The principal ground of protest is founded on the idea, or in the allegation, that the government of the United States, by the mission of Mr. Mann and his instructions, has interfered in the domestic affairs of Austria in a manner unjust or disrespectful toward that power.  The President’s message was a communication made by him to the Senate, transmitting a correspondence between the executive government and a confidential agent of its own.  This would seem to be itself a domestic transaction, a mere instance of intercourse between the President and the Senate, in the manner which is usual and indispensable in communications between the different branches of the government.  It was not addressed either to Austria or Hungary; nor was it a public manifesto, to which any foreign state was called on to reply.  It was an account of its transactions communicated by the executive government to the Senate, at the request of that body; made public, indeed, but made public only because such is the common and usual course of proceeding.  It may be regarded as somewhat strange, therefore, that the Austrian Cabinet did not perceive that, by the instructions given to Mr. Huelsemann, it was itself interfering with the domestic concerns of a foreign state, the very thing which is the ground of its complaint against the United States.

This department has, on former occasions, informed the ministers of foreign powers, that a communication from the President to either house of Congress is regarded as a domestic communication, of which, ordinarily, no foreign state has cognizance; and in more recent instances, the great inconvenience of making such communications the subject of diplomatic correspondence and discussion has been fully shown.  If it had been the pleasure of his Majesty, the Emperor of Austria, during the struggles in Hungary, to have admonished the provisional government or the people of that country against involving themselves in disaster, by following the evil and dangerous example of the United States of America in making efforts for the establishment of independent governments, such an admonition from that sovereign to his Hungarian subjects would not have originated here a diplomatic correspondence.  The President might, perhaps, on this ground, have declined to direct any particular reply to Mr. Huelsemann’s note; but out of proper respect for the Austrian government, it has been thought better to answer that note at length; and the more especially, as the occasion is not unfavorable for the expression of the general sentiments of the government of the United States upon the topics which that note discusses.