Mr. President, let the Rebels go. Two wicked men, ungrateful to their country, with two younger confederates, are set loose with the brand of Cain upon their foreheads. Prison-doors are opened; but principles are established which will help to free other men, and to open the gates of the sea. Never before in her renowned history has Great Britain ranged herself on this side. Such an event is an epoch. “Novus sæclôrum nascitur ordo.” To the liberties of the sea this power is at last committed. To a certain extent the great cause is now under her tutelary care. If the immunities of passengers not in the military or naval service, as well as of sailors, are not directly recognized, they are at least implied; if neutral rights are not ostentatiously proclaimed, they are at least invoked; while the whole pretension of impressment, so long the pest of neutral commerce, and operating only through lawless adjudication of the quarter-deck, is made absolutely impossible. Thus is the freedom of the sea enlarged in the name of peaceful neutral rights, not only by limiting the number of persons exposed to the penalties of war, but by driving from it the most offensive pretension that ever stalked upon its waves. Farewell to kidnapping and man-stealing on the ocean! To such conclusion Great Britain is irrevocably pledged. Nor treaty nor bond is needed. It is sufficient that her late appeal can be vindicated only by renunciation of early, long-continued tyranny. Let her bear the Rebels back. The consideration is ample; for the sea became free as this altered power went forth, steering westward with the sun, on an errand of liberation.
In this surrender, if such it may be called, the National Government does not even “stoop to conquer.” It simply lifts itself to the height of its own original principles. The early efforts of its best negotiators, the patriot trials of its soldiers in an unequal war, at length prevail, and Great Britain, usually so haughty, invites us to practise upon principles which she has so strenuously opposed. There are victories of force: here is a victory of truth. If Great Britain has gained the custody of two Rebels, the United States have secured the triumph of their principles.
As this result is in conformity with our cherished history, it is superfluous to add other considerations; and yet I venture to suggest that estranged sympathies abroad may be secured again by open adhesion to principles which have the support already of Continental Europe, smarting for years under British pretensions. The powerful organs of opinion on the Continent are also with us. Hautefeuille, whose earnest work on the Law of Nations[106] is the arsenal of neutral rights, has entered into this debate with a direct proposition for the release of the emissaries, as a testimony to the true interpretation of International Law. Another distinguished Frenchman, Agénor de Gasparin, whose impassioned love of liberty and enlightened devotion to our country impart to his voice all the persuasion of friendship, has made a similar appeal.[107] And a journal which of itself is an authority, the Revue des Deux Mondes, declares, in words which harmonize with what I have said to-day, that, “in disavowing a capture effected by the arbitrary initiative of a naval officer, without any of the guaranties of legal justice, without the intervention and the sanction of a Court of Admiralty, the United States, far from renouncing any of their political principles, would only render homage to the doctrine which they have ever professed on the rights of neutrals.” The same distinguished journal proceeds: “It would be in reality a true triumph for this doctrine so to apply it to the profit of a nation and of a government which have always contested or violated the rights of neutrals, but which would be henceforward constrained to the abandonment of their arbitrary pretensions by the conspicuous authority of such a precedent.”[108]
Nor is this triumph enough. The sea-god will in future use his trident less; but the same principles which led to the present renunciation of early pretensions naturally conduct to yet further emancipation of the sea. The work of maritime civilization is not finished. And here the two nations, equally endowed by commerce, and matched together, while surpassing all others, in peaceful ships, may gloriously unite in setting up new pillars, to mark new triumphs, rendering the ocean a highway of peace, instead of a bloody field.
The Congress of Paris, in 1856, where were assembled the plenipotentiaries of Great Britain, France, Austria, Prussia, Russia, Sardinia, and Turkey, has already led the way. Adopting the early policy of the United States, often proposed to foreign nations, this congress authenticated two important changes in restraint of belligerent rights: first, that the neutral flag shall protect enemy goods, except contraband of war; and, secondly, that neutral goods, except contraband of war, are not liable to capture under an enemy’s flag. This is much. Another proposition, for the abolition of Privateering, was defective in two respects: first, because it left nations free to employ private vessels under public commission as ships of the navy, and therefore was nugatory; and, secondly, because, if not nugatory, it was too obviously in the special interest of Great Britain, which, through her commanding navy, would be left at will to rule the sea. No change can be practicable which is not equal in advantage to all nations; for the Equality of Nations is not a dry dogma merely of International Law, but a vital sentiment common to all. This cannot be overlooked; and every proposition must be brought sincerely to its equitable test.
There is a way in which privateering may be effectively abolished without shock to the Equality of Nations. A simple proposition, assuring private property on the ocean the same immunity it now enjoys on land, will at once abolish privateering, and relieve commerce on the ocean from its greatest perils, so that, like commerce on land, it will be undisturbed, except by illegal robbery and theft. Such a proposition must operate for the equal advantage of all. On this account, and in the policy of peace, always cultivated by our Republic, it has been already presented to other nations. You have not forgotten the important paper in which Mr. Marcy did this service,[109] and the favor it found with European powers, always excepting Great Britain, whose opposition was too potential. But this vast cause was never commended with more force than by John Quincy Adams, as Secretary of State, when, in a masterly despatch, he declared that “private war, banished by the tacit and general consent of Christian nations from their territories, has taken its last refuge upon the ocean, and there continues to disgrace and afflict them by a system of licensed robbery, bearing all the most atrocious characters of piracy.”[110] The Governments of Europe were invited to enter into conventions by which “all warfare against private property upon the sea is disclaimed and renounced,” and at the same time the final suppression of the slave-trade assured, so that the freedom of the sea was associated with the freedom of men.[111] In the same humane interest, Henry Clay, as Secretary of State, invited Great Britain “to agree to the abolition of privateering, and no longer to consider private property on the high seas as lawful prize of war.”[112] In such a cause the effort alone was noble.
To complete the efficacy of this reform, closing the gate against belligerent pretensions, Contraband of War should be abolished, so that all ships may navigate the ocean freely, without peril or detention from the character of persons or things on board: and here I only follow the Administration of Washington, enjoining upon John Jay, in his negotiation with England, to seek security for neutral commerce, particularly “by abolishing contraband altogether.”[113] The Right of Search, which, on outbreak of war, becomes an omnipresent tyranny, subjecting every neutral ship to the arbitrary invasion of every belligerent cruiser, would then disappear. It would drop, as the chains from an emancipated slave; or rather, it would exist only as an occasional agent, under solemn treaties, in the war waged by civilization against the slave-trade; and then it would be proudly recognized as an honorable surrender to the best interests of humanity, glorifying the flag which made it.
With the consummation of these reforms in Maritime Law, war will be despoiled of its most vexatious prerogatives, while innocent neutrals are exempt from its torments. One step further is needed to complete this exemption. Commercial Blockade must be abandoned; for, while its first effects are naturally felt by the belligerent against whom directed, it soon acts with kindred hardship upon all neutrals, near or remote, whose customary commerce is interrupted,—so that the blockade of an American port may cause distress in Liverpool and Manchester, in Lyons and Marseilles, scarcely less than if these great cities were under pressure of a blockading squadron. Neutrals, it is said, must not relieve belligerents, and therefore blockade is effectively a two-edged sword, wounding belligerents on the one side and neutrals on the other side,—often, indeed, wounding neutrals as much as belligerents. If not designedly so, it becomes thus mischievous from the essential vice of its character. Blockade may be called the elephant of naval warfare, as destructive, often, to friends as to foes. So palpable is this becoming, that it is doubtful if neutrals will much longer allow such backhanded agency, smiting the innocent as well as the guilty, to continue under sanction of International Law. Its extinction is needed to complete the triumph of Neutral Rights.[114]
Such a change, just in proportion to its accomplishment, will be a blessing to mankind, inconceivable in grandeur. The statutes of the sea, thus refined and elevated, will be agents of peace instead of agents of war. Ships and cargoes will pass unchallenged from shore to shore, and those terrible belligerent rights under which the commerce of the world has so long suffered will cease from troubling. In this work our country began early. Hardly had we proclaimed our own independence, before we sought to secure a similar independence for the sea. Hardly had we made a constitution for our own government, before we sought to establish a constitution similar in spirit for the government of the sea. If not prevailing promptly, it was because we could not overcome the unyielding resistance of Great Britain. And now, behold, this champion of belligerent rights has “changed his hand and checked his pride.” Welcome to the new-found alliance! Welcome to the peaceful transfiguration! Meanwhile, through all present excitements, amidst all trials, beneath all threatening clouds, it only remains for us to uphold the perpetual policy of the Republic, and to stand fast on the ancient ways.