2 ARGUMENT OF THE UNITED STATES. 



appealed to for the response that the determination must be grounded 

 upon principles of right. It can not be that two great nat ions have volun- 

 tarily waited their own convictions and submitted their rival claims to 

 the determinations of caprice, or merely temporary expediency. It is not 

 to such empty and shifty expedients that national pride and power have 

 paid their homage. The arbitrament of force can be worthily replaced 

 only by that of right. This Tribunal would be robbed of its supreme 

 dignity, and its judgment would lose its value, if its deliberations 

 should be swayed in any degree by considerations other than those of 

 justice. Its proceedings would no longer be judicial. The nation for 

 which the undersigned have the honor to be retained is prepared to 

 accept and abide by any determination which this Tribunal may declare 

 as the just conclusion of law upon the facts as established by the proofs. 

 It can not be content with any other. 



But what is the rule or principle of right? How is it to be described 

 and where is it to be found? The answer to this question, though not 

 so immediately obvious, is yet not open to doubt. In saying that the 

 rule must be that of right, it is intended, and indeed declared, that it 

 must be amoral rule, a rule dictated by the moral sense; but this may 

 not be the moral sense as found in any individual mind, or as exhibited 

 by the concurring sentiments of the people of any particular nation. 

 There may be — there are — differences in the moral convictions of the 

 people of different nations, and what is peculiar to one nation can not 

 be asserted as the rule by which the conduct of another nation is to be 

 controlled. The controversy to be determined arises between two dif- 

 ferent nations, and it has been submitted to the judgment of a tribunal 

 composed, in part, of the citizens of several other nations. It is im- 

 mediately obvious that it must be adjudged upon principles and rules 

 which both nations and all the Arbitrators alike acknowledge; that is 

 to say, those which are dictated by that general standard of justice 

 upon which civilized nations are agreed; and this is international law. 

 Just as, in municipal societies, municipal law, aside from legislative 

 euactmeuts, is to be found in the general standard of justice which is 

 acknowledged by the membersof each particular state, so, in the larger 

 society of nations, international law is to be found in the general stand- 

 ard of justice acknowledged by the members of that society. There is, 

 indeed, no legislation, in the ordinary sense of that word, for the 

 society of nations; nor in respect to, by far, the larger part of the 

 affairs of life is there any for municipal societies; and yet there is 



