I therefore say that a war side by side with England against the leagued despots, if war should become a necessity, is not an idea to look on in advance with aversion.  You have united with England on a far less important occasion.  And should England not yield to the despots, I most confidently ask whoever in the United States inclines to judge matters according to the true interests of his country and not by private passion, whether you could remain indifferent in a struggle, the issue of which either would make England omnipotent on earth, or crush liberty down throughout the world, leave America exposed to the pressure of victorious despotism, and before all, exclude republican America from every political and commercial relation with all Europe.  Should England see that she will not stand alone in protesting against interference, she will, she must protest against it, because it is the condition of her own future.  But if the United States should again adhere to the policy of indifference (which is no policy at all), then indeed England may perhaps yield to the threatening attitude of the absolutist powers.  The policy of the United States may now decide the direction of the policy of England, and thus prevent immense mischief, incalculable in its consequences, even for the future of the United States themselves.

It is here I take the opportunity briefly to refer to an assertion of an American statesman, who holds a high place in your affections and in my respect.  He advances the theory, that, should, you now take the course which I humbly claim, the despots of Europe would be provoked by your example to interfere with your institutions and turn upon you in the hour of your weakness and exhaustion, because you have set an example of interference.

I indeed am at a loss to understand that.  Is it interference I claim?  No; precisely the contrary, if you now declare “that your very existence being founded on that principle of the eternal laws of nature and of nature’s God—­that every nation has the independent right to regulate its domestic concerns, to fix its institutions and its government”—­you cannot contemplate with indifference that the absolutist powers form a league of mutual support against this principle of mankind’s common law.  You therefore protest against this principle of “foreign interference.”  I indeed cannot understand by what logic such a protest could be taken up by the despotic powers as a pretext for interference in your domestic concerns.  My logic is entirely different.  It runs thus; If your country remains an indifferent spectator of the violation of the laws of nations by foreign interference, then it has established a precedent—­it has consented that the principle of interference become interpolated into the book of international law, and you will see the time when the league of despots commanding the whole force of oppressed Europe will remind you thus: