well-settled principles of national
intercourse, and the doctrines of public law.

The undersigned will first observe, that the President is persuaded his
Majesty, the Emperor of Austria, does not think that the government of
the United States ought to view with unconcern the extraordinary events
which have occurred, not only in his dominions, but in many other parts
of Europe, since February, 1848. The government and people of the United
States, like other intelligent governments and communities, take a
lively interest in the movements and the events of this remarkable age,
in whatever part of the world they may be exhibited. But the interest
taken by the United States in those events has not proceeded from any
disposition to depart from that neutrality toward foreign powers, which
is among the deepest principles and the most cherished traditions of the
political history of the Union. It has been the necessary effect of the
unexampled character of the events themselves, which could not fail to
arrest the attention of the contemporary world, as they will doubtless
fill a memorable page in history.

But the undersigned goes further, and freely admits that, in proportion
as these extraordinary events appeared to have their origin in those
great ideas of responsible and popular government, on which the American
constitutions themselves are wholly founded, they could not but command
the warm sympathy of the people of this country. Well-known
circumstances in their history, indeed their whole history, have made
them the representatives of purely popular principles of government. In
this light they now stand before the world. They could not, if they
would, conceal their character, their condition, or their destiny. They
could not, if they so desired, shut out from the view of mankind the
causes which have placed them, in so short a national career, in the
station which they now hold among the civilized states of the world.
They could not, if they desired it, suppress either the thoughts or the
hopes which arise in men's minds, in other countries, from contemplating
their successful example of free government. That very intelligent and
distinguished personage, the Emperor Joseph the Second, was among the
first to discern this necessary consequence of the American Revolution
on the sentiments and opinions of the people of Europe. In a letter to
his minister in the Netherlands in 1787, he observes, that "it is
remarkable that