56 ARGUMENT OF THE UNITED STATES. 



This conclusion is a deduction of moral right drawn' from the facts of 

 man's nature and the environment in which he isplaced ; in other words, 

 it is a conclusion of the law of nature; but this, as has been heretofore 

 shown, is international law, except so far as the latter may appear, from 

 the actual practice and usages of nations, to have departed from it, or, 

 to speak more properly, not to have risen to it. 



Turning to the actual practice of nations, that is, to the observed fact, 

 we find that it is in precise accordance with the deductive conclusion. 

 No tangible thing can be pointed out, which exhibits the conditions 

 above stated, which is not by the jurisprudence of all civilized nations 

 pronounced to be the subject of property, and protected as such. This 

 seems so manifest as to justify a confidence that the assertion will not 

 be disputed. 



In the foregoing reasoning no distinction ha s been observed between 

 ownership by private individuals under municipal law, and by nations 

 under international law. There is no distinction. Nation s are but ag- 

 gregates of individual men. They exhibit the same ambitions, are sub- 

 ject to like perils, and must resort for safety and peace to similar ex- 

 pedients. Just as it is necessary to the peace, order, and progress of 

 municipal societies that everything possessing the three characteristics 

 above enumerated should be owned by some one, so also it is necessary 

 to the peace, order, and progress of the larger society of nations that 

 everything belonging to the same class, but which from its magnitude 

 is incapable of individual ownership, should be owned by some nation. 

 This truth is well illustrated by the practice of nations for the last four 

 centuries in acknowledging as valid titles to vast tracts of the earth's 

 surface upon no other foundation than fust discovery. Nearly 

 the whole of the American continents was parceled out among Euro- 

 pean nations by the recognition of claims based upon such titles alone. 1 



1 The practice and doctrine of European nations upon thissubject are clearly set 

 forth by Mr. Chief Justice Marshall, in delivering the opinion of the Supreme Court 

 of the United States iu Johnson vs. Mcintosh (8 Wheat., 543, 572.) A short extract 

 will he pertinent hero: 



"As the right of society to prescribe those rules by which property may be ac- 

 quired and preserved is not, and cannot be, drawn into question; as the title to 

 lands, especially, is, and must be admitted, to depend entirely on the law of the na- 

 tion in which they lie, it will be necessary, in pursuingthis inquiry, to examine, not 

 simply those principles of abstract justice which the Creator of all things has im- 

 pressed on the mind of his creature, man, and which are admitted to regulate in a 

 great degree the rights of civilized nations, whose perfect independence has been 

 acknowledged, but those principles also which our own Government has adopted in 

 the particular case, and given as the rule of decision. 



"On the discovery of this immense continent, the great nations of Europe were 



