peachment of the
good faith of a power which was professing the most friendly
dispositions, but as involving questions of public law of which the
settlement is essential to the peace of nations; and though pecuniary
reparation to their injured citizens would have followed incidentally
on a decision against Great Britain, such compensation was not their
primary object. They had a higher motive, and it was in the interests of
peace and justice to establish important principles of international
law. The correspondence will be placed before you. The ground on which
the British minister rests his justification is, substantially, that the
municipal law of a nation and the domestic interpretations of that law
are the measure of its duty as a neutral, and I feel bound to declare my
opinion before you and before the world that that justification can not
be sustained before the tribunal of nations. At the same time, I do not
advise to any present attempt at redress by acts of legislation. For the
future, friendship between the two countries must rest on the basis of
mutual justice.

From the moment of the establishment of our free Constitution the
civilized world has been convulsed by revolutions in the interests of
democracy or of monarchy, but through all those revolutions the United
States have wisely and firmly refused to become propagandists of
republicanism. It is the only government suited to our condition; but
we have never sought to impose it on others, and we have consistently
followed the advice of Washington to recommend it only by the careful
preservation and prudent use of the blessing. During all the intervening
period the policy of European powers and of the United States has, on
the whole, been harmonious. Twice, indeed, rumors of the invasion of
some parts of America in the interest of monarchy have prevailed; twice
my predecessors have had occasion to announce the views of this nation
in respect to such interference. On both occasions the remonstrance of
the United States was respected from a deep conviction on the part of
European Governments that the system of noninterference and mutual
abstinence from propagandism was the true rule for the two hemispheres.
Since those times we have advanced in wealth and power, but we retain
the same purpose to leave the nations of Europe to choose their own
dynasties and form their own systems of government. This consistent
moderation may justly demand a corresponding moder