Part 9

There is a Rule of Prudence superadded to the Rule of Morality. Grotius, in discussing treaties, does not forget the wisdom of Solomon, who, in not a few places, warns against fellowship with the wicked,--although he adds, that these are maxims of prudence, and not of law.[120] And he reminds us of the saying of Alexander, “that those grievously offend who enter the service of barbarians.”[121] Better still are the words of the wise historian of classical antiquity, who enjoins upon a commonwealth the duty of considering carefully, when sued for assistance, “whether what is sought is sufficiently pious, safe, glorious, or whether it is _unbecoming_”;[122] and also those words of the Hebrew king, who, after rebuking an alliance with Ahab, asks with scorn, “Shouldest thou help the ungodly?”[123]

The claim for recognition, when brought to the touchstone of these principles, is easily disposed of.

* * * * *

Urge not the _Practice of Nations_ in its behalf. Never before in history has a candidacy been put forward _in the name of Slavery_, and the terrible outrage is aggravated by the Christian light which surrounds it. This is not an age of darkness. But even in the Dark Ages, when the Slavemongers of the Barbary coast had gathered into cities, the saintly Louis the Ninth was fired to treat one of these communities as a “nest of wasps.”[124] Afterwards, but slowly, they obtained “the right of legation” and “the reputation of a government”; when at last, weary of their criminal pretensions, the aroused vengeance of Great Britain and France blotted out this power from the list of nations. Louis the Eleventh, who has been described as the sovereign “who best understood his interest,” indignant at Richard the Third of England, who had murdered two infants in the Tower and usurped the crown, sent back his ambassadors without holding intercourse with them. This is a suggestive precedent, which I give on venerable authority in diplomatic history;[125] but the parricide usurper of England had never murdered so many infants or usurped so much as the pretended Slave Power, strangely tolerated by the sagacious sovereign who sits on the throne of Louis the Eleventh.

It is not necessary, however, to go so far in history, nor to dwell on the practice of nations in withholding or conceding recognition. The whole matter is stated by Burke, with his customary power.

“In the case of a divided kingdom, by the Law of Nations, Great Britain, like every other power, is free to take any part she pleases. _She may decline, with more or less formality, according to her discretion, to acknowledge this new system_; or she may recognize it as a government _de facto_, setting aside all discussion of its original legality, and considering the ancient monarchy as at an end. The Law of Nations leaves our court open to its choice.… The declaration of a _new_ _species_ of government on new principles is a real crisis in the politics of Europe.”[126]

This same rule Burke declared in Parliament, saying, “that the French Republic was _sui generis_, and bore no analogy to any other that ever existed in the world. It, therefore, did not follow that we ought to recognize it, merely because different powers in Europe had recognized the Republic of England under Oliver Cromwell.”[127] And in his famous “Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs” this illustrious authority proclaimed the new French Government “so fundamentally wrong as to be utterly incapable of correcting itself by any length of time, or of being formed into any mode of polity of which a member of the House of Commons could publicly declare his approbation.”[128]

Another eloquent publicist, Sir James Mackintosh, while pressing on Parliament the recognition of Spanish America, says: “The reception of a new state into the society of civilized nations by those acts which amount to recognition is a proceeding which has no legal character, and _is purely of a moral nature_”; and he proceeds to argue, that, since England “is the only anciently free state in the world, for her to refuse her _moral aid to communities struggling for liberty_ is an act of unnatural harshness.”[129] Thus does he vindicate recognition for the sake of Freedom. How truly he would have repelled any recognition for the sake of Slavery let his life testify.

At the Congress of Verona, Chateaubriand, as representative of France, replied to a proposition from the Duke of Wellington on this subject:--

“France is influenced by considerations of more general importance with regard to the governments _de facto_. She conceives that _the principles of justice on which society is founded must not be lightly sacrificed_ to secondary interests, and it appears to her that those principles increase in importance _when the matter in question is that of recognizing a political order of things virtually hostile to that which exists in Europe_.”[130]

Here the rule is mildly stated, but in harmony with correct principle. A _new_ government, with Slavery as its active soul, must be “virtually hostile” to European civilization, so as to make its recognition impossible; nor can the principles of justice be lightly sacrificed.

No better testimony to the practice of nations can be found than the words of Vattel, whose work, presenting the subject in familiar form, has done more, during the last century, to fashion opinion on the Law of Nations than any other authority. Here it is briefly.

“If there be any nation that _makes an open profession_ of trampling justice under foot, of despising and violating the rights of others, whenever it finds an opportunity, the interest of human society will authorize all others to unite in order to humble and chastise it.”[131]

“_To form and support an unjust pretension_ is to do an injury only to the nation whom such pretension concerns; to mock at justice in general is to injure all nations.”[132]

“The power that assists an odious tyrant, that declares for an unjust and rebellious people, undoubtedly violates duty.”[133]

“As to those monsters who under the title of sovereigns render themselves the scourges and horror of humanity, they are ferocious beasts, of whom every brave man may justly clear the earth.”[134]

“If the maxims of a religion tend to establish it by violence, and to oppress all those who do not embrace it, the Law of Nature forbids us to favor that religion, or to unite unnecessarily with its inhuman followers, and the common safety of mankind invites them rather to enter into _a league against such madmen, to repress such fanatics, who disturb the public repose and menace all nations_.”[135]

Nor can you urge this recognition on any principle of _Comity of Nations_. This is an expansive term, into which enters much of the refinements, amenities, and hospitalities of civilization, and also something of the obligations of moral duty. But where an act is prejudicial to national interests, or contrary to national policy, or questionable in morals, it cannot be commended by any consideration of courtesy. A paramount duty must not be betrayed by a kiss. For the sake of comity, acts of good-will and friendship not required by law are performed between nations; but an English court has authoritatively declared that this principle cannot prevail, “where it violates the law of our own country, the Law of Nature, or the Law of God,” and on this exalted ground it was decided that an American slave who had found shelter on board a British man-of-war on the high seas could not be recognized as a slave.[136] The same principle must prevail against recognition of a new slave nation.

Nor, finally, can this recognition be urged on any reason of _Peace_. There can be no peace founded on injustice; and any recognition is injustice which will cry aloud, resounding through the earth. You may seem to have peace, but it will be only smothered war, sure to break forth in war more direful than before.

Thus is every argument for recognition repelled, whether under the sounding words, Practice of Nations, Comity of Nations, or Peace. There is nothing in practice, nothing in comity, nothing in peace, which is not against any such shameful acknowledgment.

* * * * *

Applying the principles already set forth,--assuming what cannot be denied, that every power is free to refuse recognition,--assuming that it is not every body of men that can be considered a commonwealth, but only those “associated _through agreement in right and community of interest_,”--that men “banding together for the sake of systematic crime” cannot be considered a commonwealth,--assuming that every member of the Family of Nations will surely obey the rule of morality,--that it will “shun fellowship with the wicked,”--that it will not “enter the service of barbarians,”--that it will avoid what is “unbecoming,” and do that only which is “pious, safe, and glorious,”--and that, above all things, it will not enter into alliance to “help the ungodly,”--assuming these things, every such member must reject with indignation a new pretension whose declared principle of association is so intrinsically wicked. Here there can be no question. The case is plain; nor is any language of contumely or scorn too strong to express the irrepressible repugnance to such a pretension, which, like vice, “to be hated needs but to be seen.” Surely there can be no Christian power which will not rouse to expose it, crying, with irresistible voice,--

No _new_ sanction of Slavery!

No _new_ quickening of Slavery in its active and aggressive barbarism!

No _new_ encouragement to “filibusters” engendered by Slavery!

No _new_ creation of _Slave Territory_!

No _new_ creation of a _Slave Navy_!

_No new Slave Nation!_

No installation of Slavery as a _new_ Civilization!

But all this litany will fail, if recognition succeeds,--from which, good Lord, deliver us! Nor will this be the end.

* * * * *

Slavery, through the _new_ power, will take its place in the Parliament of mankind, with the immunities of an independent nation, ready always to uphold and advance itself, and organized as an unrelenting Propaganda of the new faith. A power having its inspiration in such a Barbarism must be essentially barbarous; founded on the asserted right to whip women and sell children, it must assume a character of disgusting hardihood; and openly professing determination to revolutionize the public opinion of the world, it must be in open schism with Civilization itself, so that all its influences will be wild, savage, brutal, and all its offspring kindred in character.

“Pards gender pards; from tigers tigers spring; No doves are hatched beneath a vulture’s wing.”[137]

Such a power, from very nature, must be despotism at home “tempered only by assassination,” with the cotton-field for its Siberia,--while abroad it must be aggressive, dangerous, and revolting, in itself a _Magnum Latrocinium_, whose fellowship can have nothing but “the filthiness of evil,” and whose very existence will be an intolerable nuisance. When Dante, in the vindictive judgment hurled against his own Florence, called it _bordello_, he did not use a term too strong for the mighty house of ill-fame which the Christian powers are now asked for the first time to license. Such must be the character of the new power. But, though only a recent wrong, and pleading no prescription, the illimitable audacity of its nature can hesitate at nothing; nor is there anything offensive or detestable it will not absorb into itself. It will be an Ishmael, with hand against every man. It will be a brood of Harpies, defiling all it cannot steal. It will be the one-eyed Cyclop of nations, seeing only through Slavery, spurning all as fools who do not see likewise, and bellowing forth in savage egotism,--

“Know, then, we Cyclops are _a race above_ Those air-bred people and their goat-nursed Jove; And learn our power proceeds with thee and thine Not as he wills, _but as ourselves incline_.”[138]

Or it will be the Læstrygonian cannibal, with Slavery a perpetual maw, and terrible to the civilized world as that distant power to the companions of Ulysses, when, according to Homer,

“One for his food the raging glutton slew.”[139]

Or, worse still, it will be the soulless monster of Frankenstein, the wretched creation of human science without God,--endowed with life and nothing else, forever raging madly, the scandal to humanity, powerful only for evil, whose destruction will be essential to the peace of the world.

Who can welcome such a creation? Who can consort with it? There is something loathsome in the idea. There is contamination even in the thought. If you live with the lame, says the ancient proverb, you will learn to limp; if you keep in the kitchen, you will smell of smoke; if you touch pitch, you will be defiled. But what limp so mean as that of this pretended power? what smoke so foul as its breath? what pitch so defiling as its touch? It is an Oriental saying, that a cistern of rosewater will become impure, if a dog be dropped into it; but an ocean of rosewater with Rebel Slavemongers would be changed into a vulgar puddle. Imagine whatever is most disgusting, and this pretended power is more disgusting still. Naturalists report that the pike will swallow anything except the toad, but this it cannot do. The experiment has been tried, and though this fish, in unhesitating voracity, always gulps whatever is thrown to it, yet invariably it spews the nuisance from its throat. Our Slavemonger pretension is worse than toad; and yet there are foreign nations which, instead of spewing it forth, are already turning it like a precious morsel on the tongue.

* * * * *

There is yet another ground on which I make this appeal. It is part of the triumphs of Civilization, that no nation can act for itself alone. Whatever it does for good or for evil affects all the rest. Therefore a nation cannot forget its obligations to others. Especially does International Law, when it declares the absolute equality of independent nations, cast upon all the duty of considering well how this privilege shall be bestowed so that the welfare of all may be best upheld. But the whole Family of Nations would be degraded by admitting this new pretension to any toleration, much more to equality. There can be no reason for such admission; for it can bring nothing to the general weal. Civil society is created for safety and tranquillity. Nations come together and fraternize for the common good. But this hateful pretension can do nothing but evil for civil society at home or for nations in their intercourse with each other. It can show no title to recognition, no passport for its travels, no old existence. It is all new. And here I borrow the language of Burke on another occasion:--

“It is not a new power of an old kind. _It is a new power of a new species._ When such a questionable shape is _to be admitted for the first time_ into the brotherhood of Christendom, it is not a mere matter of idle curiosity to consider _how far it is in its nature alliable with the rest_.”[140]

The greatest of corporations is a nation; the sublimest of all associations is that composed of nations, independent and equal, knit together in the bonds of peaceful fraternity as the great Christian Commonwealth. The Slavemongers may be a corporation _in fact_, but no such corporation can find place in that august Commonwealth. As well admit the Thugs, whose first article of faith is to kill the stranger,--or the Buccaneers, those “brothers of the coast,” who plundered on the sea; or, better still, revive the old Kingdom of the Assassins, where the king was an assassin, surrounded by counsellors and generals who were assassins, and all his subjects were assassins; or yet again, better at once and openly recognize Antichrist, the supreme and highest impersonation of the Slave Power.

* * * * *

Amidst the general degradation following such obeisance to Slavery, there are two Christian powers that would appear in sad and shameful eminence. I refer to Great Britain, declared protectress of the African race, and to France, declared champion of “ideas,” who, from the very abundance of pledges, are so situated that they cannot desert the good old cause and turn their faces against civilization without criminal tergiversation, which no mantle of diplomacy can cover. Where, then, is British devotion to the African race, so eloquently proclaimed by the British Minister? Where, then, is French devotion to ideas, so ostentatiously announced by the French Emperor? Remembered only to point a tale and show how nations have fallen. Great Britain knows less than France of national vicissitudes, but such an act of wrong would do something in its influence to equalize the conditions of these two nations. Rather than do this thing, better for the fast-anchored isle that it should sink beneath the sea, carrying down its cathedrals, its castles, its happy homes, its fields of glory, Runnymede, Westminster Hall, and the tomb of Shakespeare. In other days England has valiantly striven against Slavery, winning a truer glory than any achieved by her arms on land or sea; and now she is willing to surrender, at a moment when more can be done than ever before against the monster, wherever it shows its head,--for Slavery everywhere has its neck in this Rebellion. In other days France has valiantly striven for ideas; and now she, too, proposes surrender, although all that she professes at heart is involved in the doom of Slavery, which a word from her might hasten beyond recall. It is in England, where the great victory of Emancipation was first obtained, that now, more even than in France, the strongest sentiment for Rebel Slavemongers is manifest, constituting a _moral mania_ which menaces a pact and _concordat_ with the Rebellion itself,--as when an early Pope, head of the Christian Church, did not hesitate to execute a piratical convention with a Pagan enemy to the Christian name. It only remains that the new coalition should be signed in order to consummate the unutterable degradation. The contracting parties will be the Queen of England and Jefferson Davis, once patron of “Repudiation,” now chief of Rebel Slavery. Then must this virtuous lady, whose pride is justice always, bend to receive the author of the Fugitive Slave Bill as ambassadorial plenipotentiary at her Court.

A new power, dedicated to Slavery, will take its seat at the great council-board, to jostle thrones and benches, while it overshadows humanity. Its foul attorneys, reeking with Slavery, will have their letter of license as ambassadors of Slavery, to rove from court to court, over foreign carpets, poisoning the air which has been nobly pronounced too pure for a slave to breathe. Alas for England, vowed a thousand times to the protection of the African race, and by her best renown knit perpetually to this sacred loyalty, now plunging into adulterous dalliance with Slavery, recognizing the new and impious Protestantism against Liberty itself, and wickedly becoming _Defender of the Faith_ as now professed by Rebel Slavemongers! Alas for England’s Queen, woman and mother, carried off from the cause of Wilberforce and Clarkson to sink into unseemly association with the scourgers of women and the auctioneers of children!--for a “stain” deeper than that which aroused the anguish of Maria Theresa is settling upon her reign. Alas for that Royal Consort, humane and just, whose dying voice was given to assuage the temper of that ministerial despatch, by which, in an evil hour, England was made to strike hands with Rebel Slavery!--for the counsellor is needed now to save the land he adorned from an act of inexpiable shame.

And for all this sickening immorality I hear but one declared apology. It is, that the Union permitted and still permits Slavery,--therefore foreign nations may recognize Rebel Slavery as a _new_ power. Here is the precise error. England is still in diplomatic relations with Spain, and was only a short time ago in diplomatic relations with Brazil, both permitting Slavery; but these two powers are not _new_, they are already established, there is no question of recognition, nor do they pretend to found empire on Slavery. There is no reason in any relations with them why a _new_ power, with Slavery as its declared “corner-stone,” whose gospel is Slavery, and whose evangelists are Slavemongers, should be recognized in the Family of Nations. If Ireland were in triumphant rebellion against the British Queen, complaining of rights denied, it would be our duty to recognize her as an independent power; but if Ireland rebelled with the declared object of establishing a _new_ power which should be nothing less than a giant felony and a nuisance to the world, then it would be our duty to spurn the infamous pretension, and no triumph of rebellion could change this plain and irresistible obligation. And yet, in face of this commanding rule, we are told to expect the recognition of Rebel Slavery.

An aroused public opinion, “the world’s collected will,” and returning reason in England and France, will see to it that Civilization is saved from this shock, and the nations themselves from the terrible retribution which sooner or later must surely attend it. No power can afford to stand up before mankind and openly vote a new and untrammelled charter to injustice and cruelty. God is an unsleeping avenger; nor can armies, fleets, bulwarks, or “towers along the steep” prevail against His mighty anger. To any application for this unholy recognition there is but one word the Christian powers can utter. It is simply and austerely “No,” with an emphasis that shall silence argument and extinguish hope itself. And this proclamation should go forth swiftly. Every moment of hesitation is a moment of apostasy, casting its lengthening shadow of dishonor. Not to discourage is to encourage; not to blast is to bless. Let this simple word be uttered, and Slavery will slink away with a mark on its forehead, like Cain, a perpetual vagabond, forever accursed; and the malediction of the Lord shall descend upon it, saying: “Among these nations shalt thou find no ease, neither shall the sole of thy foot have rest; but the Lord shall give thee there a trembling heart and failing of eyes and sorrow of mind; and thy life shall hang in doubt before thee, and thou shalt fear day and night, and shalt have none assurance of thy life; in the morning thou shalt say, Would God it were even, and at even thou shalt say, Would God it were morning.”[141]

V.