4t6 harvard law review. pirates on the seas, — they or those, of whatever nationality, who joined them ; and we counted, on the part of Belgium, upon no such quahfication of our citizens in rebellion, whom we were engaged in submitting to the action of our laws." Belgium issued a proclamation similar to that of Prussia, and was thanked for it by our Minister.^ The points chiefly insisted upon by the government of the United States at this time seem to have been these : — First, there should be no haste in recognizing belligerency. Second, recognition should not be given in such a way as to influence the result of the contest. Third, recognition should go no further than the immediate occasion required. The course of the United States, as we have examined it, is entirely consistent with these contentions. In the first place, we have not recognized belligerency pre- maturely. We never recognized the belligerency of Greece, be-' cause the civil war in that country did not inconvenience us at all, or call for our interference. We recognized civil war in Canada when our own soil was invaded ; and we recognized the belliger- ency of Spanish America, eight years after it was a fact, when our ocean commerce became involved in the contest, which was largely naval. In the second place, our recognition has not been given in such a way as to afl'ect the result of the contest. The policy of allow- ing other people, even those of this continent, to settle their consti- tutions for themselves has been adhered to by the' United States, no matter how great our interest in the result of the decision. We have constantly refused to take measures for securing the prevalence of our own ideas of government, even in those parts of America nearest to us. As President Grant said, at the time of the Cuban insurrection of 1869, "The United States have no dis- position to interfere with the existing relations of Spain to her colonial possessions on this continent."^ Third, our recognition has gone no further than the immediate occasion required. One of the most offensive parts of the Queen's 1 51 Br. & For. St. Pap. 76, 77. 2 Message of 1869, Wharton's Dig. of Intern. Law, vol. i. p. 383. See to the same effect Secretary Van Buren (1829), ib. p. 175; President Jackson (1836), 24th Cong. 2d Sess., Sen. Doc. No. 20; Secretary Webster (1842), Whart. Dig., vol. i. p. 177; Secretary Everett (1852), ib. p. 379; Secretary Seward (1864), i^- P- 184.
