"It is not our policy to intervene in the affairs of foreign nations to decide territorial questions between them." Mr. Frelinghuysen, Sec. of State, to Mr. Kasson, min. to Germany, No. 37, See, also, President Cleveland, annual message, Dec. 8, 1885, supra, § 42; January 9, 1884, the House of Representatives of the United States, having heard of the death of the German statesman, Dr. Edward Lasker, while on a visit to the United States, adopted a resolution declaring: "His loss is not alone to be mourned by the people of his native land, where his firm and constant exposition of and devotion to free and liberal ideas have materially advanced the social, political, and economic conditions of those people, but by the lovers of liberty throughout the world." It was further resolved that a copy of the resolutions should be forwarded to the family of the deceased, and another copy to the American minister at Berlin for communication to the presiding officer of the Reichstag, of which Dr. Lasker was a member. The resolutions were sent to Mr. Frelinghuysen, Secretary of State, by whom they were transmitted to Mr. Sargent, then American minister in Berlin. Mr. Sargent handed one copy to a brother of Dr. Lasker, and the other he sent to the German foreign office, with the request that it be communicated to the Reichstag. This step Prince Bismarck declined to take, on the ground that the opinion which was expressed in the resolutions, as to the advantageous results of Dr. Lasker's political course, was not in accordance with the facts as he viewed them. "I would not venture," said Prince Bismarck, "to oppose my judgment to that of an illustrious assembly like the House of Representatives of the United States, if I had not gained during an active participation in German internal politics of more than thirty years an experience which encourages me to attach also to my opinion a certain competency within these limits.” Prince Bismarck instructed the German minister at Washington to communicate these views to Mr. Frelinghuysen and also to leave with him, if he desired it, the engrossed copy of the resolutions. When the German minister carried out these instructions, Mr. Frelinghuysen stated that the President could not be supposed to have any wish as to what the German government might do in regard to the copy of the resolutions after it had decided not to transmit them to the body for which they were intended. The German minister observed that this reply relieved his government from the obligation to return the resolutions, and there the matter appears to have ended. Message of President Arthur to the House of Representatives, March 10, 1884, H. Ex. Doc. 113, 48 Cong. 1 sess. "At Cartagena, as at any other point in Colombia, not on the direct line of isthmian transit, the only question Bayard. presented for our consideration is the general one of the protection of the lives and property of citizens of the United States established there. Our right in this respect is of course neither more nor less than that of any other government whose citizens or subjects may be found at such points under similar circumstances. Interests of other nationalities than our own are understood to exist at Cartagena. Consequently no measure could be taken by forces of the United States for the protection of their citizens there, which we would not admit the perfect right of another government that of England, France, or Germany, for instance— to employ for the like protection of its subjects. "Generally speaking, persons who quit the shelter of their own flag to take up a voluntary residence in a foreign land do so at their own risk and subject to the vicissitudes of foreign invasion or domestic insurrection in the country where they cast their lot in common with the natives thereof. Their own government could not invade the country of their sojourn there to protect them from the consequences of war from without or from within, without committing a distinctly hostile act. Their rights are simply those of neutrals in a belligerent territory. "But where the place of their sojourn is a port open to the world's commerce, to which foreign vessels have a right to resort, the presence of war vessels of their nation is proper to protect the national shipping in port and the lives and property of neutral citizens on shore, from any injurious treatment contrary to the received international rules of warfare. Such war vessels may properly afford asylum to our own noncombatant citizens and moral protection to their interests within the limits of legitimate warfare, and extreme cases may be conceived where the supreme law of self-preservation may require more effective measures if the bounds of legitimate warfare be overpassed. In no event, however, should such measures amount to an intervention in the domestic disturbances of that country by aiding one belligerent against the other." Mr. Bayard, Sec. of State, to Mr. Whitney, Sec. of Navy, April 15, 1885, 155 MS. Dom. Let. 101. "At this late day, when, after more than a century of national existence, the policy of this nation has been manifested against aggrandizement by conquest and in favor of sustaining by example and counsel the independence of its neighbors, there would seem to be no occasion for denial of any designs on the part of the United States against the political independence and territorial integrity of the sovereign commonwealths which lie between our southern frontier and the Isthmus of Panama or elsewhere in the Western Hemisphere. The singleness and friendliness of our purposes toward them has been signally evidenced during the late occurrences on the Isthmus and in Central America; and every new proof of the growth among them of the forces of civilization, under the forms of consitiutional and popular government, is welcomed by this Gov ernment. "I should, however, be sorry if your remark that the people of the United States, considering the character and training of the Mexican people, do not think them a desirable accession to our population,' were to leave on the President's mind any impression that we disparage Spanish-American civilization by contrast with our own. Their efforts in the path of progress have been no less earnest, and, in view of the geographical and physical obstacles to be overcome, their success has been scarcely less marked than ours. No question of race contrast, especially with regard to the mixed races which preponderate in certain localities, can enter as a factor in our treatment of peoples to whom we are allied by so many ties of common advantages and political sympathy." Mr. Bayard, Sec. of State, to Mr. Roberts, min. to Chile, No. 3 (confid.), Blaine. November 9, 1891, Mr. Blaine, as Secretary of State, instructed the American minister at Rio de Janeiro to express the hope that Brazil would, in her domestic affairs, pursue a policy of wise moderation. This instruction had reference to the action of the President of Brazil in dissolving Congress and declaring martial law. The Brazilian government, November 15, 1891, instructed its minister at Washington to reply that moderation was "born in the character of the Brazilian people, in the sentiment and in the policy of its President, and has been practiced by his government. The President acknowledges with great satisfaction that in this instance, as in so many others, the two Republics find themselves in perfect accord. And you may add that the friendly advice would be chorished with the feelings worthy such a friend." For. Rel. 1891, 42, 51-52. "The rule of this government is to observe the most absolute impartiality in respect to questions arising between Day. its neighbors; to refrain from forming a judgment upon the merits of the mutual recriminations which may attend such disputes; to abstain from advising either party to the difference; and to exert mediatorial offices only when acceptable to both parties. "It is moreover an established rule of action with us to refrain from all appearance of union with other neutral powers looking to intervention or mediation in the affairs of disputing states. It is regretted that you did not recall this salutary rule, and find some discreet way of avoiding even the semblance of concerted action with your British colleague in the sense of advising Guatemala as to its treatment of the questions existing with Mexico. It would be doubly unfortunate if your utterances had left on the mind of the Guatemalan executive an impression that the government of the United States inclined to the Guatemalan view of Mexico's intentions and might even thwart by force a hostile act of Mexico growing out of the present strained situation. "This government, as the impartial friend of both Guatemala and Mexico, can not but deplore the tension which has arisen between them, and were the way open for our friendly action in a manner equally acceptable to both of them, we would gladly do what we properly might, in the same spirit of impartiality, to induce a friendly composition of their differences. This government conceives that it can only be useful toward such a result by maintaining, for itself and through its agencies, an attitude of unbiased reserve as to the merits of the points at issue. Were it to authorize such declarations as you appear to have made to President Cabrera, the maintenance of that neutral position would be impossible. "I am therefore constrained to disapprove and disavow your action." Mr. Day, Sec. of State, to Mr. Hunter, min. to Guatemala, No. 78, Sept. 16, 1898, MS. Inst. Cent. Am. XXI. 364, citing Mr. Adee, Act. Sec. of State, to Mr. Mizner, min. to Guatemala, No. 38, Sept. 19, 1889. McKinley. "This government has maintained an attitude of neutrality in the unfortunate contest between Great Britain and the Boer States of Africa. We have remained faithful to the precept of avoiding entangling alliances as to affairs not of our direct concern." Roosevelt. President McKinley, annual message, Dec. 5, 1899, For. Rel. 1899, xxii. "In asserting the Monroe doctrine, in taking such steps as we have taken in regard to Cuba, Venezuela, and Panama, and in endeavoring to circumscribe the theater of war in the Far East, and to secure the open door in China, we have acted in our own interest as well as in the interest of humanity at large. There are, however, cases in which, while our own interests are not greatly involved, strong appeal is made to our sympathies. Ordinarily it is very much wiser and more useful for us to concern ourselves with striving for our own moral and material betterment here at home than to concern ourselves with trying to better the condition of things in other nations. We have plenty of sins of our own to war against, and under ordinary circumstances we can do more for the general uplifting of humanity by striving with heart and soul to put a stop to civic corruption, to brutal lawlessness and violent race prejudices here at home than by passing resolutions about wrongdoing elsewhere. Nevertheless there are occasional crimes committed on so vast a scale and of such peculiar horror as to make us doubt whether it is not our manifest duty to endeavor at least to show our disapproval of the deed and our sympathy with those who have suffered by it. The cases must be extreme in which such a course is justifiable. There must be no effort made to remove the mote from our brother's eye if we refuse to remove the beam from our own. But in extreme cases action may be justifiable and proper. What form the action shall take must depend upon the circumstances of the case; that is, upon the degree of the atrocity and upon our power to remedy it. The cases in which we could interfere by force of arms as we interfered to put a stop to intolerable conditions in Cuba are necessarily very few. Yet it is not to be expected that a people like ours, which in spite of certain very obvious shortcomings, nevertheless as a whole shows by its consistent practice its belief in the principles of civil and religious liberty and of orderly freedom, a people among whom even the worst crime, like the crime of lynching, is never more than sporadic, so that individuals and not classes are molested in their fundamental rights-it is inevitable that such a nation should desire eagerly to give expression to its horror on an occasion like that of the massacre of the Jews in Kishenef, or when it witnesses such systematic and long-extended cruelty and oppression as the cruelty and oppression of which the Armenians have been the victims, and which have won for them the indignant pity of the civilized world." President Roosevelt, annual message, Dec. 6, 1904, For. Rel, 1904, xlii. (2) THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. $899. Genet, when he came to the United States in 1793, brought instructions to negotiate "a national agreement, in which two great peoples shall suspend their commercial and political interests, and establish a mutual understanding, to defend the empire of liberty, wherever it can be embraced; to guarantee the sovereignty of the people, and punish those powers who still keep up an exclusive colonial and commercial system, by declaring that their vessels shall not be received in the ports of the contracting parties." In a note of May 23, 1793, Genet proposed that the two peoples should by "a true family compact," establish a "commercial and political system," on a "liberal and fraternal basis." Washington had already, by his proclamation |