Sir: The undersigned have been duly accredited by the
Government of the
Confederate States of America as commissioners to the
Government of the
United States, and, in pursuance of their instructions, have now the honor to acquaint you with the fact, and to make known, through you to the
President of the
United States, the objects of their presence in this capital.
Seven States of the late Federal Union, having in the exercise of the inherent right of every free people to change or reform their political institutions, and through conventions of their people, withdrawn from the
United States and reassumed the attributes of sovereign power delegated to it, have formed a government of their own. The
Confederate States constitute an independent nation,
de facto and
de jure, and possess a government perfect in all parts, and endowed with all the means of self-support.
With a view to a speedy adjustment of all questions growing out of this political separation, upon such terms of amity and good — will as the respective interests, geographical contiguity, and future welfare of the two nations may render necessary, the undersigned are instructed to make to the
Government of the
United States overtures for the opening of negotiations, assuring the
Government of the
United States, that the
President, Congress, and people of the
Confederate States earnestly desire a peaceful solution of these great questions; that it is neither their interest nor their wish to make any demand which is not founded in strictest justice, nor do any act to injure their late confederates.
The undersigned have now the honor, in obedience to the instructions of their Government, to request you to appoint as early a day as possible, in order that they may present to the
President of the
United States the credentials which they bear and the objects of the mission with which they are charged.
We are, very respectfully, your obedient servants,
The “memorandum” dated Department of State,
Washington, March 15, 1861, with postscript under date of 8th instant, has been received through the hands of
Mr. J. T. Pickett, secretary of this commission, who, by the instructions of the undersigned, called for it on yesterday at the department.
In that memorandum you correctly state the purport of the official note addressed to you by the undersigned on the 12th ultimo.
Without repeating the contents of that note in full, it is enough to say here that its object was to invite the
Government of the
United States to a friendly consideration of the relations between the
United States and the seven States lately the Federal Union, but now separated from it by the sovereign will of their people, growing out of the pregnant and undeniable fact that those people have rejected the authority of the
United States, and established a government of their own. Those relations had to be friendly or hostile.
The people of the old and new Governments, occupying contiguous territories, had to stand to each other in the relation of good neighbors, each seeking their happiness and pursuing their national destinies in their own way, without interference with the other; or they had to be rival and hostile nations.
The Government of the
Confederate States had no hesitation in electing its choice in this alternative.
Frankly and unreservedly, seeking the good of the people who had intrusted them with power, in the spirit of humanity, of the
Christian civilization of the age, and of that Americanism which regards the true welfare and happiness of the people, the
Government of the
Confederate States, among its first acts, commissioned the undersigned to approach the
Government of the
United States with the olive-branch of peace, and to offer to adjust the great questions pending between them in the only way to be justified by the consciences and common sense of good men who had nothing but the welfare of the people of the two confederacies at heart.
Your Government has not chosen to meet the undersigned in the conciliatory and peaceful spirit in which they are commissioned.
Persistently wedded to those fatal theories of construction of the
Federal Constitution always rejected by the statesmen of the
South, and adhered to by those of the
Administration school, until they have produced their natural and often predicted result of the destruction of the
Union, under which we might have continued to live happily and gloriously together, had the spirit of the ancestry who framed the common Constitution animated the hearts of all their sons, you now, with a persistence untaught and uncured by the ruin which has been wrought, refuse to recognize the great fact presented to you of a completed and successful revolution; you close your eyes to the existence of the
Government founded upon it, and ignore the high duties of moderation and humanity which attach to you in dealing with this great fact.
Had you met these issues with the frankness and manliness with which the undersigned were instructed to present them to you and treat them, the undersigned had not now the melancholy duty to return home and tell their Government and their countrymen that their earnest and ceaseless efforts in behalf of peace had been futile, and that the
Government of the
United States meant to
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subjugate them by force of arms.
Whatever may be the result, impartial history will record the innocence of the
Government of the
Confederate States, and place the responsibility of the blood and mourning that may ensue upon those who have denied the great fundamental doctrine of American liberty, that “governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed,” and who have set naval and land armaments in motion to subject the people of one portion of this land to the will of another portion.
That that can never be done, while a freeman survives in the
Confederate States to wield a weapon, the undersigned appeal to past history to prove.
These military demonstrations against the people of the seceded States are certainly far from being in keeping and consistency with the theory of the
Secretary of State, maintained in his memorandum, that these States are still component parts of the late American Union, as the undersigned are not aware of any constitutional power in the
President of the
United States to levy war, without the consent of Congress, upon a foreign people, much less upon any portion of the people of the
United States.
The undersigned, like the
Secretary of State, have no purpose to “invite or engage in discussion” of the subject on which their two Governments are so irreconcilably at variance.
It is this variance that has broken up the old Union, the disintegration of which has only begun.
It is proper, however, to advise you that it were well to dismiss the hopes you seem to entertain that, by any of the modes indicated the people of the
Confederate States will ever be brought to submit to the authority of the
Government of the
United States.
You are dealing with delusions, too, when you seek to separate our people from our Government, and to characterize the deliberate sovereign act of that people as a “perversion of a temporary and partisan excitement.”
If you cherish these dreams, you will be awakened from them and find them as unreal and unsubstantial as others in which you have recently indulged.
The undersigned would omit the performance of an obvious duty, were they to fail to make known to the
Government of the
United States that the people of the
Confederate States have declared their independence with a full knowledge of all the responsibilities of that act, and with as firm a determination to maintain it by all the means with which nature has endowed them as that which sustained their fathers when they threw off the authority of the
British Crown.
The undersigned clearly understand that you have declined to appoint a day to enable them to lay the objects of the mission with which they are charged before the
President of the
United States, because so to do would be to recognize the independence and separate nationality of the
Confederate States.
This is the vein of thought that pervades the memorandum before us. The truth of history requires that it should distinctly appear upon the record that the undersigned did not ask the
Government of the
United States to recognize the independence of the
Confederate States.
They onlly asked audience to adjust, in a spirit of amity and peace, the new relations springing from a manifest and accomplished revolution in the
Government of the late Federal Union.
Your refusal to entertain these overtures for a peaceful solution, the active naval and military preparations of this Government, and a formal notice to the
commanding General of the Confederate forces in the harbor of
Charleston that the
President intends to provision
Fort Sumter by forcible means, if necessary, are viewed by the undersigned, and can only be received by the world, as a declaration of war against the
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Confederate States; for the
President of the
United States knows that
Fort Sumter can not be provisioned without the effusion of blood.
The undersigned, in behalf of their Government and people, accept the gage of battle thus thrown down to them; and, appealing to God and the judgment of mankind for the righteousness of their cause, the people of the
Confederate States will defend their liberties to the last, against this flagrant and open attempt at their subjugation to sectional power.
This communication can not be properly closed without adverting to the date of your memorandum.
The official note of the undersigned, of the 12th of March, was delivered to the
Assistant Secretary of State on the 13th of that month, the gentleman who delivered it informing him that the secretary of this commission would call at twelve o'clock, noon, on the next day, for an answer.
At the appointed hour
Mr. Pickett did call, and was informed by the
Assistant Secretary of State that the engagements of the
Secretary of State had prevented him from giving the note his attention.
The
Assistant Secretary of State then asked for the address of
Messrs. Crawford and
Forsyth, the members of the commission then present in this city, took note of the address on a card, and engaged to send whatever reply might be made to their lodgings.
Why this was not done, it is proper should be here explained.
The memorandum is dated March 15th, and was not delivered until April 8th.
Why was it withheld during the intervening twenty-three days? In the postscript to your memorandum you say it “was delayed, as was understood, with their (
Messrs. Forsyth and
Crawford's) consent.”
This is true; but it is also true that, on the 15th of March,
Messrs. Forsyth and
Crawford were assured by a person occupying a high official position in the
Government, and who, as they believed, was speaking by authority, that
Fort Sumter would be evacuated in a very few days, and that no measure changing the existing
status prejudicially to the
Confederate States, as respects
Fort Pickens, was then contemplated, and these assurances were subsequently repeated, with the addition that any contemplated change as respects
Pickens would be notified to us. On the 1st of April we were again informed that there might be an attempt to supply
Fort Sumter with provisions, but that
Governor Pickens should have previous notice of this attempt.
There was no suggestion of any reenforcement.
The undersigned did not hesitate to believe that these assurances expressed the intentions of the Administration at the time, or at all events of prominent members of that Administration.
This delay was assented to for the express purpose of attaining the great end of the mission of the undersigned, to wit, a pacific solution of existing complications.
The inference deducible from the date of your memorandum, that the undersigned had, of their own volition and without cause, consented to this long
hiatus in the grave duties with which they were charged, is therefore not consistent with a just exposition of the facts of the case.
The intervening twenty-three days were employed in active unofficial efforts, the object of which was to smooth the path to a pacific solution, the distinguished personage alluded to cooperating with the undersigned; and every step of that effort is recorded in writing and now in the possession of the undersigned and of their Government.
It was only when all those anxious efforts for peace had been exhausted, and it became clear that
Mr. Lincoln had determined to appeal to the sword to reduce the people of the
Confederate States to the will of the section or party whose
President he is, that the undersigned resumed the official negotiation temporarily
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suspended, and sent their secretary for a reply to their official note of March 12th.
It is proper to add that, during these twenty-three days, two gentlemen, of official distinction as high as that of the personage hitherto alluded to, aided the undersigned as intermediaries in these unofficial negotiations for peace.
The undersigned, commissioners of the
Confederate States of America, having thus made answer to all they deem material in the memorandum filed in the department on the 15th of March last, have the honor to be
Sir: On the 15th of March, ultimo, I left with
Judge Crawford, one of the commissioners of the
Confederate States, a note in writing, to the effect following:
I feel entire confidence that
Fort Sumter will be evacuated in the next ten days. And this measure is felt as imposing great responsibility on the Administration.
I feel entire confidence that no measure changing the existing
status prejudicially to the
Southern Confederate States is at present contemplated.
“I feel an entire confidence that an immediate demand for an answer to the communication of the commissioners will be productive of evil and not of good.
I do not believe that it ought, at this time, to be pressed.”
The substance of this statement I communicated to you the same evening by letter.
Five days elapsed, and I called with a telegram from
General Beauregard, to the effect that
Sumter was not evacuated, but that
Major Anderson was at work making repairs.
The next day, after conversing with you, I communicated to
Judge Crawford in writing that the failure to evacuate
Sumter was not the result of bad faith, but was attributable to causes consistent with the intention to fullfill the engagement, and that, as regarded
Pickens, I should have notice of any design to alter the existing
status there.
Mr. Justice Nelson was present at these conversations, three in number, and I submitted to him each of my written communications to
Judge Crawford, and informed
Judge Crawford that they had his (
Judge Nelson's) sanction.
I gave you, on the 22d of March, a substantial copy of the statement I had made on the 15th.
The 30th of March arrived, and at that time a telegram came from Governor
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Pickens, inquiring concerning
Colonel Lamon, whose visit to
Charleston he supposed had a connection with the proposed evacuation of
Fort Sumter.
I left that with you, and was to have an answer the following Monday (1st of April). On the 1st of April I received from you the statement in writing, “I am satisfied the
Government will not undertake to supply
Fort Sumter without giving notice to Governor P.”
The words “I am satisfied” were for me to use as expressive of confidence in the remainder of the declaration.
The proposition, as originally prepared, was, “The President
may desire to supply
Sumter, but will not do so,” etc., and your verbal explanation was, that you did not believe any such attempt would be made, and that there was no design to reenforce
Sumter.
There was a departure here from the pledges of the previous month, but, with the verbal explanation, I did not consider it a matter then to complain of. I simply stated to you that I had that assurance previously.
On the 7th of April I addressed you a letter on the subject of the alarm that the preparations by the
Government had created, and asked you if the assurances I had given were well or ill-founded.
In respect to
Sumter, your reply was, “Faith as to
Sumter fully kept—wait and see.”
In the morning's paper I read, “An authorized messenger from
President Lincoln informed
Governor Pickens and
General Beauregard that provisions will be sent to
Fort Sumter—peaceably, or
otherwise by force.”
This was the 8th of April, at
Charleston, the day following your last assurance, and is the last evidence of the full faith I was invited to
wait for and
see. In the same paper I read that intercepted dispatches disposed the fact that
Mr. Fox, who had been allowed to visit
Major Anderson, on the pledge that his purpose was pacific, employed his opportunity to devise a plan for supplying the fort by force, and that this plan had been adopted by the
Washington Government, and was in process of execution.
My recollection of the date of
Mr. Fox's visit carries it to a day in March.
I learn he is a near connection of a member of the
Cabinet.
My connection with the commissioners and yourself was superinduced by a conversation with
Justice Nelson.
He informed me of your strong disposition in favor of peace, and that you were oppressed with a demand of the commissioners of the
Confederate States for a reply to their first letter, and that you desired to avoid it, if possible, at that time.
I told him I might perhaps be of some service in arranging the difficulty.
I came to your office entirely at his request, and without the knowledge of either of the commissioners.
Your depression was obvious to both
Judge Nelson and myself.
I was gratified at the character of the counsels you were desirous of pursuing, and much impressed with your observation that a civil war might be prevented by the success of my mediation.
You read a letter of
Mr. Weed, to show how irksome and responsible the withdrawal of troops from
Sumter was. A portion of my communication to
Judge Crawford, on the 15th of March, was founded upon these remarks, and the pledge to evacuate
Sumter is less forcible than the words you employed.
These words were, “Before this letter reaches you [a proposed letter by me to
President Davis],
Sumter will have been evacuated.”
The commissioners who received those communications conclude they have been abused and overreached.
The Montgomery Government hold the same opinion.
The commissioners have supposed that my communications were with you, and upon the [that] hypothesis were prepared to arraign you before the
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country, in connection with the
President.
I placed a peremptory prohibition upon this, as being contrary to the terms of my communications with them.
I pledged myself to them to communicate information, upon what I considered as the best authority, and they were to confide in the ability of myself, aided by
Judge Nelson, to determine upon the credibility of my informant.
I think no candid man, who will read over what I have written, and consider for a moment what is going on at
Sumter, but will agree that the equivocating conduct of the Administration, as measured and interpreted in connection with these promises, is the proximate cause of the great calamity.
I have a profound conviction that the telegrams of the 8th of April, of
General Beauregard, and of the 10th of April, of
General Walker, the
Secretary of War, can be referred to nothing else than their belief that there has been systematic duplicity practiced on them through me. It is under an impressive sense of the weight of this responsibility that I submit to you these things for your explanation.
Very respectfully,
