e proposed. In the first view, if every measure that
a Government having claims on another declares it must pursue if those
claims are not allowed (whatever may be the terms employed) is a menace,
it is necessary, and not objectionable unless couched in offensive
language; it is a fair declaration of what course the party making it
intends to pursue, and except in cases where pretexts were wanted for
a rupture have rarely been objected to, even when avowedly the act of
the nation, not, as in this case, a proposal made by one branch of its
Government to another. Instances of this are not wanting, but need not
be here enumerated. One, however, ought to be mentioned, because it is
intimately connected with the subject now under discussion. While the
commerce of the United States was suffering under the aggressions of the
two most powerful nations of the world the American Government, in this
sense of the word, menaced them both. It passed a law in express terms
declaring to them that unless they ceased their aggressions America
would hold no intercourse with them; that their ships would be seized if
they ventured into American ports; that the productions of their soil or
industry should be forfeited. Here was an undisguised menace in clear,
unequivocal terms, and of course, according to the argument against
which I contend, neither France nor England could deliberate under its
pressure without dishonor. Yet the Emperor of France, certainly an
unexceptionable judge of what the dignity of his country required, did
deliberate, did accept the condition, did repeal the Berlin and Milan
decrees, did not make any complaint of the act as a threat, though he
called it an injury. Great Britain, too, although at that time on not
very friendly terms with the United States, made no complaint that her
pride was offended. Her minister on the spot even made a declaration
that the obnoxious orders were repealed. It is true he was disavowed,
but the disavowal was accompanied by no objections to the law as a
threat. Should the objection be to the nature of the remedy proposed,
and that the recommendation of reprisals is the offensive part, it would
be easy to show that it stands on the same ground with any other remedy;
that it is not hostile in its nature; that it has been resorted to by
France to procure redress from other powers, and by them against her,
without producing war. But such an argument is not necessary. This is
not the case of a