Two of the three commissioners the Confederate Government had appointed to treat with the United States, John Forsythe of Alabama and Martin J. Crawford of Georgia, arrived in Washington, DC. They requested a meeting with new Secretary of State Seward on March 11, 1861. Four days later, in a memorandum, Seward rejected the overture, and told them that the Confederate States were not a foreign power and he "could not recognize them as diplomatic agents, or hold correspondence or other communication with them." (By John Osborne)