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 on March 5, 1861. A week later they requested a meeting with new Secretary of State Seward. 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)
Source Citation
Benson J. Lossing, Pictorial History of the Civil War in the United States of America (Mansfield, OH: Estill & Co., 1866), 301.
Record Data
Date Certainty
Exact
Type
Lawmaking/Litigating
