we give them a sound beating, they will say that the Americans are afraid of them!” Well, what of it if they were foolish enough to say or even to think so? Would anybody else believe it? Would it in any manner diminish the power of this Republic or lower its moral dignity, its National honor, in the estimation of other nations or in its own? No; if this Republic, conscious of its superior strength, seeks to obtain what it considers just and proper, with that generous forbearance which is the finest privilege of the strong when dealing with the weak, and avoids war with sedulous solicitude, until all honest efforts to preserve peace have been exhausted in vain, and thinks of it then only as an extreme exigency and a most unwelcome one, it will serve the National honor, the moral dignity of the Nation, infinitely better than by the most grandiloquent bluster or by any unnecessary demonstration that we are strong enough to “whip” anybody whenever we like.
For a just appreciation of the requirements of national honor in the premises it may be useful to look also at the Spanish side of the question. Spain, as the weaker party, will be much more open to the imputation of timidity if she yields on any dubious point. Her proverbial pride may render it therefore especially painful to her to abandon any position she once has held. The impulse to vindicate what she conceives to be her national honor by fighting at any cost to the last extremity for what she had once claimed as her right, or against what she had once denounced as a wrong or an indignity, may therefore be especially potent with her, even though she might herself feel that she could not justly maintain her contentions. But if she were conscious of that, would her national honor demand that she should at least try to uphold those contentions at the cost of more bloody and destructive war? Whatever may be thought of the character of Spanish rule, nobody will say that the Spanish nation
