now,
and it will continue to be so maintained, and therefore we expect it to be
respected by Great Britain. You will add that we have already revoked the
exequatur of a Russian consul who had enlisted in the military service of
the insurgents, and we shall dismiss or demand the recall of every foreign
agent, consular or diplomatic, who shall either disobey the Federal laws
or disown the Federal authority.

As to the recognition of the so-called Southern Confederacy, it is not
to be made a subject of technical definition. It is, of course, [quasi]
direct recognition to publish an acknowledgment of the sovereignty and
independence of a new power. It is [quasi] direct recognition to receive
its ambassadors, ministers, agents, or commissioners officially.
A concession of belligerent rights is liable to be construed as a
recognition of them. No one of these proceedings will [be borne] pass
[unnoticed] unquestioned by the United States in this case.

Hitherto recognition has been moved only on the assumption that the
so-called Confederate States are de facto a self-sustaining power. Now,
after long forbearance, designed to soothe discontent and avert the need
of civil war, the land and naval forces of the United States have been put
in motion to repress the insurrection. The true character of the pretended
new State is at once revealed. It is seen to be a power existing in
pronunciamento only, It has never won a field. It has obtained no forts
that were not virtually betrayed into its hands or seized in breach of
trust. It commands not a single port on the coast nor any highway out from
its pretended capital by land. Under these circumstances Great Britain is
called upon to intervene and give it body and independence by resisting
our measures of suppression. British recognition would be British
intervention to create within our own territory a hostile state by
overthrowing this republic itself. [When this act of intervention is
distinctly performed, we from that hour shall cease to be friends, and
become once more, as we have twice before been forced to be, enemies of
Great Britain.]

As to the treatment of privateers in the insurgent service, you will say
that this is a question exclusively our own. We treat them as pirates.
They are our own citizens, or persons employed by our citizens, preying
on the commerce of our country. If Great Britain shall choose to recognize
them as lawful belligerents, and give them shelter fr