either their right or their ability to advise upon it, while they no longer affect to conceal the prejudices or the interests which disqualify them for any judgment in the case.

Finally, the advocates of intervention are shocked by the calamities we are enduring, and concerned by the debts we are incurring, yet they have not one word of remonstrance or discouragement for the insurgents, and are busy agents in supplying them with materials of war. We deplore the sufferings which the war has brought, and are ready and anxious to end the contest. We offer the simple terms of restoration to the Union, and oblivion of the crimes committed against it so soon as may be compatible with the public. safety. I have expressed these views of the President to our representatives at this time, when I think there is no immediate danger of foreign intervention, or attempt at mediation, to the end that they may have their due weight whenever, in any chances of the war, apprehensions of foreign interference may recur.

Mr. Seward to Mr. Dayton.

August 23, 1862. It is difficult for our people and much more difficult for foreigners to detect the real tendencies of political events during the excitements of this attempted revolution. It found us unprepared, and even unsuspecting and incredulous. When the war had broken out, the people, accustomed to peace, very soon became impatient, and a signal defeat, without any compensating success, produced alarm, which was followed by apparent despondency. Europe, in view of these facts, naturally concluded that the contest on our part would be short and hopeless. The country, however, reconsidered, and put forth energies which brought a series of successes which seemed to render a conclusion of the war in favor of the Union speedy and certain. Europe had scarcely time to accept this assurance before a failure, not a defeat, at Richmond, disappointed and disconcerted the sanguine and impatient portion of our countrymen.

The government did not hesitate a day to provide for reinforcing and augmenting the national forces on a scale adequate to the prosecution of the war with greater vigor and certainty of success than before. But a transient gloom had fallen once more upon the national mind, and presses that necessarily sympathize with a morbid public temper, and minister to it day after day, and week after week, continued to deepen that gloom, and to harass the country

with fears of disasters everywhere at home, and dangers everywhere abroad. Advocates of extreme and conflicting policies and sentiments came upon the stage, and claimed the public attention with expectations of successful agitation which could have no other effect than to divide the country and to deliver it up to the distractions of party spirit. Alarms of intervention were, of course, sounded by the conspirators abroad with much effect. It was very natural, and, therefore, by no means unexpected, that, under such circumstances,, our representatives abroad, reading the American heart through the newspapers, as they necessarily must, and not feeling its stronger vibrations as the government here did, should despair of its prompt response to the President's call for three hundred thousand volunteers. All this has now changed. The call is already answered ; forty-five thousand of the new recruits are already in the field; a hundred thousand more are marching towards it, and two hundred and thirty-three thousand are in camps of rendezvous and organization. This is an excess of seventy-eight thousand over the three hundred thousand volunteers which were demanded. You have, however, already been informed that the President has called for three hundred thousand militia, to be raised by draft. The time for this draft is fixed for the 2d of September. There is only one question left undetermined, which is, namely, whether the government will accept volunteers for this force also, or insist upon the draft, now found unnecessary.

Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams.

September 26, 1862. In the beginning of our domestic troubles, all the outside world was apparently in a state of profound and permanent peace. It seemed as if, unavoidably, irritation was produced in several foreign countries by the derangement of our national commerce, and they were not only entirely free to combine against us and enforce a dissolution of the Union, but were even being impelled by very powerful influences to enter into such a combination. Perhaps the most portentous incident which has occurred in the progress of this unhappy strife was the announcement made to us by the governments of Great Britain and France that they had agreed to act together in regard to the questions which it should present for their consideration. Every one knows the influence that the united wills of these two great maritime powers carry

in the councils of other states. It has been for us of late a relief to perceive that although European cabinets still maintain their conventional accord, yet the fundamental political interests of the states they represent are forcing themselves into notice and tempering, if not modifying, the proceedings of their governments.

It is, as you suggest, very plainly the interest of all the members of this Federal Union to arrest their civil war, reconcile their differences, reorganize the government on its constitutional basis, and thus maintain themselves equally against possible foreign war and the still more dangerous inroads of foreign influence. But the faction which has gotten up the insurrection builds its hopes of success chiefly upon foreign intervention, and it has not thus far been sufficiently exhausted to open the way for serious reflection in the revolutionary states. This whole nation, when united, was a greater and stronger power than it was believed abroad, and even greater and stronger than it supposed itself to be. The insurgent portion of it, though very unequal to the loyal, are not deficient in strength and wealth available for treason. An ambitious spirit, perhaps it would not be severe to say a malignant one, has imparted much energy to the insurgent arms. But it no longer admits of doubt that there has been a visible process of exhaustion of men and money in the insurgent states. The waste of armies in war was unforeseen by them, as it was by the government. It is now visible on both sides. Practically, it is not difficult to renew our armies, but the wasted forces of the insurgents cannot be replaced. They have spent three hundred and fifty millions already, and need two hundred and fifty millions more for expenditure before the beginning of the new year. Their whole actual revenue from imposts and 'taxes gathered within the past year is nominally twelve millions, but this was received in a currency depreciated at least fifty per cent. ; they have no resources for greater taxation. The spirit which has sustained them thus far cannot be maintained without the gain of military advantages far greater than they have hitherto obtained.

In view of these facts, it is probably safe to assume that the insurrection has reached its crisis.

As you are well aware, it has never been expected by the President that the insurgents should protract this war until it should exhaust not only themselves but the loyal states, and bring foreign armies or navies into the conflict, and still be allowed to retain in

bondage, with the consent of this government, the slaves who constitute the laboring and producing masses of the insurrectionary states. At the same time, the emancipation of the slaves could be effected only by executive authority, and on the ground of military necessity. As a preliminary to the exercise of that great power, the President must have not only the exigency, but the general consent of the loyal people of the Union in the border slave states where the war was raging, as well as in the free states which have escaped this scourge, which could only be obtained through a clear convic tion on their part that the military exigency had actually occurred. It is thus seen that what has been discussed so earnestly at home and abroad as a question of morals or of humanity has all the while been practically only a military question, depending, on time and circumstances. The order for emancipation, to take effect on the first of January, in the states then still remaining in rebellion against the Union, was issued upon due deliberation and conscientious consideration of the actual condition of the war, and the state of opinion in the whole country.

No one who knows how slavery was engrafted upon the nation when it was springing up into existence; how it has grown and gained strength as the nation itself has advanced in wealth and power; how fearful the people have hitherto been of any change which might disturb the parasite, will contend that the order comes too late. It is hoped and believed that after the painful experience we have had of the danger to which the Federal connection with. slavery is exposing the Republic there will be few indeed who will insist that the decree which brings the connection to an end either could or ought to have been further deferred.

The interests of humanity have now become identified with the cause of our country, and this has resulted not from any infraction of constitutional restraints by the government, but from persistent upconstitutional and factious proceedings of the insurgents, who have opposed themselves to both.

Mr. Seward to Mr. Dayton.

October 8, 1862. - Revolutions seldom admit of exact regulation. This insurrection is an appeal by force.not merely to reverse a regular popular judgment, but to overturn the tribunal which pronounced it. I admit the importance of moderation on the part of

the government. I think that all the world will agree that the government has thus far practised that virtue to the largest possible extent. It has, however, produced no abatement of the ambitious designs of the insurgents. It is manifest that they prefer a common ruin, a complete chaos, to any composition whatever that could be made under any auspices. Nor does the case admit of offers of composition on the part of the Union. It is a question between the existing and only possible constitutional system of government and a resolution of society here into small, distracted, and ever-jealous belligerent states. Other unusual elements enter into the motives of the conflict, and popular passions inflame them into a white heat. It is impossible not to see that the conflict between universal freedom and universal slavery, which has been so long put off, has come upon us at last in the form of a civil war, and that the parties are marshalling themselves under the banners of the Union and of the insurrection, respectively. Who has ever seen mediation or compromise arrest a conflict of that nature when brought to the trial of arms? No such conflict was ever ended but by exhaustion of one or both of the parties. Does it require a great discernment to see. on which side exhaustion must first occur? Does it require much loyalty to our institutions, or much faith in virtue, or much trust in the guidance of a beneficent Providence, to enable us to believe that that exhaustion must be rapid and complete enough to bring about a return of that portion of our people which has been misled to the constitutional government, which alone can maintain peace, preserve order, and guarantee practical freedom to all the members of the state? Where are we now? The Union is distracted, but it is not broken nor even shaken. It still maintains its authority everywhere, with local exceptions, as before. It still maintains its place in the councils of nations. It has only begun to draw upon its resources and its forces. The insurrection is without position at home or abroad. It has nearly exhausted its resources, and it is bringing into the field the last armies available by conscription. No revolution, prolonged without success, escapes the avenger of faction among its movers. That avenger is even now upon the heels of the movers of the insurrection, and it appears with terrors such as failing revolutionists were never before compelled to turn upon and confront. Let any statesman look into the elements of society in the Gulf or revolutionary States, and see what else than universal