Identifier: abrahamlincoln05nico (find matches)
Title: Abraham Lincoln : a history
Year: 1914 (1910s)
Authors: Nicolay, John G. (John George), 1832-1901 Hay, John, 1838-1905, joint author
Subjects: Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865 Presidents
Publisher: New York : Century Co.
Contributing Library: Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection
Digitizing Sponsor: The Institute of Museum and Library Services through an Indiana State Library LSTA Grant

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dent on this impor-tant topic there is no record. From what remainswe may easily infer that the President clearly sawthe inevitable necessities surrounding the question,and was anxiously searching some method of secur-ing for the United States whatever of indirectadvantage might accrue from compliance with theBritish demand, and of making that compliance aspalatable as might be to American public opinion.In this spirit we may presume he wrote the follow-ing experimental draft of a dispatch, preserved inhis autograph manuscript. Its chief proposal is toarbitrate the difficulty, or in the alternative seri-ously to examine the question in all its aspects,and out of them to formulate a binding rule forboth nations to govern similar cases. It was anhonest and practical suggestion to turn an acci-dental quarrel into a great and durable transactionfor the betterment of international law. The dispatch of her Majestys Secretary for ForeignAffairs, dated the 30th of November, 1861, and of which
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KEAK-ADMJKAL CHAKLKS WILKES. THE teent affair 33 your Lordship kindly furnished me a copy, has been chap. n.carefully considered by the President; and he directs meto say that if there existed no fact or facts pertinent tothe case, beyond those stated in said dispatch, the rep-aration sought by Great Britain from the United Stateswould be justly due, and should be promptly made. ThePresident is unwilling to believe that her Majestys Gov-ernment will press for a categorical answer upon whatappears to him to be only a partial record, in the makingup of which he has been allowed no part. He is reluc-tant to volunteer his view of the case, with no assurancethat her Majestys Government will consent to hear him jyet this much he directs me to say, that this Governmenthas intended no affront to the British flag, or to theBritish nation; nor has it intended to force into discus-sion an embarrassing question, all which is evident bythe fact hereby asserted, that the act complained of wasdone b

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