from which the new State has so detached itself. On the other hand, we insist that a nation that recognizes a revolutionary State, with a view to aid its effecting its sovereignty and independence, commits a great wrong against the nation whose integrity is thus invaded, and makes itself responsible for a just and ample redress. I will not stop to inquire whether it may not sometimes happen that an imperial government or even a federative one may not so oppress or aggrieve its subjects in a province or in a State as to justify intervention on the plea of humanity. Her Majesty's government, however, will not make a pretence that the present is such a case. The United States have existed under their present form of government seventy and more years, and during all that time not one human life has been taken in forfeiture for resistance to their authority. It must be the verdict of history that no government so just, so equal, and so humane, has ever elsewhere existed. Even the present disunion movement is confessedly without any better cause than an apprehension of dangers which, from the very nature of the government, are impossible; and speculations of aggressions, which those who know the physical and social arrangements of this continent must see at once are fallacious and chimerical. The disunionists will, I am sure, take no such ground. They will appeal, not to the justice, or to the magnanimity, but to the cupidity and caprice of Great Britain. It cannot need many words to show that even in that form their appeal ought to be promptly dismissed. I am aware that the revenue law lately passed by Congress is vehemently denounced in Great Britain. It might be enough to say on that subject that as the United States and Great Britain are equals in dignity, and not unequal in astuteness in the science and practice of political economy, the former have good right to regard only their own convenience, and consult their own judgment in framing their revenue laws. But there are some points in this connexion which you may make without compromising the self-respect of this government. In the circumstances of the present case, it is clear that a recognition of the so-called Confederate nations must be deemed equivalent to a deliberate resolution by her Majesty's government that this American Union, which has so long constituted a sovereign nation, shall be now permanently dissolved, and cease to exist forever. The excuse for this resolution, fraught, if effectual, with fearful and enduring consequences, is a change in its revenue laws-a change which, because of its very nature, as well as by reason of the ever-changing course of public sentiment, must necessarily be temporary and ephemeral. British censors tell us that the new tariff is unwise for ourselves. If so, it will speedily be repealed. They say it is illiberal and injurious to Great Britain. It cannot be so upon her principles without being also injurious to ourselves, and in that case it will be promptly repealed. Besides, there certainly are other and more friendly remedies for foreign legislation that is injurious without premeditated purpose of injury, which a magnanimous government will try before it deliberately seeks the destruction of the offended nation. The application of the so-called Confederate States, in the aspect now under consideration, assumes that they are offering, or will offer, more liberal commercial facilities than the United States can or will be disposed to concede. Would it not be wise for Great Britain to wait until those liberal facilities shall be definitely fixed and offered by the Confederate States, and then to wait further and see whether the United States may not accord facilities not less desirable? The union of these States seventy years ago established perfectly free trade between the several States, and this, in effect, is free trade throughout the largest inhabitable part of North America. During all that time, with occasional and very brief intervals, not affecting the result, we have been constantly increasing in commercial liberality towards foreign nations. We have made that advance necessarily, because, with increasing liberality, we have at the same time, owing to controlling causes, continually augmented our revenues and increased our own productions. The sagacity of the British government cannot allow it to doubt that our natural course hereafter in this respect must continue to be the same as heretofore. The same sagacity may be trusted to decide, first, whether the so-called Confederate States, on the emergency of a military revolution, and having no other sources of revenue than duties on imports and exports levied within the few ports they can command without a naval force, are likely to be able to persevere in practicing the commercial liberality they proffer as an equivalent for recognition. Manifestly, moreover, the negotiation which they propose to open with Great Britain implies that peace is to be preserved while the new commerce goes on. The sagacity of her Majesty's government may be trusted to consider whether that new government is likely to be inaugurated without war, and whether the commerce of Great Britain with this country would be likely to be improved by flagrant war between the southern and northern States. Again, even a very limited examination of commercial statistics will be sufficient to show that while the staples of the disaffected States do, indeed, as they claim, constitute a very important portion of the exports of the United States to European countries, a very large portion of the products and fabrics of other regions consumed in those States are derived, and must continue to be derived, not from Europe, but from the northern States, while the chief consumption of European productions and fabrics imported into the United States takes place in these same States. Great Britain may, if her government think best, by modifying her navigation laws, try to change these great features of American commerce; but it will require something more than acts of the British Parliament and of the proposed revolutionary Congress to modify a commerce that takes its composite character from all the various soils and climates of a continent, as well as from the diversified institutions, customs and dispositions of the many communities which inhabit it. The Once more: All the speculations which assume that the revenue law recently passed by Congress will diminish the consumption of foreign fabrics and productions in the United States are entirely erroneous. American people are active, industrious, inventive, and energetic, but they are not penurious or sordid. They are engaged with wonderful effect in developing the mineral, forest, agricultural and pastoral resources of a vast and, practically, new continent. Their wealth, individual as well as public, increases every day in a general sense, irrespective of the revenue laws of the United States, and every day also the habit of liberal-not to say profuse-expenditure grows upon them. There are changes in the nature and character of imported productions which they consume, but practically no decline in the quantity and value of imports. It remains to bring out distinctly a consideration to which I have already adverted. Great Britain has within the last forty-five years changed character and purpose. She has become a power for production, rather than a power for destruction. She is committed, as it seems to us, to a policy of industry, not of ambition; a policy of peace, not of war. One has only to compare her present domestic condition with that of any former period to sce that this new career on which she has entered is as wise as it is humane and beneficent. Her success in this career requires peace throughout the civilized world, and nowhere so much as on this continent. Recognition by her of the so-called Confederate States would be intervention and war in this country. Permanent dismemberment of the American Union in consequence of that intervention would be perpetual war-civil war. The new Confederacy which in that case Great Britain would have aided into existence must, like any other new state, seek to expand itself northward, westward, and southward. What part of this continent or of the adjacent islands would be expected to remain in peace? The President would regard it as inconsistent with his habitually high consideration for the government and people of Great Britain to allow me to dwell longer on the merely commercial aspects of the question under discussion. Indeed he will not for a moment believe that, upon consideration of merely financial gain, that government could be induced to lend its aid to a revolution designed to overthrow the institutions of this country, and involving ultimately the destruction of the liberties of the American people. To recognize the independence of a new state, and so favor, possibly determine, its admission into the family of nations, is the highest possible exercise of sovereign power, because it affects in any case the welfare of two nations, and often the peace of the world. In the European system this power is now seldom attempted to be exercised without invoking a consultation or congress of nations. That system has not been extended to this continent. But there is even a greater necessity for prudence in such cases in regard to American States than in regard to the nations of Europe. A revolutionary change of dynasty, or even a disorganization and recombination of one or many States, therefore, do not long or deeply affect the general interests of society, because the ways of trade and habits of society remain the same. But a radical change effected in the political combinations existing on the continent, followed, as it probably would be, by moral convulsions of incalculable magnitude, would threaten the stability of society throughout the world. Humanity has indeed little to hope for if it shall, in this age of high improvement, be decided without a trial that the principle of international law which regards nations as moral persons, bound so to act as to do to each other the least injury and the most good, is merely an abstraction too refined to be reduced into practice by the enlightened nations of Western Europe. Seen in the light of this principle, the several nations of the earth constitute one great federal republic. When one of them casts its suffrages for the admission of a new member into that republic, it ought to act under a profound sense of moral obligation, and be governed by considerations as pure, disinterested, and elevated as the general interest of society and the advancement of human nature. The British empire itself is an aggregation of divers communities which cover a large portion of the earth and embrace one-fifth of its entire population. Some, at least, of these communities are held to their places in that system by bonds as fragile as the obligations of our own federal Union. The strain will some time come which is to try the strength of these bonds, though it will be of a different kind from that which is trying the cords of our confederation. Would it be wise for her Majesty's government, on this occasion, to set a dangerous precedent, or provoke retaliation? If Scotland and Ireland are at last reduced to quiet contentment, has Great Britain no dependency, island, or province left exposed along the whole circle of her empire, from Gibraltar through the West Indies and Canada till it begins again on the southern extremity of Africa? The President will not dwell on the pleasing recollection that Great Britain, not yet a year ago, manifested by marked attention to the United States her desire for a cordial reunion which, all ancient prejudices and passions being buried, should be a pledge of mutual interest and sympathy forever thereafter. The United States are not indifferent to the circumstances of common descent, language, customs, sentiments, and religion, which recommend a closer sympathy between themselves and Great Britain than either might expect in its intercourse with any other nation. The United States are one of many nations which have sprung from Great Britain herself. Other such nations are rising up in va ious parts of the globe. It has been thought by many who have studied the philosophy of modern history profoundly, that the success of the nations thus deriving their descent from Great Britain might, through many ages, reflect back upon that kingdom the proper glories of its own great career. The government and people of Great Britain may mistake their commercial interests, but they cannot become either unnatural or indifferent to the impulses of an undying ambition to be distinguished as the leaders of the nations in the ways of civilization and humanity. I am, sir, respectfully, your obedient servant, WILLIAM H. SEWARD. Mr. Dallas to Mr. Seward. [Extracts.] No. 325.] LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES, SIR: I have recently had the honor to receive your despatches, numbered 304 and 305. Having noticed that the despatch No. 304, bearing date the 28th of February, respecting the newly-formed confederacy of seceded States, was in harmony as well with the views enunciated in the inaugural address on the 4th instant as with those of the presidential message of December last, I lost no time in seeking an interview with her Majesty's principal secretary of state for foreign affairs, and in stating the opposition which I am in that despatch instructed to make to any recognition by the Queen of England of the independence of those who have thus attempted to throw off their federal obligations. The necessary opportunity was accorded to me on the day after the receipt of the despatch, yesterday. Lord John Russell then listened to the communication as one he expected; though on its purport the British cabinet, if they had interchanged opinions at all, had reached no definite conclusion as to their proper course of action. I took the liberty to inquire whether any one professing to represent the southern republic had approached this government on the subject, and his lordship, with prompt frankness, assured me that he felt no hesitation in answering in the negative, adding that he had been shown a private letter from which he inferred that accredited ministers or commissioners, authorized to negotiate for the recognition, would shortly be sent by the provisiona authorities of Montgomery. I have the honor to be, sir, your most obedient servant, The Hon. the SECRETARY OF STATE, Washington. Mr. Dallas to Mr. Seward. [Extract.] No. 329.1 LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES, London, April 5, 1861. SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your despatches, numbered 306 and 307, and a circular, dated the 9th of March, 1861, respecting the probable efforts of persons claiming to represent a southern provisional government to obtain the recognition of their independence by Great Britain. Respecting this last-mentioned subject, I addressed yesterday, as soon as your instruction was received, a note to her Majesty's principal secretary of state for foreign affairs requesting an early interview, deeming it not impossible that I might be enabled to send you something by this steamer. My note, however, is yet unanswered, owing, I presume, to the absence of Lord John Russell from town. The commissioners from the new confederacy have not yet arrived, and may not arrive until late in this month. You were apprised by my despatch of the 22d ultimo (No. 325) that, on the receipt from the department of your predecessors, No. 304, I had lost no time in placing the matter properly before this government. Your own views will be communicated in greater fullness when the opportunity is allowed me. * * * * * * I have the honor to be, sir, your obedient servant, The Hon. WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State Mr. Dallas to Mr. Seward. No. 330.] LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES, SIR: Referring to my despatch of the 5th instant, (No. 329,) I have now the honor to state that Lord John Russell accorded me an interview at the foreign office yesterday, and enabled me to submit fully to his consideration the representations of your circular, with the inaugural address of the President. We conversed for some time on the question of recognizing the alleged southern confederacy, of which no representative has yet appeared, and may not appear until the end of the month. His lordship assured me with great earnestness that there was not the slightest disposition in the British government to grasp at any advantage which might be supposed to arise from the unpleasant domestic differences in the United States, but, on the contrary, that they would be highly gratified if those differences were adjusted and the Union restored to its former unbroken position. I pressed upon him, in concluding, if that were the case-and I was quite convinced that it was-how important it must be that this country and France should abstain, at least for a considerable time, from doing what, by encouraging groundless hopes, would widen a breach still thought capable of being closed. He seemed to think the matter not ripe for decision one way or the other, Ex. Doc. 1-6 |