Mr. F. W. Seward to Mr. Motley.
Sir:Your despatch of the 29th of August, No. 72, has been received.
In acknowledging the receipt of the information I have given you concerning military events in previous despatches, you remark that there is a further illustration of the subject of which you have so often spoken in the fact that my despatch of the 1st of August did not reach you until after telegraphic fragments, such as they were, up to the 10th of August, had been printed in the journals of Vienna.
This observation is a just one, but you will excuse me for saying that the fact equally illustrates a position I have heretofore taken, that reliable official despatches from this capital will always be anticipated by unofficial telegraphic despatches, such as they are, in the European press. This department must wait and verify facts before communicating them. Irresponsible reporters give rumors as they rise, and leave the public to correct them.
I have been well aware of the expectations which our European enemies have been building upon the delays of our military operations, and upon the plottings of insurrectionary emissaries with doubtful patriots at Niagara. Indeed, what was said and thought and expected in Europe, was first said and thought and expected by a large class of our countrymen at home. All this seems now to be changed. The military campaign proves a success; and the political plot begins to be regarded as a weak and harmless invention.
We may, perhaps, accept the fact, that the public attention on both sides of the military line is engaged here, as well as throughout Europe, by earnest expectations of peace, as an indication that peace is approaching. Indeed, this intense and general expectation must have large effect in producing peace.
It seems to me not less clear that the peace which is to come is one in which the integrity of the Union shall be saved. Because, first, it is only the political pressure of the Union upon the insurgents that could have brought them back, even indirectly, into the old way of attempting to regulate the elections of the country; and because, secondly, however they may fail in these attempts to regulate with a view to their own unlawful purposes, they will find it difficult to recede so far from this new and false position as to reassume their attitude of independence and sovereignty.
I do not pursue my speculations beyond this point, because the whole future policy of the government seems to me to be depending upon the popular elections to be held in November; and I could not discuss the probabilities of that canvass [Page 113] in this correspondence without at least seeming to be influenced by partisanship.
I thank you for the interesting information you have given me concerning the Schleswig-Holstein question.
I am, sir, your obedient servant,
J. Lothrop Motley, Esq., &c., &c., &c., Vienna.