Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 1.djvu/512

474 to nothing less than a proposition that, while this government is engaged in suppressing an armed insurrection, with the purpose of maintaining the constitutional national authority, and preserving the integrity of the country, it shall enter into diplomatic discussion with the insurgents whether that authority shall not be renounced, and whether the country shall not be delivered over to disunion to be quickly followed by an ever-increasing anarchy.&quot; Replying further, Mr. Seward objected to the mode of reconciliation by a board of commissioners, and called attention to the existence of the Congress of the United States as the proper body where all the interests of all States could be debated. The congressional form of conference, and not the commission proposed by France, would be in his opinion in compliance with the Constitution of the United States. The United States Congress immediately discussed the correspondence and passed resolutions to be transmitted to all foreign countries, declaring &quot;every proposition of foreign interference in the present contest as so far unreasonable and inadmissible; that its only explanation will be found in a misunderstanding of the true state of the question and the real character of the war in which the Republic is engaged. Thus a blundering diplomacy conspired with the behests of party policy to cut down the growing hope of national peace.

The relations between the Confederate States and foreign nations had grown more unsatisfactory to the struggling people of the new nation, notwithstanding the several controversies which at times threatened conflict between the United States and Great Britain. The Confederate government and people became convinced that Mr. Yancey correctly stated their case on his return from Europe, in saying that no hope of aid from foreign sources could be entertained until the South had virtually won the battle by its armies.

One apparently serious and early subject of diplomatic