Construction and Reconstruction
While Great Britain was thus largely unsympathetic and neglectful of duty, the French government, under the usurping Emperor Louis Napoleon, was almost undisguisedly hostile. Repeatedly it strove to get other European powers to join it in forcible intervention in behalf of the Confederacy. The Emperor's object was plain. He was engaged in an invasion of Mexico, with the purpose of conquering and annexing that country, and he knew that to that end it would be necessary to get rid of the Monroe Doctrine, and to do this it would be necessary to destroy the United States. If he could secure the success of the Confederacy he would have a clear field for the establishment of a French Empire in Mexico. But he dared not intervene alone and he could not get either Great Britain or Russia to join him, though he besought them both to do so; so he had to be content with giving Confederate agents all the hospitality he could show them, and giving to Confederate cruisers the freedom of his ports.
With the French campaign in Mexico it was not possible at once to deal. All our available troops were needed on our own side of the Rio Grande. But Republican diplomacy was not negligent. Seward, Secretary of State, instructed our Minister at Paris, William L. Dayton, to make it quite clear to the French government that while we had of course no objections to France's collecting her just pecuniary claims against Mexico, that being the ostensible purpose of her invasion of that country, we could not acquiesce in any action which would change the form of government of that country or deprive it of its independence. Despite this warning Louis Napoleon persisted in his schemes and put the Hapsburg Archduke, Maximilian, upon
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