a decision of Lord Talbot, who had declared that the law of nations was to be collected from the practice of different nations, and the authority of writers; and who had argued from such authorities as Grotius, Barbeyrac, Bynkershoek, Wiquefort, &c., in a case where British authority was silent. The most celebrated collections and codes of maritime law, such as the Consolato del Mare, the laws of Oleron, the laws of the Hanseatic league, and, above all, the marine ordinances of Louis XIV., are also referred to, as containing the most authentic evidence of the immemorial and customary law of Europe.

Importance

The dignity and importance of this branch of jurisof the study prudence, cannot fail to recommend it to the deep attention of the student; and a thorough knowledge of its principles, is necessary to lawyers and statesmen, and highly ornamental to every scholar who wishes to be adorned with the accomplishments of various learning. Many questions arise in

the course of commercial transactions, which require for * 20 * their solution an accurate acquaintance with the conventional law of Europe, and the general doctrines of the prize tribunals. Though we may remain in peace, there is always war raging in some part of the globe, and we have at the present moment (a) neutral rights to exact, and neutral duties to perform, in the course of our Mediterranean trade, and in the trade. to the Brazils, and along the shores of the Pacific. A comprehensive and scientific knowledge of international law is highly necessary, not only to lawyers practising in our commercial ports, but to every gentleman who is animated by liberal views, and a generous ambition to assume stations of high public trust. It would be exceedingly to the discredit of any person who should be called to take a share in the councils of the nation, if he should be found deficient in the great leading principles of this law; and I think I cannot be mistaken in considering the elementary learning of the law of nations, as not only an essential part of the education of an American lawyer, but as proper to be academically taught. My object, therefore, in some succeeding lectures will be, to discuss all the leading points arising upon the rights and duties of nations, in the several relations of peace, of war, and of neutrality.

(a) November, 1824.

OF THE RIGHTS AND DUTIES OF NATIONS IN A STATE OF PEACE.

A VIEW of the rights and duties of nations in peace, will lead us to examine the grounds of national independence, the extent of territorial jurisdiction, the rights of embassy and of commercial intercourse.

Equality and inde

of nations.

Nations are equal in respect to each other, and entitled to claim equal consideration for their rights, what- pendence ever may be their relative dimensions or strength, or however greatly they may differ in government, religion, or manners. This perfect equality, and entire independence of all distinct states, is a fundamental principle of public law. It is a necessary consequence of this equality, that each nation has a right to govern itself as it may think proper, and no one nation is entitled to dictate a form of government, or religion, or a course of internal policy, to another. No state is entitled to take cognizance or notice of the domestic administration of another state, or of what passes within it as between the gov ernment and its own subjects. (a) The Spaniards, as Vattel

(a) Grotius, de Jure belli et pacis, b. 1, c. 3, sec. 8. Vattel, Droit des Gens, b. 2, c. 4, sec. 54. Rutherforth's Inst. b. 2, c. 9. The principle of non-interference with the internal policy and government of other states, was emphatically declared by England and France in the autumn of 1830, and new strength and solidity were thereby given to national freedom and independence. But the right of intervention exists when impending danger requires it, as when it is necessary to prevent aggression by preventing the dangerous accumulation of the means of attack. An interference to preserve the balance of power among neighboring nations, is another case of the utmost moment and difficulty, and requires the most grave and comprehensive consideration. Such intervention has, within the last two centuries, been very frequent, and led to extensive and destructive wars. But it was necessary and just in some of the instances, and preeminently so with England, in 1803, and with Austria, in 1813, under the danger. ous preponderance and inveterate aggressions of France. "No governments," said

observes, violated all rules of right, when they set up a tribunal of their own to judge the Inca of Peru according to their *22 laws. If he had broken the law of nations in respect to them, they would have had a right to punish him; but when they undertook to judge of the merits of his own interior administration, and to try and punish him for acts committed in the course of it, they were guilty of the grossest injustice. No nation had a contention within itself, but the ancient Romans, with their usual insolence, immediately interfered, and with profound duplicity pretended to take part with the oppressed for the sake of justice, though in reality for the purpose of dominion. It was by a violation of the right of national independence, that they artfully dissolved the Achæan league, and decreed that each member of the confederacy should be governed by its own laws, independent of the general authority. (a) But so surprisingly loose and inaccurate were the theories of the ancients on the subject of national independence, that the Greeks seem never to have questioned the right of one state to interfere in the internal concerns of another. (b) We have several instances within time of memory, of unwarrantable and flagrant violations of the independence of nations. The interference of Russia, Prussia, and Austria, in the internal government of Poland, and first dismembering it of large portions of its territory, and then finally overturning its constitution, and destroying its existence as an independent power, was an aggravated abuse of national right. There were several cases which preceded, or which arose during the violence of the French revolution, which were unjustifiable invasions of the rights of independent nations to prescribe their own forms of government, and to deal in their discretion with their own domestic concerns. Among other instances, we may refer to the

General Washington, (Sparks's Writings of Washington, vol. xi. p. 382,) “ought to interfere with the internal concerns of another, except for the security of what is due to themselves." War may be engaged in, in behalf of our neighbors, if it be very certain that we must suffer by their ruin. Tua res agitur, paries quum proximus ardet. Heinecc. Elem. Jur. Nat. et Gent. b. 2, c. 9, sec. 107.

(a) Livy, b. 33, c. 30. Florus, b. 2, c. 7. Montesq. Consid. sur les Causes de la Grand. des Rom. c. 6.

(b) Mitford's Hist. of Greece, vol. v. 127.

invasion of Holland by the Prussian arms in 1787, and of France by the Prussian arms in 1792, and of wars fomented or declared against all monarchical forms of government, by the French rulers, during the early and more intemperate *23 stages of their revolution. We may cite also the invasion of Naples by Austria in 1821, and the invasion of Spain by France in 1823, under the pretext of putting down a dangerous spirit of internal revolution and reform, as instances of the same violation of the absolute equality and independence of nations. (a)

(a) The British government declined being a party to the promulgated doctrines and proceedings of the congress of the great powers of continental Europe at Troppau and Laybach, in 1821, and at Verona, in 1822, and which gave sanction to the invasions of Naples and Spain. It was not supposed by Great Britain that there existed in either of those instances, a case of such direct and imminent danger to the safety of other states, as to warrant, upon principles of international law, a forcible interference. The allied sovereigns who assembled at Laybach and Verona, do not appear to have differed essentially with Great Britain, as to the general principles which ought to regulate the interference of other states in the internal affairs of Naples and Spain, but they differed in the application of those principles to the cases before them. They justified their interference on the ground that it was "necessary for protecting Italy from a general insurrection, and the neighboring states from the most imminent dangers."-"That there existed a vast conspiracy against all established power and against all those rights consecrated by that social order under which Europe had enjoyed so many centuries of glory and happiness."-" That, in respecting the rights and independence of all legitimate power, they regarded as disavowed by the principles which constitute the public right of Europe, all pretended reform operated by revolt and open hostility." Their object was to protect the peace of Europe "against those disastrous attempts which would spread the horror of universal anarchy over the civilized world "-" against a fanaticism for innovation, which would soon have rendered the existence of any public order whatever, problematical."—"That they were far from wishing to prolong this interference beyond the limits of strict necessity, and would ever prescribe to themselves the preservation of the independence and of the rights of each state." Circular Despatch and Declaration of the Sovereigns of Austria, Russia, and Prussia; Laybach, May, 1821. Annual Register for 1821, p. 599. The quadruple alliance in 1834, between France, Spain, Great Britain, and Portugal, was made for the purpose of putting an end to a war in regard to the succession to the crown of Portugal, waged between the Emperor Don Pedro, contending for the rights of the Queen of Portugal, Donna Maria 2d, and the Infante Don Miguel, who had usurped the throne, and also, for the purpose of expelling from the Peninsula the Infante Don Carlos, who disputed with Queen Isabella 2d the succession to the crown of Spain, and is another instance of interference with the internal concerns of nations. The object of the interference and quadruple alliance was effected by the expulsion of the two Infantes. So far, the armed interference in this case went on the momentous questions of dynasty and succession, and on the pretence of putting an end to a destructive and interminable civil war.

interference.

Rule of Every nation has an undoubted right to provide for its own safety, and to take due precaution against distant as well as impending danger. The right of self-preservation is paramount to all other considerations. (a) A rational fear of an imminent danger is said to be a justifiable cause of war. Posse vicinum impediri, ne in suo solo, sine alia causa suaque evidenti utilitate, munimentum nobis propinquum extruat, aut aliud quid faciat, unde justa formido periculi oriatur. (b) The danger must be great, distinct, and imminent, and not rest on vague and uncertain suspicion. The British government officially declared to the allied powers in 1821, (c) that no government was more prepared than their own, "to uphold the right of any state or states to interfere, where their own security or essential interests were seriously endangered by the internal transactions of another state;-that the assumption of the right was only to be justified by the strongest necessity, and to be limited and regulated thereby ;-that it could not receive a general and indiscriminate application to all revolutionary movements, without reference to their immediate bearing upon some particular state or states;—that its exercise was an exception to general principles of the greatest value and importance, and as one that only properly grows out of the circumstances of the special case; and exceptions of this description could never, without the utmost danger, be so far reduced to rule, as to be incorporated into the ordinary diplomacy of states, or into ⚫24 the institutes of the law of nations. The limitation to the right of interference with the internal concerns of in case of other states, was defined in this instance with uncomrevolt. mon precision; and no form of civil government which a nation may think proper to prescribe for itself, can be admitted to create a case of necessity justifying an interference by force; for a nation under any form of civil policy which it may choose

Assistance

(a) Vattel, b. 2, c. 4, sec. 49, 50. Kluber, Droit des Gens. c. 1, p. 75. b. 2, c. 1.

Grotius,

(b) Huber de Jure civitatis, lib. 3, c. 7, sec. 4. (c) Lord Castlereagh's Circular Despatch of January 19, 1821, and of May, 1823. Annual Register, vol. lxv. Public Documents. Communications in January and March, 1823. Documents.

See, also, Mr. Secretary Canning's

Annual Register, vol. Ixvi. Public