Municipal Law is violated, while International Law, in its most solemn obligation to do unto others as we would have them do unto us, is treated as the merest nullity.

Eminent British functionaries, in Court and Parliament, vindicate the naval expeditions which in the name of Slavery are unleashed against a friendly power.

But, in God’s name, let it not come on in the paltry, pettifogging way of fitting out ships in our harbors to cruise for gain.

It is an organized force, and the nation sending it forth makes itself a party to the war,--all of which England has done.

Thus are the obligations of reciprocal service and good-will openly discarded, while our public conduct, as well in the past as the present, is openly misrepresented.

Taken in conjunction with the rule, “Once free, always free,” they establish the impossibility of any surrender to belligerent Slavery in the Union.

Even if the President were not in simple honesty bound to maintain this Proclamation according to the letter, he has not the power to undo it.

The President may make a freeman, but he cannot make a slave.

Therefore must he reject all surrender inconsistent with this Act of Emancipation.

Such an elaborate evasion may be effectual against a Parliamentary statute, but it must be impotent against a demand upon the British Government, according to the principles of International Law; for this law looks always at substance, and…

And now it is her original interpretation, first made to take compensation from us, which is flatly rejected when we ask compensation from her.

Even if the responsibility for a hostile expedition fitted out in British ports were not plain, there is something in the recent conduct of the British Government calculated to remove all doubt.

The act of declension is positive, and its consequences are no less positive, fixing beyond question the responsibility of the British Government for these criminal expeditions.

My present object is accomplished, if I make you see which way danger lies.

Nor is there any sympathy with the national championship against Rebel Slavery, nor even one word of mildest dissent from the miscreant apocalypse preached in its behalf.

Hard, curt, captious, cynical, it evinces indifference to that kindly intercourse which nations ought to cultivate with each other, and which should be the study of a wise statesmanship.

But I can well understand that a Secretary conceding belligerent rights to Rebel Slavery so easily, and then so easily permitting its ships to sally forth for piracy, would be very indifferent to the tone of what he wrote.

And yet, even outrage may be soothed or softened by gentle words; but none such come out of British diplomacy to us.

And believe me, fellow-citizens, I say these things with sorrow unspeakable, and only in discharge of my duty, when, face to face, I meet you to consider the aspects of our affairs abroad.

It is plain to all who have not forgotten history, that England never can be guilty of such recognition without unpardonable apostasy; nor can she intervene by way of mediation, except in the interests of Freedom.

For the present we are left free to wage the battle against Slavery without any such intervention in arrest of the national efforts.

But, in spite of these things, it is too apparent that the Emperor has taken sides against us in at least four important public acts, positively, plainly, offensively.

But, God be praised, their joint act, though capable of giving brief vitality to Slavery on pirate decks, is impotent to confirm the intolerable pretension.

It is obvious that this imperial invasion, though only indirectly against us, would not have been made, if our convulsions had not left the door of the Continent ajar, so that foreign powers may bravely enter in.

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