Neutrality in the modern sense is essentially an American doctrine and the result of our policy of isolation. If we were to keep out of European conflicts, it was necessary for us to pursue a course of rigid impartiality in wars between European powers. In the Napoleonic wars we insisted that neutrals had certain rights which belligerents were bound to respect and we fought the War of 1812 with England in order to establish that principle. Half a century later, in the American Civil War, we insisted that neutrals had certain duties which every belligerent had a right to expect them to perform, and we forced Great Britain in the settlement of the _Alabama_ Claims to pay us damages to the extent of $15,500,000 for having failed to perform her neutral obligations. We have thus been the leading champion of the rights and duties of neutrals, and the principles for which we have contended have been written into the modern law of nations. When two or three nations are engaged in war and the rest of the world is neutral, there is usually very little difficulty in enforcing neutral rights, but when a majority of the great powers are at war, it is impossible for the remaining great powers, much less for the smaller neutrals, to maintain their rights. This was true in the Napoleonic wars, but at that time the law of neutrality was in its infancy and had never been fully recognized by the powers at war. The failure of neutrality in the Great War was far more serious, for the rights of neutrals had been clearly defined and universally recognized.