Part 3

(9.) These same Cabinet orators, not content with giving us a bad name, allow themselves to pronounce against us on the whole case. They declare that the National Government cannot succeed in crushing Rebel Slavery, 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. It is apparent that their utterance, though made in Parliament and repeated at public meetings, was founded less on 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 enters into and possesses the British statesmen of our day, who do not take the trouble to see how 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 Happiness to All Men, while our Slavemongers are battling to found a _new_ power on the corner-stone of Slavery. The difference becomes a contrast, so that whatever was once generously 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 Earl Russell, when, long ago, in striking phrase, he said that England, in her war against our fathers, “had engaged _for the suppression of Liberty_”;[21] but this is precisely what Rebel Slavery is 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, like the author of the “Oceana,” who published a demonstration that monarchy was impossible in England[22] less than six months before Charles the Second was welcomed to London amid salvos of cannon and hurrahs of the people. Nor do I stop to consider how far such prophecies uttered in public places by British ministers are consistent with that British “neutrality” so constantly boasted. Opinions are 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 Slavery. There is matter for reflection in this instance, but I adduce it only as another illustration of the times. Nothing is more clear than that whosoever assumes to play prophet becomes pledged in character and pretension to sustain his prophecy. The learned Jerome Cardan, professor and doctor, also dabbler in astrology, of great fame in the sixteenth century, undertook to predict the day of his death, and he maintained his prophetic character by taking his own life at the appointed time. If British ministers, playing prophet, escape the ordinary influences of this craft, it is from that happy nature which suspends 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.) 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 “munitions of war,” so that our army everywhere, whether at Vicksburg or Charleston, is compelled to encounter Armstrong guns and Blakely guns, with all proper ammunition, from England; for the right of British subjects to sell these articles to Rebel Slavemongers 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 British flag, with contributions to Rebel Slavery; for these, too, enjoy kindred 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.

Even the royal manifesto gives no sanction to the fitting out 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 offence. And yet, in face of this obvious prohibition, standing forth in the text of the law, and founded in reason “ere human statute purged the gentle weal,” also exemplified by the National Government, which, from the time of Washington, has always guarded its ports against such outrage, powerful ships are 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 is avoided, they proceed at once to rob and destroy the commerce of the United States. _England is the naval base_ from which are derived the original forces and supplies enabling them to sail the sea. Several such ships are now depredating on the ocean, like Captain Kidd, under pretended commissions, each in itself a _naval expedition_. As England 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 what they cannot rob. Raging 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 seamen, with “trained gunners out of her Majesty’s naval reserve,” all, like those of Queen Elizabeth, described as “good sailors and better pirates,” and with everything else from keel to truck British, which, after more than a year of unlawful havoc, is still firing the property of our citizens, _without once entering a Rebel Slavemonger 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 announced, like stars at a theatre. Will they, also, be allowed to perform? I wish there were not too much reason to believe that all these performances are sustained by prevailing British sympathy. A Frenchman, accidentally prisoner on 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 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 glad applause 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 the _naval expeditions_ which 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 there are 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 noble words 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 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 must continue such _until_ 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 a hostile character to the ship, or, in one word, to make England its _naval 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 an _organized 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 for _naval expeditions_ 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 depredate on British commerce; that Washington, in his speech at the opening of Congress, describes such ships as “vessels commissioned or _equipped in a warlike form_ within the limits of the United States,” and also as “military expeditions or enterprises”;[29] and that Jefferson, 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 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 statute was 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 detain _any vessel_ or any arms or munitions of war which may be provided or prepared for _any military expedition_ or enterprise against the territory or dominions of any foreign prince or state.”[36] It is something to forget these things; 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 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 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 of _repression_ and measures of _compensation_, 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 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,--“_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 at _substance_, and not _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.[42] Therefore the early precedent between the United States and England is in every respect completely applicable; and since this precedent 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. Even if the responsibility for _a hostile expedition_ fitted 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 they _practice piracy_ on 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; and _as to his power of hindering the evil, this likewise is always presumed_, unless the want of it be clearly proved.”[43]