ORAL ARGUMENT OF HON, EDWARD J. PHELPS. 203 



States by which vessels may be arrested outside of the three mile line 

 iTiider certain circnmstances — the French laws to the same efi'ect — 

 the quarantine laws — all that class of cases in which you find a statute 

 stretching out beyond even the three-mile line and reaching a vessel on 

 the open sea, where the sovereignty of the nation cannot reach, where 

 even the qualitied sovereignty that attends ou the littoral sea cannot 

 reach, come back to the same thing, the necessity of the special pro- 

 vision, the anticipatory provision in the particular case. Without now 

 coming at all to the question of the special individual case, I am 

 speaking of special restrictions which some nations enforce over some 

 part of the high sea for certain purposes. AH this class of enactments 

 is perfectly reconcilable when attributed to the proper source; and the 

 apparent puzzle that is sometimes set forth is answered: "How can 

 you extend a statute to a distance of 12 miles from the French Coast 

 or from the British Coast or from the United States Coast?" You can 

 do it because a reasonable necessity of a certain class of cases — quaran- 

 tine, revenue or whatever it may be — requires it; and the moment that 

 takes place the assertion is made, and is accepted and acquiesced in 

 everywhere. We find no contradiction of it. 



Take the time of war. Belligerent rights mean nothing except the 

 rights a nation has in time of war. With its enemy law is suspended; 

 but with neutral nations not engaged in the war it acquires no addi- 

 tional rights of self-defence. It may acquire additional necessities; it 

 does acquire certain necessities that do not exist in time of peace. 

 Therefore a set of Eegulations has grown up, and come to be settled 

 so that they are no longer open to dispute, on the subject of the rights 

 of a nation which happens to be at war, as against neutrals. 



Take the familiar illustration about which there is no question: The 

 breach of blockades. A nation blockades the port of its enemy. The 

 citizens of another country are engaged in a legitimate trade with that 

 port. To break up that trade may ruin the parties engaged in it, — 

 parties whose all may be embarked in it. 



What is the propriety of ruining that neutral in an innocent business 

 the war finds him engaged in? It is exactly this idea, and it has been 

 so stated by the writers on the subject — it has been placed on that very 

 ground — that the right of the individual, although the thing that he is 

 doing is proper enough in itself, must give way when it comes into col- 

 lision with the interest of the nation which is carrying on war of which 

 the blockade is one of the means. Perhaps before we adjourn. Sir, I 

 may refer on that, and the analogous Eegulations, to the reasons that 

 are given by writers of authority, for such law as that. Mr. Manning 

 (on page 162 of the American Argument and 252 of his book), states 

 this principle : 



Tlie greatest liberty which law should allow iu civil government, is the power of 

 doino- everything that doe.s not injure any other person, and the greatest liberty 

 which justice among nations demands, is that every state may do anything that does 

 not injure another state with which it is at amity. The freedom of commerce and 

 the rights of war, both undoubted as long as no injustice results from them, become 

 questionable as soon as their exorcise is grievously injurious to any independent 

 state, but the great difference of the interest concerned makes the trivial nature of 

 the restriction that can justly be placed upon neutrals appear inconsiderable, when 

 balanced against the magnitude of the national enterprises which unrestricted 

 neutral trade might compromise. That some interference is justifiable will be 

 obvious on the consideration that if a neutral had the power of unrestricted com- 

 merce, he might carry to a port blockaded and on the point of surrendering, provi- 

 sions which should enable it to hold out and so change the whole issue of a war; 

 and thus the vital interests of a nation might be sacrificed to augment the riches of 

 a single individual. 



