Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams.
Sir: Your despatch of February 26 (No. 334) has been received, together with the papers therein described.
The address of the inhabitants of Birmingham is made the subject of a special reply of this date, and numbered 512.
You are authorized to assure the workingmen of Edinburgh and the inhabitants of Paisley that their just and generous resolutions are accepted by the President of the United States as an earnest of the ultimate and final judgment concerning the present important crisis in our national progress of a portion of the British nation, which is unsurpassed in intelligence and virtue by any community that is now existing, or that ever has existed, among men.
In behalf of the President, and in answer to the operatives and others of Luddenden Foot and Halifax, you will say that, even though the people of the British islands, forgetful of their history, their fame, and their destiny, should unanimously consent and lend their moral influence and material support to the insurrection that is now in arms against this government, yet the government and the people of the United States would, nevertheless, even in that case, take abundant care that no nation should be built and established on this continent upon the basis of enduring and expanding African slavery.
You will convey to the people of Aberdane the President’s thanks for the earnestness and vigor with which they have vindicated the cause of the United States in the resolutions which they unanimously passed at a second meeting, larger and more enthusiastic than the one the proceedings of which I have heretofore [Page 170] had the honor to acknowledge. Welshmen and their descendants form no inconsiderable part of the population of the United States. So far as my knowledge extends, not one of them has ever taken up arms in favor of the insurgents, or sympathized with them in the cause which is so justly revolting to the people of their native principality.
You are authorized to say to the people of Oldham, in Lancashire, that the United States confidently expect that their cause will command the good-will and sympathy of all mankind, just so fast as the hindrances of information concerning its true character and nature shall he overcome. That the people of Lancashire, which of all places in Great Britain was the first and the most severely to suffer by the conspiracy of slavery in this country, should nevertheless be the first to truly understand and pronounce themselves upon the crisis, is a distinction which entitles them to the especial and most hearty thanks of the United States.
To the people of Merthyr Tydfil you will please express the profound and grateful satisfaction with which the President has learned, from the proceedings of their meeting held at Tabernacle chapel on the 2d of February last, that they harmonize and sympathize in the sentiment concerning our domestic troubles with the enlightened citizens of other parts of South Wales. Their address will be preserved among the most precious memorials of the crisis through which our country is passing with so much constancy and perseverance.
You will say to the citizens of Carlisle that they do not more heartily protest against British intervention in our civil war than this government deprecates and repels foreign intervention from any quarter on any pretext whatsoever. The United States having had slavery planted among them two hundred years ago, and been obliged by the force of circumstances and the influences and agencies of other countries to tolerate its growth and expansion, have at last reached the time when either the Union must stand and remain in its constitutional form, covering all its lawful domain, or it must give place to a new nation that shall proscribe freedom and spread slavery over the whole continent. In such a crisis the United States simply ask that the people of England make good the neutrality they have proclaimed by withholding arms, men, and material of war from both sides, and, so far as their sympathies are concerned, express them in behalf of the cause that commends itself most to the favor of God and to the concurrence of mankind. The President is glad to learn from their resolutions that the inhabitants of Carlisle so heartily concur with him in these sentiments.
Finally, you are authorized to say, in behalf of the President, to the inhabitants of Rawtenstall, in Lancashire, that he holds in the highest respect that simple and natural, yet unerring, sagacity which has enabled them to discern, amid all the clouds of passion and prejudice which have gathered from the first upon the American question, its true and noble character, while at the same time they have entitled themselves, with the other citizens of Lancashire, to the thanks equally of Great Britain and the United States by their refusal to be made agents in a cruel attempt to alienate two nations which are not less required by the highest obligations of duty than impelled by the force of a common nature to be inseparable friends.
It is, perhaps, unnecessary to add, that in each of these cases, adhering to our accustomed course of proceeding, you will, in your own discretion, modify, and even withhold, the communication which is directed to be made, and that no intercourse whatever will be held with subjects of her Britannic Majesty concerning the questions involved that shall not have been first freely consented to by her Majesty’s principal secretary of state for foreign affairs.
I am, sir, your obedient servant,
Charles Francis Adams, Esq., &c., &c., &c.