contingent upon the action of this Government is a subject for serious
reflection.

In determining the course to be adopted on the demand thus made for a
recognition of belligerency the liberal and peaceful principles adopted
by the Father of his Country and the eminent statesmen of his day, and
followed by succeeding Chief Magistrates and the men of their day, may
furnish a safe guide to those of us now charged with the direction and
control of the public safety.

From 1789 to 1815 the dominant thought of our statesmen was to keep
the United States out of the wars which were devastating Europe. The
discussion of measures of neutrality begins with the State papers of
Mr. Jefferson when Secretary of State. He shows that they are measures
of national right as well as of national duty; that misguided individual
citizens can not be tolerated in making war according to their own
caprice, passions, interests, or foreign sympathies; that the agents of
foreign governments, recognized or unrecognized, can not be permitted
to abuse our hospitality by usurping the functions of enlisting or
equipping military or naval forces within our territory. Washington
inaugurated the policy of neutrality and of absolute abstinence from
all foreign entangling alliances, which resulted, in 1794, in the first
municipal enactment for the observance of neutrality.

The duty of opposition to filibustering has been admitted by every
President. Washington encountered the efforts of Genèt and of the French
revolutionists; John Adams, the projects of Miranda; Jefferson, the
schemes of Aaron Burr. Madison and subsequent Presidents had to deal
with the question of foreign enlistment or equipment in the United
States, and since the days of John Quincy Adams it has been one of the