pened that hardly one out of a hundred attempted revolutions has ever been successful. Is not this the instruction of the civil wars of England, France, and San Domingo ?

The consideration that this is a republican state has been heretofore impressed upon the correspondence of this Department, and it cannot be too steadily kept in view by our representatives in Europe. Precisely because it is both a Federal and a republican state, with its cohesion resulting from the choice of the people in two distinct processes, the nation must cease to exist when a foreign authority is admitted to any control over its counsels. It must continue to be jealous of foreign interventions and alliances, as it always heretofore has been.

The nation, moreover, is an American one. It has maintained pleasant and even profitable intercourse with the states of the eastern continent; but it nevertheless is situated in a hemisphere where interests and customs and habits widely differing from those of Europe prevail. Among these differences this one at least is manifest: We neither have sought, nor can we ever wisely seek, conquests, colonies, or allies in the Old World. We have no voice in the congresses of Europe, and we cannot allow them a representation in our popular assemblies. All of the American states once were dependencies of European powers. The fact that it is necessary to discuss the subject of this letter sufficiently proves that even if those powers have relinquished all expectation of recovering a sway here that was so long ago cast off, yet the American nations have nevertheless not realized their safety against European ambition. For this reason, also, we must be left by foreign nations alone, to settle our own controversies and regulate our own affairs in our own American way. If the forbearance we claim is not our right, those who seek to prevent our enjoyment of it can show the grounds upon which foreign intervention or mediation is justified. Will they claim that European powers are so much more enlightened, more just, and more humane than we are, that they can regulate not only their own affairs but ours also, more wisely and more beneficially than we have done? How and where have they proved this superiority?

I cannot avoid thinking that the ideas of intervention and mediation have their source in an imperfect conception in Europe of the independence of the American nation. Although actual foreign

authority has so long passed away, yet the memory of it, and the sentiment of dictation, still linger in the parental European states. Perhaps some of the American nations have by their willingness to accept of favors, lent some sanction to the pretension. But certainly this will not be urged against the United States. We have too many proofs that our independence is by no means pleasing to portions of European society. They would, however, find it difficult to justify their dislike. That independence was lawfully won, and it has been universally acknowledged.

Is our peculiar form of government an offence? It was chosen by ourselves and for our own benefit, and it has not been enforced by us, nor can it in any case be enforced, upon any other people. Our own experience has proved its felicitous adaptation to our condition, and the judgment of mankind has pronounced that its influences upon other nations are beneficent. The severest censure has found no defect in it, except that it is too good to endure.

What plea for intervention or mediation remains? Only this, that our civil war is inconvenient to foreign states. But the inconvenience they suffer is only incidental, and must be brief; while their intervention or mediation might be fatal to the United States. Are not all civil wars necessarily inconvenient to foreign nations? Must every state, when it has the misfortune to fall into civil war, forego its independence and compromise its sovereignty because the war affects its foreign commerce? Would not the practice upon that principle result in the dissolution of all political society? But it is urged that the war is protracted. What if it were so? Do our national rights depend on the time that an insurrection may maintain itself? It has been a war of fifteen months. The battlefield is as large as Europe. The dynamical question involved is as important as any that was ever committed to the issue of civil war. The principles at issue are as grave as any that ever were intrusted to the arbitration of arms. The resources opened by the government, the expenditures incurred, the armies brought into the field, and the vigor and diligence with which they are manœuvred, have never been surpassed; nor has greater success, having due regard to the circumstances of the case, ever been attained. Notwithstanding these facts, Europeans tell us that the task of subduing the insurrection is too great, that the conclusion is already foregone, and the Union must be lost. They fail, however, to satisfy us of

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