She must at once warn her citizens and make clear her position as a neutral.

The Proclamation was no effort "to keep straight with both sides"; it was simply the natural, direct, and prompt notification to British subjects required in the presence of a _de facto_ war.
Moreover, merely as a matter of historical speculation, it was fortunate that the Proclamation antedated the arrival of Adams.

The theory of the Northern administration under which the Civil War was begun and concluded was that a portion of the people of the United States were striving as "insurgents" to throw off their allegiance, and that there could be no recognition of any Southern _Government_ in the conflict.

In actual practice in war, the exchange of prisoners and like matters, this theory had soon to be discarded.

Yet it was a far-seeing and wise theory nevertheless in looking forward to the purely domestic and constitutional problem of the return to the Union, when conquered, of the sections in rebellion.