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. If we could dare
to believe that foreign nations are actuated by no higher principle than
this, I am quite sure a sound argument could be made to show them that
they can reach their aim more readily and easily by aiding to crush this
rebellion than by giving encouragement to it.

"The principal lever relied on by these insurgents for exciting foreign
nations to hostility against us, as already intimated, is the
embarrassment of commerce. Those nations, however, not improbably saw
from the first that it was the Union which made as well our foreign as
our domestic commerce. They can scarcely have failed to perceive that
the effort for disunion produces the existing difficulty; and that one
strong nation promises more durable peace and a more extensive,
valuable, and reliable commerce than can the same nation broken into
hostile fragments.

"It is not my purpose to review our discussions with foreign states;
because, whatever might be their wishes or dispositions, the integrity
of our country and the stability of our