At the Court of St. James

1860. July 24.–Judge Longstreet has issued a letter addressed to the International Statistical Congress about their gross conduct in applauding Lord Brougham. It is printed in the Morning Chronicle, and evinces considerable ability and tact. I shall not be surprised if, on this sensitive topic, my countrymen, who never can be rational about it, should consider me as having too tranquilly submitted to the remark of Brougham. One of them here wishes I had “jumped to my feet and knocked the old blackguard down!” This is not “ma manure d’agir.” First, it would have been great folly to imply, by word or act, that the question of slavery in the United States could legitimately be discussed before the American Minister at a European Congress of any sort. Second, the Congress was unanimously and vociferously hostile; the words of Brougham were cheered loudly; it was palpable that the act was the result of a contrivance between Brougham and his associate to get up an altercation between the latter and myself, which was defeated by my treating the movement with silence. Third, quitting the room was impossible, because my doing so was physically impeded, and would instantly have been followed by loud and prolonged indignities. Fourth, to attempt, at a moment of sudden astonishment and indignation, to vindicate the United States from the slur thrown out, would have been extremely imprudent and AT hazardous; no man is authorized to commit his country in a manner so unprepared. Fifth, my individual opinion as to the races being unequal in intellect is strong, but the point has never been studied, and could not be handled in the slightest manner without exhibiting weakness. Sixth, a foreign Minister cannot be justified or excused in taking the attitude of a public declaimer in a Congress where he was only an invited guest, and where such a topic was not only not to be anticipated, but wholly out of order. Indeed, such are my convictions that I have thanked Heaven frequently and profoundly that I had presence of mind enough to take the course I did. Brougham has attempted in the very Congress itself, and only two days after his extravagance, a feeble and unsatisfactory apology; he has sought me that he might apologize in person, and has been turned from the door. He is now perpetually inculcating that what he did was not intended to be disrespectful to me or the United States, and that it should be regarded as insignificant.