then to escape the conclusion, that, in recognizing this confederacy, England ranges herself on the side of slavery, and does all she can to maintain and perpetuate it in America. Nor is this all. She violates a great moral rule, and a well settled principle of international law, to maintain and perpetuate slavery in the South. By the law of nations, the recognition of national independence is the acknowledgment of the fact of independence. But, we have seen, that the States composing this so-called league, are not independent, but are held, to a vast extent, by our army and navy, including two thirds of their area. Never was independence acknowledged under such circumstances, except as an act of war. The acknowledgment then of the confederate independence, in the present posture of affairs, is, in fact, _a declaration of war by England against the United States, without cause or justification_. It would be so universally regarded in the United States, and would instantly _close all dissensions in the North_. If any suppose that England, without any just cause, should thus strike us with the iron-gauntleted hand, and that we will not resist, let the history of the past answer the question. Nor would the union of France, in such an act, change the result, except that nearly all the loss and sacrifice would fall upon England. Including the slaves and free blacks, there is not a single seceded State, in which an overwhelming majority of the people are not for the Union. Now, by the Federal Constitution, slaves are mentioned only three times, and then not as slaves, but as '_persons_,' and the Supreme Court of the United States have expressly decided that slaves, so far as regards the United States, _are persons, and not property_. (Groves _vs._ Slaughter, 15 Peters, 392.) _All persons_, in every State, owe a paramount allegiance to the United States, the rebel masters, as well as their slaves--the Government has a right to their services to suppress the rebellion; and to acknowledge the independence of the South, is to ignore the existence of the slaves, or to treat them, as the South do, as chattels, and not persons. In acknowledging, then, Southern independence, the independence of the _masters_, England expressly recognizes the doctrine of _property in man_. Such a war, proclaimed by England and France against the United States on such grounds, would be a war of their _Governments_--not of their _peoples_, and could have but one termination. As to our recognition of the independence of Texas, it was long after the decisive battle of San Jacinto,--when the Mexican army was destroyed or captured, together with the President, when he acknowledged their independence, the Mexican Government, by accepting the advantages stipulated by him, in fact, and in law, ratified the recognition. It was after all this, when the contest was over, not a Mexican vessel on the coast of Texas, nor a Mexican soldier upon her soil, that we recognized the independence