A day or two succeeding the Judd dispatch, Mr. Seward writes for Minister Sanford (about to leave for Belgium) instructions; commingling views upon non-recognition with considerations respecting tariff modifications. In these appears a sentence kindred to those just quoted—'The President, confident of the ultimate ascendency of law, order, and the Union, through the deliberate action of the people in constitutional forms,' etc.
From those diplomatic suggestions, which are accordant with European exigencies, Mr. Seward readily turns his attention to Mexican affairs, in a carefully considered and most ably written letter of instructions for Minister Corwin. He touches upon the robberies and murder of citizens, the violation of contracts, and then gracefully withdraws them from immediate attention until the incoming Mexican administration shall have had time to cement its authority and reduce the yet disturbed elements of their society to order and harmony. He avers that the President not only forbids discussion of our difficulties among the foreign powers, but will not allow his ministers 'to invoke even censure against those of our fellow-citizens who have arrayed themselves in opposition to authority.' He refers to the foreshadowed protectorate in language complimentary to Mexico, yet firm in assurance that the President neither has, nor can ever have, any sympathy with revolutionary designs for Mexico, in whatever quarter they may arise, or whatever character they may take on.'
Within one week (and at dates which contradict the prevailing gossip of last April, that Messrs. Adams, Dayton, Burlingame, Schurz and Co. were detained awaiting Mr. Seward's advices) still more elaborate and masterly instructions are given out to these gentlemen. The paper to Mr. Adams will in future years be quoted and referred to as a model history of the rise and progress of the secession enormity. It may be asked, Why are such dispatches and instructions needed? Why such elaborate briefs and compendiums required for gentlemen each of whom may have said, respecting his connection with subject-matter of the Secretary (none more emphatically so than Messrs. Adams and Burlingame), quorum pars magna fui? Yet, it must be remembered that diplomacy, like jurisprudence (with its red tape common to both), taketh few things for granted, and constantly maketh records for itself, under the maxim [pg 202] de non apparentibus non existentibus eadem est ratio; and ever beareth in mind that when certioraris to international tribunals are served, the initiatory expositions and the matured results must not be subjected to a pretence of diminution, but be full and complete.
The early dispatch for Mr. Burlingame contains the caustic sentence, 'Our representatives at Vienna seem generally to have come, after a short residence there, to the conclusion that there was nothing for them to do, and little for them to learn.' But 'the President expects that you will be diligent in obtaining not only information about political events, but also commercial and even scientific facts, and in reporting them to this department.'
Although the Austrian mantle was soon transferred to the classic shoulders of Mr. Motley,—another honored Bay-state-ian,—the caustic reference to predecessors, and the implied compliment of request, did not at all lose their respective significance.
What a compact statement is contained in the following sentence of the instructions to the representative of foreign affairs at Vienna!—'The political affairs in Austria present to us the aspect of an ancient and very influential power, oppressed with fiscal embarrassments,—the legacy of long and exhausting wars,—putting forth at one and at the same time efforts for material improvement and still mightier ones to protect its imperfectly combined dominion from dismemberment and disintegration, seriously menaced from without, aided by strong and intense popular passions within.' A lyceum lecturer might consume an evening over the present political condition of Austria, and yet not convey a more perfect idea thereof than is comprehended by the preceding paragraph!
Mr. Seward in first addressing Mr. Dayton discusses the slavery element of the rebellion, and elucidates more particularly the relations of France to a preserved or a dismembered Union; and evolves this plucky sentence: 'The President neither expects nor desires any intervention, or even any favor, from the government of France, or any other, in this emergency.' But a still more spirited paragraph answers a question often asked by the great public, 'What will be the course of the administration should foreign intervention be given?' Foreign intervention would oblige us to treat those who should yield it as allies of the insurrectionary party, and to carry on the war against them as enemies. The case would not be relieved, but, on the contrary, would only be aggravated, if several European states should combine in that intervention. The President and the people of the United States deem the Union which would then be at stake, worth all the cost and all the sacrifices of a contest with the world in arms, if such a contest should prove inevitable.'
In the advices to Mr. Schurz, at Madrid, occurs a most ingenious application of the doctrine of secession to Spanish consideration in respect to Cuba and Castile; to Aragon and the Philippine Islands; as well as a most opportune reference to the proffered commercial confederate advantages. 'What commerce,' asks the Secretary, 'can there be between states whose staples are substantially identical? Sugar can not be exchanged for sugar, nor cotton for cotton.' And another sentence is deserving remembrance for its truthful sarcasm: 'It seems the necessity of faction in every country, that whenever it acquires sufficient boldness to inaugurate revolution, it then alike forgets the counsels of prudence, and stifles the instincts of patriotism, and becomes a suitor to foreign courts for aid and assistance to subvert and destroy the most cherished and indispensable institutions of its own.'
Thus, within six weeks succeeding his entrance into the chambers of State, Mr. Seward had mapped out in his own brain a much more comprehensive policy than he had even laboriously and ably outlined upon paper. He had placed himself in magnetico-diplomatic communication with the great courts of Europe; surrounded by place-seekers, dogged by reporters, and paragraphed at by a thousand [pg 203] newspapers, from 'Fundy' to 'Dolores.' And the most remarkable rhetorical feature of these many dispatches is the absence of iteration, notwithstanding they were written upon substantially one text. It is characteristic of them, as of his speeches, that no one interlaces the other; each is complete of itself. Mr. Seward has always possessed that varied fecundity of expression for which Mr. Webster was admired. A gentleman who accompanied him upon his Lincoln-election tour from Auburn to Kansas, remarked, that listening to and recalling all the bye-play, depot speeches, and more elaborate addresses uttered by Mr. Seward during the campaign, he never heard him repeat upon himself, nor even speak twice in the same groove of thought. Neither will any reader discover throughout even these early dispatches a marked haste of thought, or a slovenly word-link in the Saxon rhetoric.
So far, we have alluded only to the instructions prepared before plenipotentiary departure. But the executive axe in the block of foreign affairs having been scoured, and new faces having fully replaced the decapitated heads in foreign diplomatic baskets, circulars, instructions and dispatches daily accumulate, 'treading on each other's heels.' The volume contains one hundred and forty emanations from the pen of Secretary Seward. How many more there exist is only known to the Cabinet or the exigencies of secret service. Is not the bare arithmetical announcement sufficient to satisfy the inquirer into Mr. Seward's diplomatic assiduity? If not, will he please to remember as well Mr. Seward's perusals of foreign mails, cabinet meetings, consultation of archives or state papers or precedents, examinations into the relation of domestic events to foreign policy, and the inspection of the sands of peace or war in the respective hour-glasses of his department?