The rights of our own citizens of course became involved: that was
inevitable. Where they did this was our guiding principle: that property
rights can be vindicated by claims for damages and no modern nation can
decline to arbitrate such claims; but the fundamental rights of humanity
cannot be. The loss of life is irreparable. Neither can direct
violations of a nation's sovereignty await vindication in suits for
damages. The nation that violates these essential rights must expect to
be checked and called to account by direct challenge and resistance. It
at once makes the quarrel in part our own. These are plain principles
and we have never lost sight of them or departed from them, whatever the
stress or the perplexity of circumstance or the provocation to hasty
resentment. The record is clear and consistent throughout and stands
distinct and definite for anyone to judge who wishes to know the truth
about it.
The seas were not broad enough to keep the infection of the conflict out
of our own politics. The passions and intrigues of certain active groups
and combinations of men amongst us who were born under foreign flags
injected the poison of disloyalty into our own most critical affairs,
laid violent hands upon many of our industries, and subjected us to the
shame of divisions of sentiment and purpose in which America was
contemned and forgotten.
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