vention 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 concur rence 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 expectation on his part that the personal administration, ever changing in conformity and adaptation to the national will, does not misunderstand the settled principles and pol icy of the Americ in 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 treatymaking power of the government to introduce or entertain nego tiations.

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 be 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 inter

ference 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 contestas of the American people."

In declining the offer of French mediation, on the th of June, 1861, I wrote to Mr. Dayton: "The present paramount duty of the government is to save the integrity of the Ant nim. Absolute, self-sustaining independence is the first and wood das pensable element of national existence. This is a re tion; all its domestic affairs must be conducted a: di in constitutional forms, and upon constitutional, re, ples. This is an American nation, and its internal a

J.

only be conducted with reference to its peculiar continental position, but by and through American agencies alone."

On the 2d of August, 1862, Mr. Adams was instructed by this government in the following words: 1"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 Belleisle. 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?

1 See ante, p. 341.

"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."

Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams.

March 23, 1866. —At the present moment discussion between the United States and Great Britain of the international questions which arose during the war of the insurrection here, has little practical effect. The changing condition of states will bring those questions again prominently into view at no very distant period. Then it will be all-important that the record of the country shall be found complete and satisfactory.

Your correction of the Attorney General's late misstatement in debate will then be appreciated at its just value. I will take care that it shall, in the mean time, be correctly published here.

The suggestion has been often made among us that it would be wise to adopt the British practice of bringing members of the Cabinet into Congress. I confess that when I recollect how unfortunate