The acknowledgment of a new state as independent and entitled to a place
in the family of nations is at all times an act of great delicacy and
responsibility, but more especially so when such state has forcibly
separated itself from another of which it had formed an integral part
and which still claims dominion over it. A premature recognition under
these circumstances, if not looked upon as justifiable cause of war, is
always liable to be regarded as a proof of an unfriendly spirit to one
of the contending parties. All questions relative to the government of
foreign nations, whether of the Old or the New World, have been treated
by the United States as questions of fact only, and our predecessors
have cautiously abstained from deciding upon them until the clearest
evidence was in their possession to enable them not only to decide
correctly, but to shield their decisions from every unworthy imputation.
In all the contests that have arisen out of the revolutions of France,
out of the disputes relating to the crowns of Portugal and Spain, out of
the revolutionary movements of those Kingdoms, out of the separation of
the American possessions of both from the European Governments, and out
of the numerous and constantly occurring struggles for dominion in
Spanish America, so wisely consistent with our just principles has been
the action of our Government that we have under the most critical
circumstances avoided all censure and encountered no other evil than
that produced by a transient estrangement of good will in those against
whom we have been by force of evidence compelled to decide.
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