Marcus. Quæro igitur a te, Quinte, sicut illi solent: Quo si civitas careat, ob eam ipsam causam, quod eo careat, pro nihilo habenda sit, id estne numerandum in bonis?

Quintus. Ac maximis quidem.

Marcus. Lege autem carens civitas estne ob id ipsum habenda nullo loco?

Quintus. Dici aliter non potest.

Marcus. Necesse est igitur legem haberi in rebus optimis.

Quintus. Prorsus assentior.

Cicero, De Legibus, Lib. II. cap. 5.

The Government condemns in the highest degree the conduct of any of our citizens who may personally engage in committing hostilities at sea against any of the nations parties to the present war, and will exert all the means with which the laws and Constitution have armed them to discover such as offend herein and bring them to condign punishment.… The practice of commissioning, equipping, and manning vessels in our ports to cruise on any of the belligerent parties is equally and entirely disapproved; and the Government will take effectual measures to prevent a repetition of it.—Jefferson, Letter to Mr. Hammond, May 15, 1793: Writings, Vol. III. p. 559.

One spot remains which oceans cannot wash out. The slavery of the African race, which the North Americans had inherited from the ancient monarchy, was adopted and fondly cherished by the new Republic.… The logic of the Constitution declared that all men were free: the pride and avarice of the slave-owners, disowning the image of the Creator and the brotherhood of nature, degraded men of a dark color, and even all the descendants of their sons and daughters, to a level with oxen and horses. But as oxen and horses never combine, and have no sense of wronged independence, oxen and horses are better treated than the men and women of African blood.… But neither the philosophical dogma of the authors of the Constitution, nor the strict pedantry of law, can stifle the cry of outraged humanity, nor still the current of human sympathy, nor arrest forever the decrees of Eternal Justice.—Lord John Russell, Life and Times of Charles James Fox, Vol. I. pp. 364, 365.

To this condition the Constitution of this Confederacy reduces the whole African race; and while declaring these to be its principles, the founders claim the privilege of being admitted into the society of the nations of the earth,—principles worthy only of being conceived and promulgated by the inmates of the infernal regions, and a fit constitution for a confederacy in Pandemonium. Now, as soon as the nature of this Constitution is truly explained and understood, is it possible that the nations of the earth can admit such a Confederacy into their society? Can any nation calling itself civilized associate, with any sense of self-respect, with a nation avowing and practising such principles? Will not every civilized nation, when the nature of this Confederacy is understood, come to the side of the United States, and refuse all association with them, as, in truth, they are, hostes humani generis? For the African is as much entitled to be protected in the rights of humanity as any other portion of the human race. As to Great Britain, her course is, in the nature of things, already fixed and immutable. She must sooner or later join the United States in this war, or be disgraced throughout all future time; for the principle of that civilization which this Confederacy repudiates was by her—to her great glory, and with unparalleled sacrifices—introduced into the code of Civilization, and she will prove herself recreant, if she fails to maintain it.—Josiah Quincy, Address before the Union Club of Boston, February 27, 1863.

If British merchants look with eagerness to the event of the struggle in South America, no doubt they do so with the hope of deriving advantage from that event. But on what is such hope founded? On the diffusion of beggary, on the maintenance of ignorance, on the confirmation of slavery, on the establishment of tyranny in America? No; these are the expectations of Ferdinand. The British merchant builds his hopes of trade and profit on the progress of civilization and good government, on the successful assertion of Freedom,—of Freedom, that parent of talent, that parent of heroism, that parent of every virtue. The fate of South America can only be accessory to commerce as it becomes accessory to the dignity and the happiness of the race of man.—Sir James Mackintosh, Speech in Parliament, on the Foreign Enlistment Bill, June 10, 1819.

When a power comparable only