the insurgents would, as in all cases insurgents must, appeal to foreign states for intervention. It was supposed that their appeal, if successful BRITAIN'S AID TO REBELLION. 449 anywhere, would be successful in Great Britain, popularly regarded in both countries in one sense as a kindred nation, in another sense as a rival, and in a third, by reason of the great expansion of manu- facture, a dependent upon the cotton-planting interest of the south- ern states, which were to become the theatre of the insurrection. It was foreseen that British intervention, even though stopping many degrees short of actual alliance, or even of recognition of the insur- gents as a political power, must nevertheless inevitably protract the apprehended civil war, and aggravate its evils and sufferings on the land, while it must materially injure, if not altogether destroy, our national commerce. When the insurrection began, the United States believed them- selves to hold a position and prestige equal in consideration and influence to that of any other nation; and it was foreseen that for- eign intervention in behalf of the insurgents, even to the extent only of recognizing them as a belligerent, must directly, and more or less completely, derogate from the just and habitual influence of the Republic. It was foreseen that, should the insurgents receive countenance, aid, and support, in any degree, from Great Britain, the insurrection might be ripened under such influences into a social war, which would involve the life of the nation itself. The United States did not fail to give warning to her Majesty's government that the American people could not be expected to submit without resistance to the endurance of any of these great evils, through the means of any failure of Great Britain to preserve the established relations of peace, amity, and good neighborhood with the United States. The earnest remonstrances thus made seem to the United States to have failed to receive just and adequate consideration. While as yet the civil war was undeveloped, and the insurgents were without any organized military force or a treasury, and long before they pretended to have a flag, or to put either an armed ship or even a merchant vessel upon the sea, her Majesty's government, acting pre- cipitately, as we have always complained, proclaimed the insurgents a belligerent power, and conceded to them the advantages and priv- ileges of that character, and thus raised them in regard to the pros- ecution of an unlawful armed insurrection to an equality with the United States. This government has not denied that it was within the sovereign authority of Great Britain to assume this attitude; 29 450 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. but, on the other hand, it insisted in the beginning, and has contin- ually insisted, that the assumption of that attitude, unnecessarily and prematurely, would be an injurious proceeding for which Great Britain would immediately come under a full responsibility to jus tify it, or to render redress and indemnity. The United States remain of the opinion that the proclamation referred to has not been justified on any ground of either necessity or moral right, and that, therefore, it was an act of wrongful intervention, a departure from the obligations of existing treaties, and without sanction of the law of nations. Upon a candid review of the history of the rebellion, it is believed that Great Britain will not deny that a very large number of the Queen's subjects combined themselves and operated as active allies with the insurgents, aided them with supplies, arms, munitions, men, and many ships of war. The chief reply which her Majesty's govern- ment has made to this complaint, has been that they apprehended inconveniences, from being involved in the contest, unless they should declare themselves neutrals; and, further, that they did, in fact, put forth all the efforts to prevent such aggressions by Brit- ish subjects which the laws of Great Britain permitted. Without descending on this occasion so far as to insist, as we al- ways have insisted, that there was a deficiency of energy in the re- spect adverted to, you may remind Lord Stanley that, in the view which we have taken of the subject, the misconduct of the aggres- sors was a direct and legitimate fruit of the premature and injurious proclamation of belligerency, against which we had protested, and that the failure of her Majesty's government to prevent or counter- act the aggressions of British subjects was equally traceable to the same unfortunate cause. When the municipal laws of Great Britain proved in practical application to be inadequate to the emergency, the British nation omitted, for various reasons which seemed to us insufficient, to revise these laws, and the United States were left to maintain a con- flict with a domestic enemy which British sympathy, aid, and as- sistance had rendered formidable, and in which British subjects continued throughout to be active allies, without any effective inter- position by her Majesty's government. The claims upon which we insist are of large amount. They affect the interest of many thousand citizens of the United States THE ALABAMA CLAIMS. 451 in various parts of the Republic. The justice of the claims is sus- tained by the universal sentiment of the people of the United States. Her Majesty's government, we think, cannot reasonably expect that the government of the United States can consent, under such cir- cumstances, to forego their prosecution to some reasonable and satisfactory conclusion. This aspect of the case is, however, less serious than that which I have next to present. A disregard of the obligations of treaties, and of international law, manifested by one state, so injurious to another as to awaken a general spirit of dis- content and dissatisfaction among its people, is sure, sooner or later, to oblige that people, in a spirit of self-defence, if not of retalia- tion, in the absence of any other remedy, to conform their own principles and policy, in conducting their intercourse with the of fending state, to that of the party from whom the injury proceeds. Subsequently to the time when her Majesty's government dis- allowed the claims in question, and determined to exclude them from consideration, a part of the British realm, and certain of the British North American provinces, became the scenes of sedition, threaten- ing insurrection and revolution against the government of Great Britain. Native-born British subjects residing here, some of whom have been naturalized, and more of whom have not been naturalized in the United States, sympathizing in those revolutionary move- ments, attempted to organize on our soil, and within our jurisdic- tion, auxiliary land and naval forces for invasions of Ireland and Canada. The government of the United States, without waiting for remonstrances, appeals, or protests from her Majesty's govern- ment, effectively put their municipal laws into execution and pre- vented the threatened invasions. Thus we have seen ruinous British warlike expeditions against the United States practically allowed and tolerated by her Maj- esty's government, notwithstanding remonstrance; and we have seen similar unlawful attempts in this country against Great Britain disallowed and defeated by the direct and unprompted action of the government of the United States. Her Majesty's government, we think, cannot reasonably object to acknowledge our claims, and to adopt such measures as will assure the American people that their friendly policy of non-intervention in the domestic controversies of Great Britain will be made recip- rocal and equal. 452 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. I observe, finally, that the United States and Great Britain are two of the leading national powers in this age. The events of the last five years have conclusively proved that harmony between them is indispensable to the welfare of each. That harmony has been, as we think, unnecessarily broken, through the fault of Great Britain; nor does there exist the least probability that it can ever be completely renewed and restored unless the serious complaint which you are now again to bring to the notice of the British government shall be amicably and satisfactorily adjusted. Such an adjustment would be acceptable, we think, to the friends of peace, progress, and humanity throughout the world; while the benignant principles upon which it shall be based, being conformable to the law of nations, will constitute a guide for the conduct of commercial states, in their mutual intercourse, which will every where be con- ducive to international peace, harmony, and concord. Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams. January 12, 1867. A copy of a despatch written by Lord Stanley contains a review of my despatch of August 27, 1866, con- cerning so-called Alabama claims. You will please lay before Lord Stanley this reply. The President appreciates the consideration and courtesy mani- fested by her Majesty's government. I shall be content, on this occasion, with defending such of my former statements as Lord Stanley has disallowed. I think it unnecessary to disclaim a pur- pose of impugning the motives of the late or of the present ministry. Governments, like individuals, necessarily take their measures with reference to facts and circumstances as they, at the time, appear. The aspect often changes with further development of events. It is with ascertained facts, and not with intentions, that we are con- cerned; and it is of Great Britain as a state, and not of ter or ministry, that we complain. any minis- Lord Stanley justly reminds me that the Sumter was of Ameri- can, not of British origin, and that she began her career by escaping from New Orleans, and not from a British port. I think, however, The that the correction does not substantially affect the case. Sumter, belonging to loyal owners, was employed in trade between New York and New Orleans. Insurgents seized and armed her there, and sent her out through the blockade. She captured sev- THE REBEL CRUISERS. 453 eral United States merchant vessels, and sent them into Cienfuegos. On the 30th of July, 1861, she entered the British port of Trinidad, in the West Indies, ostentatiously displaying an insurgent flag, which had not then, nor has it ever since, been recognized as a na- tional ensign, either by the United States or by Great Britain, or by any other state. Being challenged, she presented a pretended commission, signed, not by the President of the United States, but by Jefferson Davis, an insurgent chief. The Governor of Trinidad exhibited the British standard as a compliment to the insurgent visi- The Sumter was entertained there six days, and supplied with tor. coal. After renewed depredations she took shelter, on the 19th of January, 1862, in the British port of Gibraltar, in continental Eu- rope. Being effectually locked in there for months by United States cruisers, she was, against the protest of this government, allowed to be sold to British buyers for the account and benefit of the in- surgents. She then hoisted the British flag, and under it was re- ceived at Liverpool, within the British realm. It is, indeed, true, as Lord Stanley has observed, that the Ala- bama, when she left England, was wholly unarmed and not fully equipped as a war vessel. It is also true that she received an arma- ment, a further equipment, a commander and a crew in Angra Bay, Azores a possession of the Crown of Portugal -- where the Brit- ish government had no jurisdiction, and could exercise no lawful control, even if they had an opportunity. But, on the other hand, it is to be remembered that, not only was the vessel built at Liver- pool, but the armament and the supplemental equipment were built and provided there also, simultaneously and by the same British hands, and also that the commander and crew were gathered and organized at the same time and the same place; the whole vessel, armament, equipment, commander and crew were adapted, each part to the other, and all were prepared for one complete expedi- tion. The parts were fraudulently separated in Liverpool, to be put together elsewhere, and they were fraudulently conveyed thence to Angra Bay and there put fraudulently together by her Majesty's subjects, not less in violation of British than of Portuguese obliga- tions to the United States. The offenders were never brought to justice by her Majesty's government, nor complained of by that government to the Queen of Portugal. The Alabama, from the laying of her timbers in Liverpool until her destruction by the 454 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. Kearsarge, off Cherbourg, never once entered any port or waters of the United States. Whatever pretended commission she ever had as a ship of war must have been acquired either in Great Britain or some other foreign country at peace with the United States, or on the high seas. Nevertheless, the Alabama was received, pro- tected, entertained, and supplied in her devastating career in the British ports of Capetown and Singapore in the East, and when she was finally sunk in the British channel, her commander and crew were, with fraudulent connivance, rescued by British subjects and ostentatiously entertained and caressed as meritorious but unfortu- nate heroes at Southampton. With these explanations I leave the affair of the Alabama where it was placed in the representation of Mr. Adams. Lord Stanley says that the Florida, under the original name of Oreto, left England unarmed and unequipped. It must not be for- gotten, however, that while building she was denounced to her Majesty's government by Mr. Adams. Lord Stanley also says that the Shenandoah left England unobserved, and therefore unques- tioned, and, for anything that had transpired, on a legitimate voy- age, and that she was only armed, equipped, and manned as a war vessel off Funchal, within Portuguese dominion. I am sure that it must be unnecessary to refer here to the fact that the building of the Florida, the Georgia, and the Shenandoah in British ports, and the arming and equipment of them outside of British jurisdiction, were fraudulent in the same manner that has been specially de- scribed in regard to the Alabama. The Shenandoah was received, protected, and supplied, in defiance of our protest, at Melbourne, in Australia. She proceeded thence to the Arctic seas, where she destroyed twenty-nine United States merchant vessels, and finally, after the end of the rebel hostilities here, she returned to Liver- pool, the place from which she had first gone forth, and there sur- rendered herself to her Majesty's government as to an ally or a superior. Lord Stanley excuses her Majesty's government in part upon the ground that sufficient evidence or notice was not presented by the United States, in part on the ground of accidental hindrances or embarrassments, while in one place he seems to imply that the only devastating vessels of which we complain are the Sumter, the Ala- bama, the Florida, and the Shenandoah. In regard to the first ex- LORD STANLEY'S POSITION. 455 cuse, I have to say that British complaints of lack of vigor on our part would, under any circumstances, be unreasonable. Interna- tional as well as municipal laws depend for their execution in Great Britain upon her Majesty's government, and not upon our own. Again, I think that Lord Stanley will find, by referring to unpub- lished records in the Foreign Office, what certainly appears in our confidential archives, that at the time when the fraudulent building, arming, and equipping of those vessels were going on in England, we were required, out of tenderness to British sensibilities and with the approval of her Majesty's government, to relax rather than in- crease our vigilance, then called by the repulsive name of espion- age. In relation to the second excuse, I think that the alleged hinder- ances and embarrassments were nothing else than the skilful mach- inations of the offending parties themselves. In enumerating certain vessels in my former communication, I wrote of them not as all the vessels complained of, but by way of describing the class of which we complained. There were many others. There were many others. The Nashville, stolen from loyal owners at Charleston, after having evaded the blockade, and after having captured the Harvey Birch, arrived at Southamp- ton on the 20th of November, 1861. She was entertained there until February 3, 1862, and then left the harbor, protected from the United States cruiser Tuscarora by her Majesty's war frigate Shan- non. She was afterwards hospitably entertained at the British ports of Bermuda and Nassau, in the West Indies. The Alabama improved her own crafty experience. Having in one of her cruises captured the United States merchant ship Conrad, near the Cape of Good Hope, on the 21st of June, 1863, she commissioned the Conrad as a "Confederate" pirate on the high seas, under the name of the Tuscaloosa. In like manner, the Florida captured the mer- chant ship Clarence upon the ocean, and commissioned her, and gave her an armament, force, and equipment of a 12-pound how- itzer, twenty men, and two officers. Afterwards the Florida trans- ferred the same authority, armament, and equipment to the Tacony on the high seas, which vessel captured, bonded, and destroyed ten United States merchant vessels off the Atlantic coast. Having recalled these facts, I must now beg leave to reaffirm as substantially correct my former statement, the statement to which Lord Stanley has excepted, namely: the Sumter, the Alabama, the 456 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. Florida, the Shenandoah, and other ships of war, were built, armed, equipped, and fitted out in British ports, and despatched therefrom by or through the agency of British subjects, and were harbored, sheltered, provided, and furnished, as occasion required, during their devastating career, in ports of the realm or in ports of the British colonies in nearly all parts of the globe. Lord Stanley excuses the reception of the vessels complained of in British ports subsequently to their fraudulent escapes and arma- ment, on the ground that when the vessels appeared in those ports they did so in the character of properly commissioned cruisers of the government of the so-styled Confederate States, and that they received no more shelter, provisions, or facilities than was due to them in that character. This position is taken by his lordship in view of the facts that, with the exception of the Sumter and the Florida, none of the vessels named were ever found in any place where a lawful belligerent commission could either be conferred or received. It would appear, therefore, that in the opinion of her Majesty's government, a British vessel, in order to acquire a bellig- erent character against the United States, had only to leave the British port where she was built clandestinely, and to be fraudu- lently armed, equipped,, and manned anywhere in Great Britain or in any foreign country or on the high seas, and in some foreign country or upon the high seas to set up and assume the title and privileges of a belligerent, without even entering the so-called Con- federacy or ever coming within any port of the United States. I must confess that if a lawful belligerent character can be acquired in such a manner, then I am unable to determine by what differ- ent course of proceeding a vessel can become a pirate and an enemy to the peace of nations. Lord Stanley defends the Queen's proclamation of neutrality by quoting against me certain utterances of the Supreme Court of the United States and of the District of Columbia, of which he says her Majesty's government has seen no refutation. Certainly it is not my purpose to refute these utterances. They were made by learned and loyal tribunals. Moreover, Lord Stanley understands them correctly as showing that, at the time they were pronounced, it was the opinion of those courts that a civil war was actually existing in the United States, and that it was existing at the time when the causes of action arose in the cases which the courts were adjudicat- LORD STANLEY'S ARGUMENT REFUTED. 457 ing. I may admit, further, that the courts referred to the Presi- dent's blockade proclamation, which preceded the Queen's neutral- ity proclamation, as one among the facts which proved that the con- troversy here was not a mere local insurrection, but had all the gravity, character, and consequences of a civil war. But I must insist, on the other hand, first, that neither of the judicial utterances referred to asserts or admits that the President's blockade proclamation expressly and in form declared or recognized the existence of civil war, and, in the second place, that both of these judicial utterances unmistakably imply the contrary. The District Court of Columbia pronounced its opinion on the 17th of June, 1861. The Supreme Court of the United States withheld its opinion until the 10th of March, 1863. The capture which consti- tuted the cause of action in the district court occurred on the 21st of May, 1861; the captures concerning which the Supreme Court of the United States adjudicated occurred on the 17th of May, 1861, the 20th of May, 1861, the 23d of June, 1861, and the 10th of July, 1861. The Queen's proclamation of neutrality had appeared before either court pronounced its opinion, and before either cause of action arose. British subjects were claimants in some, and other foreigners were claimants in others, of these litigations. Among the facts of which the Supreme Court took notice, and which they set forth as the grounds of their opinion, is the following: "As soon as the news of the attack on Fort Sumter, and the organization of a government of the seceding states assuming to act as belligerents, could become known in Europe, to wit: on the 13th of May, 1861, the Queen of England issued her proclamation of neutrality, recognizing hostilities as existing between the government of the United States of America and certain states styling them- selves the Confederate States of America. This was immediately followed by similar declarations or silent acquiescence by other nations." This statement served to prepare the way for the proposition which became a chief basis in the decision of the Supreme Court, to wit: "After such an effectual recognition by the sovereign, the citizen of a foreign state is estopped to deny the existence of a war and its consequences as regards neutrals." It is thus seen that the decision of the Supreme Court, which Lord Stanley quotes in defence of the Queen's proclamation of neutrality, was based upon the proclamation itself, and thus the proclamation defended, and the defending opinion of the Supreme Court, reciprocate each other. 458 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. The District Court of Columbia is only an inferior local tribunal, whose unreviewed reasoning would not anywhere be deemed au- thoritative upon international questions. I might, therefore, bring my remarks upon the Queen's proclamation of neutrality to an end, but I desire to leave nothing unsaid that might tend to elucidate the subject. The issue between the United States and Great Brit- ain, which is the subject of the present correspondence, is not upon the question whether a civil war has recently existed in the United States, nor is the issue upon that other question, namely, whether such a civil war was actually existing here at the date of the Queen's proclamation of neutrality. Certainly there is a stage when a civil commotion, although attended by armed force, is nevertheless in fact only a local insurrection, as it is also true that local insurrections often transcend municipal bounds, and become civil wars. It is always important, and generally difficult and per- plexing, to recognize and definitely determine the transition stage with absolute precision. The disturbed nation suffers a serious loss of advantages if recognition is prematurely made. The insurrec- tionary party may suffer a serious loss if it be too long and un- justly withheld. Strangers who may be dealing with one or the other may be injuriously affected in either case. Now what is alleged on the part of the United States is that the Queen's procla mation, which by conceding belligerent privileges to the insurgents, lifted them up for the purposes of insurrection to an equality with the nation which they were attempting to overthrow, was prema- ture because it was unnecessary, and that it was in its operation un- friendly because it was premature. 1 The discussion necessarily involves a history of that proclama- tion. On the 28th of February, 1861, the United States, in the customary manner of international conference, announced to Great Britain, as well as to other friendly nations, that certain United States citizens dwelling in South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Ala- bama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas bad, in pretended state conventions, and in a so-called but unlawful congress, on paper, pronounced a secession or separation from the Federal government, and asserted themselves by the style of the Confederate States of America. The United States, for special reasons, warned her Maj- esty's government that seditious emissaries would endeavor to pro- cure from Great Britain a recognition of the pretended Confederacy. BRITAIN'S UNFRIENDLY ACTION. 459 The United States protested against such a proceeding. Her Maj- esty's principal Secretary for Foreign Affairs, on the 22d of March, 1861, listened to the announcement thus made as one which he expected, and said that her Majesty's government had reached no definite conclusion as to a proper course of action. He observed that he had seen a private letter, from which he inferred that accredited ministers or commissioners, authorized to negotiate for recognition, would be shortly sent to Europe by the so-called seces- sionists. This answer plainly indicated a preparation for the very decision against which the United States protested. On the 9th of March thereafter, the President of the United States caused the before-mentioned motion and protest to be renewed, with the assur- ance to her Majesty's government that he then entertained a full confidence in a speedy restoration of the harmony and unity of the government, through judicious measures coöperating with a deliber- ate and loyal action of the American people. The President ear- nestly desired her Majesty's government not to intervene in any unfriendly way in the domestic concerns of this country. He dis- tinctly stated further that he would take care in every case to render any possible injuries which foreigners might suffer as light as possible, and fully to indemnify them. In answer to this latter communication, her Majesty's government, on the 8th of April, 1861, said that the matter seemed not yet ripe for decision, one way or the other, and that this was all that at that moment they could say. They added, however, a statement that English opinion seemed to be tending towards the theory that a peaceful separation of the American Union might work beneficially for both groups of states, and might not injuriously affect the rest of the world. It was then made known that the subject was to be debated on that very day in the House of Commons, and that six days thereafter a motion for absolute recognition of the pretended Confederacy, other- wise called there a new nation, would be pressed in Parliament. When these facts became known to this government care was taken to reply that the answer of the Foreign Secretary of State was by no means satisfactory, and her Majesty's government was therefore advised that they were at liberty to choose whether they would retain the friendship of the United States by refusing all aid and comfort to their domestic enemies, or whether her Majesty's gov- ernment would take the precarious benefits of a different course. 460 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. It was not long left in doubt in European circles which alternative. Great Britain would elect. Her Majesty's principal Secretary for Foreign Affairs having invited a conference on the 2d of May, an- nounced to the United States Minister in London, Mr. Dallas, that three representatives of the so-called Southern Confederacy were then in that capital, and that he, Lord Russell, was willing to see them unofficially. He then made the important announcement that there already existed an understanding between her Majesty's gov- ernment and that of France, which would lead both to take the same course as to recognition, whatever that course might be. The United States Minister, of course unprepared with instructions to meet these revelations, certainly unlooked for here, replied that his appointed successor, Mr. Adams, was then on his voyage, and might be expected within ten or fifteen days. The secretary acquiesced in the expediency of waiting for the coming of the new minister. The proposed movement in Parliament for recognition was, at the instance of the Secretary of Foreign Affairs, postponed. When the President received an account of the last-mentioned interview, he then was unable, as the United States are yet unable, to perceive how it was thought by her Majesty's government entirely considerate in regard to the United States to consult and agree with France upon a question vital to the United States with- out affording them a bearing. Moreover, the United States were then unable, as they are yet unable, to perceive how it is justly con- sidered by her Majesty's government any more lawful, just, or friendly to entertain traitors against the United States, with a view to business negotiations with them, unofficially and privately, than it is to entertain and negotiate with them officially and publicly. Be this as it may, Earl Russell's explanations revealed to the United States the fact that even thus early, before any effective military advantage had been gained by the insurgents, and even before any meditated blow had been given by this government in its own defence, the British government, Parliament, and people were entertaining privately, and not unkindly, debates with the insur- gents and with a foreign power, which involved nothing less than a direct and speedy sanction of the rebellion in the United States, and a dissolution of the American Union. They were yet unwilling to believe that Great Britain would take such a course with uncon- cealed precipitancy. Mr. Adams, the new minister, in the mean INSURGENT EMISSARIES IN LONDON. 461 time had been charged with the duty of counteracting the appeals of the disunionists, and was prepared to answer every argument which they could advance, either on the score of British interest, or under the pretext of zeal for the freedom of trade, or for the free- dom of men. The insurgent emissaries reached London on the 30th of April. The President's blockade proclamation, which was issued on the 13th of April, reached London on the 3d of May. On the 4th of May, only two days after the conference of Mr. Dallas with Lord Russell, he favored the insurgent emissaries with an unofficial interview. He patiently, it is not for us to say confidingly, heard them disclaim slavery as a principal cause of the incipient rebellion, while they alleged that its real cause was the high prices which the so-called South was obliged to pay for manufactured goods by way of protecting the so-called Northern manufacturers. They favored him with glowing statements of the South, and its exports valued by millions. He answered that, when the question of recognition should come to be formally discussed, inquiry must be made on two points: first, whether the body seeking recognition could maintain its position as an independent state; and, secondly, in what manner it was proposed to maintain relations with foreign states. After reviewing this conversation, is it to be wondered at that the traitors, when retiring from this interview, assured his lordship that they would rest in London in the hope that a recognition [of the sover- eignty] of the Southern Confederacy would not long be delayed? Two days later, namely, on the 6th of May, the principal Secretary for Foreign Affairs announced in Parliament that the ministry had consulted the law officers of the Crown the attorney general and the solicitor general, and the Queen's advocate- and her Majesty's government had come to the opinion that the Southern Confeder- acy of America, according to the principles which seemed to them to be just principles, must be treated as a belligerent. The Queen's proclamation, which went half the way towards recognition of the so-called Southern Confederacy, was issued at London on the 15th of May, in the morning. Mr. Adams arrived there in the even- ing. He was officially received on the 16th. This is the history of the Queen's proclamation of neutrality. What I wrote con- cerning it in the despatch which Lord Stanley has reviewed is as follows: . 462 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. "While as yet the civil war was undeveloped, and the insurgents were without any organized military forces or treasury, long before they pretended to have a flag or to put an armed ship or even a merchant vessel upon the sea, her Majes- ty's government, acting precipitately as we have always insisted, proclaimed the insurgents a belligerent power, and conceded to them the advantages and privi- leges of that character, and thus raised them in regard to the prosecution of an unlawful armed insurrection to an equality with the United States. The United States remain of the opinion that the proclamation has not been justified on any ground of either necessity or moral right; that, therefore, it was an act of wrong- ful intervention, a departure from the obligations of existing treaties, and without sanction of the law of nations." Lord Stanley's principal point, in defending the Queen's procla- mation, is, that it did no more than acknowledge a state of war which had already been recognized by the President himself in his proclamation of a blockade, which was issued on the 19th of April, 1861, and his further proclamation which was issued on the 27th of April, 1861. We have already seen that the Supreme Court of the United States and that of the District of Columbia, in their opin- ions, did not pretend, admit, or imply that the President's aforemen- tioned proclamations expressly and in form declared or recognized a state of civil war. So Lord Stanley, with commendable candor, re- frains from making any similar claim in regard to the President's blockade proclamations. The courts reached their conclusion that a state of civil war was existing at the time of the maritime captures which were under consideration by processes of reasoning and argu- ment. Lord Stanley is content with adopting the court's argument in identical words. He quotes from the Supreme Court: "The President was bound to meet it in the shape it presented itself without waiting for Congress to baptize it with a name; and no name given to it by him or them could change the fact." Lord Stanley quotes also the words that "The proclamation of blockade is conclusive evidence to the court that a state of war existed." And in the same sense he quotes from the court of the District of Columbia: “That the facts of the secession of the Southern States, as set forth by the President, with the assertion of the right of blockade, amount to a declaration that civil war exists." The courts correctly understood the facts with which they had to ENGLAND MISUNDERSTANDS THE SITUATION. 463 deal. In the causes which were before those courts, the claimants insisted that a state of civil war was not existing at the time of the respective captures. They so insisted on the ground that no com- petent authority had declared a civil war or had acknowledged the insurrection as a civil war giving rise to belligerent rights; that Congress had not so defined, described, or acknowleged it, and that the President had not by his proclamations so named, baptized, or recognized it. The recitals from the courts sustain the historical view of the case which I have presented. Before the Queen's proclamation of neutrality the disturbance in the United States was merely a local insurrection. It wanted the name of war to enable it to be a civil war and to live, endowed as such with maritime and other belliger- ent rights. Without that authorized name it might die, and was expected not to live and be a flagrant civil war, at to perish a mere insurrection. It was, therefore, not without lawful and wise design that the President declined to confer upon the insurrection the pregnant baptismal name of civil war, to the prejudice of the nation whose destiny was in his hands. What the President thus wisely and humanely declined to do, the Queen of Great Britain too promptly performed. She baptized the slave insurrection within the United States a civil war; and thus, so far as the British nation and its influence could go, gave it a name to live, and flourish, and triumph over the American Union. By this proceeding, the Queen of Great Britain intervened in the purely domestic and internal affairs of the United States, and derogated from the authority of their government. Reference to the events of the time will show that she misunderstood entirely the actual situation. The Presi- dent's first proclamation against the insurrection was issued on the 15th of April. He described the condition of affairs as one in which the laws of the United States were opposed, and the execu- tion thereof obstructed by combinations too powerful to be sup- pressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings. He called out the militia for a short term of service, to suppress those combi- nations, and to cause the laws of the land to be duly executed. He expressly declared that the first service assigned to the militia forces would probably be to repossess the forts, places, and property which had been seized from the Union; and that, in every event, the 464 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. utmost care would be observed, consistently with the objects afore- said, to avoid any devastation, any destruction of or interference with property, or any disturbance of peaceful citizens of any part of the country; and he commanded the forces composing the combina- tions before mentioned to disperse, and to return to their respective abodes within twenty days. He at the same time convoked Congress for the 4th day of July, to consider the state of the Union. So also in the President's second or supplemental proclamation of the block- ade, he defined its necessity as arising from an insurrection which had broken out in the states therein named, by means whereof the uniform laws of the United States for the collection of revenue could not be effectually executed. He recited, further, that a combina- tion of persons engaged in such insurrection had threatened to grant pretended letters of marque. He declared, further, that he had re- quired the persons engaged in these disorderly proceedings to desist therefrom, and had called out the militia to restore order and the supremacy of the laws. All these declarations, recitals, warnings, and commands are the especial features of governmental proclama- tions, designed to suppress local insurrections without suffering them to attain the form and dimensions of civil war. It was the absolute right of this government to treat the insurrection in this manner; and, in our opinion, it was not a right of Great Britain, by any recognition of the insurgents, either as sovereign or as belliger- ent, to defeat the wise and humane measures of the President in that respect. It will be found, we think, that all nations which have desired to practise justice and friendship towards a state tempo- rarily disturbed by insurrection, have forborne from conceding bel- ligerent privileges to the insurgents, in anticipation of their con- cession by the disturbed state itself. A nation which departs from this duty always practically commits itself as an ally to the insurgents, and may justly be held to the responsibilities of that relation. I pass, without comment, Lord Russell's justification of the Queen's proclamation, assimilating the situation here in 1861 to that of the Greeks rising against their Turkish oppressors in 1825. It could hardly be expected that this government would be con- vinced by an argument that assimilates them to the Ottoman power in its decline, and the slave-holding insurgents to the Christian de- scendants of heroic Greece, in their reascent to civilization. Lord RESULTS OF BRITISH RECOGNITION. 465 Stanley thinks that the Queen's proclamation could have no tend- ency to encourage and create into a civil war a political convulsion which otherwise would have remained a mere local insurrection. If it were true that an insurrection acquires no new powers, faculties, and attributes, when it receives from its own or a foreign govern- ment the baptismal name of civil war, the point which Lord Stanley raises might require grave consideration. Such, however, is not generally the case; and certainly it was not the case in the late con- test here. Provisions and treasures, arms, ordnance, and munitions. of war, and even ships of war, began to pour forth from the British shores in support of the insurgent cause, so soon as the Queen's recognition of it as a belligerent was proclaimed; and they contin- ually increased, until it was finally suppressed by the vigor and energy of this government. The commercial losses of the United States, which are the immediate subject of the present correspond- ence, are only a small part of the damage which this country has sustained at the hands of British abettors of the insurgents. But will Lord Stanley please to refer to the table in which these special losses are presented, showing ninety-five merchant vessels, with ten millions of property, destroyed by the cruisers which practically were sent forth from the British shores, and say whether he believes. it possible that such destructive proceedings could have occurred if Great Britain had not conceded belligerent rights to the insur- gents. Nor is it to be overlooked, that foreign moral sanction and sympathy are of more value to a local insurrection than even fleets and armies. Lord Stanley presents the considerations which induced the issue of the Queen's proclamation. He says that her Majesty's govern- ment had to provide at a distance for the loss and interests of Brit- ish subjects in or near the seat of war. But who required British subjects to be there? Who obliged them to remain in a place of danger? If they persisted in remaining there, had they not all the protection that citizens of the United States enjoyed? Were they entitled to more? Moreover does the jurisdiction of Great Britain extend into our country to protect its citizens sojourning here from accidents and casualties to which our own citizens are equally exposed? Lord Stanley continues, her Majesty's government had to consider the rapidity with which events were succeeding one an- other on the American continent, and the delay which must elapse 30 466 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. before intelligence of those events could reach them, and the press- ing necessity for definite instructions to the authorities in their colo- nies and on their naval stations near the scene of the conflict. On the contrary, it seems to us that prudence and friendship, had they been deliberately consulted, would have suggested to her Majesty's government to wait for the development of events and definitive action of the United States. Lord Stanley repeats from Earl Russell, and reaffirms that "her Majesty's government had but two courses open to them on receiv- ing intelligence of the President's proclamation, namely, either that of acknowledging the blockade and proclaiming the neutrality of her Majesty, or that of refusing to acknowledge the blockade and insisting upon the right of her Majesty's subjects to trade with the ports of the south where the government of the United States. could exercise no fiscal control at that time." With due respect I must demur to this statement. The disturb- ance being, at the time referred to, officially and legally held by the government of the United States to be a local insurrection, this government had a right to close the ports in the states within the scene of the insurrection, by municipal law, and to forbid strangers from all intercourse therewith, and to use the armed and naval forces for that purpose. A blockade was legitimately declared to that end; and, until the state of civil war should actually have developed, the existence of a blockade would have conferred no belligerent rights upon the insurgents. In choosing the blockade as a form of remedy less oppressive than the closing of the ports by statute, the United States might perhaps have come under an obligation to respect any just rights and interests of aliens which might have been infringed. There was, however, no just ground for apprehension on that sub- ject, for the history of the time shows that those rights were in all cases inviolately respected. Again, the blockade could have been suitably acknowledged by her Majesty's government without a proclamation conceding bellig- erent rights to the insurgents. Certainly forbearance from foreign strife can be practised, like every other national virtue, without public proclamation. There is hardly a nation in any part of the world which has not been disturbed by both internal and external wars since the United States became an independent maritime power. I find, however, in our records that the United States have THE FENIAN MOVEMENT. 467 accorded a recognition of belligerent rights only in one case, namely, in the case of the flagrant war between France and the allied Euro- pean powers in 1793. In all other cases we have either disallowed belligerent rights or preserved silence. 6 Lord Stanley says that "if Mr. Seward means to base the present claims on the ground that the British government should, while ac- knowledging the blockade, have awaited the arrival of a Confeder- ate ship of war in British ports before admitting the possession by the Confederate States' of a ship of war, and, therefore, their right to be treated on the high seas as a belligerent power, a reference to dates will show that the question would have been raised on the arrival of the Sumter at Trinidad, and of the Nashville at South- ampton, some months before Mr. Adams laid his complaints against the vessels mentioned in the summary of claims." To this argument it is deemed a sufficient reply that neither of the two vessels named in fact appeared in a British port or upon the high seas until after the Queen's proclamation, which tendered hos- pitalities and assistance to them, was issued. I do not deem it necessary to reply at large to the reflections which Lord Stanley makes upon the conduct of this government in regard to the proceedings of the so-called Fenians. The Fenian movement neither begins nor ends in the United States; the mov- ers in those proceedings are not native citizens of the United States; but they are natives of Great Britain, though some of them have assumed naturalization in the United States. Their quarrel with Great Britain is not an American, but a British one, as old, I sin- cerely hope it may not be as lasting, as the union of the United Kingdom. Their aim is not American, but British revolution. In seeking to make the territory of the United States a base for the organization of a republic in Ireland, and of military and naval operations for its establishment there, they allege that they have followed as an example proceedings of British subjects in regard to our civil war, allowed by her Majesty's government. The policy and proceedings of the two governments in regard to those parallel movements have not assimilated. The United States government has not recognized the Irish republic as a belligerent, and has disarmed its forces when found within our territories and waters. With regard to the manner in which this protracted controversy shall be brought to an end, we agree entirely with the sentiments 468 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. expressed by Lord Stanley. We should even think it better that it be brought to an end which might, perhaps, in some degree disap- point the parties, than that it should continue to alienate the two nations, each of which is powerful enough to injure the other deeply, while their maintenance of conflicting principles in regard to inter- vention would be a calamity to all nations. The United States think it not only easier and more desirable that Great Britain should acknowledge and satisfy the claims for indemnity which we have submitted, than it would be to find an equal and wise arbitrator who would consent to adjudicate them. If, however, her Majesty's government, for reasons satisfactory to them, should prefer the remedy of arbitration, the United States would not object. The United States, in that case, would expect to refer the whole contro- versy just as it is found in the correspondence which has taken place between the two governments, with such further evidence and argu- ments as either party may desire, without imposing restrictions, con- ditions, or limitations upon the umpire, and without waiving any principle or argument on either side. They cannot consent to waive any question upon the consideration that it involves a point of national honor; and, on the other hand, they will not require that any question of national pride or honor shall be expressly ruled and determined as such. If her Majesty's government shall concur in these views, the President will be ready to treat concerning the choice of an umpire. Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams. August 12, 1867. — I have now to recur to Lord Stanley's des- patch to Sir Frederick Wright Bruce of the 24th of May, concern- ing the so-called Alabama claims, a copy of which paper he placed in my hands during our recent visit at Auburn. You are authorized to inform his lordship that I did not under- stand his previous offer of arbitration to apply alone to the claims arising out of the depredations of the Alabama, to the exclusion of those arising out of the depredations of the Florida, the Shenan- doah, the Georgia, and other vessels of that description; and that, on the contrary, Lord Stanley's offer of limited arbitration was un- derstood to apply equally to those claims arising out of the depreda- tions of the several vessels last named as to those arising out of the depredations of the Alabama. BRITISH AGGRESSIONS. 469 INDEMNITY. His lordship now observes that the British government is ready to go to arbitration upon the question whether, in the matters con- nected with all those vessels out of whose depredations the claims of American citizens have arisen, the course pursued by the British government and those who acted upon its authority was such as would involve a moral responsibility on the part of the British government to make good, either in whole or in part, the losses of American citizens. The President considers these terms to be at once comprehensive and sufficiently precise to include all the claims of American citi- zens for depredations upon their commerce during the late rebellion which have been the subject of complaint upon the part of this government. But the United States government, in this view, would deem itself at liberty to insist before the arbiter that the ac- tual proceedings and relations of the British government, its offi- cers, agents, and subjects, towards the United States in regard to the rebellion and the rebels as they occurred during that rebellion, are among the matters which are connected with the vessels whose depredations are complained of, just as in the case of general claims alluded to by Lord Stanley, the actual proceedings and relations of her Majesty's government, its officers, agents, and subjects, in regard to the United States and in regard to the rebellion and the rebels, are necessarily connected with the transactions out of which those general claims arose. Lord Stanley's plan seems to be to constitute two descriptions of tribunals one an arbiter to determine the question of the moral responsibility of the British government in respect of the Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and other vessels of that class; and the other a mixed commission to adjudicate the so-called general claims of both sides; and a contingent reference to the same or other mixed com- mission, to ascertain and determine the amount of damages, for indemnity, to be awarded in the cases examined by the first tribu- nal in the event of a decision upon the question of moral responsi- bility in favor of the United States. No distinction as to principle between the tribunals seems to the United States to be necessary, and in every case the United States agree only to unrestricted arbitration. Convenience may require that the claims should be distributed between two tribunals, both of which, however, in the opinion of the United States, should 470 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. proceed upon the same principles and be clothed with the same powers. The President will be gratified if this explanation shall conduce to remove any of the difficulties which have heretofore prevented the two governments from coming to the amicable and friendly un- derstanding and arrangement which is so sincerely desired by both. Mr. Seward to Mr. Campbell.¹ October 25, 1866. You are aware that a friendly and explicit arrangement exists between this government and the Emperor of France to the effect that he will withdraw his expeditionary mili- tary forces from Mexico in three parts, the first of which shall leave Mexico in November next, the second in March next, and the third in November, 1867, and that upon the evacuation being thus com- pleted, the French government will immediately come upon the ground of non-intervention in regard to Mexico which is held by the United States. Doubts have been entertained and expressed in some quarters upon the question whether the French government will faithfully execute this agreement. No such doubts have been entertained by the President, who has had repeated and even recent assurances that the complete evacuation of Mexico by the French will be consum- mated at the periods mentioned, or earlier if compatible with cli- matical, military, and other conditions. There are grounds for supposing that two incidental questions have already engaged the attention of the French government, namely:- First. Whether it should not advise the departure of the Prince. Maximilian for Austria, to be made before the withdrawal of the French expedition. Second. Whether it would not be consistent with the climatical, military, and other conditions before mentioned to withdraw the whole expeditionary force at once instead of retiring in three parts, and at different periods. No formal communication, however, upon this subject has been made by the French Emperor to the government of the United States. When the subject has been incidentally mentioned, this Department, by direction of the President, has replied that the 1 U. S. Minister to Mexico. FRANCE, MEXICO, AND THE UNITED STATES. 471 United States await the execution of the agreement for evacuation by the French government at least according to its letter, while they would be gratified if that agreement could be executed with greater promptness and despatch than are stipulated. Under these circumstances the President expects that within the next month (November) a portion, at least, of the French expedi- tionary forces will retire from Mexico, and thinks it not improbable that the whole expeditionary force may be withdrawn at or about the same time. Such an event cannot fail to produce a crisis of great political interest in the republic of Mexico. It is important that you be either within the territories of that republic, or in some other place near at hand, so as to assume the exercise of your func- tions as minister plenipotentiary of the United States to the repub- lic of Mexico. What may be the proceedings of the Prince Maximilian in the event of a partial or complete evacuation of Mexico, of course, can- not now be certainly foreseen. What may be the proceedings of Mr. Juarez, the President of the republic of Mexico, in the same event, cannot now be definitely anticipated. We are aware of the existence of several political parties in Mex- ico other than those at the head of which are President Juarez and Prince Maximilian, who entertain conflicting views concerning the most expedient and proper mode of restoring peace, order, and civil government in that republic. We do not know what may be the proceedings of those parties in the event of the French evacua- tion. Finally, it is impossible for us to foresee what may be the pro- ceedings of the Mexican people in case of the happening of the events before alluded to. For these reasons it is impossible to give you specific directions for the conduct of your proceedings in the dis- charge of the high trust which the government of the United States has confided to you. Much must be left to your discretion, which is to be exercised according to the view you may take of political movements as they shall disclose themselves in the future. There are, however, some principles which, as we think, may be safely laid down in regard to the policy which the government of the United States will expect you to pursue. The first of these is, that as a representative of the United States you are accredited to the republican government of Mexico, of which Mr. Juarez is President. 472 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. Your communications as such representative will be made to him wheresoever he may be, and in no event will you officially recognize either the Prince Maximilian, who claims to be emperor, or any other person, chief, or combination, as exercising the executive authority in Mexico, without having first reported to this Depart- ment and received instructions from the President of the United States. Secondly. Assuming that the French military and naval com- manders shall be engaged in good faith in executing the agreement before mentioned for the evacuation of Mexico, the spirit of the en- gagement on our part in relation to that event will forbid the United States and their representative from obstructing or embarrassing the departure of the French. Thirdly. What the government of the United States desires in regard to the future of Mexico is not the conquest of Mexico, or any part of it, or the aggrandizement of the United States by pur- chases of land or dominion, but, on the other hand, they desire to see the people of Mexico relieved from all foreign military interven- tion, to the end that they may resume the conduct of their own affairs under the existing republican government, or such other frame of government as, being left in the enjoyment of perfect lib- erty, they shall determine to adopt in the exercise of their own free will, by their own free act, without dictation from any foreign coun- try, and, of course, without dictation from the United States. It results as a consequence from these principles that you will enter into no stipulation with the French commanders, or with the Prince Maximilian, or with any other party, which shall have a tendency to counteract or oppose the administration of President Juarez, or to hinder or delay the restoration of the authority of the republic. On the other hand, it may possibly happen that the President of the republic of Mexico may desire the good offices of the United States, or even some effective proceedings on our part, to favor and advance the pacification of a country so long distracted by foreign invasion, combined with civil war, and thus gain time for the reëstablishment of national authority upon principles con- sistent with a republican and domestic system of government; it is possible, moreover, that some disposition might be made of the land and naval forces of the United States, without interfering within the jurisdiction of Mexico, or violating the laws of neutrality, FRANCE, MEXICO, AND THE UNITED STATES. 473 which would be useful in favoring the restoration of law, order, and republican government in that country. You are authorized to confer upon this subject with the repub- lican government of Mexico, and its agents, and also to confer in- formally, if you find it necessary, with any other parties or agents, should such an exceptional conference become absolutely necessary, but not otherwise. You will by these means obtain information which will be important to this government, and such information you will convey to this Department, with your suggestions and advice as to any proceedings on our part which can be adopted in conformity with the principles I have before laid down. You will be content with thus referring any important proposi- tions on the subject of reorganization and restoration of the repub- lican government in Mexico as may arise, to this Department for the information of the President. The General of the United States possesses already discretionary authority as to the location of the forces of the United States in the vicinity of Mexico. His military experience will enable him to advise you concerning such questions as may arise during the transi- tion state of Mexico from a military siege by a foreign enemy to a condition of practical self-government. At the same time it will be in his power, being near the scene of action, to issue any orders which may be expedient or necessary for maintaining the obliga- tions resting upon the United States in regard to proceedings upon the borders of Mexico. For these reasons he has been requested and instructed by the President to proceed with you to your desti- nation, and act with you as an adviser recognized by this Depart- ment in regard to the matters which have herein been discussed. After conferring with him you are at liberty to proceed to the city of Chihuahua, or to such other place in Mexico as may be the resi- dence of President Juarez; or in your discretion you will proceed to any other place in Mexico, not held or occupied at the time of your arrival by enemies of the republic of Mexico, or you will stop at any place in the United States or elsewhere, near the frontier or coast of Mexico, and await there a time to enter any portion of Mexico which shall hereafter be in the occupation of the republican government of Mexico. 474 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. Mr. Seward to Mr. King. December 15, 1866. Your despatch of the 26th of November, which relates to the case of John H. Surratt, has been received. I commend and thank you for the useful and very interesting details concerning the ways of that offender which you have given me. Among the papers which accompany the despatch is a memoran- dum, which is inscribed "A copy" and the text of which is as follows: "About twelve months ago Surratt came to Rome, under the name of Watson. In Canada he procured letters from some priest to friends in England. Having left England for Rome, he got letters for some people here, among others for Rev. Dr. Neane, rector of the English college. Being detained for some days at Civita Vecchia, and having no money to pay expenses there, he wrote to Dr. Neane, from whom he received fifty (50) francs. On his arrival here he went to the English college, where he lived for some time. After that he entered the Papal service.” ROME, November 25. The paper bears no signature. The only information you give me from which to determine its authenticity is, that you have received it from good authority. I do not know that the statement. thus recited would in any case have any value. Certainly, unau- thenticated, it can be of no use other than to awaken curiosity. I think you ought to have given the authority to which you allude. I am aware that the person who imparted the information to you may probably have given it to you as confidential, and that he might even have declined to give it to you at all if you had not agreed to receive it under an injunction of secrecy. Such an injunction neither you nor I have in any case a right to accept. We are agents of the President, in whom the whole executive power of the United States is vested. Clearly the information contained in the paper was designed for him, and not for yourself or for me personally. No one can rightfully claim to impose upon us an injunction to conceal from the President facts which concern the public safety and welfare. I have acted upon the principle which I thus inculcate throughout all the excitement of a civil war. Better to reject all information whatever than to receive it with limitation inconsistent with official duty. What I have written is not to be taken, however, as conveying censure for the past, but rather as an instruction for the future. ALABAMA CLAIMS. 475 DELAY. Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams. March 28, 1867.- I acknowledge the receipt of your despatch of the 8th of March, in which you give me, briefly, what is evidently very accurate, as it is important, information concerning the recent disturbances in Ireland. I avail myself of that information for the purpose of conferring with you informally and confidentially upon. the condition of affairs between this government and that of Great Britain. I think myself not only entitled to assume, but bound to assume, that a chronic sedition is existing in Ireland; that, as occasion shall offer, the late disturbances are not unlikely to be renewed, espe- cially if there shall be a continued agitation of political questions in Great Britain. I assume it to be possible that somewhere and at some time a seditious party in Ireland may proclaim an organized insurrection with a show of delegated authority from some portions of the Irish people. Such a proceeding is intensely expected by many citizens of the United States. That expectation excites a profound sympathy among adopted citizens of Irish birth and their descendants. It is equally manifest that the sympathy of the whole American people goes with such movements, for the reason that there is a habitual jealousy of British proximity across our northern border, and especially for the reason that this nation indulges a pro- found sense that it sustained great injury from the sympathy ex- tended in Great Britain to the rebels during our civil war. The country has hoped and expected that in some way our com- plaints against Great Britain in that respect would be satisfac- torily adjusted. It has been content to wait until now for that consummation. But there are, on the other hand, important classes of our people whose patience in this respect is becoming exhausted. The House of Representatives, in the first session of the late Congress, with entire unanimity passed a bill to alter our neutrality laws so as to accommodate them to the standard of neutrality which they under- stood was maintained during our civil war by Great Britain. The senate did not concur, and so the bill failed. There are, however, unmistakable indications that the sentiments which controlled the action of the House of Representatives are now gaining favor in the other branch of Congress, as well as among the people. 476 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. It is to be expected that time will add to the strength of the interest which demands that projected modification of our neutral- ity laws; because, first, the sense of injury is intensified by the delay of negotiations; and because, secondly, many ship-builders and other merchants of the United States are now earnestly taking part in the question. I give you copies of certain resolutions just now adopted in the House of Representatives bearing upon our relations with Great Britain. Lord Stanley proposes an arbitration of the Alabama claims, with a preliminary condition that technical definitions shall be first given to the questions to be submitted. In that form his offer cannot be accepted, because it would per- mit a belief here that what are deemed just claims, absolutely en- titled to redress, might be defeated by forms obstructive of a fair and full examination. On the other hand, what had been offered on our side is as fair and as liberal as Congress or the nation could be expected to sustain. Time seems to me to have already become an important element in the question of adjustment. If delays are continued, it may perhaps pass beyond the reach of settlement by a friendly corre- spondence. While writing this I am not to be understood as insisting that my views in regard to the situation in Great Britain are altogether cor- rect. I may, indeed, entirely misunderstand the situation there. Nor am I unmindful of the critical nature of the political debates which are now occupying the attention of her Majesty's ministers. It is not the President's desire to do anything which would be or would even seem to be unfriendly to Great Britain. At the same time I think it important that the ministry shall understand the increasing delicacy of the question as it stands in the United States. Your excellent judgment will enable you to determine whether any and what part of what I have said can be made known to Lord Stanley, with a hope of good effect. If such a communication in any form shall be expedient, then the selection of the time and manner in which it shall be made is also left to your discretion. Will you take the matter in hand and act in regard to it as shall seem best, giving me at least the result of your reflections. UNSETTLED QUESTIONS CONSIDERED. 477 Mr. Seward to Mr. Campbell. April 6, 1867. —The capture of the Prince Maximilian at Que- retaro, by the republican armies of Mexico, seems probable. The reported severity practised upon the prisoners taken at Zacatecas excites apprehensions that similar severity may be practised in the case of the Prince and his alien troops. Such severities would be injurious to the national cause of Mexico, and to the republican system throughout the world. You will communicate to President Juarez, promptly and by effectual means, the desire of this government, that in case of his capture the Prince and his supporters may receive the humane treat- ment accorded by civilized nations to prisoners of war. The expense of making the communication to President Juarez will be defrayed by this Department. Mr. Seward to Mr. Johnson.¹ July 20, 1868. It is a truism that commercial and industrial interests continually exert a powerful influence in favor of peace and friendship between the government and people of the United States and Great Britain. Intimate consanguinity, together with a nearly entire community of language and a very considerable community of political and religious principles, ideas, and senti- ments, work in the same direction. On all occasions when the moral sentiment of mankind is moved in favor of national regen- eration or other political reform in any part of the world, a very cordial sympathy and regard to such advances in civilization is found to exist between the two countries. This mutual, friendly disposition between the two nations manifests itself more strongly now than at any former period. Nevertheless, there are some con- troversies which have heretofore unavoidably arisen out of differ- ence of administration in the two governments controversies which are of lasting importance, and which have become chronic in their character. An urgent necessity exists for the settlement of one or more of them. A reference to the records of the legation in London will disclose them, and explain the circumstances which have hitherto prevented their adjustment, notwithstanding the great zeal and efficiency with which your distinguished predecessor, Mr. Adams, has carried out the instructions of this Department. 1 Reverdy Johnson, U. S. Minister, etc. 478 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. The so-called naturalization question is the one which first and most urgently requires attention. The political institutions of the United States may in one sense be said to have for their foundation the principle of the right of individual men in any country, who are neither accused nor convicted of crime, to change their homes' and allegiance according to the dictates of their own judgments and consciences and the inspiration of their individual desires for lib- erty and happiness. On the contrary, the British government have always held in theory, and still adhere to the principle, that native allegiance to the British Crown is indefeasible without the express consent of the sovereign. A practical application of this ancient theory in cases of belligerent right of search was, as you are well aware, one of the principal causes of the war of 1812 between the United States and Great Britain. Without reaching a formal decision in the treaty of peace, the question was suffered to fall into abeyance, and, until quite recently, it seemed to have become obsolete. Chronic political disaffection in Ireland has survived all the paci- fying efforts of administration in Great Britain, of whatever kind. It frequently manifests itself there in turbulence and insurrection. Recently those discontents have been so great that Parliament has made new penal enactments, and has kept the habeas corpus sus- pended in Ireland for a period which has now reached the duration of two years and five months. On the other hand, a great and con- tinuous emigration, which has removed large masses of its popula- tion to the United States, has seemed to abate the forces of popular resistance to the authority of Great Britain in that country. The large masses of population thus received into the United States from Ireland, with their descendants, constitute no inconsiderable part of our own population in every State and Territory of the American Republic. Most of the Irish immigrants and their de- scendants have availed themselves of our naturalization laws, and have thus become citizens. While the new interests which they have thus acquired as citizens of the United States are paramount, they retain strong feelings and sentiments of attachment to their native country, or at least of sympathy in its interest and welfare so true it is that those who remove from one country to another do not, with a change of skies, altogether change their native dis- positions. It happens, therefore, that every considerable surge of UNSETTLED QUESTIONS CONSIDERED. 479 popular discontent that disturbs the peace of Great Britain affects that portion of our people who have derived their descent from Ire- land, and this emotion, in no inconsiderable degree, affects by sym- pathy the whole population of the United States. Great Britain is understood to acknowledge that this govern- ment maintains its neutrality in this trial with due decision and energy. The maintenance of this neutrality, however, is attended with so much difficulty and inconvenience as to entitle us to the exercise of a corresponding justice and liberality on the part of Great Britain. As naturalized citizens of the United States, Irishmen and their descendants have a right to visit Great Britain, and to be safe in their persons and property there so long as they practise due submission to the authority of Great Britain, the same as na- tive citizens of the United States. When, however, a naturalized citizen of Irish birth or descent, transiently visiting Great Britain, is arrested or questioned under the acts suspending the habeas corpus, or by warrant or other form of complaint in judicial pro- ceedings, and thereupon claims the rights of citizens of the United States, he is met in the courts of that country with a denial of the validity of his naturalization, and with the assertion that his allegi- ance to the sovereign of Great Britain continues unbroken. This theory is especially maintained in judicial tribunals in that country, first, as a ground for denying to the naturalized citizen of Irish birth or extraction a trial by jury de medietate linguae, which is extended by statute to all foreigners; and also by the pretence that he is especially amenable in British courts for political opin- ions and conduct maintained or pursued while in the United States, the land of his adoption. It ought not to have been at any time a matter of surprise to her Majesty's government, that these invidious discriminations in Brit- ish tribunals between two classes of citizens of the United States, who stand upon one common platform under our own laws, con- tinually engenders suspicion of prejudice and injustice. If these suspicions are suffered to continue and increase with the progress of political agitation in Great Britain, it must sooner or later result in an extensive and profound alienation of the two countries. The President has frequently and urgently appealed to the Brit- ish government to remove the cause of embarrassment which I have described an embarrassment which, on the one hand, is produc- tive of no conceivable benefit to the British nation, while, on the 480 SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. other, it hinders all attempts to retain in the United States senti- ments of cordiality and friendship towards Great Britain. The British government announces to us that it is disposed to remove this embarrassment by accepting the principle of the valid- ity of our laws of naturalization in regard to British subjects. This announcement is gratifying to the United States; but the delay which the British government makes in carrying the purpose into effect leaves our relations even in a worse condition than be- fore. It is manifest that the purpose can be carried into effect only by some act of Parliament or by a negotiation between the two countries. Parliament does not enact the necessary law, nor has the executive government, on the other hand, thus far been willing to negotiate the necessary treaty. Her Majesty's government is understood to be diligently engaged in examining the subject, with a view to determine the proper details for an enactment or treaty. While the United States cannot object that such an examination is necessary, they are embarrassed by the procrastination with which it is conducted. You will address yourself to this as the most important question requiring attention on your arrival in London. You will frankly state to Lord Stanley that, until this difficulty shall be removed, it is believed by the President that any attempt to settle any of the existing controversies between the two countries would be unavail- ing, and therefore inexpedient. If her Majesty's government should conclude to negotiate a nat- uralization treaty, the treaties which have been recently celebrated between the United States and North Germany, the United States and Bavaria, and the United States and Wurtemberg, furnish the basis upon which this government would be ready to adjust the controversy.1 Secondly. In case her Majesty's government shall adopt the re- quired measures to adjust the naturalization question, you will next be expected to give your attention to the adjustment of the northwest boundary controversy, which involves the right of national domin- ion and property over the island of San Juan, on the frontier line between the United States and British Columbia. It is understood that on the breaking out of the recent civil war in the United States this boundary question was on the eve of being arranged, by refer- ring it to an impartial and friendly arbiter. The question is in- 1 See President Hayes' Message, December 3, 1877. UNSETTLED QUESTIONS CONSIDERED. 481 creasing in urgency with the growing settlement and population of the northwest, and with the multiplication of causes of litigation within the disputed territory. The United States still remain in a disposition favorable to the process of adjustment originally con- templated. Thirdly. If you shall find reason to expect that the British govern- ment will be prepared to adjust the two questions already mentioned in some such manner as has been proposed, and satisfactory to both parties, you will then be expected to advert to the subject of mutual claims of citizens and subjects of the two countries against the government of each other respectively. The difficulty in this respect has arisen out of our claims which are known and described in general terms as the Alabama claims. In the first place, her Majesty's government not only denied all national obligation to indemnify citizens of the United States for these claims, but even refused to entertain them for discussion. Subsequently her Majesty's government, upon reconsideration, pro- posed to entertain them for the purpose of referring them to arbi- tration, but insisted upon making them the subject of special ref- erence, excluding from the arbitrator's consideration certain grounds. which the United States deem material to a just and fair determina- tion of the merits of the claims. The United States declined this special exception and exclusion, and thus the proposed arbitration has failed. It seems to the President that an adjustment might now be reached without formally reviewing former discussions. A joint commission might be agreed upon for the adjustment of all claims of citizens of the United States against the British government, and of all claims of subjects of Great Britain against the United States, upon the model of the Joint Commission of February 8, 1853, which commission was conducted with so much fairness and settled so sat- isfactorily all the controversies which had arisen between the United States and Great Britain, from the peace of Ghent, 1814, until the date of the sitting of the convention. While you are not authorized to commit this government dis- tinctly by such a proposition, you may sound Lord Stanley upon the subject after you shall have obtained satisfactory assurances that the two more urgent controversies previously mentioned can be put under process of adjustment in the manner which I have indicated. 31 OCCASIONAL SPEECHES AND MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS. 7 OCCASIONAL SPEECHES. THE PROGRESS OF THE WAR. THE FALL OF VICKSBURG. Washington, July 7, 1863. Remarks made by Secretary Seward in Washington, on Tuesday night, after the reception of the news of the fall of Vicksburg. WHEN I saw a commotion upheaving in the state, I thought it consistent with the duty of a patriot and a Christian to avert the civil war if it was possible, and I tried to do so. If this was a weak- ness, I found what seemed an instruction excusing it in the prayer of our Saviour, that the cup, the full bitterness of which was under- stood by himself alone, might pass. But I found, also, an instruc- tion in regard to my duty in his resignation: "Nevertheless, not my will but thine be done." When it was clear that without fault on your part or mine the civil war was inevitable, I then thought it consistent with the duty of a patriot and a Christian to take care that the war should be begun not by the friends of the Union, but by its enemies, so that in maintaining the Union we should not only maintain the cause of our country, but should be maintaining it in righteous self-defence. Aggression, unjust aggression, is in every case weakness. Self-defence in a righteous cause is the strongest attitude that an individual or a nation can have. The weakest nation may resist a powerful adversary, while it occupies an attitude of self-defence. Powerful nations have been shivered in making an unprovoked attack upon one infinitely weaker than themselves. I thought, further, that it was consistent with my duty as a patriot and a Christian to do what was in my power to render the war as light in its calamities and as short in its duration as possible. 486 OCCASIONAL SPEECHES. Therefore, I proposed to retain on the side of the loyal states as many of the states which were disturbed by elements of sedition as could be retained by a course of calm and judicious conduct. I would have had, if possible, the insurrection confined to the seven original so-called seceding states. When all these conditions had been secured, so far as was possible to secure them, I thought still further that it was consistent with my duty as a patriot and a Christian to combine the loyal states and consolidate them into one party for the Union, because I knew that disunion had effectually combined the people of the disloyal states to overthrow the Union. I thought that this could be done only through the sacrifice of indi- vidual and state and sectional opinions, interests, prejudices and ambitions. A nation cannot be saved from death whose individual citizens lack the virtue to make these sacrifices. Unwilling to ask of my fellow-citizens sacrifices I had not the resolution to make myself, I determined not to wait until I should be called upon to make them. I said, “I give up myself, my family, my friends, my party, all that I have laid up of character in the past, all the interests that I now possess, and all the future that I have thought was in store for me. I take for my associate and leader the first brave and disinterested man who leads the way, and I follow his guidance and share his fortunes." I found a leader in Andrew Johnson, of Tennessee, a man who tolerated and excused, if he did not justify slavery; and as all the world knew that I then abhorred and detested it, and as God knows I abhor and detest it now, I said, "The country shall be saved by the republican party if it will, by the democratic party if it choose, without slavery if it is possible, with slavery if it must." Once engaged in the contest, I was prepared to demand, as I have demanded ever since, that no treasure, no amount of human life necessary to save the nation's life, should be withheld. I thought that the war might be ended in three months-in six months — in a year and I labored to that end. But, as you will all recollect, I said that it was the people, and not any one man or any combination of men, that could bring it to an end, then or ever, and the people could only do it by showing so much zeal, determination and consistency, as would not only keep envious, or interested, or ambitious foreign nations aloof from the battle, but should make it their obvious interest to frown upon THE FALL OF VICKSBURG. 487 and discourage the insurrection. We failed to make that exhibi- tion, and so the war has been protracted into its third year, through the encouragement and aid the insurrection has received from the fears or the listlessness of portions of our own people, and the in- fluences of the enemies of the Republic and of human freedom throughout the world. It was doubtless ordained that it should be so, and therefore it may be believed that it was best that it should be so, although we may be allowed to indulge our sorrows over the augmented sum of miseries which the war has inflicted upon the land. I say it is perhaps best, because I think this ought to be the last insurrection in the United States the last effort ever made to dis- solve the Union. The more suffering that attends this attempt, the less likely it is to be repeated. But we have reached, I think, the culminating point at last; we have ascertained the amount of sacrifice which is necessary to save the Union, and the country is prepared to make it. The force of secession is exhausted. There are no more states to go into the insurrection. The insurrectionary states have no more soldiers to bring into the conflict. On the other hand, in the loyal states the plow has twice passed through the ground, and each time it has yielded the necessary harvest of defenders of the Union. The sub- soil is deep, and is as rich in the elements of military strength and virtue as that which has already been twice furrowed. It is for the disloyal citizens to decide whether they will give up the contest now or abide a further and more conclusive trial. Vicksburg fell on the fourth of July, and Port Hudson, I do not doubt, will fall before the fourth of August. When both have fallen, the United States are the masters of the Mississippi. The power that navigates the Mississippi dominates in North America, and makes a division of the United States of America impossible. Then I think that Rosecrans either has by this time, or soon will have, occupied the mountain passes of East Tennessee; and thus, by the two successes, the new slave Confederation becomes divided into four separate, disconnected territories. What kind of a Con- federation will that be? a chain broken into four fragments; and this is only the beginning. Texas, west of the Mississippi, detached from the Confederation by the Mississippi; and territories east of the Alleghany Mountains, separated from the Gulf States by the 488 OCCASIONAL SPEECHES. Federal occupation of East Tennessee, will be followed by new and inevitable cases of fracture. You have already seen Missouri detach herself from the Con- federacy. Next you will see Arkansas come into Congress, as you have already seen Louisiana come there. On this side of the Mis- sissippi look sharply at the Old North State, and you will see her preparing to return into the Union. A strange kind of Confeder- ate State will be seen existing between what remains to the insur- gents of Virginia and South Carolina. Two slices of secession bread made into a sandwich by the intervening slice of North Carolina ham, with its copious condiment of Union mustard. My friends, we have seen a painful sight. We have seen thirteen stars of this glorious constellation shoot in blood and fire from their spheres. We are now to see a phenomenon that will compensate us for all the pain the former spectacle has given us. We are to see each one of those stars coming back from its wan- dering through a chaos of consuming anarchy, and take its place in the firmament, to fall from thence, I trust, no more for ever. I am sure of this, because even in the darkest night of our troubles, I have known two things — first, that these stars could not be altogether extinguished, and, second, that the attraction which brought them originally together, however weakened, cannot be utterly broken. Do not go away with the impression that all these things are to come to pass without further performance of duty, and further sacrifice. The Union is to be saved after all only by human efforts, by the efforts of the people. These efforts are to be made in two forms you must vote for the Union through all discouragements and alarms and complaints, whether those in whom you have re- posed confidence are wise or unwise, competent or incompetent, suc- cessful or unsuccessful; and yet you must fight for the Union, never retreating or giving ground before the enemy. You must be prepared to do more. You must maintain your ground here in this capital. When the rebellion ceases, let it find us here, to celebrate the salvation of our country. If the capital must fall before it can be saved, which I have always thought un- necessary, and which now seems impossible, even in that case, let us be buried amid its ruins. For myself, this is my resolution. If the people of the United States have virtue enough to save the Union, I shall have their virtue. If they have not, then it shall be my reward that my virtue excelled that of my countrymen. SPEECH AT GETTYSBURG. 489 If I fall here, let no kinsman or friend remove my dust to a more hospitable grave. Let it be buried under the pavements of the Avenue, and let the chariot wheels of those who have destroyed the liberties of my country rattle over my bones until a more heroic and worthy generation shall recall that country to life, liberty, and independence. As this shall be my only reward, living or dying, for whatever I may be able to do for the deliverance of my country from danger, so, on the other hand, that country may visit me with whatever censure or reproach for shortcomings may seem. to it just, but the world shall never hear a word of complaint issue from my lips. This is my resolution. Now, fellow citizens, for yours. What should that be? That resolution must be that you will not wait for draft or conscription. Ask not whether the enemy is near, or whether he is far off. Ask only, is there still an enemy in arms against the United States a domestic one or a foreign one? array yourselves to meet that enemy. Thus, when this insurgent enemy renews the desolation of your country, or a foreign enemy proposes to intervene, your answer for both is ready. I will write it down and deliver it for you, as heretofore. Do you only stand ready to maintain it, and if I can do more service in the ranks than I can in being your organ, I will enroll myself with you. The flag of the Union must wave, not only in the capital and in the free states, so-called, and on the Mississippi, but must go through the Union until not one disloyal citizen remains in arms to oppose it. SPEECH AT GETTYSBURG. November 18, 1863. In the afternoon of the 18th of November, 1863, the President and the distin- guished personages accompanying him arrived at Gettysburg, to attend the con- secration of the National Cemetery. In the course of the evening, the President and Secretary of State were serenaded, and the following remarks were made by Mr. Seward in response to the call : FELLOW-CITIZENS: I am now sixty years old and upward; I have been in public life, practically, forty years of that time, and yet this is the first time that ever any people or community so near to the border of Maryland was found willing to listen to my voice; and the & 490 OCCASIONAL SPEECHES. reason was that I saw, forty years ago, that slavery was opening be- fore this people a graveyard that was to be filled with brothers falling in mutual political combat. I knew that the cause that was hurrying the Union into this dreadful strife was slavery; and when during all the intervening period I elevated my voice, it was to warn the people to remove that cause while they could by constitutional means, and so avert the catastrophe of civil war which has fallen upon the nation. I am thankful that you are willing to hear me at last. I thank my God that I believe this strife is going to end in the removal of that evil which ought to have been removed by deliberate councils and peaceful means. I thank my God for the hope that this is the last fratricidal war which will fall upon the country which is vouchsafed to us by Heaven, the richest, the broadest, the most beautiful, the most magnificent, and capable of a great destiny, that has ever been given to any part of the human race. And I thank Him for the hope that when that cause is removed, simply by the operation of abolishing it, as the origin and agent of the treason that is without justification and without paral- lel, we shall thenceforth be united, be only one country, having only one hope, one ambition, and one destiny. To-morrow, at least, we shall feel that we are not enemies, but that we are friends and brothers, that this Union is a reality, and we shall mourn together for the evil wrought by this rebellion. We are now near the graves of the misguided, whom we have consigned to their last resting-place, with pity for their errors, and with the same heart full of grief with which we mourn over a brother by whose hand, raised in defence of his government, that misguided brother perished. When we part to-morrow night, let us remember that we owe it to our country and to mankind that this war shall have for its con- clusion the establishing of the principle of democratic government,- the simple principle that whatever party, whatever portion of the community prevails by constitutional suffrage in an election, that party is to be respected and maintained in power until it shall give place, on another trial and another verdict, to a different portion of the people. If you do not do this, you are drifting at once and irre- sistibly to the very verge of universal, cheerless, and hopeless an- archy. But with that principle this government of ours - the purest, the best, the wisest, and the happiest in the world — must be, and, so far as we are concerned, practically will be, immortal. THE FALL OF ATLANTA. 491 THE ALLIES OF TREASON. THE FALL OF ATLANTA. Auburn, September 3, 1864.1 MY DEAR FRIENDS: It is so that I like to see you come march- ing to the time of national airs, under the folds of the old national flag. I thank you for this hospitable and patriotic welcome. It proves that though you deal rigorously with your public servants, exacting reasons for their policy, energy in their conduct of affairs, and explanations for failures and disappointments in their adminis- tration, yet you are, nevertheless, just, because you willingly allow them to rejoice with you, when you have successes, victories, and triumphs to celebrate. The news that brings us together is authentic. Here is a tele- gram which I received this morning from the Secretary of War: “Van Duzer reports that Sherman's advance entered Atlanta about noon to-day. Particulars not yet received. Edwin M. Stanton." Now this news comes in a good shape. It is pleasant to have a grand result at the first, and it protracts the interest of the thing to have particulars coming in afterward. This victory comes in the right connection. It falls in with the echoes of the capture of Forts Gaines and Morgan, which I under- stand to be the particulars of Farragut's glorious naval battle in the bay of Mobile, a battle equaled by no other in American history, but the naval achievements of the same veteran admiral at New Orleans and Port Hudson, and all these have no parallel in naval warfare, but the battles of the Nile and Trafalgar. I know the Ad- miral well, and I confess that we all can't be Farraguts. Indeed, very few of us can, But we may take this comfort to ourselves, that as a whole people, we can appreciate the veterans. also appreciate Sherman, who has performed the most successful and splendid march through a mountainous and hostile country recorded in modern history, and in doing this we show ourselves inferior in virtue to no other nation. We can 1 The Presidential canvass had just begun, President Lincoln and Gen. McClellan being the candidates. 492 OCCASIONAL SPEECHES. By the way, everybody admired Farragut's heroism, in climbing the topmast to direct the battle. But there was another "particu- lar" of that contest that no less forcibly illustrates his heroic char- acter. "Admiral," said one of his officers, the night before the battle, "won't you consent to give Jack a glass of grog in the morn- ing, not enough to make him drunk, but just enough to make him fight cheerfully." "Well," replied the Admiral, "I have been to sea considerable, and have seen a battle or two, but I never found that I wanted rum to enable me to do my duty. I will order two cups of good coffee to each man, at two o'clock, and at eight o'clock I will pipe all hands to breakfast in Mobile Bay." And he did give Jack the coffee, and then he went up to the mast-head and did it. The victory at Atlanta comes at the right place. The rebellious district is in the shape of an egg. It presents equal resistance on its whole surface. But if you could break the shell at either of the two ends, Richmond and Atlanta, the whole must crumble to pieces. While Sherman, under Grant, has been striking the big end, Meade, under Grant, has been striking just as hard blows upon the lesser end. The whole shell will now be easily crushed, for it has grown brittle with the exhaustion of vitality within. This glorious victory comes in good time for another reason. Just now we are calling upon you for three hundred thousand more men volunteers, if you will, drafted men if we must to end the war. You were getting a little tired of long delays and disap- pointed expectations. In Indiana, a portion of the people, insti- gated by rebel plotters at the Clifton House in Canada, were importing British revolvers, in boxes which passed the Custom House as stationery, under pretence of arming to defend themselves, but really to resist the draft and bring the government down to ruin, through a subordinate and auxiliary civil war in the West. True, no arms have been imported here. Yet delegates went out from among you, and sat down in council at Chicago with those Indiana conspirators, and agreed with them not only that this im- portation of arms should be defended in the election canvass, but also to demand the cessation of the war, upon the ground that suc- cess in restoring the Union is unattainable. Already, under the influence of the cheering news from Atlanta, all this discontent and this despondency have disappeared. We shall have no draft, be THE FALL OF ATLANTA. 493 cause the army is being reinforced at the rate of five or ten thousand men per day by volunteers. May I not add that this victory at At- lanta comes in good time, as the victory in Mobile Bay does, to vindicate the wisdom and the energy of the war administration. Farragut's fleet did not make itself, nor did he make it. It was prepared by the Secretary of the Navy, and he that shall record the history of this war truthfully and impartially, will write that since the days of Carnot no man has organized war with ability equal to that of Stanton. But auspicious as the occasion is, it has nevertheless failed to bring out some whom we might have expected here. Why are they not here to rejoice in magnificent victories that will thrill the hearts of the lovers of freedom throughout the world? Alas that it must be confessed, it is party spirit that holds them aloof. All of them are partisans. Some are republicans who cannot rejoice in the na- tional victories, because this war for the life of the nation is not in all respects conducted according to their own peculiar radical ideas and theories. They want guarantees for swift, and universal, and complete emancipation, or they do not want the nation saved. Others stay away because they want to be assured that in coming out of the revolutionary storm the ship of state will be found ex- actly in the same condition as when the tempest assailed it, or they do not want the ship saved at all; as if anybody could give such guarantees in the name of a people of thirty millions. Others are democrats. They received from their fathers the axiom that only democrats could save the country, and they must save it by demo- cratic formulas and combinations which the progress of the age has forever exploded. They cannot come up to celebrate achievements which condemn their narrow and hereditary bigotry. Others, of both the republican and democratic parties, are willing that the nation shall be saved, provided it be done by some one of their chosen and idolized chiefs, which chiefs they mutually de- nounce and revile. They cannot honor Grant, and Sherman, and Granger, and Farragut, and Porter, and Winslow, because by such homage they fear that Fremont and McClellan's fame may be are enough here of the right sort, enough of blicans, but who, taking that word in a s no longer, and men who once were 494 OCCASIONAL SPEECHES. democrats, but who, taking that word in its narrow application, are democrats no longer. All of these are now Union men, because they found out at the beginning of this tremendous civil war, or at some period in its progress, that no man, no party, no formula, no creed, could save the Union, but that only the people can save it, and they can save it only by ceasing to become partisans, and be- coming patriots and Union men. Yes, my friends, when this war shall have ended in the restoration of the Union, no man then living will exult in the recollection that during its continuance he was either a radical or a conservative, a republican or a democrat, but every man will then claim to have been throughout an unreserved and unconditional Union man. But why should party spirit, especially at this juncture, divide the American people? And why should I, a member of the execu- tive administration, allude to it on such an occasion as this? The answer is at hand. The Constitution of our country commands that administration to surrender its powers to the people, and the people to designate agents to assume and exercise them four years. You receive the executive government in a condition very different from what it was when committed to our care, and highly improved. We found it practically expelled from the whole country south of the Delaware, the Ohio, and the Missouri, with the most of the army and navy betrayed or fallen into the hands of the insurgents, and a new and treasonable Confederacy, with the indirect but effective coöperation of foreign powers,, establishing itself on the Gulf of Mexico. We cheerfully give the government back to you with large and conquering armies, and a triumphant navy, with the hate- ful Confederacy falling into pieces, and the rebellious states, one after another, returning to their allegiance. Regarding myself on this occasion, therefore, not as a secretary, but simply as one of the people, I, like you, am called by my vote to determine into whose hands the precious trust shall now be con- fided. We might wish to avoid, or at least to postpone that duty, until the present fearful crisis is passed. But it cannot and it ought not to be avoided or adjourned. It is a Constitutional trial a the nation must go through it deliberately and braya I shall, therefore, cheerfully submit, for course which I have concluded to adopt, First, I beg you to remember that THE FALL OF ATLANTA. 495 customary Presidential election. It occurs in the midst of civil war, arising out of a disputed succession to the executive power. Disputed successions are the most frequent causes of civil wars, not only in republics, but even in monarchies. A dispute about the succession of the President periodically begets an abortive or a real revolution in each one of the Spanish and American republics. So, the disputed succession of the Spanish throne begot that memorable thirty years' war, which convulsed all Europe. A dispute whether Juarez was the lawful President brought on the present civil war, with the consequence of French intervention in Mexico. A dispute whether the present king of Denmark, who succeeded to the throne last winter, is lawful heir to the Duchies of Schleswig and Holstein, brought about the civil war in that country, which, through German intervention, has just now ended with the dismemberment of the Danish kingdom. It is remarkable also, that civil wars produced by disputed successions, invariably begin with resistance by some one or more of the states or provinces which constitute the kingdom, empire, or republic which is disturbed. It was so with the United States of Mexico. It was so in the United States of Colombia, and the case was the same in the United States of Venezuela. Now it is certain, that in 1860 we elected Abraham Lincoln, lawfully and constitutionally, to be President of the whole United States of America. Seven of the states immediately thereon rushed into disunion, and, summoning eight more to their alliance, they set up a revolutionary government. They levied war against us, to effect a separation, and establish a distinct sovereignty and independence. We accepted the war in defense of the Union. The only griev- ance of the insurgents was that their choice of John C. Brecken- ridge for President was constitutionally overruled in the election of Lincoln. They rejected Lincoln, and set up a usurper. The exec- utive power of the United States is now, therefore, by force, prac- tically suspended between that usurper, Jefferson Davis, and that constitutional President, Abraham Lincoln. The war is waged by the usurper to expel that constitutional President from the capital, which in some sort is constantly held in siege, and to conquer the states which loyally adhere to him. The war is maintained, on our side, to suppress the usurper, and to bring the insurgent states. back, under the authority of the constitutional President. The war is at its crisis. It is clear, therefore, that we are fighting to make 496 OCCASIONAL SPEECHES. Abraham Lincoln President of the whole United States, under the election of 1860, to continue until the 4th of March, 1865. ing for a President of the United States, can we wisely or safely vote out the identical person whom, with force and arms, we are fighting into the Presidency? You justly say, No. It would be nothing less than to give up the very object of the war at the ballot- box. The moral strength which makes our loyal position impregna- ble, would pass from us, and when that moral strength has passed away, material forces are no longer effective, or even available. By such a proceeding we shall have agreed with the enemy, and shall have given him the victory. But in that agreement the Constitu- tion and the Union will have perished, because when it shall have once been proved that a minority can by force or circumvention defeat the full accession of a constitutionally chosen President, no President thereafter, though elected by ever so large a majority, can hope to exercise the executive powers unopposed throughout the whole country. One of two things must follow that fatal error. Either a contest between your newly elected compromise President and the same usurper, in which the usurper must prevail, or else a combination between them, through which the usurper or his suc- cessor, subverting your Constitution and substituting his own, will become President, King, or Emperor of the United States, without foreign aid, if he can, with foreign intervention if necessary. Noth- ing is more certain than that either the United States and their Constitutional President, or the so-called Confederate States, and their usurping President, must rule within the limits of this Re- public. I therefore regard the pending Presidential election as in- volving the question, whether, hereafter, we shall have our Consti- tution and our country left us. How shall we vote, then, to save our country from this fearful danger? We must vote Lincoln in again, and fight him in at the same time. If we do this, the rebellion will perish and leave no root. If we do otherwise, we have only the alternatives of acquiescence in a perpetual usurpation, or of entering an endless succession of civil and social wars. Upon these grounds, entirely, irrespective of platform and candidate, I consider the recommendations of the Convention at Chicago as tend- ing to subvert the Republic. It will seem a hard thing when I imply that a party, like the democratic party, can either meditate or inconsiderately adopt meas THE FALL OF ATLANTA. 497 ures to overthrow the Republic. All experience, however, shows that it is by the malice or the madness of great parties that free states have been brought down to destruction. You often hear alarms that a party in power is subverting the state, and it some- times happens so. But nine times out of ten it is a party out of power, that in its impatience or its ambition overthrows a republic. The democratic party, of course, leaving off the Loyal Union Democrats, opposed the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860. In doing so, they divided and organized in three columns. One a treasonable column of state rights, disunion democrats under Breckenridge. A second, a loyal northern column, under Douglas. The third a loyal but conciliatory flying column, under John Bell, who has since joined the insurgents. We thereupon invited the two loyal columns to combine with the republican party to oppose the disunion democratic column. They declined. On the eve of the election of 1860, I told the followers of Douglas and of Bell, that when the election should have closed, they would find they had inadvertently favored disunion and rebellion. They persisted, and the attempted revolution came. Disunion then presented itself, in the practical form of preventing Abraham Lincoln from assuming the executive authority, (and it stands before us in exactly the same form now.) Thus the democratic party produced that calam- ity, the Southern democrats acting from design, the Northern dem- ocrats passive through inadvertence. The disputed succession still remains unadjusted. A new election has come on. For a time, the Northern democrats, with notable exceptions, gave a more or less. liberal support to the government against the democratic insurgents of the South. But the same democratic forces which operated in the election of 1860, now appear in the political field, with positions and policy unchanged since that time, as I think, except for the The Southern democracy is still in arms under the usurper at Richmond. The Douglas and Bell columns, consolidated, are found at Chicago, and all three of the parties are compassing the rejection of Abraham Lincoln, the constitutional President of the United States. They agree not only in this attempt, but they as- sign the same reasons for it namely, that Abraham Lincoln is a tyrant. worse. They agree, also, that the real usurper at Richmond is blameless and pure, at least the Richmond democracy affirm it, and the Chi- 32 498 OCCASIONAL SPEECHES. cago democracy do not gainsay it. To me, therefore, the democ- racy at Richmond and the democracy at Chicago, like Cæsar and Pompey, seem to retain all their original family resemblance. They are very much alike—especially Pompey. But it is not in mere externals that their similarity lies. They talk very much alike, as I have already shown you. When you consider that among the democrats at Chicago, the Indiana democrats were present, who have imported arms to resist the national authority, and defeat the national laws, and that all the democrats there assembled agreed to justify that proceeding, I think you will agree with me that the Richmond democrats and the Chicago democrats have lately come to act very much alike. I shall now go further and prove to you that they not only have a common policy, and a common way of defending it, but they have even adopted that policy in concert with each other. You know that when the Chicago convention was approaching in July last, George Sanders, Clement C. Clay, and J. P. Holcomb appeared at the Clifton House, on the Canada bank of the Niagara river, fully invested with the confidence and acquainted with the purposes of Jefferson Davis and his confederates at Richmond. You know, also, that Chicago democrats resorted there in considerable numbers, to confer with these emissaries of Jefferson Davis. Here is the fruit of that conference, and no one can deny the authenticity of my evidence. It is extracted from the "London Times," the com- mon organ of all the enemies of the United States. The New York correspondent of the "London Times," writing from Niagara Falls, under date of August 8th, says: - "Clifton House has become a centre of negotiations between the Northern friends of peace and Southern agents, which propose a withdrawal of differences from the arbitrament of the sword. The correspondent then goes on to explain that an effort is to be made to nominate a candidate for the Presidency on the platform of an armistice and a convention of states, and to thwart, by all possible means, the efforts of Mr. Lincoln for reëlection." Mark now, that on the 8th of August, 1864, Northern democrats and Richmond agents agree upon three things to be done at Chi- cago. Namely: 1st. A withdrawal of the differences between the gov- ernment and the insurgents, from the arbitrament of the sword; 2d. A nomination for President of the United States, on a plat- THE FALL OF ATLANTA. 499 form of an armistice, and utimately a convention of the states; 3d. To thwart, by all possible means, the reelection of Abraham Lin- coln. Such a conference, held in a neutral country, between professedly loyal citizens of the United States and the agents of the Richmond traitors in arms, has a very suspicious fook. But let that pass. Political elections must be free, and therefore they justly excuse many extravagancies. We have now seen what the agents of Pom- pey and Cæsar agreed at Niagara that Pompey should do at Chi- cago. Here is what he actually did : “Resolved, That this Convention does explicitly declare, as the sense of the American people, that after four years of failure to restore the Union by the ex- periment of war, during which, under the pretence of a military necessity of war, a power higher than the Constitution, the Constitution itself has been disregarded in every part, and public liberty and private right alike trodden down, and the material prosperity of the country essentially impaired, justice, humanity, liberty, and the public welfare demand that immediate efforts be made for a cessation of hostilities, with a view to an ultimate convention of all the states, or other peace- able means, to the end that at the earliest practicable moment peace may be re- stored on the basis of the Federal Union of the States." The democracy at Chicago did there just what had been agreed upon with the Richmond agents at Niagara, namely, they pro- nounced for an abandonment of the military defence of the Union against the insurgents, with a view to an ultimate national conven- tion, and the defeat of the election of Abraham Lincoln. That is to say, they proposed to eject Abraham Lincoln from the Presi- dential chair at Washington, on the 4th of March next, and at the same time leave the usurper Davis, unassailed, secure and un- molested in his seat at Richmond, with a view to an ultimate con- vention of states, which that usurper's Constitution will allow no one of the insurgent states to enter. What now, if there be no convention at all, or if the convention fail to agree on a submission to the Federal authority? Jefferson Davis then remains in author- ity, his Confederacy established, and the Union with all its glories gone forever. Nay, more, if such a thing could happen as that the Chicago candidate, nominated upon such an agreement, should be elected President of the United States on the 1st Tuesday of November next, who can vouch for the safety of the country against the rebels during the interval which must elapse before the new administration can constitutionally come into power? It seems to is 500 OCCASIONAL SPEECHES. me that such an election would tend equally to demoralize the Union and to invite the insurgents to renew the effort for its de- struction. It remains for me now only to give you the proof, that although the way in which the Chicago democracy did what had been agreed upon in their behalf at Niagara was not altogether satisfactory, yet what they actually did was accepted as a full execution of the previous compact: - To Hon. D. Wier, Halifax: ST. CATHARINES, C. W., Sept. 1. Platform and Presidential nominee unsatisfactory. Vice-President and speeches satisfactory. Tell Philemore not to oppose. (Signed) GEO. N. SANDERS.1 D. Wier is a Richmond accomplice at Halifax, and Philemore is understood to be the conductor of the insurgent organ in London. Here, then, we have a nomination and a platform which were made by treaty formally contracted between the democratic trait- ors at Richmond, and the democratic opposition at Chicago, signed, sealed, attested, and delivered in the presence of the "London Times," and already ratified at Richmond. They say I am always too sanguine of the success of national candidates and of the national arms. But it seems to me that the veriest croaker in all our loyal camp will take new courage, and become heroic when he sees that the last hope of the rebellion hangs upon the ratification of this abominable and detestable compact by the American people. Yes, you say you have got them; but how did you get them ? Not by any skill or art of the administration, nor even through the sagacity or activity of the loyal people, but through the cunning of the conspirators overreaching itself, and thus working out their own defeat and confusion. They do say that the Father of Evil al- ways indulges his chosen disciples with such an excess of subtlety as to render their ultimate ruin and punishment inevitable. And what a time is this to proclaim such a policy, conceived in treachery and brought forth with shameless effrontery. A cessation of hostilities on the heel of decisive naval and land battles, at the very moment that the rebellion, without a single fort in its posses- sion on the ocean, or on either of the great rivers or lakes, is crumb- ling to the earth, and at the same time a dozen new ships of war are going to complete the investment by sea, and three hundred ¹ A leading rebel. THE FALL OF ATLANTA. 501 thousand volunteers are rushing to the lines, to complete the work of restoration and pacification. "" There is a maxim which thoughtful teachers always carefully inculcate. It is that inconstancy is imbecility, and that persever- ance is necessary to ensure success. This maxim was set forth in the form of a text in the writing book, when I was young: "Perseverance always conquers. Even infantile beginners en- countered the instruction in the form of a fable in Webster's spell- ing book. The story was, that after using soft words and tufts of grass, the farmer tried what virtue there was in stones, and by per- sistence in that application he brought the rude boy who was steal- ing apples down from the tree, and made him ask the farmer's pardon. Our Chicago teachers tell us that just as the rude boy is coming down, we must lay down the stones and resort again to the use of grass, with the consequence, of course, that the farmer must beg pardon of the trespasser. But what makes this Chicago policy more contemptible, and even ridiculous, is that it is nothing different from the policy with which the same parties now contracting actually ushered in disunion in 1861, in the closing hours of the administration of James Bu- chanan. Yes, my dear friends, when we of this administration came into our places in March, 1861, we found there existing just the system which is now recommended at Chicago, namely: 1st, a treasonable Confederacy in arms against the Federal authority. 2d, a truce between the government of the United States and the rebels, a veritable armistice, which was so construed that while the national ports and forts were thoroughly invested along the sea- coasts and rivers by the insurgents, they could be neither reinforced, nor supplied even with food by the government. 3d. A languid debate with a view to an ultimate National Convention, which the rebels haughtily despised and contemptuously rejected. What were the alternatives left us? Either to surrender ourselves and the government at discretion, or to summon the people to arms, ter- minate the armistice, adjourn the demoralizing debate, and "re- possess" ourselves of the national forts and ports. All agreed that this course was right then. And now has all the treasure that has been spent, and all the precious blood that has been poured forth, gone for nothing else but to secure an ignominous retreat, and return at the end of four years to the hopeless imbecility and rapid 502 OCCASIONAL SPEECHES. process of national dissolution which existed when Abraham Lin coln took into his hands the reins of government? Every one of you know, that but for that accession of Abraham Lincoln, just at that time, the Union would, in less than three months, have fallen into absolute and irretrievable ruin. I will not dwell long on the complaints which misguided, but not intentionally perverse men, bring against the administration of Abraham Lincoln. They complain of military arrests of spies and lurking traitors in the loyal states, as if the government could justify itself for waiting without preventive measures, for more states to be invaded or to be carried off into secession. They complain that when we call for volunteers, we present the alternative of a draft, as if when the ship has been scuttled, the captain ought to leave the sleeping passengers to go to the bottom without calling upon them to take their turn at the pump. They are not content with plotting sedition in secret places, but they go up and down the public streets uttering treason, vainly seeking to provoke arrest, in order that they may complain of a denial of the liberty of speech. The impunity they everywhere enjoy under the protection of constitutional debate shows at one and the same time that their complaints are groundless, and that the Union in the element of moral stability is stronger than they know. The chief complaint against the President is, that he will not ac- cept peace on the basis of the integrity of the Union, without having also the abandonment of slavery. When and where have the in- surgents offered him peace on the basis of the integrity of the Union? Nobody has offered it. The rebels never will offer it. Nobody on their behalf can offer it. They are determined and pledged to rule this Republic or ruin it. I told you here a year ago, that practically slavery was no longer in question that it was perishing under the operation of the war. That assertion has been confirmed. The Union men in all the slave states that we have delivered are even more anxious than we are to abolish slavery. Witness West Virginia, Maryland, Missouri, Louisiana, Tennessee, and Arkansas. Jefferson Davis tells you in effect the same thing. He says that it is not slavery, but independence and sovereignty for which he is contending. There is good reason for this. A hun- dred dollars in gold is only a year's purchase of the labor of the THE FALL OF ATLANTA. 503 working man in every part of the United States. At less than half that price you could buy all the slaves in the country. Neverthe- less, our opponents want a distinct exposition of the President's views on the ultimate solution of the slavery question. Why do they want it? For the same reason that the Pharisees and Sadducees wanted an authoritative solution of the questions of casuistry which arose in their day. One of those sects believed in a Kingdom to come, and the other altogether denied the resurrec- tion of the dead. Nevertheless, they walked together in loving ac- cord in search of instruction concerning the spirit world." Master,' said they, "there was a man of our nation who married a wife and died, leaving six brothers. These brothers successively married the widowed woman, and afterwards died. And last of all the woman died also. In the resurrection, which of the seven shall have this woman to his wife." Now what was it to them whether one or all should have the woman to wife in heaven. It could be nothing to the Sadducees in any case. What was it to any human being on this side of the grave? What was it to any human being in heaven except the woman and her seven husbands-absolutely nothing. Yet they would have an answer. And they received one. The answer was that while in this mortal state, men and women shall never cease to marry and to die, there will be in the resurrection neither death nor marrying or giving in marriage. Although altogether unauthorized to speak for the President upon hypothetical questions, I think I can give an answer upon the subject of slavery at the present day-an answer which will be ex- plicit, and I hope not altogether unsatisfactory. While the rebels continue to wage war against the government of the United States, the military measures affecting slavery, which have been adopted from necessity, to bring the war to a speedy and successful end, will be continued, except so far as practical experience shall show that they can be modified advantageously, with a view to the same end. When the insurgents shall have disbanded their armies, and laid down their arms, the war will instantly cease; and all the war measures then existing, including those which affect slavery, will cease also; and all the moral, economical, and political questions, as well questions affecting slavery as others, which shall then be exist- 504 OCCASIONAL SPEECHES. 1 ing, between individuals, and states, and the Federal government, whether they arose before the civil war began, or whether they grow out of it, will, by force of the Constitution, pass over to the arbitrament of courts of law and to the councils of legislation. I am not unsophisticated enough to expect that conspirators, while yet unsubdued, and exercising an unresisted despotism in the insurrectionary states, will either sue for or even accept an amnesty based on the surrender of the power they have so recklessly usurped. Nevertheless, I know that if any such conspirator should tender his submission upon such terms, that he will at once receive a candid hearing, and an answer prompted purely by a desire for peace, with the maintenance of the Union. On the other hand, I do expect propositions of peace with a restoration of the Union, to come, not from the Confederates in authority, nor through them, but from citizens and states under and behind them. And I expect such propositions from citizens and states to come over the Confederates in power, just so fast as those citizens and states shall have deliv- ered themselves, or shall have been delivered by the Federal arms from the usurpation by which they are now oppressed. All the world knows, that so far as I am concerned, and, I believe, so far as the President is concerned, all such applications will receive just such an answer as it becomes a great, magnanimous, and humane people to grant to brethren who have come back from their wander- ings, to seek a shelter in the common ark of our national security and happiness. The sun is setting, So surely as it shall rise again, so surely do I think that the great events we have now celebrated prelude the end of our national troubles, and the restoration of the national authority with peace, prosperity, and freedom throughout the whole land, from the Lakes to the Gulf, and from ocean to ocean. And so I bid you good-night; and may God have you, with our whole country, always in His holy and paternal keeping. PERSEVERANCE IN THE WAR. 505 2 PERSEVERANCE IN THE WAR. Auburn, November 7, 1864. To Of course you understand that I have come home to vote. vote here for the tenth time in ten out of the nineteen Presidential elections which the people of the United States have enjoyed. A change or succession in the executive power of a nation is always vital, and that change in our country constitutes a perpetually re- curring crisis. The elector is mortal. I have come home to exer- cise my suffrage as heretofore, with the conviction, which I suppose you all entertain for yourselves, that this may be my last time. Nations, though usually long-lived, are, nevertheless, mortal. Our own Republic is now confessedly struggling for life. This, therefore, may be our last Presidential election. We are only ten- ants here. The reversion of our political state is the appointed in- heritance of endless successors. Let us so cast our votes, that if the Republic must perish, we shall be able to say that we are innocent; that if the Republic must perish, we shall yet be able to say that we have the consciousness of having practised the heroic virtue. which is the duty of the citizen; that if the Republic must perish, we shall be able to say that our recorded protest will appear conspic- uously above the ruins, inviting mankind to new and holier efforts to redeem the cause of freedom and humanity. 1 I should be recreant if I did not confess that I see no hope of safety for the Union if the people to-morrow should give it over in trust to the opponents of the present administration. But I do not forget that what I say on the night before the election will be heard. on the morning after the election, however it may result; therefore, let no man expect to hear after an adverse result that I am despair- ing or even despondent. If the opposition prevail, I do not now know, indeed, the fountain from which streams of hope can flow in that disastrous event; but I do know that God has a thousand ways of saving nations, even in their extremest peril. I do know that na- tions are born to live, although they must eventually die; and I do know that as my voice in the dark hours of 1861 rang through the world, giving reassurance to the friends of human progress, so, if 1 Mr. Lincoln was a candidate for reëlection. Gen. McClellan was the democratic candidate. 506 OCCASIONAL SPEECHES. utterance shall be left to me, it will proclaim with even greater earnestness and energy that this Republic is not altogether lost. And as I speak, so in that fearful crisis I trust I shall be able to act. But, fellow-citizens, our thoughts to-night must be concentrated upon the crisis as it is. Dangers surround us. The civil war con- fronts us in the rebel states. Foreign wars loom over us on all our coasts and all our borders. The fires of faction send up sulphurous smoke under our feet. It would be absurd to say that the country is not in a strait. Only two courses are open before us the one is perseverance in our war to suppress the rebellion, the other is the abandonment of the effort. Hazards attend each course. Are not hazards always incident to human policy and human effort? For myself, after examination and consideration, I have come to the con- clusion that the lesser hazard is found in the line of perseverance. And, indeed, that is the only course that affords assurance of national integrity, which I need not say is identical with national independence. You have already testified that this is your convic- tion. It remains, then, only for us to reassure each other to-night, so that we may advance to the polls with decision, energy, and confi- dence to-morrow. You have been surprised by the discovery of treason lurking throughout the free states, and even in secret haunts in our own neighborhood. You are astonished at the discovery of a conspiracy of thirty thousand men clandestinely armed against the government in the western loyal states. You are thunderstruck with the reve- lation of concert between Chicago, London, and Richmond. You are amazed that traitors in Sandusky, invited by signal lights, at- tempt murders and robberies from Canada, and attempt to seize a ship-of-war on Lake Erie, and deliver the rebel prisoners on John- son's Island. You are amazed that domestic traitors prepared the way for invaders from Canada to rob and murder the inhabitants of St. Albans. And you are still more amazed that after all these dis- coveries a large class of our own citizens, with alternating obstinacy and levity, still hesitate to give a full and unreserved support to the military arm of the government. Let me tell you, however, that all this surprise and astonishment is unreasonable. What we see belongs to the natural course of events in war, especially in civil war. 1 Gen. McClellan was nominated at Chicago. PERSEVERANCE IN THE WAR. 507 The government must suppress rebellion with all the agencies of civil and military power. The performance of that duty stirs up alarm, discontent, opposition, resistance. Opposition rises high as government becomes energetic, and opposition thus exalted becomes faction. Faction in civil war is unmitigated treason. Every country that has existed, especially every free country, has passed through the fiery furnace of civil war. Spanish America, with all its free states, France, England, Spain, the Netherlands, Switzer- land indeed, civil war is chronic, and domestic harmony an abnormal condition in most of those states. No government in any of those countries ever was less embarrassed in civil war by faction than the government of the United States during the last three and a half years. None of those governments at that same time ever handled domestic faction with so much moderation and humanity as this government has practised towards citizens who have aided and abetted, fed and warmed, clothed and armed its open and defiant enemies. Not one head has fallen on the judicial block. Nor need you be alarmed at these demonstrations of faction. The people of the United States have had a Christian education, a political educa- tion, a moral education, such as Providence has never before vouch- safed to any nation; and great as the force and faculties of faction. are, the repressive and loyal forces possessed by this people are mag- nified and multiplied in proportion. J You have been surprised and alarmed by the discovery of medi- tated frauds upon the ballot-box frauds more fraudulent in conception, more wicked in design, than we have before encoun- tered. Do not be disheartened, however, by this discovery; still, I say, fraud and treachery, like faction, are incident to civil war. Bold and inventive as these fraudulent conspirators are, the nation has an intellectual education and a moral conscience which enable it to detect and baffle them; and happily, the power to suppress in- surrection arms the government with the means to bring them promptly to condign punishment. What remains for me to say is to warn you against misrepresen- tations of the issue. There is no question before you of abandoning the war measures against slavery and substituting for them a policy of conservation or concession to slavery. Those measures are a part of the war. It is for the nation in a state of war, and not for the nation in a future state of peace, that the government is acting, and of course that we are voting. 508 OCCASIONAL SPEECHES. There is no question before you of changing the object of the war from the maintenance of the Union to that of abolishing slavery. Slavery is the mainspring of the rebellion. The government neces- sarily strikes it in the very centre, as well as upon every inch of its coil. In my poor judgment, the mainspring is already broken, and let the war end when it will, and as it may, the fear that that main- spring will recover its elasticity may give us at present no uneasi- ness. Before the war, slavery had the patronage and countenance of the United States against the whole world. Its inherent error, guilt, and danger are now as fully revealed to the people of the United States as they have heretofore been to the outside world. Before the calamitous war in which slavery has plunged the country shall end, it will be even more hateful to the American people than it already is to the rest of mankind, while their condemnation of it will remain unchanged. The opposition will not succeed in misleading you, I am sure, by telling you that you have a question of immediate peace or war in- volved in the present issue. War, and not peace, you have. Already, God knows that it is severe and painful enough. If I could think of taxes in the face of national death, I should say that our taxes are heavy enough. If I could think of personal interests, affections, or sympathies in the face of an insolent public enemy in arms, I should say that men enough have been maimed and slain. But when we shall have said all these things, the actual situation of the country will still be before us, unchanged. It is a state of civil war, and not of peace. Persons ask me on every hand, "Is the war to last forever?" "How long is the war to last?" I answer, The war will not last forever, but it must continue until we give up the conflict or the enemy give up the conflict. Are you prepared to give up the con- flict? You say, "No, never." Why? Because in that case you give up the national life. In any and every event the nation must live. If you were to give up the national life, you enter in the state of national death. What that state is, God be thanked we do not certainly know. He has mercifully withheld that terrible knowl- edge from our keenest search and speculation. But we do know that national death usually consists of several stages. The first is domestic civil war not a civil war across a border, such as this war is, but a real civil war a social war a civil war brought PERSEVERANCE IN THE WAR. 509 home to our own cities, to our own altars, to our own firesides. We know by the experience of other countries that, with occasional res- pites resulting from exhaustion, this aggravated form of civil war continues until a military despot is welcomed to arrest the effusion of blood, to restore tranquillity and quiet, with the loss of civil, and, if need be, religious liberty. This is the terrible condition into which you rush to escape from present civil war. Every one of the supporters of the administration knows this as well as I do, and sees it as clearly. In view of calamities so far transcending those we are now suffering, of course the government will not abandon the conflict until the majority of the people decide that it shall be abandoned. On the other hand, the enemy will abandon their re- bellion just so soon as they shall have the undoubted assurance that it cannot prevail. They will do so for two reasons: First, no fac- tion can indefinitely continue a struggle that is hopeless. Secondly, because they give up no national life, but they, as well as we, save their own national existence by their defeat and overthrow, and a better national existence than in their maddest hours of delusion they have ever conceived as the result of their unlawful enterprise. Suppose, then, that the people, as we all agree they will, support the administration by their suffrage to-morrow. The rebels, then, have the assurance of the American people, made upon a full re- hearsing of the merits of the controversy, upon appeal and a full examination of results thus far obtained, with the relative forces of the parties yet remaining in reserve, that the conflict is not to be abandoned on our part. In all of our athletic games, three times success in five trials gives the victory-two decisions following each other is equal to three in five. You have already abundant evidences of the exhaustion of the rebels, but not yet evidence of their consciousness of that exhaustion. Those evidences will appear immediately on the announcement of the reëlection of Abraham Lincoln. You would have had those evidences earlier if you had ren- dered this verdict sooner. You will have them all the sooner after the verdict, in proportion to the unanimity and determination with which it is spoken. The messengers who come hither from the rebel regions will be different from those who are now lingering and loitering on the Canada shores, to aid the execution of the plot conceived against you at Chicago. The messengers who come will come not as those last mentioned, with commissions addressed to the 510 OCCASIONAL SPEECHES. pusillanimous and factious minority of the North, but they will come addressed to Abraham Lincoln, the honored father of the American nation. Their message will not be conceived in the insolent words, — “Your war for the Union has failed; ¹ desist from arms, and give us, through negotiations, separate independence." But it will be: "Father Abraham, we have sinned before God and against our brethren. We repent our error; we disavow and offer up the trait- ors who have led us into crime. Extend your protection over us, and give us once more peace and communion with you at our altars and our firesides." This is the way in which I think the war is to end. I know that in that way it will end soon. I know it, because few civil wars in which a strong government and people defend themselves with unanimity last so long as four years; and it is cer- tain that we are three years and a half nearer the end of this con- flict, if so maintained, than we were when we began. Now, let us take the other view. Suppose we seek peace under the counsel of Chicago whether according to the naked and detestable text of the resolutions, or as evasively interpreted and glossed by the candi- date who stands on that platform. It is to seek peace by conciliat- ing the rebels, and substituting diplomacy, or the arts of statesman- ship, for the vigor of war. Adopt that policy, and distraction instantly seizes the North; courage and new resolution inspire the South; your soldiers, betrayed at home, either fall in despair in their trenches, or, what would be worse, recoil before the enemy advancing upon Washington and Cincinnati. Those persons are mistaken who say that Davis would not nego- tiate, and that he would not grant us an armistice. He would grant "ultimate con- both at once, and grant them, too, with a view to an vention." He can afford to be very accommodating to a cowardly antagonist; he can afford to temporize as long as you please. But, like any other belligerent, he will grant you armistice and negotia- tion for his own advantage, not for yours, and he will negotiate, not for union, but for dissolution. I do not argue this point. Any candid, thoughtful man, of whatever party, must admit that this view of what the rebels will do is possible. Most persons will con- cede that it is eminently probable. Then I say, in regard to the Chicago proposition, with the king in "Hamlet: 1 The sentiment of the democratic platform adopted at Chicago. PERSEVERANCE IN THE WAR. 511 "Let's further think of this; Weigh, what convenience, both of time and means, May fit us to our shape: if this should fail, And that our drift look through our bad performance, 'Twere better not essayed: therefore this project Should have a back, or second, that might hold, If this should blast in proof." Alas! since this Chicago plan must fail, it has no back or second. When negotiation and all the arts of statesmanship are exhausted, the navy would be scattered, withdrawn from the blockade, and the armies dispersed in their homes, the treasury empty, the na- tional credit sunk, France and Great Britain will have recognized the rebels, and even our steadfast friend, the Emperor of Russia, together with the Sultan of Turkey, the Pasha of Egypt, and the Emperor of China, will have given over with pain and mortification the friendly nation that, in a pusillanimous hour, delivered itself to self-destruction. Fellow-citizens, you are all free and independent as I am, and you may and must decide the question for yourselves. I cannot de- cide it for you, nor shall you decide it for me. I am not going to surrender to the rebels. No! though they extend the desolation of civil war over the whole land though they come backed in their unholy quarrel by one or many foreign states. I am not going to surrender now. Therefore, I want no armistice, no cessation of hos- tilities, no negotiation with rebels in arms. However it may be with others, I "looked before I leaped." If I could have been ready to surrender now, I should have proposed surrender at the be- ginning. I should have accepted terms without waiting for Bull Run certainly after Bull Run. I would have availed myself of the first gleam of victory to secure terms as little humiliating as pos- sible. I should have negotiated after the capture of New Orleans, after Murfreesboro, after Norfolk, after Antietam, after Vicksburg, after Gettysburg. I would have gone, under the pressure of na- tional affliction, and made every defeat a claim to rebel sympathy and clemency. After the first Bull Run battle, after the second Bull Run battle, after Gaines's Mill, after Fredericksburg, after Chancellorsville, after the defeat of Banks on the Red River. I am not going to surrender, now nor never. As for the arts of statesmanship, I know of none applicable in 512 OCCASIONAL SPEECHES. this case. The only art of statesmanship that I do know is to be faithful to God and to my country. I seek to cultivate charity and prevent war, civil or foreign, as long as consistently with national justice, and honor, and safety, it can be prevented; but when in war, to fight with courage, constancy, and resolution, and thus to save my country or fall with its defenders. The battle thus waged in this case cannot fail. Even if it could fail, the field which was lost would be a holy sepulchre, which would send up through all coming time inspiration, to reanimate and cheer on the friends of progress, of liberty, of humanity. THE ASSURANCE OF VICTORY. Washington, November 10, 1864. Remarks at a serenade in rejoicing over the reëlection of President Lincoln, on the evening after the result. FELLOW-CITIZENS: You remember that once Paul, in his own country, took an appeal to Cæsar, and went from Judea across the Mediterranean to follow out his appeal to Cæsar. After being ship- wrecked, and after having encountered all manners of dangers, at Malta and elsewhere, dangers by sea and by land, he at last reached the coast of Italy, landing at the Hot Springs, near Naples. From there he proceeded up toward Rome, and when he got within about eighteen miles of Rome he came to a place called Appii Forum, or the place of three taverns. And it is recorded in Script- ure that the brethren, when he got within the suburbs of the city, came out to meet him. Thereupon Paul "thanked God and took courage." So I think that, having been tossed about on the tem- pest of secession and revolution for three and a half years, I have at last got at Appii Forum, the place of the three taverns, although there is not a hotel on this street. At all events, I am sure "the brethren " have come out to meet me. And thereupon I do now, here, to-night, with all my heart and in all reverence and humility, "thank God." Amen. We all of us thank him, and I hope you all take courage for the rest of the way, which, I think, will be a short journey. Fellow-citizens, our old brethren of the South, who used to meet THE ASSURANCE OF VICTORY. 513 us up here in the Capitol, and with whom we used to have such pleasant social times, have pretended to set up a poor rickety con- gress and government of their own. And you know what they did it for. They did it because they were afraid we would abolish slavery. They met in Richmond the first Monday of this month- and what do you think they met for? They met to abolish the slav- ery of 200,000 negroes, to put them into the army that they might fight to keep all the rest of the negroes in slavery. Well, we have got our old-fashioned regular Congress where there are seats kept open for them yet—and it meets on the first Monday in De- cember. I am much mistaken if we do not show our old friends. down South a trick worth two of that they are practising. My impression is that, instead of abolishing the slavery of 200,000 negroes, they will do the much better thing of setting the consti- tutional stamp upon the President's emancipation proclamation of 1862. Why, you seem to be very unanimous about that! Well, I will tell you what is more curious than all that. Within three years from this time they will be just as unanimous about it in Richmond as you are here in Washington. Well, fellow-citizens, we have all got to be friends. We have got to be friends with the democrats who have been voting against us, and we will balance the account by saying that we voted against them, and if, now that the election is over, they conclude to be quits, we will agree to be all Union men hereafter, and we will acknowl- edge that our party, as we saw things, judged them pretty harshly. I presume that four years hence we will be in perfect harmony, not only throughout all the free states, but throughout the whole Union. And I will tell you why I think it will be so. I came on this stage of action, not long, some years, after the revolutionary war, and I used to hear my parents and the men and women of that age talk about the vast number of tories who were opposed to the govern- ment of the United States in the revolution. And what surprised me above all things was that at the expiration of thirty years after- ward there was not a tory to be found in the whole United States. I was never able to understand exactly where they had all gone to. It was just so in the war of 1812. I am old enough to recollect about that. The federalists used to carry the intervening elections between the Presidential elections, year after year, just as the democracy carried the election in New York and several of the 33 514 OCCASIONAL SPEECHES. other states in 1862, but when the Presidential election came and the war ended in victory, then the federalists disappeared, and in two years after the war was over, there was an era of good feeling in which all the people were republican and all were in favor of the war, and since that time I have never been able to find an old fed- eralist. It is my judgment that we will all come together again; that when the stars and stripes wave over Richmond, the rebellion. will go down, and that, within one, two, three, or four years after that, you will have to look mighty sharp to find a man who was a secessionist, or an aider of rebellion. I know that for that era of good feeling the democrats will have every encouragement to favor the people in the success of the war. Speaking of that, I had un- derstood our opponents to say that this war was a failure, and that it was made to abolish slavery. Without accepting that as the ob- ject of the war, which was to preserve the Union, we will take them on their own ground and see how the matter stands. The first year of the war suppressed the African slave trade in the United States. The second year of the war brought the negroes up to the level of soldiers of freedom, and abolished slavery in the District of Colum- bia. The third year abolished slavery in Maryland. And if the democrats think that this war has been a failure this year, when Congress comes together, it will adopt a constitutional amendment. and abolish slavery throughout the United States. Now, I know that when slavery is removed, the only element of discord among the American people will have ceased to work its mischievous fruits, but I know that it will not be the fault of the administration if we do not have an era of peace and harmony, and go on, resuming our proud career among the nations, and advancing the interests of our country, of freedom, of self-government, and humanity. The election has placed our President beyond the pale of human envy or human harm, as he is above the pale of human ambition. Henceforth all men will come to see him as you and I have seen hima true, loyal, patient, patriotic, and benevolent man. Hay- ing no longer any motive to malign or injure him, detraction will cease, and Abraham Lincoln will take his place with Washington, and Franklin, and Jefferson, and Adams, and Jackson among the benefactors of the country and of the human race. THE PRESIDENT AND HIS CABINET. 515 THE PRESIDENT AND HIS CABINET. Auburn, October 20, 1865. The friends and neighbors of Secretary Seward, desiring to manifest their regard for him previous to his return to Washington, after a brief visit to Au- burn, paid him a parting call at his residence on Friday, October 20, 1865. The Rev. Dr. Hawley, of the First Presbyterian Church, addressed the Secretary in behalf of the citizens in the following remarks :— SECRETARY SEWARD: Your friends and neighbors are gathered in this in- formal manner to welcome you home once more, in the midst of familiar scenes and cherished associations. A cordial and affectionate greeting always awaits you in Auburn. Whenever you have come back to us, whether from journeyings in foreign lands, or to seek a brief respite from public cares, in times of peace or war, we have claimed the privilege of neighbors, to take you by the hand and listen to your words of cheer and counsel. Time and events have strengthened these bonds of friendship and made them sacred. The trials and sufferings, personal and national, which have come of the war now happily ended, have taught us all lessons of patience and wisdom, broth- erly kindness and charity. No sorrow in the sum of agony which the nation has paid for its life, conspicuous or obscure, has been in vain. The path of duty is al- ways the path of sacrifice. The men who stood at the head of government, in that terrible time, and bore the daily burden, did not ask others to brave dangers which they were not willing, themselves, to encounter. In their mission, given them of Heaven to fulfil with a consecrated patriotism, and religious fidelity, they did not count their own lives dear unto them. Our beloved President, whose worth none could have known as you knew it, whose confidence and labors and perils you shared so largely, must at last make his grave with the martyrs of liberty, to complete the nation's sacrifice. It has been your lot, my dear sir, after a long and honored service of the state, and in the orderings of a wise Providence, which in a great crisis always regards the fitness of men for their place, to take a chief part in the momentous events of the past five years. The whole world knows where you have stood, and what you have done, and what you have suffered, toward the result over which all now rejoice. The past is secure, and the reward is certain. Need I say that all this while, you have had our support and confidence, our sympathy and our prayers. The blow from the assassin's hand, which struck you down, smote our hearts. The great national bereavement put on a deeper gloom because of the peril that hung over your life, and the lives of your household, which has always been a part of ourselves. We wept with you, when the life, dear to you as your own, was taken. We rejoiced with you, when the life which was bound up in yours was restored. I know you will pardon this allusion to scenes and events which have endeared you to your friends and neighbors not only, but have attracted public sympathy € 516 OCCASIONAL SPEECHES. at home and abroad. They make this interview one of thoughtful and tender in- terest. They lift public life out of the sphere of personal ambition and partizan strife, and invest it with unwonted dignities and sacred memories. And now, through the mercy of God, who has wrought a great salvation for our common country, and has given to all that measure of wisdom and courage and sacrifice, which the time demanded, we greet you to-day, in renewed health and vigor, hopeful for the future, as in the past, still at your post, and taking your part in the more congenial task of restoring to the whole country the blessings of Peace and Union and Liberty. This is a visit both of welcome and of parting for a season. May our Heavenly Father ever have you and your family in His care and loving kindness; and may it please Him so to guide you and all who have charge of public trusts, as to fulfil the best hopes we cherish for our nation and for all men. At the conclusion of Dr. Hawley's remarks Secretary Seward addressed his neighbors and friends from the steps of his residence, as follows: MY GOOD FRIENDS: A meeting with you here from time to time, as opportunity serves and duty permits, is not merely a privilege, but even a blessing. Your greeting on this occasion comes in the season when fruits are clustered around us, although the leaves above our heads and the grass beneath our feet are yet fresh and green. The assemblage which has gathered to express to me its good wishes harmonizes with the season and the scene. However youthful a townsman of Auburn is, he is nevertheless habitually thoughtful; however old, he is yet always cheerful and hopeful. This particular greeting calls up not mere fancies, but memories some new and others old; some pleasing, others mournful; some private, others public; with all of which, however, you all are in- timately and generously associated; and those memories have be- come so indelibly impressed upon me that they seem to me to con- stitute a part of my very being. We have met occasionally during the past five years, but always under circumstances that were pain- ful, and which excited deep solicitude. You freely gave me your sympathies then, even when my visits were hurried; when my ap- peals to you, and through you to more distant fellow-citizens, to make new efforts and sacrifices for our suffering country, must have seemed querulous and exacting; but when either public or private anxieties denied me the privilege of even temporary rest and calm- ness. Who that labored under the weight of a disproportionate re- sponsibility could have rested or been at ease, when the land which he ought to love with more than earthly affection was threatened THE PRESIDENT AND HIS CABINET. 517 every day with a violent dissolution of its political institutions, to be too quickly followed by domestic anarchy, and afterwards by imperial, and possibly foreign despotism! Would to God that the patriots of Mexico had never, in the midst of her civil commotions, taken to themselves the comfort of indifference and repose! But all is now changed. The civil war is ended. Death has removed his victims; liberty has crowned her heroes, and humanity has can- onized her martyrs; the sick and the stricken are cured; the surviv- ing combatants are fraternizing; and the country - the object of our just pride and lawful affection once more stands collected and composed, firmer, stronger, and more majestic than ever before, without one cause of dangerous discontent at home, and without an enemy in the world. Why should we not felicitate each other on this change, and upon the new prospects which open before us? These prospects, however, cover a broad field. I could not rightly tax your kindness so much as to survey the whole of it; and even if I were willing, you would kindly remember that at the present mo- ment my power of speech is abridged.¹ Only magnanimous themes. are worthy of your intellectual understanding, or compatible with the feelings which have moved this interview. We have lost the great and good Abraham Lincoln. He had reached a stage of moral consideration when his name alone, if en- circled with a martyr's wreath, would be more useful to humanity than his personal efforts could be beneficial to any one country as her chosen chief magistrate. He is now associated with Washington. The two American chiefs, though they are dead, still live, and they are leading the entire human race in a more spirited progress to- ward fields of broader liberty and higher civilization. In the place of Abraham Lincoln we have a new President. To most of you he is personally unknown. The people around me, with their customary thoughtfulness, are inquiring of those who are nearer to him than themselves what manner of man Andrew John- son is, and what manner of President he may be expected to be. When, in 1861, treason, laying aside, for the moment, the already obnoxious mask of slavery, and investing itself with the always at- tractive and honored robes of democratic freedom, flashed its lurid light through the Senate chamber, and announced, as already com- pleted, a dissolution of the Union, then a leader, who should be at 1 By the wounds of the assassin. 518 OCCASIONAL SPEECHES. first a senatorial and afterward a popular leader, was required, to awaken sleeping loyalty and patriotism throughout the land, to rouse its unconscious hosts and to inspire them with the resolution needed to rescue the Constitution, suppress the rebellion, and preserve the integrity of the Republic. To me reason seemed to suggest, in this case, as a necessity resulting from circumstances, that that leader, while he should be a capable, inflexible, and devoted patriot, should also be a citizen of a hesitating border state-a slaveholder in prac- tice, though not in principle, and yet in principle and association a democrat. Andrew Johnson, of Tennessee, completely filled these complex conditions, and with the consent of the whole American people he assumed the great responsibility. The insurrection soon became flagitious, insolent, defiant, and announced, to the astonish- ment of mankind, that the pretended free empire which it was building by usurpation within forbidden borders was founded upon the corner-stone of slavery! The newly inaugurated President, with decision, not unaccompanied by characteristic prudence, announced that thenceforth slavery should be deemed and treated as a public enemy. Andrew Johnson accepted the new condition of his popu- lar leadership which this announcement created, and thenceforward he openly, freely, and honestly declared, not only that the erection of the new edifice should be prevented, but the corner-stone of slavery itself, the rock of all our past as well as of all our then fu- ture dangers, should be uplifted and removed, and cast out from the Republic. Whatever may have been thought by you, or by me, or by others, at that time, it is now apparent that the at- tempted revolution culminated when the national banner was for the first time successfully replanted by our gallant army on the banks of the Cumberland, and when Tennessee, first among the border states which had been reluctantly carried into rebellion, of fered once more a foothold and a resting-place to the authorities of the Union. From that time, while it was yet necessary to prose- cute the war with such energies as human nature had never before exerted, it was at the same time equally needful, with wisdom which had never been surpassed, to prosecute the beneficent work of restoring the Union, and harmonizing the great political family which, although it had been temporarily distracted, was destined, nevertheless, to live and grow forever under that majestic protection. The abolition of slavery was thenceforth equally an element of THE PRESIDENT AND HIS. CABINET. 519 persistent war and of returning peace. He neither reads history with care nor studies the ways of Providence with reverence, who does not see that, for the prosecution of these double, diverse, and yet equally important purposes of war and peace, Andrew Johnson was fitly appointed to be a Provisional Governor in Tennessee- the first of a series of Provisional Governors afterward to be as- signed to the insurrectionary states and was subsequently elected Vice President, and in the end constitutionally inaugurated Presi- dent of the United States. We are continually hearing debates concerning the origin and authority of the plan of restoration. New converts, North and South, call it the President's plan. All speak of it as if it were a new and recent development. On the contrary, we now see that it is not specially Andrew Johnson's plan, nor even a new plan in any respect. It is the plan which abruptly yet distinctly offered itself to the last administration, at the moment I have before recalled, when the work of restoration was to begin; at the moment when, although by the world unperceived, it did begin; and it is the only plan which thus seasonably presented itself; and, therefore, it is the only possible plan which then or ever afterward could be adopted. This plan, although occasionally requiring variation of details, nev- ertheless admits of no substantial change or modification. It could neither be enlarged nor contracted. State conventions in loyal. states, however favorable, in disloyal states, however hostile, could not lawfully or effectually disallow it; and even the people them- selves, when amending the Constitution of the United States, are only giving to that plan its just and needful sovereign sanction. In the meantime, the executive and legislative authorities of Congress can do no more than discharge their proper functions of protecting the recently insurgent states from anarchy during the intervening period while the plan is being carried into execution. It is essen- tial to this plan that the insurrectionary states shall, by themselves, and for themselves, accept and adopt this plan, and thereby submit themselves to and recognize the national authority. This is what I meant when I said to Mr. Adams, in a passage which you may possibly recall, that in the sense in which the word subjugation was then used by the enemies of the United States, at home and abroad, it was not the expectation or purpose of this government that the Southern States should be subjugated; but that I thought that those states 520 OCCASIONAL SPEECHES. would be brought, by the judiciously mingled exercise of pressure and persuasion, to a condition in which they would voluntarily return to their allegiance. This was the explanation which Mr. Adams gave to Lord Palmerston, the Prime Minister of England, when that great, and, as I trust, not unfriendly statesman, said that he did not. believe that the Federal Union could be restored, because he knew that while any man can lead a horse to the water, no man could make him drink. The plan, therefore, recognizes not the destruc- tion, nor even the subversion of states, but their actual existence; and it reasons from facts as they are, not from assumed or possible changes to be effected by continual war much less does it reason. from mere chimeras. This absolute existence of the states which constitute the republic is the most palpable of all the facts with which the American statesman has to deal. If many have stumbled over it into treason and rebellion, the fact, for all legitimate deduc- tions and purposes, nevertheless remains. In a practical sense, at least, the states were before the American Union was. Even while they were colonies of the British crown, they still were embryo states several, free, self-existing, and indestructible. Our Fed- eral Republic exists, and henceforth and forever must exist, through, not the creation, but the combination of these several, free, self-ex- isting, stubborn states. These states are not stakes driven into the ground by an imperial hand, nor are they posts hauled together, squared, and hewed, and so erected loosely upon it; but they are living, growing, majestic trees, whose roots are widely spread and interlaced within the soil, and whose shade covers the earth. any time any of these trees shall be blown down or upturned by vio- lence, it must be lifted up again in its proper place, and sustained by kindly hands until it has renewed its natural stability and erect- ness! If at any time the American Union is fractured through a lesion of one of its limbs, that limb must be restored to soundness before due constitutional health and vigor can be brought back to the whole system. If one of these limbs offend, we have indeed the power and I will not cavil about the right — to cut it off and cast it away from us; but when we should have done that, we would have done just what other nations less wise than ourselves have done, that have submitted unnecessarily to amputation, and given up a material portion of their strength, to save themselves from ap- prehended destruction. We know the inherent strength, vitality, If at THE PRESIDENT AND HIS CABINET. 521 and vigor of the whole American people. We neither passionately torment any offending limb, nor consent to its being cut off, be- cause we know that all of our limbs are capable of being restored, and all are necessary to the prolongation of our national life. Who You will ask whether a reconciliation which follows so closely upon military coercion can be relied upon. Can it be sincere? Can it be permanent? I answer: Do you admit separation to be in any case possible? Does anybody now believe that it ever will hereafter become possible? Will you yourselves now or ever consent to it ? You answer all these questions in the negative. Is not reconcilia- tion, then, not only desirable, but imperative? Is any other recon- ciliation, under the circumstances, possible? Certainly you must accept this proposed reconciliation, or you must purpose to delay and wait until you can procure a better one. Good surgery requires that even simple wounds, much more severe ones, shall be healed, if possible, at the first intention. Would not delay necessarily pro- long anarchy? Are you sure that you can procure a better recon- ciliation after prolonged anarchy, without employing force? will advocate the employment of force merely to hinder and delay, through prolonged anarchy, a reconciliation which is feasible and perfectly consistent with the Constitution? In what part of the Con- stitution is written the power to continue civil war against succumb- ing states, for ultimate political triumph? What would this be but, in fact, to institute a new civil war, after one had ended with the complete attainment of the lawful objects for which it was waged? Congress and the administration have power to levy wars against for- eign states for whatever cause they see fit. Congress and the Presi- dent have a right to accept or even make war against any part of the people of the United States only under their limited power to suppress sedition and insurrection, and for that purpose only. What then? Must we give up the hope of further elevation of classes in the several states without any new guarantees for individ- ual liberty and progress? By no means. Marching in this path of progress and elevation of masses is what we have been doing still more effectually in the prosecution of the war. It is a national march, as onward and irresistible as the late conflict between free and slave labor was vigorous and irrepressible. The plan of recon- ciliation we are pursuing has given us two great national advances in this progress of moral and political elevation, which are now to 522 OCCASIONAL SPEECHES. be made fast and firmly fixed. First, it secures a voluntary aboli- tion of slavery by every state which has engaged in insurrection ; and secondly, it must secure and does secure an effectual adoption by the late slave states themselves of the amendment of the Federal Constitution, which declares that neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except for crime, shall ever hereafter exist in any part of the United States. The people who have so steadily adhered to the true path of democratic progress and civilization through all the se- ductions of peace, and through so many difficulties and at such fear- ful cost in war, will now have new inducements and encouragements to persevere in that path until they shall have successfully reduced to a verity the sublime assertion of the political equality of all men, which the founders, in their immortal declaration, laid down as the true basis of American Union. It is certain that the plan of reconciliation which I have thus largely explained must and will be adopted. It may, however, be hindered or hastened. How can it be hindered? You show your- selves aware of the answer when you fasten upon any violent, fac- tious, or seditious exhibition of passion or discontent in any of the lately rebellious states and argue from it the failure of the plan. You argue justly. Every turbulent and factious person in the lately insurrectionary states is resisting, hindering, and delaying the work of restoration to the extent of his ability. But the case is precisely the same with ourselves. Manifestations of doubt, distrust, crimi- nation, contempt, or defiance, in the loyal states, are equally injuri- ous, and equally tend to delay the work of reconciliation. How, then, shall it be hastened? I reply, virtually in the language of the President, in the spirit of the Constitution, and in harmony, not only with our politics, but with our religion. "We must trust each other." Can we not trust each other? Once we were friends. We have since been enemies. We are friends again. But, whether in friendship or in enmity, in peace or in war, we are and can be nothing else to each other than brethren. A few evenings ago, an hundred Southern men, who recently had been more or less influen- tial and leading revolutionists, visited my house at Washington. They were frank, unreserved, and earnest in their assurances of ac- quiescence and reconciliation, as I also was in mine. Happily, a party of intelligent Englishmen were in my dwelling at the same time. I introduced the late rebels to the representatives of sympathizing THE PRESIDENT AND HIS CABINET. 523 England, and I said to the parties: "You lately each of you thought that the Southern men preferred British rule to citizenship in the United States." While the Englishmen individually dis- claimed, both parties promptly answered, as they do now, that the idea was not merely a delusion, but an absurd mistake. They now knew that even during the excitement of the war, the American citizen, whether North or South, really preferred his own country- men of every section to any other people in the world. Some of you fear that the President may be too lenient to those Southern leaders who plunged the country into the calamities of civil war. Except those of you who have been maimed or bereaved, have any any of you suffered more of wrong, insult, and violence at the hands of those leaders than he has? Can we not forget where he can forgive? Are you aware that his terms of amnesty are far more rigorous than those which were offered by Abraham Lincoln ? Have you ever seen the majesty of law more firmly maintained than it has been by him in the exercise of discriminating clemency? Some of you seem to have been slightly disturbed by professions or demonstrations of favor toward the President made by parties who have heretofore opposed his administration, as well as the adminis- tration of his predecessor. And you ask: May not the President yet prove unfaithful to us? For myself, I laid aside partizanship, if I had any, in 1861, when the salvation of the country demanded that sacrifice. It is not, therefore, my purpose to descend to mere partizanship now. Andrew Johnson laid aside, I am sure, whatever of partizanship he had, at the same time. That noble act did not allow, but, on the other hand, it forbade collusion by the friends of the Union with opponents of the policies of the war and of reconcil- iation which the government has found it necessary to pursue. Duty requires absolute and uncompromising fidelity to the support- ers of those policies, whosoever and of whatsoever party they may be. Andrew Johnson has practised that fidelity against the violence of enemies, to the sacrifice of his fortune, the hazard of his liberty, and even the peril of his life. The same fidelity is still identified with the success of those policies, and, of course, is necessary to the achievement of their magnificent ends. Why should he now abandon those policies, and desert time-honored and favored support- ers, merely because the dawning success of our efforts has compelled former opponents to approve and accept them? Patriotism and 524 OCCASIONAL SPEECHES. loyalty equally, however, require that fidelity in this case should be mutual. Be ye faithful, therefore, on your part, and although the security I offer is unnecessary and superfluous, yet I will guarantee fidelity on his part. Those who hitherto opposed the President, but now profess to support him, either are sincere or insincere. Time must prove which is the fact. If they are sincere, who that has a loyal heart must not rejoice in their late, though too-long-delayed conversion? If they are insincere, are we either less sagacious or have we less ability now than heretofore to counteract treachery to the national cause? Perhaps you fear the integrity of the man. I confess, with a full sense of my accountability, that among all the public men whom I have met or with whom I have been associated or concerned, in this or any other country, no one has seemed to me to be more wholly free from personal caprice and selfish ambition than Andrew Johnson; none to be more purely and exclusively moved in public action by love of country and good will to man- kind. Shall I now speak the heads of executive depart- I hope I have said enough of the President. of his associates in administration ments, as they are called? I do it cheerfully, because now, for the first time, I am free to speak of them as I truly regard and esteem them. Heretofore I could not do so without inviting what might prove injurious debate; moreover, I could not do so without seem- ing to desire for myself some exemption from censure, some exercise of clemency, which self-respect forbade me personally to invoke. For the time, I said to myself: "My name is lost; By treason's tooth bare-knawn and canker-bit. Yet I am noble as the adversary I come to cope withal.” That time has passed away. The present and the last adminis- trations are inseparably allied. Their work is now either completely done, or its end is near at hand. The heads of departments in these allied administrations are now separable without injury to the na- tional safety and welfare. Each is entitled to his proper merit, and each must be content to bear his distinct responsibility. We have had three Secretaries of the Treasury. I believe that the fiscal system under which the nation has been conducted through greater difficulties than any other nation ever encountered was not THE PRESIDENT AND HIS CABINET. 525 } 1 only wisely projected and efficiently organized by Mr. Chase, but was the only one which, under the then existing circumstances, could have been successful. There has been since no departure from that plan, nor any relaxation in pursuing it, by either his immediate successor, Mr. Fessenden, or by Mr. McCulloch, the present in- cumbent. Intricate financial questions must continue to present themselves from time to time, until we shall have turned the outgo- ing tide of debt, and begun to experience the incoming flow of sur- plus revenue. For myself I can safely leave them to the care of the Secretary of the Treasury. We have had two Secretaries of War, Mr. Cameron and Mr. Stan- ton. The period of the first was short; that of the last has been long. Of Mr. Cameron I bear witness that he was in all things honest, earnest, zealous, and patriotic. Of Mr. Stanton I am to speak in even more exalted praise. My acquaintance with him began amid the hours of deep and overwhelming solicitude which filled what may justly be called an interregnum which occurred between the election of Abraham Lincoln to the Presidency, in November, 1860, and his inauguration, in March, 1861, and while Edwin M. Stanton was an acting member of the waning adminis- tration of James Buchanan. From that time, through all the period which elapsed, until April, 1865, when the siege of the capital was raised, and the fearful tragedy of the country was closed with the assassination of the Chief Magistrate who had saved it, I hourly saw and closely observed, by night and by day, the Secretary of War. I saw him organize and conduct a war of pure repression, greater than any war which mankind has before experienced. In all that time I saw no great or serious error committed. I saw, as you have all seen, the greatest military results achieved results which the whole world regarded as impossible. There is not one of those results that is not more or less directly due to the fertile invention, sagacious preparation, and indomitable perseverance and energy of the Secretary of War. I have never known him to ex- press or even betray a thought in regard to our country which was not divine. What remains to be done, by exhibiting military force in bringing the insurrectionary states out from anarchy into a con- dition of internal peace and coöperation with the government, may be safely trusted to him. I am equally satisfied with the naval administration of Mr. 526 OCCASIONAL SPEECHES. Welles; and yet I am bound to acknowledge that, during the whole period of his service, the navy has practically enjoyed the adminis- tration of two sagacious and effective chiefs. The Secretary of the Navy will himself, I am sure, approve and thank me for this tribute to his assistant, Captain Fox. The Department has achieved glory enough to divide between them. I apprehend neither now nor in any near future any danger of maritime collision or conflict; but I think the maintenance of naval preparation equally advantageous, both at home and abroad, with regard to questions which, without that precaution, might possibly arise. I am content to leave the responsibility of this case with Mr. Welles. We have had three Secretaries of the Interior, or Home Depart- ment Mr. Smith, Mr. Usher, and Mr. Harlan. Amid the tu- mults of war and the terror inspired by foreign conspiracies, the operations of the Home Department have all the while been carried on without arresting attention, or even obtaining observation. It might be sufficient praise to say of its chiefs that now, when the time for scrutiny has come, those unobserved operations are found to have been faultless. But this is not all. A thousand, five thou- sand years hence, men will inquire when and by whom was pro- jected and instituted the steam overland connection, which, during all the intervening period, will be seen to have indissolubly bound the distant coasts of the Pacific to the shores of the Atlantic Ocean. The answer will be, it was projected and instituted by the Secreta- ries of the Interior during the administration of Abraham Lincoln. We have had two Postmasters General. No more prudent or efficient one than Montgomery Blair has ever presided in that De- partment. In his successor, Mr. Dennison, we find a practised statesman, who, under the improved circumstances of our national condition, is giving us special and peculiar cause for satisfaction. He is promptly restoring the transportation of mails throughout the late theatre of war, and in that way performing an eminent part in the reconciliation of the American people. Watchful of the interests of external as well as of internal commerce, he has brought into action a new and direct postal line with Brazil, and thus has introduced us to more intimate intercourse with the states of South America. A year hence we shall see him extending commercial, political, and friendly connection to the islands of the Pacific and the great continents that lie beyond it. THE PRESIDENT AND HIS CABINET. 527 I wish you all could understand Mr. Speed, the Attorney Gen- eral, as I do. I do not know whether he is to be admired more for varied and accurate learning, or for what seems to be an intuitive faculty of moral philosophy. Only the delicate nervous system, which we all enjoy, but so seldom appreciate, seems to me to fur- nish a parallel for his quick sensibilities in the discovery and appre- ciation of truth. Firmer than most men in his convictions, and braver in his hopes of the progress of humanity, he is nevertheles temperate, thoughtful, and wise in the conduct of administration. These are they who were or are the counsellors and agents of the President of the United States during the eventful period through which we have passed. That they have always agreed from the first in deciding the momentous questions with which they were engaged is not asserted. A Cabinet which should agree at once on every such question would be no better or safer than one counsellor. Our republican system, and the political system of every free coun- try, requires, if not a "multitude of counsellors," at least an aggre- gation and diverseness of counsellors. But this I do maintain and confidently proclaim, that every important decision of the adminis- tration has been wise. I maintain with equal firmness, and de- clare with still greater pleasure, the opinion that no council of government ever existed in a revolutionary period in any nation which was either more harmonious or more loyal to each other, to their chief, and to their country. Had this council been at any time less harmonious or less loyal, I should then have feared the downfall of the Republic. Happily, I need not enter the field to assign honors to our mili- tary and naval chiefs. Their achievements, while they have excited the admiration and won the affectionate gratitude of all our country- men, have already become a grand theme of universal history. I omit to speak of foreign nations, and of the proceedings of the government in regard to them, for two reasons: first, because the discussion of such questions is for a season necessarily conducted without immediate publicity; the other is a reason I need not as- sign. Nevertheless, I may say in general terms this: We have claims upon foreign nations for injuries to the United States and their citizens, and other nations have presented claims against this government, for alleged injuries to them or their subjects. Al- though these claims are chiefly of a personal and pecuniary nature, 528 OCCASIONAL SPEECHES. yet the discussion of them involves principles essential to the inde- pendence of states and harmony among the nations. I believe that the President will conduct this part of our affairs in such a manner as to yield and recover indemnities justly due, without any com- promise of the national dignity and honor. With whatever jealousy we may adhere to our inherited principle of avoiding entangling alliances with foreign nations, the United States must continue to exercise — as always before our civil war they did exercise — a just and beneficent influence in the international conduct of foreign states, particularly those which are near to us on this continent, and which are especially endeared to us by their adoption of repub- lican institutions. That just influence of ours was impaired, as might have been apprehended by the American people, when they fell into the distractions of civil war. With the return of peace it is coming back to us again, in greater strength than ever. sure that this important interest has not been lost sight of by the President of the United States for a single moment, and I expect that we shall see republican institutions, wherever they have been heretofore established throughout the American con- tinent, speedily vindicated, renewed, and reinvigorated. When I shall see this progress successfully worked out on the American continent, I shall then look for the signs of its successful working throughout the other continents. I am It is thus that I think the administrations of Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson may be assumed as an epoch at which hu- manity will resume with new spirit and courage the career which, however slow, is nevertheless constantly directed toward the destruc- tion of every form of human slavery, and the political equality of all men. And now, my dear friends and neighbors, after this pleasant in- terview, we part once more you to continue, I hope with un- abated success and pleasure, your accustomed domestic and social pursuits; I return to the capital, there to watch and wait and work on a little longer. But we shall meet again. We came together to-day to celebrate the end of the civil war. We will come together again under next October's sun, to rejoice in the restoration of peace, harmony, and union throughout the land. Until that time I refrain from what would be a pleasant task - the forecasting of the material progress of the country, the normal increase of population RESTORATION OF UNION. 529 by birth and immigration, and its diffusion over the now obliterated line of Mason and Dixon, to the Gulf of Mexico, and over and across the Rocky Mountains along the border of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean. I say now only this: Go on, fellow-citizens, in- crease and multiply as you have heretofore done. Extend channels of internal commerce as the development of agricultural, forest, and mineral resources requires. Improve your harbors, consolidate the Union now while you can, without unconstitutionally centralizing the government, and henceforth you will enjoy, as a tribute of respect and confidence, that security at home and that consideration abroad which maritime powers of the world have of late, when their candor was specially needed, only reluctantly and partially con- ceded. May our Heavenly Father bless you and your families and friends, and have you all in His holy keeping until the rolling months shall bring around that happy meeting in 1866; and so, for the present, farewell. RESTORATION OF UNION. New York, Cooper Institute, February 22, 1866. I WAS at Auburn in this our old and honored State of New York in October, and I spoke then what I thought would be per- tinent to public affairs for a whole year. The summons of friends in the city of New York brings me back after the expiration of only three months. Their demand is, I confess, rather hard upon me, under the circumstances. Nevertheless, I obey. I am no secession- ist. I profess to understand how to obey the commands of the people of my own state, without violating my allegiance to the United States. Now, what shall I speak of or about? The call of your meeting specifies the subject.¹ But first, let me say that I am not here as an alarmist; I am not here to say that the nation is in peril or danger in peril if you adopt the opinions of the President; in peril if you reject them; in peril if you adopt the views of the apparent or real majority of Congress, or if you reject them. It is not in peril any way; nor do I think the cause of liberty and human free- 1 Washington's Birthday. The principles of the President's Messages. 34 OCCASIONAL SPEECHES. 530 dom, the cause of progress, melioration, or civilization, the cause of national aggrandizement, present or future, material or moral, is in danger of being long arrested, whether you adopt one set of political opinions or another. The Union- that is to say, the nation has been rescued from all its perils. The noble ship has passed from tempests and billows within the verge of a safe harbor, and is now securely riding into her ancient moorings, without a broken spar or a leak, starboard or larboard, fore or aft. There are some small reefs yet to pass as she approaches those moorings. One pilot says that she may safely enter directly through them. The other says that she must back, and, lowering sail, take time to go around them. That is all the difference; it is merely the difference of opinion between the pilots. I should not practise my habitual charity if I did not admit that I think them both sincere and honest. But the vessel will go in safely, one way or the other. The worst that need happen will be that, by taking the wrong instead of the right pas- sage, or even taking the right passage, and avoiding the wrong one, the vessel may roll a little, and some honest, capable, and even deserving politicians, statesmen, President, or Congressmen may get washed overboard. I should be sorry for this, but if it cannot be helped, it can be borne. If I am one of the unfortunates, let no friend be concerned on that account. As honest, as good, as capable politicians, statesmen, Congressmen, and Presidents will make their appearance hereafter, faster than needed, to command the ship, as well and as wisely as any that have heretofore stalked their hour upon the deck, in the alternations of calm and tempest that always attend political navigation. Nevertheless, although I do not think we are in a crisis, the ques- tion to-day is worthy of deliberate examination and consideration. It is always important, in going into a port or preparing for a new departure, to take accurate observations, in order to ascertain whether the ship and crew are sound and in good fastening and in good sailing condition. The subject before us is a difference of opinion that reveals itself but too clearly between the executive ad- ministration of the President and the legislative counsellors of the nation. The President, as we all see, is a man of decided convic- tions; the legislative leaders, if we may judge from their resolu- tions, are trying to decide not to coincide with him in opinion. They have appealed to us, outsiders as we are, to pronounce be- RESTORATION OF UNION. 531 tween them. I will try to show you what the nature and character of the difference is. Some of you, few or many, have been occasionally in a theatre. You may remember a play that had some popularity a few years ago, entitled "The Nervous Man and the Man of Nerve." Both of these characters were well-to-do country gentlemen. They had been friends in early life. Their friendship grew with their years. They lived in distant parts of the country. The nervous man had a hopeful son; the man of nerve had a lovable daughter. By some freak of fortune, or some more capricious god, these young people had accidentally come together at a watering-place, and there formed an attachment unknown to their parents. In the mean time the nervous man and the man of nerve had come to an agreement to marry the two young people together, under a belief that they were entirely unknown to each other. Each parent made the an- nouncement to his child in a mysterious manner. The nervous man's son was told that he was to be married to an unknown lady with whom he was sure to fall in love at first sight, but whose name must be withheld until the day of the ceremony. The daughter of the man of nerve received a similar pleasant intimation. Each lover protested, each parent was peremptory, each lover imprac- ticable. As a natural consequence both ran away, and, as was quite natural, both came together, and they were clandestinely married. When the nervous man heard of his son's contumacious disobedience he denounced him, disinherited him, disowned him, and declared he would never see him again. When the man of nerve heard of the flight of his daughter he immediately summoned his dependants, who sought to restore her to her father. One pa- rent was all passion, the other was all decision. While they were comparing their mutual and common grief and disappointment, the married lovers came trembling into the angry presence, and kneel- ing down, asked forgiveness and parental blessings upon what was now irrevocable. What was the parents' surprise to find that the runaway match was just precisely the one they had planned, and the supposed failure of which had so deeply excited them. The man of nerve acquitted himself with becoming resignation, and, since it had all ended right, he extended to the lovers the boon they begged. The nervous man refused altogether to be comforted, propitiated, or even soothed. He refused and declared that he would persist for- 532 OCCASIONAL SPEECHES. 66 ever in refusing to receive back again the son who had been so diso- bedient. When his outburst of passion had somewhat subsided, the man of nerve said: “Well, now, old friend, why won't you for- give him? Have you not got the matter all your own way after all? " 66 Why, yes," replied the nervous man, "I have got it all my own way." "Then, why will you not forgive him?" said the man of nerve. Why, I haven't had my own way of having it." This, I think, is the difference between the President, who is a man of nerve, in the Executive chair at Washington, and the nervous. men who are in the House of Representatives. Both have got the Union restored as they originally planned it should be. They have, got it restored, not with slavery, but without it; not with secession, flagrant or latent, but without it; not with compensation for eman- cipation, but without it; not with compromise, but without; not with disloyal states, or representatives, but with loyal states and representatives; not with rebel debts, but without them; not with exemption from our own debts for suppressing the rebellion, but with equal liabilities upon the rebels and the loyal men; not with freedmen and refugees abandoned to suffering and persecution, but with the freedmen employed in productive, self-sustaining industry, with refugees under the protection of law and order. The man of nerve sees that it has come out right at last, and he accepts the situation. He does not forget that in this troublesome world of ours, the most to be secured by anybody is to have things come out right. Nobody can ever expect to have them brought out altogether in his own way. The nervous men, on the other hand, hesitate, delay, debate, and agonize not because it has not come out right, but because they have not individually had their own way in bring- ing it to that happy termination. I have said that I apprehend no serious difficulty or calamity. This confidence arises from the conviction which I entertain that there never was and never can be any successful process for the restoration of Union and harmony among the states, except the one with which the President has avowed himself satisfied. Grant it that the rebellion is dispersed, ended, and exhausted, dead even at the root, then it follows necessarily that the states sooner or later must be organized loyal men in accordance with the change in our fundamental law, and that, being so organized, they should come by loyal representatives and resume their places in the family circle t I RESTORATION OF UNION. 533 which, in a fit of caprice and passion, they rebelliously vacated. All the rebel states but Texas have done just that thing, and Texas is doing the same thing just now as fast as possible. The President is in harmony with all the states that were in rebellion. Every Exec- utive Department and the Judicial Department are in operation, or are rapidly resuming the exercise of their functions. Loyal repre- sentatives, more or less, from all these states men whose loyalty may be tried by any Constitutional or legislative test which will apply even to the representatives of the states which have been loyal throughout-are now standing at the doors of Congress, and have been standing there for three months past, asking to be ad- mitted to seats which disloyal representatives, in violation of the rights and duties of the states, as well as of the sovereignty of the Union, had recklessly abandoned. These representatives, after a lapse of three months, yet remain waiting outside the chambers, while Congress passes law after law, imposes burden after burden, and duty after duty upon the states which, against their earnestly expressed desires, are left without representation. So far as I can judge of human probabilities, I feel sure that the loyal men from the now loyal states will, sooner or later, at this session or at some other, by this Congress or by some other, be received into the Leg- islature of the nation. When this shall have been done, the pro- cess of restoration will be complete; for that is all that now remains to be done. If, in this view of the subject, my judgment is at fault, then some of those who now uphold the opposite one can show some other process of restoration which is practicable, and which can be and will be adopted, and when it is likely to be adopted. Does any person pretend to know such a plan? Other plans, indeed, have been mentioned. They were projected during Mr. Lincoln's administration; they have been projected since. Briefly described, these plans have been such as this: that Congress, with the Presi- dent concurring, should create what are called territorial govern- ments in the eleven states which were once in rebellion, and that the President should administer the government there for an indefinite period by military force, and that after long purgation they should be admitted into the Union by congressional enactment. This pro- ceeding was rejected by Mr. Lincoln, as it is rejected by the Presi- dent. If ever it may have been practicable, it is now altogether too late. If the President could be induced to concur in so mad a 534 OCCASIONAL SPEECHES. measure at this date, it would be impossible to execute it. Say what you will or what you may, the states are already organized, in perfect harmony with our amended National Constitution, and are in earnest coöperation with the Federal government. It would re- quire an imperial will, an imperial person, and imperial powers greater than the Emperor of France possesses, to reduce any one of these states, with the consent of all the other states, into what you term a territorial condition. Maximilian's task, though it engages two emperors and two imperial organizations, with their forces, is thought not the most wise and hopeful political enterprise of the day. On the other hand we have no emperor, but only a stern, uncompromising, radical republican, a democrat, call him what you will, for President, who refuses in every way to be a party to any imperial transactions, and who would hand them back to Congress if they were to offer him the men and money to prosecute such im- perial enterprises. Suppose that he could give place to another President, whether by election, or even assassination, where will you find in the United States a man who would want to be elected to that high place to plunge this country into a civil war for a political chimera? If there be such a one, what chance is there that he would be elected for such a purpose? That scheme, then, is at an end, and it is not now even seriously mentioned. Is there any other plan? Congress has a Reconstruction Committee, as it is called, composed of fifteen members, who have stopped the wheels of legislation three months to enable them to submit a process. or plan different from that which is now on the eve of a happy consummation. And what have they given us? One proposed amendment to the Constitution, to compel the excluded states to equalize suffrage upon the penalty of an abridgment of representa- tion. I do not discuss its merits. Either the amendment will or will not be adopted. The expectation is, that it will fail even in Congress. In any case it implies a full restoration of the Southern states. It is, therefore, no plan or process of reconstruction at all. The Committee prove this to be the true character of the proceed- ing, because they fall back upon a process not of restoration, but of obstruction. The resolution which they submitted Tuesday last, and which has passed the House of Representatives, directly de- clares that loyal representatives shall not be admitted from loyal states until Congress shall pass a law for that purpose which RESTORATION OF UNION. 535 law, it would seem that every member who votes for it must know, cannot be enacted without the President's approval, which cannot be consistently given in view of the opinions that he is known to entertain. This concurrent resolution, then, is not a plan for recon- struction, but a plan for indefinite postponement and delay by the concurrent action of the Houses of Congress. I know that the scriptural instruction is not always accepted as an infallible guide of faith in these latter days. I do not, therefore, ask you whether the United States government ought not now to slay the fatted calf and invite our prodigal brethren to so luxurious a feast; but I do venture to say that when this nation became dis- organized five years ago by flagrant secession and rebellion, we did determine to humble the rebels and bring them back again to their constitutional seat at the family table. I know that we have hum- bled them, and have brought them back with humiliation and re- pentance sueing for restoration. I know that when Congress was convened, and when the last elections were held, which gave utter- ance to the popular voice, it was their expectation that without un- necessary delay that table would be set, and that all the members of the family, however prodigal they had been, would be received at the board. There being, then, no further plan of restoration, what are the chances of carrying out the system of obstruction to which I have referred? It is as impracticable in its character as I think it is vicious. If I have read the history of this country correctly, it has settled these three things: First: No State can keep itself out of the Union or keep itself in a territorial condition under the Union. In the very beginning four states refused to enter; with wry faces. they all came in afterward making the whole number of states thirteen instead of the nine first consenting. All the region east of the Mississippi rushed rapidly through a brief territorial pupilage into the Union. We bought provinces from Spain, from France, from Mexico. From the Mississippi to the Pacific they have rushed or are rushing with railroad speed, after a brief territorial existence, as states into the Union. If it were possible, we might acquire still more provinces, North or South. You cannot easily go further West. Every province that there might be gained, whether white or black, old or young, alien or native born, would also be immediately rushing, as with railroad speed, as states into the Union. Another 536 OCCASIONAL SPEECHES. thing which our national history teaches is, that the states which are in the Union cannot be taken or kept out of its limits; and that is the great lesson of the rebellion. The third thing which this eventful war teaches us is, that the states which are in the Union cannot keep any states that are outside from coming in. Congress is habitually inclined to this experiment. It hesitated about Michi- gan and Missouri; it reeled and staggered before Texas and Cali- fornia; and it convulsed the nation in resisting Kansas; yet they are all in the Union, all now loyal, and most of them cheerful and happy. How many Committees of Conference did we have, how many Joint Committees did we not have, on this momentous ques- tion? How many Joint Resolutions, denying that Congress ever would consent to the admission of such unwelcome intruders ? How many compromises, securing guarantees for freedom, securing guarantees for slavery, were broken and scattered, when one after the other these states came in, as if by a headlong thrust and hurled by an Almighty Providence, who was determined that the people of this continent shall be not many discordant nations, but one united and harmonious nation. I entered Congress in 1849, when the Joint Committee of Fifteen was skilfully, and it is but just to say, honestly framed to obstruct the admission of California until the majority of the nation should compromise and silence forever the debate upon slavery. The Com- mittee succeeded in excluding California for a period of eight months and no longer, and eventually obtained, in broken fragments, the compromise which it sought. That compromise was by its terms to be perpetual. The compromise of 1850 lingered, however, just four years and then perished, giving place to the incipient and now hap- pily consummated adjustment of the slavery question, by the com- plete and universal abrogation of that institution. I left Congress in 1861, when committees and conventions clustered in and around the Capitol, demanding stipulations (which Congress refused) that fetters should be put upon New Mexico, Nevada, and Colorado. You can never keep states out of this Union, never, no never! If we do not like them, we may, in the words of the old proverb, "lump them." The present distrusts of future states or of existing states have no substantial ground. They are begotten of miserable perishing fears and factions. California was suspected of secret or ultimate complicity with slavery. All the men in the Union knew RESTORATION OF UNION. 537 the hard feelings her people entertained toward us Free-soilers, who were their most earnest advocates. We gave her ten years of pro- slavery, democratic rule. The ten years are now up, and she is calm, perhaps distrustful of some of us yet, because we are willing to admit the states that have sinned and repented as she did. If ever this thing of keeping out states by Joint Resolution of Congress could have had any chance of permanent success, that time has passed away. No state has ever been hindered in coming into the Union except upon questions growing out of the system of African bondage. But African bondage has now gone to the dogs, and they have made a sure finish of it. Not even enough of its shriveled skin or disjointed limbs remains to sharpen the cupidity of the race that were once called slaveholders, or of that other race which was known to the country as "doughfaces." doughfaces." No state, therefore, will ever, hereafter, be hindered or delayed in coming back into the Un- ion upon the ground of slavery. Union which I This would be You may think that the irresistible tendency to have described may have something alarming in it. a grave error. I think no such thing. The people in any territory want to be a state, because it is a pleasant thing and a good thing to have the municipal powers and faculties which belong to a state within the American Union, and to provide by its own laws for the maintenance and security of life, liberty, and property. A territory wants to be a state and a member of the Federal Union, because it is a pleasant thing and a good thing to have its protection against foreign enemies, and to possess the privileges and immunities guar- anteed to a state by the national Constitution. I therefore would not consent to hold a state in a territorial condition, or to deny it the advantages of fellowship in the Union a day longer than I should be compelled. Nor do I see anything calculated to excite alarm, anything transcending the political ability of our statesmen, in the present situation of the freedmen. In the beginning, practically, every state in the Union had slavery. We abolished it in several states without disorder or civil commotion, until slavery raised itself in rebellion against the government of the Union. When it took that attitude, we abolished it out and out, through and through, com- pletely and effectually forever. This is what the American people have had the sagacity and the courage to do in a period of ninety years. These American people are a great deal better and a great 538 OCCASIONAL SPEECHES. deal wiser to-day than they were ninety years ago. Those of the generation that is now crowding us, will be a great deal wiser and a great deal better than we who are on the stage to-day. Do I think, therefore, that we shall lack the wisdom or the virtue to go right on and continue the work of melioration and progress, and perfect in due time the deliverance of labor from restrictions, and the annihi- lation of caste and class. We have accomplished what we have done, however, not with an imperial government not with a pro- consular or territorial system. We have done it in states, by states, and through states, free, equal, untrammeled, and presided over by a Federal, restricted government, which will continue to the end the constitutional progress with which we so wisely began. They are settling the whole case of the African in the West Indies just as we are, and it will be done with the same results and the same benefi- cent effects. I have not given prominence in these remarks to the conflict of opinion between the President and Congress in reference to the bureau for the relief of freedmen and refugees. That conflict is, in its consequences, comparatively unimportant, and would excite little interest and produce little division if it stood alone. It is because it has become the occasion for revealing the difference that I have already described that it has attained the importance which seems to surround it. Both the President and Congress agree that, during the brief transition which the country is making from civil war to internal peace, the freedmen and refugees ought not to be aban- doned by the nation to persecution and suffering. It was for this transition period that the Bureau of Freedmen was created by Congress, and was kept and is still kept in effective operation. Both the President and Congress, on the other hand, agree that when that transition period shall have been fully passed, and the har- monious relations between the states and the Union fully restored, that Bureau would be not only unnecessary but unconstitutional, demoralizing, and dangerous, and therefore it should cease to exist. The President thinks that the transition stage has nearly passed, and that the original provision for the Bureau is all that is necessary to secure the end in view, while the bill submitted by Congress seems to him to give it indefinite extension in time of peace and restoration. He vetoed it for that reason. He declines to accept, RESTORATION OF UNION. 539 as unnecessary and uncalled for, the thousand or ten thousand agents, the increased powers and the augmented treasure which Congress insists on placing in his hands. Congress, on the other hand, thinks that the Freedmen's Bureau is not adequate, and that more patronage, more money, and more power would, like Thomp- son's door-plate, purchased at auction by Mrs. Toodles, be a good thing to have in a house. I agree with the President in the hope that the extraordinary provision which the bill makes will not be necessary, but that the whole question may be simplified by a simple reference to the existing law. The law, of March 3, 1865, which created the Freedmen's Bureau, provides that it shall con- tinue in force during the war of rebellion and one full year thereafter. When does that year expire? In the President's judgment, as I understand the matter, the war of the rebellion has been coming and is still coming to an end, but is not yet fully closed. It is on this ground that he maintains an army, continues the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, and exercises martial law, when these things are found to be necessary in rebel states. The existence of the rebellion was legally announced by executive proclamation in 1861. The end of the rebellion ought to be, and may be expected to be, announced by competent declaration of the President or of Congress, or of both. For all practical purposes, the rebellion will, in law, come to an end if the President or Con- gress, one or both, officially announces its termination. Now, sup- pose this announcement to be made by the President and by Congress, or by either of them, to-morrow. In that case, the Freed- men's Bureau is continued by virtue of the limitation prescribed in the Act of March 3, 1865, one year after such proclamation shall have been made. Thus the Freedmen's Bureau would continue, by the original limitation, until the 22d day of February, 1867-a very proper day on which to bring it to an end. If Congress should then find it necessary to prolong its existence, Congress can at once take the necessary steps, for it will at that date have been in session nearly three months. Ought the President of the United States to be denounced in the house of his enemies much more ought he to be denounced in the house of his friends, for refusing, in the absence of any necessity, to occupy or retain, and to exercise powers greater than those which are exercised by any imperial mag- istrate in the world? Judge ye! I trust that this fault of declin- 540 OCCASIONAL SPEECHES. ing imperial powers, too hastily tendered by a too confiding Con gress, may be forgiven by a generous people. It will be a sad hour for the Republic when the refusal of unnecessary powers, treasure, and patronage by the President shall be held to be a crime. When it shall be so considered, the time will have arrived for setting up at the White House an imperial throne, and surrounding the Executive with imperial legions. Sebag NOTE. Among the officers of this meeting were Hamilton Fish, E. D. Morgan, William M. Evarts, Moses II. Grinnell, Daniel S. Dickinson, Chas. P. Daly, George Opdyke, Francis B. Cutting, A. A. Low, R. M. Blatchford, Shepherd Knapp, H. B. Claflin, Wm. H. Webb, Marshall O. Roberts, Thurlow Weed, Wm. E. Dodge. THE SITUATION AND THE DUTY. Auburn, October 31, 1868. "Secretary Seward," said the "Auburn Daily Advertiser" of October 31, 1868, "this afternoon addressed one of the largest audiences ever convened in Corning Hall. The bare announcement yesterday that he was to speak to-day created an intense anxiety in the public mind to hear him, and when the doors of the hall were thrown open at half-past one o'clock, it was immediately filled to overflowing, many hundreds being unable to gain admittance. Secretary Seward was introduced by Rev. Dr. Hawley in the following words :- “In the performance of an agreeable duty, fellow-citizens, I was about to ex- tend, on your behalf, a cordial greeting to our distinguished neighbor and personal friend on this occasion. But your prompt and hearty response to his presence once more on this platform, on the eve of a great popular decision, is of deeper significance than any words of welcome. The desire to hear what, from his posi- tion, he may counsel at this time is not less earnest and sincere than at other periods of public concern, when he has spoken to his townsmen, and thus to the whole country, and indeed to the whole world. It only remains for me, in inter- preting this desire, to say that it springs from recollections and associations which can neither be forgotten nor obscured in the ever-varying phases of political action or popular judgment. And that whatever of merited honor or fame may attach to the career of a public servant, it can never cease to be with him a grateful con- sciousness that he also holds fast the esteem and affection of those who know him best, among whom stands his home, and with whom, when public service ceases, he expects to mingle in the scenes and duties of ordinary life to its destined close.'"' MY FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS: My long absence on political occasions and my present appearance here are proper subjects of in- quiry on your part. In explaining both, I may be able to say THE SITUATION AND THE DUTY. 541 all that is proper or necessary to be said in this pleasant inter- view. Upon the first point, I might well enough plead official occupa- tion. Official obligations necessarily and justly take precedence over those of private citizenship. The public may properly say to its appointed servants, "These ought ye to have done, and not to leave the others undone." Government occupation is increased by civil war, and necessarily increased by returning peace. It increases with ever-increasing population, territory, and commercial and political connections. But, for all this, you are not to suppose, as many assume, that I am purchasing on government account all the outlying territories in the universe,¹ or indeed proposing to acquire dominion anywhere beyond the magic circle of the Monroe doc- trine. I might plead inadequate strength. I have reason to thank God, indeed, that neither age, nor indulgence, nor casualty, has brought so great decrepitude as persons have sometimes imagined. Never- theless, I certainly have some years, perhaps enough for a place on the retired list; and some wounds, perhaps enough for a pension, if I were in the military or naval service. Moreover, every opinion or sentiment of mine, that has a bearing upon the present hour, was spoken long ago; spoken, as I thought, in due time; spoken, either concurrently with, or in advance of political events. So true is this, that no one has mistaken my abid- ing attitude, or pretends now to doubt either my official views or my political relations. The case, however, is now somewhat changed. I am at home for indispensable private business. I find you in an election to consti- tute a new administration of the government of the United States.2 A theory obtained in the early revival of science that an elixir could be compounded, by the use of which the human constitution could be renewed at the end of every hundred years, and so man become immortal. The quadrennial national election of President and Con- gress in the United States is just such a periodical renewal as this of the national life, whereby the nation in fact becomes immortal. The casting of my vote in great elections of this sort is equally 1 Alluding to the recent purchase of Alaska and the proposed annexation of certain West India islands. 2 General Grant and Horatio Seymour were the opposing candidates for President. 542 OCCASIONAL SPEECHES. the exercise of an inestimable privilege and the performance of a high and sacred duty. Mutual explanation of votes is the only means by which mutual confidence can be preserved among citizens, while it saves suffrage itself from profanation, intrigue, and corrup- tion. In an experience of eighty years under the Constitution which makes us a nation, we have renewed the Republic, in the same pre- scribed way, by twenty national elections. I have voted and ex- plained in the last eleven; these being all of those national elections that have occurred since I came to the franchise. The present election is the twenty-first of the entire series, and my twelfth one. In this election, just as I expressed myself at the time of each pre- ceding one, I feel that this one may be my last. Every Presidential election necessarily has a real, although an ab- stract importance. We have here a republican system instead of the monarchical one. An ultimate adoption of this system by all the American nations is necessary for our security. Every new republic established anywhere constitutes a new bulwark of the Re- public of the United States. Our republican government has some peculiar devices of local adaptation and equivalent, designed to operate by way of check and balance. Nevertheless, our Constitution has four essential elements, perhaps no more. These elements are, first, the actual choice of the presiding magistrate by the direct vote of the whole people; second, equal suffrage of all citizens in that election; third, equal representation of all constituent communities in the Republic; and, fourth, conditions and periods of power well defined and absolutely fixed. The casting or the withholding of a vote by any citizen in- considerately actually impairs, although perhaps imperceptibly, the vigor and energy necessary to the continuance of the Republic, just as the casting or the withholding of all the votes of the people in- considerately would bring it abruptly to an end. Standing as we do now at the close of the twentieth administra- tion, I can well conceive that the first election was the most import- ant of all, inasmuch as a mistake then committed in the choice of the first President of the United States, or of the first Congress, might have involved the failure of the system at the very beginning. It was just such a mistake that the French people committed in 1848, when they lost their new republic by electing a Bonaparte in- stead of a Cavaignac. That mistake having been avoided here, the THE SITUATION AND THE DUTY. 543 It soon government promptly went into successful operation. acquired vigor by custom, and continually gained strength from in- creasing popular reverence and affection. The nation encountered no crisis until 1860. The election of Abraham Lincoln, in 1860, occurred at a time when a sectional faction, with extensive ramifica- tions, had prepared a formidable rebellion. The election in 1864 was still more critical. Abraham Lincoln, who had been elected in 1860, had been effectually excluded by the rebellion from recognition or acceptance in one third of the states. It only remained for the still adhering states to reject Lincoln, as President, in 1864, to effect a speedy, if not an immediate, dissolu- tion of the Union. On the other hand, it was reasonably expected that the reaffirmation in 1864 of the choice made in 1860 would so consolidate the loyal and patriotic hopes of the country in support of the administration, as to enable President Lincoln to prosecute the war as no other President could, and to improve returning peace as no other President could, by combining conciliation with decision, until the Constitution should be reëstablished throughout the whole Union. Within four months after the election of 1864 the strength of the rebellion was effectually broken, and on the 4th of March, 1865, Abraham Lincoln entered upon his second term of the Presidency, for the first time with full possession of the rebel states; de facto as well as de jure the recognized and accepted Chief Magistrate of the whole Republic. With him the Congress and the other departments of the Federal Union were equally recognized and accepted. The duty which devolved upon the government in the second ad- ministration of Abraham Lincoln was to save the Constitution and the Union from further revolutionary violence, and by just, gener- ous, and judicious measures to bring the distracted and desolated rebel states back to their constitutional relations with the Federal Union. We have reached at last the end of that second administration, begun by Abraham Lincoln, and we unfortunately find that its great work, as I have described it, remains as yet only incompletely and unsatisfactorily accomplished. Parties now vehemently dispute whether this failure is the fault of one department or of another; the fault of the President, or the fault of Congress; the fault of the executive system of reconciliation, or of the congressional system of 544 OCCASIONAL SPEECHES. reconstruction. I do not enter into that dispute. It already be- longs to the past. Nevertheless, I am now inclined to think that it was unreasonable to expect the passions and ambitions of thirty- three free states, and thirty millions of free people so recently and terribly convulsed by civil war, to subside in so short a period as four years. It is the highest attribute of the Almighty, which the divine poet has conceived, that He "stilleth the noise of the seas, and the noise of their waves, and the tumult of the people." The storms must be withheld before the seas can come to rest. Probably such an intense and pervading political agitation as ours could not have been suddenly repressed without overthrowing public liberty itself, as the Napoleons did at the close of two popular French revolutions. The choice of our two principal magistrates in 1864 was certainly wisely made. We found out at the beginning of the civil war that neither party, and no party alone without coöperation from the other, could save the country. The people who made the choice in 1864 were neither a republican party nor a democratic party, but avowedly and heroically a Union people, and union always means an effective combination of kindred forces. The Union people in 1864 followed the rule which has so generally prevailed of dividing the names to be placed on the Presidential ticket between compet- ing sections, parties, or interests, giving the greater weight to the larger section or party. With nice judgment, therefore, they chose Abraham Lincoln, a northern Union patriot of republican ante- cedents to be President, and Andrew Johnson, a southern Union patriot of democratic antecedents, to be Vice President. Active hostilities, however, had hardly ended before there ap- peared a portentous conflict of popular ideas and opinions concern- ing the proper conditions of peace and reconciliation, and these ideas and opinions had relation to the so-called reconstruction of Personal ambitions, of the state governments in the rebel states. course, entered into the controversy. Social ideas and popular am- bitions are inherent in all republics, and revolutions stimulate their rapid development. No one form of political idea, no one form of personal ambition that has presented itself in our recent distractions was new. They all sprang up and in turn attained complete, though many of them only temporary, ascendency during the French revolution of 1789, a revolution which, as we all see, gave A THE SITUATION AND THE DUTY. 545 way after a short while to a military despotism that still survives. We now see that in the insurrection the rebel states became revolutionary states, not merely revolutionary against the United States, but revolutionary within themselves. As such, they have experienced the fortune of all revolutionary states. Each new political idea, and every distinct personal ambition in revolutionary states, demands either a severe constitutional reform, or a change of the existing constitution altogether. The right of the people and their power in such states to make such changes is not only un- challenged, but is also unchecked. It follows, as a consequence, that no constitution which is forged in the white-heat of revolution ever endures. We have forgotten that this nation went through the Revolution- ary crisis practically without any constitution at all. There was indeed a Declaration of Independence from Great Britain and from all other nations, and a precious assertion of human rights; but no constitutional government was established or framed until seven years after the last belligerent had disappeared from the field. We can all recollect that brilliant constitutions successively came out like fire-beacons in the murky gloom of the French Revolution. All those constitutions were based upon some sound political ideas, and all ought to have been compatible with any patriotic ambition. Yet they succeeded each other so rapidly, that when a politician entered the store of a bookseller in Paris, and asked for the consti- tution of France, he was answered, "We do not deal here in peri- odical publications." Mexico seems at last to have acquired a constitution, but only after forty years of civil wars, culminating in the great calamity which we have so happily escaped - foreign intervention. Although all the South American republics have been independent through a period of forty or fifty years, yet it cannot be certainly said of any one of them that it has yet definitely accepted and adopted a final constitution. Revolutions have continued to overthrow constitu- tions there as fast as they have been made. It was unwise, then, to expect that the insurgent states, coming out of their flagrant re- bellion, and yet allowed by the Federal Constitution to reconstitute their forms of government for themselves and by their own proper act, in conformity with the Federal Constitution, could all at once adopt constitutions which should be permanently satisfactory to 35 546 OCCASIONAL SPEECHES. themselves and to us, in the presence of an entire new condition of society produced by the emancipation of four millions of slaves. What they wanted was "time." What we have wanted was patience. These two wants seasonably indicated the course of popular wisdom in regard to restoration, reorganization, or recon- struction, by whatever name it may be called. Reliance, however, was justly placed upon the advantages which Abraham Lincoln had for overcoming these embarrassments. Leav- ing out of view his peculiar moral and intellectual qualities, Mr. Lincoln possessed a decided advantage, in the fact that he had con- ducted the government with approved fidelity and wisdom through the entire course of the civil war. As the people gave their first confidence to Washington, in organizing the government, upon the ground that he had safely led them through the Revolutionary war ; as the people in 1848 gave their confidence to General Taylor, upon the ground that he had safely led them through the greatest peril of the Mexican war; so the people were expected to give their full con- fidence to Abraham Lincoln in restoring the Union, because he had led them successfully through the late terrific revolutionary convul sion of the country. No wise and candid man thought, at that time, either that the war could be ended, or that peace and reconciliation could be effected, under an administration that did not fully enjoy the public. confidence upon two cardinal points, namely, first, the justice of the Union cause in the war; second, the necessity, wisdom, and justice of the abolition of African slavery which the war had effected. Abraham Lincoln had a still greater advantage. He had been twice chosen by the people themselves to be their President, their civil chief. They were accustomed to his leadership, and they loved him as an accepted impersonation of their own convictions, no matter how varied those convictions might be. They all knew, or believed they knew, him thoroughly. They had committed them- selves to his support in advance. His success would be their own success. His failure would be felt and deplored as their own fail- Thus was enlisted in his favor the national pride, the na- tional affection, and the national gratitude. What combinations could have resisted a magistrate thus armed, and aiming only to complete the great and glorious work of saving the Union, which he himself began? ure. THE SITUATION AND THE DUTY. 547 In an unhappy hour Abraham Lincoln fell by the hand of the assassin. That fearful calamity, which was equally beyond human foresight and human control, suddenly and profoundly interfered with our high purposes and patriotic desires. Human nature, around the whole circle of the globe, and especially in its centre here, recoiled and stood aghast before that great crime. The coun- try sank for a moment into sadness and despair of its future, from which it was aroused to seek and search everywhere, in the govern- ment and out of it, in the North and in the South, at home and abroad, for secret authors, agents, and motives for the horrible as- sassination. While suspicion attached itself by turns to everybody, it justly fastened itself at last upon the rebellion, and demanded new and severer punishment of the rebels, instead of the magnani- mous reconciliation which the beloved President of whom it had been bereaved had recommended. Who will say that this senti- ment was unnatural? Who shall say that it was even unjust? Revolution has always the same complex machinery. Besides the public machinery which its managers directly employ, there is al- ways a secret assassination-wheel carefully contrived, and ready to come into activity when a crisis is reached. Revolutionists cannot relieve themselves of all responsibility for it by pleading that it was unknown to themselves. Who can say how far this great. crime of assassination has been effective in delaying and preventing the desired reconciliation? It was in the midst of this distraction that Andrew Johnson came to the presidency, not by virtue of two popular elections to that office, like his predecessor, or even of one such election, but by virtue of his constitutional election to be only Vice President. The unfinished work of the lamented Lincoln devolved upon him. The conditions and considerations which were the advantages in his election as Vice President suddenly became disadvantages to him as President. The Southern States and the democratic party were remembered but too unfavorably by the Northern anti-slavery victors, in connection with the rebellion, the civil war, and African slavery. In addressing himself to the holy work of national reconciliation, the new President proceeded with due deliberation and firmness, decision and vigor. He retained all his lamented predecessor's counsellors. He adopted his lamented predecessor's plan of recon- 548 OCCASIONAL SPEECHES. ciliation, which seemed to him, as it seemed then to the whole coun- try, to be practicable and easy, because it was simple and natural. It consisted simply in opening the easiest and shortest safe way for a return into the national family of the people of the Southern States, who now repented their attempted separation. Those states were invited to resume the vacant chairs in the legislative councils, by sending Senators and Representatives, who should be chosen by the people of those states, and who should prove themselves, by every practical test, unquestionably loyal to the Union. Some con- stitution and frame of government in the rebel states, however, would be a necessary instrumentality of making such choice of senators and representatives. There was at the same time a mani- fest necessity for such renewed institutions of municipal govern- ment for the restoration of peace and order in the disorganized states, the administration of justice, and the exercise of other neces- sary functions of government there. The people of the rebel states were therefore invited to establish such necessary state gov- ernments, upon the basis of loyalty and fidelity, of which practical tests were provided. These tests were: first, the acceptance of the new amendment to the Constitution which abolished African slav- ery; second, repudiation of the rebel debt; third, abrogation of all rebel laws; fourth, the acceptance of the so-called iron-clad oath.¹ All other questions were passed over for further and future ac- tion. Loyal state governments were promptly formed, and loyal Senators and Representatives appeared with equal promptness at the doors of Congress, knocking for admission to the seats vacated in 1861. Then, and not till then, peace was proclaimed through- out the land, and authoritatively announced to all nations. It is not correct that the President of the United States made those state governments, or caused them to be made, by force or in- timidation. The Union armies, of which he was commander-in- chief, lingered, indeed, in the rebel states, to keep the peace in the The popu- event of surprise during the transition from civil war. lar action there was, nevertheless, spontaneous, and the Executive confined itself to the form of suggestion and advice of which Presi- dent Lincoln had already wisely set an accepted example. The new state constitutions were the best attainable at the time, without di- rect application of force. They were adequate to the emergency, 1 Disavowing and repudiating all connection with disunion or rebellion. THE SITUATION AND THE DUTY. 549 and they were open, like all similar constitutions, to further revis- ions and improvement, with the lapse of time and the increase of popular knowledge and virtue in the several states. Congress hesitated, debated, postponed. The rebel states were no longer in rebellion. They were not received into the Union. The people, North as well as South, were excited: new schemes were proposed, new party combinations formed. There was no longer the Union party, which had conducted the country through the fiercest civil war ever known. But that party was seen resolv- ing itself, in an untimely hour, into ancient divisions, the repub- lican and democratic parties. An advanced section of one party demanded new and further guarantees, and entertained wild prop- ositions of retaliation, confiscation, proscription, disfranchisement, and other penalties, as conditions of reconciliation. A reactionary section of the other insisted that all delays were not only hazard- ous, but that all conditions whatever were unnecessary, unreason- able, and unconstitutional. One party insisted that there could be no safe peace without immediately extending suffrage to the freed- men by means no matter how rash, unconstitutional, or violent. The other insisted that a proceeding so abrupt, so violent, so in- consistent with the provisions of the Constitution of the United States in regard to the conservation of the states rights and in- dividual freedom would inevitably inaugurate a war of races. What did all this indicate but a controversy about the new constitutions to be formed in the Southern States? What did imperial interven- tion in St. Domingo or Mexico mean, but a demand of such a constitution there as should be acceptable to France? It is not my purpose to revive now, or even to retrace, that long and angry debate. We all see how it has resulted thus far. All the representatives sent to Congress by the rebel states in 1865 have been rejected without regard to their qualifications or their loyalty. All the loyal state governments formed in 1865 have been abrogated, without regard to their loyalty, with the exercise of military force. Subaltern army officers have been placed by Con- gress in charge of the several states. Congress has enfranchised and disfranchised in those states, just as seemed best calculated to secure the acceptance of constitutions prescribed by itself through military agents in communities where no rebel force has been seen for nearly four years. The President, with a tenacity that has 550 OCCASIONAL SPEECHES. provoked the scrutiny of the nation and challenged the judgment of mankind, has held fast to two things, namely, the wise and humane plan of his predecessor, and, what is infinitely more important, the Constitution of the United States, just as he found both. For this adherence he has been brought to trial on impeachment in constitu- tional form, for pretended high crimes and misdemeanors, and duly acquitted. The nation has thus been called on to sustain the new shock of political assassination of its chosen and beloved head, and to encounter afterward the wild and reckless proceedings of incon- siderate leaders, such as kept Mexico in a condition of anarchy through a period of forty years, and which have left hardly one stable or even peaceful republic remaining in South America. Most of the states organized in this irregular manner have sent their representatives to Congress, and those representatives have been admitted, while all the state governments through whose machinery those representatives were sent, or nearly all, are invoking the Con- gress of the United States to suspend the writ of habeas corpus, to establish martial law, to assume and to confide to military agents the entire business of government in those states, under alarms and fears of renewed insurrection and restoration of slavery. It is not my purpose to vindicate or even to explain the part I myself have had in these transactions and debates, instructive as I am sure they will prove to future ages. I simply say that as I stood firmly by the wise and magnanimous policy of President Lincoln in his life, so I have adhered to the same policy since his mortal re- mains were committed to an untimely grave, and I have adhered with equal fidelity to his constitutional successor. When the civil war came to an end, no wise man supposed that the transition could be abruptly made from a state of civil war to a condition of tranquillity and peace without occasional disturbance to be produced by inconsiderate individuals, and even by unlawful combinations of disappointed and excited men. On the contrary, every wise man knew that reconciliation, however hindered, could not be long deferred, and that constituent states of this Union, no matter how far they had wandered from the ways of loyalty, must sooner or later be again received into the Union. I have habitually thought that all needful political wisdom in regard to that crisis was contained in the scriptural injunction, "agree with your ad- versary quickly," and that this injunction, which is true in regard ་ THE SITUATION AND THE DUTY. 551 to all adversaries, is especially true when your adversaries are estranged brethren. So much, my friends, for the past. What now is the present situation? We have heard for three years alarms of premature reconciliation, the advantages of procrastination, the dangers of re- action and renewed rebellion. At last the cry is frantically uttered by all parties, "Peace, peace!" "Let us have peace!" when there is no peace in the sense implied, but only forebodings of renewed war. What does the country need in view of this painful situation? I answer my own question. It needs just what it needed in 1865- the admission of loyal representatives from the late rebel states into the Congress of the United States; and it needs at this time and at our hands no more. When you have given to the Southern States the places in Congress where they will have a constitutional hearing, the people there will acquiesce in what Congress may re- quire, and their mouths will be closed on all constitutional topics that have produced agitation and excitement. The states which send those representatives must have loyal representative govern- ments to determine who, what party, what interest, or what faction shall enjoy the power or discharge the responsibilities of govern- ment there. We must indeed keep the peace for them, if they can- not keep it themselves. We must, therefore, support and maintain existing governments there to that end; but it belongs to the people of those states, just as much as it belongs to the people of this state, to say whether they shall live under one form of loyal repub- lican government or another, and under one administration of loyal republican government or under another. I do not ask or require that representatives or governments there shall be white, or black, or mixed. I insist only that they shall be representative men, freely chosen in those states by the people themselves, and not by outside compulsion or dictation. I do, indeed, know that the best form of republican government existing in any of the states is capable of amendment, as I am sure that it will hereafter be greatly amended. Being no conservative, in the narrow meaning of that word, I not only do not oppose, but I favor all such amendments, and accept but one limitation for my efforts in that direction. That limitation is the Constitution of the United States, which enjoins non-inter- vention upon me, so long as those states are loyal to the Union, and keep the public peace, their own peace, and the peace of the 552 OCCASIONAL SPEECHES. Union. I shall not, therefore, take the sword into my own hand, or put it in the hand of any other person, to effect a reform by force in those states, which, I am sure, will be effected much sooner and much more permanently through the exercise of persuasion and reason. As little do I think it my duty to use the sword to cut away and remove what has already been done in those states, whether it was necessarily done or unnecessarily and unwisely done. As I thought the situation which existed in 1865 ought to be ac- cepted by a reasonable, patriotic, and humane administration, so do I think now the situation which exists in 1868, after the best efforts have been made to secure a better, ought to be accepted. I am not without hope, my friends, that this painful national dilemma may be solved before the end of the present administra- tion, as all our other national difficulties have been or will be. The ambitions of parties and chiefs must come to a rest with the close of this election, and calmness and tranquillity must sooner or later resume their sway over the public mind. In that case, I shall have little desire to speak concerning the future administration of the government, content to have performed with singleness of purpose, and with all my ability, my duties under the administration with which I am personally connected. It is, on the other hand, possible that the dilemma of reconciliation may continue unsolved, and may require the attention of the new administration. It is in this respect that I deem the present choice of a future Chief Magistrate, not merely important, but perhaps critically so, as the last two choices were. One consideration alone is sufficient to determine my judgment in this emergency. I cannot forget that the civil war has closed with two great political achievements: the one the sav- ing of the integrity of the Union, the other the abolition of African slavery. Personally, I see no cause to fear, in any case, a reaction in which both or either of these great national attainments can be lost. They are in harmony with the spirit of the age and the established progress of mankind. My confidence, however, in this respect, is not indulged, nor do I expect it to be entertained by all, nor even by the majority of my patriotic fellow-citizens, who were engaged with me in making or aiding those great achievements. Their wounds, unlike my own, are yet unhealed; their sacrifices, unlike my own, are yet unre- warded. They have been, therefore, and they will continue to THE SITUATION AND THE DUTY. 553 be, apprehensive in that regard, and those apprehensions will in- crease with every indiscreet proceeding, or even utterance, of any person or parties who were ever compromised in, or who ever sympathized with, the rebellion or with African slavery. Con- fidence is, in the case of most men, though it is not in mine, a plant of slow growth. Not only is it true that such apprehensions, how- ever unreasonable they may be, cannot be safely disregarded, but it is equally true that they are to be respected and indulged, because of the moral influence they will exert in favor of union, freedom, and progress in all future times and throughout the world. The magistrates who are to preside, then, in the work of reconciliation hereafter, ought, like those who have preceded in former stages of that work, to be men drawn from and representing that class of citizens who maintained the government in the prosecution of the civil war and in the abolition of slavery. In no other hands could the work of reconciliation be expected to be successful, because of a different sort of magistrates would be profoundly and generally suspected a willingness to betray the transcendent public interests which were gained and secured by the war. The attitude of each of the political parties in this canvass is, in some respects, different from what I myself could have desired or would have advised. Very great wrongs have been committed in the name of liberty by the republicans of the United States, as great crimes were committed in the same holy name by French re- publicans in the revolution of 1789. Nevertheless, the republican party neither rests under any suspicion of its devotion to human freedom, nor can it fall under any such suspicion. The democratic party, I do not now propose to say with how much justice, has not so conducted itself in its corporate and re- sponsible action as to secure the entire confidence of a loyal and exacting people in its unconditional and uncompromising adherence to the Union, or in its acceptance and approval of the effective aboli- tion of slavery. I entertain no jealousy of the democratic party or its leaders, and no unfriendly or uncharitable feelings toward that great constituency. On the other hand, I cherish a grateful appre- ciation of the patriotism, the magnanimity, the heroism of many of my fellow-citizens with whom I have cheerfully labored and coöper- ated, while they still retained their adhesion to the democratic party. How could I distrust the loyalty or the virtue of Andrew 554 OCCASIONAL SPEECHES. Johnson, of General Hancock, General McClellan, Senator Bucka- lew of Pennsylvania, of Senator Hendricks of Indiana, or his asso- ciate, Mr. Niblack, or of Mr. S. S. Cox, then of Ohio, to whom, per- sonally, more than any other member, is due the passage of the constitutional amendment in Congress abolishing African slavery.1 I have, therefore, regarded with sincere, and, I trust, patriotic satis- faction, the efforts of democratic leaders, as well as those made in 1864 at Chicago, as the greater ones made in New York in 1868, to lift the democratic party up to a plane, upon attaining which all the errors and shortcomings of any of its members during the civil war would at once drop off from the democratic party's back, as the burden of Christian fell off his back when he "came up to the cross." ! If the democratic party had only reached that plane, I should have felt that further concern on my part about the work of recon- ciliation might be dismissed. In that case, we should have had the two great parties of the country substantially agreed in the right, just as the two great parties of the country, in my judgment, in 1852 agreed in the wrong. In 1852 both parties agreed in the compromise of 1850, which accepted the fugitive slave law, allowed the extension of African slavery, and prohibited discussion upon it in the national Congress forever. If the democratic party in 1868 had lifted them- selves to the position I have supposed, we should then have had both parties of the country practically agreeing in the justice, wis- dom, and humanity of the government in the civil war, and of the abolition of slavery; and at the same time agreeing upon the ripe- ness of the time and the necessity for peace and fraternal affection. The democratic party having failed to do so, its preparation to assume the responsibilities of a rescued and regenerated nation must be delayed four years. To confide those responsibilities to that party in its present condition would be to continue, perhaps in- crease, the lamentable political excitement which alone has pre- vented the complete restoration of the Union to the present time. * I well know that it will be said, on the other hand, with much show of reason, that extreme idealists and agitators may be expected to exert a dangerous influence under a new republican administra- 1 Mr. Cox voted against the amendment, but is understood to have persuaded others of his own party to vote for it. Sixteen democrats voted aye, securing its passage in the House by two majority. THE SITUATION AND THE DUTY. 555 tion, by reason of their having gathered themselves into the ranks of the supporters of the republican candidate. This, however, is no new dilemma for me, or for many of you, my old friends. We were required year after year to support Henry Clay as the best of two choices, although he disavowed all that time the noble princi- ples which we held concerning the irrepressible conflict between freedom and slavery. We did so wisely. We were required in 1852 to support General Scott as the best of two candidates offered us, although he was put upon a platform which maintained the fugitive slave law, and declared it perpetually inviolable. We wisely did that. No one citizen may ever hope to find a candidate perfectly acceptable to himself, and yet find that the grounds of his own choice for that candidate are accepted by all his fellow-citizens who concur with him in that preference. No one can foresee six months beforehand what the political exigencies of the country may be, or how the administration of the government must act when they occur. In 1860 we elected a President simply to maintain the cause of freedom against legislative aggression. That administra- tion encountered no such difficulty. The danger apprehended had passed away before that administration came into power, and it found itself confronted, instead of that danger, by a rebellion which taxed all its energies, and opened a conflict which resulted in the immediate abolition of slavery; an event which had not been before expected to occur in less than fifty years! So I think none can now foresee the especial line of official duty which a new adminis- tration may find it necessary to pursue. We are impatient of the slow progress we make toward great national ends. We often magnify the obstacles we meet and deem them insurmountable; but time is always busy in abating those difficulties and smoothing our way. The result of the election, if favorable to the candidates of our choice, will put an end to all the debates which it has excited, and prepare the popular mind to ac- cept now what it has heretofore rejected, namely, the most practi- cable and easy solution of the national embarrassments. In any case I console myself with the reflection that as wisdom was not born with the administration of Abraham Lincoln, so it will not die with the administration of Andrew Johnson. I have not entertained you on this occasion, my friends, with eu- logiums upon your candidates or any of them; or with aspersions of 556 OCCASIONAL SPEECHES. the candidates of your opponents or any of them. I need scarcely remind you that I have no such habit. Certainly there is no occa- sion now for that line of debate. All those candidates are well known, more widely known, indeed, than any candidates who have ever before been named for the high offices for which they are des- ignated, since the first administration of the government. They are better known, because they are historically identified with na- tional trials of surpassing magnitude, and of deep interest to all mankind. 'It remains only now to thank you for your indulgence. If I have come among you late, I have, nevertheless, come in time. I have neither questioned the opinions nor the motives which have gov- erned your civil conduct since we last met. I have troubled you with no explanations of my own. We have come together again at a time when I am approaching the end of a service in the Executive Depart- ment of our government as long as has ever been vouchsafed by this nation to any citizen in the Department which I have conducted. Practically, I am already returned among you a private citizen, as I was when I was called into that service. The responsibilities and trials which have attended the government during that period have transcended in dignity and in interest any through which our gov- ernment had previously passed, except, perhaps, in the Revolution. I trust that no equal responsibilities or trials are in reserve for the next administration, or are to be encountered by any future admin- istration for many generations to come. I am by no means confi- dent that I have not often erred. I have, nevertheless, a humble trust that at least these things can be said of me, by those of you whose friendship I am still permitted to enjoy, namely, that no act or word of mine brought on or hastened the lamentable civil war whose wounds it is our present object to heal; but, on the contrary, no act that I could perform, nor any word that I could utter, to pre- vent or even delay that calamity, was withheld. When that civil war came it found me on the ramparts of the Constitution, and so long as it was waged, no act or word of mine encouraged an enemy of the United States, at home or abroad; while, on the contrary, every act that I could lawfully perform, and every word that I could lawfully utter to save the national life, fearfully exposed at home and abroad, was performed and spoken. No act or word of mine has consented to the prolongation of slavery a single day. On THE SITUATION AND THE DUTY. 557 the contrary, my hand and seal is found upon the one international act which remained to abolish the African slave-trade throughout the world, and on the military proclamation and the constitutional amendment, that forever abolished slavery itself in the United States. No one state in the Union, nor any fraction of a state, was, by any action or word of mine, driven or allowed to separate itself from the Union. On the contrary, every act or word that I could lawfully perform or speak to prevent that wild treason or madness was spoken with all the decision, and yet with all the moderation, that such counsels required. When that frightful rebellion ceased, no one state of the Union, or fraction of a state, was, by any action or word of mine, repelled from returning to its allegiance. On the contrary, every act or word of mine that was useful, or that prom- ised to be useful, in bringing those revolutionary states back to reinforce and reinvigorate the Union which they had so rashly attempted to destroy, was seasonably performed and spoken. No seat in Congress constitutionally assigned to any state or community within the United States is now, or ever has been, one moment kept vacant or unoccupied through any prohibition, obstruction, or hindrance of mine, by word or deed. On the contrary, the crime, and only crime, of which I now know that I am impeached, is that of being too precipitate in the policy of national reconciliation and peace. No state, or any citizen, by any act or word of mine, has suffered disfranchisement or confiscation; nor, except for the as- sassination of Abraham Lincoln, has any one endured penalties or punishment. Throughout my life an advocate of universal suffrage for the exile and the emigrant, and even the slave, I give to those classes the support and patronage which the Constitution of my country permits and allows. No injury, insult, or other offence has been committed against our country, or any one of its citizens, by any foreign state or nation, without having found me employing all the constitutional power confided to me, with all the ability I pos- sessed, to redress the wrong. The prestige of the nation, I humbly trust, has not been lost or impaired. I almost dare to think it has been elevated amid all the domestic trials of civil war and factions. The Monroe doctrine, which eight years ago was merely a theory, is now an irreversible fact. Certainly the country is not less now, but is larger than I found it when I entered my last public service. 3 558 OCCASIONAL SPEECHES. It has already begun to enjoy the wealth of the polar seas, and I am sure it is not my fault if its flag is still jealously excluded by European nations from the ever verdant islands of the Caribbean sea. When I left you to enter the public service, insurrectionary armies were being gathered into the field of domestic war, and the hollowness of national friendships was experienced in the melan- choly fact that the United States had not one assured and sympa- thizing friend in the world except the republic of Switzerland. It is a source of satisfaction to us all that our country has now many new and established friends amongst the nations, while for my- self, I am sure, as I trust you will soon be for yourselves, that they have no longer any dangerous domestic foe within their borders. If now I shall find the ancient cheer which heretofore presided at your firesides in winter; if I shall find the birds still lingering in your gardens and groves as in the olden time in the summer; if the trout are not exhausted in your brooks, or the perch in your lakes; if industry still dwells in your shops, and you still want new shops and houses to be built for your mechanics and laborers; if piety shall prevail as heretofore in your churches, and charity to- ward each other, and humanity toward all conditions of men shall distinguish your political assemblies, then, indeed, we are about to renew, with mutual satisfaction, an acquaintance which, while it existed unbroken, was happy for us all, and which, for me, has been too long and painfully suspended. CONCLUSION OF A PREVIOUS SPEECH. Auburn, May 22, 1866. WHAT, then, is my conclusion? It is one that will at least be admitted to harmonize with my past life. I am hopeful, hopeful of the President, hopeful of the Congress, hopeful of the National Union party, hopeful of the 'democratic party, hopeful of the rep- resented states, hopeful of the unrepresented states, above all, hopeful of the whole people, and hopeful of the continued favor of Almighty God. When I shall return here from the field of public service, and shall have come to mingle once more in your quiet and peaceful Kolyma Anadyr Ri v P E A માય 0 L A 7 Wrangel Island Cape Lisburne Pomt ope East Cape Sea Horse Ilse Тру Сарсы Fotzebue Sound, Port Glarence, Point Harrow' Plover Bayy St Lawrence Thoris Peninsula. Yukon R Fort Yukon. River. Norton Sound. Melael Jhonkoff Redoubt. མཚོ། Kenai ??? Banks Land -૧૫૦ll+I 27 2 Mackenzie Ft.Selkirka Ft.Frank Bear Lake. Tey Bay Yakutat Bay. StElias. Lyuya Bay "Mo. Philkodt fairweather Juneau Lily, Porches. Middleton I BERIN Commander Ias Altu I G SKOHWO R StMathew 1. *[Nunivak I. Tagmeister SEA ✔ St.Paul I. Fur Seal Ids. St.George I. Ahutan, Pass Bristol Bay. Port Moeller Amal. I: Unaljastuia. Sugaikoss ser. COOKS Semidi Ids. St.Pau Kadiak I, ChirikoffI. 4 Shumagin Tds. Sannak I Kyska I Adakh 1. Amchitka PACIFIC 180° Atkal. OCEAN. 170 Sitka Shukur Fort Wrangell, Boundary. Fört longe Fort Simpson Queen Chuchella Mazielt. ALASKA. SEWARD'S WORKS, VOL. V. See pp. 559, 601. Laws Eng. Co. Boston, 160º 150 1400 ALASKA. 559 外 ​pursuits, I desire and hope then to be able to look with renewed affection and pride upon our beloved country. I hope that, then, while I remember how fearfully within our own time she has been beset, besieged, and bested, I shall, nevertheless, be able to say to all her enemies at home, as well as abroad: "Compass her walls in solemn pomp, Your eyes quite round her cast, Count all her towers, and see if there You find one stone displaced." ALASKA. Sitka, August 12, 1869. CITIZENS OF ALASKA, FELLOW - CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES: -You have pressed me to meet you in public assembly once before I leave Alaska. It would be sheer affectation to pre- tend to doubt your sincerity in making this request, and capriciously ungrateful to refuse it, after having received so many and varied hospitalities from all sorts and conditions of men. It is not an easy task, however, to speak in a manner worthy of your considera- tion, while I am living constantly on ship-board, as you all know, and am occupied intently in searching out whatever is sublime, or beautiful, or peculiar, or useful. On the other hand, it is altogether natural on your part to say, "You have looked upon Alaska, what do you think of it?" Unhappily, I have seen too little of Alaska to answer the question satisfactorily. The entire coast line of the United States, exclusive of Alaska, is 10,000 miles, while the coast line of Alaska alone, including the islands, is 26,000 miles. The portion of the Territory which lies east of the peninsula, including islands, is 120 miles wide; the western portion, including Aleutian islands, expands to a breadth of 2,200 miles. The entire land area, including islands, is 577,390 statute square miles.¹ We should think a foreigner very presumptuous who should presume to give the world an opinion of the whole of the United States of America, after he had merely looked in from his steamer at Plymouth and Boston harbor, or had run up the Hudson River to the Highlands, 1 See accompanying map. 560 OCCASIONAL SPEECHES. or had ascended the Delaware to Trenton, or the James River to Richmond, or the Mississippi no farther than Memphis. My ob- servation thus far has hardly been more comprehensive. I entered the Territory of Alaska at the Portland canal, made my way through the narrow passages of the Prince of Wales archipelago, thence through Peril and Chatham straits and Lynn channel, and up the Chilcat River to the base of Fairweather; from which latter place I have returned through Clarence straits, to sojourn a few days in your beautiful bay, under the shadows of the Baranoff hills and Mount Edgecombe. Limited, however, as my opportunities have been, I will, without further apology, give you the impressions I have received. Of course I speak first of the skies of Alaska. It seems to be assumed in the case of Alaska that a country which extends through fifty-eight degrees of longitude, and embraces portions as well of the arctic as of the temperate zone, unlike all other regions so situated, has not several climates, but only one. The weather of this one broad climate of Alaska is severely criticised in outside circles for being too wet and too cold. Nevertheless, it must be a fastidious person who complains of climates in which, while the eagle delights to soar, the humming-bird does not disdain to flutter. I shall speak only of the particular climate here which I know. My visit here happens to fall within the month of August. Not only have the skies been sufficiently bright and serene to give me a perfect view, under the sixtieth parallel, of the total eclipse of the sun, and of the evening star at the time of the sun's obscuration, but I have also enjoyed more clear than there have been cloudy days, and in the early mornings and in the late evenings peculiar to the season I have lost myself in admiration of skies adorned with sapphire and gold as richly as those which are reflected by the Mediterranean. Of all the moonlights in the world, commend me to those which light up the archipelago of the North Pacific Ocean. Fogs have sometimes detained me longer on the Hudson and on Long Island sound than now on the waters of the North Pacific. In saying this, I do not mean to say that rain and fog are unfre- quent here. The Russian pilot, George, whom you all know, ex- pressed my conviction on this matter exactly when he said to me, "Oh, yes, Mr. Seward, we do have changeable weather here some- times, as they do in the other states." I might amend the expres- 1 ALASKA. 561 J sion by adding, the weather here is only a little more changeable. It must be confessed, at least, that it is an honest climate, for it makes no pretensions to constancy. If, however, you have fewer bright sunrises and glowing sunsets than southern latitudes enjoy, you are favored, on the other hand, with more frequent and more magnificent displays of the aurora and the rainbow. The ther- mometer tells the whole case when it reports that the summer is colder and the winter is warmer in Alaska than in New York and Washington. It results from the nature of such a climate that the earth prefers to support the fir, the spruce, the pine, the hemlock, and other evergreens, rather than deciduous trees, and to furnish grasses and esculent roots, rather than the cereals of drier and hotter climates. I have mingled freely with the multifarious population - the Tongass, the Stickeens, the Cakes, the Hydahs, the Sitkas, the Kootznoos, and the Chilcats, as well as with the traders, the sol- diers, the seamen, and the settlers of various nationalities, English, Swedish, Russian, and American and I have seen all around me. only persons enjoying robust and exuberant health. Manhood of every race and condition everywhere exhibits activity and energy, while infancy seems exempt from disease, and age relieved from pain. It is next in order to speak of the rivers and seas of Alaska. The rivers are broad, shallow, and rapid, while the seas are deep but tranquil. Mr. Sumner, in his elaborate and magnificent oration, although he spake only from historical accounts, has not exagger- ated no man can exaggerate the marine treasures of the Ter- ritory. Beside the whale, which everywhere and at all times is seen enjoying his robust exercise, and the sea-otter, the fur-seal, the hair-seal, and the walrus, found in the waters which embosom the western islands, those waters, as well as the seas of the eastern archipelago, are found teeming with the salmon, cod, and other fishes adapted to the support of human and animal life. Indeed, what I have seen here has almost made me a convert to the theory of some naturalists, that the waters of the globe are filled with stores for the sustenance of animal life surpassing the available pro- ductions of the land. It must be remembered that the coast range of mountains, which begins in Mexico, is continued into the Territory, and invades the seas of Alaska. Hence it is that in the islands and on the main- 36 562 OCCASIONAL SPEECHES. land, so far as I have explored it, we find ourselves everywhere in the immediate presence of black hills, or foot-hills, as they are variously called, and that these foot-hills are overtopped by ridges of snow-capped mountains. These snow-capped mountains are man- ifestly of volcanic origin, and they have been subjected, through an indefinite period, to atmospheric abrasion and disintegration. Hence they have assumed all conceivable shapes and forms. In some places they are serrated into sharp, angular peaks, and in other places they appear architecturally arranged, so as to present cloud-capped cas- tles, towers, domes, and minarets. The mountain sides are furrowed. with deep and straight ravines, down which the thawing fields of ice and snow are precipitated, generally in the month of May, with such a vehemence as to have produced in every valley immense. level plains of intervale land. These plains, as well as the sides of the mountains, almost to the summits, are covered with forests so dense and dark as to be impenetrable, except to wild beasts and savage huntsmen. On the lowest intervale land the cottonwood grows. It seems to be the species of poplar which is known in the Atlantic States as the Balm of Gilead, and which is dwarfed on the Rocky Mountains. Here it takes on such large dimensions, that the Indian shapes out of a single trunk even his great war canoe, which safely bears over the deepest waters a phalanx of sixty war- riors. These imposing trees always appear to rise out of a jungle of elder, alder, crab-apple, and other fruit-bearing shrubs and bushes. The short and slender birch, which, sparsely scattered, marks the verge of vegetation in Labrador, has not yet been reached by the explorers of Alaska. The birch tree sometimes appears here upon the river side, upon the level next above the home of the cottonwood, and is generally found a comely and stately tree. The forests of Alaska, however, consist mainly neither of shrubs, nor of the birch, nor of the cottonwood, but, as I have already intimated, of the pine, the cedar, the cypress, the spruce, the fir, the larch, and the hemlock. These forests begin almost at the water's edge,' and they rise with regular gradation to a height of two thousand feet. The trees, nowhere dwarfed or diminutive, attain the highest. dimensions in sunny exposures in the deeper cañons or gorges of the mountains. The cedar, sometimes called the yellow cedar, and sometimes the fragrant cedar, was long ago imported into China as an ornamental wood; and it now furnishes the majestic beams and ALASKA. 563 pillars with which the richer and more ambitious native chief de- lights to construct his rude but spacious hall or palatial residence, and upon which he carves in rude symbolical imagery the heraldry of his tribe and achievements of his nation. No beam, or pillar, or spar, or mast, or plank is ever required in either the land or the naval architecture of any civilized state greater in length and width than the trees which can be hewn down on the coasts of the islands and rivers here, and conveyed directly thence by navigation. A few gardens, fields, and meadows, have been attempted by natives in some of the settlements, and by soldiers at the military posts, with most encouraging results. Nor must we forget that the native grasses, ripening late in a humid climate, preserve their nutritive properties, though exposed, while the climate is so mild that cattle and horses require but slight provision of shelter during the winter. Such is the island and coast portion of Eastern Alaska. Kla- kautch, the Chilcat, who is known and feared by the Indians throughout the whole Territory, and who is a very intelligent chief, informs me, that beyond the mountain range which intervenes between the Chilcat and the Youkon rivers, you descend into a plain unbroken by hills or mountains, very fertile, in a genial climate, and, as far as he could learn, of boundless extent. We have similar information from those who have traversed the in- terior from the shore of the Portland canal to the upper branches of the Youkon. We have reason, therefore, to believe that beyond the coast range of mountains in Alaska we shall find an extension of the rich and habitable valley lands of Oregon, Washington Territory, and British Columbia. After what I have already said, I may excuse myself from ex- patiating on the animal productions of the forest. The elk and the deer are so plenty as to be undervalued for food or skins, by natives as well as strangers. The bear of many families - black, grizzly, and cinnamon; the mountain sheep, inestimable for his fleece; the wolf, the fox, the beaver, the otter, the mink, the raccoon, the mar- ten, the ermine; the squirrel- gray, black, brown, and flying, are among the land fur-bearing animals. The furs thus found here. have been the chief element, for more than a hundred years, of the profitable commerce of the Hudson Bay Company, whose mere pos- sessory privileges seem, even at this late day, too costly to find a ready purchaser. This fur trade, together with the sea fur-trade 564 OCCASIONAL SPEECHES. within the Territory, were the sole basis alike of Russian com- merce and empire on this continent. This commerce was so large and important as to induce the Governments of Russia and China to build and maintain a town for carrying on its exchanges in Tartary on the border of the two empires. It is well understood that the supply of furs in Alaska has not diminished, while the de- mand for them in China and elsewhere has immensely increased. I fear that we must confess to a failure of ice as an element of territorial wealth, at least as far as this immediate region is con- cerned. I find that the Russian American Company, whose mo- nopoly was abolished by the treaty of acquisition, depended for ice exclusively upon the small lake or natural pond which furnishes the power for your saw-mill in this town, and that this dependence has now failed by reason of the increasing mildness of the winter. The California Ice Company are now trying the small lakes of Kodiac, and certainly I wish them success. I think it is not yet ascertained whether glacier ice is pure and practical for commerce. If it is, the world may be supplied from the glaciers, which, suspended from the region of the clouds, stand forth in the majesty of ever-wasting and ever-renewed translucent mountains upon the banks of the Stickeen. and Chilcat rivers and the shores of Cross Sound. Alaska has been as yet but imperfectly explored; but enough is known to assure us that it possesses treasures of what are called the baser ores equal to those of any other region of the continent. We have Copper Island and Copper River, so named as the places where the natives, before the period of the Russian discovery, had pro- cured the pure metal from which they fabricated instruments of war and legendary shields. In regard to iron, the question seems to be not where it can be found, but whether there is any place where it does not exist. Mr. Davidson, of the Coast Survey, invited me to go up to him at the station he had taken up the Chilcat River to make his observations of the eclipse, by writing me that he had dis- covered an iron mountain there. When I came there I found that, very properly, he had been studying the heavens so busily, that he had but cursorily examined the earth under his feet; that it was not a single iron mountain he had discovered, but a range hills, the very dust of which adheres to the magnet, while the range itself, two thousand feet high, extends along the east bank of the river thirty miles. Limestone and marble crop out on the banks of ALASKA. 565 of the same river and in many other places. Coal-beds, accessible to navigation, are found at Kootznoo. It is said, however, that the concentrated resin which the mineral contains renders it too in- flammable to be safely used by steamers. In any case, it would seem calculated to supply the fuel requisite for the manufacture of iron. What seems to be excellent cannel coal is also found in the Prince of Wales archipelago. There are also mines at Cook's Inlet. Placer and quartz gold mining is pursued under many social disad- vantages upon the Stickeen and elsewhere, with a degree of success. which, while it does not warrant us in assigning a superiority in that respect to the Territory, does nevertheless warrant us in regarding gold mining as an established and reliable resource. It would argue inexcusable insensibility if I should fail to speak of the scenery which, in the course of my voyage, has seemed to pass like a varied and magnificent panorama before me. The ex- hibition did not, indeed, open within the Territory. It broke upon me first when I had passed Cape Flattery and entered the Straits of Fuca, which separate British Columbia from Washington Terri- tory. It widened as I passed along the shore of Puget Sound, ex- panded in the waters which divide Vancouver from the continent, and finally spread itself out into a magnificent archipelago, stretch- ing through the entire Gulf of Alaska, and closing under the shade of Mounts Fairweather and St. Elias. Nature has furnished to this majestic picture the only suitable border which could be conceived, by lifting the coast range mountains to an exalted height, and cloth- ing them with eternal snows and crystalline glaciers. It remains only to speak of man and of society in Alaska. Until the present moment the country has been exclusively inhabited and occupied by some thirty or more Indian tribes. I incline to doubt the popular classification of these tribes upon the assumption that they have descended from diverse races. Climate and other cir- cumstances have indeed produced some differences of manners and customs between the Aleuts, the Koloschians, and the interior con- tinental tribes. But all of them are manifestly of Mongol origin. Although they have preserved no common traditions, all alike in- dulge in tastes, wear a physiognomy, and are imbued with senti- ments peculiarly noticed in Japan and China. Savage communities, no less than civilized nations, require space for subsistence, whether they depend for it upon the land or upon the sea- in savage com- 566 OCCASIONAL SPEECHES. munities especially; and increase of population disproportioned to the supplies of the country occupied necessitates subdivision and remote colonization. Oppression and cruelty occur even more frequently among barbarians than among civilized men. Nor are ambition and faction less inherent in the one condition than in the other. From these causes it has happened that the 25,000 Indians in Alaska are found permanently divided into so many insignificant nations. These nations are jealous, ambitious, and violent; could in no case exist long in the same region without mutually affording what, in every case, to each party, seems just cause of war. War between savages becomes the private cause of the several families which are afflicted with the loss of their members. Such a war can never be composed until each family which has suffered receives an indemnity in blankets, adjusted according to an imaginary tariff, or, in the failure of such compensation, secures the death of one or more enemies as an atonement for the injury it has sustained. The enemy captured, whether by superior force or strategy, either re- ceives no quarter, or submits for himself and his progeny to per- petual slavery. It has thus happened that the Indian tribes of Al- aska have never either confederated or formed permanent alliances, and that even at this late day, in the presence of superior power ex- ercised by the United States Government, they live in regard to each other in a state of enforced and doubtful truce. It is manifest that, under these circumstances, they must steadily decline in num- bers, and unhappily this decline is accelerated by their borrowing ruinous vices from the white man. Such as the natives of Alaska are, they are, nevertheless, in a practical sense, the only laborers at present in the Territory. The white man comes amongst them from London, from St. Petersburg, from Boston, from New York, from San Francisco, and from Victoria, not to fish (if we except alone the whale fishery) or to hunt, but simply to buy what fish and what pel- tries, ice, wood, lumber, and coal, the Indians have secured under the superintendence of temporary agents or factors. When we con- sider how greatly most of the tribes are reduced in numbers, and how precarious their vocations are, we shall cease to regard them as indolent or incapable; and, on the contrary, we shall more deeply regret than ever before, that a people so gifted by nature, so vigor- ous and energetic, and withal so docile and gentle in their inter- course with the white man, can neither be preserved as a distinct ALASKA. 567 social community, or incorporated into our society. The Indian tribes will do here as they seem to have done in Washington Terri- tory, and British Columbia: they will merely serve their turn until civilized white men come. You, the citizens of Sitka, are the pioneers, the advanced guard, of the future population of Alaska; and you naturally ask when, from whence, and how soon, reinforcements shall come, and what are the signs and guarantees of their coming? This question, with all its minute and searching interrogations, has been asked by the pioneers of every state and territory of which the American Union is now composed; and the history of those states and territories. furnishes the complete, conclusive, and satisfactory answer. Emi- grants go to every infant state and territory in obedience to the great natural law that obliges needy men to seek subsistence, and invites adventurous men to seek fortune where it is most easily ob- tained, and this is always in the new and uncultivated regions. They go from every state and territory, and from every foreign na- tion in America, Europe, and Asia; because no established and populous state or nation can guarantee subsistence and fortune to all who demand them among its inhabitants. The guarantees and signs of their coming to Alaska are found in the resources of the territory, which I have attempted to describe, and in the condition of society in other parts of the world. Some men seek other climes for health and some for pleasure. Alaska invites the former class by a climate singularly salubrious, and the latter class by scenery which surpasses in sublimity that of either the Alps, the Apennines, the Alleghanies, or the Rocky Mountains. Emigrants from our own states, from Europe, and from Asia, will not be slow in finding out that fortunes are to be gained by pursu- ing here the occupations which have so successfully sustained races of untutored men. Civilization and refinement are making more. rapid advances in our day than at any former period. The rising states and nations on this continent, the European nations, and even those of Eastern Asia, have exhausted, or are exhausting, their own forests and mines, and are soon to become largely dependent upon those of the Pacific. The entire region of Oregon, Washing- ton Territory, British Columbia, and Alaska, seem thus destined to become a ship-yard for the supply of all nations. I do not forget on this occasion that British Columbia belongs within a foreign 568 OCCASIONAL SPEECHES. jurisdiction. That circumstance does not materially affect my cal- culations. British Columbia, by whomsoever possessed, must be governed in conformity with the interests of her people and of society upon the American continent. If that territory shall be so governed, there will be no ground of complaint anywhere. If it shall be governed so as to conflict with the interests of the inhabi- tants of that territory and of the United States, we all can easily foresee what will happen in that case. You will ask me, however, for guarantees that the hopes I encourage will not be postponed. I give them. Within the period of my own recollection, I have seen twenty new states added to the eighteen which before that time constituted the American Union, and I now see, besides Alaska, ten territories in a forward condition of preparation for entering into the same great political family. I have seen in my own time not only the first electric telegraph, but even the first railroad and the first steamboat invented by man. And even on this present voyage of mine, I have fallen in with the first steamboat, still afloat, that thir- ty-five years ago lighted her fires on the Pacific ocean. These, citi- zens of Sitka, are the guarantees, not only that Alaska has a future, but that that future has already begun. I know that you want two things just now, when European monopoly is broken down and United States free trade is being introduced within the territory: These are, military protection while your number is so inferior to that of the Indians around you, and you need also a territorial civil government. Congress has already supplied the first of these wants adequately and effectually. I doubt not that it will supply the other want during the coming winter. It must do this, because our political system rejects alike anarchy and executive absolutism. Nor do I doubt that the political society to be constituted here, first as a territory, and ultimately as a state or many states, will prove a worthy constituency of the Republic. To doubt that it will be in- telligent, virtuous, prosperous, and enterprising, is to doubt the ex- perience of Scotland, Denmark, Sweden, Holland and Belgium, and of New England and New York. Nor do I doubt that it will be forever true in its republican instincts and loyal to the American Union, for the inhabitants will be both mountaineers and seafaring men. I am not among those who apprehend infidelity to liberty and the Union in any quarter hereafter, but I am sure that if con- THE NORTH PACIFIC COAST. 569 stancy and loyalty are to fail anywhere, the failure will not be in the states which approach nearest to the North Pole. Fellow-citizens, accept once more my thanks, from the heart of my heart, for kindnesses which can never be forgotten, and suffer me to leave you with a sincere and earnest farewell.¹ THE NORTH PACIFIC COAST. Speech at a banquet given to Mr. Seward at Victoria, British Columbia, August, 1869. THE asseverations of loyalty which I hear on both sides, from British subjects and resident Americans, admonish us that we are liable to be misunderstood, as assuming to speak for our respective nations in a diplomatic character. Give me your assent, therefore, to a few preliminaries. First, that the loyalty of British subjects here is fully acknowledged and respected on my part. Having de- rived my existence through a long line of British ancestors, includ- ing my father and mother, I am not likely, here or elsewhere, to disparage my lineage of their race. On the other hand, I freely confess that it is my political ambition to see the United States of America, of which I am a native citizen, transcend even the British nation in civil and religious liberty, and usefulness to the human race. Neither governments nor peoples are particularly pleased when they find private citizens attempting to withdraw their national differences from the control of constitutional agents, and, adjust them with indecorous haste at provincial dinner tables. We will, therefore, leave the Puget Sound agricultural question, the San Juan boundary, the Canadian Reciprocity, and the Alabama claims. to our respective and respected governments. I have never heard any person, on either side of the United States border, assert that British Columbia is not a part of the American continent, or that its people have or can have any interest, material, moral, or social, different from the common interests of all American nations. Dis- coverers, indeed, must limit their pretensions by rivers or mountains which they reach, and adjacent states must fix their boundaries as they can agree. Nevertheless all contiguous states have mutual 1 See ante, pp. 5, 25, 30; post, p. 601. 570 OCCASIONAL SPEECHES. and intimate relations, which require harmony, if not concert, be- tween them. Upon these their citizens can consult with each other without giving just cause of offense. I have heard in Victoria regrets of an abatement in industrial enterprise in the province, resulting from a disappointment of high-wrought expectations of gold mining on the Frazer River. These regrets have seemed to in- dicate something of despondency. It is not a special object of my present journey to study British Columbia. The real object is to study the Pacific coast region of the American continent, with more particular reference to the United States. With this purpose I left the sea at Cape Flattery, passed through the Straits of Juan de Fuca, traversed Puget Sound and Washington Territory, and thence made my way by the interior passages through the waters of British Columbia to the sixtieth parallel in Alaska. At no time was I hardly beyond hailing distance from the mainland, and yet my excursion was a continuous voyage of one thousand two hundred miles, through one constant and beautiful archipelago. I occasionally looked up the continental rivers far enough to see that mainland and islands uniformly presented the same features features which indicate the baser metals in the moun- presence of the precious as well as the tains, fishes abounding in the seas, furs abounding in the lands and waters, and evergreen forests, useful for all the purposes of land and naval architecture, still more abounding. This whole region I found to be unique and inseparable in regard to the development of its rich resources. I venture to call it by one common name, the North Pacific American coast; and I venture to predict that in its entire length and breadth, extending from the banks of the Colum- bia River, in Oregon, to Mount St. Elias, in Alaska, it will become immediately a common ship-yard for the American continent, and speedily for the whole world. Europe, Asia, South America, and even the Atlantic American states, have either exhausted or are ex- hausting their native supplies of timber and lumber. Their last and only resort must be to the North Pacific region I have described. I noticed with pleasure and without surprise the beginning of a whale fishery in Puget Sound, and I discoursed in the Spanish lan- guage with lumber traders from Chili. The scenes of industry I witnessed along the Sound astonished me when I reflected that the entire population of Washington Territory is only eight thousand souls. The European emigrant has hardly reached that coast, and 571 THE NORTH PACIFIC COAST. the Chinese are scarcely known there. In their absence the Indi- ans seemed to be assuming the habits of civilization, in obedience to an extraordinary demand for labor. Sagacious persons in the At- lantic States and in Europe were before me in apprehending this interesting condition of things, and I think in foreseeing the destiny of the North Pacific shores. They had already projected railroads calculated to concentrate the necessary labor upon the shores of Puget Sound, where the steamboats are ready to distribute it through- out the whole archipelago. This distribution is inevitable. The lumber and metals of Puget Sound are indeed vast and magnificent. They might for a time supply the local demand of the Pacific American shore, but they are altogether inadequate to the wider commercial demand which is already beginning to press upon us. Alaska has stores far surpassing in extent and variety those of Puget Sound, Washington, and Oregon. Nor is British Columbia either destitute or inferior in the same natural resources. British Columbia, therefore, wants nothing that is not wanted also in Ore- gon, Washington, and Alaska — population and capital. Of these two, population always goes first, and capital speedily follows. Into this broad field of activity and enterprise I take the liberty to invite the people of British Columbia to enter, as copartners if they will, as rivals if they must. I pray you, gentlemen, to consider that the long ages when communities pervaded by common interests could be separated in their commerce have come to an end. Steam on land and sea and the electric telegraph have leveled the mountains and bridged the ocean. Japan, China, and Australia, are already adjacent, and commercially bound to the American Pacific coast. Only two works remain to connect Europe and the Atlantic coast completely and indissolubly with the same great Pacific coast, the extinguishment of the colonial system of continental Europe in the West Indies, and the construction of a ship canal, adequate to mod- ern navigation, across the Isthmus of Darien. I find myself, gentle- men, tempted to trangress the bounds of your courteous patience. My entrance into Victoria a month ago was a bewilderment, result- ing from the encountering only of strangers. My parting from it is not unattended with regret, because I seem to be leaving only assured and tried friends. Accept my thanks for your generous hospitalities, together with the assurance of my earnest desire for the welfare of British Columbia and for your individual prosperity and happiness. 572 OCCASIONAL SPEECHES. OUR NORTH PACIFIC STATES. Salem, Oregon, August, 1869. THE older states, situated eastward of the Missouri and below the base of the Rocky Mountains, have complete industrial, social, and political systems, and fixed habits. The traveller there is intrusive. if, under any persuasion, he attempts to speak of their peculiar re- sources, policies, or duties. Deference to this principle determined me, when I left Auburn, to make no wayside speeches during my present journey. The magnet, when brought into the presence of iron, finds it no harder to maintain its own polarity than I have found it to adhere to my prudent resolution ever since I passed the banks of the Mississippi. I am travelling in regions grand and vast, but comparatively new, and among communities incompletely or- ganized, needful of immigration and capital, and therefore ambitious that their resources, advantages, and attractions may be made known. Art has seldom produced a more striking picture than the abandoned infant Hercules defending himself against serpents in his cradle. How poor that admired conception appears when contrasted with the precarious but energetic and successful vigor and energy of emigrants from the Atlantic shores settling and establishing new states members of the American Republic in the native forests, wildernesses, and deserts which extend across the American conti- nent! Relying upon their own energies, as all the states of this Union at every stage of their existence must rely, they disdain the sympathy of all foreign nations. Do they require too much in ask- ing that their capacities and loyalty to the Union shall be known and appreciated? I early accepted and continually held fast to these several political convictions: 1st. That if a nation desires to be independent and prosperous, and enjoy peace at home and abroad, it must expand itself commensurately with its resources and advantages. 2d. That human bondage is incompatible with a suc- cessful republic. 3d. That the permanent continuance of European or monarchical government in the American hemisphere would be injurious and dangerous to the United States. 4th. That in the expansion of the Republic, the establishment and acceptance of new states, on the same footing as the original states, is essential for the OUR NORTH PACIFIC STATES. 573 1 : security of civil and religious liberty. I seem, indeed, to myself, to have lived chiefly for the purpose of laboring to defend an inchoate republic against external and internal dangers, and to expand it upon the principles I have mentioned. Let the world judge, then, of the satisfaction I enjoy in witnessing the success of this policy, and of the gratitude I feel in being so kindly received here, at the capital of the new State of Oregon, as I have been received before at the capitals of the other new states and territories which I have visited. You will excuse me, if the habit of nationality of thought and reasoning which I have contracted has rendered me incapable of considering Oregon as an isolated state, or of separating my ideas of her condition and products from the general ideas which I have formed of all the states and territories, mutually connected with each other, and subordinate in their proper relations as parts of the whole United States. In California there is no longer need for ex- ternal encouragement. The highest expectations of its settlers have not unjustly ripened into absolute assurance. San Francisco is firmly established as the Constantinople of American empire, and California exercises fully and wisely an important political influence in the United States and throughout the world. The other new states and territories have not yet secured an equal position. The dwellers in these states are continually asking of every visitor, "What do you think we shall be, and when?" I must answer with the same confidence which, among men of little faith, has some- times procured for me the character of an optimist. Kansas, in her infancy the Cinderella, has already become a leading and effective member of the political family by which she was despised. Ne- braska, standing upon the west side of the Missouri, has seized the railroads of the Atlantic States, and welded and riveted them with the system of railroads which has successfully begun to traverse and ramify the states and territories of the Pacific shore. Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico, surmounting Indian troubles and reck- less speculations, have reached a point of civil and social establish- ment from which it need not be feared they will recede. I have not yet been able to visit Arizona, but I have learned enough of Mon- tana, Idaho, and Utah, to know that they are reasonably assured of a successful and prosperous career. Nevada, although politically separated from California, is a full sharer in her rising prosperity and greatness. Considerations of convenience, not choice, carried 1 574 OCCASIONAL SPEECHES. me northward before I was able to visit Oregon. The territories of Washington and Alaska, extending (with the exception of British Columbia) from the forty-ninth parallel of latitude along the islands and coasts of America to the Arctic ocean, are, as might be ex- pected, feebler than the more southern States and territories. Nev- ertheless, I realized, if indeed I did not discover, in those territories a new, peculiar, and magnificent field of commerce and empire. I found one continuous and expanding archipelago along the coast, from the base of Puget Sound, in Washington, to Mount St. Elias, in Alaska. I found land and sea teeming with provisions for the subsistence of a population adequate to bring the marine, mineral, animal, and vegetable resources of that remote and secluded region into a productive state. The neglected portion of the country fur- nishes even now, to refined nations in northern climates, the furs which, from considerations of need and of luxury, they continually demand. No metal used in arts or commerce is absent there. The forests are luxuriant, universal, and inexhaustible. When I saw British, Chinese, and Chilian, as well as American vessels, bearing away the timber and lumber, with difficulty wrested from the wast- ing fires of the summer by the feeblest of all American populations, and conveying them away to be used in civil and naval architecture on both sides of the Pacific Ocean, I needed no other suggestion of the fact that I had reached that very place where, within the period of an early future, the navies, mercantile and armed, of America, and even of the world, are to be built. Knowing the importance of ship-building and navigation in every stage of civilization, my mind was expanded with wonder and admiration of the ultimate pros- perity and greatness of the North Pacific coast. Although British Columbia remains, as Oregon not long ago was, and as the region west of the Mississippi so recently was, and as the whole of the United States once were, subject to a European power, I, nevertheless, found existing there commercial and political forces which render a permanent political separation of British Columbia from Alaska and Washington Territory impossible. Of Washington Territory, so lately a part of Oregon, it is hardly necessary to say here, that the British traveller was not mistaken, who, in 1836, not foreseeing its severance from the British crown, pronounced Puget Sound a base of future empire. In the State of Oregon I have only explored the Columbia River OUR NORTH PACIFIC STATES. 575 to the Dalles, and the Willamette valley, in the vicinity of Portland, Milwaukee, Oswego, Oregon City, Monmouth, Albany, Santiam, and this capital. No one will accuse me of infidelity to New York and the other Atlantic States, whether North or South. Neverthe- less, I shall not hesitate, hereafter, to advise the student in natural science, who desires to learn how islands, mountains, and countries are heaved up from the deep; how rivers are traced out, defined, and run; how minerals are secreted in the earth; and how valleys are formed, spread out, and fertilized, to ascend the Columbia River from the sea, through its cascades and cataracts, to its sources in the interior of the continent. Nor shall I fail to advise the tourist, who delights in the grand and the beautiful, to leave behind him the Rhine and the Hudson, after seeing the one marvel of Niagara, and to come here and admire the snow-clad mountains which domi- nate over the Pacific coast. Wonderful horizontal and massive foundations lie all along the river banks, in the shape of wharves, docks, ports, and gateways. On these everlasting foundations are raised, not merely one column of basaltic palisade, but terraces of basaltic palisades, which, rising one above another, and assuming the magnificent outlines of towers, pinnacles, castles, coliseums, and cathedrals, seem to pierce the very clouds. The early emigrants saw, as they descended the Rocky Moun- tains, boundless and luxuriant prairies, watered by the Willamette, and a spacious forest region traversed by the Columbia- plains, forests, and rivers unequalled on the Pacific coast. That coast, northward and southward, was occupied by inert races, from whom the settlers of Oregon apprehended no rivalry. They, therefore, expected that some sea-port in their own territory would become the principal seat of the western commerce. This expectation is disappointed. The opening of sea-ports, with inland connections, at the base of the northwestern archipelago on Puget Sound, indi- cates the commercial development there to which I have already alluded. San Francisco, with its magnificent bay and fortified Golden Gate, has taken the position which before was erroneously assigned to Astoria, at the mouth of the Columbia River. So it has happened that Oregon proper has failed to obtain the capital prize in the commercial lottery of the Pacific coast. It ought to be enough, however, to reconcile the people of Oregon to that disap- pointment, to know that the central position of the state, between 576 OCCASIONAL SPEECHES. and contiguous to the two great commercial outposts of the Pacific, affords her the advantage of being at once the granary and manu- factory for both. It is in Oregon, so far as I am able to determine, and nowhere else, that two climates the Atlantic, with its heated. summers and inclement winters, and the Pacific, with its colder summers and milder winters - embrace and produce a higher and more varied fertility than is elsewhere realized. The Atlantic States, with their grassy valleys, are already becoming dependent upon the slopes of the Rocky Mountains for the supply of animal provisions. The fruits of Oregon are unsurpassed in quality and unequalled in abundance. Wheat and other cereals grow and ripen here, almost without care, as abundantly as they do with the use of irrigation in Utah, while the native soil, everywhere covered with fern and annual flowers, provokes the farmer to the cultivation of the potato and other esculent roots. What acquaintance I have made with the adventurous miners, descending the Columbia River, satisfies me, that if it were possible for the laborer to fail in other occupations, he would, even in that case, find an abundant reward in the gold deposits of the mountains. The useful metals and minerals abound everywhere, while a vast hydraulic power, invalu- able under all circumstances and indispensable in new communities, is distributed throughout all parts of the state. I know, indeed, that the present dwellers in California and Washington think that they possess forest, agricultural, and manufacturing advantages and resources commensurate with the future which they anticipate. My own observation of the ever-increasing exigencies of New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Boston — Paris, Liverpool, and Lon- don — is conclusive with me upon the subject. The territorial lines which divide one political jurisdiction into distinct states not unnaturally tend to circumscribe and confuse our ideas of the future of each of the several states. No one would be satisfied with the prospect of Oregon if it were included within the political jurisdic- tion of California, and if it had continued to retain the shores of Puget Sound. It is hardly necessary to say, on the other hand, that the political subdivision of the region tends not to diminish, but to magnify, the prosperity of every part. Such is the future which I argue for the State of Oregon. This destiny, of course, exacts, just as the future of every part of the United States always does, an increase of the population and capital. OUR NORTH PACIFIC STATES. 577 I regard this condition as already secured. Population will seek and find every place, even those most remote and least known, where industry, already organized and established, assures to the laborer a certain reward. One need only to look into Portland, Dalles City, Oregon City, and other towns, to see that capital is profitably employed. One need only to look over the fields and orchards in the agricultural districts, and upon the vessels engaged in inland transportation on the Willamette, to enable him to fore- see a speedy subdivision of immense farms among multiplied emi- grants. Nevertheless, population is not to be grown here or else- where in one country in sufficient numbers and with sufficient haste. It must every where be induced from abroad. It will not go anywhere until its going can be made cheap and easy by im- proved transportation. The Columbia River and the Willamette, although noble streams, cannot, unaided, perform the work. They do not penetrate the sources of emigration, nor adequately distrib- ute it through the state. They must be reinforced with railroads -first, railroad to San Francisco and Puget Sound, where the immediate consumers of your agricultural products will dwell; next, railroads through the mining regions, intersecting the existing Pacific Railroad and such others as shall be built. The receivers of your productions along and at the ends of such railroads will forward, in return, the emigrants and laborers whom you will re- quire in increasing the productions. Nor would you hasten the future of your state, which I regard as the common interest of the whole Republic, by suffering yourselves to be involved as partisans in the local and personal passions, ambitions, and jealousies of other communities. No state or nation has ever flourished that was un- social, inhospitable, or intolerant. Your statesmen in the national councils, if they are wise, will foster and cultivate harmony and peace equally throughout the whole Republic, and harmony and peace equally with all foreign nations, insisting at the same time, as is their right, upon a policy at home and abroad which shall be adapted to the interest of the Pacific. Such a policy will require that the United States shall own and possess self-producing islands on your coast, and sugar and coffee-producing islands in both oceans, and will regard the extension of American invention and enterprise into Japan, China, Australia, and India, as worthy of consideration equally with international commerce between the United States and 37 578 OCCASIONAL SPEECHES. the countries of Western Europe. I found in your morning paper yesterday the following dispatch: "The ship Norway arrived on the 4th of September, one hundred and fifty-seven days from Car- diff. This ship brings iron for ten miles of the East Side road, be- ing the first instalment of two thousand tons, purchased by Ben Holladay & Co. The rest is on another vessel, which is due in thirty days, if she makes an average voyage." This mere transaction suggests what Oregon and the whole Pacific coast need: 1st, such manufacture of your own metals as will relieve you from the neces- sity of importing iron from any foreign country; and, 2d, the con- struction of a ship canal across the Isthmus of Darien, which will reduce the navigation between the Pacific shores and those of the Atlantic, of both continents, a hundred and twenty days. cate. I know too well that political, religious, and social objections are made against the policy of freedom and immigration which I advo- But such objections are as old as the Republic. They have assisted, and at times threatened to strangle or arrest, this great policy, which was wisely engrafted upon the Constitution of the United States. What would have been our condition now, and our prospects, if the country had listened to objections of the same na- ture against the abolition of African slavery — a measure to which we are indebted for entire and complete national independence? What if we had yielded to the fiery resistance made to that Irish immigration which has constructed so many of our canals and rail- roads, and built so many of our cities? What if we had been pre- vailed upon to repel and reject that great German immigration which has given a new impulse to our arts, our literature, and our science? We have no excuse for admitting such objections or prej- udices now. The experiment of self-government which we are making has developed its own necessary conditions and laws. We could not escape from them even if we would. The experiment we are making, fellow-citizens, is not a local or isolated experiment, whether the people of one nation are capable of self-government. It is the experiment whether men of all nations are capable of self- government. Let us persevere in it, relying that mankind in every country only need freedom and knowledge to enable them to govern themselves more wisely and more happily than they have hitherto been governed. Citizens of Oregon, it is long since we have known, though it is SPEECHES IN MEXICO. 579 only just now that we have met, each other. I have been made profoundly sensible of this fact by your invitation, which found me at sea; by the welcome given me on arrival in port; by the recep- tion and munificent hospitalities bestowed upon me in your great commercial city of Portland; by the hospitalities, state and munic- ipal, of this interesting capital; and by wayside entertainments in the village, at the ferry, at the cross-roads, and in the farm-house. If my presumption were equal to my gratitude, I should not fail to invoke, forever, blessings fit for all sorts and conditions of men, upon Oregon. SPEECHES IN MEXICO. Colima, October 12, 1869. I THANK you with a full heart for these most undeserved honors and hospitalities. The experience of the eighteenth century indicated to mankind two important changes of society and government on the continent of America. First, that all American states must hereafter be not dependent European colonies, but independent American nations. Second, that all independent American nations must thereafter have, not imperial or monarchical governments, but republican gov- ernments, constituted and carried on by the voluntary agency of the people themselves. During a large part of my own political life, these great changes of society and government have been, more or less, in logical debate contested in Europe, and on the battle-field throughout America. While they have often involved the Ameri- can states in civil and international wars, they have more than once provoked European intervention. A third improvement was easily found necessary to guarantee full success to the two principal changes which I have already mentioned. This third improvement consists in the continuation of the many, or several contiguous nations or states, which are weak of themselves, into United States distinct nations. My own country, the United States, has taken the lead in these changes, so essential in the American hemisphere. The Mexican Republic has early, and bravely and persistently, adopted a similar system. Central America, and nearly all the 580 OCCASIONAL SPEECHES. South American states, have followed the example thus set by the United States and the Mexican Republic. One additional principle remains to be adopted, to secure the success of the republican sys- tem throughout the continent. If it shall become universal on the American continent, we have reason to expect that the same great system may be accepted by other nations throughout the world. That additional principle is simply this: That the several Ameri- can republics, just as they constitute themselves, while mutually abstaining from intervention with each other, shall become, more than ever heretofore, political friends through the force of moral al- liance. This, in short, is the policy which I have inculcated at home, and which, with your leave, and the leave of others inter- ested, I shall commend, as far as possible, to the republics of Mex- ico, Central America, and South America. I sincerely trust that the severest trials of the republican system are already passed in Mexico, and I shall never cease to pray God for her continued inde- pendence, unity, prosperity, and happiness. Guadalajara, October 23, 1869. Mr. Seward there spoke as follows:- SEÑORS Y SEÑORAS: We all are well aware, that the occupation and settlement of the Southern part of the American continent antic- ipated, by a period of more than a century, the occupation and settlement of the Northern portion of the continent that the former fell to the lot chiefly of the Latin nations of Europe, and was conducted upon the principle of an implicit faith and confidence. in the ecclesiastical and civil ideas and institutions which prevailed throughout Europe in the fifteenth century that the occupation and settlement of the Northern portion of the continent fell to the lot of the German and Sclavonic races, who were deeply moved by ideas of political and ecclesiastical reforms. The result has been, that at the beginning of the nineteenth century, two different, and in many respects, antagonistical systems came face to face with each other; the one extending along the Atlantic coast, from the banks of the Mississippi to the inclement regions of the North, the other extending, unbroken and undivided, from the Mississippi over the Southern and Western portions of the continent. The ideas of the North have continually gained strength everywhere, and have cul- minated there in republican institutions, which are based upon the SPEECHES IN MEXICO. 581 sovereignty of the people, and which guarantee, in their highest perfection, civil and religious liberty. The Southern nations of the continent have accepted the same broad and noble ideas, but the perfect establishment of them in a system of republican government has encountered the resistance of a long-cherished and powerful con- servatism, animated and sustained by European influence and inter- vention. The Southern nations, by the fidelity with which they have adhered to the republican system through so many and such serious obstacles, have given abundant evidence that they will ulti- mately and entirely acquiesce and coöperate with the republican nations of the North, so far as their institutions and laws are founded in natural justice and equality. What remains, and all that re- mains now necessary, is the establishment of entire tolerance be- tween the North American states and the Spanish-American repub- lics, and the creation of a policy of mutual moral alliance, to the end that all external aggression may be prevented, and that internal peace, law and order, and progress may be secured throughout the whole continent. The people of Mexico have not misunderstood me in my past political career; and since my visit to Mexico, I feel encouraged more than ever in the hope that the intimate relations which have been already secured will become permanent and per- petual. It is a satisfaction to have learned, on my way to the capital, that the policy and sentiments which I expect to find pre- vailing there have been fully sanctioned already by the people of the great, important, and leading State of Jalisco. Mexico, November 30, 1869. THE year 1861, without calculation or effort, and almost without expectation on my own part, brought me to a position in which I had to confront a desperate, organized, and even armed resistance. to all the great political ideas which I had fondly cherished and peacefully promulgated through a period of many years. Slavery had taken up arms in alarm for its life, and had organized rebellion aiming at the dissolution of the American Union. Spain, deriding what under the circumstances seemed the imbecile theory of the Monroe doctrine, through the treachery of President Santa Anna gained possession of the city of San Domingo, and reëstablished a vice-royalty in that island, and soon after seized the Chincha Islands from Peru; Great Britain, not yet cordially reconciled to the inde- K- 582 OCCASIONAL SPEECHES. pendence of her former colonies, the United States, struck hands with France, which had been their ancient ally, but was now labor- ing under a hallucination of imperial ambition, and with the con- currence, voluntary in some cases, and forced in others, of the other maritime powers of western Europe, lifted the rebels of the United States to the rank and advantage of lawful belligerents. The statesmen of Europe, with its press almost unanimous, announced that the United States of America had ceased to exist as one whole, sovereign, and organized nation. The Emperor of France, embold- ened by the seeming prostration of the United States, landed invad- ing armies at Vera Cruz and Acapulco, and overran the territories of Mexico, overthrowing all its republican institutions and establish- ing upon their ruins an European empire. With the United States in anarchy, St. Domingo re-established as a monarchy, and Mexico as an empire, it was unavoidable that republicanism must perish throughout the whole continent, and that thereafter there would remain for those who had been its heroes, its friends, its advocates, and its martyrs, only the same sentiments of reverence and pity with which mankind are accustomed to contemplate the memories of Themistocles and Demosthenes, of Cato and of Cicero. was In that hour of supreme trial I thought I knew better than the enemies of our sacred cause, the resources, the energies and the virtues of the imperilled nation. In the name of the United States, I called upon the republican rulers and statesmen of the Continent for moral aid, and conjured them by all the force of common sym- pathy, common danger, and common ambition to be faithful and persevering in their own republics. The universal answer equal to the expectation. The United States became for the first time in sincerity and earnestness the friend and ally of every other republican state in America, and all the republican states became from that hour the friends and allies of the United States. This alliance commanded respect and confidence in unexpected quarters. Switzerland, Italy, Russia, North Germany, Turkey, Egypt, Mo- rocco, Siam, and China became the friends and moral allies of the American republics, and their triumph at last was complete. The United States were restored, and slavery abolished there. St. Domingo was evacuated, Peru was left independent, and Mexico re- sumed her noble republican autonomy. For the heroes who led republican forces in this great contest, Scott, Grant, Sherman, Mc- SPEECHES IN MEXICO. 583 ! Clellan, Farragut, and so many others in the United States; Zara- goza, Diaz Arteaga, Salazar, Escobedo, and Corona in Mexico - for the statesmen who directed the councils of the nations who took part in it, Lincoln, Johnson, Stevens, Stanton, in the United States -Juarez, Lerdo, Iglesias and Romero in Mexico Gortchakoff, Bright, Bismarck and Napoleon (Jerome) in Europe, I came to feel and acknowledge sentiments of gratitude, of respect and of affection, not inferior in force to those of fraternal confidence and affection. This is the manner, Mr. Lerdo, by which you have won me to your side and secured my ardent wishes for your future prosperity and success as a man, a minister and a statesman. If I have not so expressed myself heretofore, since my arrival in Mexico, it was only because I was waiting for this most seasonable occasion. PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF MEXICO, AND GENTLEMEN : In an assembly where I am surrounded by four hundred American patriots and statesmen, the time which can be allowed to me to en- gage attention is very short, and the words which I may speak, however earnest, ought to be few and simple. The sentiments of a grateful nature, no less than profound respect and loyal sympathies for this august assemblage, oblige me to express humble thanks from the depth of my heart for this hospitality and friendly welcome. Pardon me, gentlemen, for saying that these grateful emotions have brought up with them a somewhat painful apprehension that those who have bestowed this generous welcome upon me, may, to patriots of a less confiding disposition, seem to have incurred the fault of forgetting the interests of their own country, in extending their hos- pitality to a stranger. I have been accustomed to study and con- template the commerce of the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the United States, the teeming wealth of the Mississippi Valley and the golden treasures of the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada, and, I believe, without having awakened a suspicion of personal cupidity. I do not think it necessary, therefore, to disclaim that un- worthy motive for my visit here, when, for the first time, standing among the mines of Guanajuato, Potosi, and Real del Monte, and contemplating with wonder and admiration the grains, and fruits, 584 OCCASIONAL SPEECHES. and flowers of temperate though tropical Mexico. As little, per- haps, need I disclaim common individual ambition as a motive of my visit to Mexico. Certainly I ought to know now, if I have never known before, that the people of Mexico wisely reserve po- litical places and honors not for foreign adventurers, but for their own loyal and patriotic citizens. But what shall be said of the ambition of the United States, and of my supposed share in that ambition? Certainly, only this need be said, that while that ambition is always less than I would inspire my Government with, I am neither its agent nor in any sense its representative. But what shall be said of the ambition of the United States as a nation, and of my own complicity therewith? On this point I answer with a full and frank confession. The peo- ple of the United States, by an instinct which is a peculiar gift of Providence to nations, have comprehended better than even their Government has ever yet done, the benignant destinies of the American Continent, and their own responsibility in that import- ant matter. They know and see clearly, that although the coloniza- tion and initiation of civilization in all parts of this continent was assigned to European monarchical states, yet that in perfecting society and civilization here, every part of the continent must sooner or later be made entirely independent of all foreign control, and of every form of imperial or despotic power-the sooner the better. Universally imbued with this lofty and magnanimous sentiment, the people of the United States have opened their broad territories from ocean to ocean, and from the Lakes to the Gulf, freely to the down- trodden and oppressed of all nations, as a republican asylum. In their Constitution they have written with equal unanimity and zeal the declaration, that to all who shall come within that asylum they guarantee that they shall be forever governed only by republican in- stitutions. This noble guarantee extends in spirit, in policy, and in effect to all other nations in the American Hemisphere, so far as may depend on moral influences, which in the cause of political truth are always more effective than arms. Some of those nations are communities near the United States, which, while they are ani- mated like the American people, with a desire for republican institu- tions, and will not willingly submit to any other, are yet by reason. of insufficient territory, imperfect development, colonial demoraliza- tion, or other causes, incapable of independently sustaining them. SPEECHES IN MEXICO. 585 To these, as in the case of the ancient Louisiana, Florida, Alaska, St. Domingo, and St. Thomas, the people of the United States offer in- corporation into the United States, with their own free consent, without conquest, and when they are fully prepared for that im- portant change. Other nations on the continent, liberally endowed with the elements and virtues of national independence, prosperity, and aggrandizement, more matured and self-reliant, cherishing the same enlightened and intense desire for republican institutions, have nobly assumed the position and exercised the powers of ex- clusive sovereignty. Of this class are Mexico - older as a nation, but newer as a republic than the United States - Venezuela, and Colombia, the Central American States, Peru, the Argentine Re- public, and Chili. These republics have thus become, and are gladly recognized by the people of the United States with all their just claims and pretensions of separate sovereignty, fraternal re- publics and political allies. To the people of the United States the universal acceptance of republicanism is necessary, and happily it is no less necessary for every nation and people on the continent. Who will show me how republicanism can be extended over the continent upon any other principle or under any other system than these? If I forbear from dilating upon the influence which North America and South America with all their archipelagoes firmly es- tablished and fraternally living under republican institutions, must put forth and will put forth in advancing civilization throughout the world, it is because I have already said enough to show that loyalty and patriotism on the part of a citizen of one American republic is, in my judgment, not only consistent but congenial with the best wishes for the welfare, prosperity and happiness of all other Ameri- can republics. I give you, gentlemen, the health of President Benito Juarez — a name indissolubly associated with the names of Presidents Lincoln, Bolivar, and Washington, in the heroic history of republicanism in America. Señor Don Valentine Baz, Vice President of Congress, followed with a brief speech, closing with a toast, " To the Congress of the United States of North America." To this Mr. Seward responded as follows The distinguished Mexican speaker has proposed a sentiment in honor of the Congress of the United States. Being the only person 586 OCCASIONAL SPEECHES. present who has been a member of that august body, I am expected to respond. Two things are necessary in every republic; one is a President, the other is a Congress. The safety of the state is the proper care of the President; the liberty of the people is the proper care of the Congress. May God now and always endow all Presi- dents and all Congresses with the wisdom necessary for the dis- charge of their supreme responsibilities. Cholula. THE attendance of the civil authorities of the District, the com- plete array of the municipality of Cholula, more than both, the grave procession and thoughtful assemblage of citizens, leave me no room to doubt the sincerity of your generous words of welcome. The scene seems to me like one of those which awaken momentary inspiration. I am on the steps of the Aztec Pyramid, which is one of the most stupendous altars of human sacrifice that was ever erected to propitiate the Deity, in the ages when he was universally understood to be a God of Vengeance. Around me lies that mag- nificent plain where an imperial savage throne was brought down to the dust, by the just revenge of an oppressed aboriginal republic. I am surrounded by Christian churches and altars which tell how foreign civilized states exacted eternal subjugation, and the civil bondage of a rude people, in return for conveying to them the Gospel of "Peace on earth and good will toward man." The serious republican aspect and deportment of the children of the Aztecs to whom I am speaking, remind me that after a long contest with ecclesiastical, monarchical, and imperial ambitions, the independence of the ancient Aztec race has been reconquered with- out the loss of the Christian religion, and consolidated in a repre- sentative federal republic. Witnesses of towering majesty and impressive silence are looking down upon me; La Malinchi, be- wildering because she is indistinct, and the volcanoes Popocatapetl, Ixtacihuatl and Orizaba, clad in their eternal vestments of snow, attest that nature remains unchangeable, and only men, nations, and races, are subject to moral revolution. Gentlemen and Citizens: the circumstance that I am here, not as an enemy, but as a friend; a friend of the town of Cholula, a friend of the State of Puebla, a friend of the Republic of Mexico, en- ables me to study Mexico, her country and people, more carefully, RECEPTION OF CHINESE EMBASSY. 587 and I trust to understand them better. From this place, at once so sacred and so imposing, I must take leave to say to all states and nations, that Mexico neither needs nor desires foreign protection, that she is capable of independence and self-government, and sus- ceptible of friendship; but that in her case, as in all others, those who would enjoy her friendship must offer her on their part a friendship, which, though it may not be benevolent, must at least be sincere and disinterested. THE CHINESE TREATY. Reply 1 to Mr. Burlingame's Address on the Presentation of the Embassy to the President. Washington, July, 1868. YOUR EXCELLENCY: States, like individual men, have two dis- tinct characters and fields of activity; the one domestic, the other social. If it be true, as I trust it is, that the several political com- munities of the earth are now more actively engaged than at any previous period in meliorating their respective constitutions and laws, it certainly is not less manifest that they are zealously en- gaged in meliorating and perfecting their systems of international intercourse and commerce. The appearance here of this, the first mission from China to the Western nations, is in this respect not more singular than it is sug- gestive. During the first eighty years of our independence, foreign nations generally evinced hesitation, caution, and reserve, not to say jealousy, in regard to advances of the United States. Of late these features have seemed to disappear. There remains scarcely one civilized and regularly constituted state with which we have not formed relations of cordial friendship. So far from seeking to im- pose fetters upon our commerce, as heretofore, nearly all nations now invite us to establish free trade. Our national thought that the American continent and islands are rightfully reserved for the ultimate establishment of independent American states is no longer anywhere contested. Vigorous and well-established Euro- 1 This reply of the President was written by the Secretary of State in accordance with diplomatic usage. 588 OCCASIONAL SPEECHES. —is pean powers now freely cede to us for fair equivalents such of their colonial possessions in this hemisphere as we find desirable for strength and commerce. The inherent right of man to choose and change domicile and allegiance-a principle essential to human progress — is conceded in our recent treaties. These changes, al- though not less important, are less striking than the extension of our friendly intercourse with the Oriental nations. We have recently opened reciprocal and equal intercourse with Greece, with the Otto- man Porte, and with Japan. China, having accepted the laws of nations as they are explained in our own approved compilation, now avails herself, through your mission, of our friendly introduction to the Christian States of Europe and America. These events reveal the pleasing fact of a rapid growth of mutual trust and confidence among the nations, resulting from a general suspension of the policy of war and conquest, and the substitution of a fraternal and be- nevolent policy in its place. Your excellencies, we have not failed to appreciate the sagacity with which the Chinese Empire responded to this change of policy by the Christian nations. We acknowledge with pleasure the cor- dial and enlightened adoption of that policy by the Western nations, acting in concert with the United States, especially by Great Brit- ain, France, Russia, North Germany, Italy, Denmark, Sweden, Hol- land, and Belgium. I deem it not unworthy of this occasion to bear witness to the merit of the representative agents whose common labors at Peking have culminated in bringing the Empire of China so early and so directly into the family circle of civilized nations, viz., Prince Kung and Wenshian, on the part of China; yourself, Mr. Burlingame, on the part of the United States; the lamented Sir Frederick Bruce, on the British part; Mr. Berthemy, on behalf of France; and Mes- sieurs Balluzeck and Vlangally, on the part of Russia. Reasoning from the harmony which has thus prevailed hitherto, I feel myself justified on this occasion not only in giving you a cor- dial reception here, but also in assuring you of a welcome equally cordial by the several other powers to which you are accredited. In conclusion, I trust that the intelligent and enlightened Chinese Government and people will allow me to build upon this day's trans- action an expectation that their great empire, instead of remaining, as heretofore, merely passive, will henceforth be induced to take an THE DARIEN CANAL. 589 į active part in the general progress of civilization. There are sev- eral lines of navigation between Europe and China. Citizens of the United States have already constructed a road across the Isth- mus of Panama, with a line of steam service across the Pacific Ocean. In two or three years more there will be added to these facilities of intercourse the Pacific railroad across our own continent, and a ship canal, constructed under French patronage, across the Isthmus of Suez. But there will yet remain, besides all these, and more important than all of them, the great work of connecting the two oceans by a ship canal to be constructed across the Isthmus of Darien. To doubt the feasibility of such a work would imply an ignorance of the science and the wealth of the age in which we live. Your important mission will enable you to contribute largely to the achievement of that great enterprise. I respectfully invite you, therefore, to commend it to the favor of the United States of Colom- bia, as well as to the government of China and the several European states to which you are accredited. THE DARIEN CANAL. New York, February 23, 1869. The corporators of the Isthmus Canal Company met at the residence of Peter Cooper. Mr. Seward and Mr. Evarts, who had come from Washington to confer with the leading capitalists and merchants of this city, were present. The fol- lowing gentlemen were appointed commissioners to obtain subscriptions to the stock of the Company: William T. Coleman, Marshall O. Roberts, Cornelius K. Garrison, William B. Duncan, and Richard Schell. Charts of the proposed route were exhibited, showing the feasibility of the scheme, and entire confidence in its success was expressed. In the course of the evening Mr. Seward spoke as follows: GENTLEMEN: Ever since the canal of the Pharaohs across the Isthmus of Suez fell into disuse, and was lost under changes of so- ciety and of nature, commerce has desired the restoration of that original and most feasible channel of trade and intercourse between the Atlantic and Pacific nations. The discovery of the Cape of Good Hope supplied a costly and hazardous substitute, which was eagerly accepted. The exploration of the newly-discovered Ameri- 590 OCCASIONAL SPEECHES. can continent, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, disclosed at once necessities for a better channel to be constructed across that continent, and made a full revelation that that better channel could be constructed across the Isthmus of Darien, and nowhere else. During the past three hundred years, statesmanship and humanita- rianism have combined with ever-increasing diligence and effort to find the means of effecting an enterprise which is, perhaps, the only one that ever has commanded universal assent, and commended it- self to the desire of all mankind. Every advance of modern civili- zation in Europe, the establishment of every new nation in America, every opening of any secluded Asiatic State and nation that has occurred, has increased the zeal and the energy of the friends of progress in favor of a canal across the Isthmus of Darien. We habitually feel and say that we are living in an important and in- teresting period. We do indeed have occasion and opportunity to labor effectually in various ways in the cause of civilization and humanity; but, if I do not mistake, the chief of all the advantages of statesmen of the present day in all the countries, is that they can take part in the construction of a canal across the Isthmus of Darien. Gentlemen, to accept our respective parts in this great en- terprise is the work of this night. We are Americans. We are charged with responsibilities of establishing on the American conti- nent a higher condition of civilization and freedom than has ever before been attained in any part of the world. We all acknowledge and feel this responsibility. The destiny which we wish to realize as Americans is set plainly before us and distinctly within our reach; but that destiny can only be attained by the execution of the Darien ship canal. The reason is obvious. While the electric telegraph can and must be used for the interchange of ideas between nations, and while improved highways must and will be used for overland travel and intercourse, yet the mineral, forest, and agricul- tural bulk productions of the earth can only be exchanged by navi- gation, and this navigation must be made as cheap and as frequent and as expeditious as is possible. But the navigation by sailing vessels is coming to an end, and commerce is confiding the trust of navigation exclusively to steam vessels. Commerce can no longer afford to use the circuitous and perilous navigation around the Capes. It must and will have shorter channels of transport, and of these there can be but two- the one across the Isthmus of Suez, THE DARIEN CANAL. 591 the other across the Isthmus of Darien. A canal across the Isthmus of Suez already approaches its completion. If that channel is to secure the patronage of universal commerce, it will be fully enlarged and completely adapted to the interests of modern commerce. In that case the commerce of even the Atlantic American coast, from the St. Lawrence to Cape Horn, will be turned eastward across the Atlantic, and through the Mediterranean and the Red Seas, and the Indian Ocean to India and China. It would be a reproach to American enterprise and statesmanship to suppose that we are thus to become tributaries to ancient and effete Egypt, when by piercing the Isthmus of Darien we can bring the trade of even the Mediter- ranean and of the European Atlantic coasts through a channel of our own, so palpably indicated by nature that all the world has accepted it as feasible and necessary. We have undertaken to de- velop the resources of our own continent, and to regulate and restore the Asiatic nations to free self-government, prosperity, and happi- ness. The Darien ship canal is the only enterprise connected with the great work of civilization which remains to be undertaken. It was a mistake to suppose that we have been hitherto either inactive or idle in regard to this important matter. We have built a rail- road across the Isthmus of Panama, and within twelve months more we shall have stretched a railroad across the continent from New York to San Francisco. We have abundant assurance that these achievements are profitable and useful. Both of them, however, are profitable and useful only as types and shadows of the Darien ship canal, which we all feel and know must be transcendently prof- itable and transcendently useful. The Executive Government of the United States, gentlemen, has adopted the enterprise in which you are engaged. It has provided for a full, satisfactory, and final survey, preparatory to the construction of the Darien ship canal. It is engaged in negotiating with the Republic of Colombia for its consent to your achievement of the enterprise. The President will go forward with renewed zeal and vigor on receiving the assurances which you have given me that the city of New York has named the men who will undertake that achievement, and stand ready to furnish the hundred million of dollars which it may be expected to cost. Personal courtesies such as yours, gentlemen, deserve per- sonal acknowledgments. In return for the kindness with which you have received me into your enlightened and noble consultations, 592 OCCASIONAL SPEECHES. I can only give you my sincere thanks, and say that if I shall be able to identify my name with yours in the prosecution of this great enterprise, I shall certainly feel more assured hereafter than I have ever been heretofore that I have lived not altogether in vain. A VISIT FROM FRIENDS. Auburn, April 21, 1870. GENTLEMEN OF SYRACUSE: If my life and your own lives had been merely domestic, it would, nevertheless, even in that case, have been a pleasant thing to meet you now, in this balmy spring season, and renew the pledge of a friendship of thirty and more years. I will not attempt to describe my emotion in receiving this visit from you, which opens afresh the domestic cares, anxieties, pleas- ures, and sorrows, of so long a period, intermingling everywhere with national trials, dangers, triumphs, and calamities, such only as fearful commotion and revolutionary war could have produced. You know that it is not my habit to dwell on the topics of the past. You have reminded me, that since we parted last, I have been, in some sort, a traveller; and you greet me all the more cordially, as a neighbor returned home. I should like, if it were convenient, to speak to you of the glaciers, mountains, forests, and table-lands, of the mines and caves, of the cataracts, rivers, lakes, seas, and oceans, their majesty, beauty, and riches; of states beginning and states begun, of states growing, of states struggling, of states rising, and of states dissolving to recompose themselves again; of men and Indian, African, Asiatic, and our own; their characters and wants, powers, parts, and places; in the complex system of Ameri- can republican civilization, as I saw nature and men in the field I have surveyed-from the Arctic to the equator, and between the races two oceans. The impulse to utterance on that line fortifies itself by recalling certain promises to speak without reserve (here in Auburn), prom- ises which I made to all those sorts and conditions of men, with a view to moderate my expressions of gratitude, on the spot, for wel- comes not less suggestive than oppressive, received in Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, Alaska, California, Cuba, and Mexico. RETROSPECT. 593 But, gentlemen, you have promised me that this visit shall be an informal one. Moreover, I have scarcely yet recovered from the chill which the March snows gave me, on a too sudden arrival here from the West Indies. Let it suffice to say, that everywhere, with- in the United States and without the United States, I found, in political institutions and in the current of political events, and in the progress of order, law, freedom, and humanity, a full confirmation of the principles, policies, and sentiments in which the people of Auburn and Syracuse have been educated themselves, and which, without shrinking from the sacrifice of life and fortune, they have so long maintained. Gentlemen, I have trusted you long, and you have adhered to me with perseverance. Let us thank God with humility and reverence for the blessing of such a friendship, and hope and strive that it may continue to the end of our days. Gentlemen, the first century of our national existence draws to a close. While the seals of the second century are being opened, we shall be passing away, relying on the benevolence of God, and the progress of humanity. Let us hope, without doubting, that our suc- cessors will be wiser and better than we have been; that hence- forth, the reformer of the nation may never be found lacking in patience, the patriot in zeal, the soldier in prudence, or the states- man in constancy, and above all, that the nation itself may never distrust its own gracious destiny. Amen. 38 MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS. ท PROCLAMATION OF JANUARY 1, 1863.¹ WHEREAS, on the twenty-second day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, a proclamation was issued by the President of the United States, containing, among other things, the following, to wit : — “That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any state or designated part of a state, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever, free; and the executive govern- ment of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom: "That the Executive will, on the first day of January aforesaid, by proclama- tion, designate the states and parts of states, if any, in which the people thereof, respectively, shall then be in rebellion against the United States; and the fact that any state, or the people thereof, shall on that day be in good faith represented in the Congress of the United States, by members chosen thereto at elections wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such states shall have participated, shall, in the absence of strong countervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive evidence that such state, and the people thereof, are not then in rebellion against the United States: "" Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, by virtue of the power in me vested as commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the United States, in time of actual armed rebellion against the authority and govern- ment of the United States, and as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion, do, on this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thou- sand eight hundred and sixty-three, and in accordance with my purpose so to do, publicly proclaim for the full period of one hundred days from the day first above mentioned, order and designate as the states and parts of states wherein the people thereof, respectively, are this day in rebellion against the United States, the follow- ing, to wit: Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana (except the parishes of St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James, Ascension, Assumption, Terre Bonne, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans, including the city of New Orleans), Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Vir- ginia, (except the forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia, and also the counties of Berkeley, Accomac, Northampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Ann, and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth), and which excepted parts are for the present left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued. And by virtue of the power, and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and de- clare that all persons held as slaves within said designated states and parts of states are and henceforward shall be free; and that the executive government of 1 For Proclamation of September, 1862, see ante, p. 345. 1 AMENDMENTS OF CONSTITUTION. 595 the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recog- nize and maintain the freedom of said persons. And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self-defence; and I recommend to them that, in all cases when allowed, they labor faithfully for reasonable wages. And I further declare and make known that such persons, of suitable condition, will be received into the armed service of the United States, to garrison forts, posi- tions, stations, and other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said service. And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice warranted by the Constitution upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of man- kind and the gracious favor of Almighty God. In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed. Done at the city of Washington this first day of January, in the year of our [L. S.] Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the independence of the United States of America the eighty-seventh. By the President : WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State. ABRAHAM LINCOLN. AMENDMENTS OF CONSTITUTION. MR. SEWARD'S CERTIFICATE OF THE ANTI-SLAVERY AMENDMENT, KNOWN AS THE 13TH AMENDMENT. BY WILLIAM H. SEWARD, SECRETARY OF STATE OF THE UNITED STATES, To all to whom these presents may come, greeting: Know ye, that whereas the Congress of the United States on the first of Febru- ary last passed a resolution which is in the words following, namely :— "A resolution submitting to the Legislatures of the several states a proposition to amend the Constitution of the United States. "Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress Assembled (two-thirds of both Houses concurring), That the fol- lowing article be proposed to the Legislatures of the several states as an amend- ment to the Constitution of the United States, which, when ratified by three fourths of said Legislatures, shall be valid, to all intents and purposes, as a part of the said Constitution, namely :— ARTICLE XIII. "SEC. 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. "SEC. 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legis- lation." And whereas it appears from official documents on file in this Department that the amendment to the Constitution of the United States, proposed as aforesaid, has been ratified by the Legislatures of the states of Illinois, Rhode Island, Michi- gan, Maryland, New York, West Virginia, Maine, Kansas, Massachusetts, Penn- sylvania, Virginia, Ohio, Missouri, Nevada, Indiana, Louisiana, Minnesota, Wiscon- sin, Vermont, Tennessee, Arkansas, Connecticut, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Alabama, North Carolina, and Georgia — in all, twenty-seven states.¹ And whereas the whole number of states in the United States is thirty-six, and whereas the before specially-named states, whose legislatures have ratified the said proposed amendment, constitute three fourths of the whole number of states in the United States. 1 New Jersey, Oregon, California, Florida, and Iowa ratified subsequently to the date of this certificate. 596 MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS. Now, therefore, be it known that I, WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State of the United States, by virtue and in pursuance of the second section of the act of Congress approved the twentieth of April, eighteen hundred and eighteen, do here- by certify that the amendment aforesaid has become valid, to all intents and pur- poses, as a part of the Constitution of the United States. In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the Department of State to be affixed. Done at the city of Washington, this eighteenth day of December, in the year of [SEAL] our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-five, and of the independ- ence of the United States of America the ninetieth. WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, WASHINGTON, September 12, 1865. SIR: Your excellency's letter of the 29th ultimo, with the accompanying procla mation, has been received and submitted to the President. The steps to which it refers, towards reorganizing the government of Florida, seem to be in the main judicious, and good results from them may be hoped for. The presumption to which the proclamation refers, however, in favor of insurgents who may wish to vote, and who may have applied for, but not received, their pardons, is not entirely approved. All applications for pardons will be duly considered, and will be dis- posed of as soon as may be practicable. It must, however, be distinctly under- stood that the restoration to which your proclamation refers will be subject to the decision of Congress. His Excellency WILLIAM MARVIN. WILLIAM H. SEWARD. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, WASHINGTON, November 1, 1865. -t His Excellency WILLIAM MARVIN, Provisional Governor : Your letter of October 7 was received and submitted to the President. He is gratified with the favorable progress towards reorganization in Florida, and directs me to say that he regards the ratification by the legislature of the congressional amendment of the Constitution of the United States as indispensable to a success- ful restoration of the true legal relations between Florida and the other states, and equally indispensable to the return of peace and harmony throughout the Republic. WILLIAM H. SEWARD. WASHINGTON, November 6, 1865. His Excellency B. F. PERRY, Provisional Governor of South Carolina : Your despatch to the President of November 4, has been received. He is not entirely satisfied with the explanations it contains. He deems necessary the pas- sage of adequate ordinances declaring that all insurrectionary proceedings in the state were unlawful and void ab initio. Neither the Constitution nor laws direct official information to the state of amendments to the Constitution submitted by Congress. Notices of the amendment by Congress abolishing slavery were never- theless given by the Secretary of State at the time to the states which were then in communication with this government. Formal notice will immediately be given to those states which were then in insurrection. The objection you mention to the last clause of the constitutional amendment is regarded as querulous and unreasonable, because that clause is really restraining in its effect, instead of enlarging the powers of Congress. The President consid- ers the acceptance of the amendment by South Carolina as indispensable to a re- storation of her relations with the other states of the Union. WILLIAM H. SEWARD. THE REBEL DEBT. 597 Respecting the repudiation of the rebel state debt, this telegraphic correspond- ence took place : DEPARTMENT OF STATE, WASHINGTON, November 20, 1865. His Excellency B. F. PERRY, Provisional Governor : Your despatch of this date was received at half-past ten o'clock this morning. This freedom of loyal intercourse between South Carolina and her sister states is manifestly much better and wiser than separation. The President and the whole country are gratified that South Carolina has accepted the congressional amend- ment to the Constitution abolishing slavery. Upon reflection South Carolina her- self would not care to come again into the councils of the Union encumbered and clogged with debts and obligations which had been assumed in her name in a vain attempt to subvert it. The President trusts that she will lose no time in making an effective organic declaration, disavowing all debts and obligations created or assumed in her name or behalf in aid of the rebellion. The President waits further events in South Carolina with deep interest. You will remain in the exercise of your functions of Provisional Governor until relieved by his express directions. WILLIAM H. SEWARD. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, WASHINGTON, November 30, 1865. SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your telegram of the 27th instant, informing me, that as the convention had been dissolved, it was impossible to adopt the President's suggestion to repudiate the insurgent debt, and to inform you that while the objections which you urge to the adoption of that proceeding are of a serious nature, the President cannot refrain from awaiting with interest an official expression upon that subject from the legislature.¹ WILLIAM H. SEWARD. His Excellency B. F. PERRY. His Excellency JAMES JOHNSON, Provisional Governor of Georgia : Your several telegrams have been received. The President of the United States cannot recognize the people of any state as having resumed the relations of loyalty to the Union that admits as legal, obligations contracted or debts created in their name, to promote the war of the rebellion. WASHINGTON, October 28, 1865. His Excellency L. E. PARSONS, Provisional Governor : WILLIAM H. SEWARD. The President congratulates you and the country upon the acceptance of the congressional amendment of the Constitution of the United States by the state of Alabama, which vote, being the twenty-seventh, fills up the complement of two- thirds, and gives the amendment finishing effect as a part of the organic law of the land. WASHINGTON, December 5, 1865. WILLIAM H. SEWARD. 1 Before adjourning, the subject of the repudiation of the war debt was referred to the Committee on Federal Relations, who recommended the appointment of a special joint committee of both Houses to inquire into the amount of such debt due by the state, and to whom due; and to report at the next regular session of the legislature. 598 MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS. CERTIFICATE OF SECRETARY SEWARD RESPECTING THE RATIFICATION OF THE FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION, JULY 28, 1868. BY WILLIAM H. SEWARD, SECRETARY OF STATE OF THE UNITED STATES. To all to whom these presents may come, greeting : Whereas the Congress of the United States, on or about the 16th day of June, 1866, submitted to the legislatures of the several states a proposed amendment to the Constitution in the following words, to wit: ARTICLE XIV. SEC. 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States, and of the states wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the priv- ileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. SEC. 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, represent- atives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of a state, or the members of the legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such state, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion or other crime, the basis of repre- sentation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such state. SEC. 3. No person shall be a senator or representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legisla- ture, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House remove such disability. SEC. 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in sup- pressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any state shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations, and claims shall be held illegal and void. SEC. 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article. And whereas official notice has been received at the Department of State that the legislatures of the several states next hereinafter named have, at the times re- spectively herein mentioned, taken the proceedings hereinafter recited upon or in relation to the ratification of the said proposed amendment, called article four- teenth, namely: The Legislature of Connecticut ratified the amendment June 30, 1866 ; the Leg- islature of New Hampshire ratified it July 7, 1866; the Legislature of Tennessee ratified it July 19, 1866; the Legislature of New Jersey ratified it September 11, 1866, and the Legislature of the same state passed a resolution in April, 1868, to withdraw the consent to it; the Legislature of Oregon ratified it September 19, 1866; the Legislature of Texas rejected it November 1, 1866; the Legislature of Vermont ratified it, on or previous to November 9, 1866; the Legislature of Geor- FUGITIVE SLAVES, 1861. 599 gia rejected it November 13, 1866, and the Legislature of the same state ratified it July 21, 1868; the Legislature of North Carolina rejected it December 4, 1866, and the Legislature of the same state ratified it July 4, 1868; Legislature of South Carolina rejected it December 20, 1866, and the Legislature of the same state ratified it July 9, 1868; the Legislature of Virginia rejected it January 9, 1867; the Legislature of Kentucky rejected it January 10, 1867; the Legislature of New York ratified it January 10, 1867; the Legislature of Ohio ratified it Jan- uary 11, 1867, and the Legislature of the same state passed a resolution in January, 1868, to withdraw its consent to it; the Legislature of Illinois ratified it January 15, 1867; the Legislature of West Virginia ratified it January 16, 1867; the Leg- islature of Kansas ratified it January 18, 1867; the Legislature of Maine ratified it January 19, 1867; the Legislature of Nevada ratified it January 22, 1867; the Legislature of Missouri ratified it on or previous to January 26, 1867; the Legis- lature of Indiana ratified it January 29, 1867; the Legislature of Minnesota rati- fied it February 1, 1867; the Legislature of Rhode Island ratified it February 7, 1867; the Legislature of Delaware rejected it February 7, 1867; the Legislature of Wisconsin ratified it February 13, 1867; the Legislature of Pennsylvania rati- fied it February 13, 1867; the Legislature of Michigan ratified it February 15, 1867; the Legislature of Massachusetts ratified it March 20, 1867; the Legisla- ture of Maryland rejected it March 23, 1867; the Legislature of Nebraska ratified it June 15, 1867; the Legislature of Iowa ratified it April 3, 1868; the Legisla- ture of Arkansas ratified it April 6, 1868; the Legislature of Florida ratified it June 9, 1868; the Legislature of Louisiana ratified it July 9, 1868; and the Leg- islature of Alabama ratified it July 13, 1868. Now, therefore, be it known that I, WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State of the United States, do hereby direct the said proposed amendment to the Constitu- tion of the United States to be published in the newspapers authorized to promul- gate the laws of the United States, and I do hereby certify that the said proposed amendment has been adopted in the manner hereinbefore mentioned by the states specified in the said concurrent resolution, namely, the states of Connecticut, New Hampshire, Tennessee, New Jersey, Oregon, Vermont, New York, Ohio, Illinois, West Virginia, Kansas, Maine, Nevada, Missouri, Indiana, Minnesota, Rhode Island, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Massachusetts, Nebraska, Iowa, Ar- kansas, Florida, North Carolina, Louisiana, South Carolina, Alabama, and also by the Legislature of the State of Georgia; the states thus specified being more than three-fourths of the states of the United States. And I do further certify, that the said amendment has become valid to all in- tents and purposes as a part of the Constitution of the United States. Done at the city of Washington, this twenty-eight day of July, in the year of our [SEAL] Lord, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-eight, and of the independ- ence of the United States of America the ninety-third. WILLIAM H. SEWARD, FUGITIVE SLAVES. Secretary of State. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, WASHINGTON, December 4, 1861. To Major-General GEO. B. MCCLELLAN, Washington: GENERAL: I am directed by the President to call your attention to the follow- ing subject:- Persons claimed to be held to service or labor under the laws of the State of Virginia, and actually employed in hostile service against the Government of the United States, frequently escape from the lines of the enemy's forces, and are re- ceived within the lines of the army of the Potomac. This Department understands that such persons afterward coming into the city of Washington are liable to be arrested by the city police, upon the presumption, arising from color, that they are fugitives from service or labor. 600 MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS. 7 By the 4th section of the act of Congress, approved August 6, 1861, entitled "An act to confiscate property used for insurrectionary purposes," such hostile employment is made a full and sufficient answer to any further claim to service or labor. Persons thus employed and escaping are received into the military protec- tion of the United States, and their arrest as fugitives from service or labor should be immediately followed by the military arrest of the parties making the seizure. Copies of this communication will be sent to the Mayor of the City of Washing- ton, and to the Marshal of the District of Columbia, that any collision between the civil and military authorities may be avoided. WILLIAM H. SEWARD. TREATIES. "The Treaty for the Suppression of the Slave Trade "¹ was negotiated early in 1862, while Earl Russell was expressing his belief in the downfall of the Re- public, and while our armies were battling with fortunes more or less adverse. Born thus amid the tempests of the time, it was nevertheless destined to accom- plish its purpose so thoroughly and in so short a period that the civilized world stood amazed. The TREATY, bearing the name of Mr. Seward, although it has spent its force, finds a permanent record in the Department of State and in the archives of the Government of Great Britain.2 ARTICLE I. NATURALIZATION TREATY. PROCLAIMED BY THE PRESIDENT, MAY 27, 1868. Citizens of the North German Confederation, who become natural- ized citizens of the United States of America, and shall have resided uninterrupt- edly within the United States five years, shall be held by the North German Con- federation to be American citizens, and shall be treated as such. Reciprocally, citizens of the United States of America who become naturalized citizens of the North German Confederation, and shall have resided uninterrupt- edly within North Germany five years, shall be held by the United States to be North German citizens, and shall be treated as such. The declaration of an in- tention to become a citizen of the one or the other country has not for either party the effect of naturalization. This article shall apply as well to those already naturalized in either country as those hereafter naturalized. ARTICLE II. - A naturalized citizen of the one party on return to the territory of the other party remains liable to trial and punishment for an action punishable by the laws of his original country and committed before his emigration; saving, always, the limitation established by the laws of his original country. ARTICLE III. - The convention for the mutual delivery of criminals, fugitives from justice, in certain cases, concluded between the United States on the one part 1 See ante, pp. 5-12, 52. 2 See Volume, "TREATIES," etc., Published by the Department of State. ALASKA TREATY. 601 and Prussia and other States of Germany on the other part, the sixteenth day of June, one thousand eight hundred and fifty-two, is hereby extended to all the States of the North German Confederation. ARTICLE IV. - If a German naturalized in America renews his residence in North Germany, without the intent to return to America, he shall be held to have renounced his naturalization in the United States. Reciprocally, if an American naturalized in North Germany renews his residence in the United States, without the intent to return to North Germany, he shall be held to have renounced his naturalization in North Germany. The intent not to return may be held to exist when the person naturalized in the one country resides more than two years in the other country. ARTICLE V. The present convention shall go into effect immediately on the exchange of ratifications, and shall continue in force for ten years. If neither party shall have given to the other six months' previous notice of its intention then to terminate the same, it shall further remain in force until the end of twelve months after either of the contracting parties shall have given notice to the other of such intention.¹ ALASKA TREATY. The United States of America and His Majesty the Emperor of all the Russias, being desirous of strengthening, if possible, the good understanding which exists between them, have, for that purpose, appointed as their plenipotentiaries: the President of the United States, William H. Seward, Secretary of State; and his Majesty the Emperor of all the Russias, the privy counsellor Edward de Stoeckl, his envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to the United States. And the said plenipotentiaries, having exchanged their full powers, which were found to be in due form, have agreed upon and signed the following articles : ARTICLE I. His Majesty the Emperor of all the Russias agrees to cede to the United States, by this convention, immediately upon the exchange of the ratifica- tions thereof, all the territory and dominion now possessed by his said Majesty on the continent of America and in the adjacent islands, the same being contained within the geographical limits herein set forth, to wit: the eastern limit is the line of demarcation between the Russian and the British possessions in North America, as established by the convention between Russia and Great Britain, of February 28-16, 1825, and described in Articles III. and IV. of said convention, in the following terms: 2 Commencing from the southernmost point of the island called Prince of Wales Island, which point lies in the parallel of 54 degrees 40 minutes north latitude, and between the 131st and the 133d degree of west longitude, (meridian of Greenwich), the said line shall ascend to the north along the channel called Port- land channel, as far as the point of the continent where it strikes the 56th degree of north latitude; from this last-mentioned point, the line of demarcation shall follow the summit of the mountains situated parallel to the coast as far as the point of intersection of the 141st degree of west longitude, (of the same merid- ian ;) and finally, from the said point of intersection, the said meridian line of the 141st degree, in its prolongation as far as the Frozen Ocean. "IV. With reference to the line of demarcation laid down in the preceding article, it is understood — 66 ist. That the island called Prince of Wales Island shall belong wholly to Russia" (now by this cession to the United States). "2d. That whenever the summit of the mountains which extend in a direction parallel to the coast from the 56th degree of north latitude to the point of inter- section of the 141st degree of west longitude shall prove to be at the distance of 1 President Hayes, in his Annual Message of December, 1877, alludes to the great importance of Mr. Seward's Naturalization Treaties. See ante, p. 5. 2 See accompanying Map. 602 MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS. · more than ten marine leagues from the ocean, the limit between the British pos- sessions and the line of coast which is to belong to Russia as above mentioned (that is to say, the limit to the possessions ceded by this convention) shall be formed by a line parallel to the winding of the coast, and which shall never exceed the distance of ten marine leagues therefrom.” The western limit within which the territories and dominion conveyed are con- tained, passes through a point in Behring's Straits on the parallel of 65 degrees 30 minutes north latitude, at its intersection by the meridian which passes midway between the islands of Krusenstern, or Ignalook, and the island of Ratmanoff, or Noonarbook, and proceeds due north, without limitation, into the same Frozen Ocean. The same western limit, beginning at the same initial point, proceeds thence in a course nearly southwest, through Behring's Straits and Behring's Sea, so as to pass midway between the northwest point of the island of St. Lawrence and the southeast point of Cape Choukotski, to the meridian of 172 west longi- tude; thence, from the intersection of that meridian, in a southwesterly direction, so as to pass midway between the island of Attou and the Copper island of the Kormandorski couplet or group in the North Pacific Ocean, to the meridian of 193 degrees west longitude, so as to include in the territory conveyed the whole of the Aleutian Islands east of that meridian. ARTICLE II. — In the cession of territory and dominion made by the preceding article are included the right of property in all public lots and squares, vacant lands, and all public buildings, fortifications, barracks, and other edifices which are not private individual property. It is, however, understood and agreed that the churches which have been built in the ceded territory by the Russian government shall remain the property of such members of the Greek Oriental Church resident in the territory as may choose to worship therein. Any government archives, papers, and documents relative to the territory and dominion aforesaid, which may be now existing there, will be left in the possession of the agent of the United States; but an authenticated copy of such of them as may be required, will be, at all times, given by the United States to the Russian government, or to such Russian officers or subjects as they may apply for. ARTICLE III. The inhabitants of the ceded territory, according to their choice, reserving their natural allegiance, may return to Russia within three years; but if they should prefer to remain in the ceded territory, they, with the exception of uncivilized native tribes, shall be admitted to the enjoyment of all the rights, ad- vantages, and immunities of citizens of the United States, and shall be main- tained and protected in the free enjoyment of their liberty, property, and religion. The uncivilized tribes will be subject to such laws and regulations as the United States may, from time to time, adopt in regard to aboriginal tribes of that country. ARTICLE IV. - His Majesty the Emperor of all the Russias shall appoint, with convenient dispatch, an agent or agents for the purpose of formally delivering to a similar agent or agents appointed on behalf of the United States, the territory, dominion, property, dependencies, and appurtenances which are ceded as above, and for doing any other act which may be necessary in regard thereto. But the cession, with the right of immediate possession, is nevertheless to be deemed com- plete and absolute on the exchange of ratifications, without waiting for such for- mal delivery. ARTICLE V. Immediately after the exchange of the ratifications of this con- vention, any fortifications or military posts which may be in the ceded territory shall be delivered to the agent of the United States, and any Russian troops which may be in the territory shall be withdrawn as soon as may be reasonably and con- veniently practicable. ARTICLE VI. In consideration of the cession aforesaid, the United States agree to pay at the treasury in Washington, within ten months after the exchange of the ratifications of this convention, to the diplomatic representative or other agent of his Majesty the Emperor of all the Russias, duly authorized to receive the same, seven million two hundred thousand dollars in gold. The cession of territory and dominion herein made is hereby declared to be free and unin- THE CHINESE TREATY. 603 7 cumbered by any reservations, privileges, franchises, grants, or possessions, by any associated companies, whether corporate or incorporate, Russian or any other, or by any parties, except merely private individual property-holders; and the cession hereby made conveys all the rights, franchises, and privileges now belonging to Russia in the said territory or dominion, and appurtenances thereto. ARTICLE VII.- When this convention shall have been duly ratified by the President of the United States, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, on the one part, and on the other by his Majesty the Emperor of all the Russias, the ratifications shall be exchanged at Washington within three months from the date hereof, or sooner, if possible. In faith whereof, the respective plenipotentiaries have signed this convention, and thereto affixed the seals of their arms. Done at Washington, the 30th day of March, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-seven. [L. S.] [L. S. WILLIAM H. SEWARD. EDOUARD DE STOECKL. TREATY WITH CHINA, 1868.1 ARTICLE I. His Majesty the Emperor of China, being of the opinion that, in making concessions to the citizens or subjects of foreign powers of the privilege of residing on certain tracts of land, or resorting to certain waters of that empire for purposes of trade, he has by no means relinquished his right of eminent domain or dominion over the said land and waters, hereby agrees that no such concession or grant shall be construed to give to any power or party which may be at war with or hostile to the United States the right to attack the citizens of the United States or their property within the said lands or waters. And the United States, for themselves, hereby agree to abstain from offensively attacking the citizens or sub- jects of any power or party or their property with which they may be at war on any such tract of land or waters of the said empire. But nothing in this article shall be construed to prevent the United States from resisting an attack by any hostile power or party upon their citizens or their property. It is further agreed that if any right or interest in any tract of land in China has been or shall here- after be granted by the Government of China to the United States or their citi- zens for purposes of trade or commerce, that grant shall in no event be construed to divest the Chinese authorities of their right of jurisdiction over persons and property within said tract of land, except so far as that right may have been ex- pressly relinquished by treaty. ARTICLE II. — The United States of America and His Majesty the Emperor of China, believing that the safety and prosperity of commerce will thereby best be promoted, agree that any privilege or immunity in respect to trade or navigation within the Chinese dominions which may not have been stipulated for by treaty, shall be subject to the discretion of the Chinese Government, and may be regulated by it accordingly, but not in a manner or spirit incompatible with the treaty stipu- lations of the parties. ARTICLE III. The Emperor of China shall have the right to appoint Consuls at ports of the United States, who shall enjoy the same privileges and immunities as those which are enjoyed by public law and treaty in the United States by the Consuls of Great Britain and Russia, or either of them. ARTICLE IV. — The 29th article of the treaty of the 18th of June, 1858, having stipulated for the exemption of Christian citizens of the United States and Chinese converts from persecutions in China on account of their faith, it is further agreed that citizens of the United States in China of every religions persuasion, and Chi- nese subjects in the United States, shall enjoy entire liberty of conscience, and 1 The Treaty between the United States and China, concluded July 28, 1868; ratifications exchanged at Peking, November 23, 1869, additional to Treaty of 1858. 604 MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS. shall be exempt from all disability or persecution on account of their religious faith or worship in either country. Cemeteries for sepulture of the dead, of what- ever nativity or nationality, shall be held in respect and free from disturbance or profanation. ARTICLE V.- The United States of America and the Emperor of China cordially recognize the inherent and inalienable right of man to change his home and allegi- ance, and also the mutual advantage of the free migration and emigration of their citizens and subjects respectively from the one country to the other for pur- poses of curiosity, of trade, or as permanent residents. The high contracting parties therefore join in reprobating any other than an entirely voluntary emigra- tion for these purposes. They consequently agree to pass laws making it a penal offence for a citizen of the United States or Chinese subjects to take Chinese sub- jects either to the United States, or to any other foreign country, or for a Chinese subject or citizen of the United States to take citizens of the United States to China or to any other foreign country without their free and voluntary consent, respectively. ARTICLE VI. — Citizens of the United States visiting or residing in China shall enjoy the same privileges, immunities or exemptions in respect to travel or resi- dence as may there be enjoyed by the citizens or subjects of the most favored nation; and reciprocally, Chinese subjects visiting or residing in the United States shall enjoy the same privileges, immunities, and exemptions in respect to travel or residence as may there be enjoyed by the citizens or subjects of the most favored nation. But nothing herein contained shall be held to confer naturalization upon citizens of the United States in China, nor upon the subjects of China in the United States. ARTICLE VII. —Citizens of the United States shall enjoy all the privileges of the public educational institutions under the control of the government of China; and, reciprocally, Chinese subjects shall enjoy all the privileges of the public educa- tional institutions under the control of the government of the United States, which are enjoyed in the respective countries by the citizens or subjects of the most favored nation. The citizens of the United States may freely establish and main- tain schools within the Empire of China at those places where foreigners are by treaty permitted to reside; and reciprocally, Chinese subjects may enjoy the same privileges and immunities in the United States. ARTICLE VIII. — The United States, always disclaiming and discouraging all practices of unnecessary dictation and intervention by one nation in the affairs or domestic administration of another, do hereby freely disclaim and disavow any in- tention or right to intervene in the domestic administration of China in regard to the construction of railroads, telegraphs, or other material internal improvements. On the other hand, His Majesty the Emperor of China reserves to himself the right to decide the time and manner and circumstances of introducing such im- provements within his dominions. With this mutual understanding, it is agreed by the contracting parties that if at any time hereafter His Imperial Majesty shall de- termine to construct or cause to be constructed works of the character mentioned, within the empire, and shall make application to the United States or any other western power for facilities to carry out that policy, the United States will, in that case, designate and authorize suitable engineers to be employed by the Chinese Government, and will recommend to other nations an equal compliance with such application, the Chinese Government in that case protecting such engineers in their persons and property and paying them a reasonable compensation for their serv- ice. THE INTEROCEANIC CANAL. 605 THE TREATY OF DARIEN.¹ Mr. Seward began his diplomatic career by effecting a treaty for the suppres- sion of the slave trade. He sought to crown his work by negotiating a treaty to secure an Interoceanic Canal at the Isthmus of Darien. Such a treaty was, through his efforts, perfected. The Senate refused to confirm it, for reasons, Secretary Evarts declared, unknown to him. A report made to Congress by the Secretary of State (Mr. Evarts) contains the treaty or convention as submitted to the Senate, February 16, 1869, one month after it was signed at Bogota and fifteen days before Mr. Seward retired from office. Secretary Evarts in his report presents a history of ineffectual attempts made at various times to obtain a treaty from different Central American states, under which a canal might be built. Among other important matter presented in this interesting report are Secretary Seward's "Instructions." An extract touch- ing a point of present interest is given below: The Colombian commissioners seem to suppose that the United States of Amer- ica stand not only well disposed but fully prepared and impatient to commence, prosecute, and complete the projected ship-canal by a direct application of execu- tive and administrative powers and faculties. Frankness on the part of the United States requires me to say that in regard to these important points the Colombian ministers are acting under a grave misapprehension. The territory of the United States is full of canals and railroads and other works of material improvement. The length of canals in this country is measured by thousands of miles, the length of our railroads by tens of thousands of miles. Nevertheless there is not, and there never was, within the territory of the United States of America one mile of railroad or canal which was directly constructed by the government of the United States of America, or over which the United States of America exercises directly rights of property or control. The United States construct only fortifications and other works of military strategy or defense, and navy-yards, light-houses, custom-houses, and the like. Every work of internal improvement in the United States has been made either by states or by corporate companies or by private individuals. The government of Colombia is familiarly acquainted with the Panama Railroad, which was made and is owned by a corporate company of the United States of America, and enjoys only the recognition, sanction, and protection of the government of the United States. Even the Pacific Railroad, which, although incomplete, nevertheless stretches near halfway across the continent at its widest part, was begun and has been thus far prosecuted, and will be prosecuted to the end, by corporate companies so en- couraged and patronized by the government. Precisely the same course of proceeding is contemplated by the present conven- tion in regard to the Darien Ship-Canal. It is believed that no other mode of proceeding in regard to the construction of the proposed canal could secure the assent or approbation of the Congress of the United States. It would be easy to show that this indirect mode of proceeding would tend greatly to the security and advantage of the United States of Colombia. On the other hand, I am unable to conceive of any proceeding that could be more perilous to the United States of Colombia than that one should allow a stronger government like that of the United States to become directly the proprietor or conductor of a ship-canal with free ports at its termini on the two oceans. If, contrary to these views of the case, the Colombian Government shall continue to regard with disfavor the construction of the canal by a company or associations under the laws of the United States, and with their sanction, then the present negotiation may be immediately brought to an end. I trust, however, that the practical view which I have suggested will be accepted by the United States of Colombia, and that they will not insist upon their pro- posed amendment, which denies to the United States Government the privilege of devolving the work of constructing the canal upon individuals or upon a corporated company. 1 See p. 589. Speech at Peter Cooper's. 606 MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS. REINFORCEMENT OF FORT SUMTER. · A Cabinet Paper. Department of State, WASHINGTON, March 15, 1861. 66 The President submits to me the following question : Assuming it to be pos- sible to now provision Fort Sumter, under all the circumstances, is it wise to at- tempt it?" If it were possible to peacefully provision Fort Sumter, of course I should answer that it would be both unwise and inhuman not to attempt it. But the facts of the case are known to be that the attempt must be made with the employ- ment of a military and marine force which would provoke combat and probably initiate a civil war, which the Government of the United States would be committed to maintain through all changes to some definitive conclusion. History must record that a sectional party, practically constituting a majority of the people of the fifteen slave states, excited to a high state of jealous apprehen- sion for the safety of life and property by impassioned though groundless appeals, went into the late election with a predetermined purpose, if unsuccessful at the polls, to raise the standard of secession immediately afterwards, and to separate the slave states, or so many of them as could be detached from the Union, and to or- ganize them in a new, distinct, and independent confederacy. That party was unsuccessful at the polls. In the frenzy which followed the announcement of their defeat, they put the machinery of the state legislatures and conventions into motion, and within the period of three months they have succeeded in obtaining ordinances of secession by which seven of the slave states have seceded and organized a new confederacy under the name of the "Confederate States of America." These states, finding a large number of the mints, custom houses, forts, and arse- nals of the United States situated within their limits, unoccupied, undefended, and virtually abandoned by the late administration, have seized and appropriated them to their own use, and under the same circumstances have seized and appropriated to their own use large amounts of money and other public property of the United States found within their limits. The people of the other slave states, divided and balancing between sympathy with the seceding slave states and loyalty to the Union, have been intensely excited, but at the present moment indicate a dispo- sition to adhere to the Union if nothing extraordinary shall occur to renew ex- citement and produce popular exasperation. This is the stage in this premedi- tated revolution at which we now stand. The opening of this painful controversy at once raised the question, whether it would be for the interest of the country to admit the projected dismemberment with its consequent evils, or whether patriotism and humanity require that it shall be prevented. As a citizen, my own decision on this subject was promptly made, namely, that the Union is inestimable and even indispensable to the welfare and happiness of the whole country and to the best interests of mankind. As a statesman in the public service, I have not hesitated to assume that the Federal government is com- mitted to maintain, preserve, and defend the Union, peacefully if it can, forcibly if it must, to every extremity. Next to disunion itself, I regard civil war as the most disastrous and deplorable of national calamities, and as the most uncertain and fearful of all remedies for political disorders. I have, therefore, made it the study and labor of the hour how to save the Union from dismemberment by peaceful policy and without civil war. Influenced by these sentiments, I have felt that it is exceedingly fortunate that, to a great extent, the Federal government occupies thus far not an aggressive atti- tude, but practically a defensive one, while the necessity for action, if civil war is to be initiated, falls on those who seek to dismember and to subvert the Union. REINFORCEMENT OF FORT SUMTER. 607 It has seemed to me equally fortunate that the disunionists are absolutely with- out any justification for their rash and desperate designs. The administration of the government had been for a long time virtually in their own hands, and con- trolled and directed by themselves, when they began the work of revolution. They had, therefore, no other excuse than apprehensions of oppression from the new and adverse administration which was about to come into power. It seemed to me, farther, to be a matter of good fortune that the new and ad- verse administration must come in with both Houses of Congress containing major- ities opposed to its policy, so that, even if it would, it could commit no wrong or injustice against the states which were being madly goaded into_revolution. Under these circumstances, disunion could have no better basis to stand upon than a blind, unreasoning, popular excitement, arising out of a simple and harmless dis- appointment in a Presidential election; that excitement, if it should find no new ma- terial, must soon subside and leave disunion without any real support. On the other hand, I have believed firmly that everywhere, even in South Carolina, devotion to the Union is a profound and permanent national sentiment, which, although it may be suppressed and silenced by terror for a time, could, if encouraged, be ultimately relied upon to rally the people of the seceding states to reverse, upon due delibera- tion, all the popular acts of legislatures and conventions by which they were hastily and violently committed to disunion. The policy of the time, therefore, has seemed to me to consist in conciliation, which should deny to disunionists any new provocation or apparent offence, while it would enable the Unionists in the slave states to maintain with truth and with effect that the alarms and apprehensions put forth by the disunionists are ground- less and false. I have not been ignorant of the objections that the administration was elected through the activity of the republican party; that it must continue to deserve and retain the confidence of that party; while conciliation towards the slave states tends to demoralize the republican party itself, on which party the main responsi- bility of maintaining the Union must rest. But it has seemed to me a sufficient answer first, that the administration could not demoralize the republican party without making some sacrifice of its essential principles, while no such sacrifice is necessary, or is anywhere authoritatively pro- posed; and secondly, if it be indeed true that pacification is necessary to prevent dismemberment of the Union and civil war, or either of them, no patriot and lover of humanity could hesitate to surrender party for the higher interests of country and humanity. Partly by design, partly by chance, this policy has been hitherto pursued by the late administration of the Federal government, and by the republican party in its corporate action. It is by this policy, thus pursued, I think, that the progress of dismemberment has been arrested after the seven Gulf States had seceded, and the border states yet remain, although they do so uneasily, in the Union. It is to a perseverance in this policy for a short time longer that I look as the only peaceful means of assuring the continuance of Virginia, Maryland, North Car- olina, Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, and Arkansas, or most of those states in the Union. It is through their good and patriotic offices that I look to see the Union sentiment revived and brought once more into activity in the seceding states, and through this agency those states themselves returning into the Union. I am not unaware that I am conceding more than can reasonably be demanded by the people of the border states. They could, speaking justly, demand nothing. They are bound by the Federal obligation to adhere to the Union without conces- sion or conciliation, just as much as the people of the free states are. But in ad- ministration we must deal with men, facts, and circumstances, not as they ought to be, but as they are. The fact then is that while the people of the border states desire to be loyal, they are at the same time sadly, though temporarily, demoralized by a sympathy for the slave states, which makes them forget their loyalty whenever there are any grounds for apprehending that the Federal government will resort to military coer- 608 MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS. cion against the seceding states, even though such coercion should be necessary to maintain the authority, or even the integrity, of the Union. This sympathy is un- reasonable, unwise, and dangerous, and therefore cannot, if left undisturbed, be permanent. It can be banished, however, only in one way, and that is by giving time for it to wear out, and for reason to resume its sway. Time will do this, if it be not hindered by new alarms and provocations. South Carolina opened the revolution. Apprehending chastisement by the mili- tary arm of the United States, she seized all the forts of the United States in the harbor of Charleston, except Fort Sumter, which, garrisoned by less than one hundred men, stands practically in a state of siege, but at the same time defying South Carolina, and, as the seceding states imagine, menacing her with con- quest. Every one knows first, that even if Sumter were adequately reinforced, it would still be practically useless to the government, because the administration in no case could attempt to subjugate Charleston, or the State of South Carolina.¹ It is held now because it is the property of the United States, and is a monument of their authority and sovereignty. I would so continue to hold it so long as it can be done without involving some danger or evil greater than the advantage of con- tinued possession. The highest military authority tells us that without supplies the garrison must yield in a few days to starvation that its numbers are so small that it must yield in a few days to attack by the assailants now lying around it, and that the case in this respect would remain the same even if it were supplied, but not reinforced. All the inilitary and naval authorities tell us that any attempt at supplies would be unavailing without the employment of armed military and naval force. If we employ armed force for the purpose of supplying the fort, we give all the provocation that could be offered by combining reinforcement with supply. The question submitted to us then practically is: Supposing it to be possible to reinforce and supply Fort Sumter, is it wise now to attempt it, instead of with- drawing the garrison? The most that could be done by any means now in our hands would be to throw two hundred and fifty to four hundred men into the garrison with provisions for supplying it five or six months. In this active and enlightened country, in this season of excitement, with a daily press, daily mails, and an incessantly operating telegraph, the design to reinforce and supply the garrison must become known to the opposite party at Charleston as soon at least as preparation for it should begin. The garrison would then almost certainly fall by assault before the expedition could reach the harbor of Charleston. But supposing the secret kept, the expedi- tion must engage in conflict on entering the harbor of Charleston; suppose it to be overpowered and destroyed, is that new outrage to be avenged, or are we then to return to our attitude of immobility? Should we be allowed to do so? Moreover, in that event, what becomes of the garrison? I suppose the expedition successful. We have then a garrison in Fort Sumter that can defy assault for six months. What is it to do then? Is it to make war by opening its batteries and attempting to demolish the defences of the Carolin- ians? Can it demolish them if it tries? If it cannot, what is the advantage we shall have gained? If it can, how will it serve to check or prevent disunion? In either case it seems to me that we will have inaugurated a civil war by our own act, without an adequate object, after which reunion will be hopeless, at least under this administration, or in any other way than by a popular disavowal both of the war and of the administration which unnecessarily commenced it. Fraternity is the element of union war is the very element of disunion. Fraternity, if prac- tised by this administration, will rescue the Union from all its dangers. If this administration, on the other hand, take up the sword, then an opposite party will offer the olive branch, and will, as it ought, profit by the restoration of peace and union. 1 See ante, p. 519. GOV. HICKS. - MEDIATION. 609 ས I may be asked whether I would in no case, and at no time, advise force — whether I purpose to give up everything. I reply - No, I would not initiate war to regain a useless and unnecessary position on the soil of the seceding states. I would not provoke war in any way now. I would resort to force to protect the collection of the revenue, because that is a necessary as well as legitimate public object. Even then it should be only a naval force that I would employ for that necessary purpose, while I would defer military action on land until à case should arise where we would hold the defensive. In that case we should have the spirit of the country and the approval of mankind on our side.. In the other, we should peril peace and union, because we had not the courage to practise prudence and moderation at the cost of temporary misapprehension. If this counsel seem to be impassive and even unpatriotic, I console myself by the reflection that it is such as Chatham gave to his country under circumstances not widely different. MEDIATION PROPOSED. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, April 22, 1861. His Excellency THOS. H. HICKS, Governor of Maryland: SIR: I have had the honor to receive your communication of this morning, in which you inform me that you have felt it to be your duty to advise the President of the United States to order elsewhere the troops then off Annapolis, and also that no more may be sent through Maryland; and that you have further suggested that Lord Lyons be requested to act as mediator between the contending parties in our country to prevent the effusion of blood. The President directs me to acknowledge the receipt of that communication, and to assure you that he has weighed the counsels which it contains with the re- spect which he habitually cherishes for the Chief Magistrates of the several states, and especially for yourself. He regrets, as deeply as any magistrate or citizen of the country can, that demonstrations against the safety of the United States, with very extensive preparations for the effusion of blood, have made it his duty to call out the force to which you allude. The force now sought to be brought through Maryland is intended for nothing but the defence of this capital. The President has necessarily confided the choice of the national highway which that force shall take in coming to this city to the Lieutenant-General commanding the Army of the United States, who, like his only predecessor, is not less distinguished for his humanity, than for his loyalty, patriot- ism, and distinguished public service. The President instructs me to add, that the national highway thus selected by the Lieutenant-General, has been chosen by him, upon consultation with prominent magistrates and citizens of Maryland, as the one which, while a route is absolutely necessary, is farthest removed from the populous cities of the State, and with the expectation that it would therefore be the least objectionable one. The President cannot but remember that there has been a time in the history of our country when a General of the American Union, with forces designed for the defence of its capital, was not unwelcome anywhere in the State of Maryland, and certainly not at Annapolis, then, as now, the capital of that patriotic state, and then, also, one of the capitals of the Union. If eighty years could have obliterated all the other noble sentiments of that age in Maryland, the President would be hopeful, nevertheless, that there is one that would forever remain there and everywhere. That sentiment is that no domestic contention whatever, that may arise among the parties of this Republic, ought in any case to be referred to any foreign arbitrament, least of all to the arbitrament of an European monarchy. 39 610 MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS. REBEL EMISSARIES. Memorandum. March 15, 1861. Mr. John Forsyth, of the State of Alabama, and Mr. Martin J. Crawford, of the State of Georgia, on the 11th inst., through the kind offices of a distinguished Senator, submitted to the Secretary of State their desire for an unofficial interview. This request was, on the 12th inst., upon exclusively public consideration, respect- fully declined. On the 13th inst., while the Secretary was preoccupied, Mr. A. D. Banks, of Virginia, called at this Department, and was received by the Assistant-Secretary, to whom he delivered a sealed communication, which he had been charged by Messrs. Forsyth and Crawford to present to the Secretary in person. In that communication Messrs. Forsyth and Crawford inform the Secretary of State that they have been duly accredited by the Government of the Confederate States of America as Commissioners to the Government of the United States, and they set forth the objects of their attendance at Washington. They observe that seven states of the American Union, in the exercise of a right inherent in every free people, have withdrawn, through conventions of their people, from the United States, reassumed the attributes of sovereign power, and formed a government of their own, and that those Confederate States now constitute an independent nation de facto and de jure, and possess a government perfect in all its parts, and fully endowed with all the means of self-support. Messrs. Forsyth and Crawford, in their aforesaid communication, thereupon pro- ceeded to inform the Secretary that, with a view to a speedy adjustment of all questions growing out of the political separation thus assumed, upon such terms of amity and good will as the respective interests, geographical contiguity, and the future welfare of the supposed two nations might render necessary, they are in- structed to make to the Government of the United States, overtures for the open- ing of negotiations, assuring this government that the President, Congress, and people of the Confederate States earnestly desire a peaceful solution of these great questions, and that it is neither their interest nor their wish to make any de- mand which is not founded in strictest justice, nor do any act to injure their late confederates. After making these statements, Messrs. Forsyth and Crawford close their com- munication, as they say, in obedience to the instructions of their government, by requesting the Secretary of State to appoint as early a day as possible, in order that they may present to the President of the United States the credentials which they bear, and the objects of the mission with which they are charged. The Secretary of State frankly confesses that he understands the events which have recently occurred, and the condition of political affairs which actually exists in the part of the Union to which his attention has thus been directed, very differently from the aspect in which they are presented by Messrs. Forsyth and Crawford. He sees in them, not a rightful and accomplished revolution and an in- dependent nation, with an established government, but rather a perversion of a temporary and partisan excitement to the inconsiderate purposes of an unjustifi- able and unconstitutional aggression upon the rights and the authority vested in the Federal Government, and hitherto benignly exercised, as from their very nature they always must so be exercised, for the maintenance of the Union, the preservation of liberty, and the security, peace, welfare, happiness, and aggrandize- ment of the American people. The Secretary of State, therefore, avows to Messrs. Forsyth and Crawford that he looks patiently but confidently for the cure of evils which have resulted from proceedings so unnecessary, so unwise, so unusual, and so unnatural, not to irregular negotiations, having in view new and untried re- lations with agencies unknown to and acting in derogation of the Constitution and laws, but to regular and considerate action of the people of those states, in cooper- ation with their brethren in the other states, through the Congress of the United IMMIGRATION.— RIGHTS OF ALIENS. 611 States, and such extraordinary conventions, if there shall be need thereof, as the Federal Constitution contemplates and authorizes to be assembled. It is, however, the purpose of the Secretary of State on this occasion not to in- vite or engage in any discussion of these subjects, but simply to set forth his rea- sons for declining to comply with the request of Messrs. Forsyth and Crawford. On the 4th of March inst., the newly-elected President of the United States, in view of all the facts bearing on the present question, assumed the executive ad- ministration of the government, first delivering, in accordance with an early, honored custom, an Inaugural Address to the people of the United States. The Secretary of State respectfully submits a copy of this address to Messrs. Forsyth and Crawford. A simple reference to it will be sufficient to satisfy those gentlemen that the Secretary of State, guided by the principles therein announced, is prevented al- together from admitting or assuming that the states referred to by them have, in law or in fact, withdrawn from the Federal Union, or that they could do so in the manner described by Messrs. Forsyth and Crawford, or in any other manner than with the consent and concert of the people of the United States, to be given through a National Convention, to be assembled in conformity with the provisions of the Constitution of the United States. Of course the Secretary of State cannot act upon the assumption, or in any way admit, that the so-called Confederate States constitute a foreign Power, with whom diplomatic relations ought to be established. Under these circumstances, the Secretary of State, whose official duties are con- fined, subject to the direction of the President, to the conducting of the foreign re- lations of the country, and do not at all embrace domestic questions, or questions arising between the several states and the Federal Government, is unable to com- ply with the request of Messrs. Forsyth and Crawford, to appoint a day on which they may present the evidences of their authority and the objects of their visit to the President of the United States. On the contrary, he is obliged to state to Messrs. Forsyth and Crawford that he has no authority, nor is he at liberty to recognize them as diplomatic agents, or hold correspondence or other communica- tion with them. Finally, the Secretary of State would observe that, although he has supposed that he might safely and with propriety have adopted these conclusions without making any reference of the subject to the Executive, yet so strong has been his desire to practise entire directness and to act in a spirit of perfect respect and candor towards Messrs. Forsyth and Crawford, and that portion of the Union in whose name they present themselves before him, that he has cheerfully submitted this paper to the President, who coincides generally in the views it expresses, and sanctions the Secretary's decision declining official intercourse with Messrs. For- syth and Crawford. IMMIGRATION.- RIGHTS OF ALIENS. WASHINGTON, August 14, 1862. SIR: I have received your letter in which you express an apprehension of a deficiency of labor in the country, resulting from our large military operations; and you very properly speak of the desirableness, under present circumstances, of an increase of immigration. You observe in this connection, that it would be im- portant that persons proposing to emigrate should have some official assurance that they would not be required to perform military service. In reply, I have to observe that I some time ago instructed our representatives in foreign countries to make known, as well as they conveniently can, the lucrative rewards which the country is now offering to emigrant laborers. I can hardly sup- pose that there exists, anywhere in the world, the erroneous belief that aliens are 612 MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS. liable here to do military duty. If you think otherwise, there will be no objection to your giving any publication you please to this communication. NOTE. Mr. Seward, in a circular to consuls, issued in February, 1862, called their attention to the Homestead act, and desired them to make public in their districts the various reasons why, "in no country in the civilized world are such opportunities afforded, as in the United States, to active, industrious and intelligent men, for the acquisition of abundant means of support and comfortable homesteads for them- selves and their families." This circular attracted much attention abroad; it was held to show a spirit not often found in a nation so embarrassed as the United States were. An article in the Paris Siècle styled it "The most important measure which any government has ever taken towards the application of the principle of the universal fraternity of nations. In calling upon the proletary class of Europe to go in search of property to Amer- ica, the United States remember their origin, remember how they were peopled, and how the oppressed came thither in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to seek liberty there. They are true to their traditions." WASHINGTON, July 11, 1862. SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the reception of your note of June 23, accompanied by a copy of resolutions which were unanimously adopted by the General Convention of Congregational Ministers and Churches recently assembled at Norwich. In compliance with your request, these resolutions have been submitted to the President of the United States. I am instructed to express his cordial thanks for the assurances of confidence and support thus tendered to him by a body so deservedly respected and so widely influential as the Congregational Church of Vermont. The President is deeply impressed by the fervent and hopeful patriotism and benevolence which pervade the resolutions. It is the Union and the Constitution of this country which are at stake in the present unhappy strife, but that Union is not a mere stringent polit- ical one, nor is that Constitution a lifeless or spiritless political one? The Union is the guaranty of perpetual peace and prosperity to the American people, and the Constitution is a mark of civil and religious liberty for all classes and condi- tions of men. Who that carefully reads the history of the nations for the period that this Re- public has existed under this Constitution and this Union, can fail to see and to appreciate the influence it has exerted in meliorating the condition of mankind? Who that justly appreciates that influence will undertake to foretell the misfor- tunes and despondency which must occur on every continent, should this Republic desist all at once from its auspicious career, and be resolved into a confused medley of severed, discordant, and contentious states? The duty of the Christian coin- cides with that of the patriot, and the duty of the priest with that of the soldier, in averting so sad and fearful a consummation. "When all that has been said and wrote and thought by Mr. Seward about American affairs shall have been gathered up into one consistent whole, it will be known how capacious was that range of vision that took in the whole, past, present, and future of the Republic, and how strong was that faith in man, which in the very turmoil of civil war could cheerfully prophesy the complete success of those great ideas and institutions on which the Union will rise to the foremost rank among the nations of the earth." Rev. A. D. Mayo, 1872. CORRESPONDENCE. 613 A VINDICATION BY REV. JOSEPH P. THOMPSON, D. D., EDITOR OF THE "N. Y. INDEPENDENT.” Dr. Joseph P. Thompson in an article for the "Independent," from Berlin, Prussia, under date of October 15, 1872, presents to the public two letters of the late Hon. William H. Seward, which at the time had never before been pub- lished. Appended is the substance of the article, with the letters of Mr. Seward in full:- "The death of Mr. Seward has absolved me from the injunction not to publish the following correspondence. Having guarded it with sacred privacy for years, I feel that it now belongs to history. It was in the last days of President Bu- war. chanan's administration. Treason had avowed itself in the Senate of the United States and was more than suspected in the Cabinet. The South was arming. Fort Sumter was threatened. General Scott was making such show of preparation for putting down rebellion as the crippled resources of the War Department and the hinderances of the executive had left to him, and the nation was drifting into The horror of bloodshed and the fears of commercial and financial men gave new strength to the old counsels of compromise, and there was danger that the Senate would once more succumb to the dictation of the slaveocracy, from which Seward, Sumner, Hale, and their compatriots had barely emancipated it. The 'Union-savers' were ready to yield to any demand of the South as the condi- tion of peace. At this moment it was announced that Mr. Seward would make a speech. 'The irrepressible conflict,' in which he had borne so conspicuous a part, was approaching its final issue. He was known to have accepted from Mr. Lincoln the post of Secretary of State, and his utterances were awaited with breath- less interest, as foreshadowing the policy of the incoming administration. Mr. Seward spoke, but the grand pleas for freedom which had awakened the midnight echoes of the Senate Chamber were no longer heard. He too argued for Union and only for Union, as if there were no such thing as slavery in the land. The first feeling of the friends of freedom was one of surprise and disappointment; and this was almost instantaneously followed by distrust and indignation. Mr. Seward was denounced as an apostate; the most abusive epithets were heaped upon him, and the most anxious forebodings were indulged concerning his influence upon Mr. Lincoln's administration. "Of course, the Independent' must notice his equivocal utterances; but what to say? Suddenly it dawned upon me to read the speech between the lines,' and there might be discovered a far-reaching sagacity that showed Mr. Seward to be consistent with himself and master of the occasion. Being supported in this view by a counsellor the penetration of whose wisdom always answered to the in- tegrity of his principles (Dr. Joshua Leavitt), I wrote an interpretation of Mr. Seward's speech and a vindication of its author quite at variance with the current construction of republican and anti-slavery journals. This article was the basis of the following correspondence:" WASHINGTON, February 23, 1861. MY DEAR SIR: The American people in our day have two great interests. One, the ascendency of freedom over slavery; the other, the integrity of the Union! The slavery interest has derived its whole political power from bringing the lat- ter object into antagonism with the former. Twelve years ago freedom was in danger and the Union was not. I spake then so singly for freedom that short- sighted men inferred that I was disloyal to the Union. I endured the reproach without complaining, and now I have my vindication. To-day, practically, freedom is not in danger, and Union is. With the loss of Union all would be lost. With the attempt to maintain Union by civil war wantonly brought on there would be danger of reaction against the administration charged with the preservation of both 614 MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS. freedom and the Union. Now, therefore, I speak singly for Union, striving, if possible, to save it peaceably; if not possible, then to cast the responsibility upon the party of slavery. For this singleness of speech I am now suspected of in- fidelity to freedom. In this case, as in the other, I refer myself not to the men of my time, but to the judgment of history. I thank you, my dear Sir, for having anticipated what I think history will pronounce.¹ But do not publish or show this letter. Leave me to be misunderstood. I am not impatient. I write to you only because I would not be nor seem to be ungrate- ful. Faithfully your friend, WILLIAM H. SEWARD. "A few months later an absurd rumor was started that Mr. Seward was responsi- ble for certain delays and disappointments in the prosecution of the war, and he was even accused of disloyalty. In the absence of the responsible editors a para- graph to this effect crept into the Independent.' In their next issue the editors promptly repudiated it; and this correction called forth from Mr. Seward the fol- lowing letter: >> WASHINGTON, November 15, 1861. MY DEAR SIR : Accustomed to leave misapprehensions of my motives, action, and character to find their corrections in the course of events, I forebore from all notice of the statement in the late number of the "Independent," which was calcu- lated to bring my loyalty to the Union in question, although it excited my profound astonishment. But the rule of self-restraint to which I have adverted does not forbid me from acknowledging good offices rendered to me from motives of patri- otism or the love of truth. I give you, therefore, my sincere thanks for your magnanimous contradiction of that erroneous statement. This correction having been made in the absence of any complaint on my part, it comes to me as an agree- able surprise. Permit me to add that it is a source of much pleasure thus to learn that the edi- tors and proprietors of the "Independent," who have so long deservedly enjoyed my respect and confidence as patriotic and benevolent men, are not so easily misled in the impatience of the war as to suppose that I could abandon or change the princi- ples and sentiments of my past life in the very moment when my country, under a sense of danger, has called me into her service, with a view that I shall carry them into full effect. Dear Sir, I am very respectfully and faithfully your friend and obedient serv- WILLIAM H. SEWARD. ant. "The first of these letters was written by Mr. Seward's own hand, and the italics are his. The short, crisp sentences show with what earnestness of feeling he was then moved. The second letter was dictated to an amanuensis and signed by Mr. Seward, and is more in the vein of formal politeness. Yet both exhibit that dig- nity of conscious rectitude and that patience of self-control which were among the most remarkable characteritics of this most remarkable man." MR. SEWARD AND HIS OFFICERS. Correspondence. WASHINGTON, March 3, 1869. TO THE HON. WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State: The undersigned, officers in the Department of State, cannot allow the occasion of your retirement from the position of Secretary of State to pass without ex- pressing their cordial appreciation of the uniform and considerate kindness which you have manifested towards them while in the discharge of their humbler duties. They feel that it would not be altogether proper, and might even be deemed pre- sumptuous, in them, to speak of the manner in which, during a period in the 1 See vol. iv. p. 118, "Whittier." 651. MR. SEWARD'S REPLY. 615 • country's history of unexampled difficulties and danger, you have discharged the various and exacting duties of your high office. While they do not doubt, how- ever, what on that point will be the verdict of that tribunal from which there is no appeal, they especially desire to bear testimony to the fact, that neither the press- ure of public cares nor the weight of private sorrows the latter seemingly too heavy to be borne- have served to disturb the exercise on your part of that courtesy towards subordinates which renders official intercourse so gratifying, and the discharge of official duties so pleasant. Earnestly hoping for their country's sake that your useful life may be greatly prolonged, and for your own that it may be attended with every possible blessing, the undersigned subscribe themselves, your obedient servants, GEO. J. Abbot. GEORGE E. BAKER. GEORGE BARTLE. SAMUEL J. BARROWS. SEVELLON A. BROWN. S. S. BENEDICT. NEWTON BENEDICT. GEORGE L. BERDAN. D. N. BURBANK. R. S. CHEW. R. S. CHILTON. THOMAS C. Cox. A. H. CLEMENTS. ALBERT DAggett. CHARLES W. DAVIS. JAMES C. DERBY. THEODORE W. DIMON. W. P. FAHERTY. ALFRED HARRISSE. JOHN H. HASWELL. MR. SEWARD'S REPLY. E. HAYWOOD. W. HUNTER. WILLIAM HOGAN. FERD. JEFFERSON. FRED. KORTE. CHARLES MCCARTHY. HUGH MCGRAW. THOMAS MORRISON. J. R. O'BRYON. J. P. POLK. H. D. J. PRATT. DWIGHT T. REED. P. L. SHUCKING. E. P. SMITH. JASPER SMITH. F. O. ST. CLAIR. WARREN C. STONE. E. D. WEBSTER. A. TUNSTALL WELCH. ARTHUR B. WOOD. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, WASHINGTON, D. C., March 3, 1869. GENTLEMEN: I hasten to acknowledge the receipt of the very kind letter which you have just laid upon my table. It gives me sincere pleasure to recognize among the names subscribed to it every loyal, capable, trustworthy, and reliable officer whom I found in this Department when I entered it, with the exception of those who have voluntarily retired from the public service. It gives me equal pleasure to witness that there is not among the subscribers of your letter one person whom I cannot recommend for continued public service. A comparison between the list of subscribers and the official roll, as it stood when I entered the Depart- ment, and as it stood at various periods afterwards, discloses the honorable and gratifying fact, that although the country has passed through a long and severe civil war, and has subsequently passed through many political commotions con- sequent on the restoration of peace, only two persons have been dismissed the service for disloyalty, two or three at most for incompetency, and one for betraying the confidence of the Government. Gentlemen, it would be as idle as it would be presumptuous for us to undertake to fix a standard for the popular appreciation of our own services. That will be the task of history, which delights in contemplating studiously the vicissitudes of nations; and that task can only be performed when we shall have ceased to be. Let us therefore, be content for the present with claiming for ourselves and conceding to each other the humble pretension, that whatever may be the errors which history may at any time detect, those errors 616 MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS. have been in all cases errors of judgment, and not of motive or purpose. In the name of the President of the United States I thank you all, and each of you, for the efficiency, fidelity, ability and courtesy with which you have performed your several trusts; and I pray God to have you all constantly, with your respective families and friends, in His holy keeping. I am, gentlemen, your obedient servant, WILLIAM H. SEWARD. To Messrs. W. HUNTER, R. S. CHEW, E. PESHINE SMITH, GEORGE E. BAKER, R. S. CHILTON, &C., &C., &c. SEWARD. EIGHT years of service, such as greatest kings Might seek, yet be unable to perform: Thou hast rode out from first to last the storm That shook the nation. Now the day that brings To all the land the crowning act of peace Takes off thy burden, gives thee glad release. How through these years in silence hast thou borne The cruel doubt, the slanders of debate The assassin's knife, and keener blade of scorn Wielded by party in its narrow hate: How could'st thou pause each step to vindicate Of thy surpassing work? Lo! it is done. Freedom enshrined in our regenerate state, And they who were divided made as one! March 4, 1869. A. D. F. R. INDEX TO MEMOIR. VOL. V. Adams, John.. ADAMS, C. F. Adams, John Quincy. Alabama Claims Alaska... • Alaska and China Treaties. Albany, Funeral Services. Albany Law Journal.... Amendments, Thirteenth and Four- PAGE .3, 11, 35 Commission, Geneva. PAGE 17 4 Commissioners, Rebel.. 6 • • • • 12, 17, 36 Congress and Mexico... 27 16 Consular System Improved.. 4 .5, 25, 30 Convention, Philadelphia.. 24 • 30 Cooper, Peter, and Isthmus Canal. 34 35 Copenhagen, Treaty. 29 - 13 Corwin, Thomas.. 3 Cuba, Arguelles.. 20 teenth.. Annexation, Danish Islands 23 29 DALL, W. H., on Alaska. 25 Annexation, San Domingo.. 29 Dana on the Trent Case.. 11 • Arbitration... • 10, 15 Danish Islands, Purchase Proposed... 29 Arguelles, The Case of.. 19 • Darien Treaty. 5 Assassination of President. 21 Dayton, W. L. 3, 16 • Attack, Murderous, on F. W. Seward. 21 Death of Mr. Seward.. 35 Attempted Assassination of Secretary 21 Denmark, Treaty with 29 Auburn Speeches.... .16, 24, 28, 32 Department, State. • .3, 9 Auburn, Funeral, Tomb, etc. 35 Depredations, British. 16 • District of Columbia. 9 • • BIGELOW, John.. .3, 37 Dix, John A.. 35 Birthday (70th) in Egypt.. 32 • • Buchanan, President. Bulwer and Clayton Treaty Burlingame, A.: CABINET.. 22 EDMUNDS, George F.. 13 • 33 Election, Presidential. 16 .3, 29 Emancipation. 10 Emigration 25 · 6, 7, 14 Enlistments. 9 • • Cabinet and Senators. • Cable, Atlantic Canal, Isthmus. 14 Eulogium, by Charles Francis Adams. 35 34, 35 • .5, 33, 34 Eulogium, by William M. Evarts. 37 Evarts, William M..... .18, 23, 34, 37 China.. Clerks, Enlistment. Casualties.. Chandler Z., Telegraph. Chase and the Cabinet. Chase, Judge, Court of Impeachment. Chase, Secretary…. Chinese Legation at Auburn. Chinese Treaty Negotiated... Chinese, Exclusion of, Deprecated. Claims, Alabama... • Clayton and Bulwer Treaty.. Clerks, Department.. Coinage Convention.. Council, Cabinet.. 20 Evans, Albert S., Book on Mexico.... 32 • • 35 Exposition, Paris.. 26 • 14 Extradition.. 19, 23 23 • 14 FESSENDEN, Senator.. 24 .5, 29 Fish, Hamilton, Secretary of State. 17 • 29 Fort Hill Cemetery. 35 • 30 Florida, The. • • 3,9 9 26 Grant, Gen., for President.. + Collins, Perry McDonough.. Colored men, Duty of.. 35 • 9 Grimes, Senator • 29 Fugitive Slaves.. 16 France.. 33 France and Mexico. GERMANY and Naturalization.. 6 Greeley, Horace, Defeat and Death of Great Britain. 10 • + 17 • • 6, 16, 26 26 • • 18 • .28, 33 33 • • 11, 16 24 618 INDEX TO MEMOIR. VOL. V. • HAMILTON, Alexander, Quoted..... Hayes, President... Hayti Recognized.. Hughes, Archbishop. Human Rights.. Hunter, William.. IMMIGRATION. • • · Impeachment of President. Inscription on Tomb.. International Law.. • • PAGE 11 President, The, Death of. Presidential Election.... 5 * • PAGE 21 16, 28 • 18, 26 7 Proclamation of Emancipation. Proclamations, Ratification • • · 13, 23 24 18 Provisional Court in New Orleans.. 13 .3, 21 RAASLOFF, General. 29 25 Reconstruction, Restoration. 24 23 Resignation, In Cabinet. 14 35 Resignation and Senators 14 11 Retirement from Office.. 30 Intervention Islands, Danish.. • • 6 5 Roberts, Marshall O., and Isthmus Canal. 34 Islands, West India. Isthmus Canal.. JEFFERSON on Disloyalty... Johnson, Andrew. 5 Rogers, Randolph, Sculptor.. 36 + 5, 33 Russell, Lord John. • 16, 18 Russia... .5,25 33 16, 21 Juarez, President. 30 8 KEARSARGE, The... LEGISLATURE of New York, Memorial 35 Letters.. • SAMANA BAY, Purchase of, Favored.. 29 Sanford, II. S. Schurz, Carl.. San Domingo. • • 17 Santa Cruz. • • • • • Scott, General. Seaton, W. W……. Liberia, Recognized · Lyons, Lord.. 26 Senators and the Cabinet. • • .10, 12 Seward, F. W.. Seward, George F • MARSH, G. P.. Maryland, Governor of. Martin, W. R.. Mason and Slidell.. McClellan and Slaves. McClellan, General. McIlvaine, Bishop.. + • • Mediation, Intrigues.. Memoir, Historical and Biographical..3-37 Memorandum.. Mexico, Remarkable Tour through... 31 Mexico and Congress.. 3 Seward, Olive Risley 28 3 28 3 ► 22 7 14 • • • 3, 20, 31, 32 30 32 • • 10, 15 Seward, W. H.. 36 10 Sumner, Charles, on Alaska. Sumter, Fort.. • 3-37 25 6 10 Slave Trade. • ► • • 5, 12 .10, 16 Slave Traders hanged. 12 · · 7 Spain... 19 • 15 Speeches at Auburn • • 16, 24, 28, 32 Speeches in Mexico. 32 6 Speeches in New York. 24, 34 St. Albans Raid.. 13 27 St. Thomas. 28 • • Mexico and France. • 26 Stanley, Lord. 17 Mexican Demonstrations of Regard... 31 Statue in New York City. 36 Militia Called Out.. 10 Stebbins, Sumner. 8 • Ministers, Character of. Mission, Unofficial Monroe Doctrine, The. Motley J. Lothrop. • • • 3 Stoeckl, Mr. De. 25 6 Surratt, John H.. 23 • • 27, 33 3 NAPOLEON. • Thompson, Rev. J. P... 6, 16, 26 TELEGRAPH, Intercontinental. Thanksgiving Proclamation, Notable.. 34 22 8 Naturalization. New Orleans, Capture of. New Orleans Court. Nicaragua... * • OPINION, Cabinet, Confidential...... Oration by Charles Francis Adams. Oration by William M. Evarts.. • 5, 18 Tomb and Inscription. 35 • 13 Travels, Book of. 32 13 Trent Affair, The. 10 • 1 5 Treaties.. 5, 12, 34 TREATIES: 6 Alaska, Acquisition of. 25 • 35 China. 29 · 37 Colombia.. Danish Islands. • PAPER, A Cabinet. 6 Darien. 34 • 5, 29 5 Paris Exposition.. 26 Naturalization. • • Peabody, Charles A., Judge New Or- leans Court.. Nicaragua.. 13 Suppression of Slave Trade. • Philadelphia Convention.. 24 Tributes of the Nations.. • President, The, Retains Cabinet.. 15 Troops through Baltimore. 18 34 .5, 12 22 10 INDEX TO DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. VOL. V. 619 Troops, British, through Maine.. Trumbull, Senator. PAGE 11 Volume by Olive Risley Seward, Travels... PAGE 24 32 Voyage around the World.. 32 UNION, The, Impregnable.... Unofficial Mission to Europe. 4 7 WAGES of Colored Soldiers.. 9 • War, Foreign, Avoided. 10 • VISITS, Alaska.. California and Utah. 30 Washington, President.. 22 • · 30 Webster, Daniel. · 11, 17 Mexico.. 30 Weed, Thurlow 7 • North Pacific Coast. 30 Wickham, W. H., Mayor, Unveiling West Indies.. 28 Statue. 37 Volume of Autobiography, by F. W. Seward.. 32 Wilkes, Captain Charles. Wilberforce.. 10 12 Volume by Evans on Mexico. 32 INDEX TO DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. VOL. V. ADAMS, C. F., on the Situation....... 182 | Capital, The, Threatened.... Alabama, The, Destroyed..... 136, 148 Alabama, The, Piracy Discussed.. 148 Amendment, 13th. Antietam, Battle of. Armies of the Union. • • .122, 174 Army of the Potomac...50, 74, 83, 96, 109 Assassination of Mr. Seward At- tempted Cavalry, The.. Chambersburg. Chambersburg Burned Chancellorsville. • · • · 137 110 • • 109 • 145 • • 74, 80, 97, 101 126 • 45, 55, 75 Charleston. • .89, 93, 98, 107 Chattanooga.. 63 Cherbourg. 136 181 Chesapeake, The Steamer.. 158 • 182 Chickahominy. 61 • 183 Chicago and Niagara.. 153 Clay and Holcombe's Intrigues. 144 184 Cold Harbor.. 132 108 Colored Soldiers. 121 • .144, 151 Confederacy, The, its Collapse. 184 4 .129, 148 Confederate States. 41 171, 180 42 Assassination, Effect of in Europe. Assassins tried by Military Court... Assassins Sentenced to Imprisonment and Death... Atlanta, Ironclad, The, Captured.. Atlanta, City of. Averill, General.. • BALTIMORE and Ohio Railroad Attacked 140 Banks, General....... .54, 59, 95, 106, 123 Battles, Severe.....61, 67, 74, 85, 101, Birney, General. Blair, F. P., Mission to Rebels. Blenker, General. Blockade, The.......48, 51, 54, 82, 90, 112 Booth, John Wilkes, Captured, Shot.. 183 British Attitude 46, 51, 53, 83, 99, 100, 136 Bull Run, Battle of. Burnside, General.. · • + • Conferences.. Congress Summoned. Congress. .42, 47, 84, 91, 93, 117, 122, 130, 132, 135, 176 109, 127, 132 • 156 Convention, Military, Proposed.. Corinth. 178 • 57, 81 • 171 54 Corps, Army, 16th and 19th. Counter Revolution, A, Considered. Currency Bill, The. Curtis, General... 142 163 • · 132 • • 52 42 DAHLGREN, Admiral.. 99 Davis Jeff., and Lincoln. 117 • • 66 Davis Jeff., and the Pope. Davis Jeff., and Georgia.. Davis Jeff., Indicted. 118 · • 155 184 Dayton, Minister, on the Union. • .77, 120 119 Debt, Rebel, Delusions 127 Deerhound, The, at Cherbourg.. 177 50, 83, 89, 109 Butler, General.....66, 106, 126, 156, 169 Butler, General, Woman Order, New Orleans... CAMPAIGN, A new.. Canby, General.. • • 137 620 INDEX TO DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. VOL. V. 128, 133, 146 • • + 39 to 185 Defeats and Demoralization..42, 125, Demoralization among Rebels... Despatches from General Grant. Diary. Disunion, First Success. PAGE PAGE Invasion of Loyal States... 76, 79, 105, 109, 139 179 Invasion of Maryland. 109, 139 128 Invasion of Ohio. 102 • Ironclads. .71, 82, 86, 87, 98, 108 44 Ironsides, The. 84 Draft Riots in New York. .109, 113 Italy, The King of. 118 EARLY, General, repulsed.. Elections, popular....83, 115, 119, 146, 142 JACKSON, Stonewall. 60 152, 157 Johnson, Andrew, President. Johnston, General, Death of. 181 • • • 53 • • Emancipating Crusade, The Army... 48 Emancipation, Order for... Emancipation Proclamation….. Emigration from South to West. Emissaries, Rebel.. Emperor of France, The.. Europe's Sanguine Hopes. European Delusions. FAIR OAKS, Battle of. Farragut, Admiral.. Foreign Relations. Fort Donelson.. Fort Fisher. Fort Henry, Capture of. Fort Macon. Fort Morgan. • 78 • 86, 106 KEARSARGE, The, Victory of. Kentucky. 136 • .52, 82 122 King of Italy, The. 118 • • 143 Knoxville. M 91, 99 · D • 81, 93 • 91, 93 LEE, General, Surrenders to General Grant. Lyons, Lord. 53 61 • .63, 119, 152 ..43, 69, 79, 91, 100 MACON Captured.. Malvern Hill... 181 • • .45, 52 183 • 145 90 169 47 · 57 Manassas, Battle of. Maryland Invaded. Mason and Slidell. Maximilian.. · 42 • 74, 105 46 124 Fort Pulaski Captured. Fort Stevens. Fort Sumter. Florida, The Pirate. 163 151 McClellan, General. • • 54 McClernand, General. 142 McDowell, General.. 41, 113 France, Attitude and Course....61, 99, 100 50, 60, 64, 70, 74 McPherson, General, Death of. Meade, General. • 116 89 56 144 • • 96, 109 Meigs, General. | • Franklin, General…. 115 Mercier, Mr.. .56, 91 Fredericksburg, Battle of. • • • .89, 109 Fremont, General... 50 Merrimack, The, in Hampton Roads.. 51 Message, President's. 117 GALVESTON 88 • • 96, 105, 109 • • + • Garibaldi.. Georgia, The Pirate, Captured... Gettysburg. · Gilmore, General. Gilmour, Harry, Captured. Gold Declines. Graut, General. .84, 170, 112, 124 .83, 95, 104, 127, 134 Great Britain, Attitude. Great Britain, Course.. Grierson, Colonel.. HALLECK, General. Harbor, Cold. Harper's Ferry. · · • • 46, 51, 53, 168 Motley and General Wadsworth. | Murfreesboro.. • 86 154 • Mexico, Extraordinary Proceedings, 49, 124 Mill Spring, Battle and Victory.. Mississippi River. .63, 85, 105, 107, 129 Mitchell, General. 47 82 Mobile Attacked. • • • 149, 174 113 Monitor, The.. 87 174 Morgan, John. 110 • Mosby the Outlaw. 157 140 88 .83, 99, 136 110 NAPOLeon. Navy, The.. 98, 119, 120 67 Negro Soldiers. 132 Newbern, Capture of. .101, 141 New Orleans. • 107, 113 50 66, 69, 87 Hooker, General. • 89, 93, 95, 109 Nineteenth Corps • • Hudson, Port.. 95, 100 North Carolina Hunter, General. 131, 134 Notes on the War.. 142 108 39-185 • • Hunter, William, Acting Secretary... INDECISION, Despondency. Insurrectionary Movements Interests of Humanity Identified.. Intervention... Intrigue, Chicago and Niagara. Intrigues, Oanadian.. 182 OGEECHEE and General Sherman 165 [ • 72 41 • • 78 • • • Ohio, Raid into, Morgan... Olustee and General Seymour. Operations, Military, Important. 99 Opequan Creek and Sheridan. 153 Orange Railroad, Sheridan. 164 Ord, General, on James River. 111 120 • · 68 · 154 * 167, 177 156 3 61, 91 • • 1 • • • • + INDEX TO DIARY, OR NOTES ON THE WAR. VOL. V. PARLIAMENT, Proceedings on Assas- sination. • Parsons, The Philo. Pea Ridge, Battle of. Peninsula and Potomac Pennsylvania Invaded. Petersburg Attacked. Petersburg, The Siege of. Pirate Ships. → · • • • .74, 77 621 PAGE 52 Slavery...48, 52, 78, 84, 113, 116, 162, 166 Slave States Acceding to the Union.... States, Confederate. ..118, 170 PAGE Slave Trade Treaty. • 182 160 52 112, 161, 169 69 Slave Property Worthless. 134 • Stanton, Secretary of War, on Assas- sination... • • 182, 184 142, 180 .41, 162 .137, 148 Stephens, Alexander H. 172 • • Political Intrigues, Canada, Chicago.. 152 Stoneman, General. 110 • • Pope, General.. 60 Soldiers, Colored. · 121, 162, 166 Pope, The, and Jeff. Davis. • 118 Soldiers, Union. 45, 55 Porter, Admiral. .57, 103 South Mountain, Battle of. 74, 80, 101 Ports Opened. 58 Sumter, Fort.. 41 Port Hudson. 97, 100 • • 172 173 180 181 President, The, 78, 84, 87, 106, 116, 117, 172 President, The, Confers with Rebels.. President's Terms with Rebels. President Confers with General Sher- man. President, The, Assassinated Presidential Election, Results..41, 119, 152 Press, The, Unreasonable....120, 146, 185 Proclamation of Emancipation..... 86, 106 Public Credit, The.....84, 92, 94, 112, 124 RAID, Enemy's, into Maryland. Raid, Morgan's, in Ohio.. Rappahannock, Defeat. Europe, Passports.... Recognition no longer feared. Surrender of General Lee to General Grant.. Surrender of General Johnston to Gen- eral Sherman.. Surrender of Forces. · • • 47, 164, 167 TALLAHASSEE, The Pirate.. Telegraph, Intercontinental. Telegraph, The Atlantic. Thomas, General.... Thomas, General, at Mill Spring. Treaty, Slave Trade. Trent Affair, The... Truce of General Johnston and Sher- .48, 100 181 183 • 184 • • • • 148 · 136 152 • 47 52 139 45 111 93, 109 man... 183 • Rebel Conference.. 171 • Rebels Return to United States from UNION, The... 52, 60, 77, 100, 116 185 Union Forces. • .43, 55, 127 120 Union Successes. Recruiting, Volunteers.. Resumé of Operations, Army. 71 Union Losses. 100 Riots, Draft, in New York. Reverses... .42, 101, 125, 133, 146 Review of the Situation... Revolution, A Counter, Considered... 116, Richmond City...64, 67, 108, 132, 162, 177, 180 100, 113 VICKSBURG. 128 63, SS, 97 100, 146 Victories...98, 101, 104, 129, 136, 154, 165, 146, 163 Victory, The Final. Virginia Campaigns Visit to General Grant. + • • • • Rosecrans, General. . 82, 88, 96, 98, 102, 110 Rumors and Speculations. Russell, Earl, his View.. 185 WADSWORTH, General, his Death.. Wallace, General.. 51 War, Foreign, Avoided. • War, Hope of Closing. · • 160, 165 ST. ALBANS Raid.... Savannah and Sherman. Sedgwick, General. Sedition Developed. Semmes, the Pirate. Seven Days' Battles. • • 167 Washington City Threatened...49, 72, Webster, Daniel, Quoted... Weehawken, The, Captures the At- 109 41 137 671 lanta. Wilderness, The, Battles of. • • • 182 | Wilkes, Captain. 185 | Wilson, General …. • • • Winchester, Success. 醌 ​• • • • Seward, È. W., Wounded in Defence of his Father. • Seward Partially Recovered. Sharpsburg, Battle at 101 Sheridan, General...129, 148, 150, 157, 161 Sherman, General....87, 88, 120, 127, 135, Sigel, General... 151, 167, 170, 183 127, 130, 131, 141 • Sixth Corps, Repulses the Enemy. 142 Slaves Emancipated....48, 78, 84, 122, 162 | Winslow, Captain. Wright, General. • • • • YORK and James rivers.. Yorktown. Warren, General.. 180, 181 180 72 • 144 140 • 142 • • • • 46 143 • 156 74, 140 11 108 126 • + ་ • J 45 • • 183 153 • • • • • 136 • 144 108 57 ? 622 VOL. V. INDEX TO DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. INDEX TO SELECTIONS FROM DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. VOL. V. .310, 311 215 BELGIUM 317 Bigelow, John.. 422 • ADAMS, Charles Francis....199, 241, PAGE 263, 276, 280, 286, 289, 293, 313, 320, 337, 349, 390, 425, 446, 452, 475 Affair of the Trent. Alabama, The... Alabama Claims. · Alexandra, The, Case of.. Cruisers, Rebel... PAGE 405, 408, 452 | DALLAS, George M..... 189, 242 294-312 Dayton, William L.....221, 239, 258, .408, 453 268, 323, 327, 354, 382 237 • 409, 447, 450-480 383 393 395 450-480 Alliance of England and France. Alliances discussed Arbitration proposed. Artisans, British, their Sympathy..... 381 Assassination of the President. 425 Assassination (Attempted), of Sewards 425 Austria • Austria, its Character. • Denmark. Despatch, Circular, Announcing Proc- lamation of Emancipation......345, 375 Despatches to Ministers: Mr. Adams....199, 241, 260, 263, 276, 280, 286, 289, 313, 320, 337, 349, 355, 364, 368, 370, 390, 446, • • 468, 475 422 213 343 • ► .470, 477 246 Mr. Bigelow... Mr. Burlingame. Mr. Cameron.. Mr. Campbell. • Mr. Clay.. Bismarck, Count.. 446 Mr. Dayton. • • • .221, 239, 258, 268, Black's (Secretary) View of the Elec- 323, 327, 354, 357, 365, 368, 371, tion... 189 • 376, 382, 399 Black, Jeremiah. 189 Mr. Dickinson.. 262 Blockade, The.. 283 Mr. Fogg. • • • 254, 348 Blockades, Nature of. • 192, 283 Mr. Johnson. 477 • Brazil. 334 Mr. Judd. 195 British Aggressions. • 383, 398, 415, 449 Mr. Kilpatrick. 444 · British Courts and Juries.. 384 Mr. King. 236, 474 Buchanan's Ministers, Instructions to. 189 Mr. Marsh. 252 Buchanan, President... Burlingame, Anson ·· CAMERON, Simon... • 189, 201 213 Mr. Motley.. Mr. Pike.. · Canada.. Campbell, Lewis D. Cavour, Count. Chili.. Christian People, A. • • .314, 343 470 .280, 332 Mr. Sanford. Mr. Schurz. · .311, 389 257, 415 197, 316, 317 232 Mr. Webb. 334 • · Mr. Wood. 237, 315 254 Mr. Wright. 444 • 294, 316, 344 Despondency Abroad. Dickinson, A. B.... • • 446 389, 376 262 Clay, Cassius M.. • Claims, Alabama. · • Cobden, Richard.. jected………. Commissioners, Insurgent • Commission, Joint.. 246 Discussions, Serious.. ...390, 426, 428 .409, 450 315 Communication, A, from France, Re- 272 • • Disunion, Nature and Progress of.... 201 Disunion Influences in Europe. Drouyn de l'Huys, M....372, 377, 429, 434 Duc de Chartres. 217 • • 333 260 450-481 Comte de Paris... Congress, Cabinet and Parliament.... 443 Congress of Paris...192, 269, 278, 286, 292 Conspiracy, Details of.. Conrad, The..... Consuls, Circular to. Crisis, A.. • 333 443 EMANCIPATION. 314, 336, 345, 356, 362, 375 Emperor of France, The.. .223, 399, 470 England, War with.. England, See "Great Britain · • 398 359 Evacuation of Mexico by the French.. 470 455 375 FAITH, not Despondency. • • 316, 376, 389 390 | Faulkner, C. J………. • L 191, 240, 258 $ 373 .374, 428 348 • 454 • 444 366 325 INDEX TO DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. Federal Authority Undisturbed... Florida, The. Fogg, George G... Foreign Relations. Fort Sumter.. · • • France....223, 230, 258, 260, 267, 272, PAGE 330 VOL. V. 623 Mexico and General Sherman. 454 | Military Events.. 254 Monarchy in Mexico.. 222 PAGE 473 360 431 349 Monroe Doctrine, The...399, 411, 423, 426 Montholon, The Marquis de. Motley, J. Lothrop.. 323, 327, 333, 348, 372, 425, 433, 470 France and Mexico.....399, 422, 426, 470 French, The, in New Orleans.. French Views.. GASPARIN, Count de. Georgia, The. Gladstone, Mr.. • • God Recognized in the War..316, 344, Great Britain, Attitude of....209, 213, 242, 276, 284, 339, 390, 398, 449, 459 Great Britain and Naturalization. Guerilla Warfare... HAYTI and Liberia.. 477 • 426, 428 311 NAPOLEON, Emperor. See "France." Napoleon, Jerome. • Naturalization and England. Naturalization and Prussia. Negro Emigration. Netherlands, The. PAPER from England Rejected Paris Congress, The.....192, 269, 314 Paris Declaration, The.. 333 • Nashville, The. 455 477 446 • Navy, The. • 407 416 258 • New Orleans and the French. Nicaragua. 373 • 262 276 • • 278, 286 192, 292 Hicks, Governor, Letter to.. Higher Law, The.. 279 Pike, James S.... 257 A 344, 366 Pirates, Confederate. 452 Hulseman, The Chevalier. 310 Policy, Union... 241, 313, 383 Politics Explained. ► • IMMIGRATION, Military · · 349 Pope, The... .370, 375 236 Indemnities... .387, 415, 450 275, 353 "De- Independence, An American Passion.. Instructions to Ministers. See spatches to Ministers." Intervention...230, 260, 272, 324, 332, 341, 372, 383, 427, 428 192 Proclamation of Emancipation....345, 356, Prussia.. President's Policy, The.. 205, 241, 245 President's Death, The... Privateering Considered. · • · · 425 International Law.. · Irish, The, and England. Italy. • JOHNSON, Reverdy, Minister to Eng- land.. Joint Commission. Juarez, President, Mexico. Judd, Minister to Austria. KEARSARGE, The... Kilpatrick, Gen. Judson. King, Rufus.. LAIRD'S Ship Yards.. · • • 362, 364, 375 446 294-312 421 QUEEN'S Proclamation, The..260, 265, 283 Questions, Unsettled, Considered.. • ..479 252 REBELLION Commenced. 221 • • Rebel Cruisers.. • 405, 408, 452 477 Reciprocal Acts. • 451 · 450-481 470 Recognition to be Prevented.. Relations with England. • 197, 324 195 Religion.. Reservation by Lord Russell. 199 :.. 421 454 Review of the Situation, 320, 341, 355, 360, · 287 444 389 • 236, 474 Review of our Relations with England, 452-470 398, 405 Law, Maritime.. Law, International, 294, 300, 452, 268, 280, 385 .193, 269, 289, 294, 385 Revolution, Object of. Revolution, without Cause. Rome.. 250 227 236 Lyons, Lord. 295 Russia. Russell, Lord John, 242, 265, 270, 286, 289, 405 .246, 343, 382, 404 • MARCY, Secretary. Maritime Nations at Paris. Maritime War, Rules of. Marsh, George P.. Mason and Slidell. Maximilian.. Mediation. Mercier, Mr.. • .410, 430, 433, 440, 470 193 192 SANFORD, Henry S......258, 270, 316, 317 192 San Juan, Island of. • 480 252, 389 294-312 Schurz, Carl.. 232 Sedition and Aliens. • 237, 351 373 Mexico and France. 309 .332, 368, 372, 399, 423, 470 · Seward, Assistant Secretary. Seward, Secretary, Attempted Assas- sination of Shenandoah, The. 425 • · 425 454 Sherman, General, and Mexico. .. 473 $ 624 INDEX TO OCCASIONAL SPEECHES, ETC. VOL. V. PAGE PAGE UNION, The, Beneficial to the World..191, Situation, The.. 320, 356, 360, 417 · Slave Trade Abolished. 419 Slavery not under Discussion. 208 Slavery Considered.. 225, 313, 317, 359, 371 Slavery, Experimentum Crucis.. 336 Slavery...208, 225, 248, 314, 319, 336, 371, 221 Union, The, its Nature and Basis.. 195, 329 Union, The, Conspiracy against... 359 United States, The, Sovereign.. .. 269 418 VOLUNTEERS in Excess.. Slavery the Cause of War, 247, 336, 362, 371 Slavery, PROCLAMATION, 345, 356, 362, 364, Spain.. Spanish American States. Stanley, Lord, Reply to.. Sumter, The.. Surratt, John H.. • • • • • • • • • · • 355 WAR, Abroad.. .341, 391, 398, 403, 414 War, Guerilla. • • 375 232, 332 325 War, its Limits 350 262 • 452-470 War, New Articles of. War, Servile.. • 345 321, 341 474 Switzerland.. TACONY, The.. Tariff, The, Influence of the.. Thouvenel, Mr.. Trent Affair, The. Tributes of the Nations Tuscaloosa, The……. .240, 258, 309, 359 دو • + 452 War, The, a Misnomer War, The, Conduct of.. 254 War, The, our own Affair. War with England.. 272 417 419 • • • 391, 414 455 War with France.. • • 198, 209 Washington, George. • 294-312 Webb, James Watson Wilkes, Captain... .. 425 Wood, Bradford R. · • 455 Wright, Jolín A………… A. Зачерк 430 • 315 334 + - 294 • 237, 315 446 INDEX TO OCCASIONAL SPEECHES AND MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS. VOL. V. ALASKA, Map of... Alaska, Speech in • Aliens, Rights of, Vindicated.. Allies of Treason.. Amendments of Constitution.. Amendment, The Thirteenth. Amendment, The Fourteenth. Atlanta, Fall of... BAKER, George E. Blatchford, R. M... British Columbia... CABINET Paper, A.. Cabinet, The.... Canada Intrigues. Canal, The Darien. Canal, Interoceanic. Chase, Secretary. Chew, R. S.. · • • Chicago and Canada.. Chicago, London, Richmond.. Chilton, R. S.. China and Christians. Christian Duty, A. • ► · Church, The, and the, Union. • . 559 | Claflin, H. B. B.... 559 Clergy, The, their Duty 611 Clerks of Department.. 491 Coleman, William T.. 595 Colombia, U. S., of... • • 540 612 • - 614 589 605 595 · 611 589 • 595 Constitution, Amendments to.. 598 Consuls and Immigration... 491 Cooper, Peter.. Correspondence with Dr. Thompson.. 613 616 Correspondence with Officers and 540 Clerks.. 569 Correspondence with Governors. Cox, S. S... 606 Crawford, Martin J... 515, 516 498 571, 591, 605 • · • Cutting, Francis B.. DALY, Charles P. 605 Darien Canal, The. 525 Democratic Party, The. · 614 596 • • 554 610 .. 540 540 579, 589 616 Democrats The, at Chicago and Niag- · • 498, 506 ara. • 506 Department, Clerks.. 616 Destiny, The, of America. 588 Dickinson, Daniel S.. 485 Dodge, Wm. E. • 612 Duncan, Wm. B.. .496, 554 498, 506 614 • • 577, 587 540 540 589 Fort Sumter, Reinforcement of. 606 Fox, Assistant Secretary of Navy.. Fugitive Slaves in 1861... 526 599 GARRISON, Cornelius K. Gettysburg, National Cemetery.. Governors, Provisional. Grant, Gen... . . . Grant, President.. Grinnell, Moses H.. • HANCOCK, Gen. W. S..... Hawley, Rev. Dr.. Hicks, Governor of Maryland. IMMIGRATION, Rights of Aliens...... 611 589 INDEX TO OCCASIONAL SPEECHES, ETC. VOL. V. EMISSARIES, Rebel... Evarts, William M. FARRAGUT, Admiral. Fish, Hamilton... Forsyth, John.. • • • PAGE 610 • 540, 589, 605 491 President The, and his Cabinet.. Proclamation of Emancipation. 625 PAGE 515 594 Provisional Governors, Letters to..... 596 540 RANDOLPH, A. D. F... 610 Ratification of Thirteenth and Four- teenth Amendments.. Rebel Emissaries, Memorandum.. Reconstructed States. Reconstruction Committee. Reinforcement of Fort Sumter.. 616 · + • • .595, 598 610 • 596 584 • • • 606 • 489 Repudiation of Rebel Debts. 597 • • 596 Restoration of Union... 541 Resolution, Joint. 540 Retrospect, A... 529 537 592 KNAPP, Shepherd. LEAVITT, Joshua.... Lincoln, Abraham... Lincoln and McClellan.. Low, A. A.. MCCLELLAN, Gen.. McCulloch, Secretary. Hunter, William. Independent, The... JOHNSON, Andrew. Johnson, President. • . 518, 523, 538, 547 Juarez, President of Mexico.... 582 540 Letters to Dr. Thompson. 613 613 • 517, 543, 547 505, 512 540 .505, 599 525 609 612 609 610 • · 579 594 Fall of Atlanta.. • 540 Darien Canal Speech • Hope and Faith.. 498 569 • 572 • 540 Roberts, Marshall O.. 554 SALEM, Oregon, Speech at.. • • 515, 540 Schell, Richard. 609 Seymour, Horatio. 616 Sherman, Gen.. • Slavery.. Smith, E. Peshine. • 613 • • · · 540, 589 572 589 541 491 503, 602 615 Maryland, Position of. Mayo, Rev. A. D….. Mediation and Governor Hicks.. Memorandum, Rebel Emissaries.. Mexico, Speeches in.. Miscellaneous Papers. Morgan, E. D... • • • • NIAGARA Intrigues, The.. North Pacific Coast, The. North Pacific States, Our.. • • • • OFFICERS and Clerks of Department. 614 Opdyke, George... Oregon Described. Optimism.. • . • • PAPER, Read in Cabinet.. Papers, Miscellaneous. Perseverance in the War Policy, The President's. Politics.. • • • Presidential Election, 1864. Presidential Election, 1868.. 40 • • 540 558 576 606 • • 569 592 491 · 512 491 589 558 • • • 569 572 505 515 · • 485 • • 529 • • • 587 • 540 485 592 • 526 • The North Pacific Coast. Our North Pacific States. Perseverance in the War. President and Cabinet.. The Progress of the War. Restoration of Union. Reply to Chinese Embassy The Situation and the Duty. Vicksburg, Fall of…….. Visit from Syracuse Friends. 594 Speed, Attorney General.. 505 Stanton, Secretary. • ་ 547 Subjugation.. 496, 505 Sumner, Charles. ... 505 Sumter, Reinforcement of. 540 Syracuse Friends... · • 486 SPEECHES, OCCASIONAL.. • • At Washington, July 7, 1863. At Gettysburg, Nov. 18, 1863. At Auburn, Sept. 3, 1864. At Auburn, Nov. 7, 1864... At Washington, Nov. 10, 1864. At Auburn, Oct. 20, 1865.. At New York, Feb. 22, 1866. At Auburn, May 22, 1866.. At Washington, July, 1868. At Auburn, Oct. 31, 1868.. At Sitka, Alaska, Aug. 1869. At Salem, Oregon, 1869... Speeches in Mexico, Oct., 1869, 579-587 Peter Cooper's, Speech at, 1869... 589 At Victoria, British, 1869. At Auburn, April 21, 1870. The Allies of Treason Assurance of Victory. • • • • + • 485 485 489 • • 491 505 512 515 529 • 558 • 587 540 • 559 • • • 572 • 493, 525 • 519 • 561 606 • 592 626 VOL. V. INDEX TO OCCASIONAL SPEECHES, ETC. PAGE PAGE THOMPSON, Rev. Joseph P., D. D..... 613 TREATIES 600 • Alaska.. China. Darien. • Naturalization. Slave Trade. Victoria, British Columbia.. Vindication, A... 569 613 601 | 603 WAR, Atlanta.. 491 605 600 600 Perseverance in the. Progress of the. Vicksburg. 505 • • 485 485 Washington and Lincoln. 540 UNION, Restoration of.. 529 Webb, William H.. 540 • Weed, Thurlow. 540 · VICKSBURG, The Fall of. 485 Wells, Secretary.. 525 • Victory, The Assurance of. 512 Whittier, Reference. • 614 CHRONOLOGY OF THE VOLUMES. Vol. I. 1801-1850. Vol. II. 1831-1842. Vol. III. 1832-1853. Vol. IV. 1854-1861. Vol. V. 1861-1872. MEMOIRS. Biographical and Historical, Preface Vols. I., IV. and V. A list of the Contents of Vols. I. II. III. IV., will be found in pages preceding this volume. THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN GRADUATE LIBRARY NOV 10.198 OCT 4 1976 DATE DUE Res UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN 3 9015 02238 8527 に ​な ​