Mr. Seward to Mr. Dayton, December 29, 1862

Mr. Seward to Mr.
Dayton

Sir: The Europa’s mail has only just now come
in, a few hours in advance of the time assigned for the departure of the
outgoing despatches, and it brings no communication from your
legation.

The circumstances calculated to excite distrust of the friendly feeling
of France towards the United States, to which you have heretofore
directed my notice, are now fixing public attention in this country as
well as in Europe. Some European observers who are unfriendly to us, or,
to speak more accurately, who are jealous of a good understanding
between France and the United States, are stimulating popular suspicions
here, which, if they are without any just foundation, as the President
believes, must be very deeply regretted in both countries. The form
which these suggestions take is, that France has design to make of the
war against Mexico only an introduction to aggressions against the
United States in the Gulf of Mexico or on its coasts. The interpretation
which is popularly given to the Emperor’s late overtures to Great
Britain and Russia for mediation in our affairs favors this alarm, and
is consequently causing it to receive a very wide acceptance.

Satisfied that France, equally with the United States, desires that the
mutual and almost fraternal sympathies that so long have prevailed in
the two countries shall remain undisturbed, it becomes a grave question
whether it is not expedient that Mr. Drouyn de l’Huys shall do or say
something to correct the impressions to which I have adverted.

When the French government looks to the land and naval re-enforcements
which the President has just sent to New Orleans and the Mississippi,
and to the now rapid departure of our iron-clad vessels to their
southern destination, it must perceive that in no case do we expect to
surrender that river or any part of the Gulf coast to insurgents or to
any foreign power. The same inference will be justly drawn from the
important change of the war
policy in regard to slavery, which will be completely announced in the
President’s forthcoming proclamation of the first of January next.

* * * * * * * *

But while all these points are so obvious as to need no elucidation,
there are yet some others upon which, although they are matters of much
delicacy, I could not, consistently with candor and frankness, forbear
to speak under the circumstances now existing.

It is very generally understood that there is some peculiar sympathetic
relationship between Louisiana and France, which has an important
political significance in regard to the relations of the two countries.
Nothing could be wider from the truth. New Orleans, in its early
history, as a capital of the vast but wild French province of Louisiana,
was French; but so was St. Louis, then as now an important trading post,
situated a thousand miles above New Orleans, on the Mississippi river.
With the annexation of Louisiana to the United States, if not before,
French immigation stopped and American immigration set in there. New
Orleans is at this day American in the same fixed sense that New York,
Boston, and Cincinnati are. There is a small French commercial interest
in New Orleans, but so there is in New York. It is as completely exotic
as if it had been lately engrafted on an American stock, instead of
having an American graft set upon itself, which has absorbed the chief
life of the community. The French relationship existing between New
Orleans and France is now merely the relationship of a social class,
perhaps I might say a creation of fashion. As proof of this you may
refer to the fact that the French representation of New Orleans in both
houses of Congress has dwindled away year after year until a Frenchman
is rarely found in it. There is another proof: Even the insurgents, when
they choose in New Orleans pretended representatives to go to France,
take not Frenchmen, but natives, or persons derived from the prevailing
stocks of the other States. There is now no more a hook for a French
intervention to grapple to in Louisiana than there is in any other State
of this Union. This fact is even more palpable now than it has been
heretofore. The war makes social and political changes here, as it
necessarily must. They are none the less real because they escape for a
time the attention of a class of observers who fasten themselves upon
events which merely strike the imagination. If you could return home you
would be surprised to find Baltimore and Washington so changed that you
would scarcely perceive a difference in the tone of society there from
what prevails in Chicago and Trenton.

There is a second consideration which the French government ought to
understand. The attachment of the people of the United States to France
differs from the sentiment they bear towards every other country. It is
general, practically universal. But it is an attachment that has its
roots not in natural affinity, nor yet in international motives. It is
the fruit of two purely moral sentiments—justice and gratitude. We all
have been educated to pity the fate of Louis XVI, who was our friend—to
admire Lafayette, who was a chivalrous knight-errant in our
revolutionary cause—to admire Napoleon the First, who saved and restored
France by his genius and his valor. We honor and love all France,
because she has constantly cherished with pride and pleasure the
memories of the period when we were allies, because she has been willing
that we should endure, and hopeful of our social, political and civil
institutions. The affection of the American people is attended, not by
any national sense of weakness, or dependence, or fear, or of interest,
but by a luxuriant Americanism, or love of independence. It is more
honorable to France for being so; for there is for nations no esteem
that is worthy of pride, or that can be relied upon as a bond of
friendship, but that which is the outgrowth of national magnanimity.

The fact that the national attachment of this country to France is so
pure and so elevated, constitutes just the reason why it could be more
easily supplanted by national insult or injustice than our attachment to
any other foreign state could be. It is a chivalrous sentiment, and it
must be preserved by chivalrous conduct and bearing on both sides. I
deduce from the two positions which I have presented a conclusion which
has the most solemn interest for both parties, namely, that any attempt
at dictation— much more any aggression committed by the government of
France against the United States—would more certainly and effectively
rouse the American people to an attitude of determined resistance than a
similar affront or injury committed by any other power. There is reason
to believe that interested sympathizers with the insurrection in this
country have reported to the French governmnent that it would find a
party here disposed to accept its mediation or intervention. I
understand that they reckon upon a supposed sympathy between our
democratic citizens and the French government. It may as well be
understood as soon as possible that we have no democrats who do not
cherish the independence of our country as the first element of
democratic faith, while, on the other hand, it is partiality for France
that makes us willingly shut our eyes to the fact that that great nation
is only advancing towards, instead of having reached, the democratic
condition which attracts us in some other countries.

If we understand Mr. Drouyn de l’Huys, he is capable of believing that
the sentiments I have expressed may be maintained and avowed with the
most perfect respect and the most cordial feeling towards France,
because they are sentiments which, in an American, are as virtuous as
devotion to the intellectual and moral ideals of France are in a
Frenchman.

Since I began this communication I have received, by a delayed mail, your
despatch of the 12th of December, No. 240, in which you have set down
explanations made by Mr. Drouyn de l’Huys, which are just such as it was
my object on this occasion to instruct you to solicit You know how
confidingly we accept assurances of this character from France, and,
therefore, I hardly need say that they are entirely satisfactory.

* * * * * * * *

I am, sir, your obedient servant,