"2. That if either of the two should at any time be at war with any other Power, no subject or citizen of the other contracting party shall be allowed to take out letters of marque from such Power under pain of being treated and dealt with as a pirate.
"3. That in such case of war between either of the two parties and a third Power, no subject or citizen of the other contracting party shall be allowed to enter into the service naval or military of such third Power.
"4. That in such case of war as aforesaid, neither of the contracting parties shall afford assistance to the enemies of the other by sea or by land, unless war should break out between the two contracting parties themselves after the failure of all endeavors to settle their differences in the manner specified in Article 1."
At the time Lord Palmerston expressed these opinions, we had just closed the Mexican war, with vast acquisition of territory and with a display of military power on distant fields of conquest which surprised European statesmen. Our maritime interests were almost equal to those of the United Kingdom, our prosperity was great, the prestige of the Nation was growing. In the thirteen intervening years between that date and the outbreak of the Southern Rebellion we had grown enormously in wealth, our Pacific possessions had shown an extraordinary production of precious metals, our population had increased more than ten millions. If an alliance with the United States was desirable for England in 1848, it was far more desirable in 1861, and Lord Palmerston being Prime Minister in the latter year, his power to propose and promote it was far greater. Is there any reason that will satisfactorily account for His Lordship's abandonment of this ideal relation of friendship between the two countries except that he saw a speedier way of adding to the power of England by conniving at the destruction of the Union? His change from the policy which he painted in 1848 to that which he acted in 1861 cannot be satisfactorily explained upon any other hypothesis than that he could not resist the temptation to cripple and humiliate the Great Republic.
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.