Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 / From Lincoln to Garfield, with a Review of the Events Which Led to the Political Revolution of 1860

by James Gillespie Blaine

FIXED POLICY OF THE UNITED STATES.

This brief history of the spirit rather than the events which characterized the foreign relations of the United States during the civil war, has been undertaken with no desire to revive the feelings of burning indignation which they provoked, or to prolong the discussion of the angry questions to which they gave rise. The relations of nations are not and should not be governed by sentiment. The interest and ambition of states, like those of men, will disturb the moral sense and incline to one side or the other the strict balance of impartial justice. New days bring new issues and old passions are unsafe counselors. Twenty years have gone by. England has paid the cost of her mistakes. The Republic of Mexico has seen the fame and the fortunes of the Emperors who sought her conquest sink suddenly—as into the pits which they themselves had digged for their victims—and the Republic of the United States has come out of her long and bitter struggle, so strong that never again will she afford the temptation or the opportunity for unfriendly governments to strike at her National life. Let the past be the past, but let it be the past with all the instruction and the warning of its experience.

The future safety of these continents rests upon the strength and the maintenance of the Union, for had dissolution been possible, events have shown with what small regard the interests or the honor of either of the belligerents would have been treated. It has been taught to the smaller republics that if this strength be shattered they will be the spoil of foreign arms and the dependent provinces again of foreign monarchs. When this contest was over, the day of immaturity had passed and the United States stood before the world a great and permanent Power. That Power can afford to bury all resentments. Tranquil at home, developing its inexhaustible resources with a rapidity and success unknown in history, bound in sincere friendship, and beyond the possibility of a hostile rivalry, with the other republics of the continents, standing midway between Asia and Europe, a Power on the Pacific as well as on the Atlantic, with no temptation to intermeddle in the questions which disturb the Old World, the Republic of the United States desires to live in amicable relation with all peoples, demanding only the abstinence of foreign intervention in the development of that policy which her political creed, her territorial extent, and the close and cordial neighborhood of kindred governments have made the essential rule of her National life.

[NOTE.—In the foregoing chapter the term "piratical" is used without qualification in referring to the Southern cruisers, because it is the word used in the quotations made. It undoubtedly represented the feeling of the country at that time, but in an impartial discussion of the events of the war the word cannot be used with propriety. Our own Courts have found themselves unable to sustain such a conclusion. Looking to the future it is better to rest our objections to the mode of maritime warfare adopted by the Confederacy upon a sound and enduring principle; viz., that the recognition of ocean belligerency, when the belligerent cannot give to his lawful exercise of maritime warfare the guaranty of a prize jurisdiction, is a violation of any just or reasonable system of international law. The Confederacy had the plea of necessity for its course, but the jurisdiction of England for aiding and abetting the practice has not yet been presented.]

[NOTE.—Her Britannic Majesty's principal ministers of State in 1861-2,—at the time of the correspondence touching the Trent affair, referred to in the preceding chapter,—were as follows:—

Premier—Lord Palmerston. Lord High Chancellor—Lord Westbury. Lord President of the Council—Earl Granville. Lord Privy Seal—The Duke of Argyll. Secretary for Foreign Affairs—Lord John Russell. Secretary for the Colonies—The Duke of Newcastle. Secretary for the Home Department—Sir George Gray. Secretary of State for War—Sir G. C. Lewis. Secretary of State for India—Sir Charles Wood. Chancellor of the Exchequer—Rt. Honorable W. E. Gladstone. Secretary for Ireland—Rt. Honorable Edward Cardwell. Postmaster-General—Lord Stanley of Alderney. President Board of Trade—Rt. Honorable Charles Pelham Villiers.

The same Ministry, with unimportant changes, continued in power throughout the whole period of the Rebellion in the United States.]