10 ARGUMENT OF THE UNITED STATES. 



APPENDIX TO PART FIRST (MR. CARTER'S ARGUMENT). 



CITATIONS FROM WRITERS UPON THE LAW OF NATURE AND 

 NATIONS, SHOWING THE FOUNDATION OF INTERNATIONAL 

 LAW, ITS RELATIONS TO THE LAW OF NATURE, AND THE 

 SOURCES FROM WHICH THE KNOWLEDGE OF IT IS TO BE 

 DERIVED. 



[POMEROY. Lectures on International Law, ed., 1886., eh. I, sees. 29, 30, 31, 33, 



pages 23-2U.] 



Sec. 2!). (2) A large number of rules which govern the mutual rela- 

 tions of states in their corporate capacity are properly called interna- 

 tional law, on account of the objects which they subserve and the rights 

 and duties they create. They are also properly law, because they have 

 been established by particular states as a part of their owu municipal 

 systems, and are enforced by their judiciary and executive iu the same 

 manner as other portions of the local codes. They are in fact principles 

 of the law of nature or morality put in the form of human commands, 

 and clothed with a human sanction. 



(3) What is called international law in its general sense, I would 

 term international morality. It consists of those rules founded upon 

 justice and equity, and deduced by right reason, according to which 

 independent states are accustomed to regulate their mutual inter- 

 course, and to which they conform their mutual relations. These 

 rules have no binding force in themselves as law; but states are more 

 and more impelled to observe them by a deference to the gen- 

 eral public opinion of Christendom, by a conviction that they are right 

 in themselves, or at least expedient, or by a fear <>!' provoking hostilities. 

 This moral sanction is so strong and is so constantly increasing in its 

 power and effect, that we may with propriety say these rules create 

 rights and corresponding duties which belong to and devolve upon in- 

 dependent states in their corporate political capacities. 



Sec. 30. We thus reach the conclusion that a huge portion of inter- 

 national law is rather a branch of ethics than of positive human juris- 

 prudence. Tin's fact, however, affords no ground for the jurist or the 

 student of jurisprudence to neglect the science, indeed, there is the 

 greater advantage in its study. Its rules are based upon abstract jus- 

 tice; they are in conformity with the deductions of right reason; hav- 

 ing no positive human sanction they appeal to a higher sanction than 

 do the precepts of municipal codes. All these features clothe them 

 with a nobler character than that of the ordinary civil jurisprudence, 

 as God's law is more perfect than human legislation. 



Sec 31. The preceding analysis of the nature and characteristics of 

 international law enables us to answer the general question, What are 

 its sources? If we confine our attention to that portion which is in 

 every sense of the term strictly international, and is therefore, as we 

 have seen, morality rather than law, these sources are plainly seen to 

 be: (1) The Divine law; (2) Enlightened reason acting upon the ab- 

 stract principles of ethics; and (3) The consent of nations in adopting 

 the particular rules thus drawn from the generalities of the moral law 



