Adam Badeau, Grant in peace: from Appomattox to Mount McGregor, a personal memoir

‘ [183] other States on the American continent shall adopt the political institutions to which we are so earnestly attached, but we do hold that the people of those countries are to exercise the freedom of choosing and establishing institutions like our own, if they are preferred.’ The difference in tone and language between the soldier and the statesman was indicative of the difference in the means they desired to employ —to accomplish, nevertheless, the same end.

Grant did not write to Schofield again for nearly a year, but on the 24th of March, 1866, he said to that officer:

I have never written to you since your departure, for two reasons: First, because I was afraid to send through the mails, lest the letter should fall into the hands of the French authorities. Second, because I could not say anything which would be agreeable to Mr. Seward, and did not like, therefore, to send by his mail. I might add a third reason and say that Mr. S. keeps the whole question between the United States and Mexico so befogged that I know nothing really to write upon the subject that you do not learn from the papers of the country. It looks to me very much as if Mr. Seward's policy was to hold the Government and let the Imperial establishment take its chances for success or failure. If he has a partiality in the matter, I think it leans to Imperial success. In this matter, however, I may do him injustice. One thing is certain, however, with the present policy, and it looks as if it was to continue, the friends of the Liberal Government of Mexico can do nothing to help it. Under these circumstances I would say there is no necessity for your remaining longer abroad, unless your instructions require it. . . . If I was to try to give you any positive information in regard to our relations with Mexico, or with the man who keeps troops there, I could not do so. I could say nothing more consoling to the Emperor of the French than what I have here stated, nor nothing more distasteful to him than that the American people are united in their determination that his reign on this continent shall cease. Another election will probably bring this latter fact clear before his vision. I regret that his expulsion had not been the closing scene in the