The President returned from Headquarters of the Army and
sent for me this A.M. Seward, Chase, Stanton, and Halleck were present, and Fox
came in also. He gave particulars so far as he had collected them, not differing
essentially from ours.
An army dispatch received this P.M. from Fortress Monroe
says the Flambeau has arrived in Hampton Roads from Charleston; that our
vessels experienced a repulse; some of the monitors were injured. The
information is as confused and indefinite as the Rebel statements. Telegraphed
to Admiral Lee to send the Flambeau to Washington. Let us have the dispatches.
Seward is in great trouble about the mail of the Peterhoff,
a captured blockade-runner. Wants the mail given up. Says the instructions
which he prepared insured the inviolability and security of the mails. I told
him he had no authority to prepare such instructions, that the law was
paramount, and that anything which he proposed in opposition to and disregarding
the law was not observed.
He called at my house this evening with a letter from Lord
Lyons inclosing dispatches from Archibald, English Consul at New York. Wanted
me to send, and order the mail to be immediately given up and sent forward. I
declined. Told him the mail was properly and legally in the custody of the
court and beyond Executive control; assured him there would be no serious damage
from delay if the mail was finally surrendered, but I was inclined to believe
the sensitiveness of both Lord Lyons and Archibald had its origin in the fact
that the mail contained matter which would condemn the vessel. “But,” said
Seward, “mails are sacred; they are an institution.” I replied that would do
for peace but not for war; that he was clothed with no authority to concede the
surrender of the mail; that by both statute and international law they must go
to the court; that if his arrangement, of which I knew nothing, meant anything,
the most that could be conceded or negotiated would be to mails on regular
recognized neutral packets and not to blockade-runners and irregular vessels
with contraband like the Peterhoff. He dwelt on an arrangement entered into
between himself and the British Legation, and the difficulty which would follow
a breach on our part. I inquired if he had any authority to make an arrangement
that was in conflict with the express provisions of the statutes, — whether it
was a treaty arrangement confirmed by the Senate. Told him the law and the
courts must govern in this matter. The Secretary of State and the Executive
were powerless. We could not interfere.
SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles,
Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 1: 1861 – March 30,
1864, p. 266-7
No comments:
Post a Comment