of this kind have, for an indefinite period, entered into the bases of political parties throughout the whole country, and thus considerable masses of persons, whose ultimate loyalty could not be doubted, were found, even in the free States, either justifying, excusing, 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 sympathisers. It held the executive administration. The secretaries of the Treasury, War, and the Interior were disunionists. The same 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 London to Calcutta. Of 4470 officers in the public service, civil and military, 2154 were representatives of States where the revolutionary movement was openly advocated and urged, even if not actually organized. Our system being so completely federative and representative, no provision had ever been made, perhaps none ever could have been made, to anticipate this strange and unprecedented disturbance. The people were shocked by successive and astounding developments of what the statute-book distinctly pronounced to be sedition and treason, but the magistracy was demoralized and the laws were powerless. By degrees, however, a better sentiment revealed itself. The executive administration, hesitatingly, 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 perseveringly 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 postponement, until impracticable concessions to disunion should be made, 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 favour or toleration of the purpose of a permanent dissolution of the Union. On the contray, disunion at the very first took on a specious form, and it afterwards made its way by ingenious and seductive devices. It inculcated that the Union is a purely voluntary connexion, 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 carried 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 to̟

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 districts 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 rescrting to arms, everywhere wait to make sure that it cannot be otherwise preserved. Even this cautious and pacific, yet patriotic disposition has been misunderstood and perverted by faction to encourage disunion.

After having thus dwelt on the causes of the secession, and on the prospects of early restoration of order, Mr. Seward gave to Mr. Adams the following instructions:

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 embarrassments, which have been made on apt occasions by her Majesty and her Ministers. You 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 any apprehensions on the part of the Government. You will rather prove, as you easily can, by comparing the history of our country with that of other States, that its Constitution 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 remain 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 with others, diplomatic relations between the Government of Great Britatn and this Government will be suspended, and will remain so until it shall be seen which of the two is most strongly entrenched in the confidence of their respective nations and of mankind.

You will not be allowed, however, even if you were disposed, as the President is sure you will not be, to rest your opposition to the application of the Confederate States on the ground of any favour this administration, or the party which chiefly called it into existence, proposes to show to Great Britain, or claims that Great Britain ought to show to them. You will not consent to draw into debate 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 honoured members of this Federal Union, and that their citizens, throughout all political misunderstandings and alienations, still are and always must be our kindred and countrymen. In short, all your arguments must belong to one of three classes, namely:-First. Arguments drawn from the principles of public law and natural justice, which regulate the intercourse of equal States. Secondly. Arguments which concern equally the honour, welfare, and happiness of the discontented States, and the honour, welfare and happpiness of the whole Union. Thirdly. Arguments which are equally conservative of the rights and interests, and even sentiments of the United States, and just in their bearing 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 detached itself. On the other hand, we insist that a nation that recognizes a revolutionary State, with a view to aid its effecting its sovereignty and independence, commits a great wrong against the nation whose integrity is thus invaded, and makes itself responsible for a just and ample redress.

The first question agitated on the formation of the Confederated States, was the probability of a recognition of these States by foreign powers. When Mr. Adams arrived in London, in May, 1861, the question of privateers began to be agitated. On the 3rd June Mr. Seward wrote to Mr. Adams that the American Government had reason to fear that Great Britain was prepared to aid or sympathize with the insurrection from the following facts:

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 recognition might be made.

2. The contracting of an engagement by the Government of Great Britain with that of France, without consulting 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 ununwilling 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 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 recognise in a vague manner, indeed, but does seem to recognise, 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 guaranteed to us by our constitution and the laws of nature and of nations to suppress the insurrection.

Mr. Adams had frequent interviews with Earl Russell on these subjects, but there was no reason for the apprehension showed by Mr. Seward. Still, the position taken by Great Britain, in granting belligerent rights to the Confederated States, gave great dissatisfaction to the United States. Soon after came the proposal by the United States Government to accept the propositions of Maritime Law agreed on by the Congress of Paris in 1856; but the negotiations were abandoned, since the United States wished to apply the resolutions concerning privateers to the ships of the Confederated States; and Earl Russell proposed to insert the following 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 prevailing in the United States."

Lastly, there was the question of the exequation to Mr. Bunch, British consul in Charleston, for having been the means of conveying despatches of the Confederate Government.

AUSTRIA.

In his despatch to Mr. Burlingame Mr. Seward observed, that hitherto the mission of the United States to Austria had not been made as useful as it ought to have been, and that it had been undervalued. He then instructed Mr. Burlingame to prevent by all means the recognition of the Confederated States. The correspondence was also directed to the question of neutral rights and maritime law, the United States Government being prepared to adhere to the Congress of Paris.

FRANCE.

On the 22nd April, 1861, Mr. Seward gave instructions to Mr. Dayton, on his entrance to the important duties connected with the American mission in France. After reference to the causes of this revolution, and expressing the resolve of the American Government to restore the union, Mr. Seward thus referred to the question of intervention:—

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 controversy. He knows that the revolution of 1775 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 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 confess 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 claims to obedience to its decrees, on which the Government of France is built, that is put in issue by the insurrection here, and in this emergency to be vindicated, and more effectually than ever established by the Government of the United States. Mr. Dayton was also instructed to enter into a convention with France as regards maritime law.

In reply, Mr. Dayton stated that he had been received by the Emperor, and that France took great interest in the condition of the United States; the Emperor having expressed his willingness to mediate between the United and Confederated States, with a view to restore the Union. In answer, however, to this proposal, Mr. Seward wrote on the 8th June:

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 acknowledge 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 indispensable element of national existence. This is a republican nation; all its domestic affairs must be conducted, and even adjusted, in constitutional 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 continental 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 ungenerous 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 candour 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 for ever. I know still further, that the principles I have thus stated will commend themselves to his own great wisdom. To invite or to accept mediation would be incompatible with these principles.

When all this has been said, you will then further say to M. Thouvenel,