William H. Seward to Elisha O. Crosby, October 28, 1862

Mr. Seward to Mr. Crosby.

Sir: Your very interesting dispatch of the 21st of September, No. 22, has been submitted to the President. He is profoundly affected by the consideration which is manifested toward this Government by His Excellency the President of Guatemala in his proposal to confer with it concerning projected organic changes in the governments of Guatemala and other Central American Republics. Whether the natural positions of these states, their respective material resources, their natural and artificial channels and highways, and the interests, sentiments, habits, aspirations, and sympathies of their various populations favor at the present time an intimate political and mutually defensive union, are questions upon which it would be presumptuous for foreign statesmen to pronounce. The inquiry about the proper government for any country is not always what is theoretically the best possible, political system which has hitherto been devised among men, but what is the best political system which the people of the country will peacefully accept and confidingly maintain. How to choose this best possible political system is a question upon which foreign advice is not only naturally but even justly and wisely suspected. Jealousy upon that subject is the chief foundation of national independence. The President regards the agitation of the question of a re-union of the Central American Republics with favor, not, however, because he is prepared to say that the measure is practicable or expedient, but simply because it indicates a conviction that there are some common evils existing in the several states of Central America which are constantly reproducing civil and international wars, and a will and a purpose on the part of American statesmen there to correct them. The United States are too earnestly desirous for that correction to embarrass the parties concerned with advice which any class of the people of Central America, or any foreign state, might injuriously represent as proceeding from other than the most disinterested motives. Whatever may be the decision at which the consulting parties may arrive, it will be respected by the United States as wise and judicious, and they will remain equally the friends of the Central American powers, whether they re-unite or prefer to remain distinct and independent.

You may read this dispatch to the minister for foreign affairs, and give him a copy if he shall desire it.

I am, sir, your obedient servant,