Chapter 2

“Suave etiam belli certamina magna tueri.”[23]

And 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 gladapplause declared sympathy with Humanity[24]; but English applause is now given to Slavery and its defenders: “I am an Englishman, and nothing of 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 be it known, there are Englishmen who stand firm and unshaken amidst this painful recreancy. Their names cannot be forgotten. And still more for the honor of England be it spoken, the working classes, called to suffer the most, bravely bear their calamity, without joining the enemies of the Republic. Their cheers are for Freedom, and not for Slavery.

But the cheers of the House of Commons 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 the merest nullity. Eminent British functionaries, in Court and Parliament, vindicate thenaval expeditionswhich in the name of Slavery are unleashed against a friendly power. Taking advantage of an admitted principle, that, after the concession of belligerent rights, “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 Lord Chief Baron. Each vouches American authority. But they are mistaken. The steel which they strive to “impel” 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 thereare words of Story latterly quoted to the contrary. The authority of the Supreme Court is positive on the two points into which the British apology is divided. The first is, that, even if a “ship of war” cannot be furnished, the offence is incomplete until the armament is put aboard, so that, where the ship, though fitted out and equipped in a British port, awaits an armament at sea, she is not liable to arrest. Such apology is an insult to the understanding and to common sense,—as if it were not obvious that the offence begins with the laying of the keel for the hostile ship,knowing it to be such:[25]and in this spirit the Supreme Court has decided that it is 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 war.[26]The second apology assumes, that, even if the armament were aboard, so that the “ship of war” is complete at all points, still the expedition would be lawful, if the fiction of a sale were adroitly managed. 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 reached the river La Plata,where a commission was obtained and the crew reënlisted; 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 afterwards be recognized as a legitimate cruiser. All the disguises were to no purpose. The Court penetrated them every one, saying, that, if such a ship could lawfully sail, there would be on our part “a fraudulent neutrality, disgraceful to our own Government, and of which no nation would be the dupe.”[27]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 can explain, short of the fatal war-spirit that has entered into Great Britain. There was a time when the Foreign Secretary of England, truly eminent as statesman and orator, Mr. Canning, said in the House of Commons: “If a 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 disdain to be sneaked into a war.”[28]These noblewords were uttered in reply to Lord John Russell and his associates in 1823, when trying to repeal the Foreign Enlistment Act, and to overturn the statute safeguards of British neutrality. They speak now with greater force even than then.

Though 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 already mentioned, that the sale is acommercial transaction, pure and simple, and not in any respect ahostile expeditionfitted out in England. The ship must be “exported” as anarticle of commerce, and must continue suchuntilarrival 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 a hostile character to the ship, or, in one word, to make England itsnaval base, must be criminal: but this is precisely what has been done. Ships are sent forth, armed and equipped. And, pray, how distinguish a ship armed and equipped from a regiment armed and equipped? It is not a munition, it is not even an article, but much more; and here is the distinction not to be overlooked. It is anorganized force, and the nation sending it forth makes itself a party to the war,—all of which England has done. And here are the leonine footprints which point so badly.

(11.) Not content with misconstruing the decisions of our Supreme Court, making them a cover fornaval expeditionsto 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 depredate on British commerce; that Washington, in his speech at the opening of Congress, describes such ships as “vessels commissioned orequipped in a warlike formwithin the limits of the United States,” and also as “military expeditions or enterprises”;[29]and that Jefferson, vindicating this policy ofrepression, said, in a letter to the French Minister, that it was “our wish to preserve the morals of our citizens from being vitiated by courses of lawless plunder and murder”;[30]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 belligerent, 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 that time, by his letter of 8th May, 1793, after complaining of two French privateers, fitted out at Charleston to cruise against British commerce, expressly declares that “he conceives them to be breaches of that neutrality which the United States profess to observe, and direct contraventions of the proclamation which the President issued,”[31]and that very soon there were criminal proceedings, at British instigation, on account of these privateers, in which it was affirmed by the Court that such ships could not be fitted out in a neutral port without violation of international obligations; that promptly, on the representation of the British Government, a statutewas enacted by Congress, in harmony with the Law of Nations, for the better maintenance of our neutrality;[32]that, in 1818, another statute followed in the nature of a Foreign Enlistment Act,[33]afterwards proposed as an example by Lord Castlereagh, when urging a similar statute upon Parliament;[34]that, in 1823, the conduct of the United States on this whole head was presented as a model by Mr. Canning;[35]that, in 1838, during the rebellion in Canada, on the appeal of the British Government, and to its special satisfaction, as was announced in Parliament by Lord Palmerston, at the time Foreign Secretary, our Government promptly declared its purpose “to maintain the supremacy of those laws which were passed to fulfil the obligations of the United States to all friendly nations who may be unfortunately engaged in foreign or domestic war,” and, not satisfied with existing powers, undertook to ask additional legislation from Congress; that Congress proceeded at once to the enactment of another statute, calculated to meet the immediate exigency, where it is provided that collectors, marshals, and other officers shall “seize and detainany vesselor any arms or munitions of war which may be provided or prepared forany military expeditionor enterprise against the territory or dominions of any foreign prince or state.”[36]It is something to forget thesethings; but it is convenient to forget still further, that, at the Crimean War, in 1854, the 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”;[37]and this appeal, 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 no less the solemn obligations of treaty, binding both parties:—

“That the subjects and citizens of the two nationsshall 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 laws against all such offences and aggressions shall be punctually executed.”[38]

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, disregarding all these things, which show how faithfully the National Government has acted, both in measures ofrepressionand measures ofcompensation,also how often the British Government asked and received protection at our hands, and how highly our example of neutrality has been appreciated by leading British statesmen,—and disowning, also, that “spirit of just reciprocity,” which, besides being the prompting of an honest nature, has been positively promised, ship after ship is permitted to leave British ports to depredate on our commerce; and when we complain of an 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 sufficientunder 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,—“nolumus leges Angliæ mutari”; while, to cap this strange insensibility, Lord Palmerston, in a last debate of the late Parliament, brings against us a groundless charge of infidelity to neutral duties during the Crimean War,[39]when the fact is notoriously the reverse, and Earl Russell, in the same spirit, imagines an equally groundless charge, which he records in one of his diplomatic notes, that we have recently enlisted men in Ireland,[40]when notoriously we have done no such thing. Thus are the obligations of reciprocal service and good-will openly discarded, while our public conduct, as well in the past as the present, is openly misrepresented.

(12.) This flagrant oblivion of history and of duty, which seems the adopted policy of the British Government, is characteristically followed by flat refusal to pay for the damages to our commerce caused by the hostile expeditions. The United States, with Washington as President, on 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 originally armed” in our ports,[41]—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 transshipped. Such an elaborate evasion may be effectual against a Parliamentary statute, but it must be impotent against a demand upon the British Government, according to the principles of International Law; for this law looks always atsubstance, and notform, 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 thenaval 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.[42]Therefore the early precedent between the United States and England is in every respect completely applicable; and since this precedent was establishednot 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. Even if the responsibility fora hostile expeditionfitted out in British ports were not plain, there is something in the recent conduct 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, openly declines to stop the pirate ships, saying, “If the Parliamentary statute is inadequate, then let them sail.” It is not needful to consider the apology. The act of declension is positive, and its consequences are no less positive,fixing beyond question the responsibility of the British Government for these criminal expeditions. Thus fixing the 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 his subjects, as, for example, that theypractice piracyon strangers, and, being also able and obliged to hinder it, does not hinder it,renders himself criminal, because he has consented to the bad action, the commission of which he has permitted.… It is presumed that a sovereign knows what his subjects openly and frequently commit; andas to his power of hindering the evil, this likewise is always presumed, unless the want of it be clearly proved.”[43]

Such are the words of Burlamaqui, in his work on Political Law, quoted with approbation by Phillimore, in his work on the Law of Nations.[44]Unless thesewords are discarded as “a maxim,” while the early precedent of British demand upon us is also rudely rejected, it is difficult to see how the British Government can avoid the consequences of complicity with the pirate ships in all their lawless devastation. 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.) Beyond acts and words, this same Britishrabbiashows itself in the official tone towards the national cause in its unparalleled struggle, especially throughout the correspondence of the British Foreign Office. There is little friendship in any of these letters. Nor is there any sympathy with the national championship against Rebel Slavery, nor even one word of mildest dissent from the miscreant apocalypse preached in its behalf. Naturally the tone is in harmony with the sentiment. Hard, curt, captious, cynical, it evinces indifference to that kindly intercourse which nations ought to cultivate with each other, and which should be the study of a wise statesmanship. The Malayruns amuck, and such is the British diplomatic style in dealing with us. This is painfully conspicuous in all that concerns the pirate ships. But I can well understand that a Secretary conceding belligerent rights to Rebel Slavery so easily, and then so easily permitting its 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 come out of British diplomacy to us. Most deeply do I regret this too suggestive failure. And believe me, fellow-citizens, I say these things with sorrow unspeakable, and only indischarge of my duty, when, face to face, I meet you to consider the aspects of our affairs abroad.

(14.) There is still another head of danger, in which all others culminate. I refer to intrusive mediation, or, it may be, recognition of the Slavemonger attempt as an independent nation,—for such movements have been made openly in Parliament and urged constantly by the British press, and, though not yet adopted by her Majesty’s Government, have never been repelled on principle, so that they constitute a perpetual cloud threatening to break. It is plain to all who have not forgotten history, that England never can be guilty of such recognition without unpardonable apostasy; nor can she intervene by way of mediation, except in the interests of Freedom. And yet such are the “elective affinities” newly born between England and Slavery, such is the wilful blindness with regard to our country, kindred to that which prevailed in the time of George Grenville and Lord North, that her Majesty’s Government, instead of repelling the proposition, simply adjourn it, adopting meanwhile 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 Government, in a despatch found in the last Blue Book, that as yet he sees no sign of “a conjuncture at which foreign powersmay step in with proprietyand effect to put a stop to the effusion of blood.”[45]Here is the plain assumption that such conjuncture may occur. For the present we are left free to wage the battle against Slavery without any such intervention in arrest of the national efforts.

Such are some of the warnings which lower from the English sky arching the graves of Wilberforce and Clarkson, while sounding above these sacred resting-places are heard strange, un-English voices, crying out: “Come unto us, Rebel Slavemongers, whippers of women and sellers of children!—for you are the people of our choice, whom we welcome promptly toocean rights, with Armstrong guns andnaval expeditionsequipped 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!”

Crossing the Channel into France, we are not encouraged much. And yet the Emperor, though acting habitually in concert with the British Cabinet, has not intermeddled so illogically or displayed 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 Duc de Choiseul, Prime-Minister of France, was addressed by Frederick of Prussia as “Coachman of Europe,”—a title which belongs now to Louis Napoleon. But he must not try to be “coachman of America.”

(1.) Following the example of England, Louis Napoleon acknowledges the Rebel Slavemongers asoceanbelligerents, so that, with the sanction of France, our ancient ally, their pirate ships, although without a singleopen port which they can call their own, enjoy complete immunity as lawful cruisers, while all who sympathize with them 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 brief vitality to Slavery on pirate decks, is impotent to confirm the 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 very soon withdrew, but the Emperor, less wise, did not hesitate at 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 declared to be nothing more than 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, gives it another character. He proposes 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 is proclaimed Emperor of Mexico under the protection of France. It is obvious that this imperial invasion, though only indirectly against us, would not have been made, if our convulsions had not left the door of the Continent ajar, so that foreign powers may bravely enter in. And it is more obvious that this attemptto plant a throne by our side would “have died before it saw the light,” had it not been supposed that Rebel Slavery was about to triumph.[46]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, must 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 “belligerents” (such is the equal designation of our Republic and the embryo Slavemonger mockery!) a 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 the proposed armistice, all our vast operations must havebeen suspended, the blockade itself must have ceased, while the Rebel ports were opened on the one side to unlimited supplies and military stores, and on the other 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 alone he had pushed forward his military enterprise against Mexico, and presented to our Government the unsupported mediation of France. His offer was promptly rejected by the President. By solemn resolutions of both Houses, adopted with singular unanimity, and communicated since to all foreign governments, Congress announced that such a proposition could be attributed only to “a misunderstanding of the true state of the question, and of 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.[47]This strong language frankly states the true position of our country. Any such offer, whatever its motive, must be an encouragement to the Rebellion. In an age 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 statesman in such influence. The imperial proposition tended directly to the dismemberment of the Republic and the substitution of a ghastly Slavemonger nation.

Baffled in this effort twice attempted, the Emperor does not yet abandon his policy. We are told that itis “postponed to a more suitable opportunity”; so that he, too, waits to strike, if the Gallic cock does not sound 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 to help the plot. But the invasion must fail with the diplomacy to which it is allied.

(4.) The policy of the French Emperor towards our Republic is not left to uncertain inference. For a long time public report has pronounced him unfriendly, and now public report is confirmed by what he does and says. The ambassadorial attorney of Rebel Slavery is received at the Tuileries, members of Parliament on an errand of hostility to our cause are received at Fontainebleau, and the open declaration is made that the Emperor desires to recognize Rebel Slavery as an independent power. This is hard to believe, but it is too true. The French Emperor is against us. In an evil hour, under temptations which should be scouted, he forgets the precious traditions of France, whose blood commingled with ours in a common cause; he forgets the swords of Lafayette and Rochambeau, flashing side by side with the swords of Washington and the earlier Lincoln, while the lilies 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! heu prisca fides! Manibus date lilia plenis!”—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 States, and gives to England a maritime rival destined to humble her pride”;[48]and he forgets, also, how he himself, when beginning intervention for Italian liberty, boasted proudly that France always stood for an “idea”; and forgetting these things, which mankind cannot forget, he seeks the disjunction of this Republic, with the spoliation of that very territory which came to us with such auspices, while France, always standing for an “idea,” stands, under the second Napoleon, for the “idea” of welcome to a new evangel of Slavery, with Mason and Slidell as the evangelists. Thus is imperial influence exerted for Rebel Slavemongers. The Emperor, for the present, forbears to fling his sword into the scale; but he flings his heavy hand, if not his sword.

Only recently we have the menace of the sword. The throne of Mexico is offered to an Austrian archduke. The desire to recognize the independence of Rebel Slavery is openly declared. These two incidents together are complements of each other. And now we are assured by concurring report, that Mexico is to be 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 accomplish. Report informs us that Texas also is doomed to the imperial protectorate, thus ravishing a possession which belongs to this Republic as much as Normandy belongs to France.[49]The partition of Poland isacknowledged to be the great crime of the last century. It was accomplished by three powers, with the silent connivance of the rest, but not without pangs of remorse in one of the spoilers. “I know,” said Maria Theresa to the ambassador of Louis the Sixteenth, “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.”[50]Here on this Continent the French Emperor seeks to play the very part which of old caused the contrition of Maria Theresa; nor could 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 Republic in Mexico, it remains to be seen if the French Emperor can prevail as trampler upon this Republic. I do not think he can; nor am I anxious on account of this new-found Emperor, who will be another King Canute against the rising tide of the American people. His chair must be withdrawn, or he will be overwhelmed.[51]

Here I bring to an end this unpleasant review. Itis with little satisfaction, and only in explanation of our relations with foreign powers, that I accumulate these instances, not one of which, small or great, is without its painful lesson, while they all testify with a single voice to the perils of our country.

Another branch of the subject is not less important. Considering all these things, and especially how great powers abroad constantly menace intervention, now by criticism and then by proffer of mediation, all tending painfully to something further, it becomes us to see what, according to International Law and the examples of history, will justify foreign intervention, in any of the forms it may take. And here there is one remark to be made at the outset. Nations are equal in the eye of International 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 bound to concede under like circumstances. Therefore, should our cases be reversed, there is nothing England and France now propose, or may hereafter propose, which it will not be our equal right to propose, when Ireland or India once more rebels, or when France is in the throes of its next revolution. Generously, and for the sake of that international comity not lightly hazarded, we may reject the precedents they furnish; but it will be difficult for them to complain, if we follow their steps.

Foreign intervention is, on its face, inconsistent with every idea of national independence, which in itself is the natural and acknowledged right of a nation to restundisturbed so long as it does not disturb others. If nations stood absolutely alone, dissociated 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. But civilization, drawing nations nearer together and into one society, brings them under reciprocal influence, so that no nation can now act or suffer alone. Out of the relations and suggestions of good neighborhood, involving the admitted right of self-defence, springs the only justification or apology to be found forforeign intervention, which is the general term to signify interposition in the affairs of another country, whatever form it may take. Much is done under the name of “good offices,” whether in the form of mediation or intercession,—and much also by military power, whether in the declared will of superior force or directly by arms. Recognition of independence 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 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 is governed by the same principles, except, perhaps, that in the case of civil war there should be more careful consideration, not only of the rights, but of the susceptibilities of a nation so severely tried. Such is the obvious suggestion of humanity. Intervention between nations is only a common form of participation in foreign war, but intervention in a civil war is intermeddling in the domestic concerns of another nation. Whoever acts at thejoint invitationof belligerent partiesto compose a bloody strife is entitled to the blessings which belong to the peacemakers; but, if uninvited, or acting at the invitation of one party only, he will be careful to proceed with reserve and tenderness, in the spirit of peace, and confining action to a proffer of good offices in the form of mediation or intercession, unless he is ready for war. Such proffer may be declined without offence. But it can never be forgotten, that,where one side is obviously fighting for Barbarism, any intervention, whatever form it takes,—if only by captious criticism, calculated to encourage 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 belongs to 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 inexternalaffairs; and, secondly, intervention ininternalaffairs. The first is illustrated by the intervention of the Elector Maurice of Saxony against Charles the Fifth, of King William against Louis the Fourteenth, of Russia and France in the Seven Years’ War, of Russia again 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.

The intervention of Russia, Austria, and Prussia in the affairs of Poland, of Great Britain among the native provinces of India, and of the Allied Powers in the French Revolution, under the continued inspiration ofthe Treaty of Pilnitz, are illustrations of the second head. Without dwelling on these great examples, I shall call attention to instances showing more especially the growth of intervention, first in external, and then in internal affairs. Here I shall conceal nothing. Instances seeming against the principles I have at heart will at least help illustrate the great subject, so that you may see it as it is.

(1.) First in order, and for the sake of completeness, I speak of intervention inexternalaffairs, where two or more nations are parties.

As long ago as 1645, France offered mediation between what were then called “The Two Crowns of the North,” Sweden and Denmark. This was followed, in 1648, by the famous Peace of Westphalia, the beginning of our present Law of Nations, negotiated under the joint mediation of the Pope and the Republic of Venice, present by nuncio and ambassador. In 1655, the Emperor of Germany offered mediation between Sweden and Poland; but the old historian records that the Swedes suspected him of seeking to increase rather than to arrange pending difficulties; and the effort ended by the withdrawal of the imperial envoy into the Polish camp. 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 mediation, which was promptly accepted by England, who justly rejected a similar proffer most hardily made by the Elector of Brandenburg, ancestor of the kings of Prussia, while marching at the head of his forces to join the Dutch. The English noteon this occasion, written in what at the time was called “sufficiently bad French, but in very intelligible terms,” declared that the Electoral proffer, though under the pleasant name of mediation (par le doux nom de médiation), was adjudged to be only arbitration, and that, instead of mediationunarmed and disinterested, it was mediation armed and pledged to the enemies of England.[52]

Such are earlier instances, all of which have their lessons for us. There are modern, also. I allude only to the Triple Alliance, between Great Britain, Prussia, and Holland, which, at the close of the last century, successively intervened, by mediation which could not be resisted, to compel Denmark, while siding with Russia against Sweden, to remain neutral for the rest of the war,—then, in 1791, to dictate terms of peace between Austria and the Porte,—and lastly, in 1792, to constrain Russia into abandonment of her designs upon the Turkish Empire by the Peace of Jassy. On this occasion, the Russian Empress, Catharine the Second, peremptorily refused the mediation of Prussia, and the mediating Alliance made its approaches through Denmark, by whose good offices the Empress was finally induced to accept the treaty. While thus engaged in professed mediation, England, in a note to the French ambassador, declined to act as mediator between France and the Allied Powers, leaving that world-embracing war to proceed. Not only has England refused to act as mediator, butalso refused submission to mediation. This was during the last war with the United States, when Russia, at that time the ally of England, proffered mediation between the two belligerents, which was promptly accepted by the UnitedStates. Its rejection by England, causing the prolongation of hostilities, was considered by Sir James Mackintosh less justifiable, as “a mediator 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 submit their differences, and whose award is binding on them.”[53]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 failure to pay a sum stipulated in a recent treaty with the United States, King William the Fourth proffered mediation; but happily the whole question was already virtually 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 external affairs; and since International Law is traced in history, they furnish a guide we cannot now neglect, especially when we regard the actual policy of England and France.

(2.) Instances of foreign intervention in theinternalaffairs of a nation are more pertinent. They are numerous, and not always harmonious, especially if we compare the new with the old. In the earlier times such intervention 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 by a generoussympathy breaking forth from time to time in their support. According to old precedents, most of which are found in the gossipping book of Wicquefort,[54]whence they have been copied by Mr. Wildman, in his “Institutes of International Law,”[55]evenforeign intercessionwas prohibited. Not even in the name of charity could one ruler speak to another on the domestic affairs of his government. Peter, King of Aragon, was astonished at a proposed embassy from Alphonso, King of Castile, entreating mercy for rebels. Charles the Ninth of France, a detestable monarch, in reply to ambassadors of the Protestant princes of Germany, pleading for his Protestant subjects, insolently declared that he required no tutors to teach him how to rule. And yet this same sovereign did not hesitate to ask the Duke of Savoy to receive certain subjects “into his benign favor, and to restore and reëstablish them in their confiscated estates.”[56]In this appeal there was a double inconsistency; for it was not only 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 the Third, successor of Charles, and another detestable monarch, in reply to the Protestant ambassadors, announced that he was a sovereign prince, and ordered them to leave his dominions. Louis the Thirteenth was of milder nature, and yet, when the English ambassador, the Earl of Carlisle, presumed to speak in favor of the Huguenots, he intimated 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 for a subject to negotiate terms of accommodation through a foreign prince. On still another occasion, when the King of France, forgetting his own rule, interposed in behalf of the Barberini family, Innocent the Tenth declared, that, having no desire to interfere in the affairs of France, he trusted his Majesty would not interfere in his. Queen Christina of Sweden, merely hinting a disposition to proffer good offices for the settlement of the unhappy divisions in France, was told by the Queen Regent that she need give herself no trouble about them, and one of her own ministers at Stockholm declared that the overture was properly rejected. Nor were the States General of Holland less sensitive. They even refused audience to the Spanish ambassador seeking to congratulate them on the settlement of a domestic question; and when the French ambassador undertook to plead for Roman Catholics, 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 in speech whatever the resolution seemed to want in plainness.

Nor is England without similar example. Louis the Thirteenth, shortly after the marriage of his sister Henrietta Maria with Charles the First, consented that the English ambassadors should interpose for 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 late as 1746, when, after the Battle of Culloden, the Dutch ambassador in France was induced to address the British Government in behalf of the unfortunate Charles Edward, 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 Government, which, not content with apology from the unfortunate official, required that he should be rebuked by his own Government also.[57]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.

In face of such repulses, all these nations, at different times, practised intervention in every variety of form,—sometimes by intercession or “good offices” only, sometimes by mediation, and often by arms. Even these instances attest the intermeddling spirit; for such intervention, however received, was at least attempted.

Two precedents belonging to the earlier period deserve to stand apart, not only for historic importance, but for applicability to our times. The first was the effort to institute mediation between King Charles the First and his Parliament, attempted by Cardinal Mazarin, that powerful minister, who, during the minority of Louis the Fourteenth, swayed France. The civil war had been waged for years; good men on each side had fallen,—Falkland fighting for the King, and Hampden fighting for the Parliament,—and other costliest blood been shed on the fields of Edgehill, Newbury, Marston Moor, and Naseby, when the ambitious Cardinal, wishingto serve the King, promised, as Clarendon relates, “to press the Parliament so imperiously, and to denounce a war against them, if they refused to yield to what was reasonable.”[58]For this important service he selected the famous Pomponne de Bellièvre, of a family tried in public duties,—himself President of the Parliament of Paris and peer of France,—conspicuous 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 Hôtel Dieu, at Paris. Arriving at London, the graceful ambassador presented himself to that Long Parliament which knew so well how to guard English rights. At once every overture was rejected in formal proceedings, from which I copy these words: “We do declare that we ourselves have been careful to improve all occasions to compose these unhappy troubles,yet we have not, neither can we, 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 King, will rest satisfied with this our resolution and answer.”[59]On the committee which drew this reply was John Selden, unsurpassed for learning and ability in the whole splendid history of the English bar, in every book of whose library was written, “Before everything, Liberty,” and also that Harry Vane whom Milton, in one of his most inspired sonnets, addresses as

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