BRUSSELS, May 9, 1864.
His Excellency JEFFERSON DAVIS,
President Confederate States of America:
Mr. PRESIDENT: Herewith I have the honor to transmit the letter which His Holiness Pope Pius IX addressed to Your Excellency on the 3d of December last. Mr. W. Jefferson Buchanan has obligingly undertaken its conveyance and will deliver it in person.
This letter will grace the archives of the Executive Office in all coming time. It will live forever in story as the production of the first potentate who formally recognized your official position and accorded to one of the diplomatic representatives of the Confederate States an audience in an established court palace, like that of St. James or the Tuileries.
I have the honor to be, with the most distinguished consideration, Your Excellency’s obedient servant, A. DUDLEY MANN
Pope Pius IX to "
Illustrious and Hon. Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America"-
"
Illustrious and honorable sir, greeting:
We have lately received with all kindness, as was meet, the gentlemen sent by your Excellency to present to us your letter dated on the 23d of last September. We have received certainly no small pleasure in learning both from these gentlemen and from your letter the feelings of gratification and of very warm appreciation with which you, illustrious and honorable sir, were moved when you first had knowledge written in October of the preceding year to the venerable brethren, John, archbishop of New York, and John, archbishop of New Orleans, in which we again and again urged and exhorted those venerable brethren that because of their exemplary piety and episcopal zeal they should employ their most earnest efforts, in our name also, in order that the fatal civil war which had arisen in the States should end, and that the people of America might again enjoy mutual peace and concord, and love each other with mutual charity. And it has been very gratifying to us to recognize, illustrious and honorable sir, that you and your people are animated by the same desire for peace and tranquility, which we had so earnestly inculcated in our aforesaid letters to the venerable brethren above named. Oh, that the other people also of the States and their rulers, considering seriously how cruel and how deplorable is this intercine war, would receive and embrace the councils of peace and tranquility. We indeed shall not cease with most fervent prayer to beseech God, the best and highest, and to implore Him to pour out the spirit of Christian love and peace upon all the people of America, and to rescue them from the great calamities with which they are afflicted. And we also pray the same most merciful Lord that he will illumine your Excellency with the light of His divine grace and unite you with ourselves in perfect charity.
Given at Rome at St. Peters on the 3d December, 1863, in the eighteenth year of our Pontificate.
PIUS P. P. IX.
[Addressed to:] Illustrious and Hon. JEFFERSON DAVIS,
President of the Confederate States of America, Richmond."
http://0-cdl.library.cornell.edu.sou...IF&pagenum=975
also-
http://0-cdl.library.cornell.edu.sou...3DANU4519-0129
~
Cardinal Antonelli (Vatican Secretary of State) to "A. Dudley Mann, J. M. Mason, John Slidell, Commissioners of the Confederate States of America"-
"ROME, December 2, 1864.
HONORABLE GENTLEMEN: Your colleague, Mr. Soutter, has handed me your letter of 11th November, with which, in conformity with the instructions of your Government, you have sent me a copy of the manifesto issued by the
Congress of the Confederate States and approved by the most honorable President, in order that the attention of the government of the Holy See, to whom, as well as to the other Governments, you have addressed yourselves, might be called to it. The sentiments expressed in the manifesto tending, as they do, to the cessation of the most bloody war which still rages in your
countries and the putting an end to the disasters which accompany it by proceeding to negotiations for peace, being entirely in accordance with the disposition and character of the august head of the Catholic Church, I did not hesitate a moment in bringing it to the notice of the Holy Father.
His Holiness, who has been deeply afflicted by the accounts of the frightful carnage of this obstinate struggle, has heard with satisfaction the expression of the same sentiments; being the vicar on earth of that God who is the author of peace, he yearns to see these wraths appeased and peace restored. In proof of this he wrote to the archbishops of New York and New Orleans as far back as 18th October, 1862, inviting them to exert themselves in bringing about this holy object. You may then, honorable gentlemen, feel well assured that whenever a favorable occasion shall present itself, his Holiness will not fail to avail himself of it to hasten so desirable a result and that all nations may be united in the bonds of charity.
In acquainting you with this benignant disposition of the Holy Father, I am pleased to declare myself with sentiments of the most distinguished esteem.
Truly, your servant, G. Car. ANTONELLI. [DELIA S. S. L’I’MO.]
Messrs. A. DUDLEY MANN, J. M. MASON, JOHN SLIDELL,
Commissioners of the Confederate States of America, Paris." http://0-cdl.library.cornell.edu.sou...F&pagenum=1249
~
Comparison / British reply to same
manifesto-
Lord John Russell (British Secretary of State), to "John Slidell, Esq., J. M. Mason, Esq., and A. Dudley Mann, Esq."-
"FOREIGN OFFICE, November 25, 1864.
GENTLEMEN: I have had the honor to receive the copy which you have sent me of the manifesto issued by the Congress of the
so-called Confederate States of America....
....RUSSELL.
JOHN SLIDELL, Esq, J. M. MASON, Esq., and A. DUDLEY MANN, Esq."
http://0-cdl.library.cornell.edu.sou...F&pagenum=1246
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