Mr. Seward to Mr. Dickinson.

June 5, 1861. The Spanish-American states are important characters in the interesting drama of advancing civilization. They occupy a virgin domain equal to about one-eighth of the habitable part of the globe. Its fountains of wealth are inexhaustible. Its position secures it nearly equal advantages of trade and intercourse with the listless nations of the east, and with the vigorous nations of the west. Its ports, as well as all its transit routes, are essential features in the commerce of the world. With the advantages of youth and singular exemption from foreign oppression or aggression which the Spanish-American states have enjoyed for near half a century, it might have been expected that they would within that period have become strong and influential nations. The fact, thus far, is otherwise. They are just strong enough to maintain independence without securing necessary fear or respect. With much versatility, respectable talent, high cultivation, and very generous aspirations, they are generally changeful and capricious. The very mention of a South American state suggests always the same inquiry: why a people so free, so virtuous, so educated, and so emulous, are not more secure, fortunate, and happy. Everybody wishes the Spanish-American states well, and yet everybody loses patience with them for not being wiser, more constant, and more stable. Such, I imagine, is the temper in which every foreign state finds. itself when it proposes to consider its relations to those republics, and especially the republics of Central America. I know, at least, that this has always been the temper of our best statesmen in regard to Nicaragua. Union, or at least, practical alliance with Nicaragua has always been felt by them as a necessity for the United States, and yet no one ever deems it prudent to council the establishment of such intimate relations. Possessing one of the continental transits most interesting to the United States, Nicaragua is at once jealous of foreign intervention to render it available, and incompetent to open and maintain it herself. But Nicaragua, like the other Spanish-American states, has far better excuses for its shortcomings than it generally has credit for. That state became precociously mature, and it adopted our model of government with little of that preliminary popular education and discipline which seem necessary to enable any people to administer, maintain, and

preserve free republican institutions. The policy pursued by foreign nations towards Nicaragua has not been liberal or generous. Great Britain, in her wars with Spain, early secured a position in the state very detrimental to its independence, and used it to maintain the Indians in a condition of defiance against the creole population, while it did nothing, at least nothing effectually, to civilize the tribes whom it had taken under its protection. Unwilling to lend the aid necessary to the improvement of the country, Great Britain used its protectorate there to counteract domestic efforts and intervention from this government to make that improvement which was necessary for the interest of Nicaragua herself, and hardly less necessary for all the western nations. Our own government has been scarcely less capricious, at one time seeming to court the most intimate alliance, at another treating the new republic with neglect and indifference, and at an another indirectly, if not directly, consenting to the conquest and desolation of the country by our own citizens for the purpose of reëstablishing the institution of slavery, which it had wisely rejected. It may be doubtful whether Nicaragua has not until this day been a loser instead of a gainer by her propinquity to, and intercourse with, the United States.

Happily this condition of things has ceased at last. Great Britain has discovered that her Mosquito protectorate was as useless to herself as it was injurious to Nicaragua, and has abandoned it. The United States no longer think that they want slavery reëstablished in that state, nor do they desire anything at the hands of its government but that it may so conduct its affairs as to permit and favor the opening of an inter-oceanic navigation, which shall be profitable to Nicaragua and equally open to the United States and to all other maritime nations.

Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams.

June 8, 1861. — This country insists, as all the world might have known that it must and would, under all circumstances, insist, on the integrity of the Union, as the chief element of national life. Since, after trials of every form of forbearance and conciliation, it has been rendered certain and apparent that this paramount and vital object can be saved only by our acceptance of civil war as an indispensable condition, that condition, with all its hazards and

deplorable evils, has not been declined. The acceptance, however, is attended with a strong desire and fixed purpose that the war shall be as short and accompanied by as little suffering as possible. Foreign intervention, aid, or sympathy in favor of the insurgents, especially on the part of Great Britain, manifestly could only protract and aggravate the war. Accordingly Mr. Dallas, under instructions from the President, in an interview conceded to him by the British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, presented our protest against any such intervention.

Lord John Russell answered with earnestness that there was not in the British government the least desire to grasp at any advantages which might be supposed to arise from the unpleasant domestic differences in the United States, but, on the contrary, that they would be highly gratified if those differences were adjusted, and the Union restored to its former unbroken position. Mr. Dallas then, as he reported to us, endeavored to impress upon his lordship how important it must be that Great Britain and France should abstain, at least for a considerable time, from doing what, by encouraging groundless hopes (of the insurgents), would widen a breach still thought capable of being closed; but his lordship seemed to think that the matter was not ripe for decision, one way or another, and remarked that what he had already said was all that at present was in his power to say.

Upon this report you were instructed to inform her Britannic Majesty's government that the President regarded the reply made by his lordship to Mr. Dallas's suggestion as possibly indicating a policy which this government would be obliged to deem injurious to its rights, and derogating from its dignity. This government thought the reply of the Secretary unjustifiably abrupt and reserved. That abruptness and reserve, unexplained, left us under a seeming necessity of inferring that the British government might be contemplating a policy of encouragement to the insurgents which would widen the breach here which we believe it possible to heal if such encouragement should not be extended. A vital interest obliged the United States to seek explanation, or to act on the inference it thus felt itself obliged to adopt.

Your despatch of the 21st of May, which has just been received, shows how you have acquitted yourself of the duty imposed upon you. After stating our complaint to his lordship, you very prop

erly asked an elucidation of his meaning in the reply to which exception had been taken by us, and very rightly, as we think, asked whether it was the intention of her Majesty's ministers to adopt a policy which would have the effect to widen, if not to make irreparable, a breach which we believe yet to be entirely manageable by ourselves. His lordship disclaimed any such intention. A friendly argument, however, then arose between the Secretary and yourself concerning what should be the form of the answer to us which his lordship could properly give, and which would, at the same time, be satisfactory to this government. The question was finally solved in the most generous manner by the proposition of his lordship that he would instruct Lord Lyons to give such a reply to the President as might, in his own opinion, be satisfactory, which proposition you accepted.

I hasten to say, by direction of the President, that your course in this proceeding is fully approved. This government has no disposition to lift questions of even national pride or sensibility up to the level of diplomatic controversy, because it earnestly and ardently desires to maintain peace, harmony, and cordial friendship with Great Britain. Lord John Russell's proposition, by authorizing the President to put the most favorable construction possible upon the response which was deemed exceptionable, removes the whole difficulty without waiting for the intervention of Lord Lyons. You will announce this conclusion to Lord John Russell, and inform him that the settlement of the affair in so friendly a spirit affords this government sincere satisfaction.

Your conversation with the British Secretary incidentally brought into debate the Queen's late proclamation (which seems to us designed to raise the insurgents to the level of a belligerent state); the language employed by her Majesty's ministers in both houses of Parliament, the tone of the public press, and of private opinion, and especially a speech of the Lord Chancellor, in which he had characterized the insurgents as a belligerent state, and the civil war which they are waging against the United States as justum bellum.

The opinions which you expressed on these matters, and their obvious tendency to encourage the insurrection and to protract and aggravate the civil war, are just, and meet our approbation. At the same time, it is the purpose of this government, if possible, consis

tently with the national welfare and honor, to have no serious controversy with Great Britain at all; and if this shall ultimately prove impossible, then to have both the defensive position and the clear right on our side. With this view, this government, as you were made aware by my despatch No. 10, has determined to pass over without official complaint the publications of the British press, manifestations of adverse individual opinion in social life, and the speeches of British statesmen, and even those of her Majesty's ministers in Parliament, so long as they are not authoritatively adopted by her Majesty's government. We honor and respect the freedom of debate, and the freedom of the press. We indulge no apprehensions of danger to our rights and interests from any discussion to which they may be subjected, in either form, in any place. Sure as we are that the transaction now going on in our country involves the progress of civilization and humanity, and equally sure that our attitude in it is right, and no less sure that our press and our statesmen are equal in ability and influence to any in Europe, we shall have no cause to grieve if Great Britain shall leave to us the defence of the independence of nations and the rights of human

nature.

My despatch No. 14 presented four distinct grounds on which this government apprehended a policy on the part of her Majesty's government to intervene in favor of the insurgents, or to lend them aid and sympathy. The first ground was the reserve practised by the British Secretary for Foreign Affairs in his conversation with Mr. Dallas, referred to in the earlier part of this despatch. I have already stated that the explanations made and offered by Lord John Russell have altogether removed this ground from debate.

The second was the contracting of an engagement by the government of Great Britain with that of France, without consulting us, to the effect that both governments would adopt one and the same. course of proceeding in regard to the subject of intervention in our domestic affairs. You were informed in my despatch No. 10 that, as this proceeding did not necessarily imply hostile feelings towards the United States, we should not formally complain of it, but should rest content with a resolution to hold intercourse only with each of those states severally, giving due notice to both that the circumstance that a concert between the two powers in any proposition each might offer to us would not modify in the least degree the action of the United States upon it.