FELLOW-CITIZENS,--From the beginning of the war in which we are now
engaged, the public interest has alternated anxiously between the
current of events at home and the more distant current abroad. Foreign
Relations have been hardly less absorbing than Domestic Relations.
At times the latter seem to wait upon the former, and a packet from
Europe is like a messenger from the seat of war. Rumors of foreign
intervention are constant, now in the form of mediation, and then
in the form of recognition; and more than once the country has been
summoned to confront the menace of England, and of France, too, in open
combination with Rebel Slavemongers battling in the name of Slavery to
build an infamous power on the destruction of this Republic.
It is well for us to turn aside from battle and siege at home, from
the blazing lines of Vicksburg, Gettysburg, and Charleston, to
glance for a moment at the perils from abroad: of course I mean from
England and France; for these are the only foreign powers thus far
moved to intermeddle on the side of Slavery. The subject to which
I invite attention may want the attraction of waving standards or
victorious marches; but, more than any conflict of arms, it concerns
the civilization of the age. If foreign powers can justly interfere
against human freedom, this Republic will not be the only sufferer.
* * * * *
There is always a natural order in unfolding a subject, and I shall try
to pursue it on this occasion, under the following heads.
_First._ The perils to our country from foreign powers, especially
foreshadowed in the unexpected and persistent conduct of England and
France since the outbreak of the war.
_Secondly._ The nature of foreign intervention by mediation, with the
principles applicable thereto, illustrated by historic instances,
showing especially how England, by conspicuous, wide-spread, and most
determined intervention to promote the extinction of African Slavery,
_is irrevocably committed against any act or policy that can encourage
this criminal pretension_.
_Thirdly._ The nature of foreign intervention by recognition, with
the principles applicable thereto, illustrated by historic instances,
showing that by the practice of nations, and especially by the declared
sentiments of British statesmen, _there can be no foreign recognition
of an insurgent power, where the contest for independence is still
pending_.
_Fourthly._ The moral impossibility of foreign recognition, even if
the pretended power be _de facto_ independent, where it is composed of
Rebel Slavemongers seeking to found a _new_ power with Slavery for its
declared “corner-stone.” Pardon the truthful plainness of the terms I
employ. I am to speak not merely of Slaveholders, but of people to whom
Slavery is a passion and a business, therefore Slavemongers,--now in
rebellion for the sake of Slavery, therefore Rebel Slavemongers.
_Fifthly._ The absurdity and wrong of conceding ocean belligerence to a
pretended power, which, in the first place, is without a Prize Court,
so that it cannot be an ocean belligerent _in fact_,--and, in the
second place, even if ocean belligerent _in fact_, is of such an odious
character that its recognition is a moral impossibility.
From this review, touching upon the present and the past, leaning upon
history and upon law, enlightened always by principles which are an
unerring guide, our conclusion will be easy.