great deal
of talk about territorial rights, and independence, and of state
rights. But, in a question of that kind, other nations do not look
much to your state rights nor to your independence questions. They
will not talk of your independence; but they will say who is right,
and who is wrong. Who struck the first blow? I take it, will be the
main question with them. I take it that in the late affair the
Caroline was in hostile array against the British government, and
that the parties concerned in it were employed in acts of war
against it; and I do not subscribe to the very learned opinion of
the Chief Justice of the State of New York (not, I hear, the Chief
Justice, but a Judge of the Supreme Court of that state), that there
was no act of war committed. Nor do I subscribe to it that every
nation goes to war only on issuing a declaration or proclamation of
war. This is not the fact. Nations often wage war for years without
issuing any declaration of war. The question is here not upon a
declaration of war, but acts of war. And I say that, in the
judgment of all impartial men of other nations, _we_ shall be held
as a nation responsible; that the Caroline there was in a state of
war against Great Britain; for purposes of war, and the worst kind
of war,--to sustain an insurrection--I will not say rebellion,
because rebellion is a crime, and because I heard them talked of as
'patriots.' Yes; and I have heard, in the course of the discussion
here, these patriots represented as carrying on a righteous cause,
and that we ought to have assisted them; that we ought to have
given them that assistance that a nation fighting for its liberty
is entitled to from the generosity of other nations. Well, admit
that merely for a moment. If we were bound to do it, we were bound
to do it avowedly and above-board. But we disclaimed all intention
of taking any part in it; and yet there was very little disguise
about this expedition, and that this vessel was there for the
purposes of hostility against the Canadian government. I say,
therefore, that we struck the first blow; and if, instead of
pressing this matter to a war, we were to refer it to a third
power, even if it should be to a European republic,--if any such
thing is remaining,--and should say there had been an invasion of
our territory, they