Mr. Wright to Mr. Seward.
Sir: In my interview with Count Bismarck on last Monday, I communicated to him the information conveyed in your despatch No. 22, dated February 19th, 1866. I stated that the government of the United States would not, in my opinion, enter into treaty stipulations qualifying the right of American citizens to the recognition of their nationality by foreign governments. I also added that the government of the United States did not think at this time there was any occasion or urgency for a revision of our commercial and extradition treaties. The count manifested more than ordinary interest in my communication, and, while expressing his disappointment, remarked upon the impossibility of Prussia changing her laws on the subject of military duty. To abolish these laws, he said, would be plainly impracticable for a country situated like Prussia, while to relax their stringency in favor of American emigrants beyond the concessions, (as he termed them, alluding to his protocol proposals,) would not only amount to the practical abrogation of said statutes in the case of all that had emigrated to the United States, or intended to do so in the future, but would be actually offering a sort of emigration premium to all able-bodied men who had attained the age when they might be called out for active service in the army. He manifested, as usual, a great desire to adjust this subject, and intimated that seven years’ absence from Prussia should release the person from all military service, as applied to all who left their country after their seventeenth year. This, he intimated, would be a fair compromise; saying, as the government of the United States did not, and he ardently hoped would never undertake to enforce its own views upon the subject, why not, he repeated, accept these proposals, which would enable the government to dispense with the many remonstrances that had of late been addressed to him in so many individual cases, and which, he regretted to say, could not always be attended to by him. Why not accept these proposals, the count continued, as they would render it possible for the great majority of emigrated Prussians to come over and visit the country of their birth with impunity.
He spoke with much feeling of the great number of born Prussians, who, after being naturalized in America, return to this country with American passports, when their neighbors had scarcely missed them from their native village; many [Page 11] of them talking loud, and many times saying things well calculated to arouse the national feelings of the good citizens of the fatherland. To check such practices and to obviate the impropriety of offering emigration premiums was, he urged, his only motive in insisting upon the maintenance of some slight provisos calculated to prevent Prussian subjects from evading the duty of military service in the country of their birth by a very brief residence in the United States.
Count Bismarck is decidedly of the opinion that the commercial and extradition treaties between the two countries are defective, and he will no doubt communicate with Baron Gerolt with the view of calling our government’s attention to this subject more fully.
I gave my opinions in despatch No. 22, as to what would be the practical effect of Count Bismarck’s proposals on emigration. If these concessions (as he calls them) were adopted—namely: 1st, exemption to all who leave before attaining the age of seventeen; 2d, exemption to all others who have been absent from Prussia seven years—they would release from military service nine out of ten of the returning Prussians, and include nearly every case that has come under my observation during a residence of five years at this post. If the same was made public and understood and believed in the United States, not one case in a hundred would, in my judgment, arise between the two countries in one year after it was known. Such being the case, would it not be possible to accept said proposal without renouncing or impairing the principles vindicated at all times by the United States ? Are there no precedents on record where a nation, though not fully admitting a principle insisted upon by another nation, admits so much of it as to make it practicable for the other to accept the concession without derogating from its dignity ?
Frederick Boettcher, an American citizen, aged twenty-two, emigrated to the United States when fourteen years of age. He served two years in the Union army. He returned to Prussia a short time since, was arrested for not having performed military duty, and forcibly taken to Frankfort on the Oder, and placed in the Prussian army. His passport and other papers were taken from him, and he was forbidden to communicate his arrest to this legation under penalty of being punished. A few days since he informed me, through a relative, of his arrest and being in the Prussian army. I at once called upon Count Bismarck and laid the case before him, and respectfully asked his prompt attention to the same. He replied, that as Boettcher had left Prussia when only fourteen, he should be discharged, and remarked that he thought my information as to his treatment was incorrect. I am in receipt of no further intelligence concerning the case of Simon Israel. Both of these cases (of Israel and Boettcher) come within the proposals of Count Bismarck, Israel having been out of the country nearly thirteen years, and Boettcher emigrated to the United States when only fourteen.
Since my last despatch, warlike demonstrations have marked the conduct of Prussia and Austria; generals have been appointed; military posts examined; campaigns discussed; and military councils held at their capitals.
The mobilization of the armies of the two countries has been the constant theme of conversation. Business of all kinds has been affected thereby. Austrian and Prussian securities have materially declined.
To-day it is stated and believed that the Gastein convention will be strictly adhered to, and the prospects of friendly relations are more probable.
I have the honor to be, most respectfully, your obedient servant,
Hon. William H. Seward, Secretary of State, Washington, D. C.