to regard one party as opposed or indifferent to my country's cause.

But from certain quarters it may be avowed, "Well, we acknowledge every
nation's sovereign right; we acknowledge it to be a law of nations that
no foreign power interfere in the affairs of another, and we are
determined to respect this common law of mankind; but if others do not
respect that law it is not ours to meddle with them." Let me answer by
an analysis:--_Every nation has the same interest in international,
law as a private individual has in the laws of his country_. That is
an acknowledged principle with your statesmen. What then is the latter
relation? Does it suffice that an individual do not himself violate the
law? Must he not so far as is in his power also prevent others from
violating the law? Suppose you see that a wicked man is about to rob--to
murder your neighbour, or to burn his house, will you wrap yourself in
your own virtuous lawfulness, and say, "I myself neither rob, nor
murder, nor burn; but what others do is not my concern. I am not my
brother's keeper. _I sympathize with him_; but I am not called on to
save him from being robbed, murdered, or burnt." What honest man of the
world would answer so? None of you. None of the people of the United
States, I am sure. That would be the damned maxim of the Pharisees of
old, who thanked God that they were not as others were. Our Saviour was
not content himself to avoid trading in the hall of the temple, but he
drove out those who were trading there.

The duty of enforcing observance to the common law of nations has no
other _limit_ than the power to fulfil it. Of course the republic
of St. Marino, or the Prince of Monaco, cannot stop the Czar of Russia
in his ambitious annoyance. It was ridiculous when the Prince of Modena
refused to recognize the government of Louis Philippe--"but to whom much
is given, from him will much be expected," says the Lord. Every