The behavior and
the proposal of terms, which constituted a practical exclusion of the
United States from the benefits of the Treaty of Paris, certainly
involved something of indignity; but in this the country had no actual
_rights_; and to speak frankly, since she had refused to come in when
invited, she could hardly complain of an inhospitable reception when,
under the influence of immediate and stringent self-interest, her
diplomatists saw fit to change their course. So, on the whole, it is not
to be denied that delicate and novel business in the untried department
of foreign diplomacy was managed with great skill, under trying
circumstances. A few months later, in his message to Congress, at the
beginning of December, 1861, the President referred to our foreign
relations in the following paragraphs:--
"The disloyal citizens of the United States, who have offered the ruin
of our country in return for the aid and comfort which they have invoked
abroad, have received less patronage and encouragement than they
probably expected. If it were just to suppose, as the insurgents have
seemed to assume, that foreign nations, in this case, discarding all
moral, social, and treaty obligations, would act solely and selfishly
for the speedy restoration of commerce, including especially the
acquisition of cotton, those nations appear as yet not to have seen
their way to their object more directly or clearly through the
destruction than through the preservation of the Union.
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