262 



DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE. 



Mexico. The instructions to Mr. Corwin, the 

 American Minister' to Mexico, are dated April 

 6th. Mr. Seward writes : 



The President does not expect that you will allude 

 to the origin or causes of our domestic difficulties in 

 your intercourse with the Government of Mexico, 

 although that Government will rightfully, as well as 

 reasonably, ask what are his expectations of their 

 course and their end. On the contrary, the President 

 will not suffer the representatives of the United States 

 to engage in any discussion of the merits of those 

 difficulties in the presence of foreign powers, much 

 less to invoke even their censure against those of our 

 fellow-citizens who have arrayed themselves in oppo- 

 sition to its authority. 



But you are instructed to assure the Government of 

 Mexico that these difficulties having arisen out of no 

 deep and permanent popular discontent, either in re- 

 gard to our system of government itself, or to the 

 exercise of its authority, and being attended by social 

 evils which are as ruinous as they are unnecessary, 

 while no organic change that is contemplated could 

 possibly bring to any portion of the American people 

 any advantages of security, peace, prosperity, or hap- 

 piness, equal to those which the Federal Union so 

 effectually guarantees, the President confidently be- 

 lieves and expects that the people of the United States, 

 in the exercise of the wisdom that hitherto has never 

 failed them, will speedily and in a constitutional way 

 adopt all necessary remedies for the restoration of 

 the public peace and the preservation of the Federal 

 Union. 



The success of this Government, in conducting 

 affairs to that consummation, may depend in some 

 small degree on the action of the Government and peo- 

 ple of Mexico in this new emergency. The President 

 could not fail to see that Mexico, instead of being bene- 

 fited by the prostration or the obstruction of Federal 

 authority in this country, would be exposed by it to 

 new and fearful dangers. On the other hand, a con- 

 dition of anarchy in Mexico must necessarily operate 

 as a seduction to those who are conspiring against the 

 integrity of the Union to seek strength and aggran- 

 dizement for themselves by conquests in Mexico and 

 other parts of Spanish America. Thus, even the dull- 

 est observer is at last able to see what was long ago 

 distinctly seen by those who are endowed with any 

 considerable perspicacity, that peace, order, and con- 

 stitutional authority in each and all of the several 

 republics of this continent are not exclusively an 

 interest of any one or more of them, but a common and 

 indispensable interest of them all. 



Again, Mr. Seward says : 



You may possibly meet agents of this projected 

 Confederacy busy in preparing some further revolu- 

 tion in Mexico. You will not fail to assure the Gov- 

 ernment of Mjexico that the President never has, nor 

 can ever have, any sympathy with such designs, in 

 whatever quarter they' may arise, or whatever charac- 

 ter they may take on. 



Mr. Corwin, on the 29th of May, writes in 

 reply : " The present Government of Mexico is 

 well affected towards us in our present difficul- 

 ties, but, for obvious reasons, will be unwilling 

 to enter into any engagement which might 

 produce war with the South, unless protected 

 by promise of aid from the United States." 



On the 29th of June, Mr. Corwin again 

 writes : " I am quite sure that whilst this Gov- 

 ernment will endeavor to preserve peaceful re- 

 lations with all the European powers on fair 

 terms, it regards the United States as its true 

 and only reliable friend in any struggle which 

 may involve the national existence." 



Great Britain. In a letter of instructions to 



Mr. Adams, dated April 10th, Mr. Seward first 

 presents a dispassionate view of the disunion 

 movement, and then proceeds to consider the 

 manner in which that movement and its agents 

 should be treated by Mr. Adams at the court of 

 Great Britain. lie says: 



Before considering the arguments you are to use, it 

 is important to indicate those which you are not to 

 employ in executing that mission : 



First. The President has noticed, as the whole 

 American people have, with much emotion, the ex- 

 pressions of good-will and friendship toward the 

 United States, and of concern for their present em- 

 barrassments, which have been made on apt occasions 

 by her Majesty and her ministers. You will make due 

 acknowledgment for these manifestations, but at the 

 same time you will not rely pa any mere sympathies or 

 national kindness. You will make no admissions of 

 weakness in our Constitution, or of apprehension on 

 the part of the Government. You win rather prove, 

 as you easily can, by comparing the history of our 

 country with that of other States, that its Constitution 

 and government are really the strongest and surest 

 which have ever been erected for the safety of any 

 people. You will in no case listen to any suggestions 

 of confpromise by this Government, under foreign 

 auspices, with its discontented citizens. If, as tne 

 President does not at all apprehend, you shall unhap- 

 pily find her Majesty's Government tolerating the 

 application of the so-called seceding States, or waver- 

 ing about it, you will not leave them to suppose for a 

 moment that they can grant that application and 

 remain the friends of the United States. You may 

 even assure them promptly, in that case, that if they 

 determine to recognize, they may at the same time 

 prepare to enter into alliance with the enemies of this 

 republic. You alone will represent your country at 

 London, and you will represent the whole of it there. 

 When you are asked to divide that duty with others, 

 diplomatic relations between the Government of Great 

 Britain and this Government will be suspended, and 

 will remain so until it shall be seen which of the two 

 is most strongly intrenched in the confidence of their 

 respective nations and of mankind. 



You will not be allowed, however, even if you were 

 disposed, as the President is sure you will not be, to 

 rest your opposition to the application of the Confed- 

 erate States on the ground of any favor this Adminis- 

 tration, or the party which chiefly called it into ex- 

 istence, proposes to show to Great Britain, or claims 

 that Great Britain ought to show them. You will not 

 consent to draw into debate before the British Govern- 

 ment any opposing moral principles which may be 

 supposed to lie at the foundation of the controversy 

 between those States and the Federal Union. 



You will indulge in no expressions of harshness or 

 disrespect, or even impatience, concerning the seced- 

 ing States, their agents, or their people. But yon 

 will, on the contrary, all the while remember that 

 those States are now, as they always heretofore have 

 been, and, notwithstanding their temporary self-delu- 

 sion, they must always continue to be, equal and 

 honored members of this Federal Union, and that 

 their citizens throughput all political misunderstand- 

 ings and alienations still are and always must be our 

 kindred and countrymen. In short, all your argu- 

 ments must belong to one of three classes, namely: 

 First. Arguments drawn from the principles of public 

 law and natural justice, which regulate the intercourse 

 of equal States. Secondly. Arguments which concern 

 equally the honor, welfare, and happiness of the dis- 

 contented States, and the honor, welfare, and happi- 

 ness of the whole Union. Thirdly. Arguments which 

 are equally conservative of the rights and interests, 

 and even sentiments of the United States, and just in 

 their bearing upon the rights, interests, and senti- 

 ments of Great Britain and all other nations. 



On the 9th of April, Mr. Dallas writes to Mr. 



