Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your despatch No. 1022, together with papers which contain an interlocutory decree which has been made by the Vice-Chancellor in a suit of the United States against Prioleau and others, which suit was instituted for the recovery of 1,356 bales of cotton. A copy of the Vice-Chancellor’s reasons for the interlocutory decree is found among the same papers. The Vice-Chancellor is understood to have affirmed the title of the United States to the property in question. It is with the judgment of the Vice-Chancellor, and not with the reasons that he assigns for such judgment, that the United States are concerned. In this view of the subject it might seem proper for this government to leave the subject unnoticed. The frankness, however, which ought to be practiced in the proceedings of states, require an explanation of the views which this government has taken of the questions which the Vice-Chancellor has discussed in his reasons before mentioned.
[Page 451]The United States do not admit that the combination of disloyal citizens which has raised the standard of insurrection is now, or has at any previous time been, a government de facto, or in any sense a political power, capable of taking, holding, giving, asserting, or maintaining corporate rights in any forum, whether municipal or international. It is true that a different view of the character of the insurgents has seemed to find favor with some portions of the British nation, and even with the British government. It must be remembered, however, as equally true, that so often as that antagonistical opinion has been advanced by her Britannic Majesty’s government in its intercourse with the United States, it has been firmly, though, as we trust, always courteously, denied.
The United States controvert and deny the declaration of the Vice-Chancellor, that they are “successors” of the rebellion; and, on the contrary, they maintain that they are now, and during all the time of the rebellion have been, just what they were before the rebellion began—a sovereign state, absolutely entitled to the regulation and control of all property and persons within the United States, subject only to the limitations of their own constitution.
It need hardly be said that the United States will hold themselves under no obligations whatever to accept of, or to conform their proceedings to, conditions which the court of chancery, or any other municipal court of Great Britain, may have the presumption to dictate or prescribe in the present or any other litigation. They claim and insist upon the restoration of the cotton now in question; and while they are content to receive it through the decrees of the municipal tribunals of Great Britain, they insist upon their absolute right to the same through the action of her Britannic Majesty’s government. You may instruct the counsel who are acting in behalf of the United States, in the views herein expressed. Her Majesty’s government have not in any way made themselves responsible for the positions assumed by the Vice-Chancellor, and therefore it would seem not only unnecessary, but even improper, to bring, at the present time, the subjects herein discussed to the attention of Earl Russell. If, however, you should discover that her Majesty’s ministers are laboring under any misapprehension of the views of this government which should seem to need correction, you will supply such correction upon a proper occasion, and in a friendly and courteous manner.
I am, sir, your obedient servant,
Charles Francis Adams, Esq., &c., &c., &c.