Mr. Fogg to Mr. Seward
Sir: Your despatch No. 52, of the 31st May, was received some days since. The day after its receipt I waited upon the president, with a carefully prepared translation in the French of the same. Having read the despatch, the president expressed some disappointment at the inability of the United States government to accede to the proposition of the federal council in relation to American consuls (in America) affording protection to Swiss citizens.
I said to him that, as you had stated, it would be a departure from the policy hitherto followed by our government, and that now was especially a most inopportune moment to adopt a new policy, which might be construed as a departure from that course of “non-intervention” which we were persistently demanding that other powers should maintain towards ourselves.
I suggested, further, that the delicacy of our present relations with. France, in part growing out of recent and current transactions in Mexico, might be an additional reason why the United States must hesitate before any step that could possibly produce new complications, at a time when all the national energies were tasked to guard and vindicate the national life.
Of course I was careful to say that these suggestions were my own, and not those of the President or of the State Department.
[Page 395]The president repeated his regret, requested me to leave the copy of your despatch that he might lay it before the federal council, and promised to talk with me further on the subject.
Having waited nearly a week without having received any communication or any suggestion, I deem it proper to report progress to this extent without longer waiting. Should I have soon more to report, I will report accordingly.
In relation to the Israelite question, the exigencies of commerce are rapidly solving it, and are quite too important for a few small Catholic cantons to long hold out against the tolerant tendencies of the age. In a commercial treaty just concluded between France and Switzerland it is understood that the right of French Jews to have and enjoy all the privileges accorded to Christians in every part of Switzerland was made a sine qua non of its completion. As the treaty is not yet published, I cannot vouch for the absolute accuracy of this understanding.
With the highest respect, your obedient servant,
Hon. William H. Seward, Secretary of State of the United States of America.