Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams .
Washington, July 21, 1861.
Sir: Your despatch of June 28, No. 10, has been received.
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 motives.
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.
Another subject which, according to your report, was discussed in your late interview with Lord John Russell demands more extended remarks. I refer to the portion of your despatch which is in these words: “His lordship then said something about difficulties in New Grenada, and the intelligence that the insurgents there had passed a law to close their ports. But the law officers here told him that this could not be done as against foreign nations, except by the regular form of a blockade. He did not know what we thought about it; but he had observed that some such plan was said to be likely to be adopted at the coming meeting of Congress in regard to the ports of those whom we considered as insurgents.”
Much as I deprecate a reference in official communications of this kind to explanations made by ministers in Parliament, not always fully or accurately reported, and always liable to be perverted when applied to cases not considered when the explanations are given, I nevertheless find it necessary, by way of elucidating the subject, to bring into this connexion the substance of a debate which is said to have taken place in the House of Commons on the 27th of June last, and which is as follows:
Mr. H. Berkly asked the secretary of state for foreign affairs whether her Majesty’s government recognized a notification given by Señor Martin, minister plenipotentiary to this court from the Grenadian confederation, better known as the Republic of New Grenada, which announces a blockade of the ports of Rio Hacha, Santa Marta, Savanilla, Carthagena, and Zaporte, and which government did her Majesty’s government recognize in the so-called Grenadian confederation.
Lord John Russell said the question is one of considerable importance. The government of New Grenada has announced, not a blockade, but that certain ports of New Grenada are to be closed. The opinion of her Majesty’s government, after taking legal advice, is, that it is perfectly competent for the government of a country in a state of tranquillity to say which ports shall be open to trade and which shall be closed; but in the event of insurrection or civil war in that country, it is not competent for its government to close the ports that are de facto in the hands of the insurgents, as that would be an invasion of international law with regard to blockade. Admiral Milne, acting on instructions from her Majesty’s government, has ordered the commanders of her Majesty’s ships not to recognize the closing of their ports.
Since your conversation with Lord John Russell, and also since the debate which I have extracted occurred, the Congress of the United States has by [Page 118] 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, disregard 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 to be seen what maritime nation could keep aloof from it. It must be confessed, therefore, that a new incident has occurred increasing the danger that what has hitherto been, and, as we think, ought to be, a merely domestic controversy of our own, may be enlarged into a general war among the great maritime nations. Hence the necessity for endeavoring to bring about a more perfect understanding between the United States and Great Britain for the regulation 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 engaged 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 emphatic 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 government, 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 republic 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 insurgents 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 so flagrant as to divide this country into two belligerent parties, of which the federal government constitutes one and the disloyal citizens the other; and consequently it inferred a right of Great Britain 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, [Page 119] by the law of self-preservation. 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 Scotland, 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 vigorously followed if internal resistance should fortify itself with alliances 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 absolutely right, and resolved in no case to change its convictions, becomes merely controversial. Secondly. Such argument would be only an indirect way of defending our own position, which is unchangeable. 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 consequences of her course deemed by us to be erroneous, and determine as those consequences develope 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 unnecessarily broken, to consider the attitude of the two powers, with a view to mutual forbearance, until reconciliation of conflicting systems 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 sovereignty to Great Britain, as a friend, all the guarantees for her commerce 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 application of the insurgent commissioners, have given us good reason to expect that our complete sovereignty, though theoretically questioned 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 position 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, [Page 120] as you have been advised, to hear the communication, but nevertheless renewed through you, as I consistently could, the offer of the greater guarantees before tendered.
The case then seemed to me to stand thus: The two nations had, indeed, failed to find a common ground or principle on which they could stand together; but they had succeeded in reaching a perfect understanding of the nature and extent of their disagreement, 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 insurrectionary 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 consideration. 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 exigencies now existing or hereafter to arise.
Secondly. The passage of the law, taken in connexion with attendant circumstances, does not necessarily indicate a legislative conviction that the ports ought to be closed, but only shows the purpose of Congress that the closing of the ports, if it is now or shall become necessary, shall not fail for want of power explicitly conferred 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 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 careful 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 consideration 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 unhappy contest as much as possible, and to bring it to a close by the complete restoration of the authority of the government [Page 121] as speedily as possible, that have hitherto regulated the action of the government will continue to control its counsels.
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 controversy 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 execution 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 realize 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 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 necessarily 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 hitherto flourished, can ever again spring up.
I am, sir, respectfully, your obedient servant,