Mr. Clay to Mr. Seward
Sir: Your despatch No. 183, enclosing letters to the governor elect and to the provisional governor of Alabama, is received, and they have all been read with great pleasure.
Whilst no one would have been more pleased than myself to see the question of negro and all other suffrage finally settled, I am forced to believe that the President is following a legitimate and necessary policy in allowing the return of the rebel States into the Union so soon as they purge themselves of treason. I have always held, as you know, that rebellion could not destroy a State except by successful revolution, and armed force being suppressed, the original status quo revives.
I claim to have conceived and expressed this idea by the dictum that “if one loyal citizen remained, he is the State.” The Union once restored, we may [Page 402] safely leave subordinate issues to time and to the good sense of the American people.
Trusting that the President may succeed in the pacific and legal policy which he has, thus far, so successfully initiated, I should yet deem it a mistake if some eminent example was not made of those who have attempted in our system State rights, secession, and Mexican pronunciamientos.
I am, sir, your most obedient servant,
Hon. William h. Seward, Secretary of State, Washington, D. C.