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of our own coasts. To this followed the Crimean enlistment difficulty. In that case, unquestionably, the zeal of subordinate officers, who foolishly imagined that American sympathy would be with the oppressed and with us, carried them beyond a proper limit; but their action was instantly disavowed by our Government. At the worst, it was assuredly no ground to subject this country to the coarse insult of dismissing its minister from Washington. The Central American question, another of this prolific family, was, after endless difficulties, apparently adjusted at last by the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, but this question had a second life. After the dispute as to the territory was settled by the treaty, the treaty itself had to be disputed, and the remarkable effort made of teaching us the signification of the words of our own language; all of which ended, as usual, in our retiring for peace' sake from positions occupied by us before the United States had come into existence. Then sprung up with sudden violence the question of searching slavers, which threatened us with "broadsides first and explanations afterwards," and which resulted in the fact, that the slaver has only to hoist the "stars and stripes" as the shield of his iniquitous traffic and go on unharmed. Last, so far, was the seizure but the other day of the island of San Juan-a little islet, as natural a dependency of the great island of Vancouver as are the Scilly Isles of Cornwall. This was seized and occupied in military force,

although at the time the commissioners of the two countries were employed in drawing the boundary. The event might have kindled war between the two countries, had not the admiral on the station refrained from using his overwhelming force to throw the invaders into the sea. This remains on hand, a pending difficulty, for our offer of reference to an impartial power has not been accepted. When it reappears, the doctrine of the Ostend manifesto need but to be applied, to demand Vancouver's Island as well as its little dependency.

From this sketch of the treatment received by us from the Union it would hardly appear that we are placed under any obligation, or burthened with the duty to desire its continuation. Is there in the history of modern times, any instance of similar treatment received by one great power at the hands of another? Nor does it appear likely to amend, now that the North has taken the rule into its own hands. No American could be unaware that the Morrill tariff would be a grievous injury to this country. They know that with the exception of tobacco, taxed for the sole purpose of revenue, we receive their products free of duty. We hear of no one who cared to think of the gross injustice to us of this return. It would be just to impose on American cotton, to promote its growth in India, the same duty they imposed on our iron to promote its manufacture in PennsylThey know well we shall not do this. They inflict this injustice upon us in the firm

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reliance that we shall not retaliate, just as it is perpetrated on the South in the belief that they are helplessly fast in the Union.

The next measure taken by the North was that of blockading the Southern ports, an act of mere arbitrary power; for no one will pretend that the Constitution confers any such power on the Government, or that the law of the United States permits this punishment for treason. It is directly opposed to the position taken by themselves recently when the King of Naples blockaded rebellious ports. It may be expedient to copy the Neapolitan king, but it cannot be right to assert principles, and reverse them, to suit the convenience of the hour. Nor, was it unknown at Washington how vast and helpless is the industrial population in this country, in dependence on the cotton trade for daily bread. They could not be ignorant that a campaign, if victorious, would render a blockade unnecessary, and that if unsuccessful it would be futile. Yet for the sake of this means of inflicting mere injury and annoyance, they do not scruple to jeopardize the existence of some millions of our people.

It was well known at Washington that the South would retaliate by privateering. Upon this we adopted the course of all imaginable the most beneficial to the North, for unless we had acknowledged the Southerners as belligerents we must have disputed the blockade. Yet because it did not chime in with the humour of the moment we

were visited with torrents of threats and abuse,for what? Because we were not desirous to hang certain American citizens, in order to please other American citizens. When the colonies revolted against us, one of their first steps was to fit out privateers. This occurred before they claimed their independence, whilst they still admitted themselves to be subjects. We captured several but hung none as pirates, nor did our newspapers urge it. Yet now, when the people of the South do precisely what the Northerners did,-and what they are glorified for having done,—we are fiercely denounced because we will not adopt measures for the convenience of others, which we disdained when our own empire was at stake.

Besides, the whole law of the Union is in accordance with the course we pursued. In the judgments of the Supreme Court, the United States v. Palmer, Mr. Justice Johnson ruled thus:"When open war exists between a nation and its subjects, the subjects of the revolted country are no more liable to be punished as pirates than the subjects who adhere to their allegiance." According to this, the highest American authority, we had equal right to treat the Northerners as pirates as the Southerners. In 1836 the AttorneyGeneral of the United States gave this decision in the case of a Texian privateer: "When a civil war breaks out in a foreign nation, and part of such nation erects a separate government, and the United States, though they do not acknowledge

the independence of the new government, do recognize the existence of a civil war between the contending parties, our courts uniformly regard each party as a belligerent nation in regard to acts done in right of war, and the parties concerned are not treated as pirates." The Northern party, in fact, demanded that we should recognize a state of war by admitting their blockade, and at the same time deny a state of war by treating Southern vessels as pirates.

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Thus, there appears little prospect of amendment under the altered rule of the Union. any dispassionate American reflect on this history and ask himself the question, whether, if his own country had been thus treated for years by another power, there would have been created in his mind feelings of respect or of sympathy for that Government, or any ardent desire for its continuance ? There are some in this country who think the matter has already lasted too long and gone too far, and this feeling is general on the continent. No one can enter into conversation on the subject in Germany, without being told that this country will submit to any exaction and endure any affront at the hands of the United States, from fear of disturbance to trade. A sense of meanness is attached to this which none can witness without pain. Whether this be merited or not, one thing is clear, that there results from the history narrated no ground for us to desire a continuance of the system which has produced such fruits to our

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