Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams.
Washington, September 7, 1861.
Sir: I have received your despatch of August 23, number 32. It is accompanied by a note which was addressed to you by Lord Russell on the 19th of the same month, and a paper containing 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 prevailing 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 misconception 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.
[Page 142]Long before the present communication can reach you, my instructions of August 17, No. 61, 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 proceed further in the transaction.
You have thus been already prepared for the information that your resolution to await special instructions in the present emergency is approved.
I feel myself at liberty, perhaps bound, to assume that Lord Russell’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 admitting 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 declaration 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 considering in what manner or in what degree the projected convention, 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 harmony 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 internal difficulties now prevailing in the United States, while the obligations to be assumed by the United States shall not be similarly meliorated or at all affected in their bearing on internal differences that may now be prevailing, or may hereafter arise and prevail, 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 differences 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 modification of its terms unless all the present parties to it should stipulate that the modification should be adopted as one of universal application. The British government cannot but know that there would be little prospect [Page 143] of an entire reformation of the declaration 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.
You will present these considerations to Lord Russell, not as arguments why the British government ought to recede from the position 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 articles 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.
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 probably 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 internal 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 [Page 144] 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.
I am, sir, respectfully, your obedient servant,
Charles Francis Adams, Esq., &c., &c., &c.