It considered them a marine power before they had ever exhibited a single privateer on the ocean....

The rule was very clear, that whenever it became apparent that any organized form of society had advanced so far as to prove its power to defend and protect itself against the assaults of enemies, and at the same time to manifest a capacity to maintain binding relations with foreign nations, then a measure of recognition could not be justly objected to on any side.

The case was very different when such an interference should take place, prior to the establishment of the proof required, as to bring about a result which would not probably have happened but for that external agency." This representation by the American Minister, thus early made, contains the whole argument advanced against the British Proclamation of Neutrality, though there were many similar representations made at greater length both by Adams later, and by Seward at Washington.

They are all well summarized by Bernard as "a rejection ...

of the proposition that the existence of war is a simple matter of fact, to be ascertained as other facts are--and an assertion ...