Mexico, and he further insists that the opposition made by some military chiefs to the establishment of an empire under Maximilian is only the natural sequence of the same want of discipline, and the same prevalence of anarchy, of which his predecessors in power in Mexico have been victims. It is not the purpose, nor would it be consistent with the character of the United States, to deny that Mexico has been for a long time the theatre of faction and intestine war. The United States confess this fact with regret, all the more sincere, because the experience of Mexico has been not only painful for her own people, but has been also of unfortunate evil influence on other nations.

On the other hand, it is neither a right of the United States, nor consistent with their friendly disposition towards Mexico, to reproach the people of that country with her past calamities, much less to invoke or approve the infliction of punishment upon them by strangers for their political errors. The Mexican population have, and their situation has, some peculiarities which are doubtless well understood by France. Early in the present century they were forced, by convictions which mankind cannot but respect, to cast off a foreign monarchical rule which they deemed incompatible with their welfare and aggrandizement. They were forced, at the same time, by convictions which the world must respect, to attempt the establishment of republican institutions, without the full experience and practical education and habits which would render those institutions all at once firm and satisfactory. Mexico was a theatre of conflict between European commercial, ecclesiastical, and political institutions and dogmas, and novel American institutions and ideas. She had African slavery, colonial restrictions, and ecclesiastical monopo-| lies. In the chief one of these particulars she had a misfortune which was shared by the United States, while the latter were happily exempted from the other misfortunes. We cannot forget that Mexico, sooner and more readily than the United States, abolished slavery. We cannot deny that all the anarchy in Mexico, of which Mr. Drouyn de l'Huys complains, was necessarily, and even wisely, endured in the attempts to lay sure foundations of broad republican liberty.

I do not know whether France can rightfully be expected to concur in this view, which alleviates, in our mind, the errors, misfortunes, and calamities of Mexico. However this may be, we fall

back upon the principle that no foreign state can rightly intervene in such trials as those of Mexico, and on the ground of a desire to correct those errors, deprive the people there of their natural right of domestic and republican freedom. All the injuries and wrongs which Mexico can have committed against any other state have found a severe punishment in consequences which legitimately followed their commission. Nations are not authorized to correct each other's errors except so far as is necessary to prevent or redress injuries affecting themselves. If one state has a right to intervene in any other state, to establish discipline, constituting itself a judge of the occasion, then every state has the same right to intervene in the affairs of every other nation, being itself alone the arbiter, both in regard to the time and the occasion. The principle of intervention, thus practically carried out, would seem to render 'all sovereignty and independence, and even all international peace and amity, uncertain and fallacious.

Mr. Drouyn de l'Huys proceeds to remark, that as for the support which Maximilian receives from the French army, as well also as for the support which has been lent to him by Belgian and Austrian volunteers, those supports cause no hindrance to the freedom of his resolutions in the affairs of his government. Mr. Drouyn de l'Huys asks what state is there that does not need allies, either to form or to defend. As to the great powers, such as France and England, do they not constantly maintain foreign troops in their armies? When the United States fought for their independence, did the aid given by France cause that movement to cease to be truly national? Shall it be said that the contest between the United States and the recent insurgents was not in a like manner a national war, because thousands of Irishmen and Germans were found fighting under the flag of the Union? Arguing from anticipated answers to these questions, Mr. Drouyn de l'Huys reaches a conclusion that the character of Maximilian's government cannot be contested, nor can its efforts to consolidate itself be contested, on the ground of the employment of foreign troops.

Mr. Drouyn de l'Huys, in this argument, seems to us to have overlooked two important facts, namely: First, that the United States, in this correspondence, have assigned definite limits to the right of alliance incompatible with our assent to his argument; and secondly, the fact that the United States have not at any time

accepted the supposed government of the Prince Maximilian as a constitutional or legitimate form of government in Mexico, capable or entitled to form alliances.

Mr. Drouyn de l'Huys then arranges, in a graphic manner, the advantages that have arisen, or are to arise, to the United States, from the successful establishment of the supposed empire in Mexico. Instead of a country unceasingly in trouble, and which has given us so many subjects of complaint, and against which we ourselves have been obliged to make war, he shows us in Mexico a pacific country, under a beneficent imperial sway, offering henceforth measures of security and vast openings to our commerce, a country far from injuring our rights and hurting our influences. And he assures us that, above all other nations, the United States are most likely to profit by the work which is being accomplished by Prince Maximilian in Mexico. These suggestions are as natural on the part, of France as they are friendly to the United States. The United States are not insensible to the desirableness of political and commercial reform in the adjoining country; but their settled principles, habits, and convictions forbid them to look for such changes in this hemisphere to foreign, royal, or imperial institutions, founded upon a forcible subversion of republican institutions. The United States, in their customary sobriety, regard no beneficial results which could come from such a change in Mexico as sufficient to overbalance the injury which they must directly suffer by the overthrow of the republican government in Mexico.

Mr. Drouyn de l'Huys at the end of his very elaborate and able review, recapitulates his exposition in the following words:

"The United States acknowledge the right we had to make war in Mexico. On the other part, we admit, as they do, the principle of non-intervention. This double postulate includes, as it seems to me, the elements of an agreement. The right to make war, which belongs, as Mr. Seward declares, to every sovereign nation, implies the right to secure the results of war. We have not gone across the ocean merely for the purpose of showing our power, and of inflicting chastisement on the Mexican government. After a train of fruitless remonstrances, it was our duty to demand guarantees against the recurrence of violence from which our country had suffered so cruelly, and those guarantees we could not look for from a government whose bad faith we had proved on so many occasions. We find them now engaged in the establishment of a regular government, which shows itself disposed to honestly keep its engagements. In this relation we hope that the legitimate object of our expedition will soon be reached, and we are striv

ing to make with the Emperor Maximilian arrangements which, by satisfying our interests and our honor, will permit us to consider at an end the service of the army upon Mexican soil. The Emperor has given an order to write in this same sense to our minister at Mexico. We fall back at that moment on the principle of non-intervention, and from that moment accept it as the rule of our conduct. Our interest, no less than our honor, commands us to claim from all the uniform application of it. Trusting the spirit of equity which animates the cabinet of Washington, we expect from it the assurance that the American people will themselves conform to the law which they invoke, by observing, in regard to Mexico, a strict neutrality. When you (meaning the Marquis de Montholon) shall have informed me of the resolution of the Federal government, I shall be able to indicate to you the nature of the results of our negotiation with the Emperor Maximilian for the return of our troops."

I have already, and not without much reluctance, made the comments upon the arguments of Mr. Drouyn de l'Huys which seem to be necessary to guard against the inference of concurrence in questionable positions which might be drawn from our entire silence. I think that I can, therefore, afford to leave his recapitulation of those arguments without such an especial review as would necessarily be prolix, and perhaps hypercritical. The United States have not claimed, and they do not claim, to know what arrangements the Emperor may make for the adjustment of claims for indemnity and redress in Mexico. It would be, on our part, an act of intervention to take cognizance of them. We adhere to our position that the war in question has become a political war between France and the republic of Mexico, injurious and dangerous to the United States and to the republican cause, and we ask only that in that aspect and character it may be brought to an end. It would be illiberal on the part of the United States to suppose that, in desiring or pursuing preliminary arrangements, the Emperor contemplates the establishment in Mexico, before withdrawing his forces, of the very institutions which constitute the material ground of the exceptions taken against his intervention by the United States. It would be still more illiberal to suppose for a moment that he expects the United States to bind themselves indirectly to acquiesce in or support the obnoxious institutions.

On the contrary, we understand him as announcing to us his immediate purpose to bring to an end the service of his armies in Mexico, to withdraw them, and in good faith to fall back, without stipulation or condition on our part, upon the principle of non-inter

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 concurrence 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 policy of the American 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 negotiations.

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