We are not at liberty to have recourse to the most complicated and atrocious of all mischiefs, in the way of an experiment. It is not a justifiable reason, 'that we have been exposed to certain insults, and that tyrants, perhaps, have delighted in treating with contempt, the citizens of our happy state who have visited their dominions'. Some proportion must be observed between the evil of which we complain and the evil which the nature of the proposed remedy inevitably includes. It is not a justifiable reason 'that our neighbour is preparing, or menacing, hostilities'. The vindication of national honour' is a very insufficient reason for hostilities.
True honour is to be found only in integrity and'.
In individuals, it seems as if I might, consistently with the utmost real integrity, be so misconstrued and misrepresented by others as to render my efforts at usefulness almost necessarily abortive. But this reason does not apply to the case of nations. Their real story cannot easily be suppressed. The question which respects the justifiable causes of war would be liable to few difficulties, if we were accustomed, along with the word, strongly to call up to our minds the thing which that word is intended to represent. The well known objection to the latter of these cases is 'that one nation ought not to interfere in the internal transactions of another'.