Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams.
Sir: Your despatch of October 10 (No. 237) has been received. It shows that the President’s proclamation has produced in Great Britain an impression 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, [Page 216] 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 discuss 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 those for whom distasteful events are always unseasonable. In regard 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 religion 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 flagrant 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 extravagant expressions, as usual. But the policy of the administration will be practically acquiesced in and ultimately universally approved.
Your warning against hostile designs of a naval character have been submitted to the Secretary of the Navy. The delays of our new iron-clad vessels are painful and mortifying, but one cannot see where to charge fault; and we have some reason to hope that our energies, however unsatisfactory to ourselves, cannot be surpassed in effect by the enemies and their co-laborers in Great Britain. We have now promises, which seem reliable, of all the vessels we need, within the period that is spent in a voyage across the ocean and back again.
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 rapidly as our impatience demands, but, doubtless, with his customary care and comprehensiveness. General Mitchell will not long be idle before Charleston.
I am, sir, your obedient servant,
Charles Francis Adams, Esq., &c., &c., &c.