'2. They contain no language complimentary to the Administration, little or nothing in defence of the Government—none that can be offensive to Jefferson Davis; and, as a whole, they give the impression that he regards the Confederate position as being quite as defensible, on the principles of international law, as that of the United States.
'3. He has no word of censure for Lord John Russell, and no word of apology for Mr. Seward. He nowhere calls the Confederates rebels, and nowhere thinks the conduct of France suspicious or unfriendly.
'4. His positions are unquestionably the same with those of Seymour, Bishop Hopkins, Professor Morse, Judge Woodward, etc.
'5. He is everywhere cold—more willing to wound than bold to strike; and yet he fretfully commits himself before he gets through, in defence of slavery and extreme democratic positions.
'6. He does not pretend that he was ever requested by the great author with whose productions he has taken such liberties to undertake the editorial duties.
'His language is so general that one needs to read it carefully to feel the full force of what I have said.
'In the preface (page 1-20), he speaks of 'Spanish American independence, now jeopardized by our fratricidal contest'—fratricidal is indeed a favorite word; he uses it in an offensive sense as regards the United States. Page 99, note, he says of slavery, what is utterly untrue, that 'the Constitution recognized it as property, and pledges the Federal Government to protect it.' The noble act of June 19, 1862, forbidding slavery in United States Territories, he comments on in this wise: 'This act wholly ignores the decision of the Supreme Court (meaning the Dred Scott case) on the subject of slavery.' He then inserts the whole act in the note, only to hold it up to censure—'testing it by international law' as interpreted by him. At page 605 he denounces that law as 'obnoxious not only to the principles of international law, but to the Constitution of the United States.' His note and extracts, including long extracts from speeches of Thomas, of Massachusetts, and Crittenden, of Kentucky, fill more than twenty-two pages—reserving a line or two of text at the top. To say nothing of the sentiments, such notes are a shameful abuse of the reputation and work of Mr. Wheaton, and a perversion of the duties and rights of an editor. But a word of the sentiments. He exhausts himself and the records of the past in accumulating precedents to condemn the policy of freeing slaves as a war measure, or of arming them in the nation's defence.
'At page 614, in this same note, speaking of the effect of the Proclamation of Emancipation, he says: 'The attention of publicists may well be called to the withdrawal of the four millions of men from the cultivation of cotton, which, is the source of wealth of the great commercial and manufacturing nations of Europe.' That is, he suggests this as a ground for interference in our affairs on the principles of his international law. He further adds that this cultivation of cotton is 'by nature a virtual monopoly of the seceded States;' that is, nature preordained the negroes to be slaves in the seceded States to raise cotton; and hence natural and international law require emancipation proclamations to be put down. Did Stephens ever go farther? Again, on the same page, he says: 'The effect on the United States, in the event of the reestablishment of the Federal authority,' without the Proclamation in force, etc., 'would be seriously felt, in its financial bearings,' etc.—'abroad as well as at home.' Not satisfied, therefore, with suggesting a justification of intervention, on the basis of international law, he appeals to the cupidity of foreigners as well as natives, by hinting also that financial ruin may follow the triumph of Freedom and the Federal armies. What a shame that an American editor should use the great name of Wheaton to give dignity to such suggestions in foreign countries.' He then gives—all in the same interminable note (page 614)—an extract from The Morning Chronicle, of May 16, 1860, of which I give you this delicious morsel: 'No blacks, no cotton, such is the finality.' At page 609, he speaks of the 'incompatibility of confiscation of property with the present state of civilization.' At page 609, he quotes, with evident delight, the sanctimonious despatch of Lord John Russell about sinking ships in Charleston harbor, which his lordship calls a 'project only worthy the times of barbarism;' and the American annotator, who could use page after page to degrade his own Government for emancipating slaves, of course could not be expected to refer to any of the precedents that would have silenced Lord John, and have justified the United States; and he therefore passes on with no reference to them.
'At page 669, Mr. Wheaton says: 'The validity of maritime captures must be determined in a court of the captor's Government,' etc. This American editor does not so much as allude to the fact, that while he is writing, the highways of the ocean are lighted by the fires of American merchantmen, plundered, and then burned, without condemnation of any court, by vessels fitted out in English ports, in open violation of the first principles of international law, and which have never been in any port under the jurisdiction of the piratical Confederacy!
'Some of his indications of sympathy with the rebellion are quite in excess of those of Lord John, with whose views, on the whole, he seems well enough pleased. For example, at page 254, Lord John is quoted as follows: 'Has a commission from the so-called President Davis,' etc.; but at page 107 and generally, the American editor, not willing to imply that there is any doubt about the reality or permanency of the Confederate concern, nor being willing to offend its managers, speaks of 'the President of the Confederate States,' and 'an act of Congress of the Confederate States,' etc.; and when he reaches page 535, as if to set Lord John a better example (and I believe there had been some Confederate victories about the time he was writing that note), he says: 'A proclamation was issued by President Davis, on the 14th of August, 1861, ordering all citizens adhering to the Government of the United States, etc., to depart from the Confederate States in forty days.' It is very evident the author approves this order as warranted by international law, at least according to his interpretation thereof.