APPENDIX TO PART FIRST. 15 



vate life. Tlie law of nations is a complex system, composed of various 

 ingredients. It consists of general principles of right and justice, 

 equally suitable to the government of individuals in a state of natural 

 equality and to the relations and conduct of nations; of a collection of 

 usages, customs, and opinions, the growth of civilization and commerce, 

 and of a code of conventional or positive law. 



In the absence of these latter regulations, the intercourse and con- 

 duct of nations are to be governed by principles fairly to be deduced 

 from the rights and duties of nations <-nd the nature of moral obliga- 

 tion; and we have the authority of the lawyers of antiquity, and of 

 some of the first masters in the modern school of public law, for plac- 

 ing the moral obligation of nations and of individuals on similar 

 grounds, and for considering individual and national morality as parts 

 of one and the same science. 



The law of nations, so far as it is founded on the principles of natural 

 law, is equally binding in every age and upon all mankind. * * * 



[Halleck, International Law, ch. H, sec. 13, page 50, and sec. 18, page 54.] 



Sec. 13. It is admitted by all that there is no universal or immutable 

 law of nations, binding upon the whole human race, which all mankind 

 in all ages and countries have recognized and obeyed. Nevertheless, 

 there are certain principles of action, a certain distinction between 

 right and wrong, between justice and injustice, a, certain divine or 

 natural law, or rule of right reason, which, in the words of Cicero, "is 

 congenial to the feelings of nature, diffused among all men, uniform, 

 eternal, commanding us to our duty, and prohibiting every violation of 

 it; one eternal and immortal law, which can neither be repealed nor 

 derogated from, addressing itself to all nations and all ages, deriving 

 its authority from the common Sovereign of the universe, seeking no 

 other lawgiver and interpreter, carrying home its sanctions to every 

 breast, by the inevitable punishment He inflicts on its transgressors." 



It is to these principles or rule of right, reason, or natural law, that 

 all other laws, whether founded on custom or treaty, must be referred, 

 and their binding force determined. If, in accordance with the spirit 

 of this natural law, or if innocent in themselves, they are binding upon 

 all who have adopted them; but if they are in violation of this law, and 

 are unjust in their nature and effects, they are without force. The prin- 

 ciples of natural justice, applied to the conduct of states, considered as 

 moral beings, must therefore constitute the foundation upon which the 

 customs, usuages, and conventions of civilized and christian nations 

 are erected into a grand and lofty temple. The character and dura- 

 bility of the structure must depend upon the skill of the architect and 

 the nature of the materials; but the foundation is as broad as the prin- 

 ciples of justice, and as immutable as the law of God. 



Sec. 18. The first source from which are deduced the rules of con- 

 duct which ought to be observed between nations, is the (Urine laic, or 

 principle of justice, which lias been defined "a constant and perpetual 

 disposition to render every man his due." The peculiar nature of the 

 society existing among independent states, renders it more difficult to 

 apply this principle to them than.to individual members of the same 

 state; and there is, therefore, less uniformity of opinion with respect to 

 the rules of international law properly deducible from it, than with 

 respect to the rules of moral law governing the intercourse of indi- 

 vidual men. It is, perhaps, more properly speaking, the test by which 

 the rules of positive international law are to be judged, rather than, the 



