The President perceives not the slightest foundation for these opinions. He cannot see how your usefulness as minister to France should be terminated by the settlement of difficulties and disputes between the United States and Great Britain. You have been charged with no duties connected with the settlement of these questions, or in any way relating to them, beyond the communication to the French government of the President's approbation of your letter of the 13th of February, written without previous instructions from this department. This government is not informed of any other act or proceeding of yours connected with any part of the subject, nor does it know that your official conduct and character have become in any other way connected with the question of the right of search; and that letter having been approved, and the French government having been so informed, the President is altogether at a loss to understand how you can regard yourself as placed in a false position. If the character or conduct of any one was to be affected, it could only be the character and conduct of the President himself. The government has done nothing, most assuredly, to place you in a false position. Representing your country at a foreign court, you saw a transaction about to take place between the government to which you were accredited and another power, which you thought might have a prejudicial effect on the interest of your own country. Thinking, as it is to be presumed, that the case was too pressing to wait for instructions, you presented a protest against that transaction, and our government approved your proceeding. This is your only official connection with the whole subject. If after this the President had sanctioned the negotiation of a treaty, and the Senate had ratified it, containing provisions in the highest degree objectionable, however the government might be discredited, your exemption from all blame and censure would have been complete. Having delivered your letter of the 13th of February to the French government, and having received the President's approbation of that proceeding, it is most manifest that you could be in no degree responsible for what should be done afterward, and done by others. The President, therefore, cannot conceive what particular or personal interest of yours was affected by the subsequent negotiation here, or how the treaty, the result of that negotiation, should put an end to your usefulness as a public minister at the court of France, or in any way affect your official character or conduct.

It is impossible not to see that such a proceeding as you have seen fit to adopt might produce much inconvenience, and even serious prejudice, to the public interests. Your opinion is against the treaty, a treaty concluded and formally ratified; and, to support that opinion, while yet in the service of the government, you put a construction on its provisions such as your own government does not put upon them, such as you must be aware the enlightened public of Europe does not put upon them, and such as England herself has not put upon them as yet, so far as we know.

It may become necessary hereafter to publish your letter, in connection with other correspondence of the mission; and although it is not to be presumed that you looked to such publication, because such a presumption would impute to you a claim to put forth your private opinions upon the conduct of the President and Senate, in a transaction finished and concluded, through the imposing form of a public despatch, yet, if published, it cannot be foreseen how far England might hereafter rely on your authority for a construction favorable to her own pretensions, and inconsistent with the interest and honor of the United States. It is certain that you would most sedulously desire to avoid any such attitude. You would be slow to express opinions, in a solemn and official form, favorable to another government, and on the authority of which opinions that other government might hereafter found new claims or set up new pretensions. It is for this reason, as well as others, that the President feels so much regret at your desire of placing your construction of the provisions of the treaty, and your objections to those provisions, according to your construction, upon the records of the government.

Before examining the several objections suggested by you, it may be proper to take notice of what you say upon the course of the negotiation. In regard to this, having observed that the national dignity of the United States had not been compromised down to the time of the President's message to the last session of Congress, you proceed to say: "But England then urged the United States to enter into a conventional arrangement, by which we might be pledged to concur with her in measures for the suppression of the slave-trade. Till then we had executed our own laws in our own way. But, yielding to this application, and departing from our former principle of avoiding European combinations upon subjects not American, we stipulated in a solemn treaty, that we would carry into effect our own laws, and fixed the minimum force we would employ for that purpose."

The President cannot conceive how you should have been led to adventure upon such a statement as this. It is but a tissue of mistakes. England did not urge the United States to enter into this conventional arrangement. The United States yielded to no application from England. The proposition for abolishing the slave-trade, as it stands in the treaty, was an American proposition; it originated with the executive government of the United States, which cheerfully assumes all its responsibility. It stands upon it as its own mode of fulfilling its duties, and accomplishing its objects. Nor have the United States departed, in this treaty, in the slightest degree, from their former principles of avoiding European combinations upon subjects not American, because the abolition of the African slave-trade is an American subject as emphatically as it is a European subject; and indeed more so, inasmuch as the government of the United States took the first great steps in declaring that trade unlawful, and in attempting its extinction. The abolition of this traffic is an object of the highest interest to the American people and the American government; and you seem strangely to have overlooked altogether the important fact, that nearly thirty years ago, by the treaty of Ghent, the United States bound themselves by solemn compact with England, to continue "their efforts to promote its entire abolition," both parties pledging themselves by that treaty to use their best endeavors to accomplish so desirable an object.

Again, you speak of an important concession made to the renewed application of England. But the treaty, let it be repeated, makes no concession to England whatever. It complies with no demand, grants no application, conforms to no request. All these statements, thus by you made, and which are so exceedingly erroneous, seem calculated to hold up the idea, that in this treaty your government has been acting a subordinate, or even a complying part.

The President is not a little startled that you should make such totally groundless assumptions of fact, and then leave a discreditable inference to be drawn from them. He directs me not only to repel this inference as it ought to be repelled, but also to bring to your serious consideration and reflection the propriety of such an assumed narration of facts as your despatch, in this respect, puts forth.

Having informed the department that a copy of the letter of the 24th of August, addressed by me to you, had been delivered to M. Guizot, you proceed to say: "In executing this duty, I felt too well what was due to my government and country to intimate my regret to a foreign power that some declaration had not preceded the treaty, or some stipulation accompanied it, by which the extraordinary pretension of Great Britain to search our ships at all times and in all places, first put forth to the world by Lord Palmerston on the 27th of August, 1841, and on the 13th of October following again peremptorily claimed as a right by Lord Aberdeen, would have been abrogated, as equally incompatible with the laws of nations and with the independence of the United States. I confined myself, therefore, to a simple communication of your letter." It may be true that the British pretension leads necessarily to consequences as broad and general as your statement. But it is no more than fair to state that pretension in the words of the British government itself, and then it becomes matter of consideration and argument how broad and extensive it really is. The last statement of this pretension, or claim, by the British government, is contained in Lord Aberdeen's note to Mr. Stevenson of the 13th of October, 1841. It is in these words:—

"The undersigned readily admits, that to visit and search American vessels in time of peace, when that right of search is not granted by treaty, would be an infraction of public law, and a violation of national dignity and independence. But no such right is asserted. We sincerely desire to respect the vessels of the United States, but we may reasonably expect to know what it really is that we respect. Doubtless the flag is prima facie evidence of the nationality of the vessel; and, if this evidence were in its nature conclusive and irrefragable, it ought to preclude all further inquiry. But it is sufficiently notorious that the flags of all nations are liable to be assumed by those who have no right or title to bear them. Mr. Stevenson himself fully admits the extent to which the American flag has been employed for the purpose of covering this infamous traffic. The undersigned joins with Mr. Stevenson in deeply lamenting the evil; and he agrees with him in thinking that the United States ought not to be considered responsible for this abuse of their flag. But if all inquiry be resisted, even when carried no further than to ascertain the nationality of the vessel, and impunity be claimed for the most lawless and desperate of mankind, in the commission of this fraud, the undersigned greatly fears that it may be regarded as something like an assumption of that responsibility which has been deprecated by Mr. Stevenson....

"The undersigned renounces all pretension on the part of the British government to visit and search American vessels in time of peace. Nor is it as American that such vessels are ever visited; but, it has been the invariable practice of the British navy, and, as the undersigned believes, of all navies in the world, to ascertain by visit the real nationality of merchant-vessels met with on the high seas, if there be good reason to apprehend their illegal character....

"The undersigned admits, that, if the British cruiser should possess a knowledge of the American character of any vessel, his visitation of such vessel would be entirely unjustifiable. He further admits, that so much respect and honor are due to the American flag, that no vessel bearing it ought to be visited by a British cruiser, except under the most grave suspicions and well-founded doubts of the genuineness of its character.

"The undersigned, although with pain, must add, that if such visit should lead to the proof of the American origin of the vessel, and that she was avowedly engaged in the slave-trade, exhibiting to view the manacles, fetters, and other usual implements of torture, or had even a number of these unfortunate beings on board, no British officer could interfere further. He might give information to the cruisers of the United States, but it could not be in his own power to arrest or impede the prosecution of the voyage and the success of the undertaking.

"It is obvious, therefore, that the utmost caution is necessary in the exercise of this right claimed by Great Britain. While we have recourse to the necessary, and, indeed, the only means for detecting imposture, the practice will be carefully guarded and limited to cases of strong suspicion. The undersigned begs to assure Mr. Stevenson that the most precise and positive instructions have been issued to her Majesty's officers on this subject."

Such are the words of the British claim or pretension; and it stood in this form at the delivery of the President's message to Congress in December last; a message in which you are pleased to say that the British pretension was promptly met and firmly resisted.

I may now proceed to a more particular examination of the objections which you make to the treaty.

You observe that you think a just self-respect required of the government of the United States to demand of Lord Ashburton a distinct renunciation of the British claim to search our vessels previous to entering into any negotiation. The government has thought otherwise; and this appears to be your main objection to the treaty, if, indeed, it be not the only one which is clearly and distinctly stated. The government of the United States supposed that, in this respect, it stood in a position in which it had no occasion to demand any thing, or ask for any thing, of England. The British pretension, whatever it was, or however extensive, was well known to the President at the date of his message to Congress at the opening of the last session. And I must be allowed to remind you how the President treated this subject in that communication.

"However desirous the United States may be," said he, "for the suppression of the slave-trade, they cannot consent to interpolations into the maritime code at the mere will and pleasure of other governments. We deny the right of any such interpolation to any one, or all the nations of the earth, without our consent. We claim to have a voice in all amendments or alterations of that code; and when we are given to understand, as in this instance, by a foreign government, that its treaties with other nations cannot be executed without the establishment and enforcement of new principles of maritime police, to be applied without our consent, we must employ a language neither of equivocal import nor susceptible of misconstruction. American citizens prosecuting a lawful commerce in the African seas, under the flag of their country, are not responsible for the abuse or unlawful use of that flag by others; nor can they rightfully, on account of any such alleged abuses, be interrupted, molested, or detained while on the ocean; and if thus molested and detained while pursuing honest voyages in the usual way, and violating no law themselves, they are unquestionably entitled to indemnity."

This declaration of the President stands: not a syllable of it has been, or will be, retracted. The principles which it announces rest on their inherent justice and propriety, on their conformity to public law, and, so far as we are concerned, on the determination and ability of the country to maintain them. To these principles the government is pledged, and that pledge it will be at all times ready to redeem.

But what is your own language on this point? You say, "This claim (the British claim), thus asserted and supported, was promptly met and firmly repelled by the President in his message at the commencement of the last session of Congress; and in your letter to me approving the course I had adopted in relation to the question of the ratification by France of the quintuple treaty, you consider the principles of that message as the established policy of the government." And you add, "So far, our national dignity was uncompromitted." If this be so, what is there which has since occurred to compromit this dignity? You shall yourself be judge of this; because you say, in a subsequent part of your letter, that "the mutual rights of the parties are in this respect wholly untouched." If, then, the British pretension had been promptly met and firmly repelled by the President's message; if, so far, our national dignity had not been compromitted; and if, as you further say, our rights remain wholly untouched by any subsequent act or proceeding, what ground is there on which to found complaint against the treaty?

But your sentiments on this point do not concur with the opinions of your government. That government is of opinion that the sentiments of the message, which you so highly approve, are reaffirmed and corroborated by the treaty, and the correspondence accompanying it. The very object sought to be obtained, in proposing the mode adopted for abolishing the slave-trade, was to take away all pretence whatever for interrupting lawful commerce by the visitation of American vessels. Allow me to refer you, on this point, to the following passage in the message of the President to the Senate, accompanying the treaty:—

"In my message at the commencement of the present session of Congress, I endeavored to state the principles which this government supports respecting the right of search and the immunity of flags. Desirous of maintaining those principles fully, at the same time that existing obligations should be fulfilled, I have thought it most consistent with the dignity and honor of the country that it should execute its own laws and perform its own obligations by its own means and its own power. The examination or visitation of the merchant-vessels of one nation by the cruisers of another, for any purposes except those known and acknowledged by the law of nations, under whatever restraints or regulations it may take place, may lead to dangerous results. It is far better by other means to supersede any supposed necessity, or any motive, for such examination or visit. Interference with a merchant-vessel by an armed cruiser is always a delicate proceeding, apt to touch the point of national honor, as well as to affect the interests of individuals. It has been thought, therefore, expedient, not only in accordance with the stipulations of the treaty of Ghent, but at the same time as removing all pretext on the part of others for violating the immunities of the American flag upon the seas, as they exist and are defined by the law of nations, to enter into the articles now submitted to the Senate.

"The treaty which I now submit to you proposes no alteration, mitigation, or modification of the rules of the law of nations. It provides simply, that each of the two governments shall maintain on the coast of Africa a sufficient squadron to enforce, separately and respectively, the laws, rights, and obligations of the two countries for the suppression of the slave-trade."

In the actual posture of things, the President thought that the government of the United States, standing on its own rights and its own solemn declarations, would only weaken its position by making such a demand as appears to you to have been expedient. We maintain the public law of the world as we receive it and understand it to be established. We defend our own rights and our own honor, meeting all aggression at the boundary. Here we may well stop.

You are pleased to observe, that "under the circumstances of the assertion of the British claim, in the correspondence of the British secretaries, and of its denial by the President of the United States, the eyes of Europe were upon these two great naval powers; one of which had advanced a pretension, and avowed her determination to enforce it, which might at any moment bring them into collision."

It is certainly true that the attention of Europe has been very much awakened, of late years, to the general subject, and quite alive, also, to whatever might take place in regard to it between the United States and Great Britain. And it is highly satisfactory to find, that, so far as we can learn, the opinion is universal that the government of the United States has fully sustained its rights and its dignity by the treaty which has been concluded. Europe, we believe, is happy to see that a collision, which might have disturbed the peace of the whole civilized world, has been avoided in a manner which reconciles the performance of a high national duty, and the fulfilment of positive stipulations, with the perfect immunity of flags and the equality of nations upon the ocean. I must be permitted to add, that, from every agent of the government abroad who has been heard from on the subject, with the single exception of your own letter, (an exception most deeply regretted,) as well as from every part of Europe where maritime rights have advocates and defenders, we have received nothing but congratulation. And at this moment, if the general sources of information may be trusted, our example has recommended itself already to the regard of states the most jealous of British ascendency at sea; and the treaty against which you remonstrate may soon come to be esteemed by them as a fit model for imitation.

Toward the close of your despatch, you are pleased to say: "By the recent treaty we are to keep a squadron upon the coast of Africa. We have kept one there for years; during the whole term, indeed, of these efforts to put a stop to this most iniquitous commerce. The effect of the treaty is, therefore, to render it obligatory upon us by a convention, to do what we have long done voluntarily; to place our municipal laws, in some measure, beyond the reach of Congress." Should the effect of the treaty be to place our municipal laws, in some measure, beyond the reach of Congress, it is sufficient to say that all treaties containing obligations necessarily do this. All treaties of commerce do it; and, indeed, there is hardly a treaty existing, to which the United States are party, which does not, to some extent, or in some way, restrain the legislative power. Treaties could not be made without producing this effect.

But your remark would seem to imply that, in your judgment, there is something derogatory to the character and dignity of the country in thus stipulating with a foreign power for a concurrent effort to execute the laws of each. It would be a sufficient refutation of this objection to say, that, if in this arrangement there be any thing derogatory to the character and dignity of one party, it must be equally derogatory, since the stipulation is perfectly mutual, to the character and dignity of both. But it is derogatory to the character and dignity of neither. The objection seems to proceed still upon the implied ground that the abolition of the slave-trade is more a duty of Great Britain, or a more leading object with her, than it is or should be with us; as if, in this great effort of civilized nations to do away the most cruel traffic that ever scourged or disgraced the world, we had not as high and honorable, as just and merciful, a part to act, as any other nation upon the face of the earth. Let it be for ever remembered, that in this great work of humanity and justice the United States took the lead themselves. This government declared the slave-trade unlawful; and in this declaration it has been followed by the great powers of Europe. This government declared the slave-trade to be piracy; and in this, too, its example has been followed by other states. This government, this young government, springing up in this new world within half a century, founded on the broadest principles of civil liberty, and sustained by the moral sense and intelligence of the people, has gone in advance of all other nations in summoning the civilized world to a common effort to put down and destroy a nefarious traffic reproachful to human nature. It has not deemed, and it does not deem, that it suffers any derogation from its character or its dignity, if, in seeking to fulfil this sacred duty, it act, as far as necessary, on fair and equal terms of concert with other powers having in view the same praiseworthy object. Such were its sentiments when it entered into the solemn stipulations of the treaty of Ghent; such were its sentiments when it requested England to concur with us in declaring the slave-trade to be piracy; and such are the sentiments which it has manifested on all other proper occasions.

In conclusion, I have to repeat the expression of the President's deep regret at the general tone and character of your letter, and to assure you of the great happiness it would have afforded him if, concurring with the judgment of the President and Senate, concurring with what appears to be the general sense of the country, concurring in all the manifestations of enlightened public opinion in Europe, you had seen nothing in the treaty of the 9th of August to which you could not give your cordial approbation.

I have, &c.

DANIEL WEBSTER.

LEWIS CASS, ESQ., &c., &c., &c.

* * * * *

Mr. Webster to General Cass.

Department of State, Washington, December 20, 1842.

Sir,—Your letter of the 11th instant has been submitted to the President. He directs me to say, in reply, that he continues to regard your correspondence, of which this letter is part, as being quite irregular from the beginning. You had asked leave to retire from your mission; the leave was granted by the President, with kind and friendly remarks upon the manner in which you had discharged its duties. Having asked for this honorable recall, which was promptly given, you afterward addressed to this department your letter of the 3d of October, which, however it may appear to you, the President cannot but consider as a remonstrance, a protest, against the treaty of the 9th of August; in other words, an attack upon his administration for the negotiation and conclusion of that treaty. He certainly was not prepared for this. It came upon him with no small surprise, and he still feels that you must have been, at the moment, under the influence of temporary impressions, which he cannot but hope have ere now worn away.

A few remarks upon some of the points of your last letter must now close the correspondence.

In the first place, you object to my having called your letter of October 3d a "protest or remonstrance" against a transaction of the government, and observe that you must have been unhappy in the mode of expressing yourself, if you were liable to this charge.

What other construction your letter will bear, I cannot perceive. The transaction was finished. No letter or remarks of yourself, or any one else, could undo it, if desirable. Your opinions were unsolicited. If given as a citizen, then it was altogether unusual to address them to this department in an official despatch; if as a public functionary, the whole subject-matter was quite aside from the duties of your particular station. In your letter you did not propose any thing to be done, but objected to what had been done. You did not suggest any method of remedying what you were pleased to consider a defect, but stated what you thought to be reasons for fearing its consequences. You declared that there had been, in your opinion, an omission to assert American rights; to which omission you gave the department to understand that you would never have consented.

In all this there is nothing but protest and remonstrance; and, though your letter be not formally entitled such, I cannot see that it can be construed, in effect, as any thing else; and I must continue to think, therefore, that the terms used are entirely applicable and proper.

In the next place, you say: "You give me to understand that the communications which have passed between us on this subject are to be published, and submitted to the great tribunal of public opinion."

It would have been better if you had quoted my remark with entire correctness. What I said was, not that the communications which have passed between us are to be published, or must be published, but that "it may become necessary hereafter to publish your letter, in connection with other correspondence of the mission; and, although it is not to be presumed that you looked to such publication, because such a presumption would impute to you a claim to put forth your private opinions upon the conduct of the President and Senate, in a transaction finished and concluded, through the imposing form of a public despatch, yet, if published, it cannot be foreseen how far England might hereafter rely on your authority for a construction favorable to her own pretensions, and inconsistent with the interest and honor of the United States."

In another part of your letter you observe: "The publication of my letter, which is to produce this result, is to be the act of the government, and not my act. But if the President should think that the slightest injury to the public interest would ensue from the disclosure of my views, the letter may be buried in the archives of the department, and thus forgotten and rendered harmless."

To this I have to remark, in the first place, that instances have occurred in other times, not unknown to you, in which highly important letters from ministers of the United States, in Europe, to their own government, have found their way into the newspapers of Europe, when that government itself held it to be inconsistent with the interest of the United States to make such letters public.

But it is hardly worth while to pursue a topic like this.

You are pleased to ask: "Is it the duty of a diplomatic agent to receive all the communications of his government, and to carry into effect their instructions sub silentio, whatever may be his own sentiments in relation to them; or is he not bound, as a faithful representative, to communicate freely, but respectfully, his own views, that these may be considered, and receive their due weight, in that particular case, or in other circumstances involving similar considerations? It seems to me that the bare enunciation of the principle is all that is necessary for my justification. I am speaking now of the propriety of my action, not of the manner in which it was performed. I may have executed the task well or ill. I may have introduced topics unadvisedly, and urged them indiscreetly. All this I leave without remark. I am only endeavoring here to free myself from the serious charge which you bring against me. If I have misapprehended the duties of an American diplomatic agent upon this subject, I am well satisfied to have withdrawn, by a timely resignation, from a position in which my own self-respect would not permit me to remain. And I may express the conviction, that there is no government, certainly none this side of Constantinople, which would not encourage rather than rebuke the free expression of the views of their representatives in foreign countries."

I answer, certainly not. In the letter to which you were replying it was fully stated, that, "in common with every other citizen of the republic, you have an unquestionable right to form opinions upon public transactions and the conduct of public men. But it will hardly be thought to be among either the duties or the privileges of a minister abroad to make formal remonstrances and protests against proceedings of the various branches of the government at home, upon subjects in relation to which he himself has not been charged with any duty, or partaken any responsibility."

You have not been requested to bestow your approbation upon the treaty, however gratifying it would have been to the President to see that, in that respect, you united with other distinguished public agents abroad. Like all citizens of the republic, you are quite at liberty to exercise your own judgment upon that as upon other transactions. But neither your observations nor this concession cover the case. They do not show, that, as a public minister abroad, it is a part of your official functions, in a public despatch, to remonstrate against the conduct of the government at home in relation to a transaction in which you bore no part, and for which you were in no way answerable. The President and Senate must be permitted to judge for themselves in a matter solely within their control. Nor do I know that, in complaining of your protest against their proceedings in a case of this kind, any thing has been done to warrant, on your part, an invidious and unjust reference to Constantinople. If you could show, by the general practice of diplomatic functionaries in the civilized part of the world, and more especially, if you could show by any precedent drawn from the conduct of the many distinguished men who have represented the government of the United States abroad, that your letter of the 3d of October was, in its general object, tone, and character, within the usual limits of diplomatic correspondence, you may be quite assured that the President would not have recourse to the code of Turkey in order to find precedents the other way.

You complain that, in the letter from this department of the 14th of November, a statement contained in yours of the 3d of October is called a tissue of mistakes, and you attempt to show the impropriety of this appellation. Let the point be distinctly stated, and what you say in reply be then considered.

In your letter of October 3d you remark, that "England then urged the United States to enter into a conventional arrangement, by which we might be pledged to concur with her in measures for the suppression of the slave-trade. Until then, we had executed our own laws in our own way; but, yielding to this application, and departing from our former principle of avoiding European combinations upon subjects not American, we stipulated in a solemn treaty that we would carry into effect our own laws, and fixed the minimum force we would employ for that purpose."

The letter of this department of the 14th of November, having quoted this passage, proceeds to observe, that "the President cannot conceive how you should have been led to adventure upon such a statement as this. It is but a tissue of mistakes. England did not urge the United States to enter into this conventional arrangement. The United States yielded to no application from England. The proposition for abolishing the slave-trade, as it stands in the treaty, was an American proposition; it originated with the executive government of the United States, which cheerfully assumes all its responsibility. It stands upon it as its own mode of fulfilling its duties and accomplishing its objects. Nor have the United States departed in the slightest degree from their former principles of avoiding European combinations upon subjects not American; because the abolition of the African slave-trade is an American subject as emphatically as it is a European subject, and, indeed, more so, inasmuch as the government of the United States took the first great step in declaring that trade unlawful, and in attempting its extinction. The abolition of this traffic is an object of the highest interest to the American people and the American government; and you seem strangely to have overlooked altogether the important fact, that nearly thirty years ago, by the treaty of Ghent, the United States bound themselves, by solemn compact with England, to continue their efforts to promote its entire abolition; both parties pledging themselves by that treaty to use their best endeavors to accomplish so desirable an object."

Now, in answer to this, you observe in your last letter: "That the particular mode in which the governments should act in concert, as finally arranged in the treaty, was suggested by yourself, I never doubted. And if this is the construction I am to give to your denial of my correctness, there is no difficulty upon the subject. The question between us is untouched. All I said was, that England continued to prosecute the matter; that she presented it for negotiation, and that we thereupon consented to its introduction. And if Lord Ashburton did not come out with instructions from his government to endeavor to effect some arrangement upon this subject, the world has strangely misunderstood one of the great objects of his mission, and I have misunderstood that paragraph in your first note, where you say that Lord Ashburton comes with full powers to negotiate and settle all matters in discussion between England and the United States. But the very fact of his coming here, and of his acceding to any stipulations respecting the slave-trade, is conclusive proof that his government were desirous to obtain the co-operation of the United States. I had supposed that our government would scarcely take the initiative in this matter, and urge it upon that of Great Britain, either in Washington or in London. If it did so, I can only express my regret, and confess that I have been led inadvertently into an error."

It would appear from all this, that that which, in your first letter, appeared as a direct statement of facts, of which you would naturally be presumed to have had knowledge, sinks at last into inferences and conjectures. But, in attempting to escape from some of the mistakes of this tissue, you have fallen into others. "All I said was," you observe, "that England continued to prosecute the matter; that she presented it for negotiation, and that we thereupon consented to its introduction." Now the English minister no more presented this subject for negotiation than the government of the United States presented it. Nor can it be said that the United States consented to its introduction in any other sense than it may be said that the British minister consented to it. Will you be good enough to review the series of your own assertions on this subject, and see whether they can possibly be regarded merely as a statement of your own inferences? Your only authentic fact is a general one, that the British minister came clothed with full power to negotiate and settle all matters in discussion. This, you say, is conclusive proof that his government was desirous to obtain the co-operation of the United States respecting the slave-trade; and then you infer that England continued to prosecute this matter, and presented it for negotiation, and that the United States consented to its introduction; and give to this inference the shape of a direct statement of a fact.

You might have made the same remarks, and with the same propriety, in relation to the subject of the "Creole," that of impressment, the extradition of fugitive criminals, or any thing else embraced in the treaty or in the correspondence, and then have converted these inferences of your own into so many facts. And it is upon conjectures like these, it is upon such inferences of your own, that you make the direct and formal statement in your letter of the 3d of October, that "England then urged the United States to enter into a conventional arrangement, by which we might be pledged to concur with her in measures for the suppression of the slave-trade. Until then, we had executed our own laws in our own way; but, yielding to this application, and departing from our former principle of avoiding European combinations upon subjects not American, we stipulated in a solemn treaty that we would carry into effect our own laws, and fixed the minimum force we would employ for that purpose."

The President was well warranted, therefore, in requesting your serious reconsideration and review of that statement.

Suppose your letter to go before the public unanswered and uncontradicted; suppose it to mingle itself with the general political history of the country, as an official letter among the archives of the Department of State, would not the general mass of readers understand you as reciting facts, rather than as drawing your own conclusions? as stating history, rather than as presenting an argument? It is of an incorrect narrative that the President complains. It is that, in your hotel at Paris, you should undertake to write a history of a very delicate part of a negotiation carried on at Washington, with which you had nothing to do, and of the history of which you had no authentic information; and which history, as you narrate it, reflects not a little on the independence, wisdom, and public spirit of the administration.

As of the history of this part of the negotiation you were not well informed, the President cannot but think it would have been more just in you to have refrained from any attempt to give an account of it.

You observe, further: "I never mentioned in my despatch to you, nor in any manner whatever, that our government had conceded to that of England the right to search our ships. That idea, however, pervades your letter, and is very apparent in that part of it which brings to my observation the possible effect of my views upon the English government. But in this you do me, though I am sure unintentionally, great injustice. I repeatedly state that the recent treaty leaves the rights of the parties as it found them. My difficulty is not that we have made a positive concession, but that we have acted unadvisedly in not making the abandonment of this pretension a previous condition to any conventional arrangement upon the general subject."

On this part of your letter I must be allowed to make two remarks.

The first is, inasmuch as the treaty gives no color or pretext whatever to any right of searching our ships, a declaration against such a right would have been no more suitable to this treaty than a declaration against the right of sacking our towns in time of peace, or any other outrage.

The rights of merchant-vessels of the United States on the high seas, as understood by this government, have been clearly and fully asserted. As asserted, they will be maintained; nor would a declaration such as you propose have increased either its resolution or its ability in this respect. The government of the United States relies on its own power, and on the effective support of the people, to assert successfully all the rights of all its citizens, on the sea as well as on the land; and it asks respect for these rights not as a boon or favor from any nation. The President's message, most certainly, is a clear declaration of what the country understands to be its rights, and his determination to maintain them; not a mere promise to negotiate for these rights, or to endeavor to bring other powers into an acknowledgment of them, either express or implied. Whereas, if I understand the meaning of this part of your letter, you would have advised that something should have been offered to England which she might have regarded as a benefit, but coupled with such a declaration or condition as that, if she received the boon, it would have been a recognition by her of a claim which we make as matter of right. The President's view of the proper duty of the government has certainly been quite different. Being convinced that the doctrine asserted by this government is the true doctrine of the law of nations, and feeling the competency of the government to uphold and enforce it for itself, he has not sought, but, on the contrary, has sedulously avoided, to change this ground, and to place the just rights of the country upon the assent, express or implied, of any power whatever.

The government thought no skilfully extorted promises necessary in any such cases. It asks no such pledges of any nation. If its character for ability and readiness to protect and defend its own rights and dignity is not sufficient to preserve them from violation, no interpolation of promise to respect them, ingeniously woven into treaties, would be likely to afford such protection. And as our rights and liberties depend for existence upon our power to maintain them, general and vague protests are not likely to be more effectual than the Chinese method of defending their towns, by painting grotesque and hideous figures on the walls to fright away assailing foes.

My other remark on this portion of your letter is this:—

Suppose a declaration to the effect that this treaty should not be considered as sacrificing any American rights had been appended, and the treaty, thus fortified, had been sent to Great Britain, as you propose; and suppose that that government, with equal ingenuity, had appended an equivalent written declaration that it should not be considered as sacrificing any British right, how much more defined would have been the rights of either party, or how much clearer the meaning and interpretation of the treaty, by these reservations on both sides? Or, in other words, what is the value of a protest on one side, balanced by an exactly equivalent protest on the other?

No nation is presumed to sacrifice its rights, or give up what justly belongs to it, unless it expressly stipulates that, for some good reason or adequate consideration, it does make such relinquishment; and an unnecessary asseveration that it does not intend to sacrifice just rights would seem only calculated to invite aggression. Such proclamations would seem better devised for concealing weakness and apprehension, than for manifesting conscious strength and self-reliance, or for inspiring respect in others.

Toward the end of your letter you are pleased to observe: "The rejection of a treaty, duly negotiated, is a serious question, to be avoided whenever it can be without too great a sacrifice. Though the national faith is not actually committed, still it is more or less engaged. And there were peculiar circumstances, growing out of long-standing difficulties, which rendered an amicable arrangement of the various matters in dispute with England a subject of great national interest. But the negotiation of a treaty is a far different subject. Topics are omitted or introduced at the discretion of the negotiators, and they are responsible, to use the language of an eminent and able Senator, for 'what it contains and what it omits.' This treaty, in my opinion, omits a most important and necessary stipulation; and therefore, as it seems to me, its negotiation, in this particular, was unfortunate for the country."

The President directs me to say, in reply to this, that in the treaty of Washington no topics were omitted, and no topics introduced, at the mere discretion of the negotiator; that the negotiation proceeded from step to step, and from day to day, under his own immediate supervision and direction; that he himself takes the responsibility for what the treaty contains and what it omits, and cheerfully leaves the merits of the whole to the judgment of the country.

I now conclude this letter, and close this correspondence, by repeating once more the expression of the President's regret that you should have commenced it by your letter of the 3d of October.

It is painful to him to have with you any cause of difference. He has a just appreciation of your character and your public services at home and abroad. He cannot but persuade himself that you must be aware yourself, by this time, that your letter of October was written under erroneous impressions, and that there is no foundation for the opinions respecting the treaty which it expresses; and that it would have been far better on all accounts if no such letter had been written.

I have, &c.

DANIEL WEBSTER.

LEWIS CASS, ESQ., Late Minister of the United States at Paris.



THE HUeLSEMANN LETTER.

[As the authorship of this remarkable paper has sometimes been imputed to another person, it may be proper to give the facts respecting its preparation, although they involve nothing more important than a question of literary interest.

Mr. Webster, as has been stated, arrived at Marshfield on the 9th of October, 1850, where he remained for the space of two weeks. He brought with him the papers relating to this controversy with Austria. Before he left Washington, he gave to Mr. Hunter, a gentleman then and still filling an important post in the Department of State, verbal instructions concerning some of the points which would require to be touched in an answer to Mr. Huelsemann's letter of September 30th, and requested Mr. Hunter to prepare a draft of such an answer. This was done, and Mr. Hunter's draft of an answer was forwarded to Mr. Webster at Marshfield. On the 20th of October, 1850, Mr. Webster, being far from well, addressed a note to Mr. Everett,[1] requesting him also to prepare a draft of a reply to Mr. Huelsemann, at the same time sending to Mr. Everett a copy of Mr. Huelsemann's letter and of President Taylor's message to the Senate relating to Mr. Mann's mission to Hungary.[2] On the 21st Mr. Webster went to his farm in Franklin, New Hampshire, where he remained until the 4th of November. While there he received from Mr. Everett a draft of an answer to Mr. Huelsemann, which was written by Mr. Everett between the 21st and the 24th of October.

Soon after Mr. Webster's death, it was rumored that the real author of "the Huelsemann letter" was Mr. Hunter,—a rumor for which Mr. Hunter himself was in no way responsible. At a later period, in the summer of 1853, the statement obtained currency in the newspapers that Mr. Everett wrote this celebrated despatch, and many comments were made upon the supposed fact that Mr. Everett had claimed its authorship. The facts are, that, while at Franklin, Mr. Webster, with Mr. Hunter's and Mr. Everett's drafts both before him, went over the whole subject, making considerable changes in Mr. Everett's draft, striking out entire paragraphs with his pen, altering some phrases, and writing new paragraphs of his own, but adopting Mr. Everett's draft as the basis of the official paper; a purpose which he expressed to Mr. Everett on his return to Boston toward Washington. Subsequently, when he had arrived in Washington, Mr. Webster caused a third draft to be made, in the State Department, from Mr. Everett's paper and his own additions and alterations. On this third draft he made still other changes and additions, and, when the whole was completed to his own satisfaction, the official letter was drawn out by a clerk, was submitted to the President, and, being signed by Mr. Webster, was sent to Mr. Huelsemann.[3]

There are, no doubt, passages and expressions in this letter which are in a tone not usual with Mr. Webster in his diplomatic papers. How he himself regarded the criticisms that might be made upon it may be seen from the following note:—

[TO MR. TICKNOR.]

"Washington, January 16, 1851.

"My dear Sir,—If you say that my Huelsemann letter is boastful and rough, I shall own the soft impeachment. My excuse is twofold: 1. I thought it well enough to speak out, and tell the people of Europe who and what we are, and awaken them to a just sense of the unparalleled growth of this country. 2. I wished to write a paper which should touch the national pride, and make a man feel sheepish and look silly who should speak of disunion. It is curious enough but it is certain, that Mr. Mann's private instructions were seen, somehow, by Schwarzenberg.

"Yours always truly,

"DANIEL WEBSTER."[4]

Department of State, Washington, December 21, 1850.

The undersigned, Secretary of State of the United States, had the honor to receive, some time ago, the note of Mr. Huelsemann, Charge d'Affaires of his Majesty, the Emperor of Austria, of the 30th of September. Causes, not arising from any want of personal regard for Mr. Huelsemann, or of proper respect for his government, have delayed an answer until the present moment. Having submitted Mr. Huelsemann's letter to the President, the undersigned is now directed by him to return the following reply.

The objects of Mr. Huelsemann's note are, first, to protest, by order of his government, against the steps taken by the late President of the United States to ascertain the progress and probable result of the revolutionary movements in Hungary; and, secondly, to complain of some expressions in the instructions of the late Secretary of State to Mr. A. Dudley Mann, a confidential agent of the United States, as communicated by President Taylor to the Senate on the 28th of March last.

The principal ground of protest is founded on the idea, or in the allegation, that the government of the United States, by the mission of Mr. Mann and his instructions, has interfered in the domestic affairs of Austria in a manner unjust or disrespectful toward that power. The President's message was a communication made by him to the Senate, transmitting a correspondence between the executive government and a confidential agent of its own. This would seem to be itself a domestic transaction, a mere instance of intercourse between the President and the Senate, in the manner which is usual and indispensable in communications between the different branches of the government. It was not addressed either to Austria or Hungary; nor was it a public manifesto, to which any foreign state was called on to reply. It was an account of its transactions communicated by the executive government to the Senate, at the request of that body; made public, indeed, but made public only because such is the common and usual course of proceeding. It may be regarded as somewhat strange, therefore, that the Austrian Cabinet did not perceive that, by the instructions given to Mr. Huelsemann, it was itself interfering with the domestic concerns of a foreign state, the very thing which is the ground of its complaint against the United States.

This department has, on former occasions, informed the ministers of foreign powers, that a communication from the President to either house of Congress is regarded as a domestic communication, of which, ordinarily, no foreign state has cognizance; and in more recent instances, the great inconvenience of making such communications the subject of diplomatic correspondence and discussion has been fully shown. If it had been the pleasure of his Majesty, the Emperor of Austria, during the struggles in Hungary, to have admonished the provisional government or the people of that country against involving themselves in disaster, by following the evil and dangerous example of the United States of America in making efforts for the establishment of independent governments, such an admonition from that sovereign to his Hungarian subjects would not have originated here a diplomatic correspondence. The President might, perhaps, on this ground, have declined to direct any particular reply to Mr. Huelsemann's note; but out of proper respect for the Austrian government, it has been thought better to answer that note at length; and the more especially, as the occasion is not unfavorable for the expression of the general sentiments of the government of the United States upon the topics which that note discusses.

A leading subject in Mr. Huelsemann's note is that of the correspondence between Mr. Huelsemann and the predecessor of the undersigned, in which Mr. Clayton, by direction of the President, informed Mr Huelsemann "that Mr. Mann's mission had no other object in view than to obtain reliable information as to the true state of affairs in Hungary, by personal observation." Mr. Huelsemann remarks, that "this explanation can hardly be admitted, for it says very little as to the cause of the anxiety which was felt to ascertain the chances of the revolutionists." As this, however, is the only purpose which can, with any appearance of truth, be attributed to the agency; as nothing whatever is alleged by Mr. Huelsemann to have been either done or said by the agent inconsistent with such an object, the undersigned conceives that Mr. Clayton's explanation ought to be deemed, not only admissible, but quite satisfactory.

Mr. Huelsemann states, in the course of his note, that his instructions to address his present communication to Mr. Clayton reached Washington about the time of the lamented death of the late President, and that he delayed from a sense of propriety the execution of his task until the new administration should be fully organized; "a delay which he now rejoices at, as it has given him the opportunity of ascertaining from the new President himself, on the occasion of the reception of the diplomatic corps, that the fundamental policy of the United States, so frequently proclaimed, would guide the relations of the American government with other powers." Mr. Huelsemann also observes, that it is in his power to assure the undersigned "that the Imperial government is disposed to cultivate relations of friendship and good understanding with the United States."

The President receives this assurance of the disposition of the Imperial government with great satisfaction; and, in consideration of the friendly relations of the two governments thus mutually recognized, and of the peculiar nature of the incidents by which their good understanding is supposed by Mr. Huelsemann to have been for a moment disturbed or endangered, the President regrets that Mr. Huelsemann did not feel himself at liberty wholly to forbear from the execution of instructions, which were of course transmitted from Vienna without any foresight of the state of things under which they would reach Washington. If Mr. Huelsemann saw, in the address of the President to the diplomatic corps, satisfactory pledges of the sentiments and the policy of this government in regard to neutral rights and neutral duties, it might, perhaps, have been better not to bring on a discussion of past transactions. But the undersigned readily admits that this was a question fit only for the consideration and decision of Mr. Huelsemann himself; and although the President does not see that any good purpose can be answered by reopening the inquiry into the propriety of the steps taken by President Taylor to ascertain the probable issue of the late civil war in Hungary, justice to his memory requires the undersigned briefly to restate the history of those steps, and to show their consistency with the neutral policy which has invariably guided the government of the United States in its foreign relations, as well as with the established and well-settled principles of national intercourse, and the doctrines of public law.

The undersigned will first observe, that the President is persuaded his Majesty, the Emperor of Austria, does not think that the government of the United States ought to view with unconcern the extraordinary events which have occurred, not only in his dominions, but in many other parts of Europe, since February, 1848. The government and people of the United States, like other intelligent governments and communities, take a lively interest in the movements and the events of this remarkable age, in whatever part of the world they may be exhibited. But the interest taken by the United States in those events has not proceeded from any disposition to depart from that neutrality toward foreign powers, which is among the deepest principles and the most cherished traditions of the political history of the Union. It has been the necessary effect of the unexampled character of the events themselves, which could not fail to arrest the attention of the contemporary world, as they will doubtless fill a memorable page in history.

But the undersigned goes further, and freely admits that, in proportion as these extraordinary events appeared to have their origin in those great ideas of responsible and popular government, on which the American constitutions themselves are wholly founded, they could not but command the warm sympathy of the people of this country. Well-known circumstances in their history, indeed their whole history, have made them the representatives of purely popular principles of government. In this light they now stand before the world. They could not, if they would, conceal their character, their condition, or their destiny. They could not, if they so desired, shut out from the view of mankind the causes which have placed them, in so short a national career, in the station which they now hold among the civilized states of the world. They could not, if they desired it, suppress either the thoughts or the hopes which arise in men's minds, in other countries, from contemplating their successful example of free government. That very intelligent and distinguished personage, the Emperor Joseph the Second, was among the first to discern this necessary consequence of the American Revolution on the sentiments and opinions of the people of Europe. In a letter to his minister in the Netherlands in 1787, he observes, that "it is remarkable that France, by the assistance which she afforded to the Americans, gave birth to reflections on freedom." This fact, which the sagacity of that monarch perceived at so early a day, is now known and admitted by intelligent powers all over the world. True, indeed, it is, that the prevalence on the other continent of sentiments favorable to republican liberty is the result of the reaction of America upon Europe; and the source and centre of this reaction has doubtless been, and now is, in these United States.

The position thus belonging to the United States is a fact as inseparable from their history, their constitutional organization, and their character, as the opposite position of the powers composing the European alliance is from the history and constitutional organization of the government of those powers. The sovereigns who form that alliance have not unfrequently felt it their right to interfere with the political movements of foreign states; and have, in their manifestoes and declarations, denounced the popular ideas of the age in terms so comprehensive as of necessity to include the United States, and their forms of government. It is well known that one of the leading principles announced by the allied sovereigns, after the restoration of the Bourbons, is, that all popular or constitutional rights are holden no otherwise than as grants and indulgences from crowned heads. "Useful and necessary changes in legislation and administration," says the Laybach Circular of May, 1821, "ought only to emanate from the free will and intelligent conviction of those whom God has rendered responsible for power; all that deviates from this line necessarily leads to disorder, commotions, and evils far more insufferable than those which they pretend to remedy." And his late Austrian Majesty, Francis the First, is reported to have declared, in an address to the Hungarian Diet, in 1820, that "the whole world had become foolish, and, leaving their ancient laws, were in search of imaginary constitutions." These declarations amount to nothing less than a denial of the lawfulness of the origin of the government of the United States, since it is certain that that government was established in consequence of a change which did not proceed from thrones, or the permission of crowned heads. But the government of the United States heard these denunciations of its fundamental principles without remonstrance, or the disturbance of its equanimity. This was thirty years ago.

The power of this republic, at the present moment, is spread over a region one of the richest and most fertile on the globe, and of an extent in comparison with which the possessions of the house of Hapsburg are but as a patch on the earth's surface. Its population, already twenty-five millions, will exceed that of the Austrian empire within the period during which it may be hoped that Mr. Huelsemann may yet remain in the honorable discharge of his duties to his government. Its navigation and commerce are hardly exceeded by the oldest and most commercial nations; its maritime means and its maritime power may be seen by Austria herself, in all seas where she has ports, as well as they may be seen, also, in all other quarters of the globe. Life, liberty, property, and all personal rights, are amply secured to all citizens, and protected by just and stable laws; and credit, public and private, is as well established as in any government of Continental Europe; and the country, in all its interests and concerns, partakes most largely in all the improvements and progress which distinguish the age. Certainly, the United States may be pardoned, even by those who profess adherence to the principles of absolute government, if they entertain an ardent affection for those popular forms of political organization which have so rapidly advanced their own prosperity and happiness, and enabled them, in so short a period, to bring their country, and the hemisphere to which it belongs, to the notice and respectful regard, not to say the admiration, of the civilized world. Nevertheless, the United States have abstained, at all times, from acts of interference with the political changes of Europe. They cannot, however, fail to cherish always a lively interest in the fortunes of nations struggling for institutions like their own. But this sympathy, so far from being necessarily a hostile feeling toward any of the parties to these great national struggles, is quite consistent with amicable relations with them all. The Hungarian people are three or four times as numerous as the inhabitants of these United States were when the American Revolution broke out. They possess, in a distinct language, and in other respects, important elements of a separate nationality, which the Anglo-Saxon race in this country did not possess; and if the United States wish success to countries contending for popular constitutions and national independence, it is only because they regard such constitutions and such national independence, not as imaginary, but as real blessings. They claim no right, however, to take part in the struggles of foreign powers in order to promote these ends. It is only in defence of his own government, and its principles and character, that the undersigned has now expressed himself on this subject. But when the people of the United States behold the people of foreign countries, without any such interference, spontaneously moving toward the adoption of institutions like their own, it surely cannot be expected of them to remain wholly indifferent spectators.

In regard to the recent very important occurrences in the Austrian empire, the undersigned freely admits the difficulty which exists in this country, and is alluded to by Mr. Huelsemann, of obtaining accurate information. But this difficulty is by no means to be ascribed to what Mr. Huelsemann calls, with little justice, as it seems to the undersigned, "the mendacious rumors propagated by the American press." For information on this subject, and others of the same kind, the American press is, of necessity, almost wholly dependent upon that of Europe; and if "mendacious rumors" respecting Austrian and Hungarian affairs have been anywhere propagated, that propagation of falsehoods has been most prolific on the European continent, and in countries immediately bordering on the Austrian empire. But, wherever these errors may have originated, they certainly justified the late President in seeking true information through authentic channels.

His attention was first particularly drawn to the state of things in Hungary by the correspondence of Mr. Stiles, Charge d'Affaires of the United States at Vienna. In the autumn of 1848, an application was made to this gentleman, on behalf of Mr. Kossuth, formerly Minister of Finance for the Kingdom of Hungary by Imperial appointment, but, at the time the application was made, chief of the revolutionary government. The object of this application was to obtain the good offices of Mr. Stiles with the Imperial government, with a view to the suspension of hostilities. This application became the subject of a conference between Prince Schwarzenberg, the Imperial Minister for Foreign Affairs, and Mr. Stiles. The Prince commended the considerateness and propriety with which Mr. Stiles had acted; and, so far from disapproving his interference, advised him, in case he received a further communication from the revolutionary government in Hungary, to have an interview with Prince Windischgraetz, who was charged by the Emperor with the proceedings determined on in relation to that kingdom. A week after these occurrences, Mr. Stiles received, through a secret channel, a communication signed by L. Kossuth, President of the Committee of Defence, and countersigned by Francis Pulszky, Secretary of State. On the receipt of this communication, Mr. Stiles had an interview with Prince Windischgraetz, "who received him with the utmost kindness, and thanked him for his efforts toward reconciling the existing difficulties." Such were the incidents which first drew the attention of the government of the United States particularly to the affairs of Hungary, and the conduct of Mr. Stiles, though acting without instructions in a matter of much delicacy, having been viewed with satisfaction by the Imperial government, was approved by that of the United States.

In the course of the year 1848, and in the early part of 1849, a considerable number of Hungarians came to the United States. Among them were individuals representing themselves to be in the confidence of the revolutionary government, and by these persons the President was strongly urged to recognize the existence of that government. In these applications, and in the manner in which they were viewed by the President, there was nothing unusual; still less was there any thing unauthorized by the law of nations. It is the right of every independent state to enter into friendly relations with every other independent state. Of course, questions of prudence naturally arise in reference to new states, brought by successful revolutions into the family of nations; but it is not to be required of neutral powers that they should await the recognition of the new government by the parent state. No principle of public law has been more frequently acted upon, within the last thirty years, by the great powers of the world, than this. Within that period, eight or ten new states have established independent governments, within the limits of the colonial dominions of Spain, on this continent; and in Europe the same thing has been done by Belgium and Greece. The existence of all these governments was recognized by some of the leading powers of Europe, as well as by the United States, before it was acknowledged by the states from which they had separated themselves. If, therefore, the United States had gone so far as formally to acknowledge the independence of Hungary, although, as the result has proved, it would have been a precipitate step, and one from which no benefit would have resulted to either party; it would not, nevertheless, have been an act against the law of nations, provided they took no part in her contest with Austria. But the United States did no such thing. Not only did they not yield to Hungary any actual countenance or succor, not only did they not show their ships of war in the Adriatic with any menacing or hostile aspect, but they studiously abstained from every thing which had not been done in other cases in times past, and contented themselves with instituting an inquiry into the truth and reality of alleged political occurrences. Mr. Huelsemann incorrectly states, unintentionally certainly, the nature of the mission of this agent, when he says that "a United States agent had been despatched to Vienna with orders to watch for a favorable moment to recognize the Hungarian republic, and to conclude a treaty of commerce with the same." This, indeed, would have been a lawful object, but Mr. Mann's errand was, in the first instance, purely one of inquiry. He had no power to act, unless he had first come to the conviction that a firm and stable Hungarian government existed. "The principal object the President has in view," according to his instructions, "is to obtain minute and reliable information in regard to Hungary, in connection with the affairs of adjoining countries, the probable issue of the present revolutionary movements, and the chances we may have of forming commercial arrangements with that power favorable to the United States." Again, in the same paper, it is said: "The object of the President is to obtain information in regard to Hungary, and her resources and prospects, with a view to an early recognition of her independence and the formation of commercial relations with her." It was only in the event that the new government should appear, in the opinion of the agent, to be firm and stable, that the President proposed to recommend its recognition.

Mr. Huelsemann, in qualifying these steps of President Taylor with the epithet of "hostile," seems to take for granted that the inquiry could, in the expectation of the President, have but one result, and that favorable to Hungary. If this were so, it would not change the case. But the American government sought for nothing but truth; it desired to learn the facts through a reliable channel. It so happened, in the chances and vicissitudes of human affairs, that the result was adverse to the Hungarian revolution. The American agent, as was stated in his instructions to be not unlikely, found the condition of Hungarian affairs less prosperous than it had been, or had been believed to be. He did not enter Hungary, nor hold any direct communication with her revolutionary leaders. He reported against the recognition of her independence, because he found she had been unable to set up a firm and stable government. He carefully forbore, as his instructions required, to give publicity to his mission, and the undersigned supposes that the Austrian government first learned its existence from the communications of the President to the Senate.

Mr. Huelsemann will observe from this statement, that Mr. Mann's mission was wholly unobjectionable, and strictly within the rule of the law of nations and the duty of the United States as a neutral power. He will accordingly feel how little foundation there is for his remark, that "those who did not hesitate to assume the responsibility of sending Mr. Dudley Mann on such an errand should, independent of considerations of propriety, have borne in mind that they were exposing their emissary to be treated as a spy." A spy is a person sent by one belligerent to gain secret information of the forces and defences of the other, to be used for hostile purposes. According to practice, he may use deception, under the penalty of being lawfully hanged if detected. To give this odious name and character to a confidential agent of a neutral power, bearing the commission of his country, and sent for a purpose fully warranted by the law of nations, is not only to abuse language, but also to confound all just ideas, and to announce the wildest and most extravagant notions, such as certainly were not to have been expected in a grave diplomatic paper; and the President directs the undersigned to say to Mr. Huelsemann, that the American government would regard such an imputation upon it by the Cabinet of Austria as that it employs spies, and that in a quarrel none of its own, as distinctly offensive, if it did not presume, as it is willing to presume, that the word used in the original German was not of equivalent meaning with "spy" in the English language, or that in some other way the employment of such an opprobrious term may be explained. Had the Imperial government of Austria subjected Mr. Mann for the treatment of a spy, it would have placed itself without the pale of civilized nations; and the Cabinet of Vienna may be assured, that if it had carried, or attempted to carry, any such lawless purpose into effect, in the case of an authorized agent of this government, the spirit of the people of this country would have demanded immediate hostilities to be waged by the utmost exertion of the power of the republic, military and naval.

Mr. Huelsemann proceeds to remark, that "this extremely painful incident, therefore, might have been passed over, without any written evidence being left on our part in the archives of the United States, had not General Taylor thought proper to revive the whole subject by communicating to the Senate, in his message of the 18th [28th] of last March, the instructions with which Mr. Mann had been furnished on the occasion of his mission to Vienna. The publicity which has been given to that document has placed the Imperial government under the necessity of entering a formal protest, through its official representative, against the proceedings of the American government, lest that government should construe our silence into approbation, or toleration even, of the principles which appear to have guided its action and the means it has adopted." The undersigned reasserts to Mr. Huelsemann, and to the Cabinet of Vienna, and in the presence of the world, that the steps taken by President Taylor, now protested against by the Austrian government, were warranted by the law of nations and agreeable to the usages of civilized states. With respect to the communication of Mr. Mann's instructions to the Senate, and the language in which they are couched, it has already been said, and Mr. Huelsemann must feel the justice of the remark, that these are domestic affairs, in reference to which the government of the United States cannot admit the slightest responsibility to the government of his Imperial Majesty. No state, deserving the appellation of independent, can permit the language in which it may instruct its own officers in the discharge of their duties to itself to be called in question under any pretext by a foreign power.

But even if this were not so, Mr. Huelsemann is in an error in stating that the Austrian government is called an "iron rule" in Mr. Mann's instructions. That phrase is not found in the paper; and in respect to the honorary epithet bestowed in Mr. Mann's instructions on the late chief of the revolutionary government of Hungary, Mr. Huelsemann will bear in mind that the government of the United States cannot justly be expected, in a confidential communication to its own agent, to withhold from an individual an epithet of distinction of which a great part of the world thinks him worthy, merely on the ground that his own government regards him as a rebel. At an early stage of the American Revolution, while Washington was considered by the English government as a rebel chief, he was regarded on the Continent of Europe as an illustrious hero. But the undersigned will take the liberty of bringing the Cabinet of Vienna into the presence of its own predecessors, and of citing for its consideration the conduct of the Imperial government itself. In the year 1777 the war of the American Revolution was raging all over these United States. England was prosecuting that war with a most resolute determination, and by the exertion of all her military means to the fullest extent. Germany was at that time at peace with England; and yet an agent of that Congress, which was looked upon by England in no other light than that of a body in open rebellion, was not only received with great respect by the ambassador of the Empress Queen at Paris, and by the minister of the Grand Duke of Tuscany (who afterwards mounted the Imperial throne), but resided in Vienna for a considerable time; not, indeed, officially acknowledged, but treated with courtesy and respect; and the Emperor suffered himself to be persuaded by that agent to exert himself to prevent the German powers from furnishing troops to England to enable her to suppress the rebellion in America. Neither Mr. Huelsemann nor the Cabinet of Vienna, it is presumed, will undertake to say that any thing said or done by this government in regard to the recent war between Austria and Hungary is not borne out, and much more than borne out, by this example of the Imperial Court. It is believed that the Emperor Joseph the Second habitually spoke in terms of respect and admiration of the character of Washington, as he is known to have done of that of Franklin; and he deemed it no infraction of neutrality to inform himself of the progress of the revolutionary struggle in America, or to express his deep sense of the merits and the talents of those illustrious men who were then leading their country to independence and renown. The undersigned may add, that in 1781 the courts of Russia and Austria proposed a diplomatic congress of the belligerent powers, to which the commissioners of the United States should be admitted.

Mr. Huelsemann thinks that in Mr. Mann's instructions improper expressions are introduced in regard to Russia; but the undersigned has no reason to suppose that Russia herself is of that opinion. The only observation made in those instructions about Russia is, that she "has chosen to assume an attitude of interference, and her immense preparations for invading and reducing the Hungarians to the rule of Austria, from which they desire to be released, gave so serious a character to the contest as to awaken the most painful solicitude in the minds of Americans." The undersigned cannot but consider the Austrian Cabinet as unnecessarily susceptible in looking upon language like this as a "hostile demonstration." If we remember that it was addressed by the government to its own agent, and has received publicity only through a communication from one department of the American government to another, the language quoted must be deemed moderate and inoffensive. The comity of nations would hardly forbid its being addressed to the two imperial powers themselves. It is scarcely necessary for the undersigned to say, that the relations of the United States with Russia have always been of the most friendly kind, and have never been deemed by either party to require any compromise of their peculiar views upon subjects of domestic or foreign polity, or the true origin of governments. At any rate, the fact that Austria, in her contest with Hungary, had an intimate and faithful ally in Russia, cannot alter the real nature of the question between Austria and Hungary, nor in any way affect the neutral rights and duties of the government of the United States, or the justifiable sympathies of the American people. It is, indeed, easy to conceive, that favor toward struggling Hungary would be not diminished, but increased, when it was seen that the arm of Austria was strengthened and upheld by a power whose assistance threatened to be, and which in the end proved to be, overwhelmingly destructive of all her hopes.

Toward the conclusion of his note Mr. Huelsemarnn remarks, that "if the government of the United States were to think it proper to take an indirect part in the political movements of Europe, American policy would be exposed to acts of retaliation, and to certain inconveniences which would not fail to affect the commerce and industry of the two hemispheres." As to this possible fortune, this hypothetical retaliation, the government and people of the United States are quite willing to take their chances and abide their destiny. Taking neither a direct nor an indirect part in the domestic or intestine movements of Europe, they have no fear of events of the nature alluded to by Mr. Huelsemann. It would be idle now to discuss with Mr. Huelsemann those acts of retaliation which he imagines may possibly take place at some indefinite time hereafter. Those questions will be discussed when they arise; and Mr. Huelsemann and the Cabinet at Vienna may rest assured, that, in the mean time, while performing with strict and exact fidelity all their neutral duties, nothing will deter either the government or the people of the United States from exercising, at their own discretion, the rights belonging to them as an independent nation, and of forming and expressing their own opinions, freely and at all times, upon the great political events which may transpire among the civilized nations of the earth. Their own institutions stand upon the broadest principles of civil liberty; and believing those principles and the fundamental laws in which they are embodied to be eminently favorable to the prosperity of states, to be, in fact, the only principles of government which meet the demands of the present enlightened age, the President has perceived, with great satisfaction, that, in the constitution recently introduced into the Austrian empire, many of these great principles are recognized and applied, and he cherishes a sincere wish that they may produce the same happy effects throughout his Austrian Majesty's extensive dominions that they have done in the United States.

The undersigned has the honor to repeat to Mr. Huelsemann the assurance of his high consideration.

DANIEL WEBSTER.

THE CHEVALIER J.G. HUeLSEMANN, Charge d'Affaires of Austria, Washington.

[Footnote 1: Mr. Everett had then resigned the Presidency of Harvard College.]

[Footnote 2: Whether Mr. Hunter's draft was also sent to Mr. Everett, I do not know. The internal evidence would seem to indicate that it was; but the fact is not material.]

[Footnote 3: I have seen, I believe, all the documents in relation to this matter; viz. Mr. Hunter's draft, Mr. Everett's (in his handwriting, with Mr. Webster's erasures), the third draft, made at the department under Mr. Webster's directions, and the original added paragraphs, written by Mr. Webster with his own hand. To those who are curious about the question of authorship, it is needful only to say that Mr. Webster adopted Mr. Everett's draft as the basis of the official letter, but that the official letter is a much more vigorous, expanded, and complete production than Mr. Everett's draft. It is described in a note written by Mr. Everett to one of the literary executors, in 1853, as follows: "It can be stated truly that what Mr. Webster did himself to the letter was very considerable; and that he added one half in bulk to the original draft; and that his additions were of the most significant character. It was very carefully elaborated in the department by him, till he was authorized to speak of it as he did at the Kossuth dinner...."

This refers to what Mr. Webster said in his speech at the Kossuth banquet, in Washington, January 7, 1852:—

"May I be so egotistical as to say that I have nothing new to say on the subject of Hungary? Gentlemen, in the autumn of the year before last, out of health, and retired to my paternal home among the mountains of New Hampshire, I was, by reason of my physical condition, confined to my house; but I was among the mountains, whose native air I was bound to inspire. Nothing saluted my senses, nothing saluted my mind, or my sentiments, but freedom, full and entire; and there, gentlemen, near the graves of my ancestors, I wrote a letter, which most of you have seen, addressed to the Austrian charge d'affaires. I can say nothing of the ability displayed in that letter, but, as to its principles, while the sun and moon endure, I stand by them."]

[Footnote 4: From Hon. George T. Curtis's Life of Daniel Webster, Vol. II. pp. 535-537.]



INDEX.

A.

Aberdeen, Lord, on right of search, 661, 662.

Abolition Societies, Mr. Webster's opinion of, 571; effect of, 619.

"Accede," word not found in the Constitution, 276.

Accession and Secession defined, 276.

Act of 1793, regulating coasting trade, 121; of 1800, concerning custom-house bonds, 383.

Acts of 1824, concerning surveys for canals, &c., 245.

Acts of Legislature of N.H., on Corporation of Dartmouth College, 1, 3; in regard to Dartmouth College, 14, 15.

Adams and Jefferson, eulogy delivered in Faneuil Hall on, 156; coincidences in the death and lives of, 157; made draft of Declaration of Independence, 159; compared as scholars, 173.

Adams, John, eulogized, 41, 140, 156; sensation caused by his death, 156; birth and education of, 159; admitted member of Harvard College, 160; admitted to the Bar, 160; defends British officers, and soldiers, 160; offered Chief Justiceship of Massachusetts, 160; letter on the future of America, 160; his articles on "Feudal Law," 161; Delegate to Congress, 162; important resolution reported in Congress by, 163; appointed to draft the Declaration, 164; power in debate, 166; remark of Jefferson on, 166; knowledge of Colonial history, 166; supposed speech in favor of the Declaration, 168; Minister to France, 170; drafts Constitution of Massachusetts, 170; concludes treaty with Holland, 170; his "Defence of American Constitutions," 171; elected to frame and revise Constitution of Massachusetts, 170, 171; Vice-President and President, 171; his scholarship, 173; navy created in administration of, 175; political abuse of, 251; letter on opening first Congress with prayer, 522.

Adams, J.Q., at Bunker Hill, 139; his nominations to office postponed by the Senate, 348; remark on Webster, 406; opposition to his administration, 434.

Adams, Samuel, delegate to Congress, 162; signs the declaration, 170; movement to open Congress with prayer, 522.

Addition to the Capitol, speech at laying of the corner-stone of the, 639.

Address, delivered at laying of corner-stone of Bunker Hill Monument, 123; on completion of Bunker Hill Monument, 136.