PUBLIC DOCUMENIS. 



783 



and thirst for blood and plunder of private proper- 

 ty. But, however implacame they may be, they can 

 have neither the spirit nor the resources required for 

 a fourth year of a struggle unche_ered by any hope of 

 success, kept alive solely for the indulgence of merce- 

 nary and wicked passions, and demanding so exhaust- 

 ing* an expenditure of blood and money as has hitherto 

 been imposed on their people. The advent of peace 

 will be hailed with joy; our desire for it has never 

 been concealed ; our efforts to avoid the war, forced on 

 us as it was by the lust of conquest and the insane 

 passions of our foes, are known to mankind. But, earn- 

 est as has been our wish for peace, and great as have 

 been our sacrifices and sufferings during the war, the 

 determination of this people has, with each succeeding 

 month, become more unalterably fixed to endure any 

 sufferings and continue any sacrifices, however pro- 

 longed, until their right to self-government and the 

 sovereignty and independence of these States shall 

 have been triumphantly vindicated and firmly estab- 

 lished. 



In this connection the occasion seems not unsuitable 

 for some reference to the relations between the con- 

 federacy and the neutral Powers of Europe since the 

 separation of these States from the former Union. 

 Four of the States now members of the confederacy 

 were recognized by name as independent sovereignties 

 in a treaty of peace concluded in the year 1783, with 

 one of the two great maritime Powers of Western Eu- 

 rope, and had been prior to that period allies in war 

 of the other. In the year 1778 they formed a union 

 with nine other States under Articles of Confederation. 

 Dissatisfied with that Union, three of them Virginia, 

 Carolina, and Georgia together with eight of the 

 States now members of the United States, seceded from 

 it in 1789, and these eleven seceding States formed a 

 second Union, although by the terms of the Articles 

 of Confederation express provision was made that the 

 first Union should be perpetual. Their right to se- 

 cede, notwithstanding this provision, was never con- 

 tested by the States from which they separated, nor 

 made the subject of discussion with any third Power. 

 When, at the later period, North Carolina acceded to 

 that second Union, and when, still later, the other 

 seven States, now members of this confederacy, be- 

 came also members of the same Union, it was upon the 

 recognized footing of equal and independent sovereign- 

 ties; nor had it then entered into the minds of men 

 that sovereign States could be compelled by force to 

 remain members of a confederation into which they 

 had entered of their own free will, if at a subsequent 

 period the defence of their safety and honor should, in 

 their judgment, justify withdrawal. 



The experience of the past had evinced the futility 

 of any renunciation of such inherent rights, and ac- 

 cordingly the provision for perpetuity contained in the 

 Articles of Confederation of 1773 was emitted to the 

 Constitution of 1789. When, therefore, in 1861, eleven 

 of the States again thought proper, for reasons satis- 

 factory to themselves, to secede from the second Union, 

 and to form a third one, under an amended constitu- 

 tion, they exercised a right which, being inherent, re- 

 quired no justification to foreign nations, and which 

 international law did not permit them to question. 

 The usages of intercourse between nations do, how- 

 ever, require, that official communication be made to 

 friendly Powers of all organic changes in the constitu- 

 tion of States, and there was obvious propriety in giv- 

 ing prompt assurance of our desire to continue amica- 

 ble relations with all mankind. 



It was under the influence of these considerations 

 that your predecessors, the Provisional Government, 

 took early measures for sending to Europe commis- 

 sioners charged with the duty of visiting the capitals 

 of the different Powers, and making arrangements for 

 the opening of more formal diplomatic intercourse. 

 Prior, however, to the arrival abroad of these commis- 

 sioners, the United States had commenced hostilities 

 against the confederacy by despatching a secret expe- 

 dition for the reiinforcement of Fort Sumter, after an 

 express promise to the contrary, and with a duplicity 



which has been fully unveiled in a former message. 

 They had also addressed communications to the dif- 

 ferent cabinets of Europe, in which they assumed the 

 attitude of being sovereign over this confederacy, al- 

 leging that these independent States were in rebellion 

 against the remaining States of the Union, and threat- 

 ening Europe with manifestations of their displeasure 

 if it should treat the Confederate States as having an 

 independent existence. It soon became known that 

 these pretensions were not considered abroad to be as 

 absurd as they were known to be at home, nor had 

 Europe yet learned what reliance was to be placed in 

 the official statements of the cabinet at Washington. 

 The delegation of power granted by these States to the 

 Federal Government to represent them in foreign inter- 

 course, had led Europe into the grave error of suppos- 

 ing that their separate sovereignty and independence 

 had been merged into one common sovereignty, and 

 had ceased to have a distinct existence. Under the 

 influence of this error, which all appeals to reason and 

 historical fact were vainly used to dispel, our commis- 

 sioners were met by the declaration that foreign Go- 

 vernments could not assume to judge between the con- 

 flicting representations of the two parties as to the 

 true nature of their previous mutual relations. The 

 Governments of Great Britain and France accordingly 

 signified their determination to confine themselves to 

 recognizing the self-evident fact of the existence of a 

 war, and to maintaining a strict neutrality during its 

 progress. Some of the other Powers of Europe pur- 

 sued the same course of policy, and it became apparent 

 that by some understanding, express or tacit, Europe 

 had decided to leave the initiative in all action touch- 

 ing the contest on this continent to the two Powers 

 just named, who were recognized to have the largest 

 interests involved both by reason of proximity and of 

 the extent and intimacy of their commercial relations 

 with the States engaged in the war. 



It is manifest that the course of action adopted by 

 Europe, while based on an apparent refusal to deter- 

 mine the question, or to side with either party, was in 

 point of fact an actual decision against our rights, and 

 in favor of the groundless pretensions of the United 

 States. It was a refusal to treat us as an independent 

 government. If we were independent States, the re- 

 fusal to entertain with us the same international inter- 

 course as was maintained with our enemy was unjust, 

 and was injurious in its effects, whatever may have 

 been the motive which prompted it. Neither was it in 

 accordance with the high moral obligations of that in- 

 ternational code whose chief sanction is the conscience 

 of sovereigns and the public opinion of mankind, 

 that those eminent Powers should decline the perfor- 

 mance of a duty peculiarly incumbent on them from 

 any apprehension of the consequences to themselves. 

 One immediate and necessary result of their declining 

 the responsibility of a decision which must have been 

 adverse to the extravagant pretensions of the United 

 States, was the prolongation of hostilities to which our 

 enemies were thereby encouraged, and which have re- 

 sulted in nothing but scenes of carnage and devasta- 

 tion on this continent, and of misery and suffering on 

 the other, such as have scarcely a parallel in history. 

 Had these Powers promptly admitted our right to be 

 treated as all other independent nations, none can 

 doubt that the moral effect of such action would have 

 been to dispel the delusion under which the United 

 States have persisted in their efforts to accomplish our 

 subjugation. 



To the continued hesitation of the same Powers in 

 rendering this act of simple justice toward this con- 

 federacy is still due the continuance of the calamities 

 which mankind suffers from the interruption of its 

 peaceful pursuits both in the Old and New World. 

 There are other matters in which less than justice has 

 been rendered to this people by neutral Europe, and 

 undue advantage effected on the aggressors in a wicked 

 war. At the inception of hostilities the inhabitants of 

 the confederacy were almost exclusively agriculturists ; 

 those of the United States, to a great extent, mechan- 

 ics and merchants. We had no commercial marine, 



