716 



PUBLIC DOCUMENTS. 



the shelter of a commission from the insurgent States. 

 These ships, having once escaped from British ports, 

 ever afterward entered them in every part of the 

 world, to refit, and so to renew their depredations. 

 The consequences of this conduct were most disas- 

 trous to the States then in rebellion, increasing their 

 desolation and misery by the prolongation of our 

 civil contest. It had, moreover, the effect, to a great 

 extent, to drive the American flag from the sea, and 

 to transfer much of our shipping and our commerce 

 to the very Power whose subjects had created the 

 necessity for such a change. These events took 

 place before I was called to the administration of 

 the Government. The sincere desire for peace by 

 which I am animated led me to approve the pro- 

 posal, already made, to submit the questions which 

 had thus arisen between the countries to arbitration. 

 These questions are of such moment that they must 

 have commanded the attention of the great Powers, 

 and are so interwoven with the peace and interests 

 of every one of them as to have insured an impartial 

 decision. I regret to inform you that Great Britain 

 declined the arbitrament, but, on the other hand, in- 

 vited us to the formation of a joint commission to 

 settle mutual claims between the two countries, from 

 which those for the depredations before mentioned 

 should be excluded. The proposition, in that very 

 unsatisfactory form, has been declined. 



The United States did not present the subject as an 

 impeachment of the good faith of a Power which was 

 professing the most friendly dispositions, but as in- 

 volving questions of public law, of which the settle- 

 ment is essential to the peace of nations j and, though 

 Eecuniary reparation to their injured citizens would 

 ave followed incidentally on a decision against Great 

 Britain, such compensation wa_s not their primary 

 object. They had a higher motive, and it was in the 

 interests of peace and justice to establish important 

 principles of international law. The correspondence 

 will be placed before you. The g_round on which the 

 British Minister rests nis justification is, substantially, 

 that the municipal law of a nation, and the domestic 

 interpretations of that law, are the measure of its duty 

 as a neutral ; and I feel bound to declare my opinion, 

 before you and before the world, that that justification 

 cannot be sustained before the tribunal of nations. 

 At the same time I do not advise to any present at- 

 tempt at redress by acts of legislation. For the fu- 

 ture, friendship between the two countries must rest 

 on the basis of mutual justice. 



From the moment of the establishment of our free 

 Constitution, the civilized world has been convulsed 

 by revolutions in the interests of democracy or of 

 monarchy; but through all those revolutions the 

 United States have wisely and firmly refused to be- 

 come propagandists of republicanism. It is the only 

 government suited to our condition; but we have 

 never sought to impose it on others; and we have 

 consistently followed the advice of Washington to 

 recommend it only by the careful preservation and 

 prudent use of the blessing. During all the interven- 

 ing period the policy of European Powers and of the 

 United States has, on the whole, been harmonious. 

 Twice, indeed, rumors of the invasion of some parts 

 of America, in the interest of monarchy, have pre- 

 vailed ; twice my predecessors have had occasion to 

 announce the views of this nation in respect to such 

 interference. On both occasions the remonstrance 

 of the United States was respected, from a deep con- 

 viction, on the part of European governments, that 

 the system of non-interference and mutual absti- 

 nence of propagandise! was the true rule for the two 

 hemispheres. Since those times we have advanced 

 in wealth and power ; but we retain the same purpose 

 to leave the nations of Europe to choose their own 

 dynasties and form their own systems of government. 

 This consistent moderation may justly demand a cor- 

 responding moderation. We should regard it as a 

 great calamity to ourselves, to the cause of good gov- 

 ernment, and to the peace of the world, should any 



European Power challenge the American people, as 

 it were, to the defence of republicanism against foreign 

 interference. We cannot foresee and are unwilling 

 to consider what opportunities might present them- 

 selves, what combinations might offer to protect our- 

 selves against designs inimical to our form of gov- 

 ernment. The United States desire to act in the fu- 

 ture as they have ever acted heretofore ; they never 

 will be driven from that course but by the aggression 

 of European Powers ; and we rely on the wisdom and 

 justice of those Powers to respect the system of non- 

 interference which has so long been sanctioned by 

 time, and which, by its good results, has approved 

 itself to both continents. 



The correspondence between the United States and 

 France, in reference to questions which have become 

 subjects of discussion between the two governments, 

 will, at a proper time, be laid before Congress. 



When, on the organization of our Government, 

 under the Constitution, the President of the United 

 States delivered his inaugural address to the two 

 Houses of Congress, he said to them, and through 

 them to the country and to mankind, that " the pres- 

 ervation of the sacred fire of liberty and the destiny 

 of the republican model of government are justly 

 considered as deeply, perhaps as finally staked on the 

 experiment intrusted to the American people." And 

 the House of Representatives answered Washington 

 by the voice of Madison: "We adore the invisible 

 hand which has led the American people through so 

 many difficulties, to cherish a conscious responsibility 

 for the destiny of republican liberty." More than 

 seventy-six years have glided away since these words 

 were spoken ; the United States have passed through 

 severer trials than were foreseen ; and now, at this 

 new epoch of our existence as one nation, with our 

 Union purified by sorrows, and strengthened by con- 

 flict, and established by the virtue of the people, the 

 greatness of the occasion invites us once more to re- 



Eeat, with solemnity, the pledges of our fathers to 

 old ourselves answerable before our fellow-men for 

 the success of the republican form of government. 

 Experience has proved its sufficiency in peace and in 

 war ; it has vindicated its authority through dangers 

 and afflictions, and sudden and terrible emergencies, 

 which would have crushed any system that had been 

 less firmly fixed in the heart of the people. 



At the inauguration of Washington the foreign re- 

 lations of the country were few, and its trade was 

 repressed by hostile regulations ; now all the civil- 

 ized nations of the globe welcome our commerce, and 

 their Governments profess toward us amity. Then 

 our country felt its way hesitatingly along an untried 

 path, with States so little bound together by rapid 

 means of communication as to be hardly known to 

 one another, and with historic traditions extending 

 over very few years ; now intercourse between the 

 States is swift and intimate ; the experience of cen- 

 turies has been crowded into a few generations, and 

 has created an intense, indestructible nationality. 

 Then our jurisdiction did not reach beyond the in- 

 convenient boundaries of the territory which had 

 achieved independence ; now through' cessions of 

 lands, first colonized by Spain and France, the coun- 

 try has acquired a more complex character, and has 

 for its natural limits the chain of lakes, the Gulf of 

 Mexico, and on the east and west the two great 

 oceans. Other nations were wasted by civil wars for 

 ages before they could establish for themselves the 

 necessary degree of unity ; the latent conviction 

 that our form of government is the best ever known 

 to the world, has enabled us to emerge from civil 

 war within four years, with a complete vindication 

 of the constitutional authority of the General Gov- 

 ernment, and with our local liberties and State insti- 

 tutions unimpaired. 



The throngs of emigrants that crowd to our shores 

 are witnesses of the confidence of all people in our 

 permanence. Here is the great land of free labor, 

 where industry is blessed with unexampled rewards, 



