Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams.
Sir: An absence of two weeks from the capital has delayed this acknowledgment of the receipt of your despatch of the 25th of August, No. 766.
I have read with much interest your remarks upon the sectarian riots at Belfast. It seems to me that the parliamentary orators, who seek to excite a national controversy with us on the ground of Irish emigration, might profitably study the ecclesiastical system of their own country. Religion is a concern of deep interest for all the people of every nation, and for a very large proportion of every people it has an interest paramount even to the affairs of civil government. From Turkey quite round the world to Japan, including all the European states and all American countries, except the United States, spiritual controversies are a permanent fountain of political and even revolutionary conflicts. The reformers of Great Britain dwell much upon what they regard as defects [Page 300] of their political system, but I do not believe any political amendment whatever will avail to arrest the depopulation of Ireland. Nothing, I think, can do that but an adoption of our own great principle of an absolute divorce between the church and the state. It is not true that, as is so often asserted, the Irish religious sectarians are as discontented and contentious after they arrive in America as they were in their native country. Some few of them, indeed, retain a disputatious character for a time, but, speaking in a practical sense, the great mass are speedily absorbed and become a loyal and effective portion of the American people.
I have read Lord Palmerston’s speech to his constituents at Tiverton, and have noticed with regret that he thought proper to defer so much to the enemies of the United States as to express an expectation of a time when foreign influence may be exercised to reconcile us to a dissolution of the Union. I think I can perceive that his opinions are based upon the interested reports of some of his countrymen, who, being domiciled among us, work indefatigably in the supposed interest of the governing class in Great Britain. It does not surprise me that these persons are deceived by the intemperate demonstrations of factions here, which allow their partisan zeal to carry them into disloyal courses. But that a statesman so astute and having so much experience as Lord Palmerston should suffer himself to fall into the error I have mentioned does surprise me, and I can account for it upon no other ground than that, like most European politicians, he has not allowed himself to become personally acquainted with our country and with the American people. Certainly I do not expect the British nation in any case to receive, much less to invite, American advice concerning its political affairs. Under no circumstances could I be induced to intrude advice upon them; yet a contingency in which foreign advice shall be accepted by Great Britain is, in my judgment, just as probable as the speculations concerning American affairs are with which Lord Palmerston favored his reverential audience at Tiverton. Great Britain has, during my connexion with this government, been successively represented by three sagacious ministers— Sir John F. Crampton, Lord Napier, and Lord Lyons. I do not know their opinions on the subject, but I vehemently doubt whether either of them would represent the American people to his government as likely in any case to accept foreign intervention, or in any event to submit to a subversion of the Constitution, or a dissolution of the Union.
I am, sir, your obedient servant,
Charles Francis Adams, Esq., &c., &c., &c.