party has prevailed and obtained possession of the ports open to foreign
commerce, they have seized and confiscated American vessels and their
cargoes in an arbitrary and lawless manner and exacted money from
American citizens by forced loans and other violent proceedings to
enable them to carry on hostilities. The executive governments of Great
Britain, France, and other countries, possessing the war-making power,
can promptly employ the necessary means to enforce immediate redress for
similar outrages upon their subjects. Not so the executive government
of the United States.

If the President orders a vessel of war to any of these ports to demand
prompt redress for outrages committed, the offending parties are
well aware that in case of refusal the commander can do no more than
remonstrate. He can resort to no hostile act. The question must then be
referred to diplomacy, and in many cases adequate redress can never be
obtained. Thus American citizens are deprived of the same protection
under the flag of their country which the subjects of other nations
enjoy. The remedy for this state of things can only be supplied by
Congress, since the Constitution has confided to that body alone the
power to make war. Without the authority of Congress the Executive can
not lawfully direct any force, however near it may be to the scene of
difficulty, to enter the territory of Mexico, Nicaragua, or New Granada
for the purpose of defending the persons and property of American
citizens, even though they may be violently assailed whilst passing in
peaceful transit over the Tehuantepec, Nicaragua, or Panama routes. He
can not, without transcending his constitutional power, direct a gun to
be fired into a port or land a seaman or marine to protect the lives
of our countrymen on shore or to obtain redress for a recent outrage
on their property. The banditti which infest our neighboring Republic
of Mexico, always claiming to belong to one or other of the hostile
parties, might make a sudden descent on Vera Cruz or on the Tehuantepec
route, and he would have no power to employ the force on shipboard in
the vicinity for their relief, either to prevent the plunder of our
merchants or the destruction of the transit.

In reference to countries where the local authorities are strong
enough to enforce the laws, the difficulty here indicated can seldom
happen; but where this is not the case and the local authorities do not
possess the physical po