86 ORAL ARGUMENT OF JAMES C. CARTER, ESQ. 



they are of such a iiatnro as to reciprocally limit each other without ever coining 

 into collision or contradiction with each other; they are correlative to each other, 

 and are coordinated and linked with the most perfect harmony. It can not be other- 

 wise. He who has arranged all the parts of the universe in so admirable a manner, 

 the Creator of the world, conld not contradict himself. 



And a learned Dutch writer, Ferguson, lias spoken very mucli to 

 the point. He says {Manual of International Law, 1884, vol. I, part I, 

 ch. Jll, sec. 21): 



Investigating thus this spirit of law, Ave find the definiticm of international law 

 to consist in certain rules of cotuhirt which reasoti, j)ro)npleil by conscience, deduces as 

 consonant to justice, xvith such litnitations and modiJicKtions as may be established by qen- 

 eral consent, to meet the cxi(jencies of tlie 2)yesent state of society as existing among nations 

 and tvhich modern civilized stales regard as binding them in their relations with one another, 

 with a force comparable in nature and degree to tiiat binding the conscientious person to 

 obey the laws of his country. 



And I remember, although I have not cited here, the way in which 

 the same question has been regarded by the English philosopher, John 

 Locke, illustrious all over the world, in his treatise on Civil Govern- 

 ment. He had occasion to consider wliat the law of nature is, and he 

 defines it to be that law which men would observe and enforce upon each 

 other if they lived in a state of nature, and without any human gov- 

 ernment whatever. In such a government as that, he says, and anter- 

 ior to human governments, men still enforced against each other a law. 

 They could not appeal to any supreme authority to enforce it against 

 others, and the consequence was they enforced it themselves. If the 

 rights of a man living in such a condition were violated, he asserted 

 his rights and defended himself by his own arm. That might be said 

 to be the employment of force and to be held divorced from right; 

 but not quite so. The man who has justice on his side always has a 

 supreme advantage, and, therefore, if there is no supreme authority 

 over him to which he can appeal for justice against his neighbor he 

 may be iiermitted to enforce it himself, and does enforce it himself. 

 A very large part of the enforcement of that sort of justice still 

 rejnains among men, notwithstanding the societies into which they have 

 entered. The right of self-defence is an instance. If I am attacked. 

 by a man I have a right to defend myself, and I do so. If a man 

 intrudes upon my property I have a right by my own arm, without 

 appealing to any tribunal, to thrust him off it, and I do so. Those are 

 the same modes of enforcing justice and ])rotecting rights which men 

 would exercise if tliere were no governments at all. Mr. Locke then: 

 deals with the suggestion, which, he says, will be made, that this state' 

 of nature is a mere imagination which never has existed, and never, 

 is likely to exist, and that consequently it is idle to inquire what rights 

 men would have in a state of nature, or what means they would have 

 of enforcing them. To which he makes the pertinent answer that all 

 princes, kings, and sovereign states are now, and ever have been, and 

 always must be, living in a state of nature, and have no other way of 

 enforcing justice or determining- rights than individuals would have if 

 there were no government over them. 



These observations all tend to show, and I think, conclusively, show, 

 that there is an unwritten law everywhere iu operation which enables 

 us to determine in any given case what the rights of nations are as 

 between each other in respect to property, or in respect to any other 

 relation which may be drawn in question, a law which "though not 

 written upon tables of stone, or promulgated amid the thunders of 

 Sinai, is nevertheless binding upon the conduct and consciences of 

 nations and of men." 



