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races; especially the extension of our frontier any further towards the tropics, together with the admixture of so foreign an element as that of the Mexican population, I considered to be fraught with evil. For my own part, I wished sincerely that the Mexican republic could be strengthened and its administration improved; but I should deplore its conquest, either by our own arms, or those of any European nation.

I have endeavored to give the substance of our conversation as accurately as I can from memory. It was to me an interesting one, and I trust it may be deemed not unworthy of the President's attention and your own. If it is desired that I should say anything officially on the subject at any future day, you will of course instruct me. I believe, however, the scheme in question to be so doubtful, and at any rate so distant, as to make it preferable to leave the matter for the present out of the region of formal discussion.

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SIR: I have to acknowledge the receipt of your despatches Nos. 10, 11, 12, 13, and 14.

I have to report that the relations of this legation with the imperial royal government continue to be of the most satisfactory and cordial nature. The steady and victorious progress of our arms in suppressing the mutiny against the United States government commands the entire sympathy of all classes in this country, and is especially hailed with delight by the most liberal organs of the daily press. For political information I beg to refer you to my private letter of this day's date.

I remain, most respectfully, your obedient servant,

Hon. WILLIAM H. SEWARD,

Secretary of State.

J. LOTHROP MOTLEY.

No. 7.]

Mr. Motley to Mr. Seward.

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[Extract.]

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LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES,
Vienna, August 25, 1862.

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SIR: These symptoms of impending storm which all group themselves about the French occupation of Rome, as the disturbing cause, occupy men's minds to the comparative exclusion of that more world-important event-the great American struggle between freedom and slavery. This is viewed on the continent mainly as a cotton question; and as the American government is supposed to withhold the cotton which keeps the European mills going, the sympathy of European governments is mainly against the blockading power.

A cotton famine is supposed to portend possible popular European commotions. Aristocratic journalists and stump orators hardly look deeper into cause and effect than this, and there is a vague idea prevalent that foreign powers, by intermeddling, can put a stop to what they are pleased to call our "wicked and causeless" war. Governments, however, are pretty well aware that foreign interference will only be adding another war to the one already existing. To expect aristocratic or royal governments to feel as the American people feel in regard to this conspiracy of a slaveholding oligarchy against the sovereignty of the people would be unreasonable. The populations sympathize with our cause, and so do the great thinkers and publicists; but politicians would prefer that the great republic should dismember itself quietly in order that Europe should be put to no further inconvenience. They cannot, or will not, comprehend that such dismemberment would result in a chronic condition of war, with disastrous and permanent destruction of European interests. Fortunately, the American people and the American government, who are one, know that they are fighting not only for their own liberties but for the interests of humanity, and the world will one day be grateful to those whom it now most maligns. I have the honor to be your most obedient servant,

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SIR: The President has recalled Mr. Canisius, our consul at Vienna, for reasons which are assigned in a despatch addressed to him by this department, a copy of which is herewith sent for your information. You may, if you feel it necessary, explain the subject to Count Rechberg, insomuch as it illustrates the policy of the United States in regard to foreign and friendly nations. I am, sir, your obedient servant,

JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY, Esq., fr., &c., &c.

WILLIAM H. SEWARD.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE,

Washington, October 10, 1862.

SIR: Your despatch of the 17th ultimo brings a letter which was written by you to General Garibaldi on the first of September last.

I am directed by the President to inform you that your proceeding in writing that letter is disapproved.

First. It is, in its nature, not a consular but a diplomatic act, transcending your proper functions, which is considered the more unpardonable when it is remembered that the United States are represented not only at Turin but even at Vienna, where you reside, by a minister invested with the most ample diplomatic authority, constantly receiving special instructions from this department. Secondly. Although the proceeding of inviting General Garibaldi to join the armies of the United States may have seemed to you to have been warranted by the fact that this government, a year ago, tendered a command in our armies

to that distinguished soldier, yet your proceedings are not at all parallel to those which attended that case. That invitation was given by the President's direct authority, and was not communicated to General Garibaldi until the consent of the King of Italy, in whose service the general then was, to its transmission was obtained by the diplomatic representatives of this country, acting under direct instructions from this department.

Thirdly. In your communication to General Garibaldi you describe his recent movement as a great patriotic work undertaken in the interest of his country, although the fact was known to you that the undertaking had been prohibited by the government of that country, and that General Garibaldi was taken in arms against that government. The policy of the United States, in regard to Italy, is absolute abstinence from all intervention in its domestic affairs. You have taken up an issue between the government and a portion of the people of Italy who had risen in arms against it.

At the present conjuncture, when every câre is necessarily taken to avoid injurious complications in foreign affairs, and especially in Europe, proceedings on your part so entirely divergent from this judicious policy cannot be overlooked. Upon these grounds your commission as consul at Vienna is withdrawn.

I am, sir, your obedient servant,

T. CANISIUS, Esq.,

United States Consulate, Vienna.

WILLIAM H. SEWARD.

No. 22.]

sources.

Mr. Seward to Mr. Motley.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE,

Washington, November 18, 1862. SIR: Your very interesting despatch of October (No. 8) has been received. The portion of this paper which relates to the internal condition of Austria is the more appreciated here because the views which it presents will be quite new to a large part of the American public. They are entirely sustained by the small number of our travellers who are content to sojourn long enough in Austria to inform themselves well concerning its people, their habits and their reIf this civil war of ours breaks up many a natural illusion which we have fondly cherished, it at the same time is rich in instructions which, I am sure, will not hereafter be hastily forgotten. The dignity, justice, forbearance, and moderation which the royal imperial government has practiced in regard to the unhappy civil war in which we are engaged will be preserved among the grateful incidents of the most critical era in our national life. It will be strange if it do not result in the establishment of a permanent friendship between the two countries. Your observations upon the condition of affairs in this country are very lucid and wisely hopeful.

I give you, for your more particular information, a copy of my despatch of this date to Mr. Adams. It will serve to confirm your faith in the stability of the government.

I have the honor to be, sir, your obedient servant,
WILLIAM H. SEWARD.

J. LOTHROP MOTLEY, Esq., &c., &c., &c., Vienna.

No. 8.]

Mr. Motley to Mr. Seward.

LEGATION of the United States,
Vienna, October

-, 1862. SIR: Your despatches Nos. 17, 18, 19, and 20 have been received. No. 17, which is printed and in the form of a circular, relates mainly to the subject of possible intervention in our affairs on the part of foreign powers, and of the probable effects of such a step should it be taken.

It is hardly necessary for me to state that the able and conclusive reasoning of your despatch has my entire approval. You are better able to judge, offcially, of the probabilities of such a catastrophe, (for an intermeddling by Europe with our domestic matters can be called by no other name, and could have only the most tragical results,) because there are but two governments in the world that have ever arrogated to themselves the right to discuss the proprieties of such a step. The government of the empire to which I have the honor of being accredited has never hinted at any desire of interference, nor made any ostentatious proclamation of "neutrality" between the government bound to it by treaties of amity and commerce and an imaginary nation, which has no existence, save in the visions of domestic treason and foreign malice.

In spite of the clamor of a portion of the English press and of that fraction of the British public, which is incapable of lifting its aspirations higher than its immediate material interests, I cannot believe, now that the proclamation of September 22 has distinctly defined the position of our government on the great question of the age, that any English ministry can stand up in the face of God and man, and extend the right hand of fellowship to a new commonwealth, avowedly based upon the perpetuation and extension of negro slavery as its corner-stone, until that commonwealth has proved its existence to be a fact which can no longer be contradicted. That the fact is already an accomplished one would be a childish assertion, and no man in Europe deserving the name of a statesman or a reasoner has ventured to make it.

The venerable premier of England has been all his life a consistent and determined hater of African slavery, and has always done battle with it stoutly. I shall never believe that, so long as he guides the policy of England, that country will be swift to recognize the claims of the slave confederacy for recog nition, now that all the clouds which sophistry has collected in Europe about the causes of our war have been forever dissipated. No man in Europe capable of reasoning has failed to understand the bearings of a subject which in itself was simple, but which passion and malice had rendered complex. It was perfectly understood that slavery, as it existed in the States, was beyond the reach of the federal government in time of peace, and that it was only the war levied by the slaveholders upon the national existence which placed the institution within the reach of the national power exercising its belligerent rights.

Wise and good men have appreciated the hesitation of the President to make use of this tremendous weapon, and to meet revolution by revolution; but nearly all have foreseen that this was the inevitable issue of the great onslaught made by slavery upon the national life and on our free institutions, and, more than all, that as the war went on, emancipation by the commander-in-chief, in the exercise of his unquestioned right to take all measures not repugnant to humanity to overcome the resistance of the enemy, was really the only method of averting that most horrible of catastrophes-a servile war.

Insurrections, unorganized and private wars, whether by white men or black men, may, and, I doubt not, always will, be suppressed by the military arm; but the position of a great country, defending itself against the deadly blows of the slave power with one hand while protecting its enemy with the other, had become an untenable and almost an absurd one.

"We have the right to put in practice against the enemy," says Vattel, "every measure that is necessary in order to weaken him, and disable him from resisting us and supporting his injustice; and we may choose such methods as are the most efficacious and best calculated to attain the end in view, provided they be not of an odious kind, nor unjustifiable in themselves, and prohibited by the law of nature."(B. III, c. VIII.)

Whether the excellent Swiss would have thought the bestowing liberty upon the captives of the enemy an unjustifiable measure, or one prohibited by the law of nature, may be judged by his well known opinion in regard to slavery. "If I spare his life and condemn him to a state so contrary to the nature of man, I still continue with him the state of war. He lies under no obligation to me, for what is life without freedom? If any one counts life a favor when the grant of it is attended with chains, be it so. I shall dwell no longer on the subject; and, indeed, that disgrace to humanity is happily banished from Europe."

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From the tone of the liberal portion of the English press, and from private correspondence, I am disposed to feel comparatively at ease in regard to the possibility of immediate foreign intervention. Of course, the danger is an ever impending one, and the most vigorous measures for the prosecution of the war cannot be too earnestly urged on government by those who know the anxiety with which the struggle is watched in this hemisphere, and who feel the enmity which the progress and prosperity of our great and free republic have awakened among the possessors of privilege and the humble servants of those classes.

The masses all over Europe sympathize with our cause, for they know, without need of argument or illustration, that our great commonwealth was the refuge of the downtrod and the oppressed, and the only hope of humanity and civilization beyond the seas. That its existence is endangered by an oligarchy founded on slavery, and that it is now defending itself with a generous outpouring of its best blood and its treasure, altogether unparalelled in the history of the world, does not diminish the affection with which it is regarded by the lovers of freedom.

It is in this connexion that I refer to a passage in your despatch No. 19, in which you inform me that you can give me no fresh instructions in regard to the multitude of brave and distinguished officers in this empire seeking to serve under our flag. I have always given them the same answer; that neither international law nor the statutes of our own country permitted a diplomatic representative to come into engagements with foreign soldiers. At the same time I have always expressed myself as deeply touched by their manifestations of sympathy and devotion to our cause. Hardly a day has passed since I have had the honor of representing our republic, in which I have not received applications, often from officers of high rank, who have gained reputation on many battle fields of Europe, for permission to enter our army. And it is with deep regret that I have been obliged to decline the services of men who would have done honor to any cause. But as part of the current history of the times it is well that these things should be recorded, and the archives of this legation contain many eloquent letters from chivalrous soldiers, who have asked to devote their swords and their lives to the "starry banner," which to them, as they uniformly assert, is the symbol of freedom and civilization. It is right that the homage so earnestly paid in a foreign land to that flag, under which so many of our own best and bravest are laying down their lives, should be remembered.

In this connexion I deem worthy of your notice a brief extract from a remarkable series of papers in the principal military journal of this empire, in which the course of our campaigns is criticized, sometimes severely, but never ungenerously; always with talent, and with thorough knowledge of the subject, topographically and strategetically, and with a firm disposition to do justice.

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