ubmission imposed by an external military power, which at the moment,
and for five succeeding years, they were unable to resist. It is one
thing to deny the right of any number of independent communities to
join in a Customs Union; it is another to maintain the obligations
upon third parties of such a convention, when extorted by external
compulsion. Either action may be resisted, but means not permissible
in the one case may be justified in the other. In the European
situation the subjected states, by reason of their subjection,
disappeared as factors in diplomatic consideration. There remained
only their master Napoleon, with his momentary lieutenant the Czar,
and opposed to them Great Britain. "It is obvious," said the French
Minister of Foreign Affairs, Champagny, to Armstrong, "that his
Majesty _cannot permit_ to his allies a commerce which he denies to
himself. This would be at once to defeat his system and oppress his
subjects."[206] A few days later he wrote formally, "His Majesty
considered himself bound to _order_ reprisals on American vessels
_not only in his territory, but likewise in the countries which are
under his influence_,--Holland, Spain, Italy, Naples."[207] The
Emperor by strength of arms oppressed to their grievous injury those
who could not escape him; what should be the course of those whom he
could not reach, to whom was left the choice between actual resistance
and virtual co-operation? The two really independent states were Great
Britain and the United States. In the universal convulsion of
civilization, the case of the several nations recalls the law of
Solon, that in civil tumults the man who took neither side should be
disfranchised.

The United States chose neutrality, and expected that it would be
permitted her. She chose to overlook the interposition of Napoleon,
and to regard the exclusion laws, forced by him upon other states, as
instances of municipal regulation, incontestable when freely
exercised. Not only would she not go behind the superficial form, but
on technical grounds of international law she denied the right of
another to do so. Great Britain had no choice. She was compelled to
resistance; the question was as to methods. Direct military action was
impossible. The weapon used against her was commercial prohibition,
which meant eventual ruin, unless adequately parried by her own
action. From Europe no help was to be expected. If the United States
also decided so far to supp