In May, 1861, all looked with anxiety to the letter by which the United
States of America should reply to Great Britain furnishing the
Confederated States with its first encouragement, the rights of
belligerents. Without them their privateers were useless, as they could
have gone into no ports and sold their prizes nowhere. Mr. Seward was
in touch with the New England school. It clamored for war with any
friend to the revolting States. But Lincoln corrected what was
provocative in the original advice to our minister, Adams, at St.
James'. The English were no longer held to have issued a proclamation
without due grounds in usage or the law of nations. It became by the
modification no more a proceeding about which we could warrantably go
to war. For instance, the President changed the words "wrongful" into
"hurtful." According to Webster, wrongful means unjust, injurious,
dishonest; while hurtful implies that the course will cause injury. The
original has vanished in that odd but certain way in which state
documents disappear when casting odium on public men; they are mayhap
"filed away"--in the stove!
* * * * *