“In the case of a divided kingdom, by the Law of Nations, Great Britain, like every other power, is free to take any part she pleases. _She may decline, with more or less formality, according to her discretion, to acknowledge this new system_; or she may recognize it as a government _de facto_, setting aside all discussion of its original legality, and considering the ancient monarchy as at an end. The Law of Nations leaves our court open to its choice.… The declaration of a _new_ _species_ of government on new principles is a real crisis in the politics of Europe.”[126] This same rule Burke declared in Parliament, saying, “that the French Republic was _sui generis_, and bore no analogy to any other that ever existed in the world. It, therefore, did not follow that we ought to recognize it, merely because different powers in Europe had recognized the Republic of England under Oliver Cromwell.”[127] And in his famous “Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs” this illustrious authority proclaimed the new French Government “so fundamentally wrong as to be utterly incapable of correcting itself by any length of time, or of being formed into any mode of polity of which a member of the House of Commons could publicly declare his approbation.”[128] Another eloquent publicist, Sir James Mackintosh, while pressing on Parliament the recognition of Spanish America, says: “The reception of a new state into the society of civilized nations by those acts which amount to recognition is a proceeding which has no legal character, and _is purely of a moral nature_”; and he proceeds to argue, that, since England “is the only anciently free state in the world, for her to refuse her _moral aid to communities struggling for liberty_ is an act of unnatural harshness.”[129] Thus does he vindicate recognition for the sake of Freedom. How truly he would have repelled any recognition for the sake of Slavery let his life testify. At the Congress of Verona, Chateaubriand, as representative of France, replied to a proposition from the Duke of Wellington on this subject:-- “France is influenced by considerations of more general importance with regard to the governments _de facto_. She conceives that _the principles of justice on which society is founded must not be lightly sacrificed_ to secondary interests, and it appears to her that those principles increase in importance _when the matter in question is that of recognizing a political order of things virtually hostile to that which exists in Europe_.”[130] Here the rule is mildly stated, but in harmony with correct principle. A _new_ government, with Slavery as its active soul, must be “virtually hostile” to European civilization, so as to make its recognition impossible; nor can the principles of justice be lightly sacrificed.