There is a Rule of Prudence superadded to the Rule of Morality. Grotius, in discussing treaties, does not forget the wisdom of Solomon, who, in not a few places, warns against fellowship with the wicked,--although he adds, that these are maxims of prudence, and not of law.[120] And he reminds us of the saying of Alexander, “that those grievously offend who enter the service of barbarians.”[121] Better still are the words of the wise historian of classical antiquity, who enjoins upon a commonwealth the duty of considering carefully, when sued for assistance, “whether what is sought is sufficiently pious, safe, glorious, or whether it is _unbecoming_”;[122] and also those words of the Hebrew king, who, after rebuking an alliance with Ahab, asks with scorn, “Shouldest thou help the ungodly?”[123] The claim for recognition, when brought to the touchstone of these principles, is easily disposed of. * * * * * Urge not the _Practice of Nations_ in its behalf. Never before in history has a candidacy been put forward _in the name of Slavery_, and the terrible outrage is aggravated by the Christian light which surrounds it. This is not an age of darkness. But even in the Dark Ages, when the Slavemongers of the Barbary coast had gathered into cities, the saintly Louis the Ninth was fired to treat one of these communities as a “nest of wasps.”[124] Afterwards, but slowly, they obtained “the right of legation” and “the reputation of a government”; when at last, weary of their criminal pretensions, the aroused vengeance of Great Britain and France blotted out this power from the list of nations. Louis the Eleventh, who has been described as the sovereign “who best understood his interest,” indignant at Richard the Third of England, who had murdered two infants in the Tower and usurped the crown, sent back his ambassadors without holding intercourse with them. This is a suggestive precedent, which I give on venerable authority in diplomatic history;[125] but the parricide usurper of England had never murdered so many infants or usurped so much as the pretended Slave Power, strangely tolerated by the sagacious sovereign who sits on the throne of Louis the Eleventh. It is not necessary, however, to go so far in history, nor to dwell on the practice of nations in withholding or conceding recognition. The whole matter is stated by Burke, with his customary power.