one, in reserve, if there shall, unhappily, be occasion for it. The maritime force which has hitherto been employed with so much effect was not even a miniature or model of the navy which is now going forth from its navy yards. Our mines are yielding gold more rapidly than foreign trade can withdraw it from us; and after supplying our own population, including our armies, with bread, we are shipping a surplus which silences the alarms of famine in Europe. Is the national mind unsteady or its tone unsound? Let its alacrity in sending the new levies of six hundred thousand strong into the field in a period of two months answer this question. The people do, indeed, desire peace and repose, as they all along have desired these objects; but the first voice has yet to be raised in demand for peace at such a cost as a loss of the Union, or even an acre of the broad foundation that it tovers. Since the European ideas of the failure of the government were formed a new political event has occurred, which has too much significance to be overlooked. The President, practically with the consent of the American people, has given notice to the insurrectionary slave states that if they refuse after the first day of January next to resume their constitutional relation to their sister states, and persevere in this desolating war, slavery shall, from and after that day, cease within their borders; and national armies and navies are now going forward to make that announcement, if it shall become necessary, a fact. It may be true, as European statesmen so constantly insist, that the slave masters inhabiting the region in insurrection will not submit. Human nature, on the other hand, will teach those statesmen that, though the masters may persist in refusing the Union, the slaves will not reject their offered freedom. If one needs aid to find out how this new but necessary operation of the war will work, he has only to look at the map of the insurrectionary region, and see that that part of the Mississippi which it embraces is inhabited by a population of whom an average of twenty per centum are white men and all the rest are African slaves. Without design on the part of the government against its most benevolent efforts, the slave masters of the insurrectionary states have brought their system of African slavery directly into conflict with the government in its struggle to maintain and preserve the American Union. They have done this under the influence of a reckless and desperate ambition. If they persist, after the reasonable and ample warning

they have received, they must lose the factitious social condition which has been the sole spring of their disloyalty and treason. Are the enlightened and humane nations Great Britain and France to throw their protection over the insurgents now? Are they to enter, directly or indirectly, into this conflict, which, besides being exclusively one belonging to the friendly people of a distant continent, has also, by force of circumstances, become a war between freedom and human bondage? Will they interfere to strike down the arm that so reluctantly but so effectually is raised at last to break the fetters of the slave, and seek to rivet anew the chains which he has sundered? Has this purpose, strange and untried, entered into the counsels of those who are said to have concluded that it is their duty to recognize the insurgents? If so, have they considered, further, that recognition must fail without intervention; that intervention will be ineffectual unless attended by permanent and persisting armies, and that they are committing themselves to maintain slavery in that manner among a people where slaves and masters alike agree in the resolution that it shall no longer exist? Is this to be the climax of the world's progress in the nineteenth century

The European impulses favorable to recognition of the insurgents are due chiefly to the earnestness with which they have announced their resolution to separate. In this respect they can surpass us. We, the loyal people of this Union, are less demonstrative. We are necessarily so. Time works against the insurgents and in our favor. Reason and conscience are on our side; passion alone on theirs. We have institutions to preserve, and responsibilities world-wide and affecting future ages to discharge; they have none. They are at liberty to destroy, and trust to future chances to rebuild; we must save our institutions, not only for ourselves but even for them. I trust, however, that even if the early operations of the government left room for any misapprehension on the subject, the decision and the energies which this government and the loyal people have put forth within the last three months will satisfy Europe that we are not only a considerate but a practical and persevering people. It is time that we should be understood, there. In one sense a generous one it is true, as Earl Russell has said, that we are fighting for empire. But the empire is not only our own already, but it was lawfully acquired, and is lawfully held. Extensive as it

is, none the less in every part our own. We defend it, and we love it with all the affection with which patriotism in every land inspires the human heart. It has the best of institutions - institutions the excellence of which is generously and even gratefully conceded by all men, while they are endeared to ourselves by all national recollections, and by all the hopes and desires we so naturally cherish for a great and glorious future. Studying to confine this unhappy struggle within our own borders, we have not only invoked no foreign aid or sympathy, but we have warned foreign nations frankly and have besought them not to interfere. We have practised justice towards them in every way, and conciliation in an unusual degree. But we are none the less determined for all that to be sovereign and to be free. We indulge in no menaces and no defiances. We abide patiently and with composure the course of events and the action of the nations, whose forbearance we have invoked scarcely less for their sakes than for our own. We have not been misled by any of the semblances of impartiality or of neutrality which unfriendly proceedings towards us in a perilous strife have put on. When any government shall incline to a new and more unfriendly attitude, we shall then revise with care our existing relations towards that power, and shall act in the emergency as becomes a people who have never yet faltered in their duty to themselves while they were endeavoring to improve the condition of the human race.

Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams.

October 25, 1862. Your despatch of October 10th shows that the President's proclamation has produced in Great Britain an impression similar in nature, and differing only in degree, from the effect which it has had here. Although, for obvious reasons, little was said on the subject in the correspondence of this Department in anticipation of the proclamation, yet you must have well understood that the President did not adopt the sanguine expectations of those who assumed that it would instantaneously convert the foreign enemies of our country into friends. It is not now proposed to discuss with those persons the questions they so ingeniously raise, namely, whether the proclamation has not come too late, whether it has not come too early, or whether its effect will not be defeated by the fact that it is based upon military necessity, and not upon philanthropy. In regard to the first two points, they are raised by

those for whom distasteful events are always unseasonable. In regard to the latter, it may be said that the Christian religion has proved none the less successful and beneficent to Europe, although it must be confessed that the mere charity inculcated by that religion was not the exclusive motive of Constantine in adopting and proclaiming it.

Time advances, and the national power will not lag behind it in bearing the proclamation into the homes which slavery has scourged with the crowning evils of civil war, and the most flagrant of political crimes treason against the best Constitution and the best government that has ever been established among men. There is reason to hope that the proceeding will divide and break the insurrection. The public mind has been disturbed, and the periodical occurrence of popular elections has been attended by extravagant expressions, as usual. But the policy of the administration will be practically acquiesced in and ultimately universally approved.

Mr. Seward to Mr. Dayton.

November 4, 1862. You inform us virtually that those very interpreters of public opinion, who four weeks ago could see no merit in our saving our country because the President seemed to be willing to tolerate slavery to effect that end, now pronounce the preservation of the Union to be equally undesirable because it is contingently proposed to abolish slavery in the insurrectionary states to effect that great end. When inconsistencies like this are practised in the name of enlightened nations in regard to other states, how fortunate is it that the laws of nature leave it to such states alone, under the favor of God, to regulate their own affairs, and work out their own destinies.

Just about one hundred years ago two great political revolutions began, upon which were largely suspended the interests of the human race. The first was the emancipation of this continent from European authority; the second was the abolition of the European system of African slavery. With certain incidental and temporary reactions, such as are common to every great reformatory movement, the United States have persistently and successfully carried forward these two revolutions by gradual means and no others, never acting hastily nor resorting to aggression against any nation, any interest, or any class of men; and at the same time never

shrinking from needful self-defence when they encountered unprovoked violence. Although Europe seems to be falling back to the very ground which it held in regard to both of these revolutions when they began, the United States will, nevertheless, steadily persevere with their habitual energy and moderation in the tasks which the Almighty seems to have allotted to them, conscious that though the labor and the sacrifices are theirs, the benefits will belong to mankind.

Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams.

November 4, 1862. — It is not pleasant to a loyal American to see a European Cabinet discussing before a European people the question whether they will continue to recognize the existence of this Republic. But this is a part of the painful experience of the evil times upon which we have fallen. While treason goes abroad from among ourselves to invite foreign nations to intervene, we have no right to expect those nations to judge us candidly, much less to judge us kindly or wisely. It would be, above all things, unreasonable to expect such charitable judgments from political parties in foreign countries, intent only on the objects of their own ambition. Fortunately we have the right to be free, independent, and at peace, whether European political parties wish us to be so or not. I think, also, we have the power to be so. While European parties, according to your representation, are even more hostile to our country now than ever before, it is, on the other hand, a source of much satisfaction to know that this same country of ours not only is but also feels itself to be stronger and in better condition and position to encounter dangers of foreign intervention than it has been at any former period; and that if any additional motive were necessary to sustain its resolution to remain united, independent, and sovereign, that motive would be found in the intervention by a foreign state in the great and painful domestic transactions in which it is engaged.

The wheel of political fortune makes rapid revolutions. It is less than three years since all Great Britain manifested itself desirous of the friendship of the United States. A similar desire may, before the lapse of a long period, occur again. Neither politicians nor statesmen control events. They can moderate them and accommodate their ambitions to them, but they can do no more.