always have wished, as they
still wish, friendly relations with England, and no man in England or
America can desire it more strongly than I. This country has always
yearned for good relations with England. Thrice only in all its history
has that yearning been fairly met: in the days of Hampden and Cromwell,
again in the first ministry of the elder Pitt, and once again in the
ministry of Shelburne. Not that there have not at all times been just
men among the peers of Britain--like Halifax in the days of James the
Second, or a Granville, an Argyll, or a Houghton in ours; and we cannot
be indifferent to a country that produces statesmen like Cobden and
Bright; but the best bower anchor of peace was the working class of
England, who suffered most from our civil war, but who, while they
broke their diminished bread in sorrow, always encouraged us to
persevere.

The act of recognising the rebel belligerents was concerted with
France--France, so beloved in America, on which she had conferred the
greatest benefits that one people ever conferred on another; France,
which stands foremost on the continent of Europe for the solidity of
her culture, as well as for the bravery and generous impulses of her
sons; France, which for centuries had been moving steadily in her own
way towards intellectual and political freedom. The policy regarding
further colonization of America by European powers, known commonly as
the doctrine of Monroe, had its origin in France, and if it takes any
man's name, should bear the name of Turgot. It was adopted by Louis the
Sixteenth, in the cabinet of which Vergennes was the most important
member. It is emphatically the policy of France, to which, with
transient deviations, the Bourbons, the First Napoleon, the House of
Orleans have adhered.

The late President was perpetually harassed by rumors that the Emperor
Napoleon the Third desired formally to recognise the States in
rebellion as an independent power, and that England held him back by
her reluctance, or France by her traditions of freedom, or he himself
by his own better judgment and clear perception of events. But the
republic of Mexico, on our borders, was, like ourselves, distracted by
a rebellion, and from a similar cause. The monarchy of England had
fastened upon us slavery which did not disappear with independence; in
like manner, the ecclesiastical policy established by the Spanish
council of the Indies, in the days of Charles the Fifth and