Chivalry does not govern international relations even at the present day, and in 1845 sentiment was perhaps less tender on the subject than it now is. Vattel, the recognized authority on the law of nations, wrote thus: "Every nation . . . has, therefore, a right. . . to preserve herself from all injuries . . . When the evil is done, the same right to security authorizes the offended party to endeavour to obtain a complete reparation, and to employ force for that purpose, if necessary."[1]
Moreover, the United States could appeal, not only to strict law, but still more forcibly to broad equity. To sum up the case in one sentence, Mexico, our next neighbor, on no grounds that could be recognized by the United States, repudiated her treaties with us, ended official relations, aimed to prevent commercial intercourse, planned to deprive us of all influence on certain — issues vitally connected with our declared foreign policy, seemed likely to sell California to some European rival of ours, made it impossible for us to urge long-standing claims or watch over citizens dwelling within her borders, refused to pay even her admitted debts to us, claimed the privilege of applying to our government publicly the most opprobrious epithets in the vocabulary of nations, designed to keep our people in a constant state of uncertainty and alarm, intended to cause us the expense of maintaining for defensive purposes a large army and a large navy, planned to destroy our commerce by commissioning privateers, claimed the right to harry Texas, a part of the Union, at will, threatened and prepared for war, and proposed to assume such an attitude that. whenever encouraged by foreign support or any other circumstances. she could open fire upon us without even giving notice. She had informed the world that it was her privilege to keep on harrying Texas from generation to generation; and on a broader scale, but in a manner precisely analogous, it was now proposed to hang upon the flank of the United States. Foreign mediation could not be invoked, for all the American states were naturally supposed to be prejudiced, and it was contrary to our interest and avowed policy to allow European intervention in the affairs of this continent; and no end of what had become truly an intolerable state of affairs could be seen, for Mexico declared she would never give up her pretensions
- ↑ 33
