Part 8

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 recognition” might be “looked upon as justifiable cause of war.” 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 determine rights instead of facts, or to anticipate the result of a contest, it is wrongful. No nation can undertake to sit in judgment on the rights of another nation without 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 must 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 government has achieved a reasonable stability, with fixed limits, giving assurance of solid power. All 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, positive and fixed, there is nothing but a claim. Now nothing is clearer than, that, while the terrible litigation is still pending, and the trial by battle, to which appeal is made, remains undecided, _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 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. To justify recognition, 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_, not to be avoided without open offence to a friendly power, and open violation of that International Law which is the guardian of the world’s peace, even if there be not _another condition precedent_ which civilization in this age will require.

Do you ask now if foreign powers can acknowledge our Rebel embryo as an independent nation? There is madness in the thought. Recognition accompanied by the breaking of the blockade would be war, impious war, against the United States, where Slavemongers would be the allies and Slavery the inspiration. 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 circumstances, 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. It would assume unblushingly, that, already Rebel Slavery had succeeded in establishing an independent nation with an untroubled government and a secure conformation of territory, when, _in fact_, nothing is established, nothing untroubled, nothing 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 from 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 pretension, scouted and denied by a whole people with invincible armies and navies embattled against it, would be a 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.

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 glory 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 contest, there is one objection which, in an age of Christian light, thank God, cannot be overcome, unless, after solemn covenants branding Slavery, the great powers shall forget their vows, while England, the declared protectress of the African race, and France, 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 pretension claiming recognition, which constitutes _fact_. Perhaps it may be said that it is a question of policy; but it is of policy which ought to be beyond debate, _if such fact be established_. Something more is necessary than that the new power shall be _de facto_ independent. _De facto_ it must be _fit_ for independence; and, from the nature of the case, every nation will judge of this fitness _in fact_. Undertaking to acknowledge a _new_ power, you proclaim its fitness for welcome and association in the Family of Nations. Can England gazette such a proclamation, elevating the whippers of women and sellers of children? Can France permit Louis Napoleon to do the same?

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 permitting Slavery, but _whether relations shall be commenced with a new power_, not merely permitting Slavery, but building its whole intolerable pretension upon this Barbarism. “No _new_ Slave State” is a watchword with which we are familiar in our domestic history; but even such cry does not reveal the full opposition to the _new_ revolt against Civilization,--for, even if disposed to admit a _new_ Slave State, there must be, among men who have not yet lost all sense of decency, undying resistance to the admission of a _new_ Slave Power with 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 plain as the moral law or the multiplication table.

Look for a moment at the unprecedented character of this pretension. A President known to be against the extension of Slavery was duly elected by the people in the autumn of 1860. This was all. He had not entered upon his duties. But the apostolic Slavemongers saw that Slavery at home must suffer under the popular judgment against its extension; they saw that a vote against its extension was a vote for its condemnation; and they rebelled. Under this wicked inspiration, State after State pretended to withdraw from the Union, and to construct a new Confederacy, whose “corner-stone” was Slavery. A Constitution was adopted, declaring these words: (1.) “No law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed”[106]; and (2.) “In all territory belonging to the Confederate States, lying without the limits of the several States, the institution of Negro Slavery, as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected by Congress and by the Territorial Government.”[107] Do not start. These are the authentic words of the text. You will find them in the Rebel 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, thus far remarked for moderation on Slavery, as if smitten with diabolic light, undertook to explain and vindicate the new Magna Charta. His words are familiar, but they cannot be omitted in a complete 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.” The Vice-President announced unequivocally the change that had taken place. Admitting it was “the prevailing idea of most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old Constitution that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the Laws of Nature, that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically,” he denounces this idea as “fundamentally wrong,” and proclaims the new government “founded upon _exactly the opposite idea_.” Here is no disguise. “Its foundations,” 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 condition.” Not content with exhibiting the untried foundation, he boastfully claims for the new government priority of invention. “_This 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 “the nucleus of a growing power, which, if we are true to ourselves, our destiny, and our high mission, will become the controlling power on this continent.”[108]

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. The gauntlet is thrown down to heaven and earth, while a disgusting Barbarism is proclaimed as the new Civilization. Here is a new method, a _novum organum_, to usher in the world’s future. Two years are already passed,--but, as the Rebellion began, so is it now. A Governor of South Carolina, in a message to the Legislature, as late as 3d April, 1863, takes up the boastful strain, and congratulates the Rebel Slavemongers that they are “a refined, cultivated, and enlightened people,” and that the new government is “the finest type that the world ever beheld.”[109] God save the mark! Such, doubtless, was the speech of the African tyrant, as he sat in state on the prostrate bodies of his subjects and rejoiced in this manifestation of power. A leading journal, more than any other the organ of the Slavemongers, repeats 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, verily, 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 we 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 ears to hear, let him hear.’” This God-sent missionary to the nations it is now proposed to welcome at the household hearth of the civilized world.

Unhappily, there are old nations already in the family still tolerating Slavery; but now, for the first time, a new nation claims admission there, which not only tolerates Slavery, but, exulting in its shame, strives to reverse the judgment of mankind, making this outrage its chief support and glory, so that all recognition of the new power will be recognition of a sacrilegious pretension,

“With one vast blood-stone for the mighty base.”

Elsewhere Slavery has been an accident; here it is the principal. Elsewhere it has been an instrument only; here it is the inspiration. Elsewhere it has been kept back in becoming modesty; here it is pushed forward in all its brutish nakedness. Elsewhere it has claimed nothing but liberty to live; here it claims license to rule, with unbounded empire at home and abroad. Look at this candidate power in its whole continued existence, from Alpha to Omega, and it is nothing but Slavery. Its origin is Slavery, its mainspring is Slavery, its object is Slavery. Wherever it appears, whatever it does, whatever form it takes, it is Slavery and nothing else; so that, with the agonizing despair of Satan, it might cry out:--

“Me miserable! which 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 horseback, Slavery on foot, Slavery raging on the battle-field, Slavery savage on the quarter-deck, robbing, destroying, burning, killing, 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 negotiation,--all to secure for the candidate power its much desired welcome. Say what you will, try to avoid it, if you can, you are compelled to admit that the candidate power is nothing else than _organized Slavery_, now, in its madness, surrounded by its criminal clan, and led by its felon chieftains, braving the civilization of the age. Any recognition of Slavery is bad enough; but this will be recognition with welcome and benediction, imparting _new_ consideration and respectability, and, worse still, securing _new_ opportunity and foothold for the supremacy 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, unashamed of Slavery, should be robed in black, while it conducts the 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 international recognition of the claim to hold property in man, to sell wife away from husband, to sell child away from parent, to shut the gates of knowledge, to appropriate all the fruits of another’s labor. The candidate proceeds in the canvass, notwithstanding all history declares Slavery essentially barbarous, and that whatever it touches it changes to itself,--that it barbarizes 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 incursion and for robbery; that, during later years, under their instigation and to advance their pretensions, expeditions _identical in motive with 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 but predecessors of Beauregard and Jefferson Davis. And yet the candidate proceeds, although it is obvious that the recognition urged will be nothing less than solemn sanction by the Christian powers of Slavery everywhere throughout the new jurisdiction, on land or sea, so that every ship, being 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 woven in his flag wherever it floats on land and sea, the candidate clamors for independent recognition. It is sad to think that there is delay in repelling the insufferable canvass. Can Christian nations longer hesitate? To detest and combat such an accursed pretension it is not necessary even to be a Christian,--it is sufficient to be a man.

If the recognition of a _de facto_ power were 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 company 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 the exercise of this discretion, Congress for a long time refused to admit Missouri _as a Slave State_. And now the old Missouri Question, in more outrageous form, on vaster theatre, with “monarchs to behold the swelling scene,” is presented to the Christian powers of the world. If it was right to exclude Missouri, having only few slaves, and regarding Slavery merely as a temporary condition, it must be right to exclude a pretended nation, which not only boasts millions of slaves, but passionately proclaims the perpetuity and propagation of Slavery as the cause and object of its separate existence.

Practical statesmen have always treated recognition as a question of policy, to be determined on the whole case, even where the power is _de facto_ established,--as amply appears in the Parliamentary debates on the recognition of Spanish America. If we go behind the practical statesmen and consult the earliest oracles of International Law, we find, that, according to their most approved utterances, 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 through agreement in right and community of interest_.”[110] Again, he goes so far as to say, “When the king is unjust, or the aristocracy, or the people itself, the commonwealth is not vicious, _but null_.”[111] Of course a commonwealth that is _null_ cannot be recognized. This same lofty standard is of frequent recurrence in the testimony of the great Roman. But he is not alone. Grotius, who speaks always with the magistral voice of learning and genius, furnishes the just conclusion, when, after declaring that a state is “a complete body of freemen associated for the enjoyment of right and for their common benefit,”[112] he exposes the distinction between a body of men, who, being already a recognized commonwealth, are guilty of systematic crime,--as, for instance, piracy,--and another body of men, who, _not yet recognized as a commonwealth_, band together for this purpose,--_sceleris causâ coeunt_. The latter, by happy discrimination, he places beyond the pale of recognition.[113] When before, in all history, have creatures wearing the human form proclaimed the _criminal principle_ of their association with the audacity of our Slavemongers? And yet there is hesitation to place them beyond the pale of recognition. A recent English authority on the Law of Nations adopts the same distinction. I quote Mr. Phillimore, who, after alluding to societies united _for the sake of crime_, says: “All agree to class such bodies amongst those of whose corporate existence the law takes no cognizance (_qui civitatem non faciunt_), and therefore as not entitled to international rights either in peace or war.”[114]

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, an ornament of the British bench, whose elegant mind was governed always by practical sense, adjudged that this trade “cannot, _abstractedly speaking_, be said to have a legitimate existence”;[115] and our own great authority, Mr. Justice Story, in a remarkable judgment, declared himself constrained “to consider the trade _an offence against the universal law of society_”;[116] and the highest professional authorities of our country adopted the same conclusion: I refer especially to the late William Pinkney and Jeremiah Mason.[117] But arguments which are strong against any recognition of the Slave-Trade are strong also against any recognition of Slavery itself, especially when it is the foundation of a _new_ power.

In the determination of present duty, it is not necessary to assume that Slavery or the Slave-Trade is positively forbidden 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 also according to those commanding principles of justice and humanity which cannot be set at nought without 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 of Morality. The Rule of Law is sometimes less comprehensive than the Rule of Morality, so that the latter may positively condemn what the former silently tolerates. But within its own domain Morality cannot be less authoritative than Law. It is, indeed, nothing less than the Law of Nature, which is the Law of God. If we listen again to heathen teaching, we shall confess its truth. “Law,” says Cicero, “is the highest reason, implanted in nature, _which prescribes those things which ought to be done, and forbids the contrary_.”[118] 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 students of jurisprudence 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.”[119] This common consciousness 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 support in the human conscience, 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.