belligerent that we do not concede to the other, and allowing to one belligerent what we allow to the other.

Every complaint made by Chilian agents of an attempt on the part of Spain to violate the neutrality of the United States, has been carefully and kindly investigated, and we have done the same, no more and no less, in regard to the complaint instituted against the neutrality of the agents of Chili.

We certainly thought that it was an act of friendship on our part that we obtained assurances from Spain, at the beginning, and at other stages of the present war, that, in any event, her hostilities against Chili should not be prosecuted beyond the limits which I have before described. We understand ourselves now and henceforth ready to hold Spain to this agreement, if, contrary to our present expectations, it should be found necessary. In this we think we are acting a part certainly not unfriendly to Chili. It was thought to be an act of friendship when we used our good offices with both parties to prevent the war. We have thought we were acting a friendly part using the same good offices to secure an agreement for peace without dishonor, or even damage, to Chili. Those who think that the United States could enter as an ally into every war in which a friendly republican state on this continent becomes involved, forget that peace is the constant interest and the unwavering policy of the United States. They forget the frequency and variety of wars in which our friends in this hemisphere engage themselves entirely independent of all control or counsel of the United States. We have no armies for the purpose of aggressive war; no ambition for the character of a regulator. Our Constitution is not an imperial one, and does not allow the executive government to engage in war except upon the well considered and deliberate decree of the Congress of the United States. A Federal government consisting of thirty-six equal states, which are in many respects self-governing, cannot easily be committed by its representatives to foreign wars, either of sympathy or of ambition. If there is any one characteristic of the United States which is more marked than any other, it is that they have from the time of Washington adhered to the principle of non-intervention, and have perseveringly declined to seek or contract entangling alliances, even with the most friendly

states.

Mr. Seward to Mr. Wright.

May 29, 1866. The progress of events is probably outrunning that of speculation upon the question of war in Europe.

Your proceedings in expressing your congratulations to Count Bismarck upon his escape from the assassin are heartily approved by the President. Magistrates and ministers are essential in every government. Such assassination is a crime, because whatever may be its excuses or pretexts, it is purely an individual act, not a social effort for redress of errors or wrongs in administration. It is a private crime against all political society of whatever form or

nature.

You are instructed to express these opinions, in the name of the United States, to the government of Prussia.

September 24, 1866. I thank you for the interesting extract of Count Bismarck's speech, concerning the settlement of the German question, which you have given to me. It speaks in the tone of true nationality.

Will you suggest informally to Count Bismarck the inquiry, whether it would not be deemed consistent now with the dignity and greatness of Prussia to recognize the principle of naturalization as a natural and inherent right of manhood. In reflecting upon the subject, I am not able to believe that Prussia, any more than the United States, can or need to rely upon compulsory military service by subjects who have incorporated themselves as members of foreign states.

Secondly, I know of no circumstances which would tend to place Prussia on an elevation so high among the modern nations as the adoption of that principle which lies at the basis of the American Republic.

Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams:

August 27, 1866. You will herewith receive a summary of claims of citizens of the United States against Great Britain for damages which were suffered by them during the period of our late civil war, and some months thereafter, by means of depredations upon our commercial marine, committed on the high seas by the Sumter, the Alabama, the Florida, the Shenandoah, and other ships

of war, which were built, manned, armed, equipped, and fitted out in British ports, and despatched therefrom by or through the agency of British subjects, and which were harbored, sheltered, provided, and furnished as occasion required, during their devastating career, in ports of the realm, or in ports of British colonies in nearly all parts of the globe.

The table is not supposed to be complete, but it presents such a recapitulation of the claims as the evidence thus far received in this Department enables me to furnish. Deficiencies will be supplied hereafter. Most of the claims have been from time to time brought by yourself, as the President directed, to the notice of her Majesty's government, and made the subject of earnest and continued appeal. That appeal was intermitted only when her Majesty's government, after elaborate discussions, refused either to allow the claims, or to refer them to a joint claims commission, or to submit the question of liability therein to any form of arbitration. The United States, on the other hand, have all the time insisted upon the claims as just and valid. This attitude has been, and doubtless continues to be, well understood by her Majesty's government. The considerations which inclined this government to suspend for a time the pressure of the claims upon the attention of Great Britain were these:

The political excitements in Great Britain, which arose during the progress of the war, and which did not immediately subside at its conclusion, seemed to render that period somewhat unfavorable to a deliberate examination of the very grave questions which the claims involve.

The attention of this government was, during the same period, largely engrossed by questions at home or abroad of peculiar interest and urgency. The British government has seemed to us to have been similarly engaged. These circumstances have now passed away, and a time has arrived when it is believed that the subject may receive just attention in both countries.

The principles upon which the claims are asserted by the United States have been explained by yourself in an elaborate correspondence with Earl Russell and Lord Clarendon. In this respect, there seems to be no deficiency to be supplied by this Department. Thus, if it should be the pleasure of her Majesty's government to revert to the subject in a friendly spirit, the materials for any new discussion

on your part will be found in the records of your legation, properly and duly prepared for use by your own hand. It is the President's desire that you now call the attention of Lord Stanley to the claims in a respectful but earnest manner, and inform him that, in the President's judgment, a settlement of them has become urgently necessary to a reëstablishment of entirely friendly relations between the United States and Great Britain.

This government, while it thus insists upon these particular claims, is neither desirous nor willing to assume an attitude unkind or unconciliatory towards Great Britain. If on her part there are claims, either of a commercial character, or of boundary, or of commercial or judicial regulation, which her Majesty's government esteem important to bring under examination at the present time, the United States would, in such case, be not unwilling to take them into consideration in connection with the claims which are now presented on their part, and with a view to remove at one time, and by one comprehensive settlement, all existing causes of misunderstanding.

In asking an early attention to the subject, it is supposed that you may, with propriety, dwell upon some of its important features, which, although they have heretofore been indicated by you, may nevertheless not hitherto have sufficiently engaged the attention of the British government.

In the beginning of the year 1861, the people of the United States had, by means of commercial enterprise at home and abroad, built up and realized the enjoyment of a foreign trade second only among the nations, and but little inferior to that of Great Britain. They had habitually refrained from wars, and especially from intervention in the political affairs of other nations. Mutual recollections of ancient conflicts which for three-fourths of a century had held the two countries in a state of partial alienation and irritation had subsided, and what was supposed to be a lasting friendship had been estab lished between the United States and Great Britain; at this moment a domestic disturbance rose in our country, which, although it had severe peculiarities, yet was in fact only such a seditious insurrection as is incidental to national progress in every state.

In its incipient stage, it was foreseen here that the insurgents would, as in all cases insurgents must, appeal to foreign states for intervention. It was supposed that their appeal, if successful

anywhere, would be successful in Great Britain, popularly regarded in both countries in one sense as a kindred nation, in another sense as a rival, and in a third, by reason of the great expansion of manufacture, a dependent upon the cotton-planting interest of the southern states, which were to become the theatre of the insurrection. It was foreseen that British intervention, even though stopping many degrees short of actual alliance, or even of recognition of the insurgents as a political power, must nevertheless inevitably protract the apprehended civil war, and aggravate its evils and sufferings on the land, while it must materially injure, if not altogether destroy, our national commerce.

When the insurrection began, the United States believed themselves to hold a position and prestige equal in consideration and influence to that of any other nation; and it was foreseen that foreign intervention in behalf of the insurgents, even to the extent only of recognizing them as a belligerent, must directly, and more or less completely, derogate from the just and habitual influence of the Republic. It was foreseen that, should the insurgents receive countenance, aid, and support, in any degree, from Great Britain, the insurrection might be ripened under such influences into a social • war, which would involve the life of the nation itself. The United States did not fail to give warning to her Majesty's government that the American people could not be expected to submit without resistance to the endurance of any of these great evils, through the means of any failure of Great Britain to preserve the established relations of peace, amity, and good neighborhood with the United States.

The earnest remonstrances thus made seem to the United States to have failed to receive just and adequate consideration. While as yet the civil war was undeveloped, and the insurgents were without any organized military force or a treasury, and long before they pretended to have a flag, or to put either an armed ship or even a merchant vessel upon the sea, her Majesty's government, acting precipitately, as we have always complained, proclaimed the insurgents a belligerent power, and conceded to them the advantages and privileges of that character, and thus raised them in regard to the prosecution of an unlawful armed insurrection to an equality with the United States. This government has not denied that it was within the sovereign authority of Great Britain to assume this attitude;