to the appointed tribunals, and the rules applied in a manner agreeable to the modification of those rights by the civil institution and laws.

I will here conclude this brief sketch of the law of nature, its principles and obligation, by repeating that it is the ordination of God in the constitution of human nature.—It is his will manifested to men in his works." It is a law," as it has been forcibly observed, "binding over all the globe, and at all times. No human laws are of any validity, if contrary to this; and such of them as are valid, derive all their force, all their authority from this original."

*1. Bl. Comm. 41.

CHAPTER II.

Of the Law of Nations.

Dispersed over the earth, it is impossible that mankind should have continued united in one society. Local, and other circircumstances have occasioned a division into states and nations, independent of each other, without that common interest and united councils necessary to the individuality of the whole as one people. When thus separated and formed into states, each assuming a national character, they sustain various relations towards each other according to their various situations, contiguity, reciprocal wants, and mutual or opposing interests. Between independent states, various circumstances of necessity or convenience, induce an intercourse more or less frequent and intimate; but such intercourse could not subsist at all, or certainly with any degree of security, without certain rules, which each should be bound to observe toward the other.

Nations are, in regard to each other, in a situation similar to that of individuals, in the state of nature supposed to have existed previous to any social compact. Each nation becomes such by the social or civil compact of its individuals, which, whether ever formally made, or only implied from a customary association long continued, is always held to be binding on every person belonging to the same community. As nations are constituted of beings social by the laws of their nature, nations necessarily assume, in respect to each other, a social character. Hence, they are capable of sustaining social and moral relations, from which result reciprocal moral duties, and through which they are mutually holden amenable to the laws of nature; but in a manner different from individuals in a state of society, and

more especially, under a regular administration of civil government and laws. It has been observed, that the law of nature differs in its application, as the subjects differ to which it is applied. Nations are considered as wholly independent,each of the other, each as sovereign. They neither have, nor acknowledge any common judge or superior. But such is not the situation of individuals in any known state of society, be it ever so rude, and that whether the society has been form. ed by express compact, or by tacit consent, by custom witnessed by long usage. In the rudest state of society, there are some rules, by the whole heid to be compulsory on individuals, and although these rules may be few, and the means of compulsion weak, so that it verges towards a state of individual independence, yet it is very distant from that state of independence, which is alone acknowledged among nations and in which their sovereignty consists. Hence, arises a principal source of difference, between the relations of the individuals of a community, and those of independent nations. A community or state of which a nation consists, is composed of individuals associated by compact, for their mutual benefit, their relations between the individuals, from which result, their rights and duties are often dictated, and always modified by human institutions, intended to promote the common interest, and each member has for this end submitted to the direction and control of the whole. The relations between independent nations are not originally dictated or modified by compact. Their origin and modifications are a consequence of the social nature of men, of whom nations are composed, and of the situation in which they are placed in respect to each other. From these relations, thus viewed, result the reciprocal rights and duties of independent nations, and the duties are made obligatory upon them, as are the duties of individuals, by the laws of nature applied agreeable to the difference of the situations and circumstances, that is, agreeable to the difference of the subjects.

The law of nations has usually, and with a sufficient degree of propriety, been reduced under three heads. First. The necessary, or as it is often denominated, the internal law of nations. Secondly. The conventional. And thirdly. The customary law of nations. The necessary or internal law of nations,

is analogous to the internal law of nature, of which we treated in the preceding chapter, on which Vattel observes, "It is necessary because nations are absolutely obliged to observe it. This law contains the precepts prescribed by the law of nature to states, to whom that law is not less obligatory than to individuals; because states are composed of men, their resolutions are taken by men, and the law of nature is obligatory to all men, under whatever relation they act." *

The law of nature, thus applied to nations, has the same great end in view,-the general interest and happiness of man, and embraces the same general law of society, "that each should do for others, what their necessities require and he is capable of doing, without neglecting the duties which he owes to himself." This general law, properly applied in the manner before suggested, is no less binding on nations than individuals. In the application of the law of nature to nations, there exists a similar distinction between perfect and imperfect rights and duties. The difference principally consists in the manner, in which the law of nature gives effect to those rights, and in which these duties are required to be performed. This difference extends to both classes of rights and duties, as well to the duties of benevolence, as to the rights and duties of justice; but is most obvious in respect to the latter. Between independent nations, no authoritative tribunal, can, as in the case of individuals in civil society, be intervened, to decide their conflicting claims, and give redress to the party injuried, without a prostration of national independence, which the law of nations necessarily holds to be sacred and inviolable on all occasions. Each nation is therefore constituted the sole judge of its rights, of their violation by others, and of the manner, means, and measure of redress, In case of a dispute arising between two nations, other nations may interpose their good offices to effect a reconciliation, but are not permitted an authoritative interposition to impose constraint on either party. Hence it follows as a necessary consequence that in a case of war between two nations, all other nations, as they are not permitted to judge of the

* Law of Nations, Preliminaries, § 7.

proper.

For it is

It may be, and

right of either, are bound in their conduct towards the belligerents to consider both as having a just cause. If, however, a belligerent, contrary to the law of nations, should use his own rights against his enemy in such a manner as to injure the perfect rights of another nation, that nation is at liberty to see redress in such way as it shall deem often is, a justifiable cause of war. no less a rule of the law of nations than of the law of nature, that every one should so use his own right that he injure not the rights of others. The rule is however applied with some difference, arising from the independence of nations and the necessity of their situation, in consequence of which, some restrictions are laid on the usual intercourse between neutrals and belligerents, of which the neutral, as it tends to the common advantage, has no right to complain. With these, and some other modifications of the law of nature in its application, according to the difference of the subjects, and which in this brief sketch it is not necessary further to specify, it is called the voluntary law of nations; because, by its rules are to be decided what duties each may require of others, what duties each is obliged to perform, and to which, therefore, all ought voluntarily to submit. In this view it is also called the external law of nations; and though, like the external law of nature, it does not extend to all that is required by the internal law, yet it does not dispense with the internal obligation, which remains to its full extent binding on the conscience.

A nation, as well as an individual, may lawfully renounce, in favor of others, or compromise its own rights. Any two nations may, therefore, by treaty, vary the voluntary law in relation to their conduct towards each other, and so far establish a new law to themselves. This law is called the conventional, sometimes the arbitrary, law of nations, and is fully obligatory to the contracting parties, provided it in no wise violates the perfect rights of others, or the duties which each Owes to itself.

Under the same restrictions, a custom that has obtained in practice between nations, becomes in virture of a tacit consent, mutually binding on those, and only those who have adopted it; but that obligation may, in general, be dis