Papers Relating to Foreign Affairs, Accompanying the Annual Message of the President to the First Session Thirty-ninth Congress, Part III
EVACUATION OF MEXICO BY THE FRENCH.
Mr. Bigelow to Mr. Seward
Sir: The message of President Johnson at the opening of Congress has been received here with almost unanimous expressions of approval by the press, notwithstanding the wretched translation in which it was swathed at its birth into the French tongue. A desire to tranquilize the public mind at a moment when news from Washington was expected with great solicitude, no doubt, led many of the organs of public opinion to exaggerate a little the pacific and friendly tenor of the President’s language. Every allowance made, however, for such considerations, you cannot fail to remark the unexceptionable tone with which it has been generally greeted. It has placed our government and policy, both foreign and domestic, before the world in an attitude which challenges universal respect.
I enclose extracts from the representative journals of Paris, by which you can judge the spirit of all. My impression is that the passage which refers to our relations with France and Mexico will involve an early change in the relations between those two countries, or else a still graver change in the relations of France with the United States; for, whatever may be the language held by the press upon the subject, it is impossible that the French government should not infer from the President’s language that the policy of our government is not only unfavorable to, but inconsistent with, a long continuance of French authority in Mexico.
I am, sir, with great respect, your very obedient servant,
Hon. William H. Seward, Secretary of State, &c.
[Translation.]
Although we do not yet possess the text of President Johnson’s message in extenso, the analysis of it furnished by the telegraph is sufficient to enable us already to appreciate its general character.
[Page 796]With regard to the European powers, in particular, the thoughts of the Chief Magistrate of the American Union are clearly set forth. Mr. Johnson declares that it shall be his constant aim to maintain peace and friendly relations with foreign nations; and he adds that he believes those nations to be actuated by a like disposition towards the United States.
The acts of the government at Washington had beforehand confirmed these declarations of the President. Since the close of the war the effective force of the army and navy of the United States has constantly undergone extensive reductions, and no later than yesterday the American news contained the announcement of the discharge of several volunteer regiments from the northern States, and of a decrease of two-thirds in the number of workingmen employed in the naval arsenals. These measures constituted in themselves an emphatic denial to the assertions of certain American journals, who have at all times made a trade of exciting public curiosity by means of sensation rumors. The language of the President, therefore, is but the official expression of a thought already manifested in acts.
Mr. Johnson has, moreover, seen fit to lay down, with regard to foreign nations, a rule to which none of the enlightened governments of Europe will refuse to subscribe. He has declared, as did most of his predecessors, his purpose of maintaining the traditionary policy of the United States, consisting in non-interference in the internal affairs of European nations, and demands that on their part European nations shall observe a similar conduct towards the American Union. He adds: “We should regard it as a great calamity to ourselves, to the cause of good government, and to the peace of the world, should any European power challenge the American, people to the defence of republicanism against foreign interference.” This passage was doubtless written with the sole object of giving some satisfaction to that over-excited portion of the American public who derive their political views from the newspapers above referred to. We would seek in vain, indeed, to discover which of the nations of Europe can ever have conceived the thought of interfering in the internal affairs of the United States. We know of none against which American citizens may one day be called upon to defend their institutions.
The President’s message could not remain silent on the discussion created between England and the United States by the arming of vessels of English origin, which, after leaving English ports, hoisted the confederate flag, and inflicted serious damage upon the commerce of the United States. The President surrenders none of the claims set up by the cabinet at Washington on this point, but wisely contents himself with propounding a question of general interest, the solution of which he claims would be of importance for all nations. He acknowledges, moreover, that England entertains but kindly dispositions towards the United States, and declares to be himself actuated by a sincere desire to maintain peace between the two countries.
So far as the telegraphic analysis enables us to judge, the message of the President of the United States contains, therefore, none but the most reassuring declarations concerning the continuation of friendly relations between the great republic of the New World and the European powers. We shall soon have occasion to study this message in view of its internal policy, and of what is conventionally called in America reconstruction, viz: the position of the late Confederate States towards the States which have victoriously upheld the cause of the Union.
[Translation.]
The history of the United States since the civil war, and in consequence of that war, is destined to become more and more mixed up with that of Europe. The same force which has saved the Union has the power to make her expand by the unavoidable progress of its action and of its influence abroad. Before the war, no one would have dared to question the agricultural, commercial, and industrial prosperity in store for the American Union. Since the war, a still more important field appears to open before the nation of which M. de Montalembert said recently, “the American federation is, henceforth, replaced among the great powers of the world; all eyes will henceforth turn to it; all minds will be taught by the light of its future, for that future shall be more or less our own, and its destiny will perhaps decide ours.”*
Let us not go so far. The rivalry of influence and the reciprocity of action between the American Union and Europe are not a new thing. On neither side have they yet assumed the character of a propagand. America has not sought to affect the customs or laws of [Page 797] Europe, neither has Europe attempted to weigh upon the institutions of America. The famous declaration of President Monroe, whose true date (1823) has recently been restored to it by Mr. John Lemoinne, who also determined its meaning, was a purely defensive declaration, intended to assign a limit to the attempts at legitimist restoration then being carried out upon Spanish soil. To restore the divine right upon the throne of Spain was, of itself, a heavy undertaking; to restore it in Peru or Chili with the aid of French vessels was a pretension which no one would have thought of. President Monroe, nevertheless, laid down, in opposing visionary events, an international doctrine full of vitality.
France has always pretended to act abroad through the influence of her ideas and of her customs; this is right. The genius of France inclines to proselytism; it is generous, expansive, often disinterested. But in the present state of the world the door is everywhere open to liberal ideas, and contrary views obtain access but by force. The Americans of the north are the greatest producers of liberal ideas in the world, and therefore, in the noble interchange of them which is going on among nations, America seems called to a superiority which it will be easier to balance than to oppose. The generous emulation of liberty will do more towards it than overt force.
Those who, like us, bend under the weight of nearly the whole of the waning century, have but few lessons to receive from the American Union. What could they do with them? After being a sincere monarchist all through life, one remains so. It is too late to change one’s ideas. Constitutional monarchy, when one has placed in it one’s confidence and faith, is, moreover, a great enough progress compared with the government by divine right, to permit one not to wish for more. There is, therefore, a whole generation whose political opinions remain uninfluenced by the spectacle of the triumph of the republican principle in the United States; but beware of the influence of such an example upon the generations which follow us; beware, especially, of its influence upon the masses, animated and sustained in their forward march towards the future by the stimulus of equality—a rail-splitter, as they say in speaking of Lincoln, a self-made man, who from being an obscure lawyer in Illinois, became a representative of his country, then President of the Union, i. e., supreme chief of the executive power of the most powerful republic of the world; and once upon this summit, in the midst of the most formidable dangers, losing neither his coolness nor his foresight, nor his respect for legal restraints—perserving in spite of all attacks historical good temper and his resolute philanthropy—carrying on a desperate war upon an immense scale, improvising armies provided with inexhaustable resources, and commanded by generals whose names are now among the greatest in the world. What a sight, even though death has by a felon’s hand added to it its sting!
[Translation.]
Another discourse was not less impatiently looked for than that of the King of Belgium—we mean the message of the President of the United States. This document is usually very long. We hasten to the part of it which interests us the most—that relating to foreign affairs.
After referring to the good state of the relations subsisting between the American government and other powers, the message declares that since its foundation the republic of the United States has made it a rule not to interfere in the revolutions of which Europe was the theatre, and to follow the advice of Washington, “to commend the republic only by the careful preservation and wise use of its benefits.” By their own moderation the United States have a right to expect that we should respond by a similar moderation. They will not deviate from the path which they have followed, unless they are forced to do so by the aggression of European powers. They count upon the wisdom and justice of these powers to respect the system of non-intervention, which during so long a period was sanctioned by time, and which, owing to its happy results, was approved on both continents.
This reciprocity, in truth, constituted the entire Monroe doctrine.
There is a passage in this part of the message which we will take pains to illustrate. It is that in which President Johnson—using a language which no one will think exaggerated—praises the results of American institutions:
“Here is the great land of free labor, where industry is blessed with unexampled rewards, and the bread of the workingman is sweetened by the consciousness that the cause of the country is his own cause, his own safety, his own dignity. Here every one enjoys the free use of his faculties, and the choice of activity as a natural right. Here, under the combined influence of a fruitful soil, genial climes, and happy institutions, population has increased fifteen-fold within a century. Here, through the easy development of boundless [Page 798] resources, wealth has increased with two-fold greater rapidity than numbers, so that we have become secure against the financial vicissitudes of other countries, and alike in business and in opinion are self-centred and truly independent. Here more and more care is given to provide education for every one born on our soil. Here religion, relieved from political connexion with the civil government, refuses to subserve the craft of statesmen, and becomes in its independence the spiritual life of the people. Here toleration is extended to every opinion, in the quiet certainty that truth needs only a fair field to secure the victory. Here the human mind goes forth unshackled in the pursuit of science, to collect stores of knowledge, and acquire an ever-increasing mastery over the forces of nature. Here the national domain is offered and held in millions of separate freeholds, so that our fellow-citizens, beyond the occupants of any other part of the earth, constitute, in reality, a people. Here exists the democratic form of government, and that form of government, by the confession of European statesmen, gives a power of which no other form is capable, because it incorporates every man with the state, and arouses everything that belongs to the soul.”
Why should we be astonished if the American people be faithful to their institutions, and declare themselves willing to make every sacrifice to maintain them? This sentiment has no need of the name of any man; it is known throughout all time, and is everywhere called by the same word, patriotism.
[Untitled]
The message of President Johnson to the Congress of the United States is to-day entirely known. Notwithstanding a translation hastily made, and in certain parts confused, as by design, the Havas agency has enabled France to read and to consider this long dissertation, in which the successor of Abraham Lincoln gives proof of the highest qualities of the statesman, and the grandest virtues of the citizen. If we may judge by what we have felt in reading this document, great must have been the emotion of the members of Congress assembled for the first time since the end of the rebellion, when they heard the words of the President. There are, indeed, ideas which can only be born and strengthened in certain lands, where liberty, so to speak, forms a part of the common air, and the members of Congress must have been justly proud at the thought that they lived in a medium so privileged.
What is especially striking in the message of Mr. Johnson is the contrast between the President, as he appears to us, and the man of whom so repulsive a portrait was but recently drawn by certain sheets. We were shown a sort of demagogue, thirsting for absolute power, eager for vengeance, ready to plunge his country into all adventures; and now we see a citizen bearing, without seeming to bend beneath, the weight, the burden of a fearful responsibility, having accepted resolutely the heritage of Abraham Lincoln, and coming freely before the representatives of a free people to render an account of his stewardship.
He has but one ruling thought, which may seem strange in Europe, after having in less than one year restored the Union, reduced the war estimates from five hundred and sixteen millions of dollars to thirty-three millions, diminished in an equivalent proportion the navy estimates, provided for the extinguishment in thirty years of the public debt, amounting to $2,740,854,754, taken measures to withdraw rapidly from circulation the paper money; in one word, after having rendered immense services to the republic, he thinks of but one thing—to show that the honor of all these reforms is due to the law, which he has always respected.
The law and the Constitution: There is the proper, the just, the sovereign remedy. Four days before the opening of Congress, Mr. Johnson had restored almost every where the habeas corpus; and yet, as stated by a New York journal, one would scarcely have imagined that this guarantee was suspended. But it was still too much to have in possession an arbitrary instrument, even when no use was made of it, for Mr. Johnson thinks with the journal already quoted, “a free government is not defined by saying it is one which commits no act of tyranny. To complete the definition, it must be added that it is one under which tyranny is impossible.”
The presidential message comprises three principal points of great interest for us. These treat of the reconstruction of the south, of the negro question, and of the foreign question.
In the first of these questions Mr. Johnson maintains that those States included among the States that entered into secession were not in fact in rebellion as States, as, from the very first, the acts of secession of the States had been by the terms of the Constitution declared null and void. They should hence be considered as acts engaging only the responsibility of the individuals who had committed them. This theory, which takes up and resolves one of the most important questions of American constitutional law, explains why, [Page 799] as a skilful politician, Mr. Johnson has not wished to subject longer to the military rule the insurgent portions of the United States.
According to him, the military governments established in the States could only increase the discontent of former rebels, divide the people into conquerors and conquered, create a fatal precedent, he a source of ruinous expense to the Union, and, finally, arrest emigration towards the south, upon which the President greatly relies to heal the wounds of civil war; “for,” says he, perhaps doing us too much honor, “what emigrant from abroad, what industrious citizen at home, would place himself willingly under military rule?”
He has, therefore, sought to reorganize the States on a constitutional basis, causing them to enjoy at once and anew the benefits assured by the Union. He recognizes that this policy is not without danger, as it implies the acquiescence of the States concerned, and the taking of a new oath of allegiance to the Uuion on the part of those States; but between two evils he has chosen that which may spring from the generosity of the conqueror. He expects, however, that the States shall give a pledge to the Union in consenting to ratify the project of amendment to the Constitution, which provides for the final abolition of slavery. He makes it known that the past can only be forgotten at that price.
The part of the message relative to the relations to be established between the freed blacks and the central government is not inspired by less sagacity and less respect for law. If by his words Mr. Johnson has indeed shown that he was favorable to the project of making electors of the freedmen, he has not been willing to violate the Constitution, and concede, by a presidential act, the electoral right to men of color. The Constitution prescribes that each State shall be the sovereign dispenser of its rights of suffrage; and it is only little by little, it must be remembered, that universal suffrage has become almost the general rule. It belongs, therefore, to each State, according to him, to resolve this question; and he hopes that this method will hasten the period of equality more than the intervention of the central government would do.
On this point, while rendering justice to the motives which have dictated the words of the President, and while approving his scruples, we cannot but form a wish. We hope that Congress, all-powerful in this matter, should do what the President has done well in not imposing. Two means, entirely constitutional, present themselves, in fact, for the attainment of the proposed end. 1st. Congress can amend the Constitution, and without occupying itself with the organic laws of each State, can declare by a vote, that no State can introduce into its laws distinctions based on race and color. 2d. It can refuse admission (under article four of the Constitution, which obliges the States to have a republican form of government) to the senators and representatives of those States which shall not, in their new Constitutions, have recognized the equality of the races; for if, in former times, the word “republic” has been coupled with the word “slavery,” this monstrous confusion of terms is impossible to-day.
After the exposé of the domestic situation which we have been only able briefly to review, Mr. Johnson passes to the foreign question, and it is somewhat surprising to see him, by a trait of humor peculiar to the genius of American politicians, commence by congratulating himself upon the friendly relations entertained between the United States and the emperor of China. After the Son of Heaven came the Czar and the Emperor of Brazil. These are friends. As to England, the message does not conceal the fact that in recognizing the insurgents as belligerents, in furnishing to the rebellion vessels constructed in English ports, manned by English seamen, she has given occasion for serious complaints, further aggravated by her refusal to submit this question to international arbitration. The government of Washington, however, is not in pursuit of pecuniary reparation. It wishes to have discussed by a tribunal of nations the grave questions of the rights of neutrals. The message, however, does not counsel to Congress any demand for satisfaction; it limits itself to warning England that in future “the friendship between the two nations must repose upon the basis of mutual justice.”
If the English journals have appeared satisfied with this part of the message, as the semi-official journals declare themselves no less delighted with the reserve of Mr. Johnson, in what concerns France and Mexico, we are less disposed, for our own part, to such rejoicing.
The message for any one who can read is a declaration very clear, very firm, although very moderate, of the will of the government of the United States to maintain its traditional policy—in other words, to sustain the Monroe doctrine. The translation given by the Havas agency contains in this part a mistake so much the more to be regretted, as it is of a nature to prevent the public opinion from being rightly informed. Thus this agency makes the President say that he would regard it as a calamity for the peace of the world “that any European power should throw the glove to the American people, as if for the defence of republicanism against foreign intervention,” which signifies nothing at all; while the text reads, “should any European power challenge the American people, as it were, to the defence of republicanism against foreign interference.” The formal reserves made by President Johnson take from this declaration little of its gravity.
[Page 800]This is not the language of a man who wishes to satisfy rancors, and achieve an easy popularity by flattering the bad instincts of national vanity. It is the grave and reserved utterance of the most authoritative representative of a people who wish not to embroil themselves heedlessly, but who are resolved not to see compromised in any case, a liberty so well conquered, so dearly preserved, and to which it owes its happiness and strength.
[Translation.]
The message of President Johnson begins with these words: “My first duty is to express, in the name of the people, my gratitude to God for the preservation of the United States.”
This is a public prayer. It is a profession of religious faith in the power of God over earthly things. Atheists, free-thinkers, and doctrinaires of moral independence may say what they will on the usefulness of the people acknowledging a Supreme Being, just and good. This public acknowledgment by the head of a great people is of a nature to make a vivid impression on the mind of those to whom it is addressed, despite their railleries. There is no more imposing spectacle than that of a sovereign bowing before the Majesty of God in the name of the entire people.
The chief of the republic of the United States did not believe himself guilty of a childish credulity in speaking as he did. On the contrary, he was convinced that he showed proofs of manliness of spirit in referring to the “intervention of Providence in human affairs.” That which has frequently misled Europe in the predictions which she has formed of American affairs is, that in order to judge of the progress of events, she does not take into account the religious sentiment which animates the American people.
It was for this reason that so many in France believed that the reaction against the conquered would be followed up with an implacable and bloody spirit, and that liberty would succumb in the infinite calamity of civil war. The Americans possess passions more intense, perhaps, than ours, but they are certainly of a different kind.
In Europe, the first movement of states, after a similar crisis, had been to constitute what is called a strong power, to surround it with all suitable material means to render it formidable, terrible. In the United States, the first duty of the head of the republic, who is called to the head of affairs by an odious assassination, was to reduce all the appurtenances of material force to their simplest expression, to re-establish the universal laws of liberty, to cause to disappear every symbol which would recall the existence of arbitrary rule in the minds of the people. What the President fears above all is, that the principles of liberty, upon which the Constitution rests, be undermined in the future. He vehemently recalls to mind the farewell which the Father of his Country gave to the people of the United States, when he was yet President, the free Constitution, which was the one work of the nation, must be maintained inviolate and sacred.” He saw in the maintenance of a strong army danger; he reduces it to 50,000 men. “Military governments,” he says, “established for an indefinite period, would have offered no security for the early suppression of discontent; would have divided the people into vanquishers and the vanquished, and would have envenomed hatred, rather than restored affection. Once established, no precise limit to their continuance was conceivable.”
“The wilful use of such powers, if continued through a period of years, would have endangered the purity of the general administration and the liberties of the States which remained loyal. Besides, the policy of military rule over a conquered territory would have implied that the States whose inhabitants may have taken part in the rebellion had, by the act of those inhabitants ceased to exist.”
“But if any State neglects or refuses to perform its offices, there is the more need that the general government should maintain all its authority, and, as soon as practicable, resume the exercise of all its functions, On this principle I have acted, and have gradually and quietly, and by almost imperceptible steps, sought to restore the rightful energy of the general government and of the States.”
We see the President fears but one thing: it is, that the civic life be weakened, that the mind of the people, under the influence of excess of confidence caused by victories, should assign to the army a power which does not belong to it in a free country.
To reanimate the civic virtues and the energy of local governments, such is the work which the President of the United States assumes. And he presents this noble undertaking, very naturally, as the only means to revive prosperity in the republic. He believes in the efficacy of liberty as a safeguard to order in a nation of freemen, just as he believes in God and the interposition of Providence in human affairs.
[Page 801]This is the striking character of this document, and it is most remarkable in that respect. Now, indeed, when the theory of right as the basis of order and progress are in such favor, it is interesting to reflect upon this noble defence of the contrary theory, and to carefully notice that these are not mere words, but that it is a man struggling with real facts, and in the face of one of the most formidable of political and social crises, who says that liberty is the best foundation for order, and asserts that when states lose that faith it is the duty of their chiefs to try to revive their energies.
[Untitled]
President Johnson has treated at length the domestic question of the United States. The three serious points of this question are, the seceding States—the negroes—the finances. The seceding or rebel States have been received to pardon. It seems even that the intentions of the President were friendly. In his message he allows the partisans of the south to re-enter the Union, with all their rights; he details the inconveniences of perpetual military rule in a certain number of States; he prefers, in replacing these States under the law, to open the door to emigration, and thus to substitute successively free labor for slave labor. This passage of the message is a seductive appeal to emigration towards the southern States. It is to be regretted that in practice the southern people have not been treated so well as in words; the representatives of these States have not been admitted to Congress. The division which the President desires to obliterate by the exercise of his sovereign right of pardon exists in its entirety. Mr. Johnson may talk in vain of the Americans being brothers; they are divided into conquerors and conquered.
The blacks, on their side, are the object of the philanthropic theories of the President—theories which have scarcely any echoes in reality. We can hardly recognize in those famished gangs, wandering on the highways—in those houseless beggars whom our correspondents describe—free citizens of free America. One is led to doubt whether the dream of Mr. Johnson will ever be realised, when we see the contempt in which these proud republicans hold the African race. Free labor is not organized; empirical or radical projects gain favor—such as the expulsion of the blacks, their colonization, &c. The President is evidently disquieted by this question. It may be the cause of painful troubles; it may, by requiring severe measures, take from the United States a portion of their philanthropic prestige. In connexion with this question, the President makes an admission which is confirmed by a remark made by him in speaking of the finances. The southern States were, under the old arrangements, closed to northern emigrants: free labor found no access there—commercial transactions were greatly hampered. The northern States long before the war coveted these rich countries; they wished to farm them, as it were, for the benefit of their industrial properties; they intended to profit by that wealth, both to increase their revenues and to increase their markets. Slavery has been the flag that covered this traffic.
We will resume, in passing, the financial situation of the United States—a debt of two millions and a half of dollars (12,500,000,000fr.,) regular taxes; an organization of the debt so as to pay it in 30 years; a permanent army of 84,000 men, of whom 32,000 form a reserve; a fleet greatly increased; important naval constructions; a part of their territory held as unsafe—a part of the population deprived of its franchises and public charges—this is the general aspect. In what, let us ask, is this situation an enviable one? It is not like our old communities; still less is it free America. Debts taxes, army privilege, internal dissensions: in spite of the cheerful tone of the President, there is more than one cloud upon the starry heaven that forms the banner of the Union.
The President has brought the same tone of moderation to the treatment of the foreign question.
This question has two objectives—England and France—i. e. the recognition of the belligerents and the Mexican expedition. On this last point the President says little—so little that it is disquieting. The generalities which he expresses are, in our opinion, an evident, proof that there is something going on at Washington or Paris relative to the Mexican, question. One does not speak so briefly of an expedition which operates at your very door, contrary to your proclaimed principles, unless there is something under the cards which it is desirable to hide.
The President is more explicit in regard to England, without being more threatening. He affects a still calmer tone, if possible, and contents himself with a sort of statement of facts. These facts, it is true, constitute, according to the interpretation of Mr. Johnson, a violation of neutrality. England, it is also true, has refused to bring them before an international commission. The President regrets this, but he does not hence conclude that good relations should cease between the two powers. For the rest, has Mr. Johnson a good right [Page 802] to demand to-day the assembling of an international commission to consider questions of the law of nations, when the United States have always hitherto claimed to hold themselves aloof from what Europe was doing in that sense? If our memory is exact, such was their attitude at the time of the congress of Paris, when the rights of neutrals were regulated.
The resumé of the exposition of the foreign attitude of the United States seems to us to be this.
The hour of action has not arrived.
- La Victoire du Nord aux Etats Unis, by Count de Montalembert.↩