policy which the Government has been pursuing. Sur-
rounded by embarrassments without a parallel in our diplo-
matic history, the national honor has been maintained, and
our relations with foreign Powers, steadily and almost mi-
raculously preserved. The recognition of belligerent, rights
in the so-called "Confederate States," in violation of
international usuage, and the forcible occupation by France
of the territory of a sister republic, flagrant as both these
acts were admitted to be, and in either ease, justifying
what publicists might have regarded as a sufficient casus
belli, did not necessarily demand immediate action, by any
avowed insult to the national honor. In the midst of a gi-
gantic struggle, threatening the very existence of free govern-
ment, Mr. Seward saw that the time had not yet come to deal
with issues, scarcely less vital than those from which we have
only just escaped. The re-establishment of peace within our
borders, even at some sacrifice of the national pride, in such
a crisis, was the first dnty of the statesman. It would hardly
have been the dictate of common sense or eontmon prudence,
to have sought additional and unnecessary complications, in
the then perilous condition of our public affairs.
In reply to the Holy Alliance, in 1823, Mr. Monroe said,—
"We owe it, therefore, to candor and to the amicable rela-
tions existing between the United States and these powers,
to declare that we should consider any attempt on their part
to extend their system to any portion of this Hemisphere, as
dangerous to our peace and safety. "From that period to the
present, the public sentiment of the country has proclaimed
the doctrine of non-intervention in the affairs of tIns conti-
nent, with a unanimity scarcely admitting of question, in all
sections and with every party. With the close of the war,
Mr. Seward finds himself triumphantly sustained. Republi-
can Government has been forever guaranteed on this conti-
nent; our sister States have been again re-united; and the
American people are once more in a position to deal with the
miserable intrigues, which attempted to throw defiance in the
face of an approved National policy, from which we had
neither the niotive nor the inclination to recede. The power
of this Government, now happily re-established, will convey
a lesson of timely caution to the advocates of Absolute Gov-
eminent wherever to be found. The grandest of military
pageants has already startled the world. More than a million
of men, represented but proximately the strength of the
North, in bringing back the revolted States. A like number
of veteran troops, returned to their allegiance, stand ready
and eager to co-operate in support of the doctrine non-
intervention in the affairs of tins continent. A conflict upon
tIns point, we have no desire to precipitate. Come when it
may, Mexico will scarcely receive a shock in regaining her