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.

_______________

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 George Templeton Strong: January 25, 1860

Wolcott Gibbs called by appointment tonight. We microscopized energetically, and the performances terminated with a very modest supper of chicken and hock. Gavitt was to have joined us but made default. We studied the Ross 1/12 objective and examined the circulation in the tail of a tadpole and a kitty fish, which I brought uptown with me from the little aquarium shop in Fulton street this afternoon. Results were satisfactory. My binocular is unquestionably an acquisition. It shews certain structures better than the Ross instrument.

The Rev. Mr. Bellows, who called at breakfast time this morning to ask after Mr. Ruggles, is my authority for the following diplomatic

Scene at the Tuileries. A State dinner. The Honorable Mr. Mason, F.F.V., (our Minister to France), and Don Somebody, the Spanish Ambassador, glowering at each other across the table, during intervals of deglutition, each timidly desiring to establish himself in rapport with the other.

Spain. Breaking the ice: “Parlez-vous français, M’sieu Masón?”

America. With effort: "Ung Poo.” (A pause) "Permit me, Sir, to ask whether you speak the English language?

Spain: "Small.” (Conversation closes.)

SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, p. 5-6

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

Speech of Jefferson Davis in House on April 17, 1846 on the Oregon question.

Mr. JEFFERSON DAVIS said, the closing remarks of the gentleman who had preceded him certainly invited a reply; but in consideration of the little time which remained of that allowed for this discussion and the number of gentlemen anxious to address the committee, he would only say, in answer to these remarks, that he repelled the assumption, that all who differed from the gentleman in his opinions upon Oregon, were so wanting in wisdom or patriotism as ignorantly or timidly to sacrifice American rights. Not always was it found that those who most readily entered into quarrel, bore themselves best after they were in. Sometimes the first to get into a row are the first who wish themselves out.

He declined to enter into the question of title. The ancient voyages of Spain—the ancient conventions in relation to the Northwest coast of America—seemed to him so little connected. with the subject before the committee, that he had listened to such speeches with the feelings of the Vicar of Wakefield, when he met the sharper of the fair in prison, and he commenced his recital on cosmogony. Stop! said the Vicar, sorry to interrupt so much learning, but I think I have heard all that before.

He would point out his most prominent objections to the bill, and before closing, would offer a substitute for its provisions. He said, the title of the bill met his entire approval. Our citizens in Oregon had a right to expect our protection. It was gratifying to him to witness the fact, that though they had gone beyond the exercise of our jurisdiction, they looked back and asked that the laws of their father-land might follow them; they invited the restraints of our legislation; thus giving the highest proof of their attachment, and paying the richest tribute to our institutions.

There is sufficient unanimity as to the propriety of extending our laws over American citizens in Oregon, to justify me in omitting that branch of the subject, and proceeding at once to inquire by what mode this may be effected. By the bill under discussion, it is proposed to extend the jurisdiction of the supreme court of Iowa, and the laws of said Territory, as far as applicable to that portion of the territory of the United States which lies west of the Rocky Mountains, and also over a belt of country east of those mountains and west of the Missouri river, and lying between the fortieth and forty-third parallel of north latitude.

Who here knows what the laws of Iowa are, still less what they may be; but this much we all may know, that from the difference in the condition and wants of the two countries, the one must be very poorly calculated to legislate for the other, and great confusion must ensue in the attempt to apply the wants of one to the other. He referred to the mining character of Iowa, which gave to her people and local legislation a character peculiar and inapplicable to Oregon. He denied the propriety of extending the laws of Iowa over the Indian country, considered such extension a violation of the principles which had heretofore controlled our intercourse with the Indian tribes, the principle which had been characteristic of our Government, contradistinguishing it from those of Europe, who had had intercourse with the aborigines of America. Our Government had always recognised the usufruct of the Indians of the territory possessed by them. Our jurisdiction over Indian country has heretofore been confined to regulating trade and intercourse with the Indian tribes, and serving process upon our own citizens within the Indian territory. This is to give force to the laws of Iowa over all the Indian country therein described; to wrest, without the just and liberal compensation we have heretofore paid for the extinguishment of Indian title, a belt of country on this side of the mountains, from the tribes who possess it, and, by the strong hand, to seize all which lies beyond.

He said, gentleman had frequently addressed us upon the rights of Great Britain and the conflicting claims of that Government and ours in the Oregon territory. By the conventions of 1818 and 1827, the title as between these two Governments was in abeyance. Let us strictly regard all our treaty stipulations with that rival claimant; but most especially let us respect the rights of the more helpless occupant, and more rightful possessor—the savage who originally held the country.

To this end, he said, he had drawn up, and would submit a substitute for the bill, violative of the rights of no one, in strict accordance with the usage of this Government, and, as he believed, most effective to preserve peace and order, and extend to our citizens in Oregon the benefits of our republican laws and institutions. It was the application, so far as suited to the circumstances, of the ordinance of 1787, for the government of the territory of the United States northwest of the Ohio river, and of the law of 1789, to render it more effectual. Under these, our citizens in the various territories of the northwest had passed from the condition of Indian country to the second grade of government. No question could arise in their application which had not been already adjudicated; and, therefore, in adopting this plan, we could distinctly see, and accurately judge, of the results it would produce. In view of the peculiar condition of the Oregon territory, he expected, by a proviso, that portion of the ordinance which refers to a general assembly; also substituted for the freehold qualification of officers required by that instrument the qualifications prescribed in the territory of Iowa, where no freehold is necessary, and had added a section securing to the British subjects in Oregon all the rights and privileges they derive from existing treaties, so long as those treaties shall continue. By this substitute it is proposed to provide for the appointment of a Governor, who should be ex officio superintendent of Indian affairs, and three judges. These officers appointed by the President, by and with the consent of the Senate, are to receive the same compensation as officers of a like grade in the Territory of Iowa. They are to be authorized to adopt such laws from the statutes of the different States of our Union as may be applicable to the condition of that country, the whole to be subject to the revision and approval of Congress.

Thus, sir, we shall be guarded against the dangers of extending the laws of a territory existing, and hereafter to be enacted without our knowledge, and above our control, likewise from any improper legislation which might result from a representative assembly in a mixed and unsettled colony. The officers of the Government thus constituted are authorized by proclamation to define the limits of the settlements of our citizens in Oregon, to which the Indian title has been, or may be extinguished, and within such settlement to locate the seat of government for the territory. Until the Indian title has been legally extinguished in some portion of the territory, it is a violation of the policy we have heretofore observed, and which stands upon our history a proud monument of humanity and justice, to locate our courts, and assume territorial jurisdiction in that country.

Having a point upon which to rest our territorial government, its process can thence extend into the Indian country around it to persons found therein, and subject to our jurisdiction. Now, by the act of 1834, a criminal might be arrested in the territory of Oregon, brought over to our courts in Missouri or Iowa for trial, as they are frequently arrested, and brought to trial from the Indian country east of the mountains.

From the various instances of erecting a territorial government in the manner proposed, he would detain the committee by a reference to but one—that of Wisconsin.

The United States held free from Indian title the small tract of land at Green Bay. Upon this they located their territorial officers; here the laws were administered: and hence a process issued into the remainder of the territory occupied by Indians.

The only difference between Wisconsin and Oregon, if any difference exists to vary our practice on this point, must arise from the joint-occupancy convention between England and the United States. To my mind this offers no obstacle.

Our settlements in Oregon are entirely within the limits within which we have actual, legal possession—our possession recognised by the Government of Great Britain before the joint convention was formed which is now said to impose upon us limitations.

Pending the negotiation of 1827, Mr. Gallatin informs us the American Plenipotentiary declined to agree to any convention containing an express provision against the exercise of any exclusive sovereignty over the territory. He says, in his letter dated January 22, 1846, referring to the negotiations of 1827, in relation to the territory west of the Stony Mountains, "The probability that it might become necessary for the United States to establish a territorial, or some sort of a government, over their own citizens, was explicitly avowed." Great Britain, through her mercantile corporation, the Hudson Bay Company, extends her laws over Oregon. We have none other than political corporations, through which to effect the same object on the part of the United States. The proposition he submitted was through a governor and judges, as the head of a territorial incorporation, to transmit the laws of the United States to her citizens residing beyond the practical extension of her organized jurisdiction.

This, he contended, we had a right to do under the existing convention with Great Britain; this was our duty to our own citizens, to the Indian inhabitants of that territory, and, as he believed, essential to the preservation of order, and the maintenance of our treaty obligations. This policy was unconnected with the termination of the convention of the joint occupancy with Great Britain, and should have been adopted long ago. It was necessary to limit the British act of 1821, which has found an excuse, in the absence of all other law, or "civil government," for an extension invasive of our rights, and injurious to our people.

With this brief explanation, and relying on the familiarity of the committee with the subject-matter it contained, he submitted his substitute to their consideration.

SOURCE: Dunbar Rowland, Editor, Jefferson Davis, Constitutionalist: His Letters, Papers and Speeches, Volume 1, p. 40-4

Speech of Congressman Jefferson Davis, February 6, 1846

Speech of Jefferson Davis delivered in the House Feb. 6, 1846, on the Oregon question.

Mr. JEFFERSON DAVIS addressed the committee during the hour. He knew not (he said) whether he more regretted the time at which this discussion has been introduced, or the manner in which it has been conducted. We were engaged in delicate and highly important negotiations with Mexico, the end of which we had hoped would be an adjustment of our boundary on terms the vast advantage of which it would be difficult to estimate. If, sir, (said Mr. D.,) by this exciting discussion we shall hereafter find that we have lost the key to the commerce of the Pacific, none who hears me will live long enough to cease from his regrets for the injury our country has sustained. Again, sir; a long peace has served to extend the bonds of commerce throughout the civilized world, drawing nations from remote quarters of the globe into friendly alliance and that mutual dependence which promised a lasting peace and unshackled commerce. In the East, there appeared a rainbow which promised that the waters of national jealousy and proscription were about to recede from the face of the earth, and the spirit of free trade to move over the face thereof. But this, sir, is a hope not so universally cherished in this House as I could desire. We have even been told that one of the advantages to result from war will be emancipation from the manufacturers of Manchester and Birmingham.

I hope, sir, the day is far distant when measures of peace or war will be prompted by sectional or class interests. War, sir, is a dread alternative, and should be the last resort; but when demanded for the maintenance of the honor of the country, or for the security and protection of our citizens against outrage by other Governments, I trust we shall not sit here for weeks to discuss the propriety, to dwell upon the losses, or paint the horrors of war.

Mr. Chairman, it has been asserted that the people demand action, and we must advance. Whilst, sir, I admit the propriety of looking to and reflecting public opinion, especially upon a question which is viewed as deciding between peace or war, I cannot respond to the opinion, nor consent to govern my conduct by the idea, that the public man who attempts to stem the current of a war excitement must be borne down, sacrificed on the altar of public indignation. Sir, may the day never come when there will be so little of public virtue and patriotic devotion among the representatives of the people, that any demagogue who chooses to make violent and unfounded appeals to raise a war clamor in the country will be allowed, unopposed, to mislead the people as to the true questions at issue, and to rule their representatives through their love of place and political timidity.

Mr. Chairman, I have been struck with surprise, only exceeded by mortification, at the freedom with which disgrace and dishonor have been mingled with the name of our country. Upon one side, to give notice, and involve the country in a war, is disgrace; upon the other side, not to give notice, to rest in our present position, is dishonor. And my colleague [MR. THOMPSON] says "notice" is the only way to avoid war; that to extend our laws over our people in Oregon is war—a war of disgrace. Sir, whence comes this decision, this new light upon the Oregon question? The leaders in the Oregon movement, in other times, held different views. And, sir, the discussions upon Oregon, at former periods, would certainly not suffer by a comparison with ours; nor, sir, did the commissioners who negotiated the convention of joint occupancy, either English or American, so understand it.

Mr. Gallatin has recently called public attention to the fact, that in 1827, our plenipotentiary refused to agree to any express provision that, in extending the convention of 1818, neither party should exercise any exclusive sovereignty over the territory. The probability that it might become necessary for the United States to establish a territorial or some sort of government over their own citizens was explicitly avowed. Sir, by discovery, exploration, and possession, we claimed exclusive sovereignty over the valley of the Columbia, and our exclusive possession as against England was admitted by the restoration of our posts in Oregon—the formal, actual surrender of Astoria. The convention for joint right to trade in Oregon did not destroy our exclusive possession of a part, nor limit the rights or powers we might exercise within their former bounds; and that this is the British construction, is sufficiently apparent by the assertion of rights as derived from the Nootka convention over the same territory.

Nothing can be more demonstrable than the unfitness of joint-occupation rights to an agricultural people. It was not designed so to operate, but was designed for a country in the hands of hunters, trappers, and Indian traders.

The Hudson Bay Company, so often represented as colonizing Oregon, has interests directly opposed to agricultural settlements. The fur-trappers have been (if my information is correct) aided in establishing themselves on the south side of Oregon. Fur-trading companies usually require their discharged hands to leave the country, and resist, instead of promoting, colonization of necessity destructive to their trade. The Puget Sound Company is agricultural, and its settlements are in violation of our convention with England; and the notice required is to forbid such infraction of the treaty. That no right to plant colonies can be deduced from the conventions of 1818 and 1827 is too plain to admit of argument. The claim, if any, must be drawn from the convention between England and Spain, called the Nootka convention. If that convention be still in force, it must be because it was the declaration of rights, not the grant of advantages; and thus, for the sake of argument, I will consider it.

That Spain had the exclusive right of occupation on the northwest coast of America, as far as her discoveries extended, was not denied; but the question was, Had she, without having occupied the country, an exclusive sovereignty over it? Denying this pretension of Spain, Great Britain demanded indemnification for the seizure of British vessels at Nootka sound by the Spanish authorities. This led to the agreement upon which Great Britain has built her claim to territory in the Oregon country. Before entering upon the consideration of the terms of the convention itself, I will refer to the events that led to it.

Long before the voyage of Meares, the port of Nootka sound was known to the Spanish navigators. It was the usual resort of the trading vessels in the north Pacific. Meares, in 1788, visited it, and built a vessel there. For the use of his men, he erected a hut on the shore, by permission of the Indian king, and threw some defences around it, enclosing (according to Vancouver) about an acre of land. Meares, in return for the kindness of the Indian, (Maquinna,) gave him a pair of pistols. In his narrative, he gives a detailed account of the transaction, but does not call it a purchase; that was an after-thought, and first figured in his memorial. Sir, if there had been nothing beyond the narrative of Meares, the temporary character of his location would be fully established. There it appears that when about to sail, leaving a part of his men behind him, he bribed the Indian king, by offering him the reversion of the hut and chattels on shore, to permit his men to remain in peace, and complete the building of the vessel they had commenced.

To show the character of Meares, the purpose of his voyages in the north Pacific, and the country along which Great Britain claimed the right to trade, I will refer to the work of an Englishman, contemporary with Meares, and one of the most enterprising of the navigators of the north Pacific. It is "Dixon's Voyage around the World." Thus it appears that Meares was a furtrader, and of poor character for his calling; and more important still, it appears that the coast, from Cook's river to King George's sound, was the extent of the region in which British cruisers traded. This, taken in connexion with the 5th article of the Nootka convention, serves to fix the latitude in which joint settlement would be permitted.

The message of the King of Great Britain, communicating the transaction at Nootka, refers only to the seizure of vessels; not a word about lands of which British subjects had been dispossessed.

And when the proposition to vote an address of thanks to his Majesty for the conduct and successful termination of the negotiation, neither in the House of Lords or Commons did any one claim an acquisition of territory; and to the bitter irony and severe assaults of Mr. Fox upon the position in which the territorial pretensions of England had been left, his great rival, Mr. Pitt, then minister, made no reply, but pressed the commercial advantages gained by England.

The only link remaining to be supplied, and which completes the claim of construction, is the examination and final action of Quadra and Vancouver, when sent as commissioners to carry out the first article of the convention.

If, then, no tracts of land could be found which had been purchased by Meares; if no buildings of which he had been dispossessed, and the Spanish flag was never struck to that of Great Britain, Spain still maintaining her settlement at Nootka; the parallel north of which the joint right of settlement exists must be drawn through the northern extremity of Quadra and Vancouver's island; the established rule of nations being, that settlement on an island is held to extend to the whole of the island.

Oregon territory, then, is divided into a portion where we have possession above the treaty, and over which we can exercise all the rights not inconsistent with the trade permitted to England; another portion, in which, admitting the Nootka convention to be still in force, we have, with England, a joint right of trade and settlement; this being limited to the south by a line down through the head of the Quadra and Vancouver island. Between these portions, if there be any territory, it is in the condition of a joint right in England and the United States to occupy for fur trade, and the agricultural settlements are in violation of the spirit of the treaty.

Whenever the joint right by convention ceases, we must at once assert our exclusive right, or thenceforward possession matures into right on the part of Great Britain. During the continuance of the convention the title remains unimpaired; we are in possession; can establish over the undisputed part of the territory whatever regulations may be necessary to promote good order, and encourage emigration of agriculturists. Between England and the United States, the party having bread in Oregon must triumph.

No army can be sustained there for any considerable time by either country if the food must be transported from abroad to support it.

Never had man better right to cry "save me from my friends" than the President of the United States on this occasion. His positive recommendation has been made subordinate to his suggestion. He has urged to extend protection to our citizens in Oregon, but advised that notice be given to terminate the treaty of joint occupancy for reasons given. All this has been reversed, and the positive, unqualified declaration of a perfect title to the whole of Oregon up to 54° 40' comes strangely from those who claim to support an Administration that has offered nearly the same compromise line which had been time and again proposed by his predecessors. Sir, for the honor of my country, I hope that we have not been for thirty years negotiating when there was no conflicting claim; and for past as for the present Executive, I utterly deny that they have ever proposed to cede away a part of the territory, when our title was complete, to appease the voracious demands of England. It was a difficult and doubtful question; it was the adjustment of an undefined boundary. If the President should find himself compelled to close this question in twelve months, without any appropriation, without any preparation, he will be constrained to choose between compromise or war measures with the country unprepared. This will be the result of our action; and if he should effect a treaty by such a boundary as will not compromise the honor of the country, I for one-much, sir, as I wish to retain the whole territory—will give my full support as heretofore, and prepare for my share of whatever responsibility attaches. Sir, why has the South been assailed in this discussion? Has it been with the hope of sowing dissension between us and our western friends? Thus far, I think it has failed. Why the frequent reference to the conduct of the South on the Texas question? Sir, those who have made reflections on the South, as having sustained Texas annexation from sectional views, have been of those who opposed that great measure, and are most eager for this. The suspicion is but natural in them. But, sir, let me tell them that this doctrine of the political balance between different portions of the Union is no southern doctrine. We, sir, advocated the annexation of Texas from high national considerations; it was not a mere southern question; it lay coterminous to the Western States, and extended as far north as 42d degree of latitude; nor, sir, do we wish to divide the territory of Oregon; we would preserve it all for the extension of our Union. We would not arrest the onward progress of our pioneers. We would not, as has been done in this debate, ask why our citizens have left the repose of civil government and gone to Oregon? We find in it but that energy which has heretofore been characteristic of our people, and which has developed much that has illustrated our history. It is the onward progress of our people towards the Pacific, which alone can arrest their westward march; and on the banks of which, to use the idea of our lamented Linn, the pioneer will sit down to weep that there are no more forests to subdue. Sir, the gentleman from Missouri has, in claiming credit to different States for services in time past, wandered round Mississippi, and passed over it unnoticed. I wish not to eulogize my State, but, thus drawn to my notice, let me tell him that at Pensacola, at Bowyer, in the Creek campaigns, and on the field to which he specially alluded, (New Orleans,) the people of Mississippi have performed services that give earnest for the future, and relieve her sons of the necessity of offering pledges for her. It was Mississippi dragoons, led by her gallant Hinds, that received from the commanding general the high commendation of having been the admiration of one army and the wonder of the other.

It is as the representative of a high-spirited and patriotic people that I am called on to resist this war clamor. My constituents need no such excitements to prepare their hearts for all that patriotism demands. Whenever the honor of the country demands redress, whenever its territory is invaded, if then it shall be sought to intimidate by the fiery cross of St. George—if then we are threatened with the unfolding of English banners, if we resent or resist—from the gulf shore to the banks of that great river—throughout the length and breadth, Mississippi will come. And whether the question be one of northern or southern, of eastern or western aggression, we will not stop to count the cost, but act as becomes the descendants of those who, in the war of the Revolution, engaged in unequal strife to aid our brethren of the North in redressing their injuries.

Sir, we are the exposed portion of the Union, and nothing has been done by this Government adequate to our protection. Yet, sir, in the language of our patriotic Governor on a recent occasion, if "war comes, though it bring blight and desolation, yet we are ready for the crisis." We despise malign predictions, such as the member from Ohio who spoke early in these debates, made, and turn to such sentiments as those of another member from that State, the gentleman near me. In these was recognised the feelings of our western brethren, who, we doubt not, whenever the demand shall exist, will give proof of such valor as on former occasions they have shown; and if our plains should be invaded, they will come down to the foe like a stream from the rock.

Sir, when ignorance and fanatic hatred assail our domestic institutions, we try to forgive them for the sake of the righteous among the wicked—our natural allies, the Democracy of the North. We turn from present hostility to former friendship from recent defection, to the time when Massachusetts and Virginia, the stronger brothers of our family, stood foremost and united to defend our common rights. From sire to son has descended the love of our Union in our hearts, as in our history are mingled the names of Concord and Camden, of Yorktown and Saratoga, of Moultrie and Plattsburg, of Chippewa and Erie, of Bowyer and Guilford, and New Orleans and Bunker Hill. Grouped together, they form a monument to the common glory of our common country. And where is the southern man who would wish that monument were less by one of the northern names that constitute the mass? Who, standing on the ground made sacred by the blood of Warren, could allow sectional feeling to curb his enthusiasm as he looked upon that obelisk which rises a monument to freedom's and his country's triumph, and stands a type of the time, the men, and the event that it commemorates, built of material that mocks the waves of time, without niche or moulding for parasite or creeping thing to rest on, and pointing like a finger to the sky to raise man's thought to philanthropic and noble deeds.

SOURCE: Dunbar Rowland, Editor, Jefferson Davis, Constitutionalist: His Letters, Papers and Speeches, Volume 1, p. 29-35

Diary of Gideon Welles: Tuesday, August 22, 1865

Seward presented some matters of interest in relation to the Spanish-American States. Spain is getting in difficulty with Chili and also Peru, and Seward writes to Mr. Perry, Secretary of Legation (J. P. Hale is Minister), suggesting arbitration, etc.

Stanton submitted some reports in regard to the health of Jeff Davis, who has erysipelas and a carbuncle. Attorney-General Speed says he is waiting to hear from associate counsel in the case. These associates, he says, are Evarts of New York and Clifford of Massachusetts, both learned and able counsel before the court, but not as distinguished for success with a jury. The President, I saw by his manner and by an inquiry which he put, had not been consulted or was not aware that these gentlemen had been selected. So with other members of the Cabinet, except Stanton and Seward. These two gentlemen had evidently been advised with by the Attorney-General, no doubt directed him.

I would have suggested that General Butler should be associated in this trial, not that I give him unreserved confidence as a politician or statesman, but he possesses great ability, courage, strength, I may add audacity, as a lawyer, and he belongs to a school which at this time and in such a trial should have a voice. Our friends should not permit personal feelings to control them in so important a matter as selecting counsel to try such a criminal.

The President said he had invited an interview with Chief Justice Chase as a matter of courtesy, not knowing but he might have some suggestion to make as to time, place of trial, etc.; but the learned judge declined to hold conference on the subject, though not to advise on other grave and important questions when there was to be judicial action. I see the President detests the traits of the Judge. Cowardly and aspiring, shirking and presumptuous, forward and evasive; . . . an ambitious politician; possessed of mental resources yet afraid to use them, irresolute as well as ambitious; intriguing, selfish, cold, grasping, and unreliable when he fancies his personal advancement is concerned.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, p. 365-6

Diary of Gideon Welles: Thursday, August 10, 1865

Seward tells me there are rising troubles between Spain and Peru, and perhaps Chili, and thinks our naval force may need strengthening in that quarter.

Am in a state of uncertainty as to whom to select to fill the place of Chief of the Navigation Bureau. My own first thoughts turn to Alden, who has some good, pleasant qualities. Jenkins, though unlike Alden in many traits, has good points, is faithful and industrious, but is better fitted for another bureau. Melancthon Smith and John Worden have each been named. Yet neither, in all respects, can make Drayton's place good.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, p. 357

Diary of Gideon Welles: Wednesday, May 17, 1865

 The Stonewall has gone to Havana. Seward promises to have Tassara posted. Is confident the Spaniards will exclude her from their ports; but thinks it would be well to have our ironclads sent out.

Seward is getting better, but is seriously injured and will be long in getting well. Fred lingers in a low state.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, p. 307

The Ostend Manifesto,* October 18, 1854

AIX-LA-CHAPELLE, October 18th, 1854.

TO THE HON. WM. L. MARCY,
        Secretary of State.

SIR: The undersigned, in compliance with the wish expressed by the President in the several confidential despatches you have addressed to us respectively to that effect, have met in conference, first at Ostend, in Belgium, on the 9th, 10th, and 11th instant, and then at Aix-la-Chapelle, in Prussia, on the days next following, up to the date hereof.

There has been a full and unreserved interchange of views and sentiments between us, which, we are most happy to inform you, has resulted in a cordial coincidence of opinion on the grave and important subjects submitted to our consideration.

We have arrived at the conclusion and are thoroughly convinced that an immediate and earnest effort ought to be made by the Government of the United States to purchase Cuba from Spain, at any price for which it can be obtained, not exceeding the sum of one hundred and twenty millions of dollars.

The proposal should, in our opinion, be made in such a manner as to be presented, through the necessary diplomatic forms, to the Supreme Constituent Cortes about to assemble. On this momentous question, in which the people both of Spain and the United States are so deeply interested, all our proceedings ought to be open, frank, and public. They should be of such a character as to challenge the approbation of the World.

We firmly believe that, in the progress of human events, the time has arrived when the vital interests of Spain are as seriously involved in the sale as those of the United States in the purchase of the Island, and that the transaction will prove equally honorable to both nations.

Under these circumstances, we cannot anticipate a failure, unless, possibly, through the malign influence of foreign Powers who possess no right whatever to interfere in the matter.

We proceed to state some of the reasons which have brought us to this conclusion; and, for the sake of clearness, we shall specify them under two distinct heads:

1. The United States ought, if practicable, to purchase Cuba with as little delay as possible.

2. The probability is great that the Government and Cortes of Spain will prove willing to sell it, because this would essentially promote the highest and best interests of the Spanish people.

Then—1. It must be clear to every reflecting mind that, from the peculiarity of its geographical position and the considerations attendant on it, Cuba is as necessary to the North American Republic as any of its present members, and that it belongs naturally to that great family of States of which the Union is the Providential Nursery.

From its locality it commands the mouth of the Mississippi and the immense and annually increasing trade which must seek this avenue to the ocean.

On the numerous navigable streams, measuring an aggregate course of some thirty thousand miles, which disembogue themselves through this magnificent river into the Gulf of Mexico, the increase of the population, within the last ten years, amounts to more than that of the entire Union at the time Louisiana was annexed to it.

The natural and main outlet of the products of this entire population, the highway of their direct intercourse with the Atlantic and the Pacific States, can never be secure, but must ever be endangered whilst Cuba is a dependency of a distant Power, in whose possession it has proved to be a source of constant annoyance and embarrassment to their interests.

Indeed, the Union can never enjoy repose, nor possess reliable security, as long as Cuba is not embraced within its boundaries.

Its immediate acquisition by our Government is of paramount importance, and we cannot doubt but that it is a consummation devoutly wished for by its inhabitants.

The intercourse which its proximity to our coasts begets and encourages between them and the citizens of the United States has, in the progress of time, so united their interests and blended their fortunes, that they now look upon each other as if they were one people and had but one destiny.

Considerations exist which render delay in the acquisition of this Island exceedingly dangerous to the United States.

The system of emigration and labor lately organized within its limits, and the tyranny and oppression which characterize its immediate rulers, threaten an insurrection, at every moment, which may result in direful consequences to the American People.

Cuba has thus become to us an unceasing danger, and a permanent cause of anxiety and alarm.

But we need not enlarge on these topics. It can scarcely be apprehended that foreign Powers, in violation of international law, would interpose their influence with Spain to prevent our acquisition of the Island. Its inhabitants are now suffering under the worst of all possible Governments,—that of absolute despotism, delegated by a distant Power to irresponsible agents who are changed at short intervals, and who are tempted to improve the brief opportunity thus afforded to accumulate fortunes by the basest means.

As long as this system shall endure, humanity may in vain demand the suppression of the African Slave trade in the Island. This is rendered impossible whilst that infamous traffic remains an irresistible temptation and a source of immense profit to needy and avaricious officials who, to attain their end, scruple not to trample the most sacred principles under foot.

The Spanish Government at home may be well disposed, but experience has proved that it cannot control these remote depositories of its power.

Besides, the commercial nations of the world cannot fail to perceive and appreciate the great advantages which would result to their people from a dissolution of the forced and unnatural connection between Spain and Cuba, and the annexation of the latter to the United States. The trade of England and France with Cuba would, in that event, assume at once an important and profitable character, and rapidly extend with the increasing population and prosperity of the Island.

2. But if the United States and every commercial nation would be benefited by this transfer, the interests of Spain would also be greatly and essentially promoted.

She cannot but see that such a sum of money as we are willing to pay for the Island would effect in the development of her vast natural resources.

Two thirds of this sum, if employed in the construction of a system of Railroads, would ultimately prove a source of greater wealth to the Spanish people than that opened to their vision by Cortes. Their prosperity would date from the ratification of the Treaty of cession. France has already constructed continuous lines of Railways from Havre, Marseilles, Valenciennes, and Strasbourg, via Paris, to the Spanish frontier, and anxiously awaits the day when Spain shall find herself in a condition to extend these roads, through her Northern provinces, to Madrid, Seville, Cadiz, Malaga, and the frontiers of Portugal.

This object once accomplished, Spain would become a centre of attraction for the travelling world and secure a permanent and profitable market for her various productions. Her fields, under the stimulus given to industry by remunerating prices, would teem with cereal grain, and her vineyards would bring forth a vastly increased quantity of choice wines. Spain would speedily become, what a bountiful Providence intended she should be, one of the first Nations of Continental Europe, rich, powerful, and contented.

Whilst two thirds of the price of the Island would be ample for the completion of her most important public improvements, she might, with the remaining forty millions, satisfy the demands now pressing so heavily upon her credit, and create a sinking fund which would gradually relieve her from the overwhelming debt now paralysing her energies.

Such is her present wretched financial condition, that her best bonds are sold, upon her own Bourse, at about one third of their par value; whilst another class, on which she pays no interest, have but a nominal value and are quoted at about one sixth of the amount for which they were issued. Besides, these latter are held principally by British creditors, who may, from day to day, obtain the effective interposition of their own Government, for the purpose of coercing payment. Intimations to that effect have been already thrown out from high quarters, and unless some new, source of revenue shall enable Spain to provide for such exigencies, it is not improbable that they may be realized.

Should Spain reject the present golden opportunity for developing her resources and removing her present financial embarrassments, it may never again return.

Cuba, in its palmiest days, never yielded her Exchequer, after deducting the expenses of its Government, a clear annual income of more than a million and a half of dollars. These expenses have increased to such a degree as to leave a deficit chargeable on the Treasury of Spain to the amount of six hundred thousand dollars.

In a pecuniary point of view, therefore, the Island is an encumbrance instead of a source of profit to the Mother Country.

Under no probable circumstances can Cuba ever yield to Spain one per cent. on the large amount which the United States are willing to pay for its acquisition.

But Spain is in imminent danger of losing Cuba without remuneration.

Extreme oppression, it is now universally admitted, justifies any people in endeavoring to relieve themselves from the yoke of their oppressors. The sufferings which the corrupt, arbitrary, and unrelenting local administration necessarily entails upon the inhabitants of Cuba cannot fail to stimulate and keep alive that spirit of resistance and revolution against Spain which has of late years been so often manifested. In this condition of affairs, it is vain to expect that the sympathies of the people of the United States will not be warmly enlisted in favor of their oppressed neighbors.

We know that the President is justly inflexible in his determination to execute the neutrality laws, but should the Cubans themselves rise in revolt against the oppressions which they suffer, no human power could prevent citizens of the United States and liberal minded men of other countries from rushing to their assistance.

Besides, the present is an age of adventure, in which restless and daring spirits abound in every portion of the world.

It is not improbable, therefore, that Cuba may be wrested from Spain by a successful revolution; and in that event, she will lose both the Island and the price which we are now willing to pay for it—a price far beyond what was ever paid by one people to another for any province.

It may also be here remarked that the settlement of this vexed question, by the cession of Cuba to the United States, would forever prevent the dangerous complications between nations to which it may otherwise give birth.

It is certain that, should the Cubans themselves organize an insurrection against the Spanish Government, and should other independent nations come to the aid of Spain in the contest, no human power could, in our opinion, prevent the people and Government of the United States from taking part in such a civil war in support of their neighbors and friends.

But if Spain, deaf to the voice of her own interest, and actuated by stubborn pride and a false sense of honor, should refuse to sell Cuba to the United States, then the question will arise, what ought to be the course of the American Government under such circumstances?

Self-preservation is the first law of nature, with States as well as with individuals. All nations have, at different periods, acted upon this maxim. Although it has been made the pretext for committing flagrant injustice, as in the partition of Poland and other similar cases which history records, yet the principle itself, though often abused, has always been recognized.

The United States have never acquired a foot of territory, except by fair purchase, or, as in the case of Texas, upon the free and voluntary application of the people of that independent State, who desired to blend their destinies with our own.

Even our acquisitions from Mexico are no exception to this rule, because, although we might have claimed them by the right of conquest in a just way, yet we purchased them for what was then considered by both parties a full and ample equivalent.

Our past history forbids that we should acquire the Island of Cuba without the consent of Spain, unless justified by the great law of self-preservation. We must in any event preserve our own conscious rectitude and our own self-respect.

Whilst pursuing this course, we can afford to disregard the censures of the world to which we have been so often and so unjustly exposed.

After we shall have offered Spain a price for Cuba, far beyond its present value, and this shall have been refused, it will then be time to consider the question, does Cuba in the possession of Spain seriously endanger our internal peace and the existence of our cherished Union?

Should this question be answered in the affirmative, then, by every law human and Divine, we shall be justified in wresting it from Spain, if we possess the power; and this, upon the very same principle that would justify an individual in tearing down the burning house of his neighbor, if there were no other means of preventing the flames from destroying his own home.

Under such circumstances, we ought neither to count the cost, nor regard the odds which Spain might enlist against us. We forbear to enter into the question, whether the present condition of the Island would justify such a measure.

We should, however, be recreant to our duty, be unworthy of our gallant forefathers, and commit base treason against our posterity, should we permit Cuba to be Africanized and become a second St. Domingo, with all its attendant horrors to the white race, and suffer the flames to extend to our neighboring shores, seriously to endanger or actually to consume the fair fabric of our Union.

We fear that the course and current of events are rapidly tending towards such a catastrophe. We, however, hope for the best, though we ought certainly to be prepared for the worst.

We also forbear to investigate the present condition of the questions at issue between the United States and Spain,

A long series of injuries to our people have been committed in Cuba by Spanish officials, and are unredressed. But recently a most flagrant outrage on the rights of American citizens, and on the flag of the United States, was perpetrated in the harbor of Havana, under circumstances which without immediate redress would have justified a resort to measures of war, in vindication of national honor. That outrage is not only unatoned, but the Spanish Government has deliberately sanctioned the acts of its subordinates and assumed the responsibility attaching to them.

Nothing could more impressively teach us the danger to which those peaceful relations it has ever been the policy of the United States to cherish with foreign nations are constantly exposed than the circumstances of that case.

Situated as Spain and the United States are, the latter have forborne to resort to extreme measures. But this course cannot, with due regard to their own dignity as an independent nation, continue; and our recommendations, now submitted, are dictated by the firm belief that the cession of Cuba to the United States, with stipulations as beneficial to Spain as those suggested, is the only effective mode of settling all past differences and of securing the two countries against future collisions.

We have already witnessed the happy results for both countries which followed a similar arrangement in regard to Florida.

Yours very respectfully,

JAMES BUCHANAN.

J. Y. MASON.

PIERRE SOULÉ.

_______________

* MSS. Department of State, 66 Despatches from England. Printed in H. Ex. Doc. 93. 33 Cong. 2 Sess. 127-132; Horton's Buchanan, 392-399. An extract is given in Curtis's Buchanan, II. 139.

SOURCE: John Bassett Moore, The Works of James Buchanan: Comprising His Speeches, State Papers and Private Correspondence, Volume 9: 1853-1855, p. 260-6

Diary of Gideon Welles: Tuesday, March 7, 1865

The meeting at the Cabinet was interesting, the topics miscellaneous. Vice-President Johnson's infirmity was mentioned. Seward's tone and opinions were much changed since Saturday. He seems to have given up Johnson now, but no one appears to have been aware of any failing. I trust and am inclined to believe it a temporary ailment, which may, if rightly treated, be overcome.

Chief Justice Chase spent an hour with the President last evening, and is urging upon him to exempt sundry counties in eastern Virginia from the insurrectionary proclamation. He did not make his object explicit to the President, but most of the Cabinet came, I think, to the conclusion that there was an ulterior purpose not fully disclosed.

It is obvious that Chase has his aspirations stimulated. This movement he considers adroit. By withdrawing military authority and restoring civil jurisdiction he accomplishes sundry purposes. It will strike a blow at State individuality and break down Virginia, already by his aid dismembered and divided. It will be a large stride in the direction of the theory of the radicals, who are for reducing old States to a Territorial condition. It is centralizing, to which he has become a convert; [it] will give the Chief Justice an opportunity to exercise his authority on questions of habeas corpus, military arrests, etc.

The Chief Justice had also certain views on the present condition of the blockade, and took occasion to inform the President that his original opinion, which corresponded with mine, had undergone quite a modification; that he is now satisfied that closing the ports by a public or international blockade was better than to have closed them by legislative enactment or executive order, in effect a municipal regulation. Artful dodger. Unstable and unreliable. When Speed made some inquiry on these matters, the President stated “it related to one of the early and most unpleasant differences we had ever had in Cabinet.” It was one of the subjects that made me distrust and doubt Chase, who, while fully assenting to my opinions in our private conversations, did not vigorously sustain me in a Cabinet discussion.

The Spanish mission being vacant, it was asked if any of the number wished it. Whether it was intended as a polite tender to Usher I know not, or to any other, but I think not to any one but Usher, and perhaps not to him. This mission is a sort of plaything in the hands of Seward. The truth is, there is little utility in these legations near the governments of foreign potentates, but they are convenient places for favorites or troublesome fellows who are to be sent away.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, p. 253-4