LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 1 
 
 Shelf ...Oidl 
 
 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 
 
v^ 
 
 
OUR FOREIGN RELATIONS: 
 
 PRESENT PERILS FROM ENGLAND AND FRANCE ; THE NATUEE AND 
 CONDITIONS OF INTERVENTION BY MEDIATION ; AND ALSO BY 
 RECOGNITION; THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF ANY RECOGNITION 
 OF A NEW POWER WITH SLAVERY AS A CORNER- 
 STONE ; AND THE WRONGFUL CONCESSION 
 OF OCEAN BELLIGERENCY. 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 HON. CHARLES SUMNER. 
 
 BEFOEE THE 
 
 CITIZENS OF NEW YORK, AT THE COOPER INSTITUTE, 
 
 SEPT. 10, 186 
 
 
 ■Jam non ad culmina rerum 
 
 
 In just 09 crcvisse queror. Tolluntur in altum 
 Ut fapsu graviore ruant. 
 
 — Claudian. 
 
 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 YOUNG MEN'S REPUBLICAN UNION. 
 1 8G3. 
 
"To this condition the Constitution of this Confederacy reduces the whole African race; and 
 while declaring these to be its principles, their founders claim the privilege of being admitted 
 into the society of the nations of the earth ! — principles worthy only of being conceived and 
 promulgated by the inmates of the infernal regions, and a fit constitution for a confederacy 
 in Pandemonium! Now, as soon as the nature of this constitution is truly explained and 
 understood, is it2)ossible that the nations of the earth can admit such a Confederacy into their 
 society ? Can any nation, calling itself civilized, associate, with any sense of self-respect, with 
 a nation avowing and practicing such principles t "Will not every civilized nation, when the 
 ■nature of this Confederacy is understood, come to the side of the United States, and refuse 
 all association with them, as, in truth, they are hostes humani generis ? For the African 
 is as much entitled to be protected in the rights of humanity as any other portion of the 
 human race. As to Great Britain, her course is, in the nature of things, already fixed and 
 immutable. She must, sooner or later, join the United States in this war, or be disgraced 
 throughout all future time ; for the principle of that civilization which this Confederacy repu- 
 diates was by her — to her great glory, and with unparalleled sacrifices — introduced into the 
 code of civilization ; and she will prove herself recreant if she fails to maintain it." — Speech 
 of Hon. Josiah Quincy, to the Union Club of Boston. 
 
 Wright <fc Potter, Printers, Ko. 4 Spring Lane, Boston. 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 The following Speech was delivered at the invitation of the New York Young 
 Men's Republican Union, at Cooper Institute, on the 10th of September, 18G3. 
 The announcement that Mr. Sumner had consented to address the citizens of 
 New York on a subject so momentous attracted an audience numbering not less 
 than three thousand persons, among whom were most of the acknowledged repre- 
 sentatives of the intelligence, wealth and influence of the Metropolis. Loiv 
 before the hour appointed for the delivery of the speech, the entrance doors 
 were besieged by an impatient and anxious crowd, who, as soon as the gates 
 were opened, filled the seats, aisles, lobbies and platform of the vast hall, leaving 
 at least an equal number to return home unable to gain an entrance to the 
 building. 
 
 Of the following named gentlemen, who were invited to occupy seats upon 
 the platform, a majority were present, while in the auditorium were seated 
 hundreds of equally prominent citizens, who preferred to retain seats near the 
 ladies whom they had escorted to the meeting : — 
 
 Francis Lieber, LL. D., 
 ' George Bancroft, 
 Major-General, Dix, 
 Horace Greeley, 
 Gh;oi:ge Griswold, 
 John E. Williams, 
 W. W. De Forest, 
 Cornelius Vanderbilt, 
 A n ram Wakeman, 
 Rev. Dr. Tyng, 
 Cyrus W. Field, 
 Alex. T. Stewart, 
 Horace Webster, LL. D., 
 Joseph Lawrence, 
 John A. Stevens, 
 Pelatiah Perit, 
 James A. Hamilton, 
 H. B. Claflin, 
 T. L. Thornell, 
 Col. William Borden, 
 "William Goodell, 
 Rev. Dr. Thompson, 
 Rev. Dr. Gillette, 
 William Cullen Bryant, 
 Major-Geneual Fremont, 
 A. A. Low, 
 John Jay, 
 Henry Grinnell, 
 James Gallatin, 
 Cephas Brainerd, 
 William B. Astor, 
 
 William H. Aspinwall, 
 Oliver Johnson, 
 ,\V. M. Evarts, 
 William Curtis No yes 
 Rev. Dr. Hitchcock, 
 Shepherd Knapp, 
 William H. Webb, 
 James W. Gerard, 
 Anson Livingston, 
 Frank W. Ballard, 
 Isaac H. Bailey, 
 George B. Lincoln, 
 Gen. Harvey Brown, 
 Rev. Dr. Shedd, 
 Rev. Dr. Durbin, 
 Peter Cooper, 
 Major-Gen. Doubleday, 
 Charles H. Marshall, 
 Marshall O. Roberts, 
 Judge Bradford, 
 Charles II. Russell, 
 
 E. Delafield Smith, 
 Hamilton Fish, 
 Robert B. Minturn, 
 Rev. Dr. Cheever, 
 
 F. B. Cutting, 
 Charles King, LL. D., 
 Rev. Dr. Ferris, 
 Ex-Governor King, 
 George Folsom, 
 Samuel B. Rcggles, 
 
 S. B. Chittenden, 
 Charles 'IVRodgers, 
 Mark Hoyt, 
 Lewis Tappan, 
 Rev. Dr. Storks, 
 Rev. Dr. Adams, 
 Rev. Dr. Vinton, 
 Daniel Drew, 
 Francis Hall, 
 Geo. William Curtis, 
 Judge Edmonds. 
 Rev. Dr. Asa D. Smith, 
 Truman Smith, 
 William A. Hall, 
 Prosper M. Wetmore, 
 B. F. Manierre, 
 George P. Putnam, 
 E. C. Johnson, 
 Rev. Dr. Osgood, 
 Elliott C. Cowdin, 
 Rev. T. Ralston Smith, 
 J. S. Schultz, 
 M. Armstrong, Jr., 
 D. A. Hawkins, 
 Edgar Ketchum, 
 Joseph Hoxik, 
 Rev. Dr. Bellows, 
 Gen. S. C. Pomeroy, 
 James McKaye, 
 George F. Butman, 
 David Dudley Field. 
 
 The President of the United States and the members of the Cabinet were also 
 invited to be present. 
 
At least one thousand ladies were 3n the audience, among whom Mrs. Lincoln 
 was an attractive and conspicuous personage. The wives and daughters of many 
 of New York's wealthiest and worthiest citizens, by their presence and enthusiasm 
 evinced the deep interest they felt in the occasion, the speaker, and the theme 
 discussed. 
 
 David Dudley Fif.ld, Esq., who had been- selected by the Committee as 
 Chairman of the meeting, introduced Mr. S0MNER to the audience in the 
 following words : — 
 
 REMARKS OF MR. FIELD. 
 
 LADIES and Gentlemen : — At no former period in the history of the coun- 
 try, has the condition of its foreign relations been so important and so critical as 
 it is at this moment. In what agony of mortal struggle this nation has passed 
 the last two years, we. all know. A rebellion of unparalleled extent, of inde- 
 scribable enormity, without any justifiable cause, without even a decent pretext, 
 stimulated by the bad passions which a barbarous institution had originated, and 
 encouraged by expected and promised aid from false men among ourselves, 
 has filled the land with desolation and mourning. During this strusrsle it has 
 been our misfortune to encounter the evil disposition of the - two nations of 
 Western Europe, with which we are most closely associated by ties of blood, 
 common history, and mutual commerce. Perhaps I ought to have said, the evil 
 disposition of the Governments rather than of the Nations, for in France the 
 people have no voice, and we know only the imperial will and policy, while in 
 England the masses have no powers, the House of Commons being elected by 
 a I'r iction of the people, and the aristocratic classes being against us from dislike 
 to the freedom of our institutions, and the mercantile classes from the most sordid 
 motives of private gain. To what extent this evil disposition has been earned, 
 what causes have stimulated it, in what acts it has manifested itself, and what 
 consequences may be expected to follow from it in future, will be explained by 
 the distinguished orator who is to address you this ^evening. His position, as 
 Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, has given him an 
 acquaintance with the subject, equal, if not superior, to that of any other person 
 in the country. He needs no introduction from me. His name is an introduc- 
 tion and a passport in any free community between the Atlantic and the Pa< ifi'c 
 Seas ; therefore, without saying more, I Avill give way for Charles Sumner, of 
 Massachusetts. 
 
 Amid the most marked demonstrations of satisfaction, expressed frequently 
 by long-continued applause and hearty cheers, Mr. Sumner proceeded in the 
 delivery of his discourse. The meeting adjourned about an hour before 
 midnight. 
 
 It may be proper to add, as an evidence of the importance attached to Mr. 
 Sumxer's treatment of the subject, that three New York newspapers, and two 
 in Boston, printed the entire speech on the day following its delivery. 
 
 Copies of the speech will be mailed to those who may request them. Address 
 "Cor. Sec'y of Young Men's Republican Union, Box 1219 P. O. New York 
 City." 
 
SPEECH. 
 
 Fellow-Citizens, — From the beginning of the war in which we 
 are ( now engaged, the public interest has alternated anxiously 
 between the current of events at home and the more distant 
 current abroad. Foreign Relations have been hardly less absorb- 
 ing tban Domestic Relations. At times the latter have seemed 
 to wait upon the former, and a packet from Europe has been like 
 a messenger from the seat of war. Rumors of Foreign Interven- 
 tion are constant, now in the form of Mediation, and now in the 
 form of Recognition ; and more than once the country has been 
 summoned to confront the idea of England, and of France too, 
 in open combination with Rebel Slave-mongers battling, in the 
 name of Slavery, to build an infamous Power on the destruction 
 of this Republic. 
 
 It may be well for us to turn aside from battle and siege here 
 at home — from the blazing lines of Gettysburg, Vicksburg and 
 Charleston — to glance for a moment at the perils from abroad ; of 
 course I mean from England and France, for these are the only 
 Foreign Powers that thus far have been moved to intermeddle on 
 the side of Slavery. The subject to which I now invite attention 
 may not have the attraction of waving standards or victorious 
 marches, but, more than any conflict of arms, it concerns the Civil- 
 ization of the age. If Foreign Powers can justly interfere against 
 Human Freedom, this Republic will not be the only sufferer. 
 
 There is always a natural order in unfolding a subject, and I 
 shall try to pursue it on this occasion, under the following heads; 
 
 First — The perils to our country from Foreign Powers, especially 
 as foreshadowed in the unexpected and persistent conduct of 
 England and France since the outbreak of the war. 
 
 Secondly — The nature of Foreign Intervention by Mediation, 
 with the principles applicable thereto, as illustrated by historic 
 instances — showing especially how England, by her conspicuous, 
 wide-spread and most determined Intervention to promote the 
 extinction of African Slavery, is irrevocably committed against 
 any act or policy tin it can encourage this criminal pretension. 
 
 Thirdly — The nature of Foreign Intervention by Recognition, 
 with the principles applicable thereto, as illustrated by historic 
 
instances — showing that by the practice of nations, and especially 
 by the declared sentiments of British Statesmen, there can be no 
 Foreign Recognition of an insurgent Power ivhere the contest for 
 Independence is still pending. 
 
 Fourthly — The moral impossibility of Foreign Recognition, even 
 if the pretended Power be de facto Independent, where it is com- 
 posed of Rebel Slave-mongers seeking to found a new Power with 
 Slavery for its declared " corner-stone." Pardon the truthful 
 plainness of the terms which I employ. I am to speak not 
 merely of Slave-holders ; but of people to whom Slavery is a 
 passion and a business — therefore Slave-mongers ; now in Rebel- 
 lion for the sake of Slavery — therefore Rebel Slave-mongers. 
 
 Fifthly — The absurdity and wrong of conceding Ocean Bellig- 
 erency to a pretended Power, which, in the first place, is without 
 a Prize Court — so that it cannot be an Ocean Belligerent in fact — 
 and which, in the second place, even if Ocean Belligerent in fact, 
 is of such an odious character, that its Recognition is a moral 
 impossibility. 
 
 From this review, touching upon the present and the past ; 
 leaning upon history and upon law ; enlightened always by prin- 
 ciples which are an unerring guide, our conclusion will be easy. 
 
 P-J 
 
 Perils from Foreign Powers. 
 
 The perils to our country, as foreshadowed in the action of 
 Foreign Powers since the outbreak of the war, first invite our 
 attention. 
 
 There is something in the tendencies of nations, which 
 must not be neglected. Like individuals, nations influence 
 each other ; like the heavenly bodies, they may be disturbed by 
 each other in their appointed orbits. This is apparent even in 
 peace ; but it becomes more apparent in the convulsions of war, 
 sometimes from the withdrawal of customary forces and some- 
 times from their increased momentum. It is the nature of war 
 to enlarge as it continues. Beginning between two nations, it 
 gradually widens its circle, sucking other nations into its fiery 
 maelstrom. Such is human history. Nor is it different, if the 
 war be for Independence. Foreign Powers may for a while keep 
 out of the conflict ; but the examples of history show how difficult 
 this has been 
 
 The Seven United Provinces of Holland, under that illustrious 
 character, William of Orange, the predecessor and exemplar of 
 our Washington, rose against the dominion of Spain, upheld by 
 the bigotry of Philip II., and the barbarity of his representative, 
 Alva ; but the conflict, though at first limited to the two parties, 
 was not slow to engage Queen Elizabeth, who lent to this war of 
 Independence the name of her favorite Leicester and the undying 
 
heroism of Sidney, while Spain retorted by the Armada. The 
 United Provinces of Holland, in their struggle for Independence, 
 were the prototype of the United States of America, which I need 
 not remind you, drew into their contest the arms of France, 
 Spain, and Holland. In the rising of the Spanish Colonies 
 which followed, there was less interposition of other nations, 
 doubtless from the distant and outlying position of these Colonies, 
 although they were not beyond the ambitious reach of the Holy 
 Alliance, whose purposes with regard to them were so far thwarted 
 by Mr. Canning, backed by the declaration of Mr. Munroe — known 
 as the Munroe doctrine — that the British Statesman felt authorized 
 to boast that he had called a New World into existence to redress 
 the balance of the Old. Then came the struggle for Greek Inde- 
 pendence, which, after a conflict of several years, darkened by 
 massacre, but relieved by an exalted self-sacrifice, shining with 
 names like Byron and Bozzaris, that cannot die, at length chal- 
 lenged the powerful interposition of England, France and Russia. 
 The Independence of Greece was hardly acknowledged, when 
 Belgium, renouncing the rule of the Netherlands, claimed hers 
 also, and here again the Great Powers of Europe were drawn into 
 the contest. Then came the effort of Hungary, inspired by 
 Kossuth, which, when about to prevail, aroused the armies of 
 Russia. There was also the contemporaneous effort of the Roman 
 Republic, under Mazzini, which when about to prevail, aroused 
 the bayonets of France. And lastly we have only recently 
 witnessed the resurrection of Italy, inspired by Garibaldi, and 
 directed by Cavour ; but it was not accomplished until Louis 
 Napoleon, with his well-trained legions, carried the imperial 
 eagles into the battle. 
 
 Such are famous instances, which are now so many warnings. 
 Ponder them and you will see the tendency, the temptation, the 
 irresistible fascination, or the commanding exigency under which, 
 in times past, Foreign Nations have been led to take part in con- 
 flicts for Independence. I do not dwell now on the character of 
 these various interventions, although they have been mostly in the 
 interest of Human Freedom. It is only as examples to put us 
 on our guard that I now adduce them. The footprints all seem 
 to lead one way. 
 
 But even our war is not without its warnings. If thus far in 
 its progress other nations have not intervened, they have not 
 succeeded in keeping entirely aloof. The foreign trumpet has 
 not sounded yet ; but more than once the cry has come that we 
 should soon hear it, while incidents have too often occurred, 
 exhibiting an abnormal watchfulness of our affairs and an uncon- 
 trollable passion or purpose to intermeddle in them, with signs of 
 unfriendly feeling. Of course, this is applicable especially, if not 
 exclusively, to England and France. 
 
8 
 
 Perils from England. 
 
 (1.) There is one act of the British Cabinet which stands fore- 
 most as an omen of peril — foremost in time — foremost also in the 
 magnitude of its consequences. Though plausible in form, it is 
 none the less injurious or unjustifiable. Of course, I refer to that 
 inconsiderate Proclamation in the name of the Queen, as early as 
 May, 1861, which, after raising Rebel Slave-mongers to an equality 
 with the National Government in Belligerent Rights, solemnly 
 declares "neutrality" between the two equal parlies; — as if the 
 declaration of equality was not an insult to the National Govern- 
 ment, and the declaration of neutrality was not a moral absurdity, 
 offensive to reason and all those precedents which make the 
 glory of the British name. Even if the Proclamation could be 
 otherwise than improper at any time in such a Rebellion, it was 
 worse than a blunder at that early date. The apparent relations 
 between the two Powers were more than friendly. Only a 
 few months before, the youthful heir to the British throne 
 had been welcomed every where throughout the United States 
 — except in Richmond — as in the land of kinsmen. And yet 
 — immediately after the tidings of the rebel assault on Fort 
 Sumter — before the National Government had begun to put 
 forth its strength — and even without waiting for the arrival of 
 our newly-appointed Minister, who was known to be at Liver- 
 pool on his way to London, the Proclamation was suddenly 
 launched. I doubt if any well-informed person, who has road 
 Mr. Dallas's despatch of 2d May, 1861, recounting a conversation 
 with the British Minister, will undertake to vindicate it in point 
 of time. Clearly the alacrity of this concession was unhappy, for 
 it bore an air of defiance or at least of heartlessness towards an 
 ally of kindred blood engaged in the maintenance of its tradi- 
 tional power against an infamous pretension. But it was more 
 unhappy still, that the good genius of England did not save this 
 historic nation, linked with so many triumphs of freedom, from 
 a fatal step, which, under the guise of "neutrality," was a 
 betrayal of civilization itself. 
 
 It is difficult to exaggerate the consequences of this precipitate, 
 unfriendly and immoral concession, which has been and still is 
 an overflowing fountain of mischief and bloodshed — hac funte 
 derivata clades; — -first, in what it vouchsafes to Rebel Slave- 
 mongers on sea and in British ports, and secondly, in the impedi- 
 ments which it takes from British subjects ready to make money 
 out of Slavery; — all of which has been declared by undoubted 
 British authority. Lord Chelmsford — of professional renown as 
 Sir Frederick Thesiger — now an Ex-Chancellor — used these words 
 recently in the House of Lords ; " If the Southern Confederacy 
 had not been recognized as a belligerent Power, he agreed with 
 his noble and learned friend [Lord Brougham] that, under these 
 circumstances, if any Englishman were to fit out a privateer for 
 
9 
 
 the purpose of assisting the Southern States against the Northern 
 States, he would be guilty of piracy" — But all this was changed 
 by the Queen's Proclamation. Fur the Rebel Slave-monger there 
 is the recognition of his flag ; for the British subject there is the 
 opportunity of trade. For the Rebel Slave-monger there is fellow- 
 ship and equality; for the British subject there is a new customer, 
 to whom he may lawfully sell Armstrong guns and other warlike 
 munitions of choicest British workmanship, and, as Lord Palmers- 
 ton tells us, even ships of war too, to be used in behalf of Slavery. 
 What was unlawful is suddenly made lawful, while the ban is 
 taken from an odious felony. It seems almost superfluous 
 to add, that such a concession, thus potent in its reach, must 
 have been a direct encouragement and overture to the Rebel- 
 lion. Slavery itself was exalted when barbarous pretenders — 
 battling to found a new Power in its hateful name — without so 
 much as a single port on the ocean where a prize could be 
 carried for condemnation — were yet, in the face of this essential 
 deficiency^ swiftly acknowledged as ocean belligerents, while, 
 as a consequence, their pirate ships, cruising for plunder in 
 behalf of Shivery, were acknowledged as National ships, en titled 
 to equal privileges with the National ships of the United States. 
 This simple statement is enough. It is vain to say, that such a 
 concession was a "necessity." There may have been a strong 
 temptation to it, constituting, perhaps, an imagined necessity, as 
 with many persons there is a strong temptation to Slavery itself. 
 But such a concession to Rebel Slave-mongers, fighting for Mavery, 
 can be vindicated only as Slavery is vindicated. As well undertake 
 to declare "neutrality" between Right and Wrong — between 
 Good and Evil — with a concession to the latter of Belligerent 
 Rights ; and then set up the apology of " necessity." 
 
 (2.) It was natural that an act so essentially unfriendly in 
 character and also in the alacrity with which it was done, should 
 create throughout England an unfriendly sentiment towards us, 
 easily stimulated to a menace of war. And this menace was not 
 wanting soon afterwards, when the two rebel emissaries on board 
 the Trent were seized by a patriotic, brave commander, whose high- 
 est fault was, that, in the absence of instructions from his own Gov- 
 ernment, he followed too closely British precedents. This accident 
 — for such it was and nothing else — was misrepresented, and, with 
 an utterly indefensible exaggeration, was changed by the British 
 nation, backed by the British Government, into a casus belli, as if 
 such an unauthorized incident, which obviously involved no ques- 
 tion of self-defence, could justify war between two civilized Nations. 
 And yet, in the face of a positive declaration from the United States, 
 that it was an accident, the British Government made preparations 
 to take part with rebel slave-mongers, and it fitly began such ignoble 
 preparations by keeping back from the British people, the official 
 despatch of 30th November, 1801, where our Government, after 
 
10 
 
 announcing that Capt. Wilkes had acted " without any instruc- 
 tions,"' expressed a trust that " the British Government would con- 
 sider the subject in a friendly temper," and promised " the best 
 disposition on our part." It is painful to recall these things. But 
 they now belong to history, and we cannot forget the lesson they 
 teach. 
 
 (3.) But this tendency to espouse the side of Slavery, appears 
 in small things, as well as great, becoming more marked in 
 proportion to the inconsistency involved. Thus, for instance, 
 where two British subjects " suspected " of participation in the 
 Rebellion were detained in a military prison, without the benefit 
 of habeas corpus, the British Minister at Washington was directed 
 by Her Majesty's Government to complain of their detention as 
 an infraction of the Constitution of the United States, of whicli-this 
 intermeddling Power assumed for the time to be the " expounder ;" 
 and the case was accordingly presented on this ground. But 
 the British cabinet, in its instinctive aptness to mix in our 
 war, if only by diplomatic notes, seemed to have forgotten the 
 British Constitution, under which, in 1848, with the consent of 
 the leaders of all parties, — Brougham and Derby, Peele and 
 D'Israeli, — the habeas corpus was suspended in Ireland and the 
 Government was authorized to apprehend and detain " such 
 persons as they shall suspect." The bill sanctioning this exercise 
 of power went through all its stages in the House of Commons in 
 one day, and on the next day it went through all its stages in the 
 House of Lords, passing to be a law without a dissenting vote. 
 It will hardly be believed that Lord Russell, who now complains 
 of our detention of "suspected" persons, as an infraction of the 
 Constitution of the United States, was the Minister who intro- 
 duced this Bill, and that, on that occasion he used these words : 
 " I believe in my conscience that this measure is calculated to 
 prevent insurrection, to preserve internal peace, to preserve the 
 unity of this empire and to save the throne of these realms and 
 the free institutions of this country." 
 
 (4.) The complaint about the habeas corpus was hardly 
 answered when another was solemnly presented, on account of the 
 effort to complete the blockade of Charleston, by sinking at 
 its mouth ships laden with stone, usually known as the " stone 
 blockade." In common times her Majesty's government would 
 have shrunk from any intermeddling here. It could not have 
 forgotten that history, early and late, and especially English 
 history, abounds in similar incidents ; that as long ago as 1456, 
 at the siege of Calais by the Duke of Burgundy, and also in 1628 
 at the memorable siege of Rochelle by Cardinal Richelieu, ships 
 laden with stone were sunk in the harbor ; that during the war 
 of the Revolution in 1778 six vessels were sunk by the British 
 commander in the Savannah River, not far from this very Charles- 
 ton, as a protection against the approach of the French and 
 
11 
 
 American naval forces ; that in 1804, under the direction of the 
 British Admiralty, an attempt was made to choke the entrance into 
 the harbor of Boulogne by sinking stone vessels, and that in 1809 
 the same blockade was recommended to the Admiralty by no less 
 a person than Lord Dundonald, with regard to another port, saying, 
 " Ships filled with stones will ruin forever the anchorage of Aix, 
 and some old vessels of the line well loaded would be excellent 
 for the purpose." But this complaint by the British Cabinet 
 becomes doubly strange, when it is considered that one of the 
 most conspicuous treaties of modern history contained solemn 
 exactions by England from France, that the harbor of Dunkirk, 
 whose prosperity was regarded with jealousy, should be permanently 
 " filled up," so that it could no longer furnish its accustomed hospi- 
 talities to commerce. This was the Treaty of Utrecht, in 1713. 
 But by the Triple Alliance, only four years later, France was con- 
 strained to stipulate again that nothing should be omitted" which 
 Great Britain could think necessary for the entire destruction of the 
 harbor," and the latter Power was authorized to send commission- 
 ers as " ocular witnesses of the execution of the Treaty." These 
 humiliating provisions were renewed in successive treaties down 
 to the peace of Versailles in 1783, when the immunity of that 
 harbor was recognized with American Independence. But Great 
 Britain, when compelled to open Durkirk, still united with the 
 Dutch in closing the Scheldt, or as a British writer expresses it, she 
 " became bound to assist in obstructing' this navigation" (Ency- 
 clopedia Britannica. Vol. x. p. 77, article, France.) One of 
 the two reasons put forth by Great Britain for breaking peace with 
 France in 1792, and entering upon that world-convulsing war, 
 was that this revolutionary Power had declared it would open the 
 Scheldt. And yet it is Great Britain, thus persistent in closing 
 ports and rivers, that now interferes to warn us against a " stone 
 blockade." 
 
 (5.) The same propensity and the same inconsistency will be 
 found in another instance, where an eminent peer, once Foreign 
 Secretary, did not hesitate, from his place in Parliament, to 
 charge the United States with making medicines and surgical 
 instruments contraband, " contrary to all the common laws of 
 war, contrary to all precedent, not excluding the most ignorant 
 and barbarous ages." Thus exclaims the noble lord. Now I 
 have nothing to say of the propriety of making these things con- 
 traband. My simple object is to exhibit the spirit against which 
 we are to guard. It would be difficult to believe that such a dis- 
 play could be made in the face of the historic fact, exposed in 
 the satire of Peter Plymley's Letters, that, Parliament, in 1808, 
 by large majorities, prohibited the exportation of Peruvian Bark 
 into any territory occupied by France, and that this measure was 
 introduced by no less a person than Mr. Percival, and commended 
 by him on the ground that " the severest pressure was already 
 
12 
 
 felt on the continent from the want of this article, and that it 
 was of great importance to the armies of the enemy." (Han- 
 sard's Parliamentary Df bates.} Such is authentic British prece- 
 dent, in an age neither " ignorant" nor 4 ' barbarous," which is now 
 ostentatiously forgotten. 
 
 (0.) This same recklessness, which is of such evil omen, breaks 
 forth again in a despatch of the Foreign Secretary, where he 
 undertakes to communicate to Lord Lyons the judgment of the 
 British Cabinet on the President's Proclamation of Emancipa-, 
 tion. Ilere at least, you will say, there can be no misunder- 
 standing, and no-criticism ; but you are mistaken. Such an act, 
 having such an object, and being of such unparalelled importance, 
 would, under any ordinary circumstances, when great passions 
 found no vent, have been treated by the Minister of a Foreign 
 Power with supremo caution, if not with sympathy ; but, under 
 the terrible influence of the hour, Lord llussell, not content with 
 condemning the Proclamation, misrepresents it in the most bare- 
 faced manner. Gathering his condemnation into one phrase, he 
 says, that it " makes Slavery at once legal and illegal," whereas 
 it is obvious, on the face of the Proclamation, to the most careless 
 observer, that, whatever may be its faults, it is not obnoxious to 
 this criticism, for it makes Slavery legal nowhere, while it makes 
 it illegal in an immense territory. An official letter, so incom- 
 prehensible in motive, from a statesman usually liberal if not 
 cautious, must be regarded as another illustration of that irri- 
 tating tendency, which will be checked only when it is fully 
 comprehended. 
 
 (7.) The activity of our navy is only another occasion for 
 criticism in a similar spirit. Nothing can be done any where to 
 please our self-constituted monitor. Our naval officers in the 
 West Indies, acting under instructions modelled on the judgments 
 of the British Admiralty, are reprehended by Lord Russell in a 
 formal despatch. The judges in our Prize Court are indecently 
 belittled by this same Minister from his place in Parliament, when 
 it is notorious that there are several who will compare favorably 
 with any British Admiralty Judge since Lord Stowell, not even 
 excepting that noble and upright magistrate, Dr. Lushinuton. 
 And this same Minister has undertaken to throw the British 
 shield over a newly-invented contraband trade with the rebel 
 slave-mongers via Metamoras, claiming that it was " a lawful 
 branch of commerce," and "a perfectly legitimate trade." The 
 Dolphin and Peterhoff were two ships elaborately prepared in 
 London, for this illicit commerce, and they have been duly con- 
 demned as such ; but their seizure by our cruisers was made the 
 occasion of official protest and complaint, with the insinuation of 
 "vexatious capture and arbitrary interference," followed by the 
 menace, that, under such circumstances, " it is obvious Great 
 Britain must interfere to protect her flag." 
 
13 
 
 (8.) This persistent, inexorable criticism, even at the expense 
 of nil consistency or of all memory, has also broken forth in 
 forms incompatible with that very " neutrality," which was so 
 early declared. It was bad enough to declare neutrality, when 
 the question was Jbetween a friendly Power and an insulting Bar- 
 barism; but it was worse after the declaration to depart from it, 
 if in words only. The Court of Rome at a period when it pow- 
 erfully influenced the usage of Nations, instructed its cardinal 
 Legate, on an important occasion, as a solemn duty first and above 
 all things, to cultivate "indifference" between the parties, and in 
 this regard he was to be so exact, that, not only should no partiality 
 be seen in his conduct, but it should not be remarked even 
 u in the words of Ids domestics ." (Wicquefort, Parfait Ambas- 
 sadeur, Liv. ii. p. 144.) If in that early day, before steam and 
 telegraph, or even the newspaper, neutrality was disturbed by 
 " words," how much more so now, when every word is multiplied 
 indefinitely, and wafted we know not where — to begin, wherever 
 it falls, a subtle, wide-spread and irrepressible influence. But 
 this injunction is in plain harmony witlj the refined rule of Count 
 Bernstoff, who, in his admirable despatch on this subject, at the 
 time of the Armed Neutrality, says sententiously, "Neutrality 
 does not exist when it is not perfect" It must be clear and 
 above suspicion. Like the reputation of a woman, it is lost when 
 you begin to talk about it. Unhappily there is too much occasion 
 to talk about the " neutrality" of England. I say nothing of a 
 Parliamentary utterance that the National cause was " detested 
 by a large majority of the House of Commons," or of other 
 most unneutral speeches. I confine myself to official declara- 
 tions. Here the case is plain. Several of the British Cabinet, 
 including the Foreign Secretary and the Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer, two great masters of " words," have allowed them- 
 selves in public speeches, to characterize offensively our pres- 
 ent effort to put down Rebel Slave-mongers, as "a contest 
 for empire on one side and for independence on the other." 
 Here were " words," which, under a specious form, were under- 
 stood to give encouragement to Rebel Slave-mongers. But they 
 were more specious than true — revealing nothing but the side 
 espoused by the orators. Clearly on our side it is a contest 
 for National life, involving the liberty of a race. Clearly on the 
 other side it is a contest for Slaver.y, in order to secure for 
 this hateful crime new recognition and power. Cur Empire is 
 simply to crush Rebel Slave-mongers. Their Independence is 
 simply the unrestrained power to whip women and sell children. 
 Even if at the beginning, the National Government made no 
 declaration on the subject, yet the real character of ihe war was 
 none the less apparent in ,the repeated declarations of the other 
 side, who did not hesitate to assert their purpose to build a new 
 Power on Slavery — as in the Italian campaign of Louis Napoleon 
 
14 
 
 against Austria, the object was necessarily apparent, even before 
 the Emperor tardily at Milan put fortli his life-giving Proclama- 
 tion that Italy should be free from the Alps to the Adriatic, by 
 which the war "became, in its declared purpose, as well as in 
 reality, a war of Liberation. That such a Rebellion should be 
 elevated by the unneutral " words " of a Foreign Cabinet, into 
 a respectability of which it is obviously unworthy, is only another 
 sign which we must watch. 
 
 (9.) But these same orators of the British Cabinet,- not con- 
 tent with giving us a bad name, have allowed themselves to pro- 
 nounce against us on the whole case. They declared that the 
 National Government cannot succeed in crushing Rebel Slave- 
 mongers and that dismemberment is inevitable. " Jefferson 
 Davis" says one of them "has created a nation." Thus do these 
 representatives of declared "neutrality" degrade us and exalt 
 Slavery. But it is apparent that their proclamation, though 
 made in Parliament and repeated at public meetings, was founded 
 less on any special information from the seat of war, disclosing 
 its secret, than on political theory, if not prejudice. It is true 
 that our eloquent teacher, Edmund Burke, in his famous letter to 
 the Sheriffs of Bristol, argued most persuasively that Great 
 Britain could not succeed in reclaiming the colonies, which had 
 declared themselves independent. His reasoning rather than 
 his wisdom, seems to have entered into and possessed the British 
 statesmen of our day, who do not take the trouble to see that the 
 two cases are so entirely unlike that the example of the one is not 
 applicable to the other ; that the colonies were battling to found 
 a new Power on the corner-stone of "liberty, equality and hap- 
 piness to all men," while our Slave-mongers are battling to found 
 a new Power on the corner-stone of " Slavery." The difference 
 is such as to become a contrast — so that whatever was once gen- 
 erously said in favor of American Independence now tells with 
 unmistakable force against this new-fangled pretension. 
 
 No British statesman saw the past more clearly than Lord 
 Russell when long ago, in striking phrase, he said that England, 
 in her war against our fathers, "had engaged for the suppression 
 of Liberty;" ([Hansard's Parliamentary Debates, 2d series, Vol. 
 viii. p. 1036, April 16, 1823,) but this is precisely what Rebel 
 Slave-mongers are now doing. Men change ; but principles are 
 the same now as then. Therefore, do I say, that every sympathy 
 formerly bestowed upon our fathers now belongs to us their 
 children, striving to uphold their work against bad men, who 
 would not only break it in pieces but put in its stead a new 
 piratical Power, whose declared object is " the suppression of 
 Liberty." And yet British ministers, mounting the prophetic 
 tripod, presume most oracularly to foretell the doom of this 
 Republic. Their prophecies do not disturb my confidence. I 
 do not forget how often false prophets have appeared — includ- 
 
ing the author of the Oceana, who published a demonstration 
 of the impossibility of monarchy in, England only six months 
 before Ch-arles II. entered London amidst salvoes of cannon, 
 and the hurrahs of the people. Nor do I stop to consider how 
 far such prophecies uttered in public places by British Minis- 
 ters are consistent with that British "neutrality" which is so 
 constantly boasted. Opinions are sometimes allies more potent 
 than subsidies, especially in an age like the present. Prophecies 
 are opinions proclaimed and projected into the future, and yet 
 these are given freely to Rebel Slave-mongers. There is matter 
 for reflection in this instance, but I adduce it now only as 
 another illustration of the times. Nothing can be more clear 
 than that whosoever assumes to play the prophet becomes pledged 
 in character and pretension to sustain his prophecy. The learned 
 Jerome Cardan, professor and doctor, and also dabbler in astrol- 
 ogy, of great fame in the middle ages, undertook to predict the 
 day of his death, and he maintained his character as a successful 
 prophet by taking his own life at the appointed time. If British 
 Ministers, who have played the prophet, escape the ordinay influ- 
 ences of this craft, it will be from that happy nature, which has 
 suspended for them human infirmity and human prejudice. But 
 it becomes us to note well the increased difficulties and dangers 
 to which on this account the National cause is exposed. 
 
 (10.) But it is not in " words " only, — of speeches, despatches 
 or declarations, — that our danger lies. I am sorry to add that 
 there are acts also with which the British Government is too closely 
 associated. I do not refer to the unlimited supply of " muni- 
 tions of war," so that our army at Charleston, like our army at 
 Vicksburg, is compelled to encounter Armstrong guns and Blake- 
 ley guns, with all proper ammunition, from England; for the 
 right of British subjects to sell these articles to Rebel Slave-mon- 
 gers was fixed when the latter, by sudden metamorphosis were 
 changed from lawless vagrants of the ocean to lawful Belligerents. 
 Nor do I refer to the swarms of swift steamers, "a pitchy cloud 
 warping on the Eastern wind," always under the British flag, with 
 contributions to Rebel Slave-mongers ; for these too, enjoy a kin- 
 dred immunity. Of course, no Royal Proclamation can change 
 wrong into right or make such business otherwise than immoral; 
 but the Proclamation may take from it the character of felony. 
 
 But even the Royal Proclamation gives no sanction to the prep- 
 aration in England of a naval expedition against the commerce of 
 the United States. It leaves the Parliamentary Statute, as well 
 as the general Law of Nations, in full efficacy to restrain and 
 punish such an offence. And yet in the face of this obvious prohi- 
 bition, standing forth in the text of the law, and founded in reason 
 " before human statute purged the common weal," also exempli- 
 fied by the National Government, which, from the time of Wash- 
 ington, has always guarded its ports against such outrage, powerful 
 
16 
 
 ships have been launched, equipped, fitted out and manned in 
 England, with arms supplied at sea from another English vessel, 
 and then, assuming that by this insulting hocus pocus all English 
 liability was avoided, they have proceeded at once to rob and 
 destroy the commerce of the United States. England has been 
 (heir naval base from which were derived the original forces and 
 supplies which enable them to sail the sea. Several such ships 
 are now depredating on the ocean, like Captain Kidd, under pre- 
 tended commissions — each in itself a naval expedition. As Eng- 
 land is not at war with the United States, these ships can be 
 nothing else than pirates ; and their conduct is that of pirates. 
 Unable to provide a Court for the trial of prizes, they revive 
 for every captured ship the barbarous Ordeal of Fire. Like 
 pirates, they burn all that they cannot rob. Flying from sea to 
 sea, they turn the ocean into a furnace and melting-pot of American 
 commerce. Of these incendiaries the most famous is the Alabama, 
 with a picked crew of British sailors, with "trained gunners out 
 of her Majesty's naval reserve," and with every thing else from 
 keel to top-mast British ! which, after more than a year of unlawful 
 havoc, is still burning the property of our citizens, without once, 
 entering a Rebel Slave-monger port, but always keeping the 
 umbilical connection with England, out of whose womb she sprung, 
 and never losing the original nationality stamped upon her by 
 origin, so that at this day she is a British pirate ship — precisely 
 as a native-born Englishman, robbing on the high seas, and never 
 naturalized abroad, is a British pirate subject. 
 
 It is bad enough that all this should proceed from England. 
 It is hard to bear. "Why is it not stopped at once ? One cruiser 
 might perhaps elude a watchful Government. But it is difficult 
 to see how this can occur once — twice — three times ; and the cry 
 is still they sail. Two powerful rams are now announced, like 
 stars at a theatre. Will they too be allowed to perform ? I wish 
 there were not too much reason to believe that all these perform- 
 ances are sustained by a prevailing British sympathy. A French- 
 man, who was accidentally a prisoner on board the Alabama at 
 the destruction of two American ships, describes a British packet 
 in sight whose crowded passengers made the sea resound with 
 cheers as they witnessed the captured ships handed over to the 
 flames. The words of Lucretius were verified; Suave eiiarn 
 belli certamina magna tueri. But these same cheers were echoed 
 in Parliament, as the builder of the piratical craft gloried in his 
 deed. The verse which filled the ancient theatre with glad 
 applause, declared a sympathy w 7 ith Humanity; but English 
 applause is now given to Slavery and its defenders; " I am an 
 Englishman, and nothingof Slavery is foreign to me." Accordingly 
 Slavery is helped by English arms, English gold, English ships, 
 English speeches, English cheers. And yet for the honor of 
 England, let it be known, that there are Englishmen, who have 
 
17 
 
 stood firm and unshaken amidst this painful recreancy. Their 
 names cannot be forgotten. And still more for the honor of 
 England, let it be spoken that the working classes, who were called 
 to suffer the most, have bravely borne their calamity, without 
 joining with the enemies of the Republic. Their cheers have 
 been for Freedom and not for Slavery. 
 
 But the cheers of the House of Commons seem to prevail in 
 her Majesty's Government. Municipal Law is violated — while 
 International Law, in its most solemn obligation to do unto others 
 as we would have them do unto us — is treated as if it did not 
 exist. Eminent British functionaries in Court and Parliament, 
 vindicate the naval expeditions, which, in the name of Slavery, 
 have been unleashed against a friendly Power. Taking advan- 
 tage of an admitted principle, that "munitions of war" may 
 be supplied, the Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer tells us, 
 that "ships of war" may be supplied also. Lord Palmerston 
 echoes the Lord Chief Baron. Each vouches American author- 
 ity. But they are mistaken. The steel which they strive to 
 "impell" cannot be feathered from our sides. Since the 
 earliest stage of its existence the National Government has 
 asserted a distinction between the two cases ; and so has the 
 Supreme Court, although there are words of Story which have 
 been latterly quoted to the contrary. But the authority of the 
 Supreme Court is positive on both the points into which the 
 British apology is divided. The first of these is that, even if a 
 " ship of war " cannot be furnished, the offence is not complete 
 until the armament is put aboard, so that where the ship, though 
 fitted out and equipped in a British port, awaits her armament 
 at sea, she is not liable to arrest. Such an apology is an insult 
 -to the understanding and to common sense — as if it was not 
 obvious that the offence begins witli the laying of the keel for 
 the hostile ship, knowing it to be such ; and in this spirit the 
 Supreme Court has decided that it " was not necessary to find 
 that a ship on leaving port was armed or in a condition to 
 commit hostilities; — for citizens are restrained from such acts as 
 are calculated to involve the country in a war." U. S. vs. Quincy, 
 6 Peters, 445.) The second apology assumes, that, even if the 
 armament were aboard so that the " ship of war" was complete at 
 all points, still the expedition would be lawful, if the juggle of a 
 sale were adroitly employed. But on this point the Supreme 
 Court, speaking by Chief Justice Marshall, has left no doubt of 
 its deliberate and most authoritative judgment. In the case 
 before the Court, the armament was aboard, but cleared as 
 cargo ; the men too were aboard but enlisted for a commercial 
 voyage ; the ship, though fitted out to cruise against a nation 
 with which we were at peace, was not commissioned as a privateer, 
 and did not attempt to act as such until she had reached the 
 River La Plata, where a commission -was obtained and the crew 
 2 
 
18 
 
 re-enlisted, yet, in the face of these extenuating circumstances, it 
 was declared by the whole Court that the neutrality of the United 
 States had been violated, so that the guilty ship could not after- 
 wards he recognized as a legitimate cruiser. All these disguises 
 were to no purpose. The Court penetrated thetn every one, 
 saying that, if such a ship could lawfully sail there would be on 
 our part 11 a fraudulent neutrality, disgraceful to our government, 
 of which no nation would be the dupe." (T//e Gran Para, 7 
 Wheat., 471, and also four other cases in same volume.') But a 
 "neutrality" worse even than that condemned in advance by our 
 Supreme Court, "of which no nation would be the dupe," is now 
 served out to us, which nothing but the fatal war spirit that has 
 entered into Great Britain can explain. There was a time when 
 the Foreign Secretary of England, truly eminent as statesman 
 and as orator, Mr. Canning, said in the House of Commons : " If 
 war must come, let it come in the shape of satisfaction to be 
 demanded for injuries, of rights to be asserted, of interests to be 
 protected, of treaties to be fulfilled. But, in God's name, let it 
 not come on in the paltry, pettifogging way of fitting out ships in 
 our harbors to cruise for gain. At all events let the country dis- 
 dain to be sneaked into a wary (Canning's Speeches, Vol. v. 
 p. 61.) Thete noble words were uttered in reply to Lord John 
 Russell and his associates in 1823, on their proposition to repeal 
 the Foreign Enlistment Act and to overturn the statute safeguards 
 of British neutrality. But they speak now with greater force 
 than then. 
 
 Even if it be admitted that " ships of war," like " munitions of 
 war," may be sold to a Belligerent, as is asserted by the British 
 Prime Minister, echoing the Lord Chief Baron, it is obvious that 
 it can be only with the distinction, to which I have already alluded, 
 that the sale is a commercial transaction, pure and simple, and 
 not, in any respect, a hostile expedition fitted out in England. 
 The ship must be " exported" as an article of commerce, and it 
 must continue such until its arrival at the' belligerent port, 
 where alone can it be fitted out and commissioned as a " ship of 
 war," when its hostile character will commence. Any attempt 
 in England to impart to it a hostile character, or, in one word, to 
 make England its naval base, must be criminal ; but this is 
 precisely what has been done. And here are the leonine foot- 
 prints which point so badly. 
 
 (11.) But not content with misconstruing the decisions of our 
 Supreme Court, in order to make them a cover for naval expedi- 
 tions to depredate on our commerce, our whole history is forgotten 
 or misrepresented. It is forgotten, that, as early as 1793, under 
 the administration of Washington, before any Act of Congress on 
 the subject, the National Government recognized its liability, 
 under the Law of Nations, for ships fitted out in its ports to depre- 
 date on British commerce ; that Washington, in a Message to 
 
19 
 
 Congress, describes such ships as " vessels commissioned or 
 equipped in a warlike form, within the limits of the United 
 States," ami also as " military expeditions or enterprises," 
 (American S'atc Papers, Vol. i. p. 2-i,) and that Jefferson, in 
 vindicating this policy of repression, said, in a letter to the French 
 Minister, that '* it was our wish to preserve the morals of our 
 citizens from heing vitiated by courses of lawless plunder and 
 minder;" (Ibid, 148) that, on this occasion the National 
 Government made the distinction between " munitions of war" 
 which a neutral might supply in the way of commerce to a bellig- 
 ent, and "ships of war," which a neutral was not allowed to 
 supply, or even to augment with arms; that Mr. Hammond, the 
 British plenipotentiary at tint time, hy his letter of 8th May, 
 1793, after complaining of two French privateers fitted out at 
 Charleston, to cruise against British Commerce, expressly declares 
 that lie considers them " breaches of that neutrality which the 
 United States profess to observe, and direct contraventions of the 
 Proclamation which the President had issued," ( Wharton s S'ate 
 Trials, p. 4'.».) and that very soon there were criminal proceed- 
 ing, at British instigation,' on account of these privateers, in 
 which it was affirmed hy the Court, that such ships could not be 
 fitted out in a neutral port without a violation of international 
 obligations; that, promptly thereafterwards, on the application 
 of the British Government, a statute was enacted, in harmony 
 with the Law of Nations, for the better maintenance of our neu- 
 trality; that, in 1818, Congress enacted another statute in the 
 nature of a Foreign Enlistment Act, which was proposed as 
 an example by Lord Castlereagh, when urging a similar statute 
 upon Parliament; that in 1823 the conduct of the United 
 States on this whole head was proposed as an example to the 
 British Parliament by Mr. Canning; that, in 18o7, during the 
 rebellion in Canada, on the application of the British Govern- 
 ment, and to its special satisfaction, as was announced in Par- 
 liament by Lord Palmerston, who was at the time Foreign 
 Secretary, our Government prompdy declared its purpose "to 
 maintain the supremacy of those laws which had been passed to 
 fulfil the obligations of the United States towards all nations 
 which should be engaged in foreign or domestic warfare ;" and, 
 not sati.-lied with its existing powers, undertook to a-k additional 
 legislation from Congress ; that Congress proceeded at o;:ce to the 
 enactment of another statute, calculated to meet the immediate 
 exigency, wherein it was provided that collectors, marshals and 
 other officers shall '■ seize and detain any vessel which may be 
 provided or prepared for any military expedition or enterprise 
 against the territories or dominions of any Foreign Prince or 
 Power." (Statutes at Large, Vol. v. p. 21J.) It is something 
 to forget these things ; but it is convenient to forget still further 
 that, on the breaking out of the Crimean War, in 1854.. the 
 
20 
 
 British Government, jointly with France, made another appeal to 
 the United States, that our citizens " should rigorously abstain 
 from taking part in armaments of Russian privateers, or in any 
 other measure opposed to the duties of a strict neutrality " and 
 this appeal, which was declared by the British Government to be 
 "in the spirit of just reciprocity," was answered on our part by a 
 sincere and determined vigilance, so that not a single British or 
 French ship suffered from any cruiser fitted out in our ports. 
 And it is also convenient to forget still further the solemn obliga- 
 tions of Treaty, binding on both parties, by which it is stipulated, 
 
 "That the subjects and citizens of the two nations shall not do any acts of 
 hostility or violence against each other, nor accept commissions or instructions 
 so to act from any foreign prince or state, enemies to the other party ; nor 
 shall the enemies of one of the parties be permitted to invite or endeavor 
 to enlist in their military service, any of the subjects or citizens of the other 
 party ; and the laivs against all such offences and aggressions shall be punc- 
 tually executed" (Statutes at Large, Vol. viii. p. 127.) 
 
 But at the date of this Treaty, in 1794, there was little legislation 
 on the subject in either country ; so' that the Treaty, in harmony 
 with the practice, testifies to the requirements of the Law of 
 Nations, as understood at the time by both Powers. 
 
 And yet, forgetting all these things, — which show how faith- 
 fully the National Government has acted, both in measures 
 of repression and measures of compensation — also how often the 
 British Government has asked and received protection at our 
 hands, and how highly our example of neutrality has been appre- 
 ciated by leading British statesmen — and forgetting also that 
 "spirit of just reciprocity" which, besides being the prompting 
 of an honest nature, had been positively promised — ship after ship 
 is permitted to leave British ports to depredate on our commerce ; 
 and when we complain of this outrage, so unprecedented and so 
 unjustifiable, all the obligations of International Law are ignored, 
 and we are petulantly told that the evidence against the ships is 
 not sufficient under the statute; and when we propose that the 
 statute shall be rendered efficient for the purpose, precisely as in 
 past times the British Government, under circumstances less 
 stringent, proposed to us, we are pointedly repelled by the old 
 baronial declaration, that there must be no change in the laws of 
 England ; while to cap this strange insensibility, Lord Palmerston, 
 in one of the last debates of the late Parliament, brings against 
 us a groundless charge of infidelity to our neutral duties during 
 the Crimean war, when the fact is notoriously the reverse, and 
 Lord Russell, in the same spirit, imagines an equally groundless 
 charge, which he records in a despatch, that we have recently 
 enlisted men in Ireland, when notoriously we have done no such 
 thing. Thus all the obligations of reciprocal service and good 
 will are openly discarded, while our public conduct, as well in 
 the past as the present, is openly misrepresented. 
 
21 
 
 (12.) This flagrant oblivion of history and of duty, ■which seems 
 to be the adopted policy of the British Government, has been 
 characteristically followed by a flat refusal to pay for the damages 
 to our commerce caused by the hostile expeditions. The United 
 States, under Washington, on the application of the British 
 Government, made compensation for damages to British commerce 
 under circumstances much less vexatious, and, still further, by 
 special treaty, made compensation for damages " by vessels origi- 
 nally armed " in our ports, which is the present case. Of course, 
 it can make no difference — not a pin's difference — if the armament 
 is carried out to sea, in another vessel from a British port, and there 
 transhipped. Such an evasion may be effectual against a Par- 
 liamentary statute, but it will be impotent against a demand upon 
 the British Government, according to the principles of Interna- 
 tional Law ; for this law looks always at the substance and not the 
 form, and will not be diverted by the trick of a pettifogger. 
 Whether the armament be put on board in port or at sea, 
 England is always the naval base, or, according to the language 
 of Sir William Scott, in a memorable case, the "station" or 
 " vantage ground," — which he declared a neutral country could 
 not be. {Twee Gebroeders, 3 Robinson, R. 162.) Therefore, 
 the early precedent between the United States and England 
 is in every respect completely applicable, and since this prece- 
 dent was established — not only by the consent of England but 
 at her motion — it must be accepted on the present occasion 
 as an irreversible declaration of International duty. Other 
 nations might differ, but England is bound. And now it is 
 her original interpretation, first made to take compensation from 
 us, which is flatly rejected, when we ask compensation from her. 
 But even if the responsibility for a hostile expedition fitted out in 
 British ports were not plain, there is something in the recent con- 
 duct of the British Government calculated to remove all doubt. 
 Pirate ships are reported on the stocks ready to be launched, and 
 when the Parliamentary statute is declared insufficient to stop 
 them, the British Government declines to amend it, and so doing, 
 it openly declines to stop the pirate ships, saying, " if the Parlia- 
 mentary statute is inadequate then let them sail." It is not 
 needful to consider the apology. The act of declension is positive 
 and its consequeaces are no less positive, fixing beyond question 
 the responsibility of the British Government for these criminal 
 expeditions. In thus fixing this responsibility, we but follow the 
 suggestions of reason, and the text of an approved authority, 
 whose words have been adopted in England. 
 
 " It must be laid down as a maxim, that a sovereign, who, knowing the 
 crimes of bis subjects, as for example that they practice piracy on strangers, 
 and being also able ami obliged lo hinder it, does not binder it, renders 
 himself criminal, because he has consented to the bad action, the commission 
 
22 
 
 of which he has permitted. It is presumed .that a Sovereign knows what 
 hi-; subjects openly ami frequently com nit, and, as to his power of hindering 
 the evil, this likewise is always presumed, unless the want of it be clearly 
 proved." 
 
 Such are the words of Burlamaqni, in his work on Natural Law, 
 quoted with approbation by Phillimore in bis work on the Law 
 of Nations. — (Phiffimore, Vol. i. p. 1^37.) L'nless these words are 
 discarded as " a maxim," — while the early precedent of British 
 demand upon us for compensation is al;o rudely rejected — it is 
 difficult to see how the British Government can avoid the conse- 
 quences of complicity with the pirate ships in all their lawless 
 devastation. But I forbear to dwell on this accumulating liability, 
 amounting already to many millions of dollars, with accumulating 
 exasperations also. My present object is accomplished, if I 
 make you see which way danger lies. 
 
 (13 ) But beyond acts and words this same British rabbia 
 shows itself in the official tone, which has been adopted towards 
 the National cause in its unparalelled struggle — especially 
 throughout the correspondence of the British Foreign Office. Of 
 course, there is no friendship in any of these letters. Nor is there 
 any sympathy with the National championship against Rebel Slave- 
 mongers, nor one word of mildest dissent even from the miscreant 
 apostolate which was preached in their behalf. Naturally the 
 tone is in harmony with the sentiment. Hard, curt, captious, 
 cynical, it evinces an indifference to those kindly relations which 
 nations ought to cultivate with each other, and which should be 
 the study of a wi>e statesmanship; The Malay runs a-ntuch% and 
 such is ihe favorite diplomatic style in dealing with us. This is 
 painfully conspicuous in all that concerns the pirate ships. But 
 I can well understand that a Minister, who so easily conceded 
 Belligerent Hights to Rebel Slave-mongers, and then so easily 
 permitted their ships to sally forth for piracy, would be very 
 indifferent to the tone of what he wrote. And yet even outrage 
 may be soothed or softened by gentle words ; but none such have 
 come out of British diplomacy to us. Most deeply do 1 regret 
 this too suggestive failure. And believe me, fellow citizens, I say 
 these things with sorrow unspeakable, and only in discharge of 
 my duty on this occasion, when, face to face, I meet you to 
 consider the aspects of our affairs abroad. 
 
 (14 ) But there is still another head of danger in which all 
 others culminate. 1 refer to an intrusive Mediation or, it may be, 
 a Recognition of the Slave-monger pretension as an Independent 
 Nation ; for such propositions have been openly made in Parlia- 
 ment and constantly urged by the British press, and, though not 
 yet adopted by her Majesty's Government, they have never been 
 repelled on principle, so that they constitute a perpetual cloud, 
 threatening to break, in our foreign relations. It is plain to all 
 
23 
 
 who have not forgotten history, that England never can be guilty 
 of such Recognition without an un pardonable apostacy ; nor can 
 she intervene l»y way of Mediation except in the interests of 
 Freedom. And yet such are the strange "elective affinities" 
 newly born between England and Slavery ; such is the towering 
 blindness, with regard to our country', kindred to that which pre- 
 vailed in the time of George Greuville and Lord North, that her 
 Majesty's Government, instead of repelling the proposition, simply 
 adjourn it, meanwhile adopting the attitude of one watching to 
 strike. The British Minister at "Washington, of model prudence, 
 whose individual desire for peace I cannot doubt, tells his Govern- 
 ment in a despatch which will be found in the last Blue Book, 
 that as yet he sees no sign of " a conjuncture at which Foreign 
 Powers may step in with propriety and effect to put a stop to the 
 effusion of blood." Here is a plain assumption that such a con- 
 juncture may occur. But for the present we are left free to wage 
 the battle against Slavery without any such Intervention in arrest 
 of our efforts. 
 
 Such are some of the warnings which lower from the English 
 sky, bending over the graves of Wilberforce and Clarkson, while 
 sounding from these sacred graves are heard strange, un-English 
 voices, crying out, " Come unto us, Rebel Slave-mongers, whip- 
 pers of women and sellers of children, for you are the people 
 of our choice, whom we welcome promptly to ocean rights — 
 with Armstrong guns and naval expeditions equipped in our 
 ports, and on whom we lavish sympathy always and the prophecy 
 of success ; — while for you, who uphold the Republic and oppose 
 Slavery, we have hard words, criticism, rebuke and the menace 
 of war." 
 
 Perils from France. 
 
 If we cross the channel into France, we shall not be encouraged 
 much. And yet the Emperor, though acting habitually in concert 
 with the British Cabinet, has not intermeddled so illogically or 
 displajed a temper of so little international amiability. The 
 correspondence under his direction, even at the most critical 
 moments, leaves little to be desired in respect of form. Nor has 
 there been a single blockade-runner under the French flag; nor 
 a single pirate ship from a French port. But in spite of these 
 things, it is too apparent that the Emperor has taken sides against 
 us in at least four important public acts — positively, plainly, 
 offensively. The Duke de Choiseul, Prime Minister of France, 
 was addressed by Frederick the Great, as " the coachman of 
 Europe," — a title which belongs now to Louis Napoleon. But he 
 must not try to be " the coachman of America." 
 
 (1.) Following the example of England Louis Napoleon has 
 acknowledged the Rebel Slave-mongers as ocean Belligerents, so 
 that with the sanction of France, our ancient ally, their pirate 
 
24 
 
 ships, although without a single open port which they can call 
 their own, enjoy a complete immunity as lawful cruisers, while all 
 who sympathize with them may furnish supplies and munitions of 
 war. This fatal concession was aggravated by the concurrence 
 of the two great Powers. But, God be praised, their joint act, 
 though capable of giving a brief vitality to Slavery on pirate 
 decks, will be impotent to confirm this intolerable pretension. 
 
 (2.) Sinister events are not alone and this recognition of 
 Slavery was followed by an expedition of France, in concurrence 
 with England and Spain, against our neighbor Republic, Mexico. 
 The two latter Powers, with becoming wisdom, very soon with- 
 drew ; but the Emperor did not hesitate to enter upon an invasion. 
 A French fleet with an unmatched iron-clad, the consummate 
 product of French naval art, is now at Vera Cruz and the French 
 army after a protracted siege has stormed Puebla and entered the 
 famous Capital, This far-reaching enterprise was originally said 
 to be a sort of process, served by a general, for the recovery of 
 outstanding debts due to French citizens. But the Emperor in a 
 mystic letter to General Forey gave to it another character. He 
 proposed nothing less than the restoration of the Latin race on 
 this side of the Atlantic, and more than intimates that the United 
 States must be restrained in power and influence over the Gulf 
 of Mexico and the Antilles. And now the Archduke Maximilian 
 of Austria has been proclaimed Emperor of Mexico under the 
 protection of France. It is obvious that this imperial invasion, 
 though not openly directed against us, would not have been made, 
 if our convulsions had not left the door of the continent ajar, so 
 that foreign Powers may now bravely enter in. And it is more 
 obvious that this attempt to plant a throne by our side would 
 " have died before it saw the light," had it not been supposed that 
 the Rebel Slave-mongers were about to triumph. Plainly the 
 whole transaction is connected with our affairs. But it can be 
 little more than a transient experiment — for who can doubt that 
 this imperial exotic, planted by foreign care and propped by 
 foreign bayonets, will disappear before the ascending glory of the 
 Republic. 
 
 (3.) This enterprise of war was followed by an enterprise of 
 diplomacy not less hardy The Emperor, not content with stirring 
 against us the gulf of Mexico, the Antilles and the Latin race, 
 entered upon work of a different character. He invited England 
 and Russia to unite with France in tendering to the two Belliger- 
 ents (such is the equal designation of our Republic and the 
 embryo slave-monger mockery !) their joint Mediation to procure 
 " an armistice for six months, during which every act of war, 
 direct or indirect, should provisionally cease on sea as well as on 
 land, to be renewed if necessary for a further period." The 
 Cabinets of England and Russia, better inspired, declined the 
 invitation, which looked to little short of Recognition itself. Under 
 
25 
 
 the armistice proposed all our vast operations must have been 
 suspended — the Llockade itself must have ceased — while the rebel 
 ports were opened on the one side to unlimited imports of supplies 
 and military stores, and on the other side to unlimited exports of 
 cotton. Trade for the time would have been legalized in these 
 ports, and Slavery would have lifted its grinning front before the 
 civilized world. Not disheartened by this failure, the Emperor 
 alone pushed forward his diplomatic enterprise against us, as he 
 had alone pushed forward his military enterprise against Mexico, 
 and he proposed to our Government the unsupported mediation 
 of France. His offer was promptly rejected by the President. 
 Congress by solemn resolutions, adopted by both Houses, with 
 singular unanimity, and communicated since to all foreign govern- 
 ments, announced that such a proposition could be attributed 
 only '• to a misunderstanding of the true state of the question 
 and the real character of the war in which the Republic is 
 engaged ; and that it was in its nature so far injurious to the 
 national interests that Congress would be obliged to consider its 
 repetition an unfriendly act." This is strong language, but it 
 frankly states the true position of our country. Any such offer, 
 whatever may be its motive, must be an encouragement to the 
 Rebellion. In an ago when ideas prevail and even words become 
 things, the simple declarations of statesmen are of incalculable 
 importance. But the head of a great nation is more than states- 
 man. The imperial proposition tended directly to the dismem- 
 berment of the Republic and the substitution of a ghastly Slave- 
 monger nation. 
 
 Baffled in this effort, twice attempted, the Emperor does not 
 yet abandon its policy. We are told that " it is postponed to a 
 more suitable opportunity ;" so that he too waits to strike — if the 
 Gallic cock does not sound the alarm in an opposite quarter. 
 Meanwhile the development of the Mexican expedition shows too 
 clearly the motive of mediation. It was all one transaction. 
 Mexico was invaded for empire, and mediation was proposed in 
 order to help the plot. But the invasion must fail with the 
 diplomacy to which it is allied. 
 
 (4.) But the policy of the French Emperor towards our 
 Republic has not been left to any uncertain inference. For a 
 long time public report has declared him to be unfriendly, and 
 now public report is confirmed by what he has done and said. 
 The ambassadorial attorney of Rebel Slave-mongers bus been 
 received by him at the Tuilleries ; members of Parliament, on an 
 errand of hostility to our cause, have been received by him at 
 Fontainebleau ; and the official declaration has been made that 
 he ih aires to recognize the Rebel Slave-mongers as an Independent 
 Power. This has been hard to believe ; bat it is too true. The 
 French Emperor is against us. In an evil hour, under tempta- 
 tions which should be scouted, he forgets the precious tradi- 
 
26 
 
 tions of France whose blood commingled with ours in a common 
 cause ; lie forgets the sword of Lafayette and Etochamheau tith- 
 ing by tlio side of the sword of Washington and Lincoln, while 
 the Hies of the ancient monarchy floated together with the 
 stars of our infant flag; he forgets that early alliance, sealed 
 by Franklin, which gave to the Republic the assurance of 
 national life, and made France the partner of her rising glory; 
 Heu pietas, lieu prisca fides, — manibus date I ilia p/enis ; and he 
 forgets still more the obligations of his own name. — how the 
 first Napoleon surrendered to us Louisiana and the whole region 
 West of the Mississippi, saying, " this accession of territory 
 establishes forever the power of the United Hates, and gives to 
 England a maritime rival destined to humble her pride ; " and 
 he forgets also bow be himself, when beginning his Intervention 
 for Italian Liberty, boasted proudly that France always stood for 
 an "idea;" and, forgetting these things, which mankind cannot 
 forget, ho seeks the disjunction of this Republic, with the spoliation 
 of that very territory, which had come to us from the first Napo- 
 leon, while France, always standing for an " idea " is made under 
 his auspices to stand for the " idea " of welcome to anew evangel 
 of Slavery, with Mason and Slidell as the evangelists. Thus is 
 the imperial influence thrown on the side of Rehel Slave-mongers. 
 Unlike the ancient Gaul, the Emperor forhears for the present to 
 fling his sword into the scale ; hut he flings bis heavy hand, if 
 not his sword. 
 
 But only recently we have the menace of the sword. The 
 throne of Mexico has been offered to an Austrian Archduke. The 
 desire to recoguize the Independence of Rebel Slave-mongers has 
 been officially declared. These two incidents are to bo taken 
 together — as the complements of each other. And now we are 
 assured by concurring report, that Mexico is to he maintained as 
 an Empire. The policy of the Holy Alliance, originally organized 
 against the great Napoleon, is adopted by his representative 
 on the throne of France. What its despot authors left undone 
 the present Emperor, nephew of the first, proposes to accompli! h. 
 It is said that Texas also is to be brought under the Imperial ^Pro- 
 tectorate, thus ravishing a possession, which belongs to this 
 Republic, as much as Normandy belongs to France. The '• parti- 
 tion " of Poland is acknowledged to be the j^i-eat crime of the last 
 century. It was accomplished by Three Powers, with the silent 
 connivance of the rest ; but not without pangs of remorse on the part 
 of one of the spoilers. " I know," said Maria Theresa to the ambas- 
 sador of Louis XVI., " that I have brought a deep stain on my 
 reign by what has been done in Poland ; but I am sure that I should 
 be forgiven, if it could be known what repugnance I had to it." 
 (F/assan. Ilistoire de la Diplomatic Francaisc, Vol. vii. p. 125.) 
 But the French Emperor seeks to play on this continent the very 
 part which of old caused the contrition of Maria Theresa ; nor could 
 
27 
 
 the " partition" of our broad country — if in an evil hour it were 
 accomplished — fail to be the great crime of the present century. 
 Trampler upon the Republic in France — trampler upon the Repub- 
 lic in Mexico — it remains to be seen if the French Emperor can 
 prevail as trampler upon this Republic. 1 do not think he can ; 
 nor am I anxious on account of the new Emperor of Mexico, who 
 will he as powerless as Kin": Canute against the rising tiile of the 
 American people, liis chair must be withdrawn or he will be 
 overwhelmed. 
 
 And here I bring to an end this unpleasant review. It is with 
 small satisfaction, and only in explanation of our relations with 
 Foreign Powers, that I have accumulated these instances, not one 
 of which, small as well as great, is without its painful lesson, 
 while they all testify with a single voice to the perils oi our 
 country. 
 
 [II.] 
 Foreign Intervention, ey Mediation or Intercession. 
 
 But there is another branch of the subject, which is not less 
 important. Considering all these things and especially how great 
 Powers abroad have constantly menaced Intervention in our war, 
 now by criticism and now by proffers of Mediation, all tending 
 painfully to something further, it becomes us to see what, accord- 
 ing to the principles of International Law and the examples 
 of history will justify Foreign Intervention, in any of the forms 
 which it may take. And here there is one remark which may 
 be made at the outset. Nations are equal in the eye of Inter- 
 national Law, so that what is right for one is right for all. It 
 follows that no nation can justly exercise any right which it 
 is not hound to concede under like circumstances. Therefore, 
 should our cases be reversed, there is nothing which England 
 and France have now proposed or which they may hereafter 
 propose which it will not be our equal right to propose, when 
 Ireland or India once more rebel, or when Fiance is in the throes 
 of its next revolution. Generously and for the sake of that Inter- 
 national Comity, which should not be lightly hazarded, we may 
 reject the precedents they now furnish ; but it will be hard for 
 them to complain if we follow them. 
 
 Foreign Intervention is on its face inconsistent with every idea 
 of National Independence, which in itself is nothing more than 
 the conceded right of a nation to rest undisturbed so long as it 
 does not disturb others. If nations stood absolutely alone, dis- 
 sociated from each other, so that what passed in one had little or 
 no influence in another, only a tyrannical or intermeddling spirit 
 could fail to recognize this right. l>ut civilization itself, l>y draw- 
 ing nations nearer together ami bringing them into one society, 
 lias brought them under reciprocal influence, so that no nation 
 
28 
 
 can now act or suffer by itself alone. Out of the relations and 
 suggestions of good neighborhood — involving, of course, the admit- 
 ted right of self-defence — springs the only justification or apology 
 which can be found for Foreign Intervention, which is the general 
 term to signify an interposition in the affairs of another coun- 
 try,- whatever form it may take. Much is done under the name 
 of " good offices," whether in the form of Mediation or Interces- 
 sion ; and much also by military power, whether in the declared will 
 of superior force or directly by arms. Recognition of Indepen- 
 dence is also another instance. Intervention in any form is 
 interference. If peaceable it must be judged by its motive and 
 tendency; if forcible it will naturally be resisted by force. 
 
 Intervention may be between two or more nations, or it may be 
 between the two parties to a civil war ; and yet again, it may be 
 where there is -no war, foreign or domestic. In each case, it 
 should be governed strictly by the same principles, except, per- 
 haps, that, in the case of a civil war, there should be a more 
 careful consideration, not only of the rights, but of the suscepti- 
 bilities of a nation so severely tried. This is the obvious sugges- 
 tion of humanity. Indeed, Intervention between nations is only 
 a common form of participation in foreign war ; but intervention 
 in a civil war is an intermeddling in the domestic concerns of 
 another nation. Of course, whoever acts at the joint invitation 
 of the belligerent parties, in order to compose a bloody strife, will 
 be entitled to the blessings which belong to the peace-makers ; 
 but, if uninvited, or acting only at the invitation of one party, 
 he will be careful to proceed with reserve and tenderness, in the 
 spirit of peace, and will confine his action to a proffer of good 
 offices in the form of Mediation or Intercession, unless he is ready 
 for war. Such a proffer maybe declined without offence. But 
 it can never be forgotten that, where one side is obviov sly fighting 
 for Barbarism, any Intervention, whatever form it may take, — if 
 only by captious criticism, calculated to give encouragement to 
 the wrong side, or to secure for it time or temporary toleration, 
 if not final success, — is plainly immoral. If not contrary to the 
 Law of Nations, it ought to be. 
 
 Intervention, in the spirit of Peace and for the sake of Peace, 
 is one of the refinements of modern civilization. Intervention, 
 in the spirit of war, if not for the sake of war, has filled a large 
 space in history, ancient and modern. But all these instances 
 may be grouped under two heads ; first, Intervention in external 
 affairs ; and, secondly, Intervention in internal affairs. The first 
 may be illustrated by the Intervention of* the Elector Maurice, of 
 Saxony, against Charles V. ; of King William against Louis 
 XIV. ; of Russia and France, in the seven years' war ; of Russia 
 a^ain between France and Austria, in 1805, and also between 
 France and Prussia, in 1806; and of France, Great Britain and 
 Sardinia, between Turkey and Russia, in the war of the Crimea. 
 
29 
 
 The Intervention of Russia, Austria, and Prussia, in the affairs 
 of Poland ; of Great Britain among the native Powers of India ; 
 and of the Allied Powers, under the continued inspiration of the 
 Treaty of Pilnitz, in the French Revolution, are illustrations of 
 the second head. But without dwelling on these great examples, 
 I shall call attention to instances, which show more especially the 
 growth of intervention, first, in external, and, then, in internal 
 affairs. And here I shall conceal nothing. Instances, which 
 seem to be against the principles which I have at heart, will at 
 least help to illustrate the great subject, so that you may see it 
 as it is. 
 
 Intervention in External Affairs. 
 
 (1.) First in order, and for the sake of completeness, I speak 
 of Intervention in external affairs, where two or more nations are 
 parties. 
 
 As long ago as 1645, France offered Mediation between what 
 was then called " the two crowns of the North," Sweden and 
 Denmark. This was followed, in 1G48, by the famous Peace of 
 Westphalia, the beginning of our present Law of Nations, which 
 was negotiated under the joint Mediation of the Pope and the 
 Republic of Venice, present by Nuncio and Ambassador. Shortly 
 afterwards, in 1655, the Emperor of Germany offered his Media- 
 tion between Sweden and Poland, but the old historian records 
 that the Swedes suspected him of seeking to increase rather than 
 to arrange pending difficulties, which was confirmed by his 
 appearance shortly afterwards in the Polish camp. But Sweden, 
 though often belligerent in those days, was not so always, and, in 
 1672, when war broke forth between France and England on one 
 side and the Dutch Provinces on the other, we find her proffering 
 a Mediation, which was promptly accepted by England, who justly 
 rejected a similar proffer which the Elector of Brandenburg, 
 ancestor of the kings of Prussia, had the hardihood to make while 
 marching at the head of his forces to join the Dutch. The 
 English notes on this occasion, written in what at the time was 
 called " sufficiently bad French but in most intelligible terms," 
 declared that the Electoral proffer, though under the pleasant 
 name of mediation, {par le doux nom de mediation,') was in real- 
 ity an arbitration, and that, instead of a Mediation, unarmed and 
 disinterested, it was a Mediation, armed and pledged to the 
 enemies of England. (Wicquefort, L'Ambassadeur, Vol. i. 
 p. 135.) 
 
 Such are some of the earlier instances, all of which have their 
 lesson for us. But there are modern instances. I allude only to 
 the Triple Alliance between Great Britain, Prussia and Holland, 
 which, at the close of the last century, successively intervened, 
 by a Mediation, which could not be resisted, to compel Denmark — 
 
30 
 
 winch had sided with Russia against Sweden — to remain neutral for 
 the rest of the war ; then in 1791 to dictate the terms of peace 
 between Austria and the Porte ; and lastly hi 1«92, to constrain 
 Russia into an abandonment of her designs upon the Turkish 
 Empire, by the peace of Jassey. On this occasion the Empress 
 of Russia, Catharine, peremptorily refused the Mediation of 
 Prussia and the Mediating Alliance made its approaches through 
 Denmark, by whose good offices the Empress was fimilly induced 
 to consent to the Treaty. While thus engaged in a work of pro- 
 fessed Mediation, England, in a note to the French ambassador 
 declii.ed a proposition to act as Mediator between Fiance and the 
 Allied Powers; leaving that world-embracing war to proceed. But 
 England hasnotonly refused to act as Mediator but has a/so refused 
 to submit to a mediation. This was during the lust war with the 
 United States, when Russia, at that time the ally of England, 
 proffered her Mediation between the two belligerents, which was 
 promptly accepted by the United States. Its rejection at the 
 time by England, causing the prolongation of hostilities, was 
 considered by Sir James Mackintosh less justifiable, as "a medi- 
 ator is a common friend, who counsels both parties with a weight 
 proportioned to their belief in his integrity and their respect for 
 his power ; but he is not an arbitrator to whose decision they sub- 
 mit their differences where award is binding on them." The 
 peace of Ghent was concluded at last under Russian Mediation. 
 But England has not always been belligerent. When Andrew 
 Jackson menaced letters of marque against France, on account of 
 a failure to pay a sum stipulated in a recent Treaty with the 
 United States, King William IV. proffered his Mediation between 
 the two Powers ; but happily the whole question was already 
 arranged. It appears also that, before our war with Mexico, the 
 good offices of England were tendered to the two parties, but 
 neither was willing to accept them, and war took its course. 
 Such are instances of interference in the external affairs of 
 nations, and since International Law is to be traced in history, 
 they furnish a guide which we cannot safely neglect, especially 
 in view of the actual policy of England and France. 
 
 Intervention in Internal Affairs. 
 
 (2.) But the instances of Foreign Intervention in the internal 
 affairs of a nation are more pertinent to the present occasion. 
 They are numerous and not always harmonious, especially if we 
 compare the new with the old. In the earlier times such Inter- 
 vention was regarded with repugnance. But the principle then 
 declared has been sapped on the one side by the conspiracies of 
 tyranny, seeking the suppression of liberal institutions, and on 
 the other side, by a generous sympathy, breaking forth in support 
 of liberal institutions. According to the old precedents, most of 
 
31 
 
 which will bo found in the gossiping honk of Wicqucfort, from 
 whence they have been copied by Mr. Wild man, even Foreign 
 Intercession was prohibited. Not even in the name of charity 
 could one ruler speak to another on the domestic affairs of his 
 government. Peter, King of Arragon, refused to receive an 
 embassy from Alphonzo, King of Castile, entreating mercy for 
 rebels. Charles IX., of France, a detestable monarch, in reply to 
 ambassadors of the Protestant princes of Germany, pleading lor his 
 Protestant subjects, insolently said that he required no tutors to 
 teach him how to rule. And yet this same sovereign did not 
 hesitate to ask the Dnke of Savoy to receive certain subjects 
 "into his benign favor and to restore and re-establish them in 
 their confiscated estates." (Guizot's Cromwell, Vol ii. p. 210.) 
 In this appeal there was a double inconsistency ; for it was not 
 only an interference in the affairs of another Prince but it was in 
 behalf of Protestants, only a few months before the massacre of 
 St. Bartholomew. Henry III., the successor of Charles, and a 
 detestable monarch also, in reply to the Protestant ambassadors, 
 announced that he was a sovereign prince, and ordered them to 
 leave his dominions. Louis Xill. was of a milder nature, and yet 
 when the English ambassador, the Earl of Carlisle, presumed, to 
 speak in favor of the Huguenots, he declared that no interference 
 between the King of France and his subjects could be approved. 
 The Cardinal Richelieu, who governed France so long, learning 
 that an attempt was made to procure the Intercession of the 
 Pope stopped it by a message to his Holiness, that the King would 
 be displeased by any such interference. The Pope himself, on 
 another recorded occasion, admitted that it would be a pernicious 
 precedent to allow a subject to negotiate terms of accommodation 
 through a foreign Prince. Oa still another occasion, when the 
 King of France, forgetting his own rule, interposed in behalf of the 
 Barberini Family, innocent X. declared, that as he had no desire 
 to interfere in the affairs of Fiance, he trusted that his Majesty 
 would not interfere in his. Queen Christina of Sweden, on 
 merely hinting a disposition to proffer her good offices, lor the 
 settlement of the unhappy divisions of France, was totd by the 
 Queen Regent, that she might give herself no trouble on the 
 subject, and one of her own Ministers at Stockholm declared that 
 the overture had been properly rejected. Nor were the States 
 General of Holland less sensitive. They even went so far as to 
 refuse audience to the Spanish ambassador, seeking to congratu- 
 late them on the settlement of a domestic question, and, when 
 the French ambassador undertook to plead for the Reman Cath- 
 olics, the States by formal resolution denounced his conduct as 
 inconsistent with the peace and constitution of the Republic, all 
 of which was communicated to him by eight deputies who added 
 by word of mouth whatever the resolution seemed to want in 
 plainness of speech. 
 
 i 
 
32 
 
 Nor is England without similar examples. Louis XIII. , 
 shortly afte- the marriage of his sister Henrietta Maria with 
 Charles I., consented that the English ambassador should 
 interpose foi the French Protestants ; but when the French 
 ambassador in England requested the repeal of a law against 
 Roman Catholics, Charles expressed his surprise that the King of 
 France should presume to intermeddle in English affairs. Even 
 as lr.te as 1745, when, after the battle of Culloden, the Dutch 
 ambassador in France was induced to address the British Govern- 
 ment in behalf of Charles Edward, the Pretender, to the effect 
 that if taken he should not be treated as a rebel, it is recorded 
 that this Intercession was greatly resented by the British Govern- 
 ment which, not content with an apology from the unfortunate 
 official, required that he should be rebuked by his own govern- 
 ment also. And this is British testimony with regard to Intervention 
 in a civil war, even when it took the mildest form of Intercession 
 for the life of a prince. 
 
 But in the face of these repulses, all these nations at different 
 times have practiced Intervention in every variety of form. Some- 
 times by Intercession or " good offices " only, sometimes by 
 Mediation, and often by arms. Even these instances attest the 
 intermeddling spirit, for wherever Intervention was thus repulsed, 
 it was at least attempted. 
 
 But there are two precedents belonging to the earlier period, 
 which deserve to stand apart, not only for their historic impor- 
 tance, but for their applicability to our times. The first was the 
 effort of that powerful minister, who during the minority of Louis 
 XIV. swayed France — Cardinal Mazarin — to institute a Mediation 
 between King Charles I. and his Parliament. The civil war had 
 already been waged for years ; good men on each side, had fallen, 
 Falkland fighting for the King and Hampden fighting for the Par- 
 liament, and other costliest blood had been shed on the fields of 
 Worcester, Edgehill, Newbury, Marston Moor, and Naseby, when 
 the ambitious Cardinal, wishing to serve the King, according to 
 Clarendon, promised "to press the parliament so imperiously, and 
 to denounce a war against them, if they refused to yield what was 
 reasonable." For this important service he selected the famous 
 Pomponne de Believre, of a family tried in public duties — himself 
 President of the Parliament of Paris and a peer of France — con- 
 spicuous in personal qualities, as in place, whose beautiful head 
 preserved by the graver of Nanteuil is illustrious in art, and whose 
 dying charity lives still in the great hospital of the Hotel Dieu at 
 Paris. On his arrival at London, the graceful ambassador pre- 
 sented himself to that Long Parliament which knew so well how 
 to guard English rights. Every overture was at once rejected, by 
 formal proceedings, from which I copy these words : " We do 
 declare that we ourselves have been careful on all occasions to 
 compose these unhappy troubles, yet we have not, neither can, 
 
33 
 
 admit of any Mediation or interposing- betwixt the King and us by 
 any foreign Prince or State ; and we desire that his Majesty, the 
 French Kino;, will rest satisfied with this our resolution and 
 answer." On the committee which drew this reply was John 
 Selden, unsurpassed for learning and ability in the whole splendid 
 history of the English bar, on every book of whose library was 
 written, " Before every thing, Liberty " and also that Harry Vane 
 whom Milton, in one of his most inspired sonnets, addresses, as 
 
 " Vane, young in years, but in sage counsel old, 
 Than whom a better Senator ne'er held 
 The helm of Rome, when gowns not arms repelled 
 The fierce Epirot and the African bold." 
 
 The answer of such men may well be a precedent to us; especially 
 should England, taking up the rejected policy of Mazarin, presume 
 to send any ambassador to stay the Republic in its war with 
 Slavery. 
 
 But the same heart of oak, which was so strenuous to repel 
 the Intervention of France, in the great question between King 
 and Parliament, was not less strenuous even in Intervention — when 
 it could serve the rights of England or the principles of religious 
 liberty. Such was England when ruled by the great Protector, 
 called in his own day " chief of men." No nation so powerful 
 as to be exempt from that irresistible intercession, where beneath 
 the garb of peace there was a gleam of arms. From France, 
 even under the rule of Mazarin, he claimed respect for the 
 Protestant name, which he insisted upon making great and 
 glorious. From Spain, on whose extended empire the sun at 
 that time never ceased to shine, he insisted that no Englishman 
 should be subject to the Inquisition. Reading to his council a 
 despatch from Admiral Blake, announcing that he had obtained 
 justice from the Viceroy of Malaga, Cromwell said " that he 
 hoped to make the name of Englishman as great as ever that of 
 Roman had been." In this same lofty mood he turned to propose 
 his Mediation between Protestant Sweden and Protestant Bremen, 
 " chiefly bewailing that being both his friends they should so 
 despitefully combat one against another ;" " offering his assistance 
 to a commodious accommodation on both sides," and " exhorting 
 them by no means to refuse any honest conditions of reconcili- 
 ation." — (Milton's Prose Works, Vol. vi. p. 815, 16.) Here was 
 Intervention between nation and nation ; but it was soon followed 
 by an Intervention in the internal affairs of a distant country, 
 which of all the acts of Cromwell is the most touching and 
 sublime. The French ambassador was at Whitehall urging the 
 signature of a treaty, when news unexpectedly came from a 
 secluded valley of the Alps — far away among those mountain 
 torrents which are the affluents of the Po — that a company of 
 pious Protestants, who had been for centuries gathered there, 
 
 3 
 
34 
 
 where they kept the truth pure " when our fathers worshipped 
 stocks and stones," were now suffering terrible persecution from 
 their sovereign, Emanuel of Savoy ; that they luid been despoiled 
 of all possessions and liberties, brutally driven from their homes, 
 given over to a licentious and infuriate violence, and that when 
 they turned in self-defence, they had been " slain by the bloody 
 Piemoutesc, that rolled mother with infant down the rocks ; " and 
 it was reported that French troops took part in this dismal 
 transaction. The Protector heard the story, and his pity flashed 
 into anger. He declined to sign the treaty until France united 
 with him in securing justice to these humble sufferers, whom he 
 called the Lord's people. For their relief he contributed out of 
 his. own purse £2.000, and authorized a general collection through- 
 out England, which reached to a large sum; but, besides giving 
 money, he set apart a day of Humiliation and Prayer for them. 
 Nor was this all. "I should be glad," wrote his Secretary, 
 Thurloe, " to have a most particular accofmt of that business, 
 and to know what has become of these poor people, for whom our 
 very souls here do bleed." — (Vaughans Protectorate, Vol. i. p. 
 177.) But a mightier pen than that of any plodding secretary 
 was enlisted in this pious Intervention. It was John Milton, 
 glowing with that indignation which his sonnet on the massacre 
 in Piemont has made immortal in the heart of man, who wrote 
 the magnificent despatches, in which the English nation of that day 
 after declaring itself " linked together with its distant brethren, 
 not only by the same type of humanity, but by joint communion 
 of the same religion," naturally and gloriously insisted that 
 "whatever had been decreed to their disturbance on account of 
 the Reformed Religion should be abrogated, and that an end be 
 put to their oppressions." But not content with this call upon 
 the Prince of Savoy, the Protector appealed to Louis XIV. and 
 also to his Cardinal Minister; to the States General of Holland; 
 to the Protestant Cantons of Switzerland ; to the King of Denmark ; 
 to Gustavus Adolphus, and even to the Protestant Unitarian 
 Prince of remote Transylvania ; and always by the pen of Milton 
 — rallying these Princes and Powers in joint intreaty and inter- 
 vention and " if need be to some other speedy course, that such a 
 numerous multitude of our innocent brethren may not miserably 
 perish for want of succor and assistance." The regent of Savoy, 
 who was the daughter of Henry IV., professed to be affected by this 
 English charity, and announced for her Protestant subjects "a free 
 pardon, and also such privileges and graces as cannot but give 
 the Lord Protector a sufficient evidence of the great respect borne 
 both to Ids person and Mediation." — (^Gnizofs History of Crom- 
 well, Vol. ii. p. 211-19; Milt»n's Prose Works, Vol. vi. p. 318-^7.) 
 But there was still delay. Meanwhile Cromwell began to inquire 
 where English troops might debark in the Prince's territories, 
 and Mazarin, anxious to complete the yet unfinished Treaty with 
 
35 
 
 England, joined in requiring an immediate pacification in the 
 valleys and the restoration of these persecuted people to their 
 ancient liberties. It was dune. Such is the grandest Intervention 
 of English history, inspired hy Milton, enl'orced hy Cromwell, and 
 sustained by Louis XIV., with Ids Cardinal minister hy his side, 
 while foreign nations watched the scene. 
 
 But this great instance, constituting an inseparable part of 
 the <jl »ry of the Protector, is not the last occasion on which Eng- 
 land intervened in behalf of the liberties of Protestants. Troubles 
 began i;i France with the revocation of the edict of Nantes; but 
 these broke forth in the rebellion of the Caniisards, smarting 
 under the revocation. Sheltered by the mountains of the Ce- 
 vennes, and nerved by their good cause, with the device, " Liberty 
 of Conscience " on their standards, they made head against two 
 successive Marshals of France, and perplexed the old age of Lonis 
 XIV., whose arms were already enfeebled by foreign war. At 
 last, through the Mediation of England, the great monarch made 
 terms with his Protestant rebels, and the civil war was ended. 
 Q3Ji r/in, article, Minis! re } 
 
 Intervention, more often armed than unarmed, showed itself in 
 the middle of the last century. Ail decency was set aside when 
 Frederick of Prussia, Catharine of Russia, and Maria Theresa of 
 Austria, invaded and partitioned Poland, under tl^ pretext of 
 suppressing anarchy. Here was Intervention with a vengeance, 
 and on the side of arbitrary power. But such is human incon- 
 sistency, there was almost at the same time, another Intervention 
 in the opposite diiection. It was the Armed Intervention of 
 France, followed by that of Spain and Holland, in behalf of 
 American Independence. Put Spain began Intervention here by an 
 offer of Mediation, with a truce, which was accepted by France on 
 condition that meanwhile the United States should he independent 
 in fact. {Martens Nouretles Cuvses Ce/ebres, Vol. i. p. 434.) 
 Then came, in 1788, the Armed Intervention of Prussia, to sustain 
 an illiberal faction in Holland, which was followed afterwards by the 
 compact between Great, Britain, Prussia, and Holland, known as 
 the Triple Alliance, which began the business of its copartnership 
 by an Armed Intervention to reconcile the insurgent provinces of 
 Belgium to the German Emperor and their ancient Constitution. 
 As France be^an to be shaken by douicsiic troubles, Mediation in 
 her affairs was occasionally proposed. Among the papers of 
 Burke is a draft of a Memorial written in 1*91, in the name of 
 the Government, offering what he calls " this healing mediation." 
 Then came the vast coalition for Armed Intervention in Fiance to 
 put down the Republic. But even this dreary cloud was for a 
 moment brightened by a British attempt in Parliament, through 
 succesMve debates, to institute an Intercession for Lafayette, 
 immured in the dungeons of European despotism. "It is 
 reported," said one of the orators, u that America has solicited 
 
36 
 
 the liberation of her unfortunate adopted fellow-citizen. Let 
 British magnanimity be called in aid of American gratitude, and 
 exhibit to mankind a noble proof, that wherever the principles of 
 genuine liberty prevail, they never fail to inspire sentiments of 
 generosity, feelings of humanity , and a detestation of oppression" 
 (Parliamentary History, Vol. xxxi. p. 38 ; Vol. xxxii. p. 1348.) 
 
 Meanwhile France, against which all Europe intervened, played 
 her part of Intervention, and the scene was Switzerland. In the 
 unhappy disputes between the aristocratic and democratic par- 
 ties, by which this Republic had been distracted, French Mediation 
 had already become chronic, beginning in 1738, when it found a 
 partial apology in the invitation of several of the Cantons and of 
 the government of Geneva ; occurring again in 1768, and. again 
 in 1782. The mountain Republic, breathing the air of Freedom, 
 was naturally moved by the convulsions of the French Revolu- 
 tion. Civil war ensued, and grew in bitterness. At last, when 
 France herself was composed under the powerful arm of the First 
 Consul, we find him turning to compose the troubles of Switzer- 
 land. He was a military ruler, and always acted under the 
 instincts of military power. By an address, dated at the palace 
 of St. Cloud, Bonaparte declared that, already for three years the 
 Swiss had been slaying each other, and that, if left to themselves, 
 they would continue to slay each other for three years more, 
 without coming to any understanding ; that, at first, he had 
 resolved not to interfere in their affairs, but that he now changed 
 his mind, and announced himself as the Mediator of their diffi- 
 culties, proclaiming, confidently, that his Mediation would be 
 efficacious as became the great people in whose name he spoke. 
 ( Garden Histoire des Traites de Paix, Vol. viii. p. 21.) Deputies 
 from the Cantons, together with all the chief citizens, were sum- 
 moned to Paris, in order to declare the means of restoring the 
 union, securing peace and reconciling all parties. Of course, 
 this was Armed Mediation; but Switzerland was weak and France 
 was strong, while the declared object was union, peace and recon- 
 ciliation. I know not if all this was accomplished, but the civil 
 war was stifled, and the constitution was established by what is 
 entitled in history, the Act of Mediation. 
 
 From that period down to the present moment, Intervention in 
 the internal affairs of other nations has been a prevailing practice, 
 now cautiously and peaceably ; now offensively and forcibly. 
 Sometimes it was against the rights of men ; sometimes it was in 
 their favor. Sometimes England and France stood aloof; some- 
 times they took part. The Congress of Vienna, which undertook 
 to settle the map of Europe, organized a universal and perpetual 
 Intervention in the interest of monarchical institutions and exist- 
 ing dynasties. This compact was renewed at the Congress of 
 Aix la Cbapelle, in 1818, with the explanatory declaration that 
 the five great Powers would never assume jurisdiction over ques- 
 
37 
 
 tions concerning the rights and interests of another Power, except 
 at its request and without inviting such Power to take part in the 
 conference. But this concession was obviously adverse to any 
 liberal movement. Meanwhile the Holy Alliance was formed 
 specially to watch and control the revolutionary tendencies of the 
 age ; but into this combination England, to her honor, declined 
 to enter. The other Powers were sufficiently active. Austria, 
 Russia and Prussia, did not hesitate at the Congress of Laybach, 
 in 1840, to institute an Armed Intervention for the suppression of 
 liberal principles in Naples; and again two years later, at the 
 Congress of Verona, these same Powers, together with France, 
 instituted another Armed Intervention to suppress liberal princi- 
 ples in Spain, which ultimately led to the invasion of that king- 
 dom and the overthrow of its constitution. France was the bellig- 
 erent agent, and would not be turned aside, although the Duke 
 of Wellington at Verona and Mr. Canning at home, sought to 
 arrest her armies by tbe Mediation of Great Britain, which Medi- 
 ation was directly sougbt by Spain and directly refused by France. 
 The British Government, in admirable letters, composed with 
 unsurpassed skill and constituting a noble page of International 
 Law, disclaimed for itself and denied to other Powers the right 
 to require changes in the internal institutions of Independent 
 States, with the menace of hostile attack in case of refusal; and 
 it bravely declared to tbe Imperial and Royal Interventionists, 
 that " so long as the struggles and disturbances of Spain sbould 
 be confined within the circle of her own territory, they could not 
 be admitted by the British Government to afford any plea for 
 foreign interference," and in still anotber note it repeated that 
 " a menace of direct ami imminent danger could alone, in excep- 
 tion to the general rule, justify foreign interference.'''' (Pbilli- 
 more's International Law, Vol. iii. pp. 757-66.) These were tbe 
 words of Mr. Canning; but even Lord Castlereagh, in an earlier 
 note, had asserted tbe same limitation, which at a later day had 
 the unqualified support of Lord Grey and also of Lord Aberdeen. 
 Justly interpreted they leave no apology for Armed Intervention 
 except in a case of direct and imminent danger, when a nation, 
 like an individual, may be thrown upon the great right of self- 
 defence. ' 
 
 But Great Britain bore testimony by what she did, as well as 
 by what she refused to do. Even while resisting the Armed Inter- 
 vention of the great conspiracy, her Covernment intervened some- 
 times by Mediation and sometimes by arms. Early in the contest 
 between Spain and her Colonies, she consented on the invitation 
 of Spain to act as Mediator, in the hope of effecting a reconcilia- 
 tion ; but Spain declined the Mediation which she had invited. 
 From 1812 to 1823 Great Britain constantly repeated her offer. 
 In the case of Portugal she went further. Under the counsels of 
 Mr. Canning, whose speech on the occasion was of the most 
 
38 
 
 memorable character, she intervened by landing troops at Lisbon ; 
 but this Intervention was vindicated by the obligations of treaty. 
 Next came the greater instance of Greece, when the Christian 
 Powers of Europe intervened to arrest a protracted struggle and 
 to save this classic land from Turkish tyranny. Here the first 
 step was a pressing iririfa/ion from the Greeks to the British and 
 French governments for their Mediation with the Ottoman Porte. 
 These Powers together with Russia proffered the much desired 
 Intervention, which the Greeks at once accepted and the Turks 
 rejected. Battle had already raged fiercely, accompanied by har- 
 burous massacre. Without delav, the Allied forces were directed 
 to compel the cessation of hostilities, which was accomplished by 
 the destruction of the Turkish fleet at Navarino and the occu- 
 pition of the Morea by French troops. At last, under the 
 continued Mediation of these Powers, the independence of Greece 
 was recognized by the Ottoman Porte, and another Free State, 
 consecrated to Freedom, took its place in the Family of Nations, 
 But Mediation in Turkish affairs did not stop here. The example 
 of Greece was followed by Egypt, whose provincial chief Mehemet 
 Ali rebelled, and, by a genius for war, succeeded in dispossessing 
 the Ottoman Porte not only of Egypt, but of other possessions 
 also. This civil war was first arrested by temporary arrangement 
 at Kutoyah in 1*33, under the Mediation of Great Britain and 
 France, and, finally ended by an Armed Mediation in 1840, when, 
 alter elaborate and irritating discussions, which threatened to 
 involve Europe, a Treaty was concluded at London between Great 
 Britain, Russia, Austria and Prussia, by which the Pacha was 
 compelled to relinquish some of his conquests, while he was 
 seemed in the government of Egypt, as a perpetual vassal of the 
 Porte. France dissatisfied with the terms of this adjustment stood 
 aloof from the Treaty, which found its apology, such as it hud, 
 first, in the invitation of the Sultan and secondly, in the desire 
 to pieserve the integrity of the Turkish empire as essential to the 
 balance of power and the peace of Europe ; to which reasons may 
 also be added the desire to stop the effusion of blood. 
 
 Even before the Eastern questions were settled, other compli- 
 cations bad commenced in Western Europe. Belgium, restless 
 from the French Revolution of 1830, rose against the House of 
 Orange and claimed her Independence. Civil war ensued ; but 
 the Great Powers promptly intervened, even to the extent of 
 arresting a 1 hitch army on its march. Beginning with an armis- 
 tice, there was a long and fine-spun negotiation, which, assuming 
 the guise alternately of a pacific Mediation and of an Armed In- 
 tervention, ended at last in the established separation of Belgium 
 from Holland, and its Recognition as an Independent Nation. Do 
 you ask why Great Britain intervened on this occasion ? Lord 
 John Russell, in the course of debate at a subsequent clay, declared 
 that a special motive was " the establishment of a free constitu- 
 
39 
 
 tion." (Hansard's Parliamentary Debates, 3d series. Vol. xciii. p. 
 417— GG — House of Commons, July 11,1847.) Meanwhile the penin- 
 sula of Spain and Portugal was torn l>y civil war. The regents of 
 these two kingdoms respectively appealed to Great Britain and 
 France for aid, especially in the expulsion of the pretender Don 
 Carlos from Spain, and the pretender Don Miguel from Portugal. 
 For this purpose the Quadruple Alliance of these Powers was 
 formed in 18b4. The moral support derived from this Treaty is 
 said to have been important; but Great Britain was compelled to 
 provide troops. This Intervention, however, was at tke solicita- 
 tion of the actual governments. Even alter the Spanish troubles 
 were settled the war still lingered in the sister kingdom, when in 
 1847, the Queen appealed to Great Britain, the ancient patron of 
 Portugal, to mediate between herself and her insurgent subjects, 
 and the task was accepted, in the declared hope of composing the 
 difficulties in a just and permanent manner " with all due regard 
 to the dignity of the Crown on the one hand and the Constitu- 
 tional liberties of the Nation on the other." The insurgents did 
 not submit until after military demonstrations. But peace and 
 liberty were the two watchwords here. 
 
 Then occurred the European uprising of 1848. France was 
 once more a Republic; but Europe wiser grown did not interfere 
 in her affairs, even so much as to write a letter. But the case 
 was different with Hungary, whose victorious armies, radiant with 
 liberty regained, expelled the Austrian power only to be arrested 
 by the Armed Intervention of the Russian Czar, who yielded to the 
 double pressure of an invitation from Austria and a fear that suc- 
 cessful insurrection might extend into Poland. It was loft for 
 France at the same time in another country, with a strange incon- 
 sistency, to play the part which Russia had played in Hungary. 
 Rome, which had risen against the temporal power of the Pope, 
 and proclaimed the Republic, was occupied by a French army, 
 which expelled the republican magistrates, and, though fifteen 
 years have already passed since that unhappy act, the occupation 
 still continues. From this military Intervention Great Britain 
 stood aloof. In a despatch, dated at London January 28, 1849, 
 Lord Palmerston has made a permanent record to the honor of his 
 country. His words are as follows: "Her Majesty's Government 
 would upon every account, and not only upon abstract principle, 
 but with reference to the general interests of Europe, and from 
 the value which they attach to Ihe maintenance of peace, sincerely 
 deprecate any attempt to settle the differences between tke Pope 
 ami his subjects by the 'military iuterference of foreign Powers." 
 (Phillimore, International Law, Vol. ii. p. 676.) But he gave 
 further point to the whole position of Great Britain, in contrast 
 with France, when he said, " Armed Intervention to assist inretain- 
 fing a bad government would be unjustifiable" (Ibid, 448.) Such 
 Was the declaration of the Lord Pulmerston of that day. But 
 
40 
 
 how much more unjustifiable must he assistance to found a bad 
 government, as is now proposed. The British Minister insisted 
 that the differences should be accommodated by " the 'diplomatic 
 interposition of friendly Powers," which he declared a much better 
 mode of settlement than an authoritative imposition of terms by 
 foreign arms. In harmony with this policy Great Britain during 
 this same year united with France in proffering Mediation between 
 the insurgent Sicilians and the King of Naples, the notorious 
 Bomba, in the hope of helping the cause of good government and 
 liberal principles. Not disheartened by rebuff, these two govern- 
 ments in 1856 united in a friendly remonstrance to the same 
 tyrannical sovereign against the harsh system of political arrests 
 which he maintained, and against his cruelty to good citizens thrust 
 without any trial into the worst of prisons. The advice was 
 indignantly rejected, and the two governments that gave it at 
 once withdrew their Ministers from Naples. The sympathy of 
 Russia was on the wrong side, and Prince Gortschakoff, while 
 admitting that " as a consequence of friendly forethought, one 
 government might give advice to another," declared in a circular 
 that " to endeavor by threats or a menacing demonstration, to 
 obtain from the King of Naples concessions in the internal affairs 
 of his government, is a violent usurpation of his authority, and 
 an open declaration of the strong over the weak." This was 
 practically answered by Lord Clarendon, speaking for Great Brit- 
 ain at the Congress of Paris, when, admitting the principle that 
 no government has the right to intervene in the internal affairs of 
 other nations, he declared that there were cases where an excep- 
 tion to this rule becomes equally a right and a duty ; that peace 
 must not be broken, but that there was no peace without justice, 
 and that, therefore, the Congress must let the King of Naples 
 know its desire for an amelioration of his system of government, 
 and must demand of him an amnesty for political offenders suffer- 
 ing without a trial. This language was bold beyond the practice 
 of diplomacy ; but the Intervention which it proposed was on the 
 side of humanity. 
 
 But I must draw this part of the discussion to a close, although 
 the long list of instances is not yet exhausted. Even while I 
 speak, we hear. of Intervention by England and France, in the 
 civil war between the Emperor of China and his subjects ; and 
 also in that other war between the Emperor of Russia on the one 
 side and the Poles whom he claims as subjects on the other side ; 
 but with this difference, that, in China these Powers have taken 
 the part of the existing government, while in Poland they have 
 intervened against the existing government. In the face of posi- 
 tive declarations of neutrality the British and French Admirals 
 have united their forces with the Chinese ; but thus far in Poland 
 although there has been no declaration of neutrality, the Inter, 
 vention has been unarmed. In both these instances we witness 
 
41 
 
 the same tendency, directed, it may be, by the interests or preju- 
 dices of the time, and so far as it has yet proceeded, it is at least 
 in Poland on the side of liberal institutions. lint alas! for 
 human consistency — the French Emperor is now intervening in 
 Mexico with armies and navies, to build a throne for an Austrian 
 Archduke. 
 
 British Intervention against Slavery. 
 
 But there is one long-continued Intervention by Great Britain, 
 which speaks now with controlling power ; and it is on this ac- 
 count that I have reserved it for the close of what I have to say 
 on this head. Though not without original shades of dark, it has 
 for more than half a century been a shining example to the civil- 
 ized world. I refer to that Intervention against Slavery, which 
 from its first adoption has been so constant and brilliant as to 
 make us forget the earlier Intervention for Slavery, when, for 
 instance, Great Britain at the peace of Utrecht intervened to ex- 
 tort the detestable privilege of supplying slaves to Spanish Amer- 
 ica at the rate of 4,800 yearly for the space of thirty years, and 
 then again at the peace of Aix la Chapelle higgled for a yet longer 
 sanction to this ignoble Intervention ; nay it almost makes us 
 forget the kindred Intervention, at once most sordid and criminal, 
 by which this Power counteracted all efforts for the prohibition of 
 the slave-trade even in its own colonies, and thus helped to fasten 
 Slavery upon Virginia and Carolina. The abolition of the slave- 
 trade by act of Parliament in 1807 w.as the signal for a change of 
 history. 
 
 But curiously, it was the whites who gained the first fruits of 
 this change by a triumphant Intervention for the suppression of 
 White Slavery in the Barbary States. The old hero of Acre, 
 Sir Sidney Smith, released from his long imprisonment in France, 
 sought to organize a " holy league " for this Intervention; the 
 subject was discussed at the Congress of Vienna ; and the agents 
 of Spain and Portugal, anxious for the punishment of their pirat- 
 ical neighbors argued that, because Great Britain had abolished 
 for itself the traffic in African slaves, therefore it must see that 
 whites were no longer enslaved in the Barbary States. The argu- 
 ment was less logical than humane. But Great Britain under- 
 took the work. With a fleet complete at all points, consisting of 
 five line-ol'-battle ships, five heavy frigates, four bomb-vessels, and 
 five gun-brigs, Lord Exinouth approached Algiers, where he was 
 joined by a considerable Dutch fleet, anxious to take part in this 
 Intervention. " If force must be resorted to" said the Admiral 
 in his General Orders, " we have the consolation of knowing that 
 we fight in the sacred cause of humanity and cannot fail of suc- 
 cess." A single day was enough — with such a force in such a 
 cause. The lormidable castles of the great Slave-monger were 
 
42 
 
 battered to pieces, and he was compelled to sign a Treaty, con- 
 firmed under a salute of twenty-one guns, which in its first 
 article stipulated "The Abolition of Christian Slavery forever." 
 Glorious and beneficent Intervention ! — Not inferior to that re- 
 nowned instance of antiquity, where the Carthaginians were 
 required to abolish the practice of sacrificing their own children ; 
 a Treaty which has been called the noblest of history, because it 
 was stipulated in favor of human nature. The Admiral, who 
 had thus triumphed, was hailed as an Emancipator. He received 
 a new rank in the peerage, and a new blazonry on his c<»;it of 
 arms. r J be rank is of course continued in his family, and on 
 their shield, in perpetual memory of this great transaction, is still 
 borne a Christian slave holding aloft the cross and dropping his 
 broken fetters. But the personal satisfactions of the Admiral 
 were more than rank or heraldry. In his despatch to the Gov- 
 ernment, describing the battle and written at the time, he savs: 
 " To have been one of the humble instruments in the hands of 
 Divine Providence for bringing to reason a ferocious government 
 and destroying forever the insufferable and horrid system of 
 Christian Slavery, can never cease to be a source of delight and 
 heartfelt comfort to every individual happy enough to be employed 
 in it." (Osier's Life of Exmouth, pp. k ( j7, 334, 432 ) 
 
 But I have said too much with regard to an instance, which, 
 though beautiful and important, may be regarded only as a paren- 
 thesis in the grander and more extensive Intervention against 
 African Slavery, which was already organizing, destined at last to 
 embrace the whole Human Family. Even belore Wilberforee 
 triumphed in Parliament, Great Britain intervened with Napo- 
 leon, in ]80i», to induce him to join in the abolition of the slave- 
 trade ; but he flatly refused. "What France would not then yield, 
 was extorted from Portugal in 1810; from Sweden shortly alter- 
 wards ; and from Denmark in 1814. An ineffectual attempt was 
 made to enlist Spain, even by the temptation of pecuniary subsi- 
 dies ; and also to enlist the restored monarch of France, Louis 
 XVIII. even by the offer of a sum of money outright or the 
 cession of a West India Island, in consideration of the desired 
 abolition. Had gratitude to a benefactor prevailed, these Powers 
 could not have resisted ; but it was confessed by Lord Castlereagh, 
 in the House of Commons, that there was a distrust of the Brit- 
 ish Government "even among the better classes of people," who 
 thought that its zeal in this behalf was prompted by a de. ire to 
 injure the French Colonies and commerce, rather than by benevo- 
 lence. But the British Minister was more successful with Portugal, 
 which was induced, by pecuniary equivalents, to execute a Supple- 
 mentary Treaty in January, 1815. This was fJlowed by the de- 
 claration of the Congress of Vienna, on motion of Lord Castlereagh, 
 loth February, 1815, denouncing the African slave-trade "as 
 inconsistent with the principles of humanity and universal benev- 
 
43 
 
 olence." Meanwhile Napoleon returned from Elba, and what the 
 Btitish Intervention failed to accomplish with the Bourbon Mon- 
 arch, and what the Emperor had once flitly refused, was now 
 spontaneously done by him, doubtless in the hope of conciliat- 
 ing British sentiment. His hundred days of power were signal- 
 ized by ail ordinance abolishing the slave-trade in France and her 
 colonies. Louis XVIII. once again restored by British arms and 
 with the shadow of Waterloo upon France, could not do less than 
 ratify this imperial ordinance by a royal assurance t!i it " the 
 traffic was henceforth forever forbidden to all the subjects of his 
 mo^t Christian Majesty." Holland came under the same influ- 
 ence and accepted t ie restitution of her colonies, except the Cape 
 of Good Hope and Guiana, on condition of the entire abolition of 
 the slave-trade in the restored colonies and also everywhere else 
 beneath her flag. Spain was the most indocile ; lint this proud 
 monarchy, under whose auspices the African slave-trade first c ime 
 into being, at last yielded. By the Treaty of Madrid, of 22d 
 September, 1817, extorted by Great Britain, it stipulated the 
 immediate abolition of the trade north of the Equator, and 
 also, after 1820, its abolition everywhere, in consideration of 
 £lu0,000, the price of Freedom, to be paid by the other contract- 
 ing party. In vindication of this Intervention, Wilbcrforce declared 
 in Parliament that, " the grant to Spain would be more than 
 repaid to Great Britain in commercial advantages by the opening 
 of a great continent to British industry," — all of which was 
 impossible if the slave-trade was allowed to continue under the 
 Spanish flag. 
 
 At the Congress of Aix la Chapello in 1818, and of Verona in 
 1822, Great Britain continued her system of Intervention against 
 Slavery. Her primacy in this cause was recognized by European 
 Powers. It was the common remark of continental publicists 
 that she " made tli3 cause her own." (L Phillimore Interna- 
 tional Law, £jC0.) One of them portrays her vividly "■ since 1810 
 waging incessant war against the principle of the slave-trade, and 
 by this crusade, undertaken in the name of Humanity, making 
 herself the declared protectress of the African race." ( CV/ssy, 
 Causes Celebres tie Droit Maritime, Vol. i. p. L37, Vol. ii. pp. 
 362, 03.) These are the words of a French authority. Accord- 
 ing to him, it is nothing less than "an incessant war " and a 
 "crusade," which she has waged and the position which she has 
 achieved is that of " Protectress of the African race." In this 
 character she has not been content with imposing her magnani- 
 mous system upon the civilized world, but she has carried it 
 among the tribes and chiefs of Africa, who by this omnipresent 
 Intervention, were summoned to renounce a barbarous and crim- 
 inal custom. By a Parliamentary Report, it appears that in 
 1850, there were twenty-four treaties in force, between Great 
 Britain and foreign civilized Powers, for the suppression of the 
 
44 
 
 slave-trade, and also forty-two similar treaties between Great 
 Britain and native chiefs of Africa. 
 
 But this Intervention was not only by treaties ; it was also by 
 correspondence and circulars. And here I approach a part of the 
 subject which illustrates the vivacity of this Intervention. All 
 British ministers and consuls were so many pickets on constant 
 guard in the out-posts where they resided. They were held to 
 every service by which the cause could be promoted, even to 
 translating and printing documents against the slave-trade, espe- 
 cially in countries where unhappily it was still pursued. There 
 was the Pope's Bull of 1839, which Lord Pal merston did not hesi- 
 tate to transmit for this purpose to his agents in Cuba, Brazil, 
 and even in Turkey, some of whom were unsuccessful in their 
 efforts to obtain its publication, although, curiously enough, it 
 was published in Turkey. (Parliamentary Papers, 1841, Vol. xxx. 
 Slave Trade, Class B, p. 84, 197, 223 ; Class C, p. 73, Class D, 
 p. 15.) 
 
 Such a zeal could not stop at the abolition of the traffic. 
 Accordingly Great Britain, by Act of Parliament in 1834 enfran- 
 chised all the slaves in her own possessions, and thus again 
 secured to herself the primacy of a lofty cause. The Inter- 
 vention was now openly declared to be against Slavery itself. 
 But it assumed its most positive character while Lord Palmerston 
 was Foreign Secretary, and I say this sincerely to his great honor. 
 Throughout his long life, among all the various concerns in which 
 he has acted, there is nothing which will be remembered hereafter 
 with such gratitude. By his diplomacy her Majesty's Govern- 
 ment constituted itself into a vast Abolition Society with the 
 whole world for its field. It was in no respect behind the famous 
 World's Convention against Slavery, held at London in June, 
 1840, with Thomas Clarkson, the pioneer Abolitionist, as Presi- 
 dent; for the strongest declarations of this Convention were 
 adopted expressly by Lord Palmerston as " the sentiments of her 
 Majesty's Government," and communicated officially to all British 
 functionaries in foreign lands. The Convention declared " the 
 utter injustice of Slavery in all its forms ; and the evil it inflicted 
 upon its miserable victims; and the necessity of employing every 
 means, moral, pacific, and religious, for its complete abolition — 
 an object most dear to the members of the Convention, and for 
 the consummation of which they are especially assembled." 
 These words became the words of the British Government, and, 
 in circular letters, were sent over the world. (Parliamentary 
 Papers, 1841, Vol. xxx. Class B, p. 33.) 
 
 But it was not enough to declare the true principles. They 
 must be enforced. Spain and Portugal hung back. The Secre- 
 tary of the Anti-Slavery Society was sent " to endeavor to create 
 in these countries a public feeling in favor of the abolition of 
 Slavery," and the British Minister at Lisbon was desired by Lord 
 
45 
 
 Palracrston "to afford all the assistance and protection in his power 
 for promoting the object of his journey." (Ibid, p. 123.) British 
 officials in foreign countries sometimes back-slided. This was 
 corrected by another circular addressed to all the four quarters 
 of the globe, setting forth, " that it would be unfitting that any 
 officer, holding an appointment under the British Government 
 should, either directly or indirectly, hold or be interested in slave 
 property." The Parliamentary Papers, which attest the univer- 
 sality of this instruction, show the completeness with which it was 
 executed. The consul at Rio Janeiro, in slave-holding Brazil, 
 had among his domestics three negro slaves, " one a groom and 
 the other a waiter and a woman he was forced to hire as a nurse 
 to his children;" but he discharged them at once under the Anti- 
 Slavery discipline of the British Foreign office, and Lord Palmers- 
 ton in a formal despatch " expresses his satisfaction." (Ibid, 
 1842, Vol. xlviii. Class B, p. 732.) In Cuba, at the time of the 
 reception there was not a single resident officer holding under its 
 British Crown " who was entirely free from the charge of counte- 
 nancing Slavery." But only a few days afterwards, it was 
 officially reported, that there was " not a single British officer 
 residing there who had not relinquished or was not at least 
 preparing to relinquish the odious practice." (Ibid, p. 20G.) 
 This was quick work. Thus was the practice according to the 
 rule. Every person, holding an office under the British govern- 
 ment, was constrained to set his face against Slavery, and the way 
 ivas by having 1 nothing' to do with it, even in employing or hiring 
 the slave of another ; nothing, directly or indirectly. 
 
 But Lord Palmerston, acting in the name of the British Gov- 
 ernment, did not stop with changing British officials into practi- 
 cal Abolitionists whenever they were in foreign countries. He 
 sought to enlist other European governments in the same policy, 
 and to tliis end requested them to forbid all their functionaries, 
 residing in slave-holding communities, to be interested in slave 
 property or in any holding or hiring of slaves. Denmark for a 
 moment hesitated, from an unwillingness to debar its officers in 
 slave countries from acting according to the laws where they 
 resided, when the minister at once cited in support of his request, 
 the example of Belgium, Holland, Sweden, Naples and Portugal, 
 all of which without delay had yielded to this British Interven- 
 tion ; and Denmark ranged herself in the list. (Ibid, p. 42. 
 Vol. xliv. Class C, pp. 7-15.) Nor was this indefatigable Propa- 
 ganda confined in its operations to the Christian Powers. With a 
 sacred pertinacity it reached into distant Mohammedan regions, 
 where Slavery was imbedded not only in the laws, but in the 
 habits, the social system, and the very life of the people, and 
 called upon the Government to act against it. No impediment 
 stood in Ihe way ; no prejudice, national or religious. To the 
 Schah of Persia, ruling a vast, outlying slave empire, Lord Pal- 
 
46 
 
 merston announced the desire of the British Government " to see 
 the condition of Slavery abolished in every part of the wo:li ;" 
 " that it conceived much good might he accomplished even in 
 Mohammedan countries by steady perseverance and by never omit- 
 ting to take advantage of favorable opportunities," and ^ that the 
 Schah would be doing a thing extremely acceptable to the British 
 Government and nation if he would issue a decree making it 
 penal f.>r a Persian to purchase slaves." (Did, 1842, Vol. xliv. 
 Class D, p. TO.) To the Sultan of Turkey, whose mother was a 
 slave, whose wives were all slaves, and whose very counsellors, 
 generals and admirals were originally slaves, he made a similar 
 appeal, and he sought to win the dependent despot by reminding 
 him that only in this way could he hope for that good will which 
 was s-o essential to his government; '■ that the continued support 
 of Gieat Biitain will for some years to come be an o'j vt of 
 importance to the Porte; that this support cannot be g-iven effect- 
 ually unless the sentiments and opinions of the majority of the 
 British, nation shall be favorable to the Turkish Government, and 
 that the whole of the British nation unanimously desire beyond 
 almost any Using; else to put an end to the practice of making 
 slaves " (Ibid, lte41, Vol. xxx. Class D, pp. 1.5-18; also, Ibid, 
 1812, Vol. xliv. Class D, p. 73.) Such at that time was the voice 
 of the B; itish people. Since Cromwell pleaded lor the Vaudois, 
 no nobler voice had gone forth. The World's Convention against 
 Slavery saw itself transfigured, while platform speeches were trans- 
 fused into diplomatic notes. The Convention, earnest for Uni- 
 versal Emancipation, declared that " (he friendly interpostti >n of 
 Great Britain could be employed for no nobler purpose ; " and, as 
 if to crown its work, in an address to Lord Palmerston, humbly 
 and earnestly implored his lordship " to use his high authority for 
 connecting the overthrow of slavery with the consolidation of 
 peace;" and all these words were at once adopted in foreign 
 despatches as expressing the sentiments of Her Majesty's Gov- 
 ernment. (Ibid, 1841, Vol. xxx. Class D, pp. 15, lb.) Better 
 watch-words there could not he, nor any more worthy of the 
 British name. There can be no consolidation of peace without 
 the overthrow of Slavery. This is as true now as when first 
 uttered. Therefore is Great Britain still bound to her original 
 faith; nor can she abandon the cause of which she was the 
 declared Protectress without the betrayal of Peace, as well as the 
 betrayal of Liberty. 
 
 But even now while I speak this same conspicuous fidelity to a 
 sacred cause is announced by the recent arrivals from Europe. 
 The ship canal across the Isthmus of Suez, first attempted by the 
 early Pharaohs, and at last undertaken by French influence under 
 the auspices of the Pacha of Egypt, is most zealously opposed by 
 Great Britain — for the declared reason, that in its construction 
 " forced labor " is employed, which this Power cannot in con- 
 
47 
 
 science sanction. Not even (o complete this vast improvement, 
 bringing the East and the West near together, for which mankind 
 has waited throughout long centuries, will Great Britain depart 
 from the rule which she has so gloriously declared. SI wery is 
 wrong ; therefore it cannot he employed. TI13 canal must stop 
 if it cannot be built without " forced labor." 
 
 Genera/ Principles applicable to Intervention. 
 
 And here I close the historic instances which illustrate the 
 right and practice of Foreign Intervention. The whole subject 
 Will l>e seen in these instances, teaching clearly what to avoid 
 and what to follow. In this way the Law of Nations, like history, 
 gives its best lessons. But, for the sake of plainness, I now 
 gather up some of the conclusions. 
 
 Foreign Intervention is armed or unarmed, although sometimes 
 the two arc not easily distinguishable. An unarmed Intervention 
 may have in it the menace of arms, or it may be war in disguise. 
 If this is the case, it must be treated accordingly. 
 
 Armed Intervention is war and nothing less. Of course it can 
 be vindicated only as war, and it must bo resisted as war. 
 Believing as. I do, most profoundly, that war can never be ;i game, 
 but must always be a crime when it ceases to be a duty ; a ei ime 
 to be shunned if it be not a duty to be performed swiftly and 
 surely ; and that a nation, like an individual, is not permitted to 
 take the sword, except in just self-defence — L find the same lim- 
 itation in Armed intervention, which becomes unjust invasion just 
 in proportion as it departs from just self-defence. Under this 
 head is naturally included all that Intervention which is moved 
 by a tyrannical or intermeddling spirit, because such Intervention, 
 whatever may be its professions, is essentially hostile ; as when 
 Russia, Prussia and Austria, partitioned Poland ; when the Holy 
 Alliance intermeddled everywhere, and menaced even America; 
 or when Russia intervened to crush the independence of Hungary, 
 or France to crush the Roman Republic. All such Intervention 
 is illegal, inexcusable and scandalous. Its vindication can be 
 found only in the effrontery that might makes right. 
 
 Unarmed Intervention is of a different character. If sincerely 
 unarmed, it may be regarded as obtrusive, but not hostile. It 
 may assume the form of Mediation, or the proffer of good offices, 
 at the invitation of both parties, or, in the case of cml war, at 
 the invitation of the original authority. With such invitation, 
 this Intervention is proper and honorable. Without such invita- 
 tion it is of doubtful character. But if known to be contrary to 
 the desires of both parties, or to the desires of the original 
 authority in a distracted country, it becomes offensive and inad- 
 
48 
 
 missible, unless obviously on the side of Human Rights, when 
 the act of Intervention takes its character from the cause in which 
 it is made. But it must not be forgotten that, in the case of a 
 civil war, any Mediation, or indeed, any proposition which docs 
 not enjoin submission to the original authority, is in its nature 
 adverse to that authority, for it assumes to a certain extent the 
 separate existence of the other party, and secures for it temporary 
 immunity and opportunity, if not independence. Congress, 
 therefore, was right in declaring to Foreign Powers, that any 
 renewed effort of mediation in our affairs will be regarded as an 
 unfriendly act. 
 
 There is another case of unarmed Intervention, which I cannot 
 criticise. It is where a nation intercedes or interposes in favor 
 of Human Rights, or to secure the overthrow of some enormous 
 wrong, as where Cromwell pleaded, with noble intercession, for 
 the secluded Protestants of the Alpine valleys ; where Great 
 Britain and France declared their sympathy with the Greeks 
 struggling for Independence, and where Great Britain alone, 
 by an untiring diplomacy, set herself against Slavery everywhere 
 throughout the world. 
 
 The whole lesson on this head may bo summed up briefly. All 
 Intervention in the internal affairs of another nation is contrary 
 to law and reason, and can be vindicated only by overruling 
 necessity. If you intervene by war, then must there be the 
 necessity of self-defence. If you intervene by Mediation or Inter- 
 cession, then must you be able to speak in behalf of civilization 
 endangered or human nature insulted. But there is no Power 
 which is bound to this humane policy so absolutely as England ; 
 especially is there none which is so fixed beyond the possibility of 
 retreat or change in its opposition to Slavery, whatever shape this 
 criminal pretension may assume — whether it be the animating 
 principle of a nation — the " forced labor " of a multitude — or even 
 the service of a solitary domestic. 
 
 [III.] 
 
 Intervention by Recognition,. 
 
 There is a species of Foreign Intervention, which stands by 
 itself, and has its own illustrations. Therefore, I speak of it by 
 itself. It is where a Foreign Power undertakes to acknowledge 
 the independence of a colony or province which has renounced its 
 original allegiance, and it may be compendiously called Interven- 
 tion by Recognition. Recognition alone is strictly applicable to 
 the act of the original government, renouncing all claim of alle- 
 giance and at last acknowledging the Independence which has 
 been in dispute. But it is an act of Intervention only where a 
 Foreign Government steps between the two parties. Of course, 
 the original government is so far master of its position, that it may 
 
49 
 
 select its own time in making this Recognition. But the question 
 arises at what time and under what circumstances can this Recog- 
 nition be made by a Foreign Power. It is obvious that a Recogni- 
 tion, proper at one time and under special circumstances, would 
 not be proper at another and under different circumstances. 
 Mr. Canning said with reference to Spanish America, that " if ho 
 piqued himself upon any thing it was upon the subject of lime" 
 and he added that there were two ways of proceeding, " one went 
 recklessly and with a hurried course to the object, which, though 
 soon reached, might be almost as soon lost, and the other was by 
 a course so strictly guarded that no principle was violated and 
 no offence given to other Powers." (Hansard's Parliamentary 
 Debates, 2d Series, Vol. xii. p. 7, 8.) These are words of wise 
 statesmanship, and they present the practical question which 
 must occur in every case of Recognition. What condition of the 
 controversy will justify this Intervention ? 
 
 And here again the whole matter can be best explained by 
 historic instances. The earliest case is that of Switzerland which 
 led the way, as long ago as 1307, by breaking off from the House 
 of Hapsburg, whose original cradle was in a Swiss Canton. But 
 Austria did not acknowledge the Independence of the Republic 
 until the peace of Westphalia, more than three centuries and a 
 half after the struggle began under William Tell. Meanwhile 
 the Cantons had lived through the vicissitudes of war foreign and 
 domestic, and had formed treaties with other Powers, including 
 the Pope. Before Swiss Independence was acknowledged, the 
 Dutch conflict began under William of Orange. Smarting under 
 intolerable grievances and with a price set upon the head of their 
 illustrious Stadholder, the United Provinces of the Netherlands 
 in 1572 renounced the tyrannical sovereignty of Philip II., and 
 declared themselves independent. In the history of Freedom this 
 is an important epoch. They were Protestants, battling for rights 
 denied, and Queen Elizabeth of England, who was the head of 
 Protestantism, acknowledged their Independence and shortly after- 
 wards gave to it military aid. The contest continued, sustained 
 on the side of Spain by the genius of Parma and Spinola, and on 
 the side of the infant Republic by the youthful talent of Maurice, 
 son of the great Stadholder ; nor did Foreign Powers stand aloof. 
 In 1594, Scotland, which was Protestant also, under James VI., 
 afterwards the first James of England, treated with the insurgent 
 Provinces as successors of the Houses of Burgundy and Austria, 
 and in 1596 France also entered into alliance with them. But 
 the claims of Spain seemed undying ; for it was not until the 
 peace of Westphalia, nearly eighty years after the revolt, and 
 nearly seventy years after the Declaration of Independence, that 
 this Power consented to the Recognition of Dutch Independence. 
 Nor does this example stand alone even at that early day. 
 Portugal in 1640 also broke away from Spain and declared herself 
 
 4 
 
50 
 
 independent, under the Duke of Braganza as King. A year had 
 scarcely passed when Charles I. of England negotiated a treaty 
 with the new sovereign. The contest had already ceased but not 
 the claim ; for it was only after twenty-six years that Spain made 
 this other Recognition. 
 
 Traversing the Atlantic Ocean in space and more than a century 
 in time, I come to the nest historic instance which is so inter- 
 esting to us all, while as a precedent it dominates the whole 
 question. The long discord between the colonies and the mother 
 country broke forth in blood on the 19th April, 1775. Indepen- 
 dence was declared on the 4th July, 1776. Battles ensued ; Tren- 
 ton, Princeton, Brandy wine, Saratoga, followed by the winter of 
 Valley Forge. The contest was yet undecided, when on the 6th Feb- 
 ruary, 1778, France entered into a Treaty of Amity and Commerce 
 with the United States, containing, among other things, a Recogni- 
 tion of their Independence, with mutual stipulations between the 
 two parties to protect the commerce of the other, by convoy on 
 the ocean, "against all attacks, force and. violence;" {Statutes at 
 Large, Vol. viii. p. 16,) and this Treaty on the 15th March was 
 communicated to the British Government by the French Ambas- 
 sador at London, with a diplomatic note in which the United 
 States are described as "in full possession of the Independence 
 pronounced by the Act of 4th July, 1776," and the British Gov- 
 ernment is warned that the King of France, " in order to protect 
 effectively the legitimate commerce of his subjects and to sus- 
 tain the honor of his flag, has taken further measures with the 
 United States." — {Martens Nouvelles Causes Celebres. Vol. i. p. 
 406.) A further Treaty of Alliance, whose declared object was 
 the maintenance of the Independence of the United States, had 
 been signed on the same day ; but this was not communicated ; 
 nor is there any evidence that it was known to the British Govern- 
 ment at the time. The communication of the other was enough ; 
 for it was in itself an open Recognition of the new Power, with a 
 promise of protection to its commerce on the ocean, while the war 
 teas yet flagrant between the two parties. As such it must be 
 regarded as an Armed Recognition, constituting in itself a bellig- 
 erent act — aggravated and explained by the circumstances under 
 which it was made — the warning, in the nature of a menace, 
 by which it was accompanied — the clandestine preparations by 
 which it was preceded — and the corsairs to cruise against British 
 commerce, which for some time had been allowed to swarm 
 under the American flag from French ports. It was so accepted 
 by the British Government. The British Minister was summa- 
 rily withdrawn from Paris ; all French vessels in British harbors 
 were seized, and on the 17th March a message from the king 
 was brought down to Parliament, which was in the nature of a 
 declaration of war against France. In this declaration there 
 was no allusion to any thing but the Treaty of Amity and Com- 
 
51 
 
 merce, officially communicated by the French Ambassador, which 
 was denounced by his majesty as an " unprovoked and unjust 
 aggression on the honor of his crown and the essential interests 
 of his kingdoms, contrary to the law of nations, and injurious to 
 the rights of every Foreign Power in Europe" Only three days 
 later, on the 21st March, the Commissioners of the United States 
 were received by the King of France, in solemn audience, with 
 all the pomp and ceremony accorded by the Court of Versailles 
 to the representatives of Sovereign Powers. War ensued between 
 France and Great Britain on land and sea, in which Holland and 
 Spain afterwards took part against Great Britain. With such 
 allies a just cause prevailed. Great Britain by Provisional 
 Articles, signed at Paris 30th November, 1782, acknowledged the 
 United States " to be free, sovereign and independent," and 
 declared the boundaries thereof. 
 
 The success of colonial Independence was contagious, and the 
 contest for it presented another historic instance more discussed 
 and constituting a precedent, if possible, more interesting still. 
 This was when the Spanish Colonies in America, following the north- 
 ern example, broke away from the mother country and declared 
 themselves independent. The contest began as early as 1810 ; 
 but it was long continued and extended over an immense region — 
 from New Mexico and California in the North to Cape Horn in 
 the South — washed by two vast oceans — traversed by mighty rivers 
 and divided by lofty mountains — fruitful in silver — capped with 
 snow and shooting with volcanic fire. At last the United States 
 satisfied that the ancient power of Spain had practically ceased to 
 exist, beyond a reasonable chance of restoration, and that the 
 contest was ended, acknowledged the Independence of Mexico and 
 five other provinces. But this act was approached only after fre- 
 quent debate in Congress, where Henry Clay took an eminent 
 part, and after most careful consideration in the cabinet, wliere 
 John Quincy Adams, as Secretary of State, shed upon the ques- 
 tion all the light of his unsurpassed knowledge, derived from 
 long practice, as well as from laborious study, of International 
 Law. The judgment on this occasion must be regarded as an 
 authority. President Munroe in a Special Message, on the 8th 
 March, 1822 — twelve years after the war began — called the atten- 
 tion of Congress to the state of the contest which he said " had 
 now reached such a stage and been attended with such decisive 
 success on the part of the provinces, that it merits the most 
 profound consideration whether their right to the rank of inde- 
 pendent nations, with all the advantages incident to it, in their 
 intercourse with the United States, is not complete." After 
 setting forth the de facto condition of things, he proceeded ; 
 " Thus it is manifest that all these provinces are not only in 
 the full enjoyment of their independence, but, considering the 
 state of the war and other circumstances, that there is not the 
 
52 
 
 most remote prospect of their being 1 deprived of UP In proposing 
 their Recognition the President declared that it was done " under 
 a thorough conviction that it is in strict accord with the law of 
 nations," and further that " it is not contemplated to change 
 thereby, in the slightest manner, our friendly relations with either 
 of the parties." In accordance with this recommendation Con- 
 gress authorized the Recognition. Two years later, the same 
 thing was done by Great Britain, after much debate diplomatic 
 and parliamentary. No case of International duty has been illus- 
 trated by a clearer eloquence, an ampler knowledge or a purer 
 wisdom. The despatches were written by Mr. Canning, and 
 upheld by him in Parliament; but Lord Liverpool took part in the 
 discussion — succinctly declaring, that there could be no right to 
 Recognition " while the contest was actually going on," a conclusion 
 which was cautiously but strongly enforced by Lord Lansdowne 
 and nobly vindicated in an Oration, reviewing the whole subject, 
 by that great publicist Sir James Mackintosh. {Mackintosh's 
 Works Vol. iii. p. 438.) All inclined to Recognition but admitted 
 that it could not take place so long' as the contest continued; and 
 that there must be " such a contest as exhibits some equality of 
 force, so that if the combatants were left to themselves, the issue 
 would be in some degree doubtful." But the Spanish strength 
 throughout the whole continent was reduced to a single castle in 
 Mexico, an island on the coast of Chili, and a small army in 
 Upper Peru, while in Buenos Ayres no Spanish soldier had set 
 foot for fourteen years. " Is this a contest " said Mackintosh ' 
 " approaching to equality ? Is it sufficient to render the inde- 
 pendence of such a country doubtful? Does it deserve the name 
 of a contest ? " It was not until 1825 that Great Britain was so 
 far satisfied as to acknowledge this Independence. France fol- 
 lowed in 1830 ; and Castilian pride relented in 1832, twenty-two 
 years from the first date of the contest. 
 
 The next instance is that of Greece, which declared itself Inde- 
 pendent January 27, 1822. After a contest of more than five 
 years, with alternate success and disaster, the Great Powers inter- 
 vened forcibly in 1827 ; but the final Recognition was postponed 
 till May 1832. Then came the instance of Belgium, which 
 declared itself Independent in October, 1830, and was promptly 
 recognized by the Great Powers who intervened forcibly for this 
 purpose. The last instance is Texas, which declared its Indepen- 
 dence in December, 1835, and defeated the Mexican Army under 
 Santa Anna, making him prisoner, in 1836. The power of Mexico 
 seemed to be overthrown, but Andrew Jackson, who was then 
 President of the United States, in his Message of December 21, 
 1836, laid down the rule of caution and justice on such an occa- 
 sion, as follows; "The acknowledgment of a new State as inde- 
 pendent and entitled to a place in the family of nations, is at all 
 times an act of great delicacy and responsibility ; but more 
 
53 
 
 especially so when such state has forcibly separated itself from 
 another, of which it had formed an integral part and which still 
 claims dominion over it. A premature recognition under these 
 circumstances, if not looked upon as justifiable cause of war, is 
 always liable to be regarded as a proof of an unfriendly spirit." 
 And ho concluded by proposing that our country should " keep 
 aloof" until the question was decided " beyond cavil or dispute." 
 During the next year — when the contest had practically ceased 
 and only the claim remained — this new Power was acknowledged 
 by the United States, who were followed in 1840 by Great Britain, 
 France and Belgium. Texas was annexed to the United States 
 in 1845, but at this time Mexico had not joined in the general 
 recognition 
 
 Principles Applicable to Recognition. 
 
 Such are the historic instances which illustrate Intervention by 
 Recognition. As in other cases of Intervention, the Recognition 
 may be armed or unarmed, with an intermediate case, where the 
 Recognition may seem to be unarmed when in reality it is 
 armed, as when France simply announced its Recognition of the 
 Independence of the United States, and at the same time prepared 
 to maintain it by war. 
 
 Armed Recognition is simply Precognition by Coercion. It is a 
 belligerent act constituting war, and it can be vindicated only as 
 war. No nation will undertake it, unless ready to assume all the 
 responsibilities of war, as in the recent cases of Greece and Bel- 
 gium, not to mention the Recognition of the United States by 
 France. But an attempt, under the guise of Recognition, to 
 coerce the dismemberment or partition, of a country is in its 
 nature offensive beyond ordinary war ; especially when the coun- 
 try to be sacrificed is a Republic and the plotters against it are 
 crowned heads. Proceeding from the consciousness of brutal 
 power, such an attempt is an insult to mankind. If Armed 
 Recognition at any time can find apology, it will be only where 
 it is sincerely made for the protection of Human Rights. It 
 would be hard to condemn that Intervention which saved Greece 
 to Freedom. 
 
 Unarmed Recognition is where a Foreign Power acknowledges 
 in some pacific form the Independence of a colony or province 
 against the claim of its original Government. Although exclud- 
 ing all idea of coercion, yet it cannot be uniformly justified. 
 
 No Precognition where the Contest is still pending. 
 
 And here we are brought to that question of " time," on which 
 Mr. Canning so pointedly piqued himself, and to which President 
 Jackson referred, when he suggested that " a premature Recog- 
 nition " might be "looked upon as justifiable cause of war." 
 
54 
 
 Nothing is more clear than that Recognition may be favored at 
 one time, while it must be rejected at another. So far as it 
 assumes to ascertain Rights instead of Facts, or to anticipate 
 the result of a contest, it is wrongful. No Nation can under- 
 take to sit in judgment on the rights of another Nation with- 
 out its consent. Therefore, it cannot declare that de jure a 
 colony or province is entitled to Independence ; but from the 
 necessity of the case and that international intercourse may not 
 fail, it may ascertain the facts, carefully and wisely, and, on 
 the actual evidence, it may declare that de facto the colony or 
 province appears to be in possession of Independence, which 
 means, first, that the original Government is dispossessed beyond 
 the possibility of recovery, and secondly, that the new Govern- 
 ment has achieved that reasonable stability with fixed limits 
 which gives assurance of a solid Power. All of this is simply 
 fact and nothing more. But just in proportion as a Foreign 
 Nation anticipates the fact, or imagines the fact, or substitutes its 
 own passions for the fact, it transcends the well-defined bounds 
 of International Law. Without the fact of Independence, posi- 
 tive and fixed, there is nothing but a claim. Now nothing can be 
 clearer than that while the terrible litigation is still pending and 
 the Trial by Battle, to which appeal has been made, is yet unde- 
 cided, the fact of Independence cannot exist. There is only a 
 paper Independence, which though reddened with blood, is no 
 better than a paper empire or a paper blockade, and any pretended 
 Recognition of it is a wrongful Intervention, inconsistent with a 
 just neutrality, since the obvious effect must be to encourage 
 the insurgent party. Such has been the declared judgment of 
 our country and its practice, even under circumstances tempting 
 in another direction, and such also was the declared judgment 
 and practice of Great Britain with reference to Spanish America. 
 
 The conclusion, then, is clear. In order to justify a Recogni- 
 tion it must appear beyond doubt that de facto the contest is 
 finished, and that de facto the new government is established 
 secure within fixed limits. These are conditions precedent 
 which cannot be avoided, without an open offence to a friendly 
 Power, and an open violation of that International Law which is 
 the guardian of the peace of the world. It will be for us shortly 
 to inquire if there be not another condition precedent, which 
 civilization in this age will require. 
 
 Do you ask now if Foreign Powers can acknowledge our Slave- 
 monger embryo as an Independent Nation ? There is madness in 
 the thought. A Recognition, accompanied by the breaking of the 
 blockade would be war — impious war — against the United States, 
 where Slave-mongers would be the allies and Slavery the inspira- 
 tion. Of all wars in history none more accursed ; none more 
 sure to draw down upon its authors the judgment alike of God 
 and man. But the thought of Recognition — under existing cir- 
 
55 
 
 cumstances — while the contest is still pending — even without any 
 breaking of the blockade or attempted coercion, is a Satanic 
 absurdity, hardly less impious than the other. Of course, it 
 would unblushingly assume that, in fact, the Slave-mongers 
 had already succeeded in establishing an Independent Nation 
 with an untroubled government, and a secure conformation 
 of territory — when in fact, nothing is established — nothing is 
 untroubled — nothing is secure, — not even a single boundary line; 
 and there is no element of Independence except the audacious 
 attempt ; when, in fact, the conflict is still waged on numerous 
 battle-fields, and these pretenders to Independence have been 
 driven from State to State — driven away froni the Mississippi, 
 which parts them — driven back from the sea which surrounds 
 them — and shut up in the interior or in blockaded ports, so that 
 only by stealth can they communicate with the outward world. 
 Any Recognition of such a pretension, existing only as a pre- 
 tension, scouted and denied by a whole people with invincible 
 armies and navies embattled against it, would be a flaming 
 mockery of Truth. It would assert Independence as a fact 
 when notoriously it was not a fact. It would be an enormous lie. 
 Naturally a Power thus guilty would expect to support the lie by 
 arms. 
 
 [IV.] 
 
 Impossibility of any Recognition of Rebel Slave-Mongers 
 with Slavery as a Corner-Stone. 
 
 But I do not content myself with a single objection to this 
 outrageous consummation. There is another of a different nature. 
 Assuming, for the moment,, what I am glad to believe can never 
 happen, that the new Slave Power has become Independent in 
 fact, while the national flag has sunk away exhausted in the con- 
 test, there is an objection which, in an age of Christian light, thank 
 God ! cannot be overcome — unless the Great Powers which, by 
 solemn covenants, have branded Slavery, shall forget their vows, 
 while England, the declared protectress of the African race, and 
 Prance, the declared champion of " ideas," both break away from 
 the irresistible logic of their history and turn their backs upon 
 the past. Vain is honor; vain is human confidence, if these 
 nations at a moment of high duty can thus ignobly fail. " Renown 
 and grace is dead." Like the other objection, this is of fact 
 also ; for it is founded on the character of the Slave-monger pre- 
 tension claiming Recognition, all of which is a fact. Perhaps it 
 may be said that it is a question of policy ; but it is of a policy 
 which ought to be beyond question, if the fact be established. 
 Something more is necessary than that the new Power shall be 
 de facto Independent. It must be de facto fit to be Independent and 
 from the nature of the case every nation will judge of this fitness 
 
56 
 
 as a fact. In undertaking to acknowledge a new Power, you 
 proclaim its fitness for welcome and association in the Family of 
 Nations. Can England put forth such a proclamation in favor of 
 the whippers of women and sellers of children ? Can France 
 permit Louis Napoleon to put forth such a proclamation ? 
 
 And here, on the threshold of this inquiry, the true state of the 
 question must not be forgotten. It is not whether old and existing 
 relations shall be continued with a Power which permits Slavery ; 
 but whether relations shall be begun with a new Power, which 
 not merely permits Slavery, but builds its whole intolerable 
 pretension upon this Barbarism. " No New Slave State " is a 
 watchword with which we are already familiar ; but even this cry 
 does not reveal the full opposition to this new revolt against Civili- 
 zation ; for even if disposed to admit a new Slave State, there 
 must be, among men who have not yet lost all sense of decency, 
 an undying resistance to the admission of a New Slave Power, 
 having such an unquestioned origin and such an unquestioned 
 purpose as that which now flaunts in piracy and blood before the 
 civilized world, seeking Recognition for its criminal chimera. 
 Here is nothing for nice casuistry. Duty is as plain as the moral 
 law or the multiplication table. 
 
 Look for a moment at the unprecedented character of this pre- 
 tension. A President had been elected by the people, in the 
 autumn of 1860, who was known to be against the extension of 
 Slavery. This was all. He had not yet entered upon the per- 
 formance of his duties. But the Slave-mongers saw that Slavery 
 at home must suffer under this popular judgment against its 
 extension, and they rebelled. Under this inspiration State after 
 State pretended to withdraw from the Union and to construct a 
 new Confederacy, whose " corner-stone " was Slavery. A Consti- 
 tution. was adopted, which declared in these words : (1.) "No 
 law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves 
 shall be passed ; " and (2.) " in all territory, actual or acquired, 
 the institution of Negro Slavery, as it now exists in the Confederate 
 States, shall be recognized and protected by Congress and the 
 Territorial Government." Do not start. These are the authentic 
 words of the text. You will find them in the Constitution. 
 
 Such was the unalterable fabric of the new Government. Nor 
 was there any doubt or hesitation in proclaiming its distinctive 
 character. Its Vice-President, Mr. Stephens, who thus far had 
 been remarked for his moderation on Slavery, as if smitten with 
 diabolic light, undertook to explain and vindicate the Magna Carta 
 just adopted. His words are already familiar ; but they cannot 
 be omitted in an accurate statement of the case. " The new 
 Constitution," he said, " has put at rest forever all the agitating 
 questions relating to our peculiar institution, African Slavery, as 
 it exists among us," which he proceeds to declare " was the 
 immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution." 
 
57 
 
 The Vice-President- then announced unequivocally the change 
 that had taken place. Admitting that " it was the prevailing 
 idea of the leading statesmen at the foundation of the Old Consti- 
 tution that the enslavement of the African was wrong in principle, 
 socially, morally and politically, and that it was a violation of the 
 laws of nature," he denounces this idea as " fundamentally 
 wrong," and proclaims the new government as " founded upon 
 exactly the opposite idea." There was no disguise. " Its founda- 
 tions," he avows, " are laid, its corner-stone rests upon the great 
 truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man ; that Slavery, 
 subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condi- 
 tion." Not content with exhibiting ,the untried foundation, he 
 boastfully claims for the new government the priority of invention. 
 " Our new Government" he vaunts, " is the first in the history of 
 the world based upon this great physical, philosophical and moral 
 truth. This stone which was rejected by the first builders is 
 become the chief stone of the corner." And then, as if priority of 
 invention were not enough, he proceeds to claim for the new 
 Government future supremacy, saying that it is already " a growing 
 power, which if true to itself, its destiny and its high mission, will 
 become the controlling power upon this continent." 
 
 Since Satan first declared the "corner-stone" of his new 
 government and openly denounced the Almighty throne, there 
 has been no blasphemy of equal audacity. In human history 
 nothing but itself can be its parallel. Here was the gauntlet 
 thrown down to Heaven and Earth, while a disgusting Barbarism 
 was proclaimed as the new Civilization. Two years have already 
 passed, but, as the Rebellion began, so it is now. A Governor of 
 South Carolina in a message to the Legislature as late as 3d 
 April, I860, took up the boastful strain and congratulated the 
 Rebel Slave-mongers that they were " a refined, cultivated and 
 enlightened people," and that the new Government was " the 
 finest type that the world ever beheld." God save the mark ! 
 And a leading journal, more than any other the organ of the 
 Slave-mongers, has uttered the original vaunt with more than the 
 original brutality. After dwelling on " the grand career and 
 lofty destiny" before the new Government, the Richmond 
 Examiner of 28th May, 1863, proceeds as follows ; " "Would that 
 all of us understood and laid to heart the true nature of that 
 career and that destiny and the responsibility it imposes. The 
 establishment of the Confederacy is, verify, a distinct reaction 
 against the whole course of the mistaken civilization of the age. 
 For Liberty, Equality and Fraternity, we have deliberately 
 substituted Slavery, Subordination and Government. Reverently 
 ice feel that our Confederacy is a God-sent missionary to the 
 nations with great truths to preach. We must speak thus boldly ; 
 but whoso hath cars to hear let hiin hear." It is this God-sent 
 
58 
 
 missionary to the nations, which it is now proposed to welcome at 
 the household hearth of the civilized world. 
 
 Unhappily there are old nations, still tolerating Slavery, already 
 in the Family ; but now, for the first time in history a new nation 
 claims admission there, which not only tolerates Slavery, but, 
 exulting in its shame, strives to reverse the judgment of mankind 
 against this outrage, and to make it a chief support and glory, 
 so that all Recognition of the new Power will be the Recognition 
 of a sacrilegious pretension, 
 
 " With one vast blood-stone for the mighty base." 
 
 Elsewhere Slavery has been an accident ; here it is the prin- 
 ciple. Elsewhere it has been an instrument only ; here it is the 
 inspiration. Elsewhere it has been kept back in a becoming 
 modesty ; here it is pushed forward in all its brutish nakedness. 
 Elsewhere it has claimed nothing but liberty to live ; here it 
 claims liberty to rule with unbounded empire at home and 
 abroad. Look at this candidate Power as you will, in its 
 whole continued existence, from its Alpha to its Omega, and it 
 is nothing but Slavery ! Its origin is Slavery ; its main-spring is 
 Slavery ; its object is Slavery. Wherever it appears, whatever it 
 does, whatever form it takes, it is Slavery alone and nothing else, 
 so that, with the contrition of Satan, it might cry out, 
 
 Me miserable ! winch way shall I fly 
 Infinite wrath and infinite despair ? 
 Which way I fly is hell ; myself am hell. 
 
 The Rebellion is Slavery in arms ; Slavery on horse-back ; 
 Slavery on foot ; Slavery raging on the battle-field ; Slavery 
 raging on the quarter-deck, robbing, destroying, burning, killing, 
 in order to uphold this candidate Power. Its legislation is 
 simply Slavery in statutes ; Slavery in chapters ; Slavery in 
 sections — with an enacting clause. Its Diplomacy is Slavery in 
 pretended ambassadors ; Slavery in cunning letters ; Slavery in 
 cozening promises ; Slavery in persistent negotiations — all to 
 secure for the candidate Power its much desired welcome. 
 Say what you will ; try to avoid it if you can ; you are com- 
 pelled to "admit that the candidate Power is nothing else 
 than organized Slavery, which now in its madness — sur- 
 rounded by its criminal clan, and led by its felon chieftains — 
 braves the civilization of the age. Any Recognition of Slavery is 
 bad enough. But this will be a Recognition of Slavery with 
 welcome and benediction, imparting to it neiv consideration and 
 respectability, and worse still, securing to it new opportunity and 
 foothold for the supremacy which it openly proclaims. 
 
 In ancient days the candidate was robed in white, while at the 
 Capitol and in the Forum, he canvassed the people for their votes. 
 The candidate Nation, which is not ashamed of Slavery, should 
 
59 
 
 be robed in black, while it conducts its great canvass and asks 
 the votes of the Christian Powers. "Hung be the heavens with 
 black, yield day to night," as the outrage proceeds ; for the 
 candidate gravely asks the international Recognition of the 
 claim to hold property in man ; to sell the wife away from the 
 husband ; to sell the child away from the parent ; to shut the 
 gates of knowledge ; to appropriate all the fruits of another's 
 labor. And yet the candidate proceeds in his canvass — although 
 all history declares that Slavery is essentially barbarous, and 
 that whatever it touches it changes to itself; that it barba- 
 rizes laws ; barbarizes business ; barbarizes manners ; barbarizes 
 social life, and makes the people who cherish it barbarians. And 
 still the candidate proceeds — although it is known to the Christian 
 Powers that the partisans of Slavery are naturally " filibusters," 
 always apt for lawless incursions and for robbery; that, during 
 latter years, under their instigation and to advance their preten- 
 sions, expeditions, identical in motive ivith the present Rebellion, 
 were let loose in the Gulf of Mexico, twice against Cuba, and 
 twice also against Nicaragua, breaking the peace of the United 
 States and threatening the repose of the world, so that Lopez 
 and Walker were the predecessors of Beauregard and Jefferson 
 Davis. And yet the candidate proceeds — although it is obvious 
 that the Recognition which is urged, will be nothing less than a 
 solemn sanction by the Christian Powers of Slavery everywhere 
 throughout the new jurisdiction, whether on land or sea, so that 
 every ship, which is a part of the floating' territory, will be Slave 
 Territory. And yet with the phantasy that man can hold property 
 in man shooting from his lips ; with the shackle and lash in his 
 hands ; with Barbarism on his forehead ; with Filibusterism in his 
 recorded life ; and with Slavery flying in his flag wherever it 
 floats on land or sea ; the candidate clamors for Christian Recog- 
 nition. It is sad to think that there has been delay in repelling 
 the insufferable canvass. " Is thy servant a dog that he should do 
 this thing ? " It is not necessary to be a Christian ; it is sufficient 
 to be a man — in order to detest and combat such an accursed 
 pretension. 
 
 If the Recognition of a de facto Power was a duty imposed 
 upon other nations by International Law, there would be no 
 opportunity for objections founded on principle or policy. But 
 there is no such duty. International Law leaves to each nation, 
 precisely as the municipal law leaves to each citizen, what com- 
 pany to keep or what copartnership to form. No company and 
 no copartnership can be forced upon a nation. It is all a question 
 of free choice and acceptance. International Law on this head 
 is like the Constitution of the United States, which declares: 
 " New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union." 
 Not must but may ; it being in the discretion of Congress to 
 determine whether the State shall be admitted. Accordingly, in 
 
60 
 
 the exercise of this discretion, Congress for a long time refused 
 to admit Missouri as a Slave Slate. And now the old Missouri 
 Question, in a more outrageous form, on a grander theatre, "with 
 monarchs to behold the swelling scene," — is presented to the Chris- 
 tian Powers of the world. If it were right to exclude Missouri, 
 having a few slaves only and regarding Slavery merely as a 
 temporary condition, it must be right to exclude a pretended 
 nation, which not only boasts its millions of slaves, but passion- 
 ately proclaims the perpetuity and propagation of slavery, as the 
 cause and object of its separate existence. 
 
 Practical statesmen have always treated the question of Recog- 
 nition as one of policy — to be determined on the facts of. the 
 case — even where the Power was de facto established ; as 
 appears amply in the debates of the British Parliament on 
 the Recognition of Spanish America. If we go behind the 
 practical statesmen and consult the earliest oracles of Interna- 
 tional Law, we shall find that, according to their most approved 
 words, not only may Recognition be refused, but there are 
 considerations of duty this way which cannot be evaded. It is 
 not enough that a pretender has the form of a Commonwealth. 
 ' A people," says Cicero, in a definition copied by most jurists, 
 "is not every body of men howsoever congregated, but a gathered 
 multitude, associated under the sanction of justice and for the 
 common good." — Juris consensu et utilitalis communione sociatus. 
 (De Repub. Lib. i., 25.) And again he goes so far as to say, in 
 the Republic, " when the king is unjust, or the aristocracy, or 
 the people itself, the Commonwealth is not vicious but null." Of 
 course a Commonwealth that was nidi would not be recognized. 
 But Grotius, who speaks always with the magistral voice of learning 
 and genius, has given the just conclusion, when he presents the 
 distinction between a body of men, who being already a Recog- 
 nized Commonwealth, are guilty of systematic crime, as, for 
 instance, of piracy, and another body of men, who, not yet Recog- 
 nized as a Commonwealth, are banded together for the sake of 
 systematic crime — sceleris causa coeunt. {De Jure Belli, ac Pads, 
 Lib. iii., cap. 3, § 2.) The latter, by a happy discrimination, he 
 places beyond the pale of honor or fellowship; nam hi cri minis 
 causd socianlur. But when before in all history, have creatures, 
 wearing the human form, proclaimed the criminal principle of 
 their association, with the audacity of our Slave-mongers ? 
 
 It might be argued, on grounds of reason and authority even, 
 that the declared principle of the pretended Power, was a violation 
 of International Law. Eminent magistrates have solemnly ruled, 
 that, in the development of civilization, the slave-trade has 
 become illegal, by a law higher than any statute. Sir William 
 Grant, one of the ornaments of the British bench, whose elegant 
 mind was governed always by practical sense, adjudged that " this 
 trade caimot,abslractedl// speaking, have any legitimate existence," 
 
61 
 
 (Amedie, 2 Acton R. 240; ; and our own great authority, Mr. 
 Justice Story, in a remarkable judgment, declared himself con- 
 strained " to consider the trade against the universal law of 
 society" X-^ a J eutie Eugenie, 2 Mason R. 451.) But the argu- 
 ments which are strong against any Recognition of the slave- 
 trade, are strong also against any Recognition of Slavery itself. 
 
 It is not, however, necessary, in the determination of present 
 duty, to assume that Slavery, or the slave-trade, is positively for- 
 bidden by existing International Law. It is enough to show, 
 that according to the spirit of that sovereign law which " sits 
 empress, crowning good, repressing ill," and according also to 
 those commanding principles of justice and humanity, which 
 cannot be set at naught without a shock to human nature itself, 
 so foul a wrong as Slavery can receive no voluntary support from 
 the Commonwealth of Nations. It is not a question of law but 
 a question of Morality. The Rule of Law is sometimes less com- 
 prehensive than the Rule of Morality, so that the latter may 
 positively condemn what the former silently tolerates. But within 
 its own domain the Rule of Morality cannot be less authoritative 
 than the Rule of Law itself. It is, indeed, nothing less than the 
 Law of Nature and also the Law of God. If we listen to a 
 Heathen teacher we shall confess its binding power. ' ; Law," 
 says Cicero, " is the highest reason implanted in nature, ivhich 
 prescribes those things which ought to he done, and forbids the 
 contrary." — {DeLegibus, Lib. i., cap. 5.) This law is an essential 
 part of International Law, as is also Christianity itself, and, 
 where treaties fail and usage is silent, it is the only law between 
 nations. Jurists of all ages and countries have delighted to 
 acknowledge its authority, if it spoke only in the still small voice 
 of conscience. A celebrated professor of Germany in our own 
 day, Savigny, whose name is honored by the students of juris- 
 prudence everywhere, touches upon this monitor of nations, when 
 he declares that " there may exist between different nations a 
 common consciousness of Right similar to that which engenders 
 the Positive Law of particular nations." — {System des heutigen 
 Romischen Rechts, L. vii., cap 11, § 11.) But this common con- 
 sciousness of right is identical with that law, which, according to 
 Cicero, is " the highest reason implanted in nature." Such is 
 the Rule of Morality. 
 
 The Rule of Morality differs from the Rule of Law in this 
 respect: that the former finds its support in the human con- 
 science ; the latter in the sanctions of public force. But moral 
 power prevails with a good man as much as if it were physical. I 
 know no different rule for a good nation than for a good man. 
 I am sure that a good nation will not do what a good man would 
 scorn to do. 
 
 But there is a rule of prudence superadded to the Rule of 
 Morality. Grotius in discussing treaties does not forget the 
 
62 
 
 wisdom of Solomon, who, in not af few places, warns against 
 fellowship with the wicked, although he adds, that these were 
 maxims of prudence and not of law. — (Lib. ii., cap. 15, § 9.) 
 And he reminds us of the saying of Alexander, " that those 
 grievously offend who enter the service of Barbarians." (Ibid, 
 § 11.) But better still are the words of the wise historian of 
 classical antiquity, who enjoins upon a Commonwealth the duty of 
 considering carefully, when sued for assistance, " whether what is 
 sought is sufficiently pious, safe, glorious, or on the other hand 
 unbecoming- ;" — (Sallust Fragm., iv. 2.) and also those words 
 of Scripture which after rebuking an alliance with Ahab, ask with 
 scorn, " Shouldst thou help the ungodly ? " (2 Chron., xiv. 2.) 
 If the claim for Recognition be brought to the touch-stone of 
 these principles, it will be easy to decide it. 
 
 Vain is it to urge the Practice of Nations in its behalf. Never 
 before in history has such a candidacy been put forward in the 
 name of Slavery ; and the terrible outrage is aggravated by the 
 Christian light which surrounds it. This is not the age of dark- 
 ness. But even in the Dark Ages, when the Slave-mongers of 
 Algiers " had reduced themselves to a government or state," the 
 renowned Louis IX. " treated them as a nest of wasps." (1 Phil- 
 limore, p. 80.) Afterwards but slowly they obtained " the rights 
 of legation " and " the reputation of a government ; " but at last, 
 weary of their criminal pretensions, the aroused vengeance of 
 Great Britain and France blotted out this Power from the list of 
 nations. Louis XI., who has been described as " the sovereign 
 who best understood his interest," indignant at Richard III. of 
 England, who had murdered two infants in the tower, and usurped 
 the crown, sent back his ambassadors without holding any inter- 
 course with them. This is a suggestive precedent ; for the parricide 
 usurper of England had never murdered so many infants, or 
 usurped so much as the pretended Slave Power, which is strangely 
 tolerated by the sagacious sovereign who sits on the throne of 
 Louis XI. But it is not necessary to go so far in history ; nor 
 to dwell on the practice of nations in withholding or conceding 
 Recognition. The whole matter is stated by Burke with his 
 customary power : 
 
 " In the case of a divided kingdom by the Law of Nations, Great Britain, 
 like every other Power, is free to take any part she pleases. She may 
 decline, with more or less formality, according to Iter discretion, to acknowl- 
 edge this new system; or she may recognize it as a government de facto, 
 setting aside all discussion of its original legality, and considering the 
 ancient monarchy as at an end. The Law of Nations leaves our court 
 open to its choice. The declaration of a neio sjiecies of government on new 
 principles is a real crisis in the politics of Europe." {Thoughts on French 
 Affairs, 1791.) 
 
63 
 
 Another eloquent publicist, Sir James Mackintosh, while urging 
 on Parliament the Recognition of Spanish America, says, " The 
 reception of a new State into the society of civilized nations by 
 those acts which amount to recognition is a proceeding, which, as 
 it has no legal character, is purely of a moral nature ; " and he 
 proceeds to argue that since England is " the only anciently free 
 State in the world, for her to refuse her moral aid to communities 
 struggling for liberty, is an act of unnatural harshness." (Mack- 
 intosh's Works, Vol. iii. p. 438.) Thus does he vindicate Recog- 
 nition for the sake of Freedom. How truly he would have 
 repelled any Recognition for the sake of Slavery, let his life 
 testify. 
 
 But, perhaps, no better testimony to the practice of nations can 
 be found than in the words of Vattel, whose work, presenting the 
 subject in a familiar form, has done more, during the last century, 
 to fashion opinion on the Law of Nations than any other authority. 
 Here it is briefly : — 
 
 " If there be any nation that makes an open profession of trampling justice 
 under foot, of despising and violating the right of others, whenever it finds 
 an opportunity, the interest of human society will authorize all others to 
 humble and chastise it." {Book ii., cap. 4, § 70.) " To form and support 
 an unjust pretension is to do an injury not only to him who is interested in 
 this pretension, but to mock at justice in general and to injure all nations." 
 {Ibid.) " He who assists an odious tyrant — he who declares for an unjust 
 and rebellious people — violates his duty." {Ibid, § 56.) "As to those 
 monsters, who under the title of sovereigns, render themselves the scourges 
 and horror of the human race, they are savage beasts, whom every brave 
 man may justly exterminate from the face of the earth." {Ibid.) " But if 
 the maxims of a religion tend to establish it by violence and to oppress all 
 those who will not embrace it, the law of nature forbids us to favor that 
 religion or to contract any unnecessary alliance with its inhuman followers, 
 and the common safety of mankind invites them rather to enter into an 
 alliance against such a people ; to repress such outrageous fanatics, who 
 disturb the public repose and threaten all nations." (Ibid, Book ii., cap. 12, 
 § 162.) 
 
 Vainly do you urge this Recognition on any principle of the 
 Comity of Nations. This is an expansive term into which enters 
 much of the refinements, amenities and hospitalities of Civiliza- 
 tion, and also something of the obligations of moral duty. But 
 where an act is prejudicial to national interests or contrary to 
 national policy or questionable in morals, it cannot be commended 
 by any considerations of courtesy. There is a paramount duty 
 which must not be betrayed by a kiss. For the sake of Comity, acts 
 of good will and friendship not required by law are performed 
 between nations; but an English Court has authoritatively 
 declared that this principle cannot prevail " where it violates the 
 law of our own country, the Law of Nature or the Law of God ;" 
 
64 
 
 and on this adamantine ground it was decided, that an American 
 s-lave, who had found shelter on board of a British man-of-war, 
 could not be recognized as a slave. (Forbes v. Cochrane,'! Barn, 
 and Cres., R. 448.) But the same principle would prevail against 
 the Recognition of a new Slave Nation. 
 
 Vainly do you urge this Recognition on any reason of Peace. 
 There can be no peace founded on injustice ; and any Recognition 
 is an injustice which will cry aloud resounding through the 
 universe. You may seem to have peace ; but it will be only a 
 smothered war, destined to break forth in war more direful than 
 before. 
 
 Thus is every argument for Recognition repelled, whether it be 
 under the sounding words, Practice of Nations — Comity of Nations 
 — or Peace. There is nothing in Practice, nothing in Comity, 
 nothing in Peace, which is not against any such shameful sur- 
 render. 
 
 But applying the principles which have been already set 
 forth ; — assuming what cannot be denied, — that every Power is 
 free to refuse Recognition ; assuming that it is not every body of 
 men that can be considered a Commonwealth, but only " those 
 associated under the sanction of justice and for the common good ; " 
 that men " banded together for the sake of systematic crime " can- 
 not be considered a Commonwealth ; — assuming that every member 
 of the Family of Nations will surely obey the Rule of Morality ; 
 that it will " shun fellowship with the wicked ; " that it will not 
 " enter into the service of -Barbarians ; " that it will avoid what is 
 "unbecoming" and do that only which is "pious, safe and 
 glorious ; " and that above all things it will not enter into an 
 alliance " to help the ungodly;" assuming these things — every 
 such member must reject with indignation a new pretension whose 
 declared principle of association is so essentially wicked. Here 
 there can be no question. The case is plain ; nor is any language 
 of contumely or scorn too strong to express the irrepressible 
 repugnance to such a pretension, which, like vice, " to be hated 
 needs only to be seen." Surely there can be no Christian Power 
 which will not leap to expose it, saying with irresistible voice : 
 (1.) No new sanction of Slavery. (2.) No new quickening of 
 Slavery in its active and aggressive Barbarism. ^3.) No new 
 encouragement to the " filibusters " engendered by Slavery. (4.) 
 No new creation of Slave territory. (5.) No new creation of a 
 Slave Navy. (6.) No new Slave Nation. (7.) No installation 
 of Slavery as a new Civilization. But all this Litany will fail, if 
 Recognition prevails — from which Good Lord deliver us! Nor 
 will this be the end of the evil. 
 
 Slavery, through the new Power, will take its place in the 
 Parliament of mankind, with all the immunities of an Indepen- 
 dent Nation, ready always to uphold and advance itself, and 
 organized as an unrelenting Propaganda of the new Faith. A 
 
65 
 
 Power, having its inspiration in such a Barbarism, must be essen- 
 tially barbarous ; founded on the asserted right to whip women 
 and to sell children, it must assume a character of disgusting 
 hardihood, and, openly professing a determination to revolutionize 
 the Public Opinion of the world, it must be in open schism with 
 Civilization itself, so that all its influences will be wild, savage, 
 brutal, and all its offspring kindred in character. 
 
 Pard genders pard ; from tigers tigers spring ; 
 No dove is hatched beneath the vulture's wing. 
 
 Such a Power, from its very nature, must be Despotism at home 
 " tempered only by assassination," with cotton-fields instead of 
 Siberia, while abroad it must be aggressive, dangerous and revolt- 
 ing, in itself a Magnum Latrocinium, whose fellowship can have 
 nothing but " the filthiness of Evil," and whose very existence will 
 bean intolerable nuisance. When Dante, in (he vindictive judgment 
 which he hurled against his own Florence, called it bordello, he 
 did not use a term too strong for the mighty House of 111 Fame 
 which the Christian Powers are now asked for the first time to 
 license. Such must be the character of the new Power. But 
 though only a recent wrong, and pleading no prescription, the 
 illimitable audacity of its nature will hesitate at nothing ; nor is 
 there any thing offensive or detestable which it will not absorb 
 into itself. It will be an Ishmael with its hand against every man. 
 It will be a brood of Harpies defiling all which it cannot steal. 
 It will be the one-eyed Cyclop of nations, seeing only through 
 Slavery, spurning all as fools who do not see likewise, and bellow- 
 ing forth in savage egotism : 
 
 Know then, we Cyclops are a race above 
 Those air-bred people and their goat-nursed Jove ; 
 And learn our power proceeds with thee and thine 
 Not as Jove wills, but as ourselves incline. 
 
 Or worse still, it will be the soulless monster of Frankenstein — the 
 wretched creation of mortal science without God — endowed with 
 life and nothing else — forever raging madly, the scandal to human- 
 ity — powerful only for evil — whose destruction will be essential to 
 the peace of the world. 
 
 Who can welcome such a creation ? Who can consort with it ? 
 There is something loathsome in the idea. There is contamina- 
 tion even in the thought. If you live with the lame, says the ancient 
 proverb, you will learn to limp ; if you keep in the kitchen you will 
 smell of smoke ; if you touch pitch you will be defiled. But what 
 lameness so pitiful as that of this pretended Power ; what smoke so 
 foul as its breath ; what pitch so defiling as its touch ? It is an 
 Oriental saying that a cistern of rose-water will become impure, 
 if a dog be dropt into it ; but a continent of rose-water with 
 
66 
 
 Rebel Slave-mongers would be Changed into a vulgar puddle. 
 Imagine, if you please, -whatever is most disgusting, and this 
 pretended Power is more disgusting still. Naturalists report 
 that the pike will swallow any thing except the toad ; but this it 
 cannot do. The experiment has been tried, and, though this fish, 
 in its unhesitating voracity, always gulps whatever is thrown to 
 it, yet invariably it spews this nuisance from its throat. But our 
 Slave-monger pretension is worse than the toad ; and yet there 
 are Foreign Nations which, instead of spewing it forth, are already 
 turning it like a precious morsel on the tongue. 
 
 But there is yet another ground on which I make this appeal. 
 It is a part of the triumphs of Civilization, that no Nation can 
 act for itself alone. Whatever it does for good or for evil, 
 affects all the rest. Therefore a Nation cannot forget its obli- 
 gations to others. Especially does International Law, when 
 it declares the absolute Equality of Independent Nations, 
 cast upon all Nations the duty of considering well how this 
 privilege shall be bestowed, so that the welfare of all may be 
 best upheld. But the whole Family of Nations would be 
 degraded by admitting this new pretension to any toleration, much 
 less to any equality. There can be no reason for such admission ; 
 for it can bring nothing to the general weal. Civil society is 
 created for safety and tranquillity. Nations come together and 
 fraternize for the common good. But this hateful pretension can 
 do nothing but evil for civil society at home or for nations in their 
 relations with each other. It can show no title to Recognition ; 
 no passport for its travels ; no old creation. It is all new ; and 
 here let me borrow the language of Burke on another occasion ; 
 " It is not a new Power of an old kind. It is a new Power of a 
 new species. When such a questionable shape is to be admitted 
 for the first time into the brotherhood of Christendom, it is not 
 a mere matter of idle curiosity to consider how far it is in its 
 ■nature aUiable with the rest.'''' (Regicide Peace, 2d Letter.') 
 The greatest of corporations is a nation ; the sublimest of all 
 associations is that which is composed of nations, independent 
 and equal, knit together in the bonds of peaceful Fraternity as 
 the great Christian Commonwealth. The Slave-mongers may be 
 a corporation in fact ; but no such corporation can find a place in 
 that sublime Commonwealth. As well admit the Thugs, whose 
 first article of faith is to kill a stranger — or the Buccaneers, those 
 old " brothers of the coast," who plundered on the sea — or better 
 still revive the old Kingdom of the Assassins, where the king was 
 an assassin, surrounded by counsellors and generals who were 
 assassins, and all his subjects were assassins. Or yet again better 
 at once and openly recognize Anti-Christ, who is the supreme and 
 highest impersonation of the Slave-Power. 
 
 Amidst the general degradation that would follow such an 
 obeisance to Slavery, there are two Christian Powers that would 
 
67 
 
 appear in sad and shameful eminence. I refer to Great Britain — 
 the declared " protectress of the African race," — and to France, the 
 declared champion of " ideas," — who, from the very largess of their 
 pledges, are so situated, that they cannot desert the good old 
 cause and turn their faces against civilization without a criminal 
 tergiversation, which no mountain of diplomacy can cover. 
 Where then would be British devotion to the African race ? 
 Where then would be French devotion to ideas? — Remem- 
 bered only to point a tale and show how nations had fallen. 
 Great Britain knows less than France of national vicissitudes ; 
 but such an act of wrong would do something in its influence to 
 equalize the conditions of these two nations. Better for the fast- 
 anchored isle that it should be sunk beneath the sea, witli its 
 cathedrals, its castles, its fields of glory, Runnymede, West- 
 minster Hall and the home of Shakspeare, than that it should do 
 this thing. In other days England has valiantly striven against 
 Slavery; and now she. proposes to surrender, at a moment when 
 more can be done than ever before against the monster wherever 
 it shows its head, for Slavery everywhere has its neck in this 
 Rebellion. In other days France has valiantly striven for ideas ; 
 and now she too proposes to surrender, although all that she has 
 professed to have at heart is involved in the doom of Slavery, 
 which a word from her might hasten beyond recall. But it is in 
 England, more even than in France, that the strongest sentiment 
 for Rebel Slave-mongers has been manifest, constituting a moral 
 mania, which menaces a pact and concordat with the Rebellion 
 itself, — as when an early Pope, the head of the Christian Church, 
 did not hesitate to execute a piratical convention with a pagan 
 enemy of the Christian name. It only remains that the new 
 coalition should be signed, in order to consummate the unutterable 
 degradation. It was the fate of yEdipus, in the saddest story of 
 antiquity, to wed his own mother without knowing it ; but 
 England will wed the Slave-Power with full knowledge that the 
 relation, if not incestuous, is vile. The contracting parties will 
 be the Queen of England, and Jefferson Davis, once the patron of 
 " repudiation," now the chief of Rebel Slave-mongers. It will 
 only remain for this virtuous Lady, whose pride it is to seek 
 justice always, to bend in pitiful abjectness to receive as a pleni- 
 potentiary at her Court the author of the Fugitive Slave Bill. 
 
 A Slave-monger Power will take its seat at the great council- 
 board, to jostle thrones and benches, while it overshadows 
 Humanity. Its foul attorneys, reeking with Slavery, will have 
 their letter of license, as the ambassadors of Slavery, to rove 
 from court to court, over foreign carpets, poisoning that air which 
 has been nobly pronounced too pure for a slave to breathe. Alas ! 
 for England, vowed a thousand times to the protection of the African 
 race and knit perpetually by her best renown to this sacred 
 loyalty, now plunging into adulterous honey-moon with Slavery — 
 
recognizing the new and impious Protestantism against Liberty 
 itself — and wickedly becoming the Defender of the Faith even 
 as professed by Rebel Slave-mongers. Alas ! for England's Queen 
 — woman and mother — carried off from the cause of Wilberforce 
 and Clarkson to sink into unseemly dalliance with the scourgers 
 of women and the auctioneers of children ; for a " stain," deeper 
 than that which aroused the anguish of Maria Theresa, is settling 
 upon her reign. Alas! for that Royal Consort, humane and 
 great, whose dying voice was given to assuage the temper of that 
 ministerial despatch by which, in an evil hour, England was made 
 to strike hands with Rebel Slave-mongers ; for the councillor is 
 needed now to save the land which he adorned from an act of 
 inexpiable shame. 
 
 And for all this sickening immorality I hear but one declared 
 apology. It is said that the Union permitted and still permits 
 Slavery ; therefore Foreign Nations may recognize Rebel Slave- 
 mongers as a new Power. But here is the precise question. 
 England is still in diplomatic relations with Spain, and was only 
 a short time ago in diplomatic relations with Brazil, both per- 
 mitting Slavery ; but these two Powers are not new ; they are 
 already established ; there is no question of their Recognition ; 
 nor do they pretend to found empire on Slavery. There is no 
 reason in any relations with them why a new Power, with Slavery 
 as its declared " corner-stone," whose gospel is Slavery and whose 
 evangelists are Slave-mongers, should be recognized in the Family 
 of Nations. If Ireland were in triumphant rebellion against the 
 British Queen, complaining of rights denied, it would be our duty 
 to recognize her as an Independent Power ; but if Ireland 
 rebelled, with the declared object of establishing a new Power, 
 which should be nothing less than a giant felony and a nuisance 
 to the world, then it would be our duty to spurn the infamous 
 pretension, and no triumph of the Rebellion could change this 
 plain and irresistible necessity. And yet, in the face of this com- 
 manding rule, we are told to expect the Recognition of Rebel 
 Slave-mongers. 
 
 But an aroused Public Opinion, " the world's collected will" 
 and returning reason in England and France will see to it that 
 Civilization is saved from this shock and the nations themselves 
 from the terrible retribution which sooner or later must surely 
 attend it. No Power can afford to lift itself before mankind and 
 openly vote a new and untrammelled charter to injustice and 
 cruelty. God is an unsleeping avenger ; nor can armies, fleets, 
 bulwarks or " towers along the steep" prevail against his mighty 
 anger. There is but one word which the Christian Powers can utter 
 to any application for this unholy Recognition. It is simply and 
 austerely " No," with an emphasis that shall silence argument 
 and extinguish hope itself. And this Proclamation should go 
 forth swiftly. Every moment of hesitation is a moment of apos- 
 
69 
 
 tacy, casting its lengthening shadow of dishonor. Not to dis- 
 courage is to encourage ; not to blast is to bless. Let this simple 
 word be uttered and Slavery will shrink away with a mark on its 
 forehead, like Cain — a perpetual vagabond — without welcome or 
 fellowship, so that it can only die. Let this simple word be 
 uttered and the audacious Slave-Power will be no better than the 
 Flying Dutchman, that famous craft, which, darkened by piracy 
 and murder, was doomed to a perpetual cruise, unable to enter a 
 port; 
 
 Faint and despairing in tlicir watery bier, 
 To every friendly shore the sailors steer ; 
 Repelled from port to port they sue in vain, 
 And track with slow, unsteady sail the main, 
 Unblest of God and man ! Till time shall end 
 Its view strange horror to the storm shall lend. 
 
 IT-] 
 
 No Concession op Ocean Belligerency without a Prize 
 Court; — especially to Rebel Slave-mongers. 
 
 Too much have I spoken for your patience, if not enough for 
 the cause. But there is yet another topic which I have reserved 
 to the last, because logically it belongs there, or at least it can be 
 best considered in the gathered light of the previous discussion. 
 Its immediate, practical interest is great. I refer to the conces- 
 sion of Belligerent Rights, being the first stage to Independence. 
 Great Britain led the way in acknowledging the embryo gov- 
 ernment of Rebel Slave-mongers as Belligerents on sea as well as 
 on land, and, by a Proclamation of the Queen, declared her 
 neutrality between the two parties, thus lifting the embryo gov- 
 ernment of Rebel Slave-mongers, which was nothing else than 
 organized and aggressive Slavery, to an Equality on sea as well 
 as on land with its ancient ally, the National Government. Here 
 was a blunder if not a crime — not merely in the alacrity with 
 which it was done but in doing it at all. It was followed imme- 
 diately by France, and then by Spain, Holland and Brazil. The 
 concession of Belligerent Rights on land was only a name and 
 nothing more ; therefore I say nothing about it. But the conces- 
 sion of Belligerent Rights on the Ocean is of a widely different 
 character, and the two reasons against the Recognition of the 
 independence of the embryo government are applicable also to 
 this concession. First, The embryo government has no maritime 
 or naval Belligerent Rights, cle facto ; and secondly, an embryo 
 government of Rebel Slave-mongers cannot have the character de 
 facto which would justify the concession of maritime or naval 
 Belligerency ; so that could the concession be vindicated on 
 the first ground, it must fail on the second. 
 
 The concession of Ocean Belligerency is a Letter of License 
 from the consenting Powers to every Slave-monger cruiser, or 
 
rather it is the countersign of these Powers to the commission of 
 every such cruiser. Without such countersign the Slave-monger 
 cruiser would be an outlaw, with no right to enter a single foreign 
 port. The declaration of Belligerency gives to him legal compe- 
 tency and admits him to testify by flag and arms. Without such 
 competency he could have no flag, and no right to bear arms on 
 the ocean. Burke sententiously describes it as an " intermediate 
 Treaty which puts rebels in possession of the Law of Nations" 
 And this is plainly true. 
 
 The magnitude of this concession may be seen in three aspects ; 
 first, in the immunities which it confers ; putting an embryo 
 government of Rebel Slave-mongers on an equality with established 
 governments, making its cruisers lawful instead of piratical, 
 and opening to them boundless facilities at sea and in port, so that 
 they may obtain supplies and even hospitality. Secondly, in the 
 degradation that it fastens upon the National Government, which 
 is condemned to see its ships treated on an equality with the ships 
 of Rebel Slave-mongers, and also the just rule of " neutrality " 
 between Belligerent Powers called in to fetter its activity against a 
 giant felony. And thirdly, it may be seen in the disturbance to 
 commerce which it sanctions, by letting loose lawless sea-rovers, 
 armed with Belligerent Rights — including the right of search 
 — whose natural recklessness is left unbridled, and without 
 any remedy even from diplomatic intercourse. The ocean is a 
 common highway ; but on this account it is for the interest of all 
 who share it, that it should not be disturbed by predatory 
 hostilities. Such a concession should be made with the greatest 
 caution, and then, only under the necessity of the case, on the 
 overwhelming authority of the fact ; for, from beginning to end, 
 it is simply a question of fact, absolutely dependent on those 
 conditions and prerequisites without which Ocean Belligerency 
 cannot exist. 
 
 As a general rule, Belligerent Rights are conceded only where 
 a rebel government, or contending party in a civil war, has 
 acquired such form and body, that, for the time being, within 
 certain limits, it is sovereign de facto, so far at least as to 
 command troops and to administer justice. The concession of 
 Belligerency is the Recognition of such limited sovereignty, which 
 bears the same relation to acknowledged Independence as gristle 
 bears to bone. It is obvious that such sovereignty may exist 
 de facto on land without existing de facto on the ocean. It may 
 prevail in armies and yet fail in navies. In short the fact may 
 be one way on land, and the other way on the ocean; «ior can it 
 be inferred on the ocean simply from its existence on the land. 
 Since every such concession is adverse to the original government, 
 and is made only under the necessity of the case, it must be 
 carefully limited to the actual fact. Indeed, Mr. Canning, who 
 has shed so much light on these topics, openly took the ground 
 
71 
 
 that " Belligerency is not so much a principle as a fact." And 
 the question then arises, whether the Rebel Slave-mongers have 
 acquired such de facto sovereignty on the ocean as entitles them 
 to Ocean Belligerent rights. 
 
 There arc at least two " facts " which are patent to all, first, 
 that the Rebel Slave-mongers have not a single port into which 
 even legal cruisers can take their prizes for adjudication ; and 
 second///, that the ships which now presume to exercise Ocean 
 Belligerent rights in their name — constituting the Rebel Slave- 
 monger navy, which a member of the British Cabinet said was 
 " to be created " — were all "created" in England, which is the 
 naval base from which they sally forth on their predatory cruise 
 without once entering a port of their own pretended Government. 
 
 These two " facts " are different in character. The first 
 attaches absolutely to the pretended Power, rendering it incom- 
 petent to exercise Belligerent jurisdiction on the ocean. The 
 second attaches to the individual ships, rendering them piratical. 
 But these simple and unquestionable " facts " are the key to unlock 
 the present question 
 
 From the reason of the case, there can be no Ocean Belligerent 
 without a port into which it can take its prizes. Any other rule 
 would be absurd. It will not be enough to sail the sea, like 
 the Flying Dutchman ; the Ocean Belligerent must be able to 
 touch the land and that land its own. This proceeds on the idea 
 of civilized warfare, that something more than naked force is 
 essential to the completeness of a capture. According to the 
 earlier rule, transmutation of property was accomplished by the 
 " pernoctation " of the captured ship within the port of the 
 Belligerent, or as it was called, deductio infra prccsidia. As early 
 as 1414, under Henry V., of England, there was an Act of Par- 
 liament, requiring privateers to bring their prizes into a port of 
 the kingdom, and to make a declaration thereof to a proper officer, 
 before undertaking to dispose of them. (Bunnington's Statutes, 
 Yol. i., p. 491.) But the modern rule interposes an additional 
 check upon lawless violence by requiring the condemnation of a 
 competent court. This rule, which is among the most authori- 
 tative of the British Admiralty, will be found in the famous 
 letter of Sir William Scott and Sir John Nichol, addressed to 
 John Jay, as follows ; " Before the ship or goods can be disposed 
 of by the captors, there must be a regular judicial proceeding, 
 wherein both parties may be heard and condemnation therefrom 
 as Prize in a Court of Admiralty, judging by the Law of Nations 
 and Treaties." This is explicit. But this rule is French as well 
 as English. Indeed it is a part of International Law. A seizure 
 •is regarded merely as & preliminary act, which does not divest the 
 property, though it paralyzes the right of the proprietor. A 
 subsequent act of condemnation, by a competent tribunal, is nec- 
 essary to determine if the seizure is valid. The question is 
 
79, 
 
 compendiously called prize or no prize. Where the property of 
 neutrals is involved this requirement becomes of absolute import- 
 tance. In conceding Belligerency, all the customary belligerant 
 rights with regard to neutrals are conceded also, so that the 
 concession puts in jeopardy neutral commerce. But without 
 dwelling on this point, I content myself with the authority of two 
 recent French writers. M. Hautefeuille, in his elaborate work, 
 says " the cruiser is not recognized as the proprietor of the objects 
 seized, but he is held to bring them before the tribunal and obtain 
 a sentence declaring' them to be prize." (Hautefeuille, Des 
 Droits et des Devoirs des Nations neutres, Vol. iii., p. 299, 323, 
 352.) And a later writer, M. Eugene Cauchy, whose work has 
 appeared since our war began, says, " A usage, which evidently 
 has its source in natural equity, requires that, before proceeding 
 to divide the booty, there should be an inquiry as to the regularity 
 of the prize ; and to this end, every prize taken from an enemy 
 should be carried before the judge established by the sovereign 
 of the captor." (Cauchy, Droit Maritime International, Vol. i., 
 p. 65, C6. But if the Power, calling itself Belligerent, cannot 
 comply with this condition ; if it has no port into which it can 
 bring the captured ship, and no court, according to the require- 
 ment of the British Admiralty, with " a regular judicial proceeding 
 wherein both parties may be heard," it is clearly not in a situation 
 to dispose of a ship or goods as prize. Whatever may be its force 
 in other respects, it lacks a vital element of Ocean Belligerency. 
 In that semz-sovereignty, which constitutes Belligerency on land, 
 there must be a provision for the administration of justice, without 
 which there is nothing but a mob. In that same seww-sovereignty 
 on the ocean there must be a similar provision. It will not be 
 enough that there should be ships duly commissioned to take 
 prizes, there must also be courts to try them ; and the latter are 
 not less important than the former. 
 
 Lord Russell himself, who was so swift to make this concession, 
 has been led to confess the necessity of Prize Courts on the part 
 of Ocean Belligerents, and thus to expose the irrational character 
 of his own work. In a letter to the Liverpool Chamber of Com- 
 merce, dated 1st January, 1862, occasioned by the destruction of 
 British cargoes, the Minister says: " The owners of any British 
 property, not being contraband of war, on board a Federal vessel 
 captured and destroyed by a Confederate vessel of war, may claim 
 in a Confederate Prize Court compensation for destruction of such 
 property.'''' (Wheaton's Elements, Lawrence's edit., p. 1021.) 
 But if there be no Prize Court, then justice must fail; and with 
 this failure tumbles in fact the whole wretched pretension of 
 Ocean Belligerency — except in the galvanism of a Queen's 
 Proclamation, or a Cabinet concession. 
 
 If a cruiser may at any time burn prizes, it is only because of 
 some exceptional exigency in a particular case, and not according 
 
73 
 
 to any general rule. The general rule declares that there can be 
 no right to take a prize, if there be no port into which it may be 
 carried. The right of capture and the right of trial are the com- 
 plements of each other — through which a harsh prerogative is 
 supposed to be rounded into the proper form of civilized warfare. 
 Therefore, every ship and cargo, burned by the captors, for the 
 reason that they had no port, testifies that they are without that 
 vital sovereignty on the ocean, wdiich is needed in the exercise 
 of Belligerent jurisdiction, and that they are not Ocean Belliger- 
 ents in fact. Nay more ; all these bonfires of the sea cry out 
 against that Power, which by a precipitate concession of a false 
 Belligerency furnished the torch. As well invest the rebellious 
 rajahs of India, who have never tasted salt water, with this Ocean 
 prerogative, so that they too may rob and burn ; as well constitute 
 land-locked Poland, now in arms for Independence, an Ocean 
 Belligerent ; or enroll mountain Switzerland in the same class ; or 
 join with Shakspeare in making inland Bohemia a country with 
 hospitable ports on the ocean. 
 
 To aggravate this concession of a false Belligerency, the ships are 
 all built, rigged, armed and manned in Great Britain. It is out 
 of British oak and British iron that they are constructed ; rigged 
 with British ropes ; made formidable with British arms ; supplied 
 with British gunners and navigated by British crews, so as to con- 
 stitute in all respects a British naval expedition. British ports sup- 
 ply the place of Rebel Slave-monger ports. British ports are open 
 to them when their own are closed. British ports constitute their 
 naval base of operations and supplies, furnishing every thing need- 
 ful — except an officer — the ship's papers — and a court for the trial 
 of the prizes — each of which is essential to the legality of the expe- 
 dition. And yet these same ships, thus equipped in British ports 
 and never touching a port of the pretended government in whose 
 name they rob and burn, — being simply a rib taken out of the side 
 of England and contributed to a Slave-monger Rebellion, — receive 
 the further passport of Belligerency from the British Government 
 when in fact the Belligerency does not exist. The whole proceed- 
 ing, from the laying of the keel in a British dockyard to the 
 bursting flames on the ocean, is a mockery of International Law 
 and an insult to a friendly Power. 
 
 The case is sometimes said to be new ; but it is new only inas- 
 much as no such " parricide " is provided against in express 
 terms. It was not anticipated. But the principles which govern 
 it are as old as justice and humanity, in the interests of which 
 Belligerent Rights are said to be conceded. Here it is all reversed, 
 and it is now apparent that, whatever may have been the motives 
 of the British Government, Belligerent Rights have been conceded 
 in the interests of mjustice and inhumanity. Burning ships and 
 scattered wrecks are the witnesses. If such a case is not con- 
 demned by International Law, then has this law lost its virtue. 
 
74 
 
 Call sucli cruisers by whatever polite term most pleases the ear, 
 and you do not change their character with their name. Without 
 a home and without a legal character, they are mere gypsies of 
 the sea, who by their criminal acts have become disturbers of the 
 common highway, outlaws and enemies of the human race. 
 
 But there is a precedent, which shows how impossible it is for 
 a pretended Power, without a single port, to possess Belligerent 
 Rights on the ocean, and how impossible it is for the ship of such 
 pretended Power to be any thing but a felon ship. James II. of 
 England, after he had ceased to be de facto king and while he was 
 an exile without a single port, undertook to issue Letters of 
 Marque. It was argued unanswerably before the Privy Council 
 of William III., that, whatever might be the claims de jure of a 
 deposed prince, he could not receive from any other sovereign 
 " international privileges ; " " that, if he could grant a commission 
 to take the ships of a single nation, it would in effect be a general 
 license to plunder, because those who ivcre so commissioned would 
 be their own judges of whatever they took; and that the reason of 
 the thing which pronounced that robbers and pirates, when they 
 formed themselves into a civil society, became just enemies, pro- 
 nounced also that a king without territory, without power of 
 protecting the innocent or punishing the guilty, or in any way of 
 administering' justice , dwindled into a pirate if lie issued commis- 
 sions to seize the goods and ships of nations, and that they who 
 took commissions from him must be held by legal inference to have 
 associated ' sceleris causd' and could not be considered as members 
 of civil society." (Phillimore, International Law, Vol. i. 401.) 
 These words are strictly applicable to the present case. Whatever 
 may be the force of the Rebel Slave-mongers on land, they are no 
 better on the ocean than the " deposed prince " — " without 
 power of protecting the innocent or punishing the guilty, or in any 
 way of administering justice ; " and, like the prince, they too have 
 " dwindled into a pirate," — except so far as they may be sustained 
 by British Recognition. 
 
 And there is yet another precedent, which shows that the 
 appropiation of a captured ship or cargo without judicial proceed- 
 ings, is piracy. The case is memorable. It is none other than 
 that of the famous Captain Kidd, who, on his indictment for piracy, 
 as long ago as 1698, produced a commission in justification. But 
 it was at once declared that it was not enough to show a commis- 
 sion ; he must also show a condonation of the captured ship. The 
 Lord Chief Baron of that day said that " if he had acted pursuant to 
 his commission he ought to have condemned ship and goods ; that 
 by not condemning them he showed his aim, mind and intention, 
 and that he did not act in that case by virtue of his commission, 
 but quite contrary to it ; that he took the ship and shared the 
 money and goods, and was taken in that very ship, so that there 
 is no color or pretence that he intended to bring this ship to Eng- 
 
75 
 
 land to be condemned or to have condemned it in any of the English 
 plantations ; and that whilst men pursue their commissions they 
 must be justified ; but when they do things not authorized or ever 
 intended by them, it teas as if they had no coin missions. '(Har- 
 grave's State Trials, Vol. v. p. 314.) Capt. Kidd was condemned 
 to death and executed as a pirate. If he was a pirate, worthy of 
 death, then, by the same rule, those rovers who burn ships, rob 
 cargoes and adorn their cabins with rows of stolen chronometers, 
 — without any pretence of a Prize Court — must be pirates, worthy 
 of death likewise. 
 
 But without now considering more critically what should be 
 the fate of these ocean-incendiaries, or what the responsibilities of 
 England, out of whom they came, I content myself with the 
 conclusion that they are not entitled to Ocean Belligerency. 
 
 But even if Rebel Slave-mongers coagulated in embryo 
 government, have arrived at that smi-sovercignty de facto on 
 the ocean which justifies the concession of Belligerent Rights, yet 
 the Christian Powers should indignantly decline to make the 
 concession, because they cannot do so without complicity with a 
 shameful crime. Here I avoid details. It is sufficient to say, 
 that every argument of fact and reason — every whisper of con- 
 science and humanity — every indignant outburst of an honest 
 man against the Recognition of Slave-monger Independence is 
 equally strong against any concession of Ocean Belligerency. 
 Indeed such concession is the half-way house to Recognition, and 
 it can be made only where a nation is ready, if the fact of Inde- 
 pendence be sufficiently established, to acknowledge it — on the 
 principle of Yattel that " whosoever has a right to the end has aright 
 to the means." (Book IV. cap. v. § 60.) But it is equally clear, 
 that where a nation, on grounds of conscience, must refuse the 
 Recognition of Independence, it cannot concede Belligerency, for 
 ivhere the end is forbidden the means must be forbidden also. 
 But the illogical absurdity of any such concession by Great 
 Britain, so persistent always against Slavery and now for more 
 than a generation the declared " protectress of the African race," 
 becomes doubly apparent when it is considered, that every rebel 
 ship built in England and invested with Ocean Belligerency, 
 carries with it the law of Slavery, so that the ship becomes an 
 extension of Slave Territory by British concession. 
 
 And yet it is said that such a monster is entitled to the conces- 
 sion of ocean rights, and the British Queen is made to proclaim 
 them. Sad day for England when another wicked compromise 
 was struck with Slavery, kindred in nature to that old Treaty, 
 which mantles the cheeks of honest Englishmen as they read it, 
 by which the slave-trade was protected and its profits secured to 
 British subjects ! I know not the profits which have been secured 
 by the destruction of American commerce ; but I do know that 
 the Treaty of Utrecht, crimson with the blood of slaves, is not 
 4 
 
76 
 
 so crimson as that reckless Proclamation, which gave to Slavery a 
 frantic life, and helped for a time, nay still helps the demon, in 
 the rage with which it battles against Human Rights. Such a 
 ship with the Law of Slavery on its deck and with the flag of 
 Slavery at its mast-head, sailing for Slavery, burning for Slavery, 
 fighting for Slavery and knowing no other sovereignty than the 
 pretended government of Rebel Slave-mongers, can be nothing 
 less, in spirit and character, than a Slave-Pirate and the enemy of 
 the human race. Like produces like, and the parent Power, 
 which is Slavery, must stamp itself upon the ship, making it a 
 floating offence to Heaven, with no limit to its audacity — wild, 
 outrageous, impious, a monster of the deep to be hunted down by 
 all who have not forgotten their duty alike to God and man. 
 
 Meanwhile there is one simple act which the justice of England 
 cannot continue to refuse. That fatal concession of Ocean 
 Belligerency, . made in a moment of eclipse, when reason and 
 humanity were obscured, must be annulled. The blunder-crime 
 must be renounced, so that the Slave-pirates may no longer sail the 
 sea, burning, destroying, robbing, with British license. Then will 
 they promptly disappear forever, and with them will disappear 
 the occasion of strife between two Great Powers, who ought to 
 be, if not as mother and child, at least as brothers among the 
 Nations. And may God in his mercy help this consummation ! 
 
 And here I leave this part of the subject, founding my objec- 
 tions on two grounds : 
 
 (1.) The embryo government of Rebel Slave-mongers has not 
 that degree of sovereignty on the ocean which is essential to 
 Belligerency there. 
 
 (2.) Even if it possessed the requisite sovereignty, no Christian 
 Power can make any such concession to it without a shameful 
 complicity with Slavery. 
 
 Both of these are objections of fact. Either is sufficient. But 
 even if the Belligerency seems to be established as a fact, still its 
 concession in this age of Christian light would seem to be impos- 
 sible, unless under some temporary aberration, which, for the 
 honor of England and the welfare of Humanity, it is to be hoped 
 will speedily pass away. 
 
 Our Duties. 
 
 Again, fellow-citizens, I crave forgiveness for this long trespass 
 upon your patience. If the field that we have traversed has been 
 ample, it has been brightened always by the light of International 
 Justice, exposing clearly from beginning to end the sacred land- 
 marks of duty. I have been frank, disguising nothing and keeping- 
 nothing back ; so that you have been able to see the perils to which 
 the Republic is exposed from the natural tendency of war to breed 
 war, as exhibited in the examples of history, and also from the 
 
77 
 
 fatal proclivity of Foreign Powers to intermeddle, as exhibited in 
 recent instances of querulous criticism or intrusive proposition, all 
 adverse to the good cause, while pirate ships have been permitted 
 to depredate on our commerce ; then how the best historic instances 
 testify in favor of Freedom and how all Intervention of every kind, 
 whether by proffer of mediation or otherwise, becomes intolerable 
 when its influence tends to the establishment of that soulless 
 anomaly a professed Republic built on the hopeless and everlasting 
 bondage of a race — and especially how Great Britain is sacredly 
 engaged by all the logic of her history and all her traditions in 
 unbroken lineage against any such unutterable baseness ; then 
 how all the Christian Powers, constituting the Family of Nations, 
 are firmly bound to set their faces against any Recognition of the 
 embryo government of Rebel Slave-mongers, on two grounds ; 
 first, because its Independence is not in fact established ; and 
 second!//, because, even if in fact established, its Recognition is 
 impossible without criminal complicity with Slavery ; and lastly, 
 how these same Christian Powers are firmly bound by the same 
 two-fold reasons against any concession of Ocean rights- to this 
 hideous pretender. 
 
 It only remains that the Republic should lift itself to the height 
 of its great. duties. War is hard to bear — with its waste, its pains, 
 its wounds, its funerals. But in this war we have not been 
 choosers. We have been challenged to the defence of our 
 country, and in this sacred cause, to crush Slavery. There is no 
 alternative. Slavery began the combat, staking its life and 
 determined to rule or die. That we may continue freemen there 
 must be no slaves ; so that our own security is linked with the 
 redemption of a race. Blessed lot, amidst the harshness of war, 
 to wield the arms and deal the blows under which the monster 
 will surely fall! The battle is mighty, for into Slavery has 
 entered the Spirit of Evil. It is persistent, for such a gathered 
 wickedness, concentrated, aroused and maddened, must have a 
 tenacity of life, which will not yield at once. But might will not 
 save it now ; nor time either. 
 
 That the whole war is contained in Slavery may be seen, not 
 only in the acts of the National Government, but also in the 
 confessions of the Rebel Slave-mongers. Already the President, 
 by Proclamation, has announced that the slaves throughout the 
 whole rebel region " are and henceforward shall be free," and, in 
 order to give the fullest assurance of the irreversible character of 
 this sublime edict, he has further announced " that the Executive 
 Government of the United States, including the military and 
 naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom 
 of such persons." Already an enlightened Commission has been 
 constituted, to consider how these thronging freedmen can be 
 best employed for their own good and the national defence. And 
 
78 
 
 already the sons of Africa, as musfered soldiers of the Union, 
 have put forth a discipline and a bravery, not unworthy of their 
 fathers of old, when the prophet Jeremiah said, " Let the mighty 
 men come forth, the Ethiopians that handle the shield ; " (cap. 
 xlvi., v. 9,) and still further, by their stature, by their appearance 
 in the ranks and even by the unexpected testimony of sanitary 
 statistics — according to which for every black soldier disabled by 
 sickness there are more than ten white, thus making the army 
 health of the black ten times as sure as that of the white — by all 
 these things, they have shown that the Father of History, who is 
 our earliest classical authority, was not entirely mistaken when 
 he spoke of Ethiopia as " the most distant region of the earth, 
 whose inhabitants are the tallest, most beautiful and most long- 
 lived of the human race." (Herodotus III., llrt.) But even if 
 these acts of the National Government were less significant, all 
 doubt is removed by the Rebel Slave-mongers themselves, who in 
 Satanic audacity, openly avow that Slavery is the end and aim of 
 the Government which they seek to establish, so that the whole 
 bloody war which they wage is all in the name of Slavery. There- 
 fore, in battling against the Rebellion we battle against Slavery. 
 Freedom is the growing inspiration of our armies and the just 
 inscription of our banners. By tliis sig-n conquer. Such a war 
 is not in any just sense a war of subjugation ; but a war of 
 Liberation — in order to save the Republic from a petty oligarchy 
 of task-masters, and to rescue four millions of human beings from 
 a cruel oppression. Not to subjugate but to liberate is the object 
 of our Holy War. And yet British statesmen, forgetting for the 
 moment all moral distinctions — forgetting God who will not be 
 forgotten — gravely announce that our cause must fail! Alas! 
 individual wickedness is too often successful; but a pretended 
 Nation, suckled in wickedness and boasting its wickedness — a 
 new Sodom, with all the guilt of the old, waiting to be blasted 
 and yet, in its effrontery, openly seeking the fellowship of 
 Christian Powers — is doomed to defeat. Toleration of such a 
 pretension is practical Atheism. Chronology and geography are 
 both offended by it. Piety stands aghast. In this age of light 
 and in countries boasting civilization, there can be no place for 
 its barbarous plenipotentiaries. As well expect crocodiles crawl- 
 ing on the pavements of London and Paris, or the carnivorous 
 idols of Africa installed for worship in Westminster Abbey and 
 Notre Dame. 
 
 Even if the Republic were less strong, yet I am glad to believe 
 that the Rebellion must fail, from the essential impossibility of any 
 such wicked success. The responsibilities of the Christian Powers 
 would be increased by our weakness. Behind our blockade there 
 would be a moral blockade ; behind our armies there would be the 
 aroused judgment of the civilized world. But not on this account 
 can we hesitate. This is no time to stop. Forward; Forward. 
 
79 
 
 Thus do I, who formerly pleaded so often for peace, now sound to 
 arms. But it is because, in this terrible moment, there is no 
 other way to that sincere and solid peace without which there will 
 be endless war. Even on economic grounds, it were better that 
 this war should proceed, rather than recognize any partition, 
 which, beginning with humiliation, must involve the perpetuation 
 of armaments and break out again in blood. But there is some- 
 thing worse than waste of money ; it is waste of character. Give 
 me any peace but a Libcrticide peace. In other days the immense 
 eloquence of Burke was stirred against a Regicide peace. But a 
 peace founded on the killing of a king is not so bad as a peace 
 founded on the killing of Liberty ; nor can the saddest scenes of 
 such a peace be so sad as the daily life which is legalized by 
 Slavery. A Queen on the scaffold is not so pitiful a sight as a 
 woman on the auction-block. Therefore, I say again, Forward I 
 Forward ! 
 
 But while thus steady in our purpose at home, we must not 
 neglect that proper moderation abroad, which becomes the con- 
 sciousness of our strength and the nobleness of our cause. The 
 mistaken sympathy which Foreign Powers now bestow upon 
 Slavery, — or it may be the mistaken insensibility — under the 
 plausible name of " neutrality," which they profess — will be worse 
 for them than for us. For them it will be a record of shame which 
 their children would gladly blot out witli tears. For us it will be 
 only another obstacle vanquished in the battle for Civilization, 
 Avhere unhappily false friends are mingled with open enemies. 
 Even if the cause shall seem for a while imperilled from Foreign 
 Powers, yet our duties are none the less urgent. If the pressure 
 be great, the resistance must be greater ; nor can there be any 
 retreat. Come weal or woe this is the place for us to stand. 
 
 I know not if a Republic like ours can count even now upon the 
 certain friendship of any European Power, unless it be the Republic 
 of William Tell. The very name is unwelcome to the full-blown 
 representatives of monarchical Europe, who forget how proudly, 
 even in modern history, Venice bore the title of Serenissima 
 Respublica. It will be for us to change all this, and we shall do 
 it. Our successful example will be enough. Thus far we have 
 been known, chiefly through that vital force which Slavery could 
 only degrade but not subdue. Now at last, by the death of 
 Slavery, will the Republic begin to live. For what is life without 
 Liberty ? Stretching from ocean to ocean — teeming with popula- 
 tion — bountiful in resources of all kinds — and thrice-happy in 
 universal enfranchisement — it will be more than conqueror. 
 Nothing too vast for its power ; nothing too minute for its care. 
 Triumphant over the foulest wrong ever inflicted — after the blood- 
 iest war ever waged — it will know the majesty of Right and the 
 beauty of Peace — prepared always to uphold the one and to culti- 
 vate the other. Strong in its own mighty stature — filled with all 
 

 80 
 
 the fulness of a new life and co\^red with a panoply of renown, 
 it will confess that no dominion is of value which does not 
 contribute to human happiness. Born in this latter day and the 
 child of its own struggles, without ancestral claims, but heir of 
 all the ages — it will stand forth to assert the dignity of man, and 
 wherever any member of the Human Family is to be succored, 
 there its voice will reach — as the voice of Cromwell reached 
 across France even to the persecuted mountaineers of the Alps. 
 Such will be this Republic ; — upstart among the nations. Aye ! 
 as the steam-engine, the telegraph and chloroform are upstart. 
 Comforter and Helper like these, it can know no bounds to its 
 empire over a willing world. But the first stage is the death of 
 Slavery.