Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams.
Sir: The narrative of a conversation held between yourself and —— has been received with much interest by the President.
You rightly told him that the prospect of the export of cotton depends now mainly on the course of the war. But I think you overrated the importance, in that respect, of the operations before Richmond. For foreign and of course for commercial purposes the Union exists practically unimpaired by the safety with which the conspirators as yet hold their treasonable conclave in Richmond, at the head of the James river, just as much as the Union would, for all practical purposes, exist if this government should remove itself from Washington, at the head of the Potomac, to St. Paul, at the head of the Mississippi. What cotton has been already prepared for market is remaining now in the cotton-producing States, All or nearly all of them communicate with the exterior through the Mississippi river, either downward by New Orleans, or upward through the rivers, canals, lakes, and railroads of the north. The Mississippi has already been opened to commerce through its whole length, with the exception of the obstruction at Vicksburg, about 200 miles above New Orleans. All the rivers, canals, lakes, and railroads before mentioned are free from obstruction; Vicksburg is besieged and must soon fall; Mobile and Charleston will fall soon thereafter. The work of pacification in the region concerned is going on as successfully as could be expected. You hear of occasional guerilla raids, but these are only the after pangs of a revolution in that quarter which has [Page 143] proved an abortion. The forces employed there have proved abundant for the purposes of the government; they have not been diminished, and they will be increased.
Want is pressing upon the owners and holders of the cotton, and want, daily increasing, will not be long in overcoming even faction and treason.
All our information leads to the belief that the cotton which has been destroyed by the insurgent authorities has been destroyed, not by its producers or holders, but by the armed forces of the insurgents; that the quantity so destroyed has been greatly exaggerated, and that the work of destruction has ceased. If, therefore, the military condition of the region concerned shall be improved continually as we expect, or even if it remain unchanged for the time, all the cotton which has been gathered will, in the course of a few months, under the protection of the government, find its way to the markets where it is so much wanted. I do not doubt that the quantity that can be exported exceeds half a million of bales; but upon, this subject I write with caution, because a long period of non-intercourse has left us without special information from the Gulf States. Mr.——, a very intelligent loyal citizen of New Orleans, intimately acquainted with its commerce and with the commerce of the southern States, was despatched by this department to that city on the 24th of June to obtain and report all the information possible on the general subject of the cotton supply, and the prospect of its coming forward. His first communication is daily expected, and you shall have the results of his researches so soon as they shall have been received.
I may state, moreover, that we are meditating a further relaxation of the rigor of our blockade, so as to favor, in a special way, the export of cotton. I shall probably write more fully upon this point in my next despatches to Europe.
So much may be said on the subject of Mr.——’s conversation from the position which is held by the government of the United States; but the export of cotton to Europe depends, in no inconsiderable degree, on the action of the governments and peoples of that continent.
All our efforts are measurably counteracted by the attitude of those governments which recognize our internal enemy as a lawful public belligerent, and thereby are understood as encouraging it to hope for recognition and intervention. Those efforts are counteracted also by an illicit British trade which supplies that enemy with ships-of-war, arms, ammunition, supplies, and credit. And still more are they counteracted by the now conceded political sympathies of European masses and classes, who improve the civil war in this country and the distresses it works to the manufacturing and commercial interests of their own countries to raise against us there a prejudice which has the moral effect of sustaining and prolonging that civil war.
It must not be forgotten that the mass of the American people, including as well disloyal as loyal citizens, receive their information concerning the relations between our country and foreign nations, not from the careful, measured, and deliberate diplomatic communications with which you and I are familiar, but from the language of the press which on either side of the Atlantic assumes to interpret those relations, and interprets them according to its own interests, impulses, and prejudices. Hence it has happened that in this country the public mind, feeding on the suggestions of the press, is rapidly accepting a conclusion that certain European powers, among which, are Great Britain and France, are meditating and preparing an intervention, under the idea that they can oblige the United States to consent to a dissolution of the Union to avoid foreign conflict, and if that fail, then that [Page 144] through such conflict they will open a passage for the free export of cotton from the insurgent States.
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It is easy to see how a European statesman, surrounded by the political influences of the governing classes, and listening naturally and loyally, to the complaints of masses of men thrown out, or apprehensive of being thrown out, of their needful and customary employment, and at the same time looking no further than this, can suppose that such an appeal as is thus proposed may be made harmlessly, if not with some good effect. But the same statesman would probably take a very different view of the subject if he should extend his survey and take cognizance of the fact that the people of the United States have a sensibility on the subject of their sovereignty and national honor that no domestic disputes nor any foreign dangers have ever impaired; that they already feel that the foreign states concerned have acted injuriously towards them in a crisis when they expected respect and toleration, if not generous sympathy. Under these circumstances, the limits where the magnanimity of the United States in listening to the interested counsels of Europe must end are easily discerned. I do not indicate those limits. It is enough for me to say that this people have already risen above the level of the motives which would prompt the supposed appeal in Europe, and to which this appeal must be addressed here. They are conscious that they are contending not about stocks or tariffs, or treasure or profits, or gains or losses, or prestige or power, but for sovereignty, for self-government, for freedom, and for humanity. If there be one American citizen, not already committed and sworn to the betrayal of his country, who would listen favorably to any foreign persuasion on these great questions, I have yet to see him and to learn his name. If European states want to shorten this war, as we know they ought and must, their course is clear and easy. Let them respect the authority and the national rights of the American people. The correspondence which has just taken place between the President of the United States and the representatives of the so-called border States is herewith transmitted. It will show you that the revolution is already successfully arrested by the separation of those States from the company of the so-called Confederate States. It needs only any real or seeming danger of foreign intervention in the conflict to revive and renew devotion to the Union, even with the sacrifice of slavery, throughout the whole United States. Europe will not intervene or appeal to us except for cotton, Cotton, perhaps, could be furnished in answer to such an appeal only by saving the existence of slavery here to produce it. Intervention will end the exportation of cotton by extinguishing the slavery which produces it.
I am, sir, your obedient servant,
Charles Francis Adams, Esq., &c., &c., &c.