The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864, page 179 by Various Authors
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xas to Tehuantepec, would, Mexico having abolished Slavery, have become Free States. I believed also that the permanent occupation and annexation of Mexico would have forever settled all the dangers of the Slavery question, because it would have flanked the Slave States of the Southwest, by many powerful Free States adjacent on the Southwest, containing already seven millions of people, most of whom were of the colored race, and who would have fought to the last against the reëstablishment of Slavery.
Yet, strong and decided as is my opposition to the course of Napoleon on the Mexican as well as the Confederate question, I believe that the policy of Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Seward on this question has been marked by great courage, devoted patriotism, and the highest statesmanship. I am not for mingling this or any other question of foreign or domestic policy with the maintenance of the Union, but have only answered the assaults of adversaries on the Mexican and other subordinate issues. This, however, I must say: that the treaty with Mexico, by which we abandoned that country, having been ratified, I am opposed to any violation of its provisions. While I adhere to the opinions expressed at the time by me against that treaty; while I am opposed to forcing Mexico into our Union, I believe that Napoleon the Third, unwittingly, by his invasion, has caused Mexico soon to gravitate, by the overwhelming wish of her people, into the arms of the great Republic. Thus is it that the French invasion will have settled forever in our favor the question of the American equilibrium.
I have published the views expressed in these letters on consultation with no one. They are my own individual opinions, and I only am responsible for them. It is quite possible that the Administration may differ from some of them, but I am just as independent of the Administration as they are of me. I am not, and never was, a Republican of 1856 or 1860, and while I have been falsely charged in Europe with abandoning my free-trade princi