Mr. Seward to Mr.
Clay.
No. 13.]
Department of
State,
Washington,
September 3, 1861.
Sir: Your despatch of the 3d of August (No. 5)
has been received.
I have been quite well aware that our relations to Great Britain and
France, in this crisis of our domestic difficulties, are attended by
complications and dangers which altogether surpass any that we can have
to encounter in our intercourse with Russia and other northern European
powers. We hope and expect to be always in relations of amity and real
friendship with those powers, and are very willing to negotiate with
them, and especially with Russia, upon the basis of the declaration of
the congress of Paris, either with or without the Marcy amendment,
though greatly preferring that that amendment shall be incorporated into
the treaty.
At the same time, it is well that you should know that thus far the
propositions for similar treaties with Great Britain and France have not
yet been acceded to by those governments. If the imperial government,
for any reason, prefer to delay acting upon the subject until the
decisive results of our negotiations with the two other powers named, we
shall not expect you to be urgent upon the subject. We simply desire to
act justly and candidly with all other nations, so as to give them all
reasonable guarantees for the security of commerce during the
continuance of our civil war. This done, we can cheerfully abide the
coming of events, never doubting for a moment the complete restoration
of the authority and high prestige of the federal Union.
Your remarks upon the subject of Mexico are very interesting, and they
will have due weight in forming any determination which the rapid course
of political events there shall require us to adopt.
I wish that it were compatible with my many cares at this critical moment
to impart to each of our ministers abroad a full knowledge of the
condition of
[Page 308]
our negotiations
and discussions with all foreign powers. If I could do so, you would
probably be satisfied that you are laboring under apprehensions of some
imaginary foreign dangers. But such a proceeding is absolutely
impossible, and I must be content to advise you, when necessary, of the
President’s wishes in regard to your own mission, and leave you, as to
the rest, to await ultimate, and yet seasonable, developments.
I am, sir, respectfully, your obedient servant,
Cassius M. Clay, Esq., &c., &c., &c.
[Translation.]
Prince
Gortchacow to Mr. De
Stoeckl.
St.
Petersburg,
July 10, 1861.
Sir: From the beginning of the conflict
which divides the United States of America you have been desired to
make known to the federal government the deep interest with which
our august master was observing the development of a crisis which
puts in question the prosperity and even the existence of the
Union.
The Emperor profoundly regrets to see that the hope of a peaceful
solution is not realized, and that American citizens, already in
arms against each other, are ready to let loose upon their country
the most formidable of the scourges of political society—a civil
war.
For the more than eighty years that it has existed the American Union
owes its independence, its towering rise, and its progress to the
concord of its members, consecrated, under the auspices of its
illustrious founder, by institutions which have been able to
reconcile union with liberty. This union has been fruitful. It has
exhibited to the world the spectacle of a prosperity without example
in the annals of history.
It would be deplorable that, after so conclusive an experience, the
United States should be hurried into a breach of the solemn compact
which, up to this time, has made their power.
In spite of the diversity of their constitutions and of their
interests, and perhaps, even, because of this
diversity, Providence seems to urge them to draw closer the
traditional bond which is the basis and the very condition of their
political existence. In any event, the sacrifices which they might
impose upon themselves to maintain it are beyond comparison with
those which dissolution would bring after it. United, they perfect
themselves; isolated, they are paralyzed.
The struggle which unhappily has just arisen can neither be
indefinitely prolonged nor lead to the total destruction of one of
the parties. Sooner or later it will be necessary to come to some
settlement, whatsoever it may be, which may cause the divergent
interests now actually in conflict to coexist.
The American nation would then give a proof of high political wisdom
in seeking in common such a settlement before a useless effusion of
blood, a barren squandering of strength and of public riches, and
acts of violence and reciprocal reprisals shall have come to deepen
an abyss between the two parties to the confederation, to end
definitively in their mutual exhaustion, and in the ruin, perhaps
irreparable, of their commercial and political power.
Our august master cannot resign himself to admit such deplorable
anticipations. His Imperial Majesty still places his confidence in
that practical
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good sense
of the citizens of the Union who appreciate so judiciously their
true interests. His Majesty is happy to believe that the members of
the federal government and the influential men of the two parties
will seize ail occasions and will unite all their efforts to calm
the effervescence of the passions. There are no interests so
divergent that it may not be possible to reconcile them by laboring
to that end with zeal and perseverance in a spirit of justice and
moderation.
If, within the limits of your friendly relations, your language and
your councils may contribute to this result, you will respond, sir,
to the intentions of his Majesty the Emperor in devoting to this the
personal influence which you may have been able to acquire during
your long residence at Washington, and the consideration which
belongs to your character as the representative of a sovereign
animated by the most friendly sentiments towards the American Union.
This Union is not simply, in our eyes, an element essential to the
universal political equilibrium. It
constitutes, besides, a nation to which our august master and all
Russia have pledged the most friendly interest; for the two
countries, placed at the extremities of the two worlds, both in the
ascending period of their development, appear called to a natural
community of interests and of sympathies, of which they have already
given mutual proofs to each other.
I do not wish here to approach any of the questions which divide the
United States. We are not called upon to express ourselves in this
contest. The preceding considerations have no other object than to
attest the lively solicitude of the Emperor in presence of the
dangers which menace the American Union, and the sincere wishes
which his Majesty entertains for the maintenance of that great work,
so laboriously raised, which appeared so rich in its future.
It is in this sense, sir, that I desire you to express yourself, as
well to the members of the general government as to influential
persons whom you may meet, giving them the assurance that in every
event the American nation may count upon the most cordial sympathy
on the part of our august master during the important crisis which
it is passing through at present.
Receive, sir, the expression of my very distinguished
consideration.
Mr. De Stoeckl, &c., &c., &c.
