THE REMINISCENCES OF CARL SCHURZ
back into the Union, a plan so amazing in its fatuity that nobody would believe its conception possible, were it not on undeniable record.
I have already mentioned that paper addressed by Seward to President Lincoln in which he proposed that the slavery question be put out of sight, and that categorical inquiries be thrust at France, Great Britain, Russia, and Spain, such as ordinarily are followed by a declaration of war,—his idea being that conflicts with foreign powers would serve to excite in the seceded States an enthusiastic national outburst, an America-against-the-world-furor in the South as well as the North, sufficiently strong to make the Southern people forget their quarrel with the North and to range them and the Northern brethren side by side in a common fight against the foreigner. And this at the moment when nothing would have delighted the Southern secessionists more than to see the Union entangled in a conflict with a strong foreign power, which foreign power would then have been the natural ally of the Confederacy! How anyone could hope that, under such circumstances, an actual conflict between those powers and the United States, the very thing our secessionists ardently desired in the interest of Southern independence, would re-unite the South and the North in a common national enthusiasm, passes understanding.
When Lincoln had buried in discreet and generous silence Seward's policy of war against the world, Seward contented himself with making foreign governments understand that they could not recognize the Southern Confederacy as an independent nation without incurring the active resentment of the United States. He did this in language which was always earnest and eloquent, and sometimes even rose to oratorical fervor. This was well as far as it went, and no doubt had the
[ 280 ]
