Allow me to ask, are the United States interested in the laws of nations? can they permit any interpolation in the code of these laws without their consent?  I am told by some that America had best not intermeddle with European politics, and that you have always avoided to meddle with them.  But it is not so.  Those who make this assertion forget history—­they forget that the United States have always claimed and asserted the right to have their competent weight and authority about the maritime law of nations—­it was one of your Presidents who held this emphatic language to the Potentates of Europe: 

“We cannot consent to interpolations in the maritime code of nations at the mere will and pleasure of other Governments—­we deny the right of any such interpolation, to any one or all the nations of the earth without our consent—­we claim to have a voice in all alterations of that code.”

Thus spoke the United States, at a time when they were not yet so powerful as they are now.  And they thus spoke not for themselves only, but for all the nations on earth.  And to what purpose did they speak these words so full of dignity and full of effect?  For the maintenance of the laws of nations, or one part of them, the maritime code.  Dauntless and full of resolution, they alone vindicated natural rights for every nation on earth, while Europe sacrificed them. They vindicated for every nation the proud motto they have emblazoned on their banner—­“Free Trade and Sailors’ Rights,” and free ships and free goods: 

Now who can any longer charge me that I advance a new policy, with that precedent before your eyes?  Would you be willing to resign, now that you are powerful, in respect to other parts of the laws of nations, that which you have boldly taken in respect to one part of them, when you were yet comparatively weak?  Or would you do less for the end than you have done for the means?

The maritime part of the international code is no end, but only a means to an end.  No ship takes sail for the purpose merely of sailing on the ocean, but for the purpose of arriving somewhere.  The ocean is but the highway, and not the intended terminus.  Russian intervention in Hungary has blocked up your terminus:  and the maritime code would be of no avail, if the other provisions of international law are to be still blotted out from the code of nations by Russian ambition.  Let the slightest eruption of the political volcano in Europe take place, and you will see.  You might have seen already during our past struggle, that your proud principle of “free ships, free goods” is a mere mockery unless the other parts of the laws of nations are also maintained.

That is what I claim from the young and dauntless nation of America.  I claim that she shall not abandon that position in the proud days of her power, which she so boldly took in the days of her feebleness.  Or are you already declining?  Has your prodigious prosperity weakened instead of strengthening your nation’s nerves?  So young! and a Republic! and already declining! when its opposing principle, Russia, rises so boldly and so high!  Oh, no!  God forbid!  That would be a sorrowful sight, fraught with the grief of centuries for all humanity!