Benson J. Lossing, Pictorial Field Book of the Civil War. Volume 1.

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It is not to be wondered at that foreign governments and publicists should have made this grave mistake. They had been for a quarter of a century taught by a certain class of leading politicians, in all parts of the Union, that the States were sovereign, and formed only a league by compact, without having more than a few dissenting opinions from the expounders of the Constitution in Congress and out of it; and the practical conclusion was, what some of the conspirators boldly asserted, that secession was a “reserved right” of the States. When, therefore, the positive and irrevocable dissolution of the Union, by the secession of several States, was announced on the floor of Congress and in leading newspapers, by men of every portion of the Union, what other conclusion could ill-informed or misinformed foreigners arrive at than that the war was unrighteous, and that, instead of being waged by the National Government in vindication of its own rightful and supreme authority over all the States, and for the preservation of its integrity, it was a war of sections — a war of States against States? This fundamental error prevailed during the entire period of the war, and was for a long time a stumbling-block in the way of many earnest friends of our Government abroad.

So early as the close of February, Mr. Black, the Secretary of State under Mr. Buchanan,¹ addressed

February 28, 1861.

a circular letter to the American ministers abroad, informing them of the state of public affairs at home, directing them to endeavor to counteract the efforts of the agents of the conspirators at foreign courts, and assuring them that the Government had not “relinquished its constitutional jurisdiction within the States” wherein rebellion existed, and did “not desire to do so.” This was followed, a few days afterward,

March 9.

by a circular letter from Mr. Seward, the Secretary of State under Mr. Lincoln, conjuring them to use all diligence to “prevent the designs of those who would invoke foreign intervention to embarrass and overthrow the Republic.” More than a month later, when Jefferson Davis had offered commissions for depredating on the commerce of the United States, and Mr. Lincoln had declared that such depredators should be treated as pirates,² Mr. Seward addressed another circular to American ministers at the principal European courts, in which he reviewed recent measures tending to the abolition of the practice of privateering, and instructed the American minister at the British court to seek an early opportunity to propose to that government an agreement on the subject, on the basis of the declarations of the Congress at Paris, in 1856, with an additional agreement that should secure from seizure on the high seas, under all circumstances, private property not contraband of war. Charles Francis Adams, a son of John Quincy Adams, had just been appointed to fill the station of minister at the court of St. James,³ which had been held by his father and grandfather; and to him the proposed negotiation was intrusted. Mr. Adams had already been instructed⁴ concerning the manner in which he should oppose the efforts of the agents of the conspirators.