The full lesson may be summed up briefly. All intervention in the internal affairs of another nation is contrary to law and reason, and can be vindicated only by overruling necessity. Intervening by war, then must there be the necessity of self-defence. Intervening by mediation or intercession, then must you be able to speak in behalf of civilization endangered or human nature wronged. To this humane policy no power is bound so absolutely as England; especially is none so fixed, beyond possibility of retreat or change, in hostility to Slavery, whatever shape this criminal pretension may assume, whether the animating principle of a nation, the “forced labor” of a multitude, or even the service of a solitary domestic. III. There is a species of foreign intervention which stands by itself and has its own illustrations. Therefore I speak of it by itself. It is where a foreign power undertakes to acknowledge the independence of a colony or province renouncing its original allegiance, and it may be compendiously called _Intervention by Recognition_. Recognition is strictly applicable only to the act of the original government, renouncing all claim of allegiance, and at last acknowledging the independence in dispute. It becomes an act of intervention, where a foreign government steps between the two parties. The original government is so far master of its position, that it may select its own time in making this recognition. But the question arises, At what time and under what circumstances can this recognition be made by a foreign power? It is obvious that a recognition proper at one time and under special circumstances would not be proper at another time and under different circumstances. Mr. Canning said, with reference to Spanish America, that, “if he piqued himself upon anything, it was upon the subject of _time_”; and he added, that there were two ways of proceeding,--“recklessly and with a hurried course to the object, which might be soon reached and almost as soon lost, or by another course so strictly guarded that no principle was violated and no strict offence given to other powers.”[101] These are words of wise statesmanship, and they present the practical question occurring in every case of recognition: What condition of the controversy will justify such intervention?