THE REMINISCENCES OF CARL SCHURZ
of territory, or any special advantage, and not to exercise in the internal affairs of Mexico any influences of a nature to prejudice the right of the Mexican nation to choose and to constitute freely the form of its government.” Louis Napoleon and Her Catholic Majesty no doubt accepted this clause with a mental reservation of far more than ordinary comprehensiveness.
The attitude taken by the Government of the United States was eminently prudent. Mr. Seward instructed me to say to Don Calderon Collantes that “the United States, by reason of their position as a neighbor of Mexico, and the republican form of their constitution, similar to that of Mexico, deemed it important to their own safety and welfare that no European or other foreign power should subjugate that country and hold it as a conquest, establishing there a government of whatever form, independent of the voluntary choice of its people. The United States, however, did not question the right of Spain, or of France, or of Great Britain, to levy war against Mexico for the redress of injuries sustained by the invading state, and of the justice of the war such state might rightfully judge for itself.” And finally, “the United States did not question the right of the invading states to combine as allies.” I was also instructed to say that, “having had some reason to suppose that the ground of the hostilities which Great Britain and France were preparing to institute against Mexico was the sequestration of the revenues of that country, which had been pledged to the payment of the interest due upon bonds of the Mexican Government held by subjects of Great Britain and France, the United States had made overtures to those two powers and to Mexico, to relieve the controversy by assuring the payment of the interest of those bonds for a term of years, but had, so far, received no answer from either party
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