On this head I content myself with the aspiration that out of this surpassing wrong, and the controversy it has engendered, may come some enduring safeguard for the future, some landmark of Humanity.

Then will our losses end in gain for all, while the Law of Nations is elevated.

But I have little hope of any adequate settlement, until our case, in its full extent, is heard.

In all controversies the first stage of justice is to understand the case; and sooner or later England must understand ours.

The English arguments, so far as argument can be found in the recent heats, have not in any respect impaired the justice of our complaint.

Loudly it is said that there can be no sentimental damages, or damages for wounded feelings; and then our case is dismissed, as having nothing but this foundation.

Now, without undertaking to say that there is no remedy in the case supposed, I wish it understood that our complaint is for damages traced directly to England.

If the amount is unprecedented, so also is the wrong.

In view of this transcendent wrong, it is a disparagement of International Law to say that there is no remedy.

An eminent English judge once pronounced from the bench that “the law is astute to find a remedy”; but no astuteness is required in this case,--nothing but simple justice, which is always the object of a true diplomacy.

Because the damages are national, because all suffered instead of one, this is no reason for immunity on her part.

We trace no damages to them, nor to any class, high or low, but to England, corporate England, through whose Government we suffered.

Then, again, it is said, “Why not exhibit an account against France?” For the good reason, that, while France erred with England in recognition of Rebel belligerence, no pirate ships or blockade-runners were built under shelter of this…

The recognition of Rebel belligerence in France was wrong without injury; but that same recognition in England was wrong with injury, and it is of this unquestionable injury that we complain.

Fellow-citizens, it cannot be doubted that this great question, so long as it continues pending, will be a cloud always upon the relations of two friendly powers, when there should be sunshine.

Good men on both sides should desire its settlement, and in such way as most to promote good-will, and make the best precedent for civilization.

But there can be no good-will without justice, nor can any “snap judgment” establish any rule for the future.

Nothing will do now but a full inquiry, without limitation or technicality, and a candid acceptance of the result.

But the United States can never be indifferent to Canada, nor to the other British provinces, near neighbors and kindred.

But the invitation survives, not only in the archives of our history, but in all American hearts, constant and continuing as when first issued, believing, as we do, that such a union, in the fulness of time, with the good-will of the…

I agree with you that Nature has decided that Canada and the United States must become one for all purposes of intercommunication.

All men have the same rational nature and the same powers of conscience, and all are equally made for indefinite improvement of these divine faculties, and for the happiness to be found in their virtuous use.

Happily, Slavery no longer exists to disturb the peace of our Republic; but it is not yet dead in other lands, while among us the impious pretension of this great wrong still survives against the African because he is black and against the…

Here is nothing less than the claim of hereditary power from color; and it assumes that human beings cast in the same mould with ourselves, and in all respects men, with the same title of manhood that we have, may be shut out from Equal…

But my present purpose is rather to show how inconsistent it is with that sublime truth, being part of God’s law for the government of the world, which teaches the Unity of the Human Family, and its final harmony on earth.