If they are not regarded as belligerents, then is the proceeding of Captain Wilkes indubitably illegal and void.

This flagrant instance cannot be a precedent for the United States, which has maintained the right of asylum as firmly always as it has rejected the pretension of impressment.

The seizure of the Rebel emissaries on board a neutral ship cannot be justified, according to declared American principles and practice.

Prison-doors are opened; but principles are established which will help to free other men, and to open the gates of the sea.

Novus sæclôrum nascitur ordo.” To the liberties of the sea this power is at last committed.

Thus is the freedom of the sea enlarged in the name of peaceful neutral rights, not only by limiting the number of persons exposed to the penalties of war, but by driving from it the most offensive pretension that ever stalked upon its…

Farewell to kidnapping and man-stealing on the ocean!

The consideration is ample; for the sea became free as this altered power went forth, steering westward with the sun, on an errand of liberation.

In this surrender, if such it may be called, the National Government does not even “stoop to conquer.” It simply lifts itself to the height of its own original principles.

The early efforts of its best negotiators, the patriot trials of its soldiers in an unequal war, at length prevail, and Great Britain, usually so haughty, invites us to practise upon principles which she has so strenuously opposed.

There are victories of force: here is a victory of truth.

If Great Britain has gained the custody of two Rebels, the United States have secured the triumph of their principles.

The sea-god will in future use his trident less; but the same principles which led to the present renunciation of early pretensions naturally conduct to yet further emancipation of the sea.

Let it be made, also, that the country and mankind may see how Slavery in all its influences is barbarous,--barbarous in peace, barbarous in war, barbarous always, and nothing but barbarism.

And here the two nations, equally endowed by commerce, and matched together, while surpassing all others, in peaceful ships, may gloriously unite in setting up new pillars, to mark new triumphs, rendering the ocean a highway of peace…

No change can be practicable which is not equal in advantage to all nations; for the Equality of Nations is not a dry dogma merely of International Law, but a vital sentiment common to all.

I refer to that unjust statute making colored persons incompetent to testify, where a white is a party.

A simple proposition, assuring private property on the ocean the same immunity it now enjoys on land, will at once abolish privateering, and relieve commerce on the ocean from its greatest perils, so that, like commerce on land, it will be…

Blockade may be called the elephant of naval warfare, as destructive, often, to friends as to foes.

So palpable is this becoming, that it is doubtful if neutrals will much longer allow such backhanded agency, smiting the innocent as well as the guilty, to continue under sanction of International Law.

Such a change, just in proportion to its accomplishment, will be a blessing to mankind, inconceivable in grandeur.

The statutes of the sea, thus refined and elevated, will be agents of peace instead of agents of war.

Ships and cargoes will pass unchallenged from shore to shore, and those terrible belligerent rights under which the commerce of the world has so long suffered will cease from troubling.

And now, behold, this champion of belligerent rights has “changed his hand and checked his pride.” Welcome to the new-found alliance!

Let us at all hazards prevent the extension of Slavery and the increase of the Slave Power.