portion at least of the British nation
against the government and people of the United States--a war
tolerated although not declared or avowed by the British Government.
If through the necessary employment of all our means of national
defense such a partial war shall become a general one between the
two nations, the President thinks that the responsibility for that
painful result will not fall upon the United States."

ENGLAND'S MALIGNANT NEUTRALITY.

The truth is that the so-called neutral policy of foreign Powers
was the vicious application of obsolete analogies to the conditions
of modern life. Because of the doctrine of belligerent recognition
had in its origin referred to nations of well established, independent
existence, the doctrine was now pushed forward to the extent of
giving ocean belligerency to an insurgent which had in reality no
maritime power whatever. It was an old and recognized principle
that the commercial relations of the neutral should not be interfered
with unless they worked positive injury to the belligerent. The
new application made the interests of neutral commerce the supreme
factor in determining how far belligerent rights should be respected.
The ship-building and carrying-trade of England were to be maintained
and encouraged at any cost to the belligerent. Under the old law,
a belligerent had the right to purchase a ship and a cargo, or a
neutral might run a blockade, taking all the risk of capture. By
the new construction, power was to be given to a belligerent to
transfer the entire administration of its naval service to foreign
soil, and to create and equip a navy which issued from foreign
waters, ready not for a dangerous journey to their own ports of
delivery, but for the immediate demonstration of hostile purpose.
No such absurd system can be found in the principles or precedents
of international law; no such system would be permitted by the
great powers of Europe if to-morrow they should engage in war.

The principle of this policy was essentially mercenary. It professed
no moral sense. It might be perfectly indifferent to the high or
the low issues which the contest between the belligerents involved;
it was deaf to any thing which might be urged by justice of humanity
or friendship; it was the cynical recognition of the truth of the
old proverb that "It is an ill wind which blows good to no one."
It was the same principle up