and of the right of all neutrals to trade without interruption to and from the ports of any belligerent, and of the exclusive jurisdiction of every nation over its own vessels on the high seas, is supported by the treaty of Utretcht, by which in 1713, Great Britain and France proclaimed our doctrines to the world as fundamental principles of international law. The continental system of France, put forth in the Berlin and Milan decrees, and sustained by the leading continental nations, was a reassertion of the liberal and just doctrines of the treaty of Utretcht, which Great Britain was laboring to overthrow by her great navy, in order to engross the trade of the world and to establish a British municipal jurisdiction over the high seas. This celebrated project rightfully extended the immunity of private property and persons to the just limit assigned by sound ethics, by reason and equity. It assigned to war the same limitations with respect to private property at sea as on land. Such is the doctrine of President Adams and of our Prussian treaty. The armed neutrality of 1780, the principles of which were avowed by most of the Christian nations of Europe, was a new ratification of the noble and free doctrines of the treaty of Utretcht. Our treaty with France in 1800 is to the same effect. Such are the national sanctions of our rules of international law in favor

of free trade and of the freedom of the seas. As we have shown .above, these doctrines are sanctioned by American statesmen.

The section of our code, affirming the right of bordering nations to the free navigation of navigable rivers, is sanctioned by the application of the rule to the German rivers by the allied sovereigns at Vienna in 1815, by our treaty with Britain of 1783, in reference to the free navigation of the Mississippi, while Spain owned both banks of the river from latitude 31 north to the Gulf of Mexico, by our subsequent treaty with Spain to the same effect, and by the treaty of Tilsit between Prussia and France, declaring the Vistula free to Prussia, Saxony and Dantzic.

The section which asserts the free navigation of straits, rests upon manifest equity, upon the treaty of Adrianople between Russia and Turkey, and upon the treaty between our republic and the Ottoman Porte, the former declaring the canal or strait from the Mediterranean to the Euxine or Black Sea free to the merchant ships of all nations, and the latter securing forever to American citizens that right. The treaty of Washington, between Great Britain and our republic of 1842, applied this principle to the several passes in the canal or straits called rivers, St. Clair and Detroit connecting lakes Huron and Erie.

As to expatriation our doctrine rests on the selfevident truth that all men are born free, and upon the sanction of French and American law.

It is unnecessary to recapitulate all the principles of the moral law of nations, which we suppose to have been satisfactorily illustrated. A brief enumeration of those, which relate to the freedom and security of states and of all mankind, to the freedom of navigable rivers to bordering nations, to the freedom of the seas and certain leading international rights and duties will be sufficient to exhibit the result of our labors. By the light of right reason we have shown that all men are born free and are of natural right entitled to withdraw their allegiance from the land of their birth, and become citizens of any foreign state according to the laws thereof, or may colonize any unappropriated lands of any wild region and form a new nation; that the people of every nation possesses the inalienable, inherent right of self-government with an exclusive jurisdiction over its territory, including a maritime curtilage to nations bordering the seas to be ascertained by taking sta tions a marine league seaward fom the extreme head lands of the coast and connecting them by straight lines deflected outward, if necessary, to keep them at any points a marine league from the coast; that all the waters and fisheries within such

line of demarkation naturally appertain to the state to which the coast belongs, and all beyond are the high seas; that the territory and jurisdiction of a nation are vested in the people, and that neither can be transfered to or intermingled with those of another state without an original act of sovereignty, or the assent of the people whose territory or government is affected; that all bordering nations have a common right to the free navigation of inland seas and navigable rivers to and from the oceans; that the use of the high seas and connecting passes is the common right of all mankind, like the air we breathe, and that in their nature they are incapable of appropriation by any nation; that, as all have a right to such free and common use, no grant or transfer of it can be made to any maritime state without the assent of all nations; that, on this highway of nations, no natural right, in peace or war, exists in one nation to enter upon or search the ships of another state; that the flag protects the ship and all on board, free ships making free goods; that neutrality forbids the carrying of arms, ammunition or munitions of war to any belligerent, or transporting the soldiers of either party to the war, or taking any hostile part for or against either; that neutrals observing such neutrality have a right, by the law of nature, to trade with either belligerent; that, in

reason and equity, a blockade of any port ought not to affect neutral trade thereto, except as to strict contraband of war; that private property is justly entitled by sea to the same immunity that it enjoys by land, and ought not to be subject to belligerent capturé; that defensive wars alone are justifiable, and that in their prosecution no more injury must be done to the offending state than is necessary to self-protection and indemnity; that peace, good faith, justice, kindness and hospitality are international duties; that free trade is the interest and duty of all nations; that it is not only the duty of all commercial states, but their interest to extend Christianity and civilization to all pagan nations as the means of increasing production and extending commerce.

These are some of the leading principles which we suppose we have proved to rest upon the precepts of the Gospel, the teaching of history and the fixed moral laws of our nature. Our doctrines are placed upon the strong foundations of human interest, as well as upon that higher, more worthy and more holy one, the law of the King of kings.. An obvious result of these principles, if fairly enforced, would be the disuse of wars by making peace the interest of all nations. What a happy coincidence of duty and interest in international transactions is illustrated by them! How cheer-.