Chapter II

Another branch of the subject is not less important. Considering all these things, and especially how great powers abroad constantly menace intervention, now by criticism and then by proffer of mediation, all tending painfully to something further, it becomes us to see what, according to International Law and the examples of history, will justify foreign intervention, in any of the forms it may take. And here there is one remark to be made at the outset. Nations are equal in the eye of International Law, so that what is right for one is right for all. It follows that no nation can justly exercise any right which it is not bound to concede under like circumstances. Therefore, should our cases be reversed, there is nothing England and France now propose, or may hereafter propose, which it will not be our equal right to propose, when Ireland or India once more rebels, or when France is in the throes of its next revolution. Generously, and for the sake of that international comity not lightly hazarded, we may reject the precedents they furnish; but it will be difficult for them to complain, if we follow their steps.

Foreign intervention is, on its face, inconsistent with every idea of national independence, which in itself is the natural and acknowledged right of a nation to rest undisturbed so long as it does not disturb others. If nations stood absolutely alone, dissociated from each other, so that what passed in one had little or no influence in another, only a tyrannical or intermeddling spirit could fail to recognize this right. But civilization, drawing nations nearer together and into one society, brings them under reciprocal influence, so that no nation can now act or suffer alone. Out of the relations and suggestions of good neighborhood, involving the admitted right of self-defence, springs the only justification or apology to be found for _foreign intervention_, which is the general term to signify interposition in the affairs of another country, whatever form it may take. Much is done under the name of “good offices,” whether in the form of mediation or intercession,--and much also by military power, whether in the declared will of superior force or directly by arms. Recognition of independence is also another instance. Intervention in any form is interference. If peaceable, it must be judged by its motive and tendency; if forcible, it will naturally be resisted by force.

Intervention may be between two or more nations, or between the two parties to a civil war; and yet again, it may be where there is no war, foreign or domestic. In each case it is governed by the same principles, except, perhaps, that in the case of civil war there should be more careful consideration, not only of the rights, but of the susceptibilities of a nation so severely tried. Such is the obvious suggestion of humanity. Intervention between nations is only a common form of participation in foreign war, but intervention in a civil war is intermeddling in the domestic concerns of another nation. Whoever acts at the _joint invitation_ of belligerent parties to compose a bloody strife is entitled to the blessings which belong to the peacemakers; but, if uninvited, or acting at the invitation of one party only, he will be careful to proceed with reserve and tenderness, in the spirit of peace, and confining action to a proffer of good offices in the form of mediation or intercession, unless he is ready for war. Such proffer may be declined without offence. But it can never be forgotten, that, _where one side is obviously fighting for Barbarism_, any intervention, whatever form it takes,--if only by captious criticism, calculated to encourage the wrong side, or to secure for it time or temporary toleration, if not final success,--_is plainly immoral_. If not contrary to the Law of Nations, it ought to be.

Intervention in the spirit of peace and for the sake of peace belongs to the refinements of modern civilization. Intervention in the spirit of war, if not for the sake of war, has filled a large space in history, ancient and modern. But all these instances may be grouped under two heads: first, intervention in _external_ affairs; and, secondly, intervention in _internal_ affairs. The first is illustrated by the intervention of the Elector Maurice of Saxony against Charles the Fifth, of King William against Louis the Fourteenth, of Russia and France in the Seven Years’ War, of Russia again between France and Austria in 1805, and also between France and Prussia in 1806, and of France, Great Britain, and Sardinia between Turkey and Russia in the war of the Crimea.

The intervention of Russia, Austria, and Prussia in the affairs of Poland, of Great Britain among the native provinces of India, and of the Allied Powers in the French Revolution, under the continued inspiration of the Treaty of Pilnitz, are illustrations of the second head. Without dwelling on these great examples, I shall call attention to instances showing more especially the growth of intervention, first in external, and then in internal affairs. Here I shall conceal nothing. Instances seeming against the principles I have at heart will at least help illustrate the great subject, so that you may see it as it is.

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(1.) First in order, and for the sake of completeness, I speak of intervention in _external_ affairs, where two or more nations are parties.

As long ago as 1645, France offered mediation between what were then called “The Two Crowns of the North,” Sweden and Denmark. This was followed, in 1648, by the famous Peace of Westphalia, the beginning of our present Law of Nations, negotiated under the joint mediation of the Pope and the Republic of Venice, present by nuncio and ambassador. In 1655, the Emperor of Germany offered mediation between Sweden and Poland; but the old historian records that the Swedes suspected him of seeking to increase rather than to arrange pending difficulties; and the effort ended by the withdrawal of the imperial envoy into the Polish camp. Sweden, though often belligerent in those days, was not so always, and, in 1672, when war broke forth between France and England on one side and the Dutch Provinces on the other, we find her proffering mediation, which was promptly accepted by England, who justly rejected a similar proffer most hardily made by the Elector of Brandenburg, ancestor of the kings of Prussia, while marching at the head of his forces to join the Dutch. The English note on this occasion, written in what at the time was called “sufficiently bad French, but in very intelligible terms,” declared that the Electoral proffer, though under the pleasant name of mediation (_par le doux nom de médiation_), was adjudged to be only arbitration, and that, instead of mediation _unarmed and disinterested_, it was mediation armed and pledged to the enemies of England.[52]

Such are earlier instances, all of which have their lessons for us. There are modern, also. I allude only to the Triple Alliance, between Great Britain, Prussia, and Holland, which, at the close of the last century, successively intervened, by mediation which could not be resisted, to compel Denmark, while siding with Russia against Sweden, to remain neutral for the rest of the war,--then, in 1791, to dictate terms of peace between Austria and the Porte,--and lastly, in 1792, to constrain Russia into abandonment of her designs upon the Turkish Empire by the Peace of Jassy. On this occasion, the Russian Empress, Catharine the Second, peremptorily refused the mediation of Prussia, and the mediating Alliance made its approaches through Denmark, by whose good offices the Empress was finally induced to accept the treaty. While thus engaged in professed mediation, England, in a note to the French ambassador, declined to act as mediator between France and the Allied Powers, leaving that world-embracing war to proceed. Not only has England refused to act as mediator, but _also refused submission to mediation_. This was during the last war with the United States, when Russia, at that time the ally of England, proffered mediation between the two belligerents, which was promptly accepted by the United States. Its rejection by England, causing the prolongation of hostilities, was considered by Sir James Mackintosh less justifiable, as “a mediator is a common friend, who counsels both parties with a weight proportioned to their belief in his integrity and their respect for his power; but he is not an arbitrator, to whose decision they submit their differences, and whose award is binding on them.”[53] The Peace of Ghent was concluded at last under Russian mediation. But England has not always been belligerent. When Andrew Jackson menaced letters of marque against France, on account of failure to pay a sum stipulated in a recent treaty with the United States, King William the Fourth proffered mediation; but happily the whole question was already virtually arranged. It appears, also, that, before our war with Mexico, the good offices of England were tendered to the two parties; but neither was willing to accept them, and war took its course.

Such are instances of interference in external affairs; and since International Law is traced in history, they furnish a guide we cannot now neglect, especially when we regard the actual policy of England and France.

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(2.) Instances of foreign intervention in the _internal_ affairs of a nation are more pertinent. They are numerous, and not always harmonious, especially if we compare the new with the old. In the earlier times such intervention was regarded with repugnance. But the principle then declared has been sapped on the one side by the conspiracies of tyranny seeking the suppression of liberal institutions, and on the other by a generous sympathy breaking forth from time to time in their support. According to old precedents, most of which are found in the gossipping book of Wicquefort,[54] whence they have been copied by Mr. Wildman, in his “Institutes of International Law,”[55] even _foreign intercession_ was prohibited. Not even in the name of charity could one ruler speak to another on the domestic affairs of his government. Peter, King of Aragon, was astonished at a proposed embassy from Alphonso, King of Castile, entreating mercy for rebels. Charles the Ninth of France, a detestable monarch, in reply to ambassadors of the Protestant princes of Germany, pleading for his Protestant subjects, insolently declared that he required no tutors to teach him how to rule. And yet this same sovereign did not hesitate to ask the Duke of Savoy to receive certain subjects “into his benign favor, and to restore and reëstablish them in their confiscated estates.”[56] In this appeal there was a double inconsistency; for it was not only interference in the affairs of another prince, but it was in behalf of Protestants, only a few months before the Massacre of St. Bartholomew. Henry the Third, successor of Charles, and another detestable monarch, in reply to the Protestant ambassadors, announced that he was a sovereign prince, and ordered them to leave his dominions. Louis the Thirteenth was of milder nature, and yet, when the English ambassador, the Earl of Carlisle, presumed to speak in favor of the Huguenots, he intimated that no interference between the King of France and his subjects could be approved. The Cardinal Richelieu, who governed France so long, learning that an attempt was made to procure the intercession of the Pope, stopped it by a message to his Holiness, that the King would be displeased by any such interference. The Pope himself, on another recorded occasion, admitted that it would be a pernicious precedent for a subject to negotiate terms of accommodation through a foreign prince. On still another occasion, when the King of France, forgetting his own rule, interposed in behalf of the Barberini family, Innocent the Tenth declared, that, having no desire to interfere in the affairs of France, he trusted his Majesty would not interfere in his. Queen Christina of Sweden, merely hinting a disposition to proffer good offices for the settlement of the unhappy divisions in France, was told by the Queen Regent that she need give herself no trouble about them, and one of her own ministers at Stockholm declared that the overture was properly rejected. Nor were the States General of Holland less sensitive. They even refused audience to the Spanish ambassador seeking to congratulate them on the settlement of a domestic question; and when the French ambassador undertook to plead for Roman Catholics, the States, by formal resolution, denounced his conduct as inconsistent with the peace and constitution of the Republic, all of which was communicated to him by eight deputies, who added in speech whatever the resolution seemed to want in plainness.

Nor is England without similar example. Louis the Thirteenth, shortly after the marriage of his sister Henrietta Maria with Charles the First, consented that the English ambassadors should interpose for French Protestants; but when the French ambassador in England requested the repeal of a law against Roman Catholics, Charles expressed his surprise that the King of France should presume to intermeddle in English affairs. Even as late as 1746, when, after the Battle of Culloden, the Dutch ambassador in France was induced to address the British Government in behalf of the unfortunate Charles Edward, to the effect, that, if taken, he should not be treated as a rebel, it is recorded that this intercession was greatly resented by the British Government, which, not content with apology from the unfortunate official, required that he should be rebuked by his own Government also.[57] And this is British testimony with regard to intervention in a civil war, even when it took the mildest form of intercession for the life of a prince.

In face of such repulses, all these nations, at different times, practised intervention in every variety of form,--sometimes by intercession or “good offices” only, sometimes by mediation, and often by arms. Even these instances attest the intermeddling spirit; for such intervention, however received, was at least attempted.

Two precedents belonging to the earlier period deserve to stand apart, not only for historic importance, but for applicability to our times. The first was the effort to institute mediation between King Charles the First and his Parliament, attempted by Cardinal Mazarin, that powerful minister, who, during the minority of Louis the Fourteenth, swayed France. The civil war had been waged for years; good men on each side had fallen,--Falkland fighting for the King, and Hampden fighting for the Parliament,--and other costliest blood been shed on the fields of Edgehill, Newbury, Marston Moor, and Naseby, when the ambitious Cardinal, wishing to serve the King, promised, as Clarendon relates, “to press the Parliament so imperiously, and to denounce a war against them, if they refused to yield to what was reasonable.”[58] For this important service he selected the famous Pomponne de Bellièvre, of a family tried in public duties,--himself President of the Parliament of Paris and peer of France,--conspicuous in personal qualities as in place, whose beautiful head, preserved by the graver of Nanteuil, is illustrious in Art, and whose dying charity lives still in the great hospital of the Hôtel Dieu, at Paris. Arriving at London, the graceful ambassador presented himself to that Long Parliament which knew so well how to guard English rights. At once every overture was rejected in formal proceedings, from which I copy these words: “We do declare that we ourselves have been careful to improve all occasions to compose these unhappy troubles, _yet we have not, neither can we, admit of any mediation or interposing betwixt the King and us by any foreign prince or state_. And we desire that his Majesty, the French King, will rest satisfied with this our resolution and answer.”[59] On the committee which drew this reply was John Selden, unsurpassed for learning and ability in the whole splendid history of the English bar, in every book of whose library was written, “Before everything, Liberty,” and also that Harry Vane whom Milton, in one of his most inspired sonnets, addresses as

“Vane, young in years, but in sage counsel old,
Than whom a better Senator ne’er held
The helm of Rome, when gowns, not arms, repelled
The fierce Epirot and the African bold.”

The answer of such men is a precedent for us, especially should England, taking up the rejected policy of Mazarin, presumptuously send any ambassador to stay the Republic in its war with Slavery.

The same heart of oak, so strenuous to repel intervention of France between King and Parliament, was not less strenuous the other way, when intervention could serve the rights of England or the principles of religious liberty. Such was England when ruled by the great Protector, called in his own day “chief of men.” No nation so powerful as to be exempt from that irresistible intercession, where, beneath the garb of peace, was a gleam of arms. From France, even under the rule of Mazarin, he claimed respect for the Protestant name, which he insisted upon making great and glorious. From Spain, on whose extended empire the sun did not cease to shine, he required that no Englishman should be subject to the Inquisition. Reading to his Council a despatch from Admiral Blake, announcing justice obtained from the Viceroy of Malaga, Cromwell said, that “he hoped to make the name of Englishman as great as ever that of Roman had been.”[60] In this same exalted mood he turned to propose mediation between Protestant Sweden and Protestant Bremen, “chiefly bewailing, that, being both his friends, they should so despitefully combat one against another,” offering his assistance to “a commodious accommodation on both sides,” and exhorting them “by no means to refuse any honest conditions of reconciliation.”[61] Here was intervention between nation and nation; but it was soon followed by intervention in the internal affairs of a distant country, which of all the acts of Cromwell is the most touching and sublime. The French ambassador, while at Whitehall, urging the signature of a treaty, was unexpectedly interrupted by news from a secluded valley of the Alps, far away among mountain torrents, affluents of the Po, that a company of pious Protestants, for centuries gathered there, keeping the truth pure, “when all our fathers worshipped stocks and stones,” were suffering terrible persecution from their sovereign, Emanuel of Savoy. Despoiled of all possessions and liberties, brutally driven from their homes, given over to licentious and infuriate violence, and then turning in self-defence, they had been “slain by the bloody Piemontese, that rolled mother with infant down the rocks”; and it was reported that French troops took part in the dismal transaction. The Protector heard the story, and his pity flashed into anger. He would not sign the treaty until France united with him in securing justice to these humble sufferers, whom he called the Lord’s people. For their relief he contributed out of his own purse two thousand pounds, and authorized a general collection throughout England, which reached a large sum; but besides money, he set apart a day of humiliation and prayer for them. Nor was this all. “I should be glad,” wrote his Secretary, Thurloe, “to have a most particular account of that business, and to know what is become of those poor people, for whom our very souls here do bleed.”[62] But a pen mightier than that of any plodding secretary was enlisted in this pious intervention. It was John Milton, glowing with that indignation which his sonnet “On the Massacre in Piemont” makes immortal in the heart of man, who wrote the magnificent despatches, where the English nation of that day, after declaring itself “linked together” with its distant brethren, “not only by the same tie of humanity, but by joint communion of the same religion,” naturally and grandly insisted that “both this edict and whatsoever may be decreed to their disturbance upon the account of the Reformed Religion” should be abrogated, “and that an end be put to their oppressions.”[63] Not content with this call upon the Duke of Savoy, the Protector appealed to Louis the Fourteenth and his Cardinal Minister, to the States General of Holland, the Protestant Cantons of Switzerland, the King of Denmark, the King of Sweden, and even to the Protestant Reformed Prince of remote Transylvania,--and always by the pen of Milton,--rallying these princes and powers in joint entreaty and intervention, and, if need were, to “some other course to be speedily taken, that such a numerous multitude of our innocent brethren may not miserably perish for want of succor and assistance.”[64] The Regent of Savoy, daughter of Henry the Fourth, professed to be affected by this English charity, and announced for her Protestant subjects a free pardon, and also “such privileges and graces as could not but give the Lord Protector a sufficient evidence _how great a respect they bare both to his person and mediation_.”[65] But there was still delay. Meanwhile Cromwell began to inquire where in the Prince’s territories English troops might debark, and Mazarin, anxious to complete the yet unfinished treaty, joined in requiring immediate pacification of the Valleys and the restoration of these persecuted people to their ancient liberties. It was done. Such is the grandest intervention of English history, inspired by Milton, enforced by Cromwell, and sustained by Louis the Fourteenth with his Cardinal Minister by his side, while foreign nations watched the scene.

This great instance, constituting an inseparable part of the Protector’s glory, is not the last where England intervened for Protestant liberties. Troubles, beginning in France with the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, broke forth in the rebellion of the Camisards, smarting under the Revocation. Sheltered by the mountains of the Cevennes, and nerved by a good cause, with the device “Liberty of Conscience” on their standards, they made head against two successive marshals of France, and perplexed the old age of Louis the Fourteenth, whose arms were already enfeebled by foreign war. At last, through the mediation of England, the great monarch made terms with his Protestant rebels, and this civil war was brought to a close.[66]

Intervention, more often armed than unarmed, showed itself in the middle of the last century. All decency was set aside, when Frederick of Prussia, Catharine of Russia, and Maria Theresa of Austria invaded and partitioned Poland, under pretext of suppressing anarchy. Here was intervention with a vengeance, and on the side of arbitrary power. Such is human inconsistency, almost at the same time was another intervention in the opposite direction. It was the armed intervention of France, followed by that of Spain and Holland, in behalf of American Independence. Spain began by offer of mediation with a truce, which was accepted by France on condition that meanwhile the United States should be independent _in fact_.[67] Then came, in 1788, the armed intervention of Prussia to sustain the Orange faction in Holland, followed soon by the compact between Great Britain, Prussia, and Holland, known as the Triple Alliance, which entered upon the business of its copartnership by armed intervention to reconcile the insurgent provinces of Belgium with the German Emperor and their ancient Constitution. As France began to shake with domestic troubles, mediation in her affairs was proposed. Among the papers of Burke, in 1791, is the draught of a memorial, in the name of the British Government, offering what he calls “this healing mediation.”[68] Then came the vast coalition for armed intervention in France to put down the Republic. This dreary cloud was for a moment brightened by a British attempt in Parliament, through successive debates, to institute an intercession for Lafayette, immured in the dungeons of European despotism. “It is reported,” said one of the orators, “that America has solicited the liberation of her unfortunate adopted fellow-citizen.… Let British magnanimity be called to the aid of American gratitude, and exhibit to mankind a noble proof, that, wherever the principles of genuine liberty prevail, _they never fail to inspire sentiments of generosity, feelings of humanity, and a detestation of oppression_.”[69]

Meanwhile France, against whom all Europe intervened, played her part of intervention, and the scene was Switzerland. In the unhappy disputes between the aristocratic and democratic parties by which this Republic was distracted, French mediation became chronic, beginning in 1738, when it found partial apology in the invitation of several cantons and of Geneva; occurring again in 1768, and again in 1782. The mountain Republic, breathing the air of Freedom, was naturally moved by the convulsions of the French Revolution. Civil war ensued, and grew in bitterness. At last, when France herself was composed under the powerful arm of the First Consul, we find him turning to compose Swiss troubles. He was a military ruler, and always acted under the instincts of military power. By proclamation, dated at the palace of St. Cloud, September 30, 1802, Bonaparte declared that for three years the Swiss had been slaying each other, and that, if left to themselves, they would continue to slay each other for three years more, without reaching any understanding; that, at first, he had resolved not to interfere, but that he now changed his mind, and announced himself as mediator of their difficulties, proclaiming confidently that his mediation would be efficacious, as became the great people in whose name he spoke. Deputies from the cantons, together with the chief citizens, were summoned to declare the means of restoring the Union, securing peace, and reconciling all parties.[70] This was armed mediation; but Switzerland was weak and France strong, while the declared object was union, peace, and reconciliation. I know not if all this ensued, but the civil war was stifled, and the Constitution was established by what is entitled in history the Act of Mediation.

From that period down to the present moment, intervention in the internal affairs of other nations has been a prevailing practice, now cautiously and peaceably, now offensively and forcibly. Sometimes it was against the rights of men, sometimes it was in their favor. Sometimes England and France stood aloof, sometimes they took part. The Congress of Vienna, which undertook to settle the map of Europe, organized universal and perpetual intervention in the interest of monarchical institutions and existing dynasties. This compact was renewed at the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle, in 1818, with the explanatory declaration, that the five great powers would never assume jurisdiction over questions concerning the rights and interests of another power, _except at its request_, and without inviting such power to take part in the conference,--a concession obviously adverse to any liberal movement. Meanwhile appeared the Holy Alliance, specially to watch and control the revolutionary tendencies of the age; but into this combination England most honorably declined to enter. The other powers were sufficiently active. Austria, Russia, and Prussia did not hesitate at the Congress of Laybach, in 1821, to institute armed intervention for the suppression of liberal principles in Naples; and again, two years later, at the Congress of Verona, these same powers, together with France, instituted another armed intervention to suppress liberal principles in Spain, which ultimately led to the invasion of that kingdom and the overthrow of its Constitution. France was the belligerent agent, and would not be turned aside, although the Duke of Wellington at Verona, and Mr. Canning at home, sought to arrest her armies by the mediation of Great Britain, which was directly sought by Spain and directly refused by France. The British Government, in admirable letters, composed with unsurpassed skill, and constituting a noble page of International Law, “disclaimed for itself, and denied for other powers, the right of requiring any changes in the internal institutions of independent states, _with the menace of hostile attack in case of refusal_”; and bravely declared to the imperial and royal interventionists, that, “so long as the struggles and disturbances of Spain should be confined within the circle of her own territory, they could not be admitted by the British Government to afford any plea of foreign interference”; and in still another note repeated that a “_menace of direct and imminent danger could alone, in exception to the general rule, justify foreign interference_.”[71] These were the words of Mr. Canning; but even Lord Castlereagh, in an earlier note, asserted the same limitation, which, at a later day, had the unqualified support of Lord Grey, and also of Lord Aberdeen. Justly interpreted, they leave no apology for armed intervention, except in case of direct and imminent danger, when a nation, like an individual, may be thrown upon the great right of self-defence.

Great Britain bore testimony by what she did, as well as by what she refused to do. Even while resisting the armed intervention of the great conspiracy, her Government intervened sometimes by mediation and sometimes by arms. Early in the contest between Spain and her colonies she consented to act as mediator, on the invitation of the former, in hope of effecting reconciliation; but Spain declined the mediation she had invited. From 1812 to 1823, Great Britain constantly repeated her offer. In the case of Portugal she went further. Under the counsels of Mr. Canning, whose speech on the occasion was of the most memorable character, she intervened by landing troops at Lisbon; but this intervention was vindicated by the obligations of treaty. Next came the greater instance of Greece, when the Christian powers of Europe intervened to arrest a protracted struggle and to save this classic land from Turkish tyranny. Here the first step was _a pressing invitation from the Greeks_ to the British and French Governments for their mediation with the Ottoman Porte. These powers united with Russia in proffering the much desired intervention, which the Greeks at once accepted and the Turks rejected. Already battle raged fiercely, reddened by barbarous massacre. Without delay, the allied forces were directed to compel the cessation of hostilities, which was accomplished by the destruction of the Turkish fleet at Navarino and the occupation of the Morea by French troops. At last, under the continued mediation of these powers, the independence of Greece was recognized by the Ottoman Porte, and another commonwealth consecrated to Freedom took its place in the Family of Nations. But mediation in Turkish affairs did not stop. The example of Greece was followed by Egypt, whose provincial chief, Mehemet Ali, rebelled, and by genius for war succeeded in dispossessing the Ottoman Porte not only of Egypt, but of other possessions also. This civil war was first arrested by temporary arrangement at Kutaieh, in 1833, under the mediation of Great Britain and France, and finally ended by an armed mediation in 1840, when, after elaborate and irritating discussions threatening to involve Europe, a treaty was concluded at London between Great Britain, Russia, Austria, and Prussia, by which the Pacha was compelled to relinquish his conquests, while he was secured in the Government of Egypt as perpetual vassal of the Porte. France, dissatisfied with the terms of this adjustment, stood aloof from the treaty, which found apology, such as it had, first, in the invitation of the Sultan, and, secondly, in the desire to preserve the integrity of the Turkish Empire, as essential to the balance of power and the peace of Europe, to which may also be added the desire to stop effusion of blood.

Before the Eastern questions were settled, other complications commenced in Western Europe. Belgium, restless from the French Revolution of 1830, rose against the House of Orange and claimed independence. Civil war ensued; but the great powers promptly intervened, even to the extent of arresting a Dutch army on its march. Beginning with armistice, there was a long and fine-spun negotiation, which, assuming the guise alternately of pacific mediation and of armed intervention, ended in the established separation of Belgium from Holland, and its recognition as an independent nation. Do you ask why Great Britain intervened on this occasion? Lord John Russell, in the course of debate at a subsequent day, declared that a special motive was “the establishment of a free constitution.”[72] Meanwhile the Peninsula of Spain and Portugal was torn by civil war. The regents of these two kingdoms respectively appealed to Great Britain and France for aid, especially in the expulsion of the pretender Don Carlos from Spain and the pretender Dom Miguel from Portugal. For this purpose the Quadruple Alliance was formed in 1834. The moral support from this treaty is said to have been important, but Great Britain was compelled to provide troops. This intervention, however, was _at the solicitation of the actual Governments_. Even after Spanish troubles were settled, war still lingered in the sister kingdom, when, in 1847, the Queen addressed herself to her allies, among whom was Great Britain, the ancient patron of Portugal, who undertook to mediate between her and her insurgent subjects, in the declared hope of composing the difficulties “in a just and permanent manner, with all due regard to the dignity of the crown on the one hand, and to the constitutional liberties of the nation on the other.”[73] The insurgents did not submit until after military demonstrations. Liberty and Peace were the two watchwords.

Then occurred the European uprising of 1848, with France once more a Republic; but Europe, wiser grown, did not interfere even so much as to write a letter. The case was different with Hungary, whose victorious armies, radiant with Liberty regained, expelled the Austrian power only to be arrested by the armed intervention of the Russian Czar, who yielded to the double pressure of invitation from Austria and fear that successful insurrection might extend into Poland. It was left for France, in another country, with strange inconsistency, to play the part which Russia played in Hungary. Rome, after rising against the temporal power of the Pope and proclaiming the Republic, was occupied by a French army, which expelled the republican magistrates, and, though fourteen years are already passed since that unhappy act, the occupation still continues. From this military intervention Great Britain stands aloof. In a despatch, dated at London, January 28, 1849, Lord Palmerston makes a permanent record, to the honor of his country, as follows: “Her Majesty’s Government would, upon every account, and not only upon abstract principle, but with reference to the general interests of Europe, and from the value which they attach to the maintenance of peace, _sincerely deprecate any attempt to settle the differences between the Pope and his subjects by the military interference of foreign powers_.”[74] This statesman gives further point to the position of Great Britain in contrast with France, when he says: “Armed intervention _to assist in retaining a bad Government would be unjustifiable_.”[75] Such was the declaration of the Lord Palmerston of that day. How much more unjustifiable the strange assistance now proposed _to found_ a bad Government! The British minister insisted that the differences should be accommodated by “the diplomatic interposition of friendly powers,” which he declared a “much better mode of settlement than an authoritative imposition of terms by the force of foreign arms.”[76] In harmony with this policy, Great Britain, during the same year, united with France in proffering mediation between the insurgent Sicilians and the King of Naples, the notorious Bomba, in the hope of helping good government and liberal principles. Not disheartened by rebuff, these two powers, in 1856, united in friendly remonstrance to the same tyrannical sovereign against the harsh system of political arrests, and against his cruelty to good citizens thrust without trial into the worst of prisons. The advice was indignantly rejected, and the two powers that gave it withdrew their ministers from Naples. The sympathy of Russia was on the wrong side, and Prince Gortschakoff, in a circular, while admitting, that, “as a consequence of friendly fore-thought, one Government might give advice to another,” declared, that “to endeavor by threats or a menacing demonstration to obtain from the King of Naples concessions in the internal affairs of his Government is a violent usurpation of his authority, and an open declaration of the right of the strong over the weak.”[77] This was practically answered by Lord Clarendon, speaking for Great Britain at the Congress of Paris, when, admitting the principle that no Government has the right to interfere in the internal affairs of other states, he declares that there are cases where an exception to this rule becomes equally a right and a duty; that peace must not be broken, but that there is no peace without justice; and that therefore the Congress must let the King of Naples know its desire for the amelioration of his Government, and must demand amnesty for political offenders suffering without trial.[78] This language was bold beyond the practice of diplomacy, but the intervention it proposed was on the side of humanity.

I must draw this chapter to a close, although the long list is not yet exhausted. Even while I speak, we hear of intervention by England and France in the civil war between the Emperor of China and his subjects,--and also in that other war between the Emperor of Russia on the one side and the Poles whom he claims as subjects on the other, but with this difference, that in China these powers take the part of the existing Government, while in Poland they intervene against the existing Government. In the face of positive declarations of neutrality, the British and French admirals have united their forces with the Chinese; but thus far in Poland, although there is no declaration of neutrality, the intervention is unarmed. In both these instances we witness a common tendency, directed, it may be, by the interests or prejudices of the time, and, so far as it has proceeded, it is, at least in Poland, on the side of liberal institutions. But, alas for human consistency! the French Emperor is now intervening in Mexico with armies and navies to build an imperial throne for an Austrian Archduke.

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There is one long-continued British intervention, which speaks now with controlling power; and it is on this account that I reserve it for the close of what I have to say on this head. Though not without original shades of dark, it has for more than half a century been a shining example to the civilized world. I refer to that _intervention against Slavery_, which, from its first adoption, has been so constant and brilliant as to make us forget the earlier _intervention in behalf of Slavery_, when, for instance, at the Peace of Utrecht, Great Britain intervened to extort the detestable privilege of supplying slaves to Spanish America at the rate of four thousand eight hundred yearly during the space of thirty years, and then again, at the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, higgled for a yet longer sanction of the ignoble intervention; nay, it almost makes us forget the kindred intervention, at once sordid and criminal, by which this power counteracted all efforts for the prohibition of the slave-trade even in its own colonies, and thus helped to fasten Slavery upon Virginia and Carolina. The abolition of the slave-trade by Act of Parliament, in 1807, was the signal for a change of history. A British poet at the time gave exulting expression to the grandeur of the epoch:--

“‘Thy chains are broken, Africa, be free!’
Thus saith the island-empress of the sea;
Thus saith Britannia. O ye winds and waves,
Waft the glad tidings to the land of slaves!”[79]

Curiously, it was the other color which gained the first fruits of this revolution, by triumphant intervention for the overthrow of White Slavery in the Barbary States. The old hero of Acre, Sir Sidney Smith, released from long imprisonment in France, sought to organize a “holy league” for this purpose; the subject was discussed at the Congress of Vienna; and the agents of Spain and Portugal, anxious for the punishment of their piratical neighbors, argued, that, because Great Britain had abolished for itself the traffic in African slaves, therefore it must see that whites were no longer enslaved in the Barbary States. The argument was less logical than humane. But Great Britain undertook the work. With a fleet complete at all points, consisting of five line-of-battle ships, five frigates, four bomb-vessels, and five gun-brigs, Lord Exmouth approached Algiers, where he was joined by a considerable Dutch fleet, anxious to take part. “If force must be resorted to,” said the Admiral in general orders shortly before, “we have the consolation of knowing that we fight in the sacred cause of Humanity, and cannot fail of success.” Less than half a day was enough, with such a force in such a cause. The formidable castles of the great Slavemonger were battered to pieces, and he was compelled to sign a treaty, confirmed under a salute of twenty-one guns, which in its first article stipulated “the abolition of Christian Slavery forever.” Glorious and beneficent intervention! Not inferior to that renowned instance of Antiquity, where the Carthaginians were required to abolish the practice of sacrificing their own children,--a treaty which has been called the noblest of history, because stipulated in favor of human nature. The Admiral who had thus triumphed was hailed as Emancipator. He received a new rank in the peerage, and a new blazonry on his coat of arms. The rank is continued in his family, and on their shield, in perpetual memory of this great transaction, is still borne _a Christian slave holding aloft the Cross and dropping his broken fetters_. But the personal satisfactions of the Admiral were more than rank or heraldry. In his despatch to the Government, describing the battle, and written at the time, he says: “To have been one of the humble instruments in the hands of Divine Providence for bringing to reason a ferocious Government and destroying forever the insufferable and horrid system of Christian Slavery, can never cease to be a source of delight and heartfelt comfort to every individual happy enough to be employed in it.”[80]

I have said too much with regard to an instance, which, though beautiful and important, is only a parenthesis in the grander and more extensive intervention against African Slavery, which was already organizing, destined at last to embrace the whole human family. Even before Wilberforce triumphed in Parliament, Great Britain intervened with Napoleon, in 1806, pressing him to join in the abolition of the slave-trade; but he flatly refused. What France would not then yield was exacted from Portugal in 1810, from Sweden in 1813, and from Denmark in 1814. An ineffectual attempt was made to enlist Spain, even by temptation of pecuniary subsidies,--and an appeal was made to the restored monarch of France, Louis the Eighteenth, with the offer of a sum of money outright or the cession of a West India island, in consideration of the desired abolition. The Prince Regent wrote with his own hand to the latter, assuring him that he could not give a more acceptable proof of his regard than by consenting to the abolition. Had gratitude to a benefactor prevailed, these powers could not have resisted; but Lord Castlereagh confessed in the House of Commons, that in France there was distrust of the British Government “even among the better classes of people,” who thought that its zeal in this behalf was prompted by desire to injure the French colonies and commerce, rather than by benevolence. The British minister was more successful with Portugal, where pecuniary equivalents led to a supplementary treaty, in January, 1815. This was followed by the declaration of the Congress of Vienna, on motion of Lord Castlereagh, 8th February, 1815, denouncing the African slave-trade “as repugnant to the principles of humanity and of universal morality.” Meanwhile Napoleon returned from Elba, and what British intervention failed to accomplish with the Bourbon monarch, and the Emperor once flatly refused, was now spontaneously done by him, doubtless in the hope of conciliating British sentiment. His hundred days of power were signalized by an ordinance abolishing the slave-trade in France and her colonies. Louis the Eighteenth, once again restored by British arms, and with the shadow of Waterloo resting upon France, could not do less than ratify the imperial ordinance by a royal assurance that “the traffic was henceforth forever forbidden to all the subjects of his most Christian Majesty.”[81] Holland came under the same influence, and accepted the restitution of her colonies, except the Cape of Good Hope and Guiana, on condition of the entire abolition of the slave-trade in the restored colonies, and also everywhere else beneath her flag. Spain was the most indocile; but this proud monarchy, under whose auspices the African slave-trade first came into being, at last yielded. By the treaty of Madrid, of 23d September, 1817, extorted by Great Britain, it stipulated the immediate abolition of the trade north of the equator, and also, after 1820, its abolition everywhere, in consideration of four hundred thousand pounds, the price of Freedom, paid by the other contracting party. In vindication of this intervention, Wilberforce declared in Parliament, that “the grant to Spain would be more than repaid to Great Britain in commercial advantages by the opening of a great continent to British industry,”--all of which was impossible, if the slave-trade was allowed to continue under the Spanish flag.[82]

At the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle, in 1818, and of Verona, in 1822, Great Britain continued her intervention against Slavery. Chateaubriand, in his history of the latter Congress, pauses to express his admiration of the “singular perseverance” in this cause manifested by her at all Congresses, amidst questions the most urgent and interests the most pressing.[83] Here her primacy was undisputed, and her fame complete. It was the common remark of Continental publicists, that she “made the cause her own.”[84] One of them portrays her vividly, since 1810 waging “relentless war” against the principle of the slave-trade, and by this “crusade,” undertaken in the name of Humanity, making herself the “declared protectress” of the African race. These are the words of a French authority.[85] According to him, it is nothing less than “relentless war” and a “crusade” which she has waged, and the position which she has achieved is that of “protectress” of the African race,--while no less a person than Chateaubriand recognizes with admiration the “singular perseverance” she has displayed in this practical extension of Christianity. Not content with imposing her magnanimous system upon the civilized world, she carried it among the tribes and chiefs of Africa, who, by her omnipresent intervention, were summoned to renounce a barbarous and criminal custom. By a Parliamentary Report, it appears that in 1849 there were twenty-four treaties in force between Great Britain and foreign civilized powers for the suppression of the slave-trade, and also forty-two similar treaties between Great Britain and native chiefs of Africa.[86]

This intervention was not by treaties only; it was by correspondence and circulars also. And here I approach a part of the subject which illustrates the vivacity of its character. All British ministers and consuls were so many pickets on constant guard in the outposts. They were held to every service by which the cause could be promoted, even to translating and printing documents against the slave-trade, especially in countries where, unhappily, it was still pursued. There was the Pope’s Bull of 1839, which Lord Palmerston transmitted for this purpose to his agents in Cuba, Brazil, and even in Turkey, some of whom were unsuccessful in their efforts to obtain its publication, although, curiously enough, it was published in Turkey.[87]

Such zeal could not stop at the abolition of the traffic. Accordingly, Great Britain, by Act of Parliament, in 1834, enfranchised all the slaves in her own possessions, and thus again secured to herself the primacy of a lofty cause. The intervention was now openly declared to be against Slavery itself, assuming its most positive character while Lord Palmerston was Foreign Secretary,--and I say this sincerely to his great honor. Throughout his long life, among all the various concerns in which he has acted, there is nothing to be remembered hereafter with such gratitude. By his untiring diplomacy her Majesty’s Government constituted itself a vast Abolition Society, with the whole world for its field. It was in no respect behind the famous World’s Convention against Slavery, held at London in June, 1840, with Thomas Clarkson, the pioneer Abolitionist, as President; for the strongest declarations of this Convention were adopted by Lord Palmerston as “the sentiments of her Majesty’s Government,” and communicated officially to British functionaries in foreign lands. The Convention declared “the utter injustice of Slavery in all its forms, and the evil it inflicts upon its miserable victims, and the necessity of employing every means, moral, religious, and pacific, for its complete abolition, an object most dear to the members of this Convention, and for the consummation of which they are especially assembled.”[88] These words became the words of the British Government, and in circular letters were sent over the world.

It was not enough to declare the true principles. They must be enforced. Spain and Portugal hung back. The Secretary of the Antislavery Society was sent “to endeavor to create in those countries a public feeling in favor of the abolition of Slavery”; and the British minister at Lisbon was desired by Lord Palmerston to “afford all the assistance and protection in his power for promoting the object of his journey.”[89] British functionaries abroad sometimes backslided. This was corrected by circulars setting forth “that it would be unfitting that any officer holding an appointment under the British Crown should, either directly or indirectly, hold or be interested in slave property.”[90] The Parliamentary Papers which attest the universality of this instruction show the completeness with which it was executed. The consul at Rio Janeiro, in slaveholding Brazil, had among his domestics three negro slaves, two men and a woman; “of the men one was a groom and the other a waiter, and the woman he was forced to hire to nurse one of his children”; but he discharged them at once, under the antislavery discipline of the British Foreign Office, and Lord Palmerston, in formal despatch, “expresses his satisfaction.”[91] In Cuba, at the time of its reception, there was not a single resident officer, holding under the British Crown, “who was entirely free from the charge of countenancing Slavery.” But only a few weeks afterwards it was officially reported from Havana that there was “not a single British officer residing within the consular jurisdiction who had not relinquished, or was not at least preparing to relinquish, this odious practice.”[92] This was quick work. The metamorphosis was prompt as anything in ancient fable. Every person holding office under the British Government at once set his face against Slavery, _and the way was by having nothing to do with it, even in employing or hiring the slave of another,--nothing, “directly or indirectly”_.

Lord Palmerston, acting in the name of the British Government, did not stop with changing British officials into practical Abolitionists, whenever they were in foreign countries. He sought to enlist other European Governments, and to this end requested them to forbid their functionaries residing in slaveholding communities to be interested in slave property or in any holding or hiring of slaves. Denmark for a moment hesitated, from unwillingness to debar them from acting according to the laws where they resided, when the minister at once cited in support of his request the example of Belgium, Hanover, Holland, Sweden, Naples, Portugal, and Sardinia, all without delay having yielded to this British intervention, and Denmark ranged herself in the list.[93] Nor was this indefatigable Propaganda confined to the Christian powers. With a sacred pertinacity it reached into distant Mohammedan regions, where Slavery was imbedded not only in the laws, but the habits, the social system, and the very life of the people, and called upon the Government to act against it. No impediment deterred,--no prejudice, national or religious. To the Shah of Persia, ruling a vast, outlying slave empire, Lord Palmerston announced the desire of the British Government “to see the slave-trade put down and the condition of Slavery abolished in every part of the world”; “that it conceived much good might be accomplished in these respects, even in Mohammedan countries, by steady perseverance, and by never omitting to take advantage of favorable opportunities”; and “that the Shah would be doing a thing extremely acceptable to the British Government and nation, if he would issue a decree prohibiting for the future the importation of slaves of any kind into Persia, and making it penal for a Persian to purchase slaves.”[94] To the Sultan of Turkey, whose mother was a slave, whose wives were all slaves, and whose very counsellors, generals, and admirals were originally slaves, he made a similar appeal, and he sought to win the dependent despot by reminding him that only in this way could he hope for that good-will which was so essential to his Government; “that the continued support of Great Britain will, for some years to come, be an object of importance to the Porte,--_that this support cannot be given effectually, unless the sentiments and opinions of the majority of the British nation shall be favorable to the Turkish Government,--and that the whole of the British nation unanimously desire, beyond almost anything else, to put an end to the cruel practice of making slaves_.”[95] Such, at that time, was the voice of the British people. Since Cromwell pleaded for the Vaudois, no nobler voice had gone forth. The World’s Convention against Slavery saw itself transfigured, while platform speeches were transfused into diplomatic notes. The Convention, earnest for Universal Emancipation, declared that “_the friendly interposition_ of Great Britain could be employed for no nobler purpose,” and, as if to crown its work, in an address to Lord Palmerston, humbly and earnestly implored his Lordship to use his high authority for “connecting the overthrow of Slavery with the consolidation of Peace”; and these words were at once adopted in foreign despatches, as expressing the sentiments of her Majesty’s Government.[96] Better watchwords could not be, nor any more worthy of the British name. _There can be no consolidation of Peace without the overthrow of Slavery._ This is as true now as when first uttered. Therefore is Great Britain still bound to her original faith; nor can she abandon the cause, of which she was the declared protectress, without betrayal of Peace, as well as betrayal of Liberty.

Even now while I speak this same conspicuous fidelity to a sacred cause is announced. The ship canal across the Isthmus of Suez, first attempted by the early Pharaohs, and at last resumed by French influence, under the auspices of the Pacha, is most zealously opposed by Great Britain for the declared reason that in its construction “forced labor” is employed, which this power cannot in conscience sanction. Not even to complete this vast beneficence, bringing East and West near together, for which mankind has waited throughout long centuries, will Great Britain depart from the rule so gloriously declared. Slavery is wrong, therefore not to be employed. The canal must stop, if it cannot be constructed without “forced labor.”

The veteran statesman who did so much in this cause, weaving its golden thread into the tissue of his renown, dwelt on it with pride, and accepted for his country the primacy that had been awarded. Never, in his extended Parliamentary career, did Lord Palmerston rise to a higher mood,--not even when claiming for Englishmen all the immunities of Roman citizenship,--_Civis Romanus sum_,--than when he pictured the dependence of Africans on their constant friend. “If ever,” said he, “by the assault of overpowering enemies, or by the errors of her misguided sons, England should fall, and her star should lose its lustre, with her fall, for a long period of time, would the hopes of the African, whether in his own continent or in the vast regions of America, be buried in the darkness of despair. I know well that in such case Providence would in due course of time raise up some other nation to inherit our principles and to imitate our practice; but, taking the world as it is, and states as they are constituted, I do not know--and I say it with regret and with pain--I do not know any nation that is now ready in this respect to supply our place.”[97] And can it be that now, instead of the African, a rebellion inspired by Slavery turns to England with hope?

The honorable story of British intervention against Slavery is incomplete without showing how its generous ardor broke forth against our Republic, which was denounced as linked with Slavery. Literature, eloquence, and poetry lent themselves to expose the terrible inconsistency. Lord Russell stepped aside from the easy path of biography, to declare that among us “oxen and horses are better treated than the men and women of African blood,” and then to proclaim “the cry of outraged humanity,” “the current of human sympathy,” and “the decrees of Eternal Justice,” irresistible.[98] Lord Macaulay, in the House of Commons, thundered forth: “The Government of the United States has formally declared itself the patron, the champion, of Negro Slavery all over the world, the evil genius, the Arimanes, of the African race, and seems to take pride in this shameful and odious distinction.… They put themselves at the head of the slave-driving interest throughout the world, just as Elizabeth put herself at the head of the Protestant interest; and wherever their favorite institution is in danger, are ready to stand by it as Elizabeth stood by the Dutch.”[99] Thomas Campbell, fresh from writing “Ye Mariners of England” and “Hohenlinden,” struck at our Slavery in most scornful verses on the national flag:--

“But what’s the meaning of the stripes?
They mean your negroes’ scars!”[100]

If these things, so bitterly said, were true, if Campbell, Macaulay, and Russell were right in their indignant rebuke, if Palmerston was justified in his eloquent pride, then must England make haste to turn away from a rebellion which seeks to reverse that noble intervention where the liberty of the African was a constant guide.

* * * * *

Here I close the historic instances illustrating the right and practice of foreign intervention. The whole subject is seen in these instances, teaching clearly what to avoid and what to follow. In this way, the Law of Nations, like History, gives its best lessons. For the sake of plainness, I gather up some of the conclusions.

* * * * *

Foreign intervention is _armed_ or _unarmed_, although sometimes the two are not easily distinguishable. Unarmed intervention may have in it the menace of arms, or it may be war in disguise. When this is the case, it must be treated accordingly.

_Armed_ intervention is war, and nothing less. Of course it can be vindicated only as war, and it must be resisted as war. Believing, as I do most profoundly, that war can never be a game, but must always be a crime when it ceases to be a duty,--a crime to be shunned, if not a duty to be performed swiftly and surely,--and that a nation, like an individual, is not permitted to take the sword except in just self-defence,--I find the same limitation in armed intervention, which becomes unjust invasion in proportion as it departs from just self-defence. Under this head is naturally included all that intervention moved by a tyrannical or intermeddling spirit, because such intervention, whatever its professions, is essentially hostile,--as when Russia, Prussia, and Austria partitioned Poland, when the Holy Alliance intermeddled everywhere and menaced even America, or when Russia intervened to crush the independence of Hungary, or France to crush the Roman Republic. All such intervention is inexcusable, illegal, and scandalous. Its vindication is found only in the effrontery that might makes right.

_Unarmed_ intervention is of a different nature. If sincerely unarmed, it may be regarded as obtrusive, but not hostile. It may assume the form of mediation or the proffer of good offices, at the invitation of both parties, or, in the case of civil war, at the invitation of the original authority. With such invitation, this intervention is proper and honorable; without such invitation, it is of doubtful character; but if known to be contrary to the desires of both parties, or to the desires of the original authority in a distracted country, it becomes offensive and inadmissible, _unless obviously on the side of Human Rights_, when the act of intervention takes its character from the cause in which it is made. But it must not be forgotten, that, in the case of civil war, any mediation, or, indeed, any proposition not enjoining submission to the original authority, is in its nature adverse, for it assumes the separate existence of the other party, and secures for it temporary immunity and opportunity, if not independence. Congress, therefore, was right in declaring to foreign powers that any renewed effort of mediation in our affairs will be regarded as an unfriendly act.

There is another case of unarmed intervention which I cannot criticize. It is where a nation intercedes or interposes in favor of Human Rights, or to secure the overthrow of some enormous wrong,--as when Cromwell pleaded, with noble intercession, for the secluded Protestants of the Alpine valleys, when Great Britain and France declared sympathy with the Greeks struggling for independence, and when Great Britain alone, by splendid diplomacy, set herself against Slavery everywhere throughout the world.

* * * * *

The full lesson may be summed up briefly. All intervention in the internal affairs of another nation is contrary to law and reason, and can be vindicated only by overruling necessity. Intervening by war, then must there be the necessity of self-defence. Intervening by mediation or intercession, then must you be able to speak in behalf of civilization endangered or human nature wronged. To this humane policy no power is bound so absolutely as England; especially is none so fixed, beyond possibility of retreat or change, in hostility to Slavery, whatever shape this criminal pretension may assume, whether the animating principle of a nation, the “forced labor” of a multitude, or even the service of a solitary domestic.