a monarchy in Mexico. In the House, a joint resolution which Davis
submitted was passed without one dissenting vote. When it came to the
Senate, Sumner buried it as he had buried earlier resolutions. None the
less it went out to the world attended by the news of the unanimous vote
in the House.
Shortly afterwards, the American Ambassador at Paris called upon the
imperial Foreign Secretary, M. Drouyn de L'huys. News of this resolution
had preceded him. He was met by the curt question, "Do you bring peace
or war?" Again, the Washington Government was skillfully evasive. The
Ambassador was instructed to explain that the resolution had not been
inspired by the President and "the French Government would be seasonably
apprized of any change of policy...which the President might at any
future time think it proper to adopt."
There seems little doubt that Lincoln's course was very widely condemned
as timid. When we come to the political campaign of 1864, we shall
meet Henry Winter Davis among his most relentless personal enemies.
Dissatisfaction with Lincoln's Mexican policy has not been sufficiently
considered in accounting for the opposition to him, inside the war
party, in 1864. To it may be traced an article in the platform of the
war party, adopted in June, 1864, protesting against the establishment
of monarchy "in near proximity to the United States." In the same month
Maximilian entered Mexico City.
The subsequent moves of Napoleon are explained elsewhere.* The central
fact in the story is his virtual change of attitude, in the summer of
1864. The Confederate agent at Paris complained of a growing coolness.
Before the end of the summer, the Confederate Secretary of State was
bitter in his denunciation of Napoleon for having deserted the South.
Napoleon's puppet Maximilian refused to receive an envoy from the
Confederacy. Though Washington did not formally protest against
the presence of Maximilian in Mexico, it declined to recognize his
Government, and that Government continued unrecognized at Washington
throughout the war.
*Nathaniel W. Stephenson, "The Day of the Confederacy". (In
"The Chronicles of America").
CHAPTER XIII. THE PLEBISCITE OF 1864
Every great revolution among Anglo-Saxon people--perhaps among all
people--has produced strange types of dreamers. In America, however,
neither section could claim a monopoly of such types, and even the
latter-day visionaries who can see everything
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