citizens respectively. These rules form what is called sometimes international law and sometimes the law of nations.

Neither expression is precisely accurate. There is a body, of rules more or less distinctly stated by which nations profess to comport themselves in their relations with each other; but they are not laws nor are they imposed upon nations nor yet are they international. They are laws only in each state so far as they are promulgated by the sovereign power of that state and they serve international purposes.

Take for example a treaty concluded between the United States and Great Britain; when ratified and promulgated by the treaty-making power in the two nations it becomes a rule for both by virtue of their compact, and a rule in each nation for its own citizens by virtue of the promulgation by its own sovereign authority.

For want however of a better designation and adopting the suggestion of Bentham, publicists and statesmen now generally refer to this body of rules as international law. If the word law is to be retained I should have thought the expression public law or the public law of the world a better one.

Who made these rules, or this international law if you so call it, is explained by the definition which I have given. It was made by the nations themselves either through express compact with each other or through general practice; that is to say by treaty or by usage. Publicists I know, looking beyond the rules so made or sanctioned, have sought, in those moral precepts by which nations not less than individuals ought to be governed in their intercourse with each other, for guides in other circumstances; and statesmen and diplomatists have often fortified their arguments by reference to such opinions and it has thus frequently happened that those precepts have been gradually adopted into the usage of nations.

These views of the publicists are however to be regarded rather as suggestions of what ought to be the conduct of nations in particular circumstances than as a statement of established rules. They are entitled to the same weight in the decision of a national dispute as a treatise on natural law is entitled to in the decision of a case by the courts of America or England.

Some writers are in the habit of treating the law of nations as if it were something above the nations and having an authority superior to their will. In our late civil war, for example, it became the practice of certain persons to speak of the law of nations as a guide or warrant for the Executive in the conduct of the war, beyond the constitution, and paramount to acts of Congress. This, I apprehend, was a mistaken view. The law of nations is only such because each individual nation adopts it, and so far only as it is thus adopted. It is legally, I do not say morally, or without just complaint from other nations, competent for any nation to reject the whole or any part of it as far as its own citizens are concerned. The Parliament of England might enact, if it would, that no English court should decide and no English subject act in a particular manner, even though that manner were enjoined by the law of nations as understood by the whole body of Christendom.

Who enforce the rules thus made or sanctioned and known as international law? The nations themselves, first by applying them as occasion requires to litigants in the national tribunals; and, secondly, by punishing the nation which infringes them in such manner as nations may punish each other; that is to say, by non-intercourse, or by force.

The controversies respecting captures by land or sea and the questions concerning the responsibility of individuals for the

violation of private rights are of course determined by the courts, and where the municipal law is silent international usage is the rule of decision. When a question arises between nations it is debated and arranged between themselves, or submitted to arbiters, or decided by force.

The next question will lead us into a large discussion. Are any changes desirable in these rules of international obligation? The slightest acquaintance with the disputes which have arisen and do so constantly arise between nations will convince us that the rules themselves are full of uncertainty and in many respects defective. If we make for ourselves an examination, even incomplete, of the subjects which fall within the scope of international law we perceive at once how many of them are uncertain or require revision. Within it are embraced all the rules which should govern the relations of states with each other in peace and in war. All of them spring from the intercourse of nations.

If a people shut themselves up from others, as the Chinese attempted to do, building a wall between themselves and their neighbors, there can be no international law as there can be no international relations. That condition, however, is unnatural and irrational.

Man is a social being and his nature impels him to intercourse with all the family of man. Whether this intercourse is demandable as a right, and if so when and by whom and upon what conditions and how it should be carried on, are the first questions which present themselves. From intercourse as from a source spring the rights and duties of those who carry it on, making it necessary to determine how far they who pass from one country to another retain their own nationality and to what extent they subject themselves to the jurisdiction of the country which they enter. Hence arise

the questions respecting the right of foreigners to liberty of religion, residence, and trade; their obligations to civil or military service; the liability of their property to taxation or other imposition, and its devolution when they die.

Traffic brings with it contracts. These are to be expounded and enforced in different nations and between the citizens of all. Thence comes that department of jurisprudence which, under the general title of the conflict of laws has engaged so many minds and led to such profound investigations.

The intercourse of nations is public or private. The former is carried on by embassies, legations, and consulates. Here is required a large body of rules declaring the rights and duties of public ministers and consuls, with their attendants, their reception, residence, functions, and immunities.

When private persons pass from one country to another they go either for transient purposes or for permanent residence. In the latter case there arise two opposite claims; on one hand that of expatriation and on the other that of perpetual allegiance. Fugitives from one country into another have certain privileges; hence the practice of extradition, as modified by that right of asylum which, older than Christianity, has been exalted by its spirit and precepts and which it is the honorable boast of your country and mine never to have violated or rejected.

The instruments of intercourse by sea; ships and those who navigate them; and they who pass and repass with them, and that which they carry; the control of them on the ocean and in port-all these are to be regulated by that body of rules of which I am speaking. Next are those rights of property which, acquired in one country, should be recognized and respected in another; the title to personal chattels and the title,

quite as good, in my opinion, to the products of the mind; inventions for which patents are commonly issued; and writings, for which the law of copyright provides, or should provide, a sanction and a guarantee. Then there are the subjects of weights, measures, money, and postal service, which fall within the scope of international regulation. Passing from direct intercourse between nations to their rights, exclusive or concurrent, to things outside of themselves, we come to the subjects of the free navigation of the ocean, the fisheries, the discovery and colonization of islands and continents, and the right of one nation to an outlet for itself through the close seas or rivers of another.

After these various topics regarding the relations of nations in a state of peace we come to those of a state of hostility. Force or constraint is applied in three ways-one by non-intercourse, another by reprisal, and a third by war. I will speak only of the relations in war. First, in respect to intestine or civil war: when and how far may other nations interfere, and when may interference go so far as to recognize a new nation out of the fragments of a broken one, and what is the effect of the separation upon the citizen of the different parts of the divided nation and upon the citizen of other states.

Then in respect to foreign war, when it is justifiable, what must be done to avoid it, and what formalities must precede it. And when it comes what must be the conduct first of the belligerents and then of neutral nations; and in respect to the former who may attack, who and what may be attacked, and in what manner may the attacks be made. Those questions being answered embrace the whole subject of belligerent rights. But into what an infinitude of subdivisions do these topics divide themselves; explaining to what extent