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In the meantime, however, you are authorized to say to Count Rechberg that the United States adhere now, as heretofore, to the three principles enunciated by him in that speech, namely:

1. The neutral flag covers enemy's goods, with the exception of contraband of war.

2. Neutral goods, not contraband of war, are not liable to confiscation under enemy's flag.

3. Blockades, in order to be binding, must be effective.

Of course these principles are understood by us as not compromitting our right to close any of our own ports for the purpose of suppressing the exist ing insurrection, either directly or in the more lenient and equitable form of blockade which we have already some time since established.

You will not fail to assure the imperial royal government that the President had received with great satisfaction the assurances of the just purposes and good will of Austria towards the United States, communicated by Count Rechberg to yourself, and repeated by Mr. Hülsemann, the minister of Austria residing at this capital.

It shall be our purpose to cultivate the best understanding with all nations which respect our rights as Austria does.

I am, sir, respectfully, your obedient servant,

J. GLANCY JONES, Esq., &., &c., &c.

WILLIAM II. SEWARD.

Mr. Seward to Mr. Motley.

No. 2.]

DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, August 27, 1861.

SIR: The despatch of your predecessor, Mr. Jones, No. 23, dated August 6, has been received and read with much interest. It relates, however, exclusively to the affairs of Austria, and does not seem to require any special remark from me at the present moment, when the attention of this department is so largely engrossed by the concerns of our own country at home as well as in foreign countries.

Should Mr. Jones be still remaining at Vienna when this communication arrives, you will express to him the entire satisfaction with which his conduct of the legation since it has fallen under the review of the present administration is regarded by the government of the United States.

I am, sir, respectfully, your obedient servant,

J. LOTHROP MOTLEY, Esq., &c., &c., Vienna.

WILLIAM H. SEWARD.

Mr. Seward to Mr. Motley.

No. 4.]

DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, September 20, 1861.

SIR: The despatch, No. 24, of your predecessor, Mr. Jones, under date of August, has been received. I send you a copy of my latest instructions to Mr. Adams and Mr. Dayton on the subject of the proposed accession to the declaration of the congress at Paris. You will learn from these papers that the negotiations for that object with the governments of Great Britain and

France have been arrested, as well as the manner of suspension, and the reasons for it. You will already have discovered for yourself that this suspension of the negotiation with those two powers must operate, to a certain extent, upon the dispositions in the same respect of other European States, although it does not at all modify the views of this government. So far as such other European powers are concerned, all that remains to be said is, that acting in good faith we will cheerfully enter into convention with any State that may desire to receive our accession at this time, and that we shall not, at present, urge our proposition on those States which, for any reason of their own, may propose to await a more convenient season. You will inform Count Rechberg that the friendly sentiments of this gov ernment towards Austria remain unchanged.

I am, sir, your obedient servant,

J. LOTHROP MOTLEY, Esq., ., &c., &c., Vienna.

WILLIAM H. SEWARD.

Ex. Doc. 1-13

FRANCE.

Mr. Seward to Mr. Dayton.

No. 3.]

DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, April 22, 1861.

SIR: You enter a very important foreign mission at a moment when our domestic affairs have reached a crisis which awakens deep solicitude. Throughout a period of eighty years law and order have prevailed, and internal peace and tranquillity have been undisturbed. Five months ago

sedition showed itself openly in several of the southern States, and it has acted ever since that time with boldness, skill, and energy. An insurreetionary government, embracing seven members of this Union, has been proclaimed under the name of the Confederate States of America. That pretended authority, by means chiefly of surprise, easily seen here to have been unavoidable, although liable to be misunderstood abroad, has possessed itself of a navy yard, several fortifications and arsenals, and considerable quantities of arms, ordnance, and military stores. On the 12th of April, instant, its forces commenced an attack upon, and ultimately carried, Fort Sumter, against the brave and heroic resistance of a diminutive garrison, which had been, through the neglect of the former administration, left in a condition to prevent supplies and re-enforcements.

Owing to the very peculiar construction of our system, the late administration, Congress, and every other department of the federal government, including the army and the navy, contained agents, abettors, and sympa thizers in this insurrection. The federal authorities thus became inefficient, while large portions of the people were bewildered by the suddenness of the appearance of disunion, by apprehension that needless resistance might aggravate and precipitate the movement, and by political affinities with those engaged in it.

The project of dismembering the Union doubtless has some support in commercial and political ambition. But it is chiefly based upon a local, though widely extended partisan disappointment in the result of the recent election of President of the United States. It acquired strength for a time from its assumed character of legitimate opposition to a successful party, while, on the other hand, that party could not all at once accept the fact that an administrative political issue had given place to one which involved the very existence of the government and of the Union. These embarrassments are passing away so rapidly as to indicate that far the greater mass of the people remain loyal as heretofore. The President improved the temporary misfortune of the fall of Fort Sumter by calling on the militia of the States to re-enforce the federal army, and summoning Congress for its counsel and aid in the emergency. On the other hand, the insurrectionists have met those measures with an invitation to privateers from all lands to come forth and commit depredations on the commerce of the country.

To take care that the government of his Majesty the Emperor of France do not misunderstand our position, and through that misunderstanding de

us some possible wrong, is the chief duty which you will have to perform at Paris.

It would have been gratifying to the President if the movements to which I have alluded had taken such a course as to leave this government free from the necessity in any event of conferring upon them in the presence of foreign powers. In this age of social development, however, isolation even in misfortune is impossible, and every attempt at revolution in one country becomes a subject of discussion in every other. The agitators in this case have, perhaps, not unnaturally carried their bad cause before foreign states by an appeal for recognition of the independence they have proclaimed, and which they are committed to establish by arms. Prudence requires that we oppose that appeal. The President believes that you will be able to do this in such a manner as will at once comport with the high consideration for his Imperial Majesty which this government habitually entertains, and a due sense of the dignity and honor of the American people.

The Emperor of France has given abundant proofs that he considers the people in every country the rightful source of all authority, and that its only legitimate objects are their safety, freedom, and welfare. He is versed in our Constitution, and, therefore, he will not need demonstration that the system which is established by the Constitution is founded strictly on those very principles. You will be at no loss to show also that it is perfectly adapted to the physical condition and the temper, spirit, and habits of the American people. In all its essential features it is the same system which was first built, and has since existed with ever renewed popular consent in this part of America. The people of this country have always enjoyed the personal rights guaranteed by the great statutes of British freedom, representation concurrent with taxation, jury trial, liberty of conscience, equality before the laws, and popular suffrage. The element of federation or union was early developed while the colonies were under the authority of, and during their revolutionary contest with, the British Crown, and was perfected afterwards by the establishment of the Constitution of the United States. Practically it has been voluntarily accepted by every State, Territory, and individual citizen of the United States. The working of the system has been completely successful, while not one square mile of domain that we at any time had occupied has ever been lost to us. We have extended our jurisdiction from the St. Mary's river to the Rio Grande, on the Gulf of Mexico, and in a wide belt from the Mississippi to the Pacific ocean. population has swollen from four millions to thirty-one millions. The number of our States has increased from thirteen to thirty-four. Our country has risen from insignificance to be the second in the world. Leaving out of view unimportant local instances of conflict, we have had only two foreign wars, and the aggregate duration of them was less than five years. Not one human life has hitherto been forfeited for disloyalty to the government, nor has martial law ever been established except temporarily in case of invasion. No other people have ever enjoyed so much immunity from the various forms of political casualties and calamities.

Our

While there is not now, even in the midst of the gathering excitement of civil war, one American who declares his dissent from the principles of the Constitution, that great charter of federal authority has won the approbation of the civilized world. Many nations have taken it as a model, and almost every other one has in some degree conformed its institutions to the principles of this Constitution. The empire of France, and the new kingdom of Italy especially, are built on the same broad foundation with that of this federal republic, namely, universal suffrage.

Surely we cannot err in assuming that a system of government which arose out of the free consent of the people of this country, which has been

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