Papers Relating to Foreign Affairs, Accompanying the Annual Message of the President to the First Session Thirty-ninth Congress

Mr. Seward to the Marquis de Montholon

Department of State, Washington, February 12, 1866.

Sir: On the 6th of December I had the honor to submit to you in writing, for the information of the Emperor, a communication upon the subject of affairs in Mexico, as affected by the presence of French armed forces in that country. On the 29th of January thereafter you favored me with a reply to that communication, which reply had been transmitted to you by Mr. Drouyn de Lhuys, under the date of the 9th of the same month. I have submitted it to the President of the United States. It is now made my duty to revert to the interesting question which has thus been brought under discussion.

In the first place I take notice of the points which are made by Mr. Drouyn de Lhuys.

He declares that the French expedition into Mexico had in it nothing hostile to the institutions of the New World, and still less of anything hostile to the United States. As proofs of this friendly statement, he refers to the aid in blood and treasure which France contributed in our revolutionary war to the cause of our national independence; to the preliminary proposition that France made to us that we should join her in her expedition to Mexico; and, finally, to the neutrality which France has practiced in the painful civil war through which we have just successfully passed. It gives me pleasure to acknowledge that the assurances thus given on the present occasion that the French expedition, in its original design, had no political objects or motives, harmonize entirely with expressions which abound in the earlier correspondence of the minister of foreign affairs, which arose out of the war between France and Mexico.

We accept with especial pleasure the reminiscences of our traditional friendship.

Mr. Drouyn de Lhuys next assures us that the French government is disposed to hasten, as much as possible, the recall of its troops from Mexico. We hail the announcement as being a virtual promise of relief to this government from the apprehensions and anxieties which were the burden of that communication of mine, which Mr. Drouyn de Lhuys has had under consideration.

Mr. Drouyn de Lhuys proceeds to declare that the only aim of France, in pursuing her enterprise in Mexico, has been to follow up the satisfaction to which she had a right after having resorted to coercive measures, when measures of every other form had been exhausted. Mr. Drouyn de Lhuys says that it is known how many and legitimate were the claims of French subjects which caused the resort to arms. He then reminds us how, on a former occasion, the United States had waged war on Mexico. On this point it seems equally necessary and proper to say, that the war thus referred to was not made nor sought by the United States, but was accepted by them under provocations of a very grave character. The transaction is past, and the necessity and justice of the proceedings of the United States are questions which now rest only within the province of history. France, I think, will acknowledge, that neither in the beginning of our Mexican war nor in its prosecution, nor in the terms on which we retired from that successful contest, did the United States assume any position inconsistent with the principles which are now maintained by us in regard to the French expedition in Mexico.

We are, as we have been, in relations of amity and friendship equally with France and with Mexico, and therefore we cannot, consistently with those relations, constitute ourselves a judge of the original merits of the war which is waged between them. We can speak concerning that war only so far as we are affected by its bearing upon ourselves and upon republican and American institutions on this continent.

Mr. Drouyn de Lhuys declares that the French army, in entering Mexico, did not carry monarchical traditions in the folds of its flag. In this connexion he refers to the fact that there were at the time of the expedition a number of influential men in Mexico who despaired of obtaining order out of the conditions of the republican rule then existing there, and who, therefore, cherished the idea of falling back upon monarchy. In this connexion, we are further reminded that one of the later presidents of Mexico offered to use his power for the re-establishment of royalty. We are further informed that at the time of the French invasion the persons before referred to deemed the moment to have arrived for making an appeal to the people of Mexico in favor of monarchy. Mr. Drouyn de Lhuys remarks that the French government did not deem it a duty to discourage that supreme effort of a powerful party, which had its origin long anterior to the French expedition.

Mr. Drouyn de Lhuys observes that the Emperor, faithful to maxims of public right, which he holds in common with the United States, declared on that occasion that the question of change of institutions rested solely on the suffrages of the Mexican people. In support of this statement, Mr. Drouyn de Lhuys gives us a copy of a letter which the Emperor addressed to the commander-in-chief of the French expedition, on the capture of Puebla, which letter contained the following words: “Our object, you know, is not to impose on the Mexicans a government against their will, nor to make our success aid the triumph of any party whatsoever. I desire that Mexico may rise to a new life, and that soon, regenerated by a government founded on the national will, on principles of order and of progress, and of respect for the law of nations, she may acknowledge by her friendly relations that she owes to France her repose and her prosperity.

Mr. Drouyn de Lhuys pursues his argument by saying that the Mexican people have spoken; that the Emperor Maximilian has been called by the voice of the country; that his government has appeared to the Emperor of the French to be of a nature adequate to restore peace to the nation, and, on its part, peace to international relations, and that he has therefore given it his support. Mr. Drouyn de Lhuys thereupon presents the following as a true statement of the present case: France went to Mexico to exercise the right of war, which is exercised by the United States, and not in virtue of any purpose of intervention, concerning which she recognizes the same doctrine with the United States. France went there not to bring about a monarchical proselytism, but to obtain reparations and guarantees which she ought to claim; and, being there, she now sustains the government which is founded on the consent of the people, because she expects from that government the just satisfaction of her wrongs, as well as the securities indispensable to the future. As she does not seek the satisfaction of an exclusive interest, nor the realization of any ambitious schemes, so she now wishes to recall what remains in Mexico of the army corps which France has sent there at the moment when she will be able to do so with safety to French citizens and with due respect for herself.

I am aware how delicate the discussion is to which Mr. Drouyn de Lhuys thus invites me. France is entitled, by every consideration of respect and friendship, to interpret for herself the objects of the expedition, and of the whole of her proceedings in Mexico. Her explanation of those motives and objects is, therefore, accepted on our part with the consideration and confidence which we expect for explanations of our own when assigned to France or any other friendly power. Nevertheless, it is my duty to insist that, whatever were the intentions, purposes, and objects of France, the proceedings which were adopted by a class of Mexicans for subverting the republican government there, and for availing themselves of French intervention to establish on its mins an imperial monarchy, are regarded by the United States as having been taken without the authority, and prosecuted against the will and opinions, of the Mexican people. For these reasons it seems to this government that, in supporting institutions thus established in derogation of the inalienable rights of the people of Mexico, the original purposes and objects of the French expedition, though they have not been, as a military demand of satisfaction, abandoned, nor lost out of view by the Emperor of the French, were, nevertheless, left to fall into a condition in which they seem to have become subordinate to a political revolution, which certainly would not have occurred if France had not forcibly intervened, and which, judging from the genius and character of the Mexican people, would not now be maintained by them if that armed intervention should cease. The United States have not seen any satisfactory evidence that the people of Mexico have spoken, and have called into being or accepted the so-called empire which it is insisted has been set up in their capital. The United States, as I have remarked on other occasions, are of opinion that such an acceptance could not have been freely procured or lawfully taken at any time in the presence of the French army of invasion. The withdrawal of the French forces is deemed necessary to allow such a proceeding to be taken by Mexico. Of course the Emperor of France is entitled to determine the aspect in which the Mexican situation ought to be regarded by him. Nevertheless, the view which I have thus presented is the one which this nation has accepted. It therefore recognizes, and must continue to recognize, in Mexico only the ancient republic, and it can in no case consent to involve itself, either directly or indirectly, in relation with or recognition of the institution of the Prince Maximilian in Mexico.

This position is held, I believe, without one dissenting voice by our countrymen. I do not presume to say that this opinion of the American people is accepted or will be adopted generally by other foreign powers, or by the public opinion of mankind. The Emperor is quite competent to form a judgment upon this important point for himself. I cannot, however, properly exclude the observation that, while this question affects by its bearings, incidentally, every republican state in the American hemisphere, every one of those states has adopted. the judgment which, on the behalf of the United States, is herein expressed. Under these circumstances it has happened, either rightfully or wrongfully, that the presence of European armies in -Mexico, maintaining a European prince with imperial attributes, without her consent and against her will, is deemed a source of apprehension and danger, not alone to the United States, but also to all the independent and sovereign republican States founded on the American continent and its adjacent islands. France is acquainted with the relations of the United States towards the other American States to which I have referred, and is aware of the sense that the American people entertain in regard to the obligations and duties due from them to those other States. We are thus brought back to the single question which formed the subject of my communication of the 6th of December last, namely, the desirableness of an adjustment of a question the continuance of which must be necessarily prejudicial to the harmony and friendship which have hitherto always existed between the United States and France.

This government does not undertake to say how the claims of indemnity and satisfaction, for which the war which France is waging in Mexico was originally instituted, shall now be adjusted, in discontinuing what, in its progress, has become a war of political intervention dangerous to the United States and to republican institutions in the American hemisphere. Recognizing France and the republic of Mexico as belligerents engaged in war, we leave all questions concerning those claims and indemnities to them. The United States rest content with submitting to France the exigencies of an embarrassing situation in Mexico, and expressing the hope that France may find some manner which shall at once be consistent with her interest and honor, and with the principles and interest of the United States, to relieve that situation without injurious delay.

Mr. Drouyn de Lhuys repeats on this occasion what he has heretofore written, namely, that it depends much upon the federal government to facilitate their desire of the withdrawal of the French forces from Mexico. He argues that the position which the United States have assumed has nothing incompatible with the existence of monarchical institutions in Mexico. He draws to his support on this point the fact that the President of the United States, as well as the Secretary of State, in official papers, disclaim all thought of propagandism on the American continent in favor of republican institutions. Mr. Drouyn de Lhuys draws in, also, the fact that the United States hold friendly relations with the Emperor of Brazil, as they held similar relations with Iturbide, the Mexican Emperor, in 1822. From these positions Mr. Drouyn de Lhuys makes the deduction that neither any fundamental maxim, nor any precedent in the diplomatic history of this country, creates any necessary antagonism between the United States and the form of government over which the Prince Maximilian presides in the ancient capital of Mexico.

I do not think it would be profitable, and therefore I am not desirous to engage in the discussions which Mr. Drouyn de Lhuys has thus raised. It will be sufficient for my purpose, on the present occasion, to assert and to give reassurance of our desire to facilitate the withdrawal of the French troops from Mexico, and, for that purpose, to do whatsoever shall be compatible with the positions we have heretofore taken upon that subject, and with our just regard to the sovereign rights of the republic of Mexico. Further or otherwise than this France could not expect us to go. Having thus reassured France, it seems necessary to state anew the position of this government, as it was set forth in my letter of the 6th of December, as follows: Republican and domestic institutions on this continent are deemed most congenial with and most beneficial to the United States. Where the people of any country, like Brazil now, or Mexico in 1822, have voluntarily established and acquiesced in monarchical institutions of their own choice, free from all foreign control or intervention, the United States do not refuse to maintain relations with, such governments, or seek through propagandism, by force or intrigue, to overthrow those institutions. On the contrary, where a nation has established institutions republican and domestic, similar to our own, the United States assert in their behalf that no foreign nation can rightfully intervene by force to subvert republican institutions and establish those of an antagonistical character.

Mr. Drouyn de Lhuys seems to think that I have made a double reproach against the Prince Maximilian’s alleged government, of the difficulty it encounters and of the assistance it borrows from foreign powers. In that respect Mr. Drouyn de Lhuys contends that the obstacles and the resistance which Maximilian has been obliged to wrestle with have in themselves nothing especial against the form of the institutions which he is supposed by Mr. Drouyn de Lhuys to have established. Mr. Drouyn de Lhuys maintains that Maximilian’s government is undergoing the lot quite common to new powers, while, above all, it has the misfortune to have to bear the consequences of discords which have been produced under a previous government. Mr. Drouyn de Lhuys represents this misfortune and this lot to be in effect the misfortune and lot of governments which have not found armed competitors, and which have enjoyed in peace an uncontrolled authority. Mr. Drouyn de Lhuys alleges that revolts and intestine wars are the normal condition of Mexico, and he further insists that the opposition made by some military chiefs to the establishment of an empire under Maximilian is only the natural sequence of the same want of discipline, and the same prevalence of anarchy, of which his predecessors in power in Mexico have been victims. It is not the purpose, nor would it be consistent with the character of the United States, to deny that Mexico has been for a long time the theatre of faction and intestine war. The United States confess this fact with regret, all the more sincere, because the experience of Mexico has been not only painful for her own people, but has been also of unfortunate evil influence on other nations.

On the other hand, it is neither a right of the United States, nor consistent with their friendly disposition towards Mexico, to reproach the people of that country with her past calamities, much less to invoke or approve of the in fliction of punishment upon them by strangers for their political errors. The Mexican population have, and their situation has, some peculiarities which are doubtless well understood by France. Early in the present century they were forced, by convictions which mankind cannot but respect, to cast off a foreign monarchical rule which they deemed incompatible with their welfare and aggrandizement. They were forced, at the same time, by convictions which the world must respect, to attempt the establishment of republican institutions, without the full experience and practical education and habits which would render those institutions all at once firm and satisfactory. Mexico was a theatre of conflict between European commercial, ecclesiastical, and political institutions and dogmas, and novel American institutions and ideas. She had African slavery, colonial restrictions, and ecclesiastical monopolies. In the chief one of these particulars she had a misfortune which was shared by the United States, while the latter were happily exempted from the other misfortunes. We cannot forget that Mexico, sooner and more readily than the United States, abolished slavery. We cannot deny that all the anarchy in Mexico, of which Mr. Drouyn de Lhuys complains, was necessarily, and even wisely, endured in the attempts to lay sure foundations of broad republican liberty.

I do not know whether France can rightfully be expected to concur in this view, which alleviates, in our mind, the errors, misfortunes, and calamities of Mexico. However this may be, we fall back upon the principal that no foreign state can rightly intervene in such trials as those of Mexico, and on the ground of a desire to correct those errors, deprive the people there of their natural right of domestic and republican freedom. All the injuries and wrongs which Mexico can have committed against any other state have found a severe punishment in consequences which legitimately followed their commission. Nations are not authorized to correct each other’s errors except so far as is necessary to prevent or redress injuries affecting themselves. If one state has a right to intervene in any other state, to establish discipline, constituting itself a judge of the occasion, then every state has the same right io intervene in the affairs of every other nation, being itself alone the arbiter, both in regard to the time and the occasion. The principle of intervention, thus practically carried out, would seem to render all sovereignty and independence, and even all international peace and amity, uncertain and fallacious.

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Mr. Drouyn de Lhuys proceeds to remark, that as for the support which Maximilian receives from the French army, as well also as for the support which has been lent to him by Belgian and Austrian volunteers, those supports cause no hindrance to the freedom of his resolutions in the affairs of his government. Mr. Drouyn de Lhuys asks what state is there that does not need allies, either to form or to defend. As to the great powers, such as France and England, do they not constantly maintain foreign troops in their armies ? When the United States fought for their independence, did the aid given by France cause that movement to cease to be truly national ? Shall it be said that the contest between the United States and the recent insurgents was not in a like manner a national war, because thousands of Irishmen and Germans were found fighting under the flag of the Union ? Arguing from anticipated answers to these questions, Mr. Drouyn de Lhuys reaches a conclusion that the character of Maximilian’s government cannot be contested, nor can its efforts to consolidate itself be contested, on the ground of the employment of foreign troops.

Mr. Drouyn de Lhuys, in this argument, seems to us to have overlooked two important facts, namely: first, that the United States, in this correspondence, have assigned definite limits to the right of alliance incompatible with, our assent to his argument; and secondly, the fact that the United States have not at any time accepted the supposed government of the Prince Maximilian as a constitutional or legitimate form of government in Mexico, capable or entitled to form alliances.

Mr. Drouyn de Lhuys then arranges, in a graphic manner, the advantages that have arisen, or are to arise, to the United States, from the successful establishment of the supposed empire in Mexico. Instead of a country unceasingly in trouble, and which has given us so many subjects of complaint, and against which we ourselves have been obliged to make war, he shows us in Mexico a pacific country, under a beneficent imperial sway, offering henceforth measures of security and vast openings to our commerce, a country far from injuring our rights and hurting our influences. And he assures us that, above all other nations, the United States are most likely to profit by the work which is being accomplished by Prince Maximilian in Mexico. These suggestions are as natural on the part of France as they are friendly to the United States. The United States are not insensible to the desirableness of political and commercial reform in the adjoining country; but their settled principles, habits, and convictions forbid them to look for such changes in this hemisphere to foreign, royal, or imperial institutions, founded upon a forcible subversion of republican institutions. The United States, in their customary sobriety, regard no beneficial results which could come from such a change in Mexico as sufficient to overbalance the injury which they must directly suffer by the overthrow of the republican government in Mexico.

Mr. Drouyn de Lhuys at the end of his very elaborate and able review, recapitulates his exposition in the following words: “The United States acknowledge the right we had to make war in Mexico. On the other part, we admit, as they do, the principle of non-intervention. This double postulate includes, as At seems to me, the elements of an agreement. The right to make war, which belongs, as Mr. Seward declares, to every sovereign nation, implies the right to secure the results of war. We have not gone across the ocean merely for the purpose of showing our power, and of inflicting chastisement on the Mexican government. After a train of fruitless remonstrances, it was our duty to demand guarantees against the recurrence of violence from which our country had suffered so cruelly, and those guarantees we could not look for from a government whose bad faith we had proved on so many occasions. We find them now engaged in the establishment of a regular government, which shows itself disposed to honestly keep its engagements. In this relation we hope that the legitimate object of our expedition will soon be reached, and we are striving to make with the emperor Maximilian arrangements which, by satisfying our interests and our honor, will permit us to consider at an end the service of the army upon Mexican soil. The Emperor has given an order to write in this same sense to our minister at Mexico. We fall back at that moment on the principle of non-intervention, and from that moment accept it as the rule of our conduct. Our interest, no less than our honor, commands us to claim from all the uniform application of it. Trusting the spirit of equity which animates the cabinet of Washington, we expect from it the assurance that the American people will themselves conform to the law which they invoke, by observing, in regard to Mexico, a strict neutrality. When you [meaning the Marquis de Montholon] shall have informed me of the resolution of the federal government, I shall be able to indicate to you the nature of the results of our negotiation with the emperor Maximilian for the return of our troops.”

I have already, and not without much reluctance, made the comments upon the arguments of Mr. Drouyn de Lhuys which seem to be necessary to guard against the inference of concurrence in questionable positions which might be drawn from our entire silence. I think that I can, therefore, afford to leave his recapitulation of those arguments without such an especial review as would necessarily be prolix, and perhaps hypercritical. The United States have not claimed, and they do not claim, to know what arrangements the Emperor may make for the adjustment of claims for indemnity and redress in Mexico. It would be, on our part, an act of intervention to take cognizance of them. We adhere to our position that the war in question has become a political war between France and the republic of Mexico, injurious and dangerous to the United States and to the republican cause, and we ask only that in that aspect and character it may be brought to an end. It would be illiberal on the part of the United States to suppose that, in desiring or pursuing preliminary arrangements, the Emperor contemplates the establishment in Mexico, before withdrawing his forces, of the very institutions which constitute the material ground of the exceptions taken against his intervention by the United States. It would be still more illiberal to suppose for a moment that he expects the United States to bind themselves indirectly to acquiesce in or support the obnoxious institutions.

On the contrary, we understand him as announcing to us his immediate purpose to bring to an end the service of his armies in Mexico, to withdraw them, and in good faith to fall back, without stipulation or condition on our part, upon the principle of non-intervention upon which he is henceforth agreed with the United States. We cannot understand his appeal to us for an assurance that we ourselves will abide by our own principles of non-intervention in any other sense than as the expression, in a friendly way, of his expectation that when the people of Mexico shall have been left absolutely free from the operation, effects, and consequences of his own political and military intervention, we will ourselves respect their self-established sovereignty and independence. In this view of the subject only can we consider his appeal pertinent to the case. Regarding it in only this aspect, we must meet the Emperor frankly. He knows the form and character of this government. The nation can be bound only by treaties which have the concurrence of the President and two-thirds of the Senate. A formal treaty would be objectionable as unnecessary, except as a disavowal of bad faith on our part, to disarm suspicion in regard to a matter concerning which we have given no cause for questioning our loyalty, or else such a treaty would be refused upon the ground that the application for it by the Emperor of France was unhappily a suggestion of some sinister or unfriendly reservation or purpose on his part in withdrawing from Mexico. Diplomatic assurances given by the President in behalf of the nation can at best be but the expressions of confident expectations on his part that the personal administration, ever changing in conformity and adaptation to the national will, does not misunderstand the settled principles and policy of the American people. Explanations cannot properly be made by the President in any case wherein it would be deemed, for any reason, objectionable on grounds of public policy by the treaty-making power of the government to introduce or entertain negotiations.

With these explanations I proceed to say that, in the opinion of the President, France need not for a moment delay her promised withdrawal of military forces from Mexico, and her putting the principle of non-intervention into full and complete practice in regard to Mexico, through any apprehension that the United States will prove unfaithful to the principles and policy in that respect which, on their behalf, it has been my duty to maintain in this now very lengthened correspondence. The practice of this government, from its beginning, is a guarantee to all nations of the respect of the American people for the free sovereignty of the people in every other state. We received the instruction from Washington. We applied it sternly in our early intercourse even with France. The same principle and practice have been uniformly inculcated by all our statesmen, interpreted by all our jurists, maintained by all our Congresses, and acquiesced in without practical dissent on all occasions by the American people. It is in reality the chief element of foreign intercourse in our history. Looking simply toward the point to which our attention has been steadily confined, the relief of the Mexican embarrassments without disturbing our relations with France, we shall be gratified when the Emperor shall give to us, either through the channel of your esteemed correspondence or otherwise, definitive information of the time when French military operations may be expected to cease in Mexico.

Here I might perhaps properly conclude this note. Some obscurity, however, might be supposed to rest upon the character of the principle of non-intervention, which we are authorized to suppose is now agreed upon between the United States and France as a rule for their future government in regard to Mexico. I shall, therefore, reproduce on this occasion, by way of illustration, some of the forms in which that principle has been maintained by us in our previous intercourse with France. In 1861, when alluding to the possibility that the Emperor might he invoked by rebel emissaries from the United States to intervene in our civil war, I observed: “The Emperor of France has given abundant proofs that he considers the people in every country the rightful source of authority, and that its only legitimate objects are their safety, freedom, and welfare.”

I wrote, also, on the same occasion, these words to Mr. Dayton: “I have thus, under the President’s direction, placed before you a simple, unexaggerated, and dispassionate statement of the origin, nature, and purposes of the contest in which the United States are now involved. I have done so only for the purpose of deducing from it the arguments you will find it necessary to employ in opposing the application of the so-called Confederate States to the government of his Majesty the Emperor for a recognition of their independence and sovereignty. The President neither expects nor desires any intervention, or even any favor, from the government of France, or any other, in this emergency. Whatever else he may consent to do, he will never invoke nor even admit foreign interference or influence in this or any other controversy in which the government of the United States may be engaged with any portion of the American people.

“Foreign intervention would oblige us to treat those who should yield it as allies of the insurrectionary party, and to carry on the war against them as enemies.

“However other European powers may mistake, his Majesty is the last one of those sovereigns to misapprehend the nature of this controversy. He knows that the revolution of 1776, in this country, was a successful contest of the great American idea of free, popular government against resisting prejudices and errors. He knows that the conflict awakened the sympathies of mankind, and that ultimately the triumph of that idea has been hailed by all European nations. He knows at what cost European nations for a time resisted the progress of that idea, and, perhaps, is not unwilling to confess how much France, especially, has profited by it. He will not fail to recognize the presence of that one great idea in the present conflict, nor will he mistake the side on which it will be found. It is, in short, the very principle of universal suffrage, with its claim of obedience to its decrees, on which the government of France is built, that is put in issue by the insurrection here, and is in this emergency to be vindicated and more effectually than ever established by the government of the United States.”

In writing upon the same subject to Mr. Dayton, on the 30th of May, 1861, I said: “Nothing is wanting to that success except that foreign nations shall leave us, as is our right, to manage our own affairs in our own way. They, as well as we, can only suffer by their intervention. No one, we are sure, can judge better than the Emperor of France how dangerous and deplorable would be the emergency that should intrude Europeans into the political contests of the American people.”

In declining the offer of French mediation, on the 8th of June, 1861, I wrote to Mr. Dayton: “The present paramount duty of the government is to save the integrity of the American Union. Absolute, self-sustaining independence is the first and most indispensable element of national existence. This is a republican nation; all its domestic affairs must be conducted and even adjusted in constitutional forms, and upon constitutional, republican principles. This is an American nation, and its internal affairs must not only be conducted with reference to its peculiar continental position, but by and through American agencies alone.”

On the first of August, 1862, Mr. Adams was instructed by this government in the following words: “Did the European states which found and occupied this continent almost without effort then understand its real destiny and purposes? Have they ever yet fully understood and accepted them? Has anything but disappointment upon disappointment and disaster upon disaster resulted from their misapprehensions? After near four hundred years of such disappointments and disasters, is the way of Providence in regard to America still so mysterious that it cannot be understood and confessed? Columbus, it was said, had given a new world to the kingdoms of Castile and Leon. What has become of the sovereignty of Spain in America? Richelieu occupied and fortified a large portion of the continent, extending from the Gulf of Mexico to the straits of Belle Isle. Does France yet retain that important appendage to the crown of her sovereign? Great Britain acquired a dominion here surpassing by a hundred-fold in length and breadth the native realm. Has not a large portion of it been already formally resigned? To whom have those vast dominions, with those founded by the Portuguese, the Dutch, and the Swedes, been resigned but to American nations, the growth of European colonists and exiles, who have come hither, bringing with them the arts, the civilization, and the virtues of Europe? Has not the change been beneficial to society on this continent? Has it not been more beneficial even to Europe itself than continued European domination, if it had been possible, could have been? The American nations which have grown up here are free and self-governing. They have made themselves so from inherent vigor and in obedience to absolute necessity. Is it possible for European states to plunge them again into a colonial state and hold them there? Would it be desirable for them and for Europe, if it were possible? The balance of power among the nations of Europe is maintained not without numerous strong armies and frequent conflicts, while the sphere of political ambition there is bounded by the ocean which surrounds that continent. Would it be possible to maintain it at all, if this vast continent, with all its populations, their resources, and their forces, should once again be brought within that sphere?

“On the contrary of all these suppositions, is it not manifest that these American nations were called into existence to be the home of freemen; that the states of Europe have been intrusted by Providence with their tutelage, but that tutelage and all its responsibilities and powers are necessarily withdrawn to the relief and benefit of the parties and of mankind, when these parties become able to choose their own system of government, and to make and administer their own laws? If they err in this choice, or in the conduct of their affairs, it will be found wise to leave them, like all other states, the privilege and responsibility of detecting and correcting the error, by which they are, of course, the principal sufferers.”

On the 8th of May, 1862, Mr. Dayton was instructed to express to Mr. Thouvenel “the desire of the United States that peaceful relations may soon be restored between France and Mexico upon a basis just to both parties, and favorable to the independence and sovereignty of the people of Mexico, which is equally the interest of France and all other enlightened nations.”

On the 21st of June, 1862, Mr. Dayton was authorized to speak on behalf of the United States concerning the condition of Mexico in these words: “France has a right to make war against Mexico, and to determine for herself the cause. We have a right to insist that France shall not improve the war she makes to raise up in Mexico an anti-republican or anti-American government, or to maintain such a government there.”

Accept, sir, a renewed assurance of my high consideration.

WILLIAM H. SEWARD.

The Marquis de Montholon, &c., &c., &c.,