Charles Francis Adams to Right Hon. Earl Russell, November 29, 1861

Mr. Adams to Earl Russell.

The undersigned, envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary of the United States, has the honor to acknowledge the reception of a note from the right honorable Earl Russell, her Majesty’s principal secretary of state for foreign affairs, dated the 26th instant, in answer to a previous one of his own, dated the 21st instant, announcing the decision of the government of the United States to withdraw the exequatur of Mr. Bunch, her Majesty’s consul at Charleston, in South Carolina. The undersigned will do himself the honor to transmit his lordship’s note for the information of his government by the first opportunity.

The undersigned, disclaiming any desire to continue discussion upon a painful topic one moment longer than a necessity for it shall continue to exist, yet feels as if he could not, in justice to himself as well as to his own government, omit this opportunity to explain some passages of his former note, which appear to him to have been in a degree misunderstood by Earl Russell. He confesses himself at a loss to comprehend in what manner he should have been so unfortunate in his use of language as to give ground for his lordship’s statement” that the United States government, by their quotation of the statute to which reference has been made as the foundation on which they rest their complaint against Mr. Bunch, seem deliberately to admit that the government of the Confederate States at Richmond is, as regards the United States, the government of a foreign state—an admission which goes further than any acknowledgment with regard to those States which her Majesty’s government have hitherto made.” If the undersigned have given just cause for any construction of the action of his government approximating to that indicated in the preceding extract from his lordship’s note, then has he indeed committed, in his estimation, a most grave mistake. But on a careful re-examination of his note of the 21st, the undersigned must be permitted to say that he has found some difficulty in perceiving anything that appears to him to be ambiguity in his meaning. He discovers only one government of a foreign state alluded to, and that is obviously her Majesty’s government. The other party, in his own mind, were the rebellious insurgents in arms against the authority of the United States, which he was very far from characterizing in the manner indicated by his lordship. The purpose of the law seems to the undersigned to have been severely to punish all persons, whether native or foreign, citizen or privileged, who knowingly made themselves instruments of foreign states to foment factious disturbances within the United States. It appears to have been enacted during the troubled period of the French revolution, when interference with the domestic affairs of neighboring nations was an avowed principle of action, and was therefore boldly acted upon even by the recognized agents of the French authorities. The undersigned, therefore, in applying the principle of the law in a mitigated form to Mr. Bunch and his alleged intermixture with the disputes and controversies going on within the United States, surely cannot have made so great a mistake as to have assumed that he was dealing with “the government of a foreign state.” He has considered Mr. Bunch as an officer of her Majesty’s government, formerly recognized by the government of the United States for certain purposes of commerce, who has been engaged in political correspondence as well with his own government as with rebellious insurgents in the United States for purposes foreign from those which were assigned at the time he received his authority, and for that reason that he has knowingly violated the law. At the same time the undersigned took great care in expressing his firm belief that her Majesty’s government, in directing their agent in the manner indicated, could not have been aware of the nature and character of that law—a belief which he is happy to find, by his lordship’s present mode of considering it, to have been well founded.

But much as the undersigned found of difficulty in regard to the misconception he has been so unfortunate as to originate in his lordship’s mind of this view of a law of his own country, he has been still more embarrassed to learn the fact that in his statement of what appeared to his mind true in its application to all governments, and undeniable in respect to the government of the United States, he has not enjoyed the satisfaction of his lordship’s concurrence of opinion. This statement was that “the only authority in the United States to which any diplomatic communication can be made is the government of the United States.” If the undersigned had been led in any way to vary this proposition he would have deemed himself to have gone much further in the road to recognition of “the government of a foreign state” within the United States than he did in that mistakenly attributed to him by his lordship. Surely it could not have been his lordship’s intention to present the proposition that the same diplomatic agent of a foreign power can be accredited to the government of a country and to the self-constituted authorities of a portion of the people who are * * * waging war to overthrow it. Applying this argument to the question of Mr. Bunch, his case resolves itself into this: That holding his authority to act in an official relation as an officer of a foreign government from the recognition of the authorities of the United States, they are expected to acknowledge his right whilst acting in this capacity, at the same time to treat with any of their own citizens who defy their authority whenever it may be deemed advisable by that government. Surely such a proposition, if accepted, would seem to undermine the foundations of sound international relationship all over the world. Surely no government, entertaining a proper degree of self-respect, would consent for a moment to receive any representative of a foreign nation if his first act might be to attempt to undermine the authority to which he had been accredited by recognizing for any purpose the validity of a domestic antagonism within its limits.

The undersigned is not insensible to the force of his lordship’s argument in regard to the necessity imposed upon it of protecting the interests of British subjects in those regions where the authority of the United States is suspended, as well as the difficulty of calling upon the government of the United States to make good the damage that might ensue from the acts of persons now in armed resistance. Doubtless it must have been under considerations like these that her Majesty’s government was induced to release that of the United States from responsibility for such reclamations by adopting the policy of granting to the insurgents the rights of a belligerent. Without entering into the wide field of discussion presented by the arguments of his lordship, the undersigned contents himself with the remark that whatever may be the course of action her Majesty’s government deems proper to lay down for itself in regulating its relations with the insurgent forces in the United States, it will scarcely be disposed to require of the government of the United States that it should recognize the agents through whom they may be carried on. The objection to Mr. Bunch’s action is that, whilst he has been enjoying, as consul of her Majesty in the United States, the advantages of a solemn recognition of the United States, he has been engaged in official proceedings in violation of the law, as well as outside of any authority with which they ever consented that he should be vested.

That the latter part of the statement is that the fact would scarcely seem to admit of the possibility of a doubt. But inasmuch as the undersigned is not altogether sure that he has placed the matter so fully before his lordship as his duty to his country seems to him to require, he trusts he may be permitted to enlarge upon it a little further. The position of Mr. Bunch, in regard to the United States, had been exclusively that of a consul of a foreign nation at a commercial port. That such a position does not of itself involve the right of diplomatic negotiation with the recognizing government, much less with any subordinate authority, is too well established by law to need further elucidation. The only question that remains for consideration is * * * then whether the authority actually vested in Mr. Bunch by her Majesty’s government to enter into communication with the insurgents in the United States touching certain articles of the declaration of Paris to which their acquiescence was to be obtained was of a diplomatic or purely of a consular nature. The proper answer to this is to be found in an appeal to the mode in which, from its very commencement, the declaration of Paris has been permitted to take its shape. In its origin it was the result of a conference of the accredited envoys of the great powers, and in all the later steps taken to secure the acquiescence of different nations, including the United States, the agency used has been that of the customary diplomatic representatives. It therefore admits of no doubt, in the mind of the undersigned, that the declaration of Paris is a pure diplomatic act, and that all negotiations since carried on to extend its authority, including that which the undersigned himself had the honor to carry on with his lordship for a time, bear the same exclusive character. It is, then, plain to the mind of the undersigned that the government of the United States in objecting to the assumption by an officer of a foreign government recognized by it only as vested with the authority of a consul of diplomatic authority to treat within the limits of the United States, and without its knowledge or consent, with persons acting as an armed resistance to it, has justification fully sufficient to sustain its decision to withdraw the formal act of recognition of such officer. To suppose it capable of a different course would seem to be to condemn it as unworthy of the character for honor and independence to which it has ever endeavored to aspire.

In conclusion, the undersigned desires to express his personal obligations to Earl Russell for the friendly notice he has been pleased to take of his labors in the arduous and difficult mission with which he has been charged. It gives him great pleasure to be able on his part to testify to the uniform courtesy and good will with which he has been treated in all his relations with her Majesty’s government.

The undersigned prays Earl Russell to receive the assurances of his most distinguished consideration.