happen to stand, and the duties of which they are thereby made capable. That war is sometimes justifiable, and even necessary, cannot be denied, but in a proper case it is perfectly consistent with the principles of justice, and the requirements of sound morality. A government must take into its own hands not only self-defence but self-assertion, the redress as well as the prevention of injuries, because there is not, as in the case of the citizen, a higher or common authority to appeal to. Morality would justify the same course by the individual, if society was unable to provide a legal remedy for the invasion of civil rights. It is only because such redress exists and is maintained for the preservation of the public peace that a man is precluded from regaining by force the property which has been wrongfully taken from him, abating by the strong hand the intolerable nuisance, and enforcing in like manner the fulfilment of just contracts and the protection of proper relations.

In short, the difference between the moral rights and duties of nations and those of individuals is only in degree, and not in kind. It may be declared as the fundamental principle in all law that finds assent and support among the race to which we belong that it is based upon and exists for the principal purpose of applying the acknowledged principles of moral justice, so far as through general rules and established methods of procedure they can be made practically effectual, to the course of personal and national conduct. It is upon this foundation alone that what has the force of law can rest. And no man ever yet obtained a clear idea of it who attempted to deduce its sanction from the maze of metaphysical speculation, or who failed

to comprehend that law among a free people must have something else to stand upon besides positive authority, and must be inspired by a controlling and animating spirit, that has sway over the reason and the conscience of men. The days of arbitrary power in state, in church, or in rulers have passed away, so far as we are concerned, to be seen no more.

The rules of international usage form no exception to this proposition. They have derived their greatest assistance from those countries where the free common law prevails They have constantly approached in their growth and development the precepts of sound morality. Conceptions of natural justice have themselves been greatly advanced, and international justice has nearly kept pace with them. Almost the single conspicuous blot now left on the pages of international usage is found in the rule that subjects private property at sea, not contraband, to capture by an enemy in time of war. That remains an anomaly inconsistent with modern principles. It was the object of the Declaration of Paris to put an end to it. And though that attempt failed to obtain the full concurrence of maritime nations, its success was only postponed, not lost. Enlightened public sentiment must ultimately insure it. It is much to be regretted that the failure of the proposal was owing to the refusal of our own government to assent to it.

But it is less with abstract principles that I care to deal to-day than with that immediate view of the subject of international relations which belongs to our own country and our own time. During almost all the first century of the independent history of

America these relations have been of only occasional and limited importance. Far remote from the theatre of European diplomacy, with no invasion to fear, no balance of power to consider, no monarchical intrigues to be drawn into, and few foreign interests to protect, it has been at rare intervals that we have had much to do with other countries, except for the interchange of courtesies, the promotion of trade, or the gratification of curiosity. We have had nothing to fear and little to gain from them, and our country has become the unlimited asylum for the overflow of their people, to such an extent that we are in danger of losing our own nationality.

But those halcyon days of international independence have now gone by. A great change has come over the face of the world, and over our own situation. We have joined the Atlantic to the Pacific. Our population, our industries, our interests, our intercourse with the outside world have enormously increased. Steam-power, the telegraph, invention, competition, and the restless enterprise of the age have brought foreign countries to our door, and have carried us to theirs. Our people, with tireless and irrepressible footstep, overspread the world, and create everywhere new relations, new engagements, and new enterprises. Within a very short time we have been drawn into the discussion of grave and important questions, involving considerable and fast-growing interests: with Great Britain, touching the fisheries of Canada, the seal catching of the Behring Sea, the vague and undetermined boundaries of Alaska; with Germany, concerning the Samoan Islands; with France and Central America, about the Panama Canals; with South Amer

ican governments, with Mexico, with Hayti, with China; and we have become charged with the protection of our citizens and their property in all known countries of the earth. Questions of this sort are usually difficult and delicate. To know precisely what our rights are is not always easy; to maintain them successfully is often harder. I allude to them only to illustrate my remark as to the growing importance of the subject.

It must be plain to the thoughtful observer that henceforth the variety, the intricacy, the magnitude of our foreign affairs, already considerable, must continually increase. To understand and administer them correctly, to protect the rights involved, to keep the national honor untarnished, and at the same time to avoid the embarrassment and injury of strained and interrupted relations, and the calamities of actual / war, which, like disease and death, come usually when least expected, and may arise out of small immediate causes when the way has been prepared by mutual irritation and misunderstanding-this is to be in the future one of the largest, perhaps the very largest, of the functions of American government.

The time has come when, as it appears to me, we need to have established a distinctive, definite, wise, firm, and, above all, a consistent American policy in international concerns. Not one that is taken up and laid down hap-hazard, or that shifts and veers about with the exigencies of politics, the changes of party, or the competence or incompetence of temporary officials. Changing hands so often as our government does, we can have nothing worthy the name of a foreign policy, nothing that will either be respected

abroad or effectual for its purpose, unless by the establishment of principles, of traditions, of modes of procedure such as shall stand the test of experience and the criticism of mankind, and that shall pass on unimpaired from administration to administration, from party to party, the common property of all, the inheritance of each from its predecessor. The changes of party do not affect the construction of the Constitution. That goes on irrespective of politics, uniform, consistent, permanent. It underlies all questions of government, a common and unchangeable foundation.

Such a policy, as I think wise and thoughtful men will agree, should have for its basis the opposite of the theory set forth by Lord Lytton. It should be founded in the highest morality and justice. It should prefer the right to the expedient, or, rather should find in the right what is always in the end the expedient. It should be neither aggressive, nor offensive, nor hasty, but fair towards others, as well as just towards ourselves, invading no right that we would not ourselves surrender, establishing no precedent that we might afterwards wish to evade. It should be the policy, so far as consistent with the national honor, of peace, of conciliation, dignity, and forbearance, free from the cheap braggadocio by which the applause of the mob is sometimes purchased, setting up no claims that we are not prepared to maintain, making no demand that we do not expect to insist upon. It is the great and powerful nation that can best afford to be just, and more than just, to be generous. But, on the other hand, upon the line thus deliberately adopted, the stand should