[Confidential.]

Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams.

No. 187bis.]

Sir: It is represented to us that equally in Great Britain and in France the cause of the Union is prejudiced by the assumption that the government which maintains it is favorable or at least not unfavorable to the perpetuation of slavery. This incident is one of the most curious and instructive ones which has occurred in the course of this controversy:

The administration was elected and came into its trust upon the ground of its declared opposition to the extension of slavery. The party of slavery, for this reason, arrayed itself against, not only the administration, but the Union itself, and inaugurated a civil war for the overthrow of the Union and the establishment of an exclusive slaveholding confederacy.

Without surrendering the political principle, we meet them in the battlefield and in defence of the Union. The contest for life absorbs all the interest that had existed, growing out of the previous conflict of ideas. But what must be the effect? If the confederacy prevails, slavery will have a constitutional, legitimate, and acknowledged state, devoted to itself as the paramount object of the national existence. If the Union prevails, the government will be administered by a majority hostile to the fortification and perpetuation of slavery. Slavery in the slaveholding States will there be left in the care of the people of those States just as it was left at the organization of the government in all of the States except Massachusetts. It might admit of doubt whether it would not have been able to recover its former strength had the slaveholding States acquiesced in the election and avoided civil war. But what ground is there to fear such a renewal of strength after having been defeated in arms against the Union ?

What is the operation of the war? We have entered Virginia, and already five thousand slaves, emancipated simply by the appearance of our forces, are upon the hands of the federal government there. We have landed on the coast of South Carolina, and already nine thousand similarly emancipated slaves hang upon our camps.

Although the war has not been waged against slavery, yet the army acts immediately as an emancipating crusade. To proclaim the crusade is unnecessary, and it would even be inexpedient, because it would deprive us of the needful and legitimate support of the friends of the Union who are not opposed to slavery, but who prefer Union without slavery to disunion with slavery.

Does France or does Great Britain want to see a social revolution here, [Page 38] with all its horrors, like the slave revolution in San Domingo? Are these powers sure that the country or the world is ripe for such a revolution, so that it must certainly be successful? What, if inaugurating such a revolution, slavery, protesting against its ferocity and inhumanity, should prove the victor ?

Who says this administration is false to human freedom? Does it not acknowledge the citizenship as well as the manhood of men without respect to color ?

Has it not made effective arrangements with Great Britain to suppress the slave trade on the coast of Africa? Has it not brought into life the federal laws against the African slave trade, and is it not executing their severest penalties? Besides, is it not an object worthy of practical men to confine slavery within existing bounds, instead of suffering it to be spread over the whole unoccupied portion of this vast continent ?

Is it not favoring emancipation in the federal District, to be accomplished at the government cost, and without individual injustice or oppression ?

Does it not receive all who come into the federal camps to offer their services to the Union, and hold and protect them against disloyal claimants? Does it not favor the recognition of Hayti and Liberia ?

The tale that Mr. Cameron was required to give up his place because of his decided opposition to slavery is without foundation; that distinguished gentleman resigned his place only because he could be useful in a diplomatic situation, while the gentleman appointed his successor, it was expected, would be more efficient in administration. His successor has no more sympathy with slavery than Mr. Cameron. These facts and thoughts are communicated to you confidentially for such use in detail as may be practicable, but not to be formally presented in the usual way to the government to which you are accredited.

I am, sir, your obedient servant,

WILLIAM H. SEWARD.

Charles Francis Adams, Esq., &c., &c., &c.