Mr. Seward to Mr. Bigelow
My Dear Sir:
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I will proceed to discuss the subject, and leave you to present the opinions of the President to such extent and in such manner as your own views of propriety shall suggest. The President feels himself bound to adhere to the opinion set [Page 422] forth in my despatch No. 259, which has, as we understand, been already read to Mr. Drouyn de Lhuys. The presence and operations of a French army in Mexico, and its maintenance of an authority there, resting upon force and not the free will of the people of Mexico, is a cause of serious concern to the United States. Nevertheless, the objection of the United States is still broader, and includes the authority itself which the French army is thus maintaining. That authority is in direct antagonism to the policy of this government and the principle upon which it is founded.
Every day’s experience of its operations only adds some new confirmation of the justice of the views which this government expressed at the time the attempt to institute that authority first became known. The United States have hitherto practiced the utmost frankness on that subject.
They still regard the effort to establish permanently a foreign and imperial government in Mexico as disallowable and impracticable. For these reasons they could not now agree to compromise the position they have heretofore assumed. They are not prepared to recognize, or to pledge themselves hereafter to recognize, any political institutions in Mexico which are in opposition to the republican government with which we have so long and so constantly maintained relations of amity and friendship. I need hardly repeat my past assurances of our sincere desire to preserve our inherited relations of friendship with France. This desire greatly increases our regret that no communications, formal or informal, which have been received from the government of that country seem to justify us in expecting that France is likely soon to be ready to remove, as far as may depend upon her, the cause of our deep concern for the harmony of the two nations.
The suggestion which you make of a willingness on the part of France to propose a revision of the commercial relations between the two countries is not regarded as having emanated from the government of the empire. However that may be, it is hardly necessary to say that we should not be dwelling so earnestly upon the branch of political relations if it had not been our conviction that those relations at the present moment supersede those of commerce in the consideration of the American people.
Believe me to be always faithfully yours,
John Bigelow, Esq., &c., &c., &c.