Mr. Seward to Mr. Dayton.
Sir: Your despatch of May 16 (No. 147) has been submitted to the President.
You were wise in deferring further discussion with Mr. Thouvenel concerning the attitude held by France, in regard to the civil war in this country, until the expectations which you had already submitted to him should have been measurably fulfilled. The discretion you thus exercised is approved, and you will exercise it again as to the time when you will submit what follows in this paper.
The capture of New Orleans, Yorktown, Norfolk, Pensacola, and Corinth, and the virtual removal of the blockade at Beaufort, Port Royal, and New Orleans, all which events have either occurred or become known at Paris since your last reported communications with the French minister, have not only fulfilled all the promises you had at that time made, but they have also more than satisfied the desires which his government has, within the [Page 346] last eight months, so constantly but so courteously pressed upon the President’s attention, while they are sufficient to dispel the last doubt of the preservation of the American Union which could be indulged by candid men.
Under such circumstances, the apprehension of any hostile intervention would be not less absurd on our part than unjust and ungenerous towards France. So, also, the attitude of neutrality, so solemnly proclaimed by the Emperor a year ago, is fast resolving itself into an abstraction, in view of the fact that, virtually, there is no longer a field, on land or water, where conflict with this government can be raised by the rebels in the presence of a foreign power.
The President, however, is not less anxious now than heretofore that the posture of the French government may be modified. The Emperor of France has not thought it unbecoming to expose to us the exigencies of his own country, resulting from this unhappy contest. It cannot be improper, on our part, to allude to the susceptibilities of the American people. Our prestige has been impaired by our divisions, and we have consequently encountered indifference, coldness, and, as we think, injustice and injury, in our foreign relations. When we remember that we are a democratic power, that for many years we were a leading democratic state, and that the security of the constitutional republican system in other countries where it has been established has been everywhere thought dependent on its success here, it is not to be wondered at if we think that whatever wrong it committed against us, in the crisis through which we are passing, is a wrong suffered by us in the cause of freedom and humanity, with which we are always accustomed to identify republican institutions. We are, indeed, on the eve of domestic peace, but we have a deep interest in establishing that peace upon the firmest foundations and rendering it universal. The empire of France rests upon a democratic basis. The monarch himself has declared that that empire is peace. We think, therefore, that he will agree with us in the desire that whatever has anywhere occurred, during our present conflict, to produce feelings of distrust or alienation between the United States and foreign countries, shall be seasonably corrected, in order that no such sentiments shall survive.
It is a maxim of international intercourse that no government can rightfully recognize insurgents against another as lawful belligerents, except when the state of the contest is such as to raise the probability of a successful revolution. If a recognition based on the assumption of such a probability has at any time been made, it ought to be rescinded when the probability has failed. Does any one expect that a sovereign nation can be organized by the insurrectionary States of the south, while the United States possess the Mississippi river, its tributaries, and its mouths, and virtually possess, also, all the navigable lakes and rivers of the country, as well those of the coast as those which are inland, together with the political capital and all the centres of manufacturing industry and commercial exchange? Does any one expect that the insurgents without a single ship-of-war or a place in which to launch one, or funds with which to build it, with an army demoralized, a prostrate credit, and a country exhausted of its wealth and resources, will be able to change the military position I have described?
It is a palpable fact that the movers of this insurrection never entertained any expectation of achieving a revolution. What they did desire and hope was to open a point for foreign intervention, upon which they have relied to effect the overthrow of the Union. They were shrewd men, and therefore could not have entirely miscalculated the conflicting forces. They began intrigues for interventien even before they ventured upon rebellion, and [Page 347] they have plied those intrigues with more assiduity and energy than they have the work of revolution. In these intrigues they have used bribes and threats as they esteemed the conditions and characters of foreign states. Their pretended revolution was, therefore, a fraud against mankind. The toleration which they received abroad, in the beginning of the strife, may be excused upon the ground of the skill with which they practiced the imposture. But now, when it has been so fully exposed and exploded, that toleration may justly be expected to be withdrawn.
But our representations made to that end are met by a new form of argument based on the assumed desperation of the insurgents. We are told that although everywhere defeated, the people of the insurrectionary region will not submit; that they are determined to carry on the war; that the belligerents will withdraw from the reach of our navy on the coasts, and the banks of rivers and lakes; that they will destroy all productions and merchandise which they cannot remove; that they will leave federal garrisons in their cities a prey to pestilence, and will resort to inland positions inaccessible to the federal armies, and direct from such positions a relentless guerilla war of indefinite duration.
We might give the fullest credence to these representations of the insurgents, and then we might say that a campaign conducted upon the principles thus announced would have no tendency whatever to exhaust the strength or resources of this government. Resistance in such a case would cost far less of life and treasure than the nation is now expending. But I do not dwell on this point.
I prefer to ask on what ground is it that a faction thus waging intestine war against the government of our country, equally without cause and without hope, could ask to be regarded by friendly states as a lawful belligerent? To regard them in that light would be to subvert maxims of the law of nations universally accepted. It would be nothing less than to make every state an insidious enemy to the peace of every other state in the civilized world, with the ultimate consequence of general war among all nations. But these menaces are ineffectual and harmless. They assume a condition of public sentiment in the revolutionary states which has no existence. Wherever the Union forces have advanced they have found a sentiment of loyalty manifesting itself just in the degree that confidence in the ability of the federal government to guarantee the safety of the citizen was restored. This has been the case in the District of Columbia, and in the States of Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, Alabama, Arkansas, and Florida. The federal government has either maintained or resumed its functions in the whole or parts of all the insurrectionary communities. There is no subjugation proposed, nor is any necessary. The federal government has only limited functions to perform, and every community in which it exercises them is, by the very terms of the Constitution, left to exercise self-government in all matters of municipal concern.
The insurgents do not withdraw; on the contrary, they are driven from the coasts, banks, and shores. Their commands for the destruction of cotton and other valuables fail to be obeyed as soon as their presence is withdrawn. No one fears that the pestilence will obey their summons, and follow their direction in the pursuit of victims. There are no places inaccessible to the federal army and navy, save in the mountainous districts, and there the people, if not altogether loyal, are at least divided. The guerilla war which they threaten must therefore be a social war, confined to portions of the insurrectionary States, leaving the loyal States in the enjoyment of profound peace. But guerilla soldiery, like all other, must have arms, ammunition, and supplies, and for these they must depend upon labor, and in this case [Page 348] upon slave labor. Slaves desert their occupations, and even cast off their bondage, just as rapidly as this civil war approaches them. Troops of them are encountered on all the highways, and the federal camps everywhere are crowded with them. Agents of foreign governments are awaiting here to receive them at our hands. Either the insurgents must allow their slaves to escape with impunity, or must prevent them by force. The attempt at prevention converts the civil war at once into a servile war. Thus, instead of inaugurating a guerilla war, the insurgents are preparing for themselves the most destructive scourge ever experienced among men.
These facts are calculated to awaken the most serious thought. The reflections they suggest concern the highest interests of nations, and reach the noblest springs of human action. I forbear from giving them an application to the merely ephemeral interests of my own country or of France.
I am, sir, your obedient servant,
William L. Dayton, Esq., &c., &c., &c.