After making these statements, Messrs. Forsyth and Crawford close their
communication, as they say, in obedience to the instructions of their
Government, by requesting the Secretary of State 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.
The Secretary of State frankly confesses that he understands the events
which have recently occurred, and the condition of political affairs
which actually exists in the part of the Union to which his attention
has thus been directed, very differently from the aspect in which they
are presented by Messrs. Forsyth and Crawford. He sees in them, not a
rightful and accomplished revolution and an independent nation, with an
established Government, but rather a perversion of a temporary and
partisan excitement to the inconsiderate purposes of an unjustifiable
and unconstitutional aggression upon the rights and the authority vested
in the Federal Government, and hitherto benignly exercised, as from
their very nature they always must so be exercised, for the maintenance
of the Union, the preservation of liberty, and the security, peace,
welfare, happiness, and aggrandizement of the American people. The
Secretary of State, therefore, avows to Messrs. Forsyth and Crawford
that he looks patiently, but confidently, for the cure of evils which
have resulted from proceedings so unnecessary, so unwise, so unusual,
and so unnatural, not to irregular negotiations, having in view new and
untried relations with agencies unknown to and acting in derogation of
the Constitution and laws, but to regular and considerate action of the
people of those States, in cooeperation with their brethren in the other
States, through the Congress of the United States, and such
extraordinary conventions, if there shall be need thereof, as the
Federal Constitution contemplates and authorizes to be assembled.
Pages:
1069
1070
1071
1072
1073
1074
1075
1076
1077
1078
1079
1080
1081
1082
1083
1084
1085
1086
1087
1088
1089
1090
1091
1092
1093