e
of the rich man, and that the duty of stopping the evil rests upon
them, what is to be done with such a case of conscience? Could the
decision of another, whether nation or court, excuse our nation from
the ultimate responsibility of its own decision? But, granting that it
might have proved expedient to call in other judges, when we had full
knowledge of the circumstances, what would have been our dilemma if,
conscience commanding one course, we had found ourselves antecedently
bound to abide by the conclusions of another arbiter? For let us not
deceive ourselves. Absolutely justifiable, nay, imperative, as most of
us believe our action to have been, when tried at the bar of
conscience, no arbitral court, acceptable to the two nations, would
have decided as our own conscience did. A European diplomatist of
distinguished reputation, of a small nation likeliest to be unbiassed,
so said to me personally, and it is known that more than one of our
own ablest international lawyers held that we were acting in defiance
of international law as it now exists; just as the men who resisted
the Fugitive Slave Law acted in defiance of the statute law of the
land. Decision must have gone against us, so these men think, on the
legal merits of the case. Of the moral question the arbiter could take
no account; it is not there, indeed, that moral questions must find
their solution, but in the court of conscience. Referred to
arbitration, doubtless the Spanish flag would still fly over Cuba.

There is unquestionably a higher law than Law, concerning obedience to
which no other than the man himself, or the state, can give account to
Him that shall judge. The freedom of the conscience may be fettered or
signed away by him who owes to it allegiance, yet its supremacy,
though thus disavowed, cannot be overthrown. The Conference at The
Hague has facilitated future recourse to arbitration, by providing
means through which, a case arising, a court is more easily
constituted, and rules governing its procedure are ready to hand; but
it has refrained from any engagements binding states to have recourse
to the tribunal thus created. The responsibility of the state to its
own conscience remains unimpeached and independent. The progress thus
made and thus limited is to a halting place, at which, whether well
chosen or not, the nations must perforce stop for a time; and it will
be wise to employ that time in considering the bearings, alike of that
wh