Mr. Seward to Mr. King.
Washington, April 29, 1861.
Sir: I am to instruct you what to do, and of course what not to do, as resident minister of the United States at Rome. In order to understand the wishes and expectations of the President, please consider first the condition of Rome, and then the condition of the United States.
Rome, to a degree hardly comprehended in this country, is protected by the veneration of a large portion of mankind for his Holiness as the expounder of faith and the guardian of religion. Nevertheless, his government is surrounded by the elements of political revolution.
The United States are on the verge of civil war. It happens to them now, as it happened to ancient Rome, and has happened to many other republics, that they must make the trial whether liberty can be preserved while dominion is widely extended. What then shall we say or do in regard to Rome, or what ought Rome to say or do in regard to us?
Assure the government of his Holiness that the President and the people of the United States desire to cultivate with it the most cordial and friendly relations; that we will not violate the friendship already so happily existing by any intervention in the domestic affairs of the States of the Church. Assure his Holiness that it is the settled habit of this government to leave to all other countries the unquestioned regulation of their own internal concerns, being convinced that intrusion by a foreign nation anywhere tends only to embarrass rather than aid the best designs of the friends of freedom, religion and humanity, by impairing the unity of the state exclusively interested.
What ought Rome to do in regard to the United States? Just what I have thus said they will do in regard to Rome. We could not ask or consent to receive more, and the government of his Holiness will not propose to do less, for he is a friend to peace, to good order, and to the cause of human nature, which is now, as it always has been, our cause.
Let the government of Rome set this example and exercise its great influence in favor of a course of natural justice among nations, and the United States will still remain at peace with the whole world, and continue hereafter, as hitherto, to be the home of civil and religious liberty, and an asylum for the exiled and the oppressed.
I am, sir, your obedient servant,
Rufus King, Esq., &c., &c., Rome.