Bancroft's analysis may be stated more briefly[258].
Seward's general instruction, Bancroft notes, bore date of April 24,
nearly a month before any foreign Power had recognized Southern
belligerent rights; it indicates "a plan by which he hoped to remove all
excuse for such action." In despatches to Dayton, Seward asserted a
twofold motive: "a sincere desire to co-operate with other progressive
nations in the melioration of the rigours of maritime war," and "to
remove every cause that any foreign Power could have for the recognition
of the insurgents as a belligerent Power[259]." This last result was not
so clear to Dayton at Paris, nor was the mechanism of operation ever
openly stated by Seward. But he did write, later, that the proposal of
accession to the Declaration of Paris was tendered "as the act of this
Federal Government, to be obligatory equally upon disloyal as upon loyal
citizens." "It did not," writes Bancroft, "require the gift of prophecy
to tell what would result in case the offer of accession on the part of
the United States should be accepted[260]."
Seward's object was to place the European nations in a position where
they, as well as the United States, would be forced to regard Southern
privateers as pirates, and treat them as such. This was a conceivable
result of the negotiation before European recognition of Southern
belligerency, but even after that recognition and after Dayton had
pointed out the impossibility of such a result, Seward pressed for the
treaty and instructed Dayton not to raise the question with France.
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