Some will tell you that the condition of Europe is critical; that our own relations with certain countries are delicate, and that it is expedient to temporize. In the first place, judging from my own observations, I do not believe there is any of the much-talked-of temporizing spirit about all this compliance, but that in most of the cases in which the agents of the government disown the distinguishing principles of the institutions (and these cases have got to be so numerous as to attract general attention, and to become the subject of sneering newspaper comments) it is "out of the fulness of the heart that the mouth speaketh." But, allowing that the first position is true, and that these gentlemen actually acquiesce for the sake of quiet, and with a view to advance what they conceive to be the interests of America, I shall maintain that the course is to the last degree impolitic and unworthy. Our motto is to "ask nothing but what is right, and to submit to nothing that is wrong." Apart from the sound morality of this sentiment, the wisdom of Solomon could not better express the true policy of a nation situated like our own. It can hardly be pretended, that the "right" for which we ask ought to be purchased at the disgraceful price of abandoning the truth. This would be truly bargaining away a better right for another of less value. These gentlemen of expedients may beat their brains as much as they please, they will never invent any means so simple, and so sure of attaining the great ends included in the political maxim just quoted, as by adhering to the plain, direct dictates of common honesty. Each trifling temporary advantage they may gain, will certainly and speedily be met by some contingent disadvantage, that will render them losers by the exchange.[27] [Footnote 27: As respects France, the result has shown the impolicy of the temporizing system. The French Government, finding such a disposition to compliance in the agents that were placed near it, by America, has quite reasonably inferred that the mass at home acted on the same temporizing and selfish policy, and has treated a solemn compact, that contains a tardy and very insufficient reparation, for some of the greatest outrages that were ever committed by one civilized nation on the rights of another, as a matter quite within its own control. This consequence was foreseen by the writer, and foretold, in a letter that was written in 1832, and published as far back as the year 1833. It was only necessary to be on the spot, and to witness the contempt and indifference engendered by this miserable policy, to predict the events which have since occurred. The accidental situation of Europe has favoured us, and we owe the tardy reparation that has been received more to Russia than to ourselves.]