Edward Bates to the Whig Committee of New York, February 24, 1859

St. Louis, Feb. 24, 1859.

To Messrs. J. PHILIPS PHOENIX, WILLIS BLACKSTONE, H. M. BININGER, DAVID J. LILET AND H. R. SMITH, Committee, New York.

Sirs: A short time ago I was favored with your note of the 7th inst., covering a resolution of the Committee, to the effect that it is inexpedient at this time further to discuss or agitate the Negro question, but rather to turn the attention of the people to other topics — "topics of general importance, such as our Foreign Relations, including the Extension of Territory; the building of Railroads for National purposes; the improvement of our Harbors, the navigation of our Rivers to facilitate Internal Commerce; the subject of Currency, and a Tariff of Duties, and other means of developing our own internal resources, our home wealth, and binding together by ties of national and fraternal feelings, the various parts and sections of our widely extended Republic."

Your letter, gentlemen, opens a very wide field, in asking for my "opinion upon the subject, and my views as to the signs of the times." Books have been written upon these matters, and speeches delivered by the thousand ; and yet the argument seems as far from being exhausted as it was at the beginning ; and I take it for certain that you do not expect or desire me to discuss at large, all or any of these interminable quarrels. That I have opinions upon all or most of them, is true — not the opinions of this or that party, ready to be abandoned or modified to suit this or that platform, but my own opinions — perhaps the more fixed and harder to be changed because deliberately formed in the retirement of private life, free from the exigencies of official responsibility and from the perturbations of party policy. They are my own opinions, right or wrong.

As to the Negro question — I have always thought, and often declared in speech and in print, that it is a pestilent question, the agitation of which has never done good to any party, section or class, and never can do good, unless it be accounted good to stir up the angry passions of men, and exasperate the unreasoning jealousy of sections, and by those bad means foist some unfit men into office, and keep some fit men out. It is a sensitive question into whose dangerous vortex it is quite possible for good men to be drawn unawares. But when I see a man, at the South or the North, of mature age and some experience, persist in urging the question, after the sorrowful experience of the last few years, I can attribute his conduct to no higher motive than personal ambition or sectional prejudice.

As to the power of the General Government to protect the persons and properties, and advance the interests of the people, by laying taxes, raising armies and navies, building forts and arsenals, light houses, moles, and breakwaters, surveying the coasts and adjacent seas, improving rivers, lakes, and harbors, and making roads — I should be very sorry to doubt the existence of the power, or the duty to exercise it, whenever the constituted authorities have the means in their hands, and are convinced that its exercise is necessary to protect the country and advance the prosperity of the people.

In my own opinion, a government that has no power to protect the harbors of its country against winds and waves and human enemies, nor its rivers against snags, sands and rocks, nor to build roads for the transportation of its armies and its mails and the commerce of its people, is a poor, impotent government, and not at all such a government as our fathers thought they had made when they produced the Constitution which was greeted by intelligent men everywhere with admiration and gratitude as a government free enough for all the ends of legal liberty and strong enough for all the purposes of national and individual protection. A free people, if it be wise, will make a good constitution; but a constitution, however good in itself, did never make a free people. The people do not derive their rights from the government, but the government derives its powers from the people; and those powers are granted for the main, if not the only, purpose of protecting the rights of the people. Protection, then, if not the sole, is the chief end of government.

And it is for the governing power to judge, in every instance, what kind and what degree of protection is needful — whether a Navy to guard our commerce all around the world, or an Army to defend the country against armed invasion from without, or domestic insurrection from within; or a Tariff, to protect our home industry against the dangerous obtrusion of foreign labor and capital.

Of the existence of the power and duty of the Government to protect the People in their persons, their property, their industry and their locomotion, I have no doubt; but the time, the mode and the measure of protection, being always questions of policy and prudence, must of necessity be left to the wisdom and patriotism of those whose duty it is to make laws for the good government of the country. And with them I freely leave it, as the safest, and indeed the only, constitutional depository of the power.

As to our Foreign Policy generally, I have but little to say. I am not much of a progressive, and am content to leave it where Washington [Jefferson] placed it, upon that wise, virtuous, safe maxim — "Peace [. . .] with all nations; entangling alliance[s] with none." The greedy and indiscriminate appetite for foreign acquisition, which makes us covet our neighbor's lands, and devise cunning schemes to get them, has little of my sympathy. I view it as a sort of political gluttony, as dangerous to our body politic as gluttony is to the natural man — producing disease certainly, hastening death, probably. Those of our politicians who are afflicted with this morbid appetite are wont to cite the purchase of Louisiana and Florida, as giving countenance to their inordinate desires. But the cases are wholly unlike in almost every particular. Louisiana was indispensable to our full and safe enjoyment of an immense region which was already owned, and its acquisition gave us the unquestioned control of that noble system of Mississippi waters, which nature seems to have made to be one and indivisible, and rounded off the map of the nation into one uniform and compacted whole. Nothing remained to mar and disfigure our national plat, but Florida, and that was desirable, less for its intrinsic value, than because it would form a dangerous means of annoyance, in case of war with a Maritime Power, surrounded as it is, on three sides by the ocean, and touching three of our present States, with no barrier between. The population of Louisiana and Florida, when acquired, was very small compared with the largeness of the territory; and, lying in contact with the States, was easily and quickly absorbed into and assimilated with the mass of our people. Those countries were acquired, moreover, in the most peaceful and friendly manner, and for a satisfactory consideration.

Now, without any right or any necessity, it is hard to tell what we do not claim in all the continent south of us, and the adjacent islands. Cuba is to be the first fruit of our grasping enterprise, and that is to be gotten at all hazards, by peaceful purchase if we can, by war and conquest if we must.² But Cuba is only an outpost to the Empire of Islands and continental countries that are to follow. A leading Senator³ has lately declared (in debate on the Thirty Million bill⁴) that we must not only have Cuba, but all the islands from Cape Florida to the Spanish Main, so as to surround the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea, and make them our "mare clausum" like the Mediterranean, in old times, when the Roman Emperor ruled both its shores, from the pillars of Hercules to the Hellespont.⁵ This claim of mare nostrum implies, of course, that we must own the continent that bounds our sea on the west, as well as the string of islands that inclose it on the east — that is, Mexico, Central America, and all South America, so far south at least as the Orinoco.⁶ In that wide compass of sea and land there are a good many native governments, and provinces belonging to the strongest maritime powers, and a narrow continental isthmus which we ourselves, as well as England and France, are wont to call the highway of nations. To fulfill the grand conception, and perfect our tropical empire, we must buy or conquer all these torrid countries, and their mongrel populations. As to buying them, it strikes me that we had better waite [sic] awhile, at least until the Government has ceased to borrow money to pay its current expenses. And as to conquering them, perhaps it would be prudent to pause and make some estimate of costs and contingencies, before we rush into war with all maritime Europe and half America.

I am not one of those who believe that the United States is not an independent and safe nation, because Cuba is not a part of it. On the contrary, I believe that we are quite capable of self-defense, even if the "Queen of the Antilles" were a province of England, France or Russia; and surely, while it remains an appendage of a comparatively feeble nation, Cuba has much more cause to fear us than we have to fear Cuba. In fact, gentlemen, I cannot help doubting the honesty of the cowardly argument by which we are urged to rob poor old Spain of this last remnant of her Western empire, for fear that she might use it to rob us.

But suppose we could get, honestly and peaceably, the whole of the country — continental and insular — from the Rio Grande to the Orinoco, and from Trinidad to Cuba, and thus establish our mare clausum, and shut the gate of the world across the Isthmus, can we govern them wisely and well? For the last few years, in the attempt to govern our home Territories of Kansas and Utah, we have not very well maintained the dignity and justice of the nation, nor secured the peace and prosperity of the subject people.⁷ Can we hope to do better with the various mixed races of Mexico, Central and South America, and the West India Islands? Some of those countries have been trying for fifty years to establish republican governments on our model, but in every instance have miserably failed; and yet, there was no obstacle to complete success but their own inaptitude.

For my part, I should be grieved to see my country become, like Rome, a conquering and dominant nation; for I think there are few or no examples in history, of Governments whose chief objects were glory and power, which did ever secure the happiness and prosperity of their own people. Such Governments may grow great and famous, and advance a few of their citizens to wealth and nobility; but the price of their grandeur is the personal independence and individual freedom of their people. Still less am I inclined to see absorbed into our system, "on an equal footing with the original States," the various and mixed races (amounting to I know not how many millions) which inhabit the continent and islands south of our present border. I am not willing to inoculate our body politic with the virus of their diseases, political and social — diseases which, with them, are chronic and hereditary, and with us could hardly fail to produce corruption in the head and weakness in the members.

Our own country, as it is, in position, form and size, is a wonder which proclaims a wisdom above the wit of man. Large enough for our posterity, for centuries to come: All in the temperate zone, and therefore capable of a homogeneous population, yet so diversified in climates and soils, as to produce everything that is necessary to the comfort and wealth of a great people: Bounded east and west by great oceans, and bisected in the middle by a mighty river, which drains and fructifies the continent, and binds together the most southern and northern portions of our land by a bond stronger than iron. Beside all this, it is new and growing — the strongest on the continent, with no neighbor whose power it fears, or of whose ambition it has cause to be jealous. Surely such a country is great enough and good enough for all the ends of honest ambition and virtuous power.

It seems to me that an efficient home-loving Government, moderate and economical in its administration, peaceful in its objects, and just to all nations, need have no fear of invasion at home, or serious aggression abroad. The nations of Europe have to stand continually in defense of their existence; but the conquest of our county by a foreign power is simply impossible, and no nation is so absurd as to entertain the thought. We may conquer ourselves by local strifes and sectional animosities; and when, by our folly and wickedness, we have accomplished that great calamity, there will be none to pity us for the consequences of so great a crime.

If our Government would devote all its energies to the promotion of peace and friendship with all foreign countries, the advancement of Commerce, the increase of Agriculture, the growth and stability of Manufactures, and the cheapening, quickening and securing the internal trade and travel of our country ; in short, if it would devote itself in earnest to the establishment of a wise and steady policy of internal government, I think we should witness a growth and consolidation of wealth and comfort and power for good, which cannot be reasonably hoped for from a fluctuating policy, always watching for the turns of good fortune, or from a grasping ambition to seize new territories, which are hard to get and harder to govern.

The present position of the Administration is a sorrowful commentary upon the broad democracy of its professions. In theory, the people have the right and ability to do anything; in practice, we are verging rapidly to the One-Man power.

The President, the ostensible head of the National Democrats, is eagerly striving to concentrate power in his own hands, and thus to set aside both the People and their Representatives in the actual affairs of government. Having emptied the Treasury, which he found full, and living precariously upon borrowed money, he now demands of Congress to entrust to his unchecked discretion the War power, the Purse and the Sword. First, he asks Congress to authorize him, by statute, to use the Army to take military possession of the Northern Mexico, and hold it under his protectorate, and as a security for debts due to our citizens⁸ — civil possession would not answer, for that might expose him, as in the case of Kansas, to be annoyed by a factious Congress and a rebellious Territorial Legislature.

Secondly: Not content with this, he demands the discretionary power to use the Army and Navy in the South, also in blockading the coast and marching his troops into the interior of Mexico and New Granada, to protect our citizens against all evil-doers along the transit routes of Tehuantepec and Panama.⁹ And he and his supporters in Congress claim this enormous power upon the ground that, in this particular at least, he ought to be the equal of the greatest monarch of Europe. They forget that our fathers limited the power of the President by design, and for the reason that they had found out by sad experience that the monarchs of Europe were too strong for freedom.

Third: In strict pursuance of this doctrine, first publicly announced from Ostend,¹⁰ he demands of Congress to hand over to him thirty millions of dollars to be used at his discretion, to facilitate his acquisition of Cuba.¹¹ Facilitate how ? Perhaps it might be imprudent to tell.

Add to all this, the fact (as yet unexplained) that one of the largest naval armaments which ever sailed from our coast is now operating in South America, ostensibly against a poor little republic far up the Plate River,¹² to settle some little quarrel between the two Presidents.¹³ If Congress had been polite enough to grant the President's demand of the sword and the purse against Mexico, Central America and Cuba, this navy, its duty done at the south, might be made, on its way home, to arrive in the Gulf very opportunely, to aid the " Commander-in-Chief " in the acquisition of some very valuable territory.

I allude to these facts with no malice against Mr. Buchanan, but as evidences of the dangerous change which is now obviously sought to be made in the practical working of the Government — the concentration of power in the hands of the President, and the dangerous policy, now almost established, of looking abroad for temporary glory and aggrandizement, instead of looking at home, for all the purposes of good government — peaceable, moderate, economical, protecting all interests alike, and by a fixed policy, calling into safe exercise all the talents and industry of our people, and thus steadily advancing our country in everything which can make a nation great, happy, and permanent.

The rapid increase of the Public Expenditures (and that, too, under the management of statesmen professing to be peculiarly economical) is an alarming sign of corruption and decay.

That increase bears no fair proportion to the growth and expansion of the country, but looks rather like wanton waste or criminal negligence. The ordinary objects of great expense are not materially augmented — the Army and Navy remain on a low peace establishment— the military defenses are little, if at all, enlarged — the improvement of Harbors, Lakes and Rivers is abandoned, and the Pacific Railroad is not only not begun but its very location is scrambled for by angry sections, which succeed in nothing but mutual defeat. In short, the money to an enormous amount (I am told at the rate of $80,000,000 to $100,000,000 a year) is gone, and we have little or nothing to show for it. In profound peace with foreign nations, and surrounded with the proofs of National growth and individual prosperity, the Treasury, by less than two years of mismanagement, is made bankrupt, and the Government itself is living from hand to mouth, on bills of credit and borrowed money!

This humiliating state of things could hardly happen if men in power were both honest and wise. The Democratic economists in Congress confess that they have recklessly wasted the Public Revenue; they confess it by refusing to raise the Tariff to meet the present exigency, and by insisting that they can replenish the exhausted Treasury and support the Government, in credit and efficiency, by simply striking off their former extravagances.

An illustrious predecessor of the President is reported to have declared "that those who live on borrowed money ought to break." I do not concur in that harsh saying; yet I am clearly of opinion that the Government, in common prudence (to say nothing of pride and dignity), ought to reserve its credit for great transactions and unforeseen emergencies. In common times of peace, it ought always to have an established revenue, equal, at least, to its current expenses. And that revenue ought to be so levied as to foster and protect the Industry of the country employed in our most necessary and important manufactures.

Gentlemen, I cannot touch upon all the topics alluded to in your letter and resolution. I ought rather to beg your pardon for the prolixity of this answer. I speak for no party, because the only party I ever belonged to has ceased to exist as an organized and militant body.

And I speak for no man but myself.

I am fully aware that my opinions and views of public policy are of no importance to anybody but me, and there is good reason to fear that some of them are so antiquated and out of fashion as to make it very improbable that they will ever again be put to the test of actual practice.

Most respectfully,

EDWARD BATES.

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² This was the substance of the Ostend Manifesto which Buchanan as Minister to Great Britain had joined Ministers John Y. Mason and Pierre Soulé in promulgating. As Secretary of State under President Polk, Buchanan had tried to buy Cuba. In his second, third, and fourth annual messages he urged Congress to cooperate with him in securing it by negotiation.

³ Robert Toombs of Georgia: Whig state legislator, 1837-1840, 1841-1844; states' rights Democratic congressman, 1845-1853; U. S. senator, 1853-1861. He was later a leader in the Georgia Secession Convention, and congressman, brigadier-general, and secretary of State under the Confederacy.

⁴ January, 1859, Senate Reports, 35 Cong., 2 Sess., ser. no. 994, doc. no. 351. The bill purposed to appropriate $30,000,000 "to facilitate the acquisition of Cuba by negotiation." Senator Slidell (infra, Nov. 24, 1859, note 89) introduced it on January 10. 1859 (Cong. Globe, 35 Cong., 2 Sess., 277) ; it was reported favorably by the Committee on Foreign Relations of which he was chairman, on January 24, 1859 (ibid., 35 Cong., 2 Sess., 538) ; it was debated at great length on January 24, February 9-10, February 15—17, February 21, and February 25 (ibid., 35 Cong., 2 Sess., 538-544, 904-909, 934-940, 960968, 1038, Appendix [155-169], 1058-1063, 1079-1087, 1179-1192, 1326-1363) ; but because of opposition, it was withdrawn on February 26 (ibid., 35 Cong., 2 Sess., 13S51387). At the next session, on December 8, 1859, Senator Slidell reintroduced this bill (ibid., 36 Cong., 1 Sess., 53), had it referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations on December 21 (ibid., 36 Cong., 1 Sess., 199), reported it out favorably to the Senate on May 30, 1860, but because of opposition did not push it (ibid., 36 Cong., 1 Sess., 2456). He promised to call it up again at the next session, but when that time arrived was too busy seceding to bother about Cuba.

⁵ On January 24, Toombs had said, "Cuba has fine ports, and with her acquisition, we can make first the Gulf of Mexico, and then the Caribbean Sea, a mare clausum. Probably younger men than you or I will live to see the day when no flag shall float there except by permission of the United States of America . . . that development, that progress throughout the tropics [is] the true, fixed unalterable policy of the nation." Ibid., 35 Cong., 2 Sess., 543.

⁶ I. e., as far as Venezuela.

⁷ Bitterness over the slavery question had reached the point of armed conflict, raids, and murder in Kansas in 1855-1856, and Utah was at this time subject to frequent Indian raids. It was in 1859, too, that the Republicans tried to prohibit polygamy in Utah and the Democrats succeeded, probably with slavery in other territories in mind, in preventing Congressional legislation on the subject.

⁸ Dec. 6, 1858, James D. Richardson, Messages and Papers of the Presidents, V, 514. See infra, Feb. 15, 1860.

⁹ J. D. Richardson, op. cit., V, 516-517.

¹⁰ Supra, April 20, 1859, note 2.

¹¹ J. D. Richardson, op. cit., V, 508-511.

¹² Rio de La Plata in South America.

¹³ An expedition of some 19 ships, 200 guns, and 2.500 men which was sent against Paraguay because a vessel of that nation had fired upon the United States steamer Water Witch. A mere show of force sufficed to secure both an apology and an indemnity on February 10, 1859. The President of Argentina was so interested and so pleased that he presented the commander with a sword.

SOURCE: Howard K. Beale, Editor, Annual Report of The American Historical Association For The Year 1930, Vol. 4, The Diary Of Edward Bates, pp. 1-9

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: March 14, 1865

Bright and pleasant, but indications of change. The papers contain no news from the armies, near or remote. But there was some alarm in the upper portion of the city about 9 P.M. last night, from a signal seen (appended to a balloon) just over the western horizon. It was stationary for ten minutes, a blood-red light, seen through a hazy atmosphere. I thought it was Mars, but my eldest daughter, a better astronomer than I, said it was neither the time nor place for it to be visible. The air was still, and the dismal barking of the ban-dogs conjured up the most direful portents. All my neighbors supposed it to be a signal from Sheridan to Grant, and that the city would certainly be attacked before morning. It was only a camp signal of one of our own detachments awaiting the approach of Sheridan.

Sheridan's passage of the James River has not been confirmed, and so the belief revives that he will assault the city fortifications on the northwest side, while Grant attacks elsewhere.

Yesterday the President vetoed several bills, and sent back others unsigned, suggesting alterations. Among them is the Conscript and Exemption bills, which he has detained ten days, as Senators say, on a point of constructive etiquette, insisting that the President and Secretary ought to make certain details and exemptions instead of Congress, etc. It is precious time lost, but perhaps in view of the great calamities immediately threatening the country, Congress may yield. But ten days might be enough time lost to lose the cause.

The communication referred to by the President, in detaining Congress, has not yet been sent in, unless it be one of his qualified vetoes, and conjecture is still busy, some persons going so far as to hint that it relates to a capitulation, yielding up Richmond on certain terms. I have not heard of any demands of Grant of that nature.

A dispatch from Gen. R. E. Lee, received this morning, says Fitz Lee's cavalry was at Powhatan C. H. last night (so it was not Fitz's signal), and had been ordered to cross to the north side of the James, which may not be practicable above Richmond. We shall probably see them pass through the city to-day. He says the roads are bad, etc. Sheridan, then, has not crossed the river.

Gen. Lee sends to the department this morning a copy of a fierce letter from Lord John Russell, British Secretary of State, to our commissioners abroad, demanding a discontinuance of expeditions fitted out in Canada, and the building and equipping of cruisers in British ports. It says such practices must cease, for they are not only in violation of British law, but calculated to foment war between Great Britain and the United States, which Lord John is very much averse to. The communication is sent to Washington, D. C., and thence forwarded by Mr. Seward to Lieut.-Gen. Grant, who sends it by flag of truce to Gen. Lee. Great Britain gives us a kick while the Federal generals are pounding us.

The enemy have Fayetteville, N. C. Hardee and Hampton crossed the Cape Fear on the 11th inst. Sherman's army was then within 7 miles of Fayetteville. Bragg, after his fight near Kinston, had to fall back, his rear and right wing being threatened by heavy forces of the enemy coming up from Wilmington.

Some of Sheridan's force did cross the James, but retired to the north side. So telegraphs Gen. Lee.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 2, p. 448-9

Isaac E. Holmes to Senator Andrew P. Butler,* March 17, 1856

CHARLESTON, [S. C.], 17th March, 1856.

MY DEAR BUTLER: I have rec[eive]d y[ou]r letter and speech. The best speech you have made and y[ou]r notice of Atchinson was admirable. I shall write a notice of the speech and y[ou]r remarks upon Atchinson, whose devotion to the Southern cause is above all praise. The South are not awake, and my own opinion is very decidedly, that the North will carry their point. I have looked for the success of the Emancipation Party ever since I was in Congress, and believe that henceforth the Battle will always be in their favour. The hostility of Rhett to you, flashes out in the Mercury on every occasion, and even y[ou]r remarks in a letter upon the Convention draws down his ire. A man is a Prophet save in his own Country, and whilst you are acquiring a fame and influence wide as the Union, efforts are making to dwarf you in the State of y[ou]r Nativity. You may look down with scorn upon their efforts, few men have firmer friends in So[uth] Carolina than yourself. The next Presidential contest will be severe. My opinion is that the election will fall upon The House. Events will transpire before this Session closes to bring forth more decided manifestations of the management of Seward and it will require all the Tact, and Knowledge of under-currents, on the part of our friend Hunter to counteract his inclinations. I know little of what is passing in the City, my time is devoted to Mrs. Holmes and my books and the study of philosophy of which I stand in great need. I have read more in one year than I have done in ten previous ones, but I have to submit to fate. I often think of the Mrs. and the happy days spent with you all. You know that I am a great admirer of Hunter who I believe has more wisdom than falls to the Lot of even distinguished Persons, and I regard Mason as a man of sound sense, and an accomplished Gentleman. Atchinson must be missed by you, but he is well employed at home. We are in a revolution of which he is the Master Spirit and in the event of conflict, I doubt not will distinguish himself as the Champion of the South.

Walker at Nicaragua will shortly settle the question of the Musquitoe Kingdom, and it may well be left to him to battle with England who will assuredly crush him, and his great Army, whilst they will embrace the opportunity of settling the vexed question of the Protectorate, with Nicaragua and leave us free to disentangle ourselves of the Monroe Doctrine. Depend upon it, France and Britain will unite in any efforts necessary to keep the United States from possessing the South American States and thus bringing them, as portions of Mexico, already are brought under the influence of our Domestic Commerce. Suppose the Philobusteurs were to take Mexico, Central America, and the other American States South of the Isthmus. They would annex them as Texas was to this Confederacy, and thus the entire commerce of America with New York would be in our hands to the exclusion of Foreign shipping. The first cause which led to the Revolution of the Spanish American provinces, was the jealousy of G[reat] Britain at this very exclusive trade between Spain and her possessions. Miranda's, agent [of] Mexico, expedition was sustain[e]d by England, and it was her apprehension of this evil of exclusive Commerce which incited Mr. Canning to give us notice of the designs of the Holy Alliance to restore the Colonies to Spain, and which led to the Monroe Doctrine. I confess, I dreaded at one time the result of the difficulties about Nicaragua. A War with G[reat] Britain w[oul]d ruin the Southern States, but enough, regard to the Mrs.

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* Andrew Pickens Butler, a Senator in Congress from South Carolina, 1846-1857.

SOURCE: Charles Henry Ambler, Editor, Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1916, in Two Volumes, Vol. II, Correspondence of Robert M. T. Hunter (1826-1876), p. 182-3

James K. Polk* to Jefferson Davis, May 19, 1847

(From Vicksburg Weekly Whig, October 20, 1847.)

Washington City, May 19, 1847.

My Dear Sir:—The Secretary of War will transmit to you, a commission as Brigadier General of the United States Army. The Brigade which you will command, will consist of volunteers called out to serve during the war with Mexico. It gives me sincere pleasure to confer this important command upon you. Your distinguished gallantry and military skill while leading the noble regiment under your command, and especially in the battles of Monterey and Buena Vista, eminently entitle you to it. I hope that the severe wound which you received at the latter place, may soon be healed, and that your country may have the benefit of your valuable services, at the head of your new command.

I am very faithfully, your friend,

JAMES K. POLK.

To Brigadier-General Jefferson Davis, U. S. Army, in Mexico.

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*Polk, James Knox (1795-1849), eleventh President of the United States, was born in Mecklenburg county, North Carolina, November 2, 1795, graduated from the University of North Carolina in 1818, removed to Tennessee, studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1820, and began practice in Columbia, Tenn. He served in the Tennessee House of Representatives 1823-1825; was a member of the national House of Representatives, 1825-1839; Speaker, 1835-1839; and Governor of Tennessee 1839-1841. He was President of the United States, 1845-1849. During his administration the annexation of Texas (1845) involved the country in aggressive war against Mexico (May, 1846-September, 1847) which resulted in the acquisition of California and other cessions from Mexico. A dispute with the British government about the boundary of Oregon was settled by the Treaty with Great Britain signed June 15, 1846. President Polk retired from office in March, and died at Nashville, Tenn., June 15, 1849.

SOURCE: Dunbar Rowland, Editor, Jefferson Davis, Constitutionalist: His Letters, Papers and Speeches, Volume 1, p. 73

Diary of Adam Gurowski, April 1861

COMMISSIONERS from the rebels; Seward parleying with them through some Judge Campbell. Curious way of treating and dealing with rebellion, with rebels and traitors; why not arrest them?

Corcoran, a rich partisan of secession, invited to a dinner the rebel commissioners and the foreign diplomats. If such a thing were done anywhere else, such a pimp would be arrested. The serious diplomats, Lord Lyons, Mercier, and Stoeckl refused the invitation; some smaller accepted, at least so I hear.

The infamous traitors fire on the Union flag. They treat the garrison of Sumpter as enemies on sufferance, and here their commissioners go about free, and glory in treason. What is this administration about? Have they no blood; are they fishes?

The crime in full blast; consummatum est. Sumpter bombarded; Virginia, under the nose of the administration, secedes, and the leaders did not see or foresee anything: flirted with Virginia.

Now, they, the leaders or the administration, are terribly startled; so is the brave noble North; the people are taken unawares; but no wonder; the people saw the Cabinet, the President, and the military in complacent security. These watchmen did nothing to give an early sign of alarm, so the people, confiding in them, went about its daily occupation. But it will rise as one man and in terrible wrath. Vous le verrez mess les Diplomates.

The President calls on the country for 75,000 men; telegram has spoken, and they rise, they arm, they come. I am not deceived in my faith in the North; the excitement, the wrath, is terrible. Party lines burn, dissolved by the excitement. Now the people is in fusion as bronze; if Lincoln and the leaders have mettle in themselves, then they can cast such arms, moral, material, and legislative, as will destroy at once this rebellion. But will they have the energy? They do not look like Demiourgi.

Massachusetts takes the lead; always so, this first people in the world; first for peace by its civilization and intellectual development, and first to run to the rescue.

The most infamous treachery and murder, by Baltimoreans, of the Massachusetts men. Will the cowardly murderers be exemplarily punished?

The President, under the advice of Scott, seems to take coolly the treasonable murders of Baltimore; instead of action, again parleying with these Baltimorean traitors. The rumor says that Seward is for leniency, and goes hand in hand with Scott. Now, if they will handle such murderers in silk gloves as they do, the fire must spread.

The secessionists in Washington—and they are a legion, of all hues and positions are defiant, arrogant, sure that Washington will be taken. One risks to be murdered here.

I entered the thus called Cassius Clay Company, organized for the defence of Washington until troops came. For several days patrolled, drilled, and lay several nights on the hard floor. Had compensation, that the drill often reproduced that of Falstaff's heroes. But my campaigners would have fought well in case of emergency. Most of them office-seekers. When the alarm was over, the company dissolved, but each got a kind of certificate beautifully written and signed by Lincoln and Cameron. I refused to take such a certificate, we having had no occasion to fight.

The President issued a proclamation for the blockade of the Southern revolted ports. Do they not know better?

How can the Minister of Foreign Affairs advise the President to resort to such a measure? Is the Minister of Foreign Affairs so willing to call in foreign nations by this blockade, thus transforming a purely domestic and municipal question into an international, public one?

The President is to quench the rebellion, a domestic fire, and to do it he takes a weapon, an engine the most difficult to handle, and in using of which he depends on foreign nations. Do they not know better here in the ministry and in the councils? Russia dealt differently with the revolted Circassians and with England in the so celebrated case of the Vixen.

The administration ought to know its rights of sovereignty and to close the ports of entry. Then no chance would be left to England to meddle.

Yesterday N—— dined with Lord Lyons, and during the dinner an anonymous note announced to the Lord that the proclamation of the blockade is to be issued on to-morrow. N——, who has a romantic turn, or rather who seeks for midi a' 14¾ heures, speculated what lady would have thus violated a secret d'Etat.

I rather think it comes from the Ministry, or, as they call it here, from the Department. About two years ago, when the Central Americans were so teased and maltreated by the fillibusters and Democratic administration, a Minister of one of these Central American States told me in New York that in a Chief of the Departments, or something the like, the Central Americans have a valuable friend, who, every time that trouble is brewing against them in the Department, gives them a secret and anonymous notice of it. This friend may have transferred his kindness to England.

How will foreign nations behave? I wish I may be misguided by my political anglophobia, but England, envious, rapacious, and the Palmerstons and others, filled with hatred towards the genuine democracy and the American people, will play some bad tricks. They will seize the occasion to avenge many humiliations. Charles Sumner, Howe, and a great many others, rely on England, on her antislavery feeling. I do not. I know English policy. We shall see.

France, Frenchmen, and Louis Napoleon are by far more reliable. The principles and the interest of France, broadly conceived, make the existence of a powerful Union a statesmanlike European and world necessity. The cold, taciturn Louis Napoleon is full of broad and clear conceptions. I am for relying, almost explicitly, on France and on him.

The administration calls in all the men-of-war scattered in all waters. As the commercial interests of the Union will remain unprotected, the administration ought to put them under the protection of France. It is often done so between friendly powers. Louis Napoleon could not refuse; and accepting, would become pledged to our side.

Germany, great and small, governments and people, will be for the Union. Germans are honest; they love the Union, hate slavery, and understand, to be sure, the question. Russia, safe, very safe, few blackguards excepted; so Italy. Spain may play double. I do not expect that the Spaniards, goaded to the quick by the former fillibustering administrations, will have judgment enough to find out that the Republicans have been and will be anti-fillibusters, and do not crave Cuba.

Wrote a respectful warning to the President concerning the unvoidable results of his proclamation in regard to the blockade; explained to him that this, his international demonstration, will, and forcibly must evoke a counter proclamation from foreign powers in the interest of their own respective subjects and of their commercial relations. Warned, foretelling that the foreign powers will recognize the rebels as belligerents, he, the President, having done it already in some way, thus applying an international mode of coercion. Warned, that the condition of belligerents, once recognized, the rebel piratical crafts will be recognized as privateers by foreign powers, and as such will be admitted to all ports under the secesh flag, which will thus enjoy a partial recognition.

Foreign powers may grumble, or oppose the closing of the ports of entry as a domestic, administrative decision, because they may not wish to commit themselves to submit to a paper blockade. But if the President will declare that he will enforce the closing of the ports with the whole navy, so as to strictly guard and close the maritime league, then the foreign powers will see that the administration does not intend to humbug them, but that he, the President, will only preserve intact the fullest exercise of sovereignty, and, as said the Roman legist, he, the President, "nil sibi postulat quod non aliis tribuit." And so he, the President, will only execute the laws of his country, and not any arbitrary measure, to say with the Roman Emperor, "Leges etiam in ipsa arma imperium habere volumus." Warned the President that in all matters relating to this country Louis Napoleon has abandoned the initiative to England; and to throw a small wedge in this alliance, I finally respectfully suggested to the President what is said above about putting the American interests in the Mediterranean under the protection of Louis Napoleon.

Few days thereafter learned that Mr. Seward does not believe that France will follow England. Before long Seward will find it out.

All the coquetting with Virginia, all the presumed influence of General Scott, ended in Virginia's secession, and in the seizure of Norfolk.

Has ever any administration, cabinet, ministry—call it what name you will—given positive, indubitable signs of want and absence of foresight, as did ours in these Virginia, Norfolk, and Harper's Ferry affairs? Not this or that minister or secretary, but all of them ought to go to the constitutional guillotine. Blindness—no mere short-sightedness-permeates the whole administration, Blair excepted. And Scott, the politico-military adviser of the President! What is the matter with Scott, or were the halo and incense surrounding him based on bosh? Will it be one more illusion to be dispelled?

The administration understood not how to save or defend Norfolk, nor how to destroy it. No name to be found for such concrete incapacity.

The rebels are masters, taking our leaders by the nose. Norfolk gives to them thousands of guns, &c., and nobody cries for shame. They ought to go in sackcloth, those narrow-sighted, blind rulers. How will the people stand this masterly administrative demonstration? In England the people and the Parliament would impeach the whole Cabinet.

Charles Sumner told me that the President and his Minister of Foreign Affairs are to propose to the foreign powers the accession of the Union to the celebrated convention of Paris of 1856. All three considered it a master stroke of policy. They will not catch a fly by it.

Again wrote respectfully to Mr. Lincoln, warning him against a too hasty accession to the Paris convention. Based my warning,

1st. Not to give up the great principles contained in Marcy's amendment.

2d. Not to believe or suppose for a minute that the accession to the Paris convention at this time can act in a retroactive sense; explained that it will not and cannot prevent the rebel pirates from being recognized by foreign powers as legal privateers, or being treated as such.

3d. For all these reasons the Union will not win anything by such a step, but it will give up principles and chain its own hands in case of any war with England. Supplicated the President not to risk a step which logically must turn wrong.

Baltimore still unpunished, and the President parleying with various deputations, all this under the guidance of Scott. I begin to be confused; cannot find out what is the character of Lincoln, and above all of Scott.

Governors from whole or half-rebel States refuse the President's call for troops. The original call of 75,000, too small in itself, will be reduced by that refusal. Why does not the administration call for more on the North, and on the free States? In the temper of this noble people it will be as easy to have 250,000 as 75,000, and then rush on them; submerge Virginia, North Carolina, etc.; it can be now so easily done. The Virginians are neither armed nor organized. Courage and youth seemingly would do good in the councils.

The free States undoubtedly will vindicate self-government. Whatever may be said by foreign and domestic croakers, I do not doubt it for a single minute. The free people will show to the world that the apparently loose governmental ribbons are the strongest when everybody carries them in him, and holds them. The people will show that the intellectual magnetism of convictions permeating the million is by far stronger than the commonly called governmental action from above, and it is at the same time elastic and expansive, even if the official leaders may turn out to be altogether mediocrities. The self-governing free North will show more vitality and activity than any among the governed European countries would be able to show in similar emergencies. This is my creed, and I have faith in the people.

The infamous slavers of the South would even be honored if named Barbary States of North America. Before the inauguration, Seward was telling the diplomats that no disruption will take place; now he tells them that it will blow over in from sixty to ninety days. Does Seward believe it? Or does his imagination or his patriotism carry him away or astray? Or, perhaps, he prefers not to look the danger in the face, and tries to avert the bitter cup. At any rate, he is incomprehensible, and the more so when seen at a distance.

Something, nay, even considerable efforts ought to be made to enlighten the public opinion in Europe, as on the outside, insurrections, nationalities, etc., are favored in Europe. How far the diplomats sent by the administration are prepared for this task?

Adams has shown in the last Congress his scholarly, classical narrow-mindedness. Sanford cannot favorably impress anybody in Europe, neither in cabinets, nor in saloons, nor the public at large. He looks and acts as a commis voyageur, will be considered as such at first sight by everybody, and his features and manners may not impress others as being distinguished and high-toned.

Every historical, that is, human event, has its moral and material character and sides. To ignore, and still worse to blot out, to reject the moral incentives and the moral verdict, is a crime to the public at large, is a crime towards human reason.

Such action blunts sound feelings and comprehension, increases the arrogance of the evil-doers.

The moral criterion is absolute and unconditional, and ought as such unconditionally to be applied to the events here. Things and actions must be called by their true names. What is true, noble, pure, and lofty, is on the side of the North, and permeates the unnamed millions of the free people; it ought to be separated from what is sham, egotism, lie or assumption. Truth must be told, never mind the outcry. History has not to produce pieces for the stage, or to amuse a tea-party.

Regiments pour in; the Massachusetts men, of course, leading the van, as in the times of the tea-party. My admiration for the Yankees is justified on every step, as is my scorn, my contempt, etc., etc., of the Southern chivalrous slaver.

Wrote to Charles Sumner expressing my wonder at the undecided conduct of the administration; at its want of foresight; its eternal parleying with Baltimoreans, Virginians, Missourians, etc., and no step to tread down the head of the young snake. No one among them seems to have the seer's eye. The people alone, who arm, who pour in every day and in large numbers, who transform Washington into a camp, and who crave for fighting, the people alone have the prophetic inspiration, and are the genuine statesmen for the emergency.

How will the Congress act? The Congress will come here emerging from the innermost of the popular volcano; but the Congress will be manacled by formulas; it will move not in the spirit of the Constitution, but in the dry constitutionalism, and the Congress will move with difficulty. Still I have faith, although the Congress never will seize upon parliamentary omnipotence. Up to to-day, the administration, instead of boldly crushing, or, at least, attempting to do it; instead of striking at the traitors, the administration is continually on the lookout where the blows come from, scarcely having courage to ward them off. The deputations pouring from the North urge prompt, decided, crushing action. This thunder-voice of the twenty millions of freemen ought to nerve this senile administration. The Southern leaders do not lose one minute's time; they spread the fire, arm, and attack with all the fury of traitors and criminals.

The Northern merchants roar for the offensive; the administration is undecided.

Some individuals, politicians, already speak out that the slaveocratic privileges are only to be curtailed, and slavery preserved as a domestic institution. Not a bit of it. The current and the development of events will run over the heads of the pusillanimous and contemptible conservatives. Slavery must perish, even if the whole North, Lincoln and Seward at its head, should attempt to save it.

Already they speak of the great results of Fabian policy; Seward, I am told, prides in it. Do those Fabiuses know what they talk about? Fabius's tactics—not policy—had in view not to expose young, disheartened levies against Hannibal's unconquered veterans, but further to give time to Rome to restore her exhausted means, to recover political influences with other Italian independent communities, to reconclude broken alliances with the cities, etc. But is this the condition of the Union? Your Fabian policy will cost lives, time, and money; the people feels it, and roars for action. Events are great, the people is great, but the official leaders may turn out inadequate to both.

What a magnificent chance-scarcely equal in history to become a great historical personality, to tower over future generations. But I do not see any one pointing out the way. Better so; the principle of self-government as the self-acting, self-preserving force will be asserted by the total eclipse of great or even eminent men.

The administration, under the influence of drill men, tries to form twenty regiments of regulars, and calls for 45,000 three years' volunteers. What a curious appreciation of necessity and of numbers must prevail in the brains of the administration. Twenty regiments of regulars will be a drop in water; will not help anything, but will be sufficient to poison the public spirit. Citizens and people, but not regulars, not hirelings, are to fight the battle of principle. Regulars and their spirit, with few exceptions, is worse here than were the Yanitschars.

When the principle will be saved and victorious, it will be by the devotion, the spontaneity of the people, and not by Lincoln, Scott, Seward, or any of the like. It is said that Seward rules both Lincoln and Scott. The people, the masses, do not doubt their ability to crush by one blow the traitors, but the administration does.

What I hear concerning the Blairs confirms my high opinion of both. Blair alone in the Cabinet represents the spirit of the people.

Something seems not right with Scott. Is he too old, or too much of a Virginian, or a hero on a small scale?

If, as they say, the President is guided by Scott's advice, such advice, to judge from facts, is not politic, not heroic, not thorough, not comprehensive, and not at all military, that is, not broad and deep, in the military sense. It will be a pity to be disappointed in this national idol.

Scott is against entering Virginia, against taking Baltimore, against punishing traitors. Strange, strange!

Diplomats altogether out of their senses; they are bewildered by the uprising, by the unanimity, by the warlike, earnest, unflinching attitude of the masses of the freemen, of my dear Yankees. The diplomats have lost the compass. They, duty bound, were diplomatically obsequious to the power held so long by the pro-slavery party. They got accustomed to the arrogant assumption and impertinence of the slavers, and, forgetting their European origin, the diplomats tacitly — but for their common sense and honor I hope reluctantly admitted the assumptions of the Southern banditti to be in America the nearest assimilation to the chivalry and nobility of old Europe. Without taking the cudgel in defence of European nobility, chivalry, and aristocracy, it is sacrilegious to compare those infamous slavers with the old or even with the modern European higher classes. In the midst of this slave-driving, slave-worshipping, and slave-breeding society of Washington, the diplomats swallowed, gulped all the Southern lies about the Constitution, state-rights, the necessity of slavery, and other like infamies. The question is, how far the diplomats in their respective official reports transferred these pro-slavery common-places to their governments. But, after all, the governments of Europe will not be thoroughly influenced by the chat of their diplomats.

Among all diplomats the English (Lord Lyons) is the most sphinx; he is taciturn, reserved, listens more than he speaks; the others are more communicative.

What an idea have those Americans of sending a secret agent to Canada, and what for? England will find it out, and must be offended. I would not have committed such an absurdity, even in my palmy days, when I conspired with Louis Napoleon, sat in the councils with Godefroi Cavaignac, or wrote instructions for Mazzini, then only a beginner with his Giovina Italia, and his miscarried Romarino attempt in Savoy.

Of what earthly use can be such politique provocatrice towards England? Or is it only to give some money to a hungry, noisy, and not over-principled office-seeker?

SOURCE: Adam Gurowski, Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862, p. 22-36

Daniel Webster to Robert P. Letcher, December 23, 1851

WASHINGTON, December 23, 1851.

DEAR SIR,—I have written you a dispatch principally upon the subject of the Tehuantepec Treaty. There is nothing in that letter which you may not make known to the Mexican government, but in your conversation with the Secretary of Relations you may give even stronger admonitions. You may say that if the treaty is not ratified, or some new one agreed to which shall answer the same purpose, it is certain that very serious consequences will result, and Mexico must be persuaded to act promptly. Any considerable delay will be ruinous. The temper of the people, and the disposition of Congress, are both assuming a very decided tone upon this matter, especially since the proposition in the Mexican Senate to transfer this right to England. We must rely on you, my dear sir, to exert all your influence and energy to bring this business to a favorable and an immediate termination.

Yours always truly,

DANIEL WEBSTER.

Hon. R. P. LETCHER.

SOURCE: Ann Mary Butler Crittenden Coleman, Editor, The Life of John J. Crittenden: With Selections from His Correspondence and Speeches, Vol. 2, p. 25

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: January 28, 1865

Clear and very cold; can't find a thermometer in the city.

The President did sign the bill creating a general-in-chief, and depriving Gen. Bragg of his staff.

Major-Gen. Jno. C. Breckinridge has been appointed Secretary of War. May our success be greater hereafter !

Gen. Lee has sent a letter from Gen. Imboden, exposing the wretched management of the Piedmont Railroad, and showing that salt and corn, in "immense quantity," have been daily left piled in the mud and water, and exposed to rain, etc., while the army has been starving. Complaints and representations of this state of things have been made repeatedly.

Gold sold at $47 for one at auction yesterday.

Mr. Hunter was seen early this morning running (almost) toward the President's office, to pick up news. He and Breckinridge were old rivals in the United States.

The Enquirer seems in favor of listening to Blair's propositions. Judge Campbell thinks Gen. Breckinridge will not make a good Secretary of War, as he is not a man of small details. I hope he is not going to indulge in so many of them as the judge and Mr. Seddon have done, else all is lost! The judge's successor will be recommended soon to the new Secretary. There will be applicants enough, even if the ship of State were visibly going down.

Although it is understood that Gen. Breckinridge has been confirmed by the Senate, he has not yet taken his seat in the department.

The President has issued a proclamation for the observance of Friday, March 10th, as a day of "fasting, humiliation, and prayer, with thanksgiving," in pursuance of a resolution of Congress.

It seems that Virginia, Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee will not be represented in the cabinet; this may breed trouble, and we have trouble enough, in all conscience.

It is said Mr. Blair has returned again to Richmond—third visit.

Can there be war brewing between the United States and England or France? We shall know all soon. Or have propositions been made on our part for reconstruction? There are many smiling faces in the streets, betokening a profound desire for peace.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 2, p. 401-2

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: January 29, 1865

Clear, and moderating.

To-day at 10 A. M. three commissioners start for Washington on a mission of peace, which may be possibly attained. They are Vice-President Stephens, Senator R. M. T. Hunter, and James [sic] A. Campbell, Assistant Secretary of War, and formerly a judge on the bench of the Supreme Court of the United States, all of them heartily sick of war, and languishing for peace. If they cannot devise a mode of putting an end to the war, none can. Of course they have the instructions of the President, with his ultimata, etc., but they will strive earnestly for peace.

What terms may be expected? Not independence, unless the United States may be on the eve of embarking in a foreign war, and in that event that government will require all the resources it can command, and they would not be ample if the war should continue to be prosecuted against us. Hence it would be policy to hasten a peace with us, stipulating for valuable commercial advantages, being the first to recognize us over all other powers, hoping to restore the old trade, and ultimately to reconstruct the Union. Or it may proceed from intimations of a purpose on the part of France and England to recognize us, which, of itself, would lead inevitably to war. The refusal of the United States to recognize the Empire of Mexico is an offense to France, and the augmentation of the armament of the lakes, etc. is an offense to England. Besides, if it were possible to subjugate us, it would be only killing the goose that lays the golden egg, for the Southern trade would be destroyed, and the Northern people are a race of manufacturers and merchants. If the war goes on, 300,000 men must be immediately detailed in the United States, and their heavy losses heretofore are now sorely felt. We have no alternative but to fight on, they have the option of ceasing hostilities. And we have sufferred so much that almost any treaty, granting us independence, will be accepted by the people. All the commissioners must guard against is any appearance of a PROTECTORATE on the part of the United States. If the honor of the Southern people be saved, they will not haggle about material losses. If negotiations fail, our people will receive a new impulse for the war, and great will be the slaughter. Every one will feel and know that these commissioners sincerely desired an end of hostilities. Two, perhaps all of them, even look upon eventual reconstruction without much repugnance, so that slavery be preserved.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 2, p. 402-3

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: January 30, 1865

Bright and beautiful, but quite cold; skating in the basin, etc.

The departure of the commissioners has produced much speculation.

The enemy's fleet has gone, it is supposed to Sherman at Charleston.

No doubt the Government of the United States imagines the "rebellion" in articulo mortis, and supposes the reconstruction of the Union a very practicable thing, and the men selected as our commissioners may confirm the belief. They can do nothing, of course, if independence is the ultimatum given them.

Among the rumors now current, it is stated that the French Minister at Washington has demanded his passports. Mr. Lincoln's message, in December, certainly gave Napoleon grounds for a quarrel by ignoring his empire erected in Mexico.

Mr. Seddon still awaits his successor. He has removed Col. and Lieut -Col. Ruffin from office.

Mr. Bruce, M. C. from Kentucky, and brother-in-law to Mr. Seddon, is named as Commissary-General.

The President has vetoed another bill, granting the privilege to soldiers to receive papers free of postage, and the Senate has passed it again by a two-thirds vote. Thus the breach widens.

Some of our sensible men have strong hopes of peace immediately, on terms of alliance against European powers, and commercial advantages to the United States. I hope for even this for the sake of repose and independence, if we come off with honor. We owe nothing to any of the European governments. What has Blair been running backward and forward so often for between the two Presidents? Has it not been clearly stated that independence alone will content us? Blair must have understood this, and made it known to his President. Then what else but independence, on some terms, could be the basis for further conference? I believe our people would, for the sake of independence, agree to an alliance offensive and defensive with the United States, and agree to furnish an army of volunteers in the event of a war with France or England. The President has stigmatized the affected neutrality of those powers in one of his annual messages. Still, such a treaty would be unpopular after a term of peace with the United States. If the United States be upon the eve of war with France and England, or either of them, our commissioners abroad will soon have proposals from those governments, which would be accepted, if the United States did not act speedily.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 2, p. 403-4

John J. Crittenden to Count Eugène de Sartiges, October 22, 1851

DEPARTMENT OF STATE, WASHINGTON, October 22, 1851.

The undersigned, acting Secretary of State of the United States, has the honor to remind M. de Sartiges, envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary of the French republic, that in the interview which he had with him on the 8th instant, he stated that he might have occasion to address him in writing on the subject of the information which M. de Sartiges then communicated, that the French government had issued orders to its ships of war, then in the West Indies, to give assistance to Spain, and to prevent by force any adventurers of any nation from landing with hostile intent on the island of Cuba. Having imparted that information to the President, the undersigned has now the honor, by his direction, to address M. de Sartiges in regard to it.

M. de Sartiges is apprised that a few days prior to the interview adverted to the chargé d'affaires of her Britannic Majesty had given to this department official notice that his government had issued similar orders to its naval forces. The President had regarded this as a matter of grave importance, but its gravity is greatly increased by the concurrence and co-operation of France in the same measure. It cannot be doubted that those orders have been occasioned by the recent unlawful expedition of less than five hundred men, which, having evaded the vigilance of this government, and escaped from New Orleans, were landed by the steamer Pampero upon the island of Cuba, and were soon captured, and many of them executed. That such an incident should have incited the combined action of two great European powers, for an object to which neither of them is a direct party, and in a manner that may seriously affect the people of the United States, cannot fail to awaken the earnest consideration of the President.

He cannot perceive the necessity or propriety of such orders, while he entertains the strongest apprehensions that their execution by French and British cruisers will be attended with injurious and dangerous consequences to the commerce and peace of the United States. They cannot be carried into effect  without a visitation, examination, and consequent detention of our vessels on our shores, and in the great channels of our coasting trade, and this must invest British and French cruisers with the jurisdiction of determining, in the first instance at least, what are the expeditions denounced in their orders, and who are the guilty persons engaged in them. It is plain, however different may have been the intentions of the respective governments, that the exercise of such a power and jurisdiction could hardly fail to lead to abuses and collisions perilous to the peace that now so happily prevails. By such an interference those governments seem to assume an attitude unfriendly to the United States. The President will not, however, allow himself to believe that this intervention has been intended as an admonition or reproach to his government. He has signally manifested his condemnation of all such lawless enterprises, and has adopted active measures for their prevention and suppression. It must also be known to the governments of France and England, in common with all the world, that this government, since it took its place among nations, has carefully preserved its good faith, and anxiously endeavored to fulfill all its obligations, conventional and national. And this it has done from motives far above any apprehensions of danger to itself. From its beginning, under the present Constitution, it has sedulously cultivated the policy of peace, of not intermeddling in the affairs of others, and of preventing by highly penal enactments any unlawful interference by its citizens to disturb the tranquillity of countries with which the United States were in amity. To this end many such enactments have been made, the first as early as the year 1794, and the last as late as 1838. The last having expired by its own limitation, and all the preceding legislation on the subject having been comprehended in the act of Congress of the 20th of April, 1818, it is unnecessary to do more than to refer M. de Sartiges to its provisions as marking the signal anxiety and good faith of this government to restrain persons within its jurisdiction from committing any acts inconsistent with the rights of others, or its own obligations. These laws were intended to comprehend, and to protect from violation, all our relations with and duties to countries at peace with us, and to punish any violations of them by our citizens as crimes against the United States. In this manifestation of its desire to preserve just and peaceful relations with all nations, it is believed that the United States have gone before and further than any of the older governments of Europe. Without recapitulating all the provisions of those laws by which the United States have so carefully endeavored to prohibit every act that could be justly offensive to their neighbors, it is deemed enough for this occasion to say that they denounce all such enterprises or expeditions as those against which the orders in question are directed.

The undersigned thinks it is of importance enough to call the attention of M. de Sartiges more directly to this law. A literal copy of it is accordingly herewith communicated. Besides the ordinary legal process, it authorizes the President to employ the military and naval forces of the country for the purpose of preventing such expeditions and arresting for punishment those concerned in them. In the spirit of this law, the President condemns such expeditions against the island of Cuba as are denounced by the orders in question, and has omitted nothing for their detection and prevention. To that end he has given orders to civil, naval, and military officers from New York to New Orleans, and has enjoined upon them the greatest vigilance and energy. This course on the subject has been in all things clear and direct. It has been no secret, and the undersigned must presume that it has been fully understood and known by M. de Sartiges. An appeal might confidently be made to the vigilant and enlightened minister of Spain that his suggestions for the prevention of such aggressions, or the prosecution of offenders engaged in them, have been promptly considered, and, if found reasonable, adopted by the President; his course, it is believed, has been above all question of just cause of complaint. This government is determined to execute its laws, and in the performance of this duty can neither ask nor receive foreign aid. If, notwithstanding all its efforts, expeditions of small force hostile to Cuba have, in a single vessel or steamer, excited by Cubans themselves, escaped from our extensive shores, such an accident can furnish no ground of imputation either upon the law or its administration. Every country furnishes instances enough of infractions and evasions of its laws, which no power or vigilance can effectually guard against. It need not be feared that any expeditions of a lawless and hostile character can escape from the United States of sufficient force to create any alarm for the safety of Cuba, or against which Spain might not defend it with the slightest exertion of her power. The President is persuaded that none such can escape detection and prevention, except by their insignificance. None certainly can escape which could require the combined aid of France and England to resist or suppress. Cuba will find a sure, if not its surest, protection and defense in the justice and good faith of the United States.

There is another point of view in which this intervention on the part of France and England cannot be viewed with indifference by the President. The geographical position of the island of Cuba in the Gulf of Mexico, lying at no great distance from the mouth of the river Mississippi and in the line of the greatest current of the commerce of the United States, would become, in the hands of any powerful European nation, an object of just jealousy and apprehension to the people of this country. A due regard to their own safety and interest must, therefore, make it a matter of importance to them who shall possess and hold dominion over that island. The government of France and those of other European nations were long since officially apprised by this government that the United States could not see, without concern, that island transferred by Spain to any other European state; President Fillmore fully concurs in that sentiment, and is apprehensive that the sort of protectorate introduced by the orders in question might, in contingencies not difficult to be imagined, lead to results equally objectionable. If it should appear to M. de Sartiges that the President is too apprehensive on this subject, this must be attributed to his great solicitude to guard friendly relations between the two countries against all contingencies and causes of disturbance. The people of the United States have long cherished towards France the most amicable sentiments, and recent events which made her a republic have opened new sources of fraternal sympathy. Harmony and confidence would seem to be the natural relations of the two great republics of the world, relations demanded no less by their permanent interests than by circumstances and combinations in continental Europe, which now seem to threaten so imminently the cause of free institutions. The United States have nothing to fear from those convulsions, nor are they propagandists, but they have at heart the cause of freedom in all countries, and believe that the example of the two great republics of France and America, with their moral and social influences, co-operating harmoniously, would go far to promote and to strengthen that cause. It is with these views that the President so much desires the cultivation of friendly feelings between the two countries, and regards with so much concern any cause that may tend to produce collision or alienation. He believes that this Cuban intervention is such a cause. The system of government which prevails most generally in Europe is adverse to the principles upon which this government is founded, and the undersigned is well aware that the difference between them is calculated to produce distrust of, if not aversion to, the government of the United States. Sensible of this, the people of this country are naturally jealous of European interference in American affairs. And although they would not impute to France, now herself a republic, any participation in this distrustful and unfriendly feeling towards their government, yet the undersigned must repeat, that her intervention in this instance, if attempted to be executed, in the only practicable mode for its effectual execution, could not fail to produce some irritation, if not worse consequences. The French cruisers sailing up and down the shores of the United States to perform their needless task of protecting Cuba, and their ungracious office of watching the people of this country as if they were fruitful of piracies, would be regarded with some feelings of resentment, and the flag they bore-a flag which should always be welcome to the sight of Americans—would be looked at as casting a shadow of unmerited and dishonoring suspicion upon them and their government. The undersigned will add that all experience seems to prove that the rights, interests, and peace of the continents of Europe and America will be best preserved by the forbearance of each to interfere in the affairs of the other. The government of the United States has constantly acted on that principle, and has never intermeddled in European questions. The President has deemed it proper to the occasion that his views should be thus fully and frankly presented for the friendly consideration of M. de Sartiges and his government, in order that all possible precautions may be used to avert any misunderstanding, and every cause or consequence that might disturb the peace or alienate, in the least, the sentiments of confidence and friendship which now bind together the republics of the United States and France. The undersigned avails himself of this occasion to offer to M. de Sartiges the assurance of his very distinguished consideration.

JOHN J. CRITTENDEN.

M. DE SARTIGES.

SOURCE: Ann Mary Butler Crittenden Coleman, Editor, The Life of John J. Crittenden: With Selections from His Correspondence and Speeches, Vol. 2, p. 13-7

Herschel V. Johnson* to Senator Robert M. T. Hunter, November 8, 1852

(Private.)

ELIZABETH CITY Co., NEAR HAMPTON, [VA.],

November 5th, 1852.

MY DEAR HUNTER: I wrote you in June a short note from Baltimore immediately after the adjournment of the Convention, to which I rec[eive]d an answer in a few days. I write now to acknowl

edge its receipt and to say that I have had several very free conversations with Wise since. He speaks of you in the kindest manner and does you ample justice, meet him with the cordiality of former days and all will be well. I know that he loves you and desires your friendship, nay thinks himself entitled to it. I pray God that nothing may ever occur to separate you.

Franklin Pierce from present indications will receive at least 270 of the electoral vote-the vote of every Southern State. We believe, an awful beating, this indeed. He is indebted to Virginia for his Crown. Well who from our State must go into the Cabinet? You say "I have nothing to ask and shall ask nothing from the incoming administration for myself." Do you intend to say that you would decline any offer? I ask the question because I frequently heard you spoken of and the wish expressed that you would accept the Treasury if offered you, indeed I have been asked if I thought you would accept. I had not thought much upon the subject, and had no wish about it. The only desire I have upon the subject is that you should exercise your own judgment and be where you can be most useful.

The Treasury will be the great leaver to work for reform 'tis very certain, and I hope to see some Southern man of the right stamp at it.. Your present position is a commanding one and one from which you can better be heard by the nation, perhaps too it is nearer to the succession. Well if you shall come next after Pierce I shall not despair of the republic.

The last time I saw Bayly he told me that you would be the next President, that he intended to make you President. "You be d-d you can't get back to Congress yourself, and you talk to me about making Hunter President." "When and how come you so fond of Hunter. You always loved Hunter better than you love me." "If it be true can't you account for it very, very easy. Hunter votes right always-You only occasionally." Booker it is impossible you can doubt my fidelity to the South you must have confidence in me. "Confidence sir is a plant of slow groth as Mr. Pitt said." I like Bayly very much. We have been friends a long time, and Ì have tried very hard to forgive him. I withheld from him my vote the last time he was a candidate. It was painful to me to be obliged to do so. He does not understand his position, does, not know how much ground he has lost. I doubt if he can ever recover. In saying this much do not understand me as doubting his fidelity to you. I do not, no, I believe him sincere. In the event of your taking a seat in the Cabinet Bayly and Wise will both struggle hard for your place in the Senate, the former I am certain cannot succeed the latter may, perhaps will. I know of no really formidable competitor in the East. I am interrupted and must conclude before I had finished all I had to say.

SOURCE: Charles Henry Ambler, Editor, Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1916, in Two Volumes, Vol. II, Correspondence of Robert M. T. Hunter (1826-1876), p. 149-50

A Southerner to Senator Robert M. T. Hunter, June 14, 1852

(Private.)

RICHMOND, [Va.], June 14th [1852].

DEAR SIR: I beg to call your attention, to that portion of Judge Conrad's speech in the Anti-Fillmore Convention of New York, which is enclosed. (You will find the whole speech in N. Y. Herald of 13th.)

I write to you as a true friend of the South, to know what is the South to do. Are her statesmen looking ahead and preparing for contingencies? As this letter is anonymous, you are not bound, I admit, to treat it with any consideration. I ask only to free my own mind of thoughts which press painfully upon it, and to leave them with those who can best judge whether they are of any value or practicable. The question is this—Cannot the South form an alliance, either with England, or some foreign country, which will protect her from the threatened aggression of the North? Look ahead, and do you not see a storm coming from the North which must dissolve the Union? Ought we not then to look ahead, ought not the Southern leaders to meet together and confer, and sound the governments of England, or other foreign powers, to see what can be done in such a contingency? You are one of the few men, I believe, not eaten up with selfish ambition. Strike a blow, then, I entreat you for the safety of the South. Would to Heaven that the South would stop talking and go to acting. Imitate the forecast, the practical character, and (as it has become necessary to fight the devil with fire) the subtlety of our sectional enemies. It strikes me, that it would be a good stroke of policy, and a most holy and righteous retribution, if we could form a treaty with England, giving her certain privileges in the cotton trade and vast navigation, in return for which, she could stand by the South, and crush the Free Soilers between Canada and the South States.

SOURCE: Charles Henry Ambler, Editor, Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1916, in Two Volumes, Vol. II, Correspondence of Robert M. T. Hunter (1826-1876), p. 145

Congressman Jefferson Davis on the War with Mexico, May 12, 1846

(From Port-Gibson Correspondent, June 3, 1846.)

Washington, May 12, 1846.

The Oregon controversy will scarcely be settled, by negotiation, and when the joint convention shall be abrogated conflicts with England will probably ensue. Before that time we ought to close all questions with Mexico, and have the ship overhauled for action on a larger scale. Let the treaty of peace be made at the city of Mexico, and by an Ambassador who cannot be refused a hearing—but who will speak with that which levels walls and opens gates—American cannon.

I signified to our friend John Willis that in the event of war I should like to command a Warren Regiment. My position here forces upon me the recollection of all which is due to those who sent me here. Yet I look to the movements of our forces on our Mexican border with a strong desire to be a part of them. My education and former practice would, I think, enable me to be of service to Mississippians who take the field. If they wish it, I will join them as soon as possible, wherever they may be.

JEFFERSON DAVIS.

SOURCE: Dunbar Rowland, Editor, Jefferson Davis, Constitutionalist: His Letters, Papers and Speeches, Volume 1, p. 46