Mr. Seward to Mr. Dayton.
Sir: Your despatch of the 22d of April (No. 141) has been received.
I am very glad to know that you communicated what I have before written you about the purpose of this government to open southern ports as early as should be possible.
Although New Orleans was captured on the 24th of April, and has since been fully possessed and occupied, we have not yet received official information of the fact, nor has the treasury been able to perfect there the arrangements necessary for the restoration of trade. These arrangements are now being completed, and I expect that the same steamer which will carry out this despatch will also carry to Europe the proclamation for the restoration of commerce. That proclamation, I think, may be regarded by the maritime powers as an announcement that the republic has passed the danger of disunion, and is ready once more to renew its course of beneficent enterprise.
The Emperor of the French can readily understand how much difficulty we have found in opening our ports to the maritime powers which have so long and so persistently, and so unnecessarily, conceded belligerent privileges to a faction which was waging war for the desolation of our country. It will be a study for the historian, why those powers, on the first sound of the bugle of faction, so absolutely abandoned all their former faith in the government and people of the United States. We have deeply desired that France, our earliest friend and the only ally we ever had, should rise above the other nations in appreciating the virtue and the capacity of the American people. We have thought it would be even useful to France herself to assume such an attitude. We have been thus far disappointed. But we do not, therefore, mean to be unjust. We acknowledge that France has faithfully practiced the neutrality she proclaimed, and that in the whole progress of the domestic strife she has not only spoken the language, but acted in the character, of a well-wisher and a friend.
The year of the American insurrection will be known in the history of mankind as one of disaster and fearful apprehension to all nations. It has been our study so to conduct public affairs with foreign nations as to cast off from the government itself all accountability for the unnecessary aggravations of what might and ought to have been only a brief and local political disturbance, resulting from a sudden gust of popular passion.
I am, sir, your obedient servant,
William L. Dayton, Esq., &c., &c., &c.