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 recognition to prey upon our commerce. The two cases are wide asunder, and they are distinguished by two different phrases of the Common Law. 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. There must be equity, which is justice without technicality.
Sometimes there are whispers of territorial compensation, and Canada is named as the consideration. But he knows England little, and little also of that great English liberty from Magna Charta to the Somerset case, who supposes that this nation could undertake any such transfer. And he knows our country little, and little also of that great liberty which is ours, who supposes that we could receive such a transfer. On each side there is impossibility. Territory may be conveyed, but not a people. I allude to this suggestion only because, appearing in the public press, it has been answered from England.
But the United States can never be indifferent to Canada, nor to the other British provinces, near neighbors and kindred. It is well known historically, that, even before the Declaration of Independence, our fathers hoped that Canada would take part with them. Washington was strong in this hope; so was Franklin. The Continental Congress, by solemn resolution, invited Canada, and then appointed a Commission, with Benjamin Franklin at its head, “to form an Union between the United Colonies and the people of Canada.” In the careful instructions of the Congress, signed in their behalf by John Hancock, President, the Commissioners are, among other things, enjoined “in the strongest terms to assure the people of Canada that it is our earnest desire to adopt them into our Union as a sister Colony, and to secure the same general system of mild and equal laws for them and for ourselves, with only such local differences as may be agreeable to each Colony respectively”; and further, that in the judgment of the Congress “their interest and ours are inseparably united.”[112]