powers calls for the definition of their relations to the parties to
the contest. Considered as a question of expediency, I regard the
accordance of belligerent rights still to be as unwise and premature
as I regard it to be, at present, indefensible as a measure of right.
Such recognition entails upon the country according the rights which
flow from it difficult and complicated duties, and requires the
exaction from the contending parties of the strict observance of their
rights and obligations. It confers the right of search upon the high
seas by vessels of both parties; it would subject the carrying of arms
and munitions of war, which now may be transported freely and without
interruption in the vessels of the United States, to detention and to
possible seizure; it would give rise to countless vexatious questions,
would release the parent Government from responsibility for acts done
by the insurgents, and would invest Spain with the right to exercise
the supervision recognized by our treaty of 1795 over our commerce on
the high seas, a very large part of which, in its traffic between the
Atlantic and the Gulf States and between all of them and the States on
the Pacific, passes through the waters which wash the shores of Cuba.
The exercise of this supervision could scarce fail to lead, if not to
abuses, certainly to collisions perilous to the peaceful relations
of the two States. There can be little doubt to what result such
supervision would before long draw this nation. It would be unworthy
of the United States to inaugurate the possibilities of such result by
measures of questionable right or expediency or by any indirection.


Turning to the practical aspects of a recognition of belligerency
and reviewing its inconveniences and positive dangers, still further
pertinent considerations appear. In the code of nations there is no
such thing as a naked recognition of belligerency, unaccompanied by the