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[1] AD-F, ISLA. The resolutions are written on the back of a page of Executive Mansion stationery. On the front page appears the following notation by John Bright:
``Extract from a letter from the Honble. Chas. Sumner, dated Washington April 17th. 1863.
`` `Two days ago the President sent for me to come to him at once. When I
arrived, he said that he had been thinking of a matter on which we had often spoken, the way in which English opinion should be directed, & that he had drawn up a resolution embodying the ideas which he should hope to see adopted by public meetings in England. I inclose the resolution, in his autograph, as he gave it to me. He thought it might serve to suggest the point which he regarded as important.' ''
No record has been found of the adoption of these resolutions in England. On November 30, 1863, Sumner wrote Lincoln concerning articles in the London Post which threatened ```recognition' of the rebel slave-mongers, in the event of any reverse to the national arms.'' Sumner suggested that ``in yr message you should refer to the resolutions of Congress [reported by Sumner on February 28, 1863, expressing regret that foreign powers had not informed the confederate States that they could not expect recognition], and mention that they have been sent to Foreign Courts;---and then add to this statement the enunciation of the principle you so well expressed in the memdm. you gave to me last spring---to the effect, that, while in times past there have been nations where slavery was an incident, now, for the first time in human history a new Power presents itself & asks `recognition' in the Christian Family, whose only declared reason of separate existence is the support of slavery --- & that no such power can expect any such `recognition,' but that Christian states are bound to set their faces against it.'' (Copy, DLC-Nicolay Papers). Lincoln did not follow Sumner's suggestion by incorporating the reference in his Annual Message to Congress of December 8, 1863.