ORAL ARGUMENT OF JAMES C. CARTER, ESQ. 101 



which a nation possesses over its territory that it is limited rigidly by 

 a boundary Hue, and that right of sovereignty is possessed by the 

 nation as a Government, as an organized community engaged in the 

 business of administering the laws and welfare of the territory over 

 which it extends. 



There is another class of rights which a nation may enjoy and does 

 enjoy, not thus rigidly limited by a boundary line, but which it may 

 exercise wherever it goes in its capacity as an individual. First let me 

 mention the great right of selfdefence that accompanies a nation 

 wherever it goes and may be exercised by a nation, not because it is a 

 Government, but because it is an individual. It exercises this right of 

 self-defence much as an individual exercises it. All of us have the 

 same right of self-defence, not because we have any Governmental 

 power, but because we are persons who have rights, and that is one of 

 them. Just so it is with nations; wherever they have a right to he, 

 there they can exercise those powers which are necessary to protect 

 them as persons. 



In addition to protecting themselves as persons they may protect 

 their property. Nations being corporate persons, not natural persons, 

 can scarcely be touched outside the limits of their territory except in 

 the way of touching tlieir property. I say those rights of self-protec- 

 tion may be exercif^ed by a nation wherever the nation has a right to be; 

 and a nation has a right to be anywhere upon the high seas. A nation 

 goes wherever its property goes, from one end of the world to the other, 

 and it exists as a nation until it reaches the boundaries of some other 

 nation. It cannot pass those. But on the high seas all the nations of 

 the world exist together. They are citizens together upon those seas. 

 Their commerce goes upon those seas, and wherever their citizens and 

 their commerce go, there the nation goes, there its power goes, as an 

 individual. There, if its property is attacked or its citizens are 

 attacked, it has a right to defend them. It has the gTeat right of self- 

 defence, and it has a right to use just such means and methods and 

 weapons as are necessary fully and perfectly to protect itself. That is 

 not because it is a government, but because it is an individual. It has 

 a right to be on the great highway of nations, to go there with its inter- 

 ests, and if it could not x>i'otect its interests, how could they be pro- 

 tected at all? Take the case of a fleet of American merchantmen 

 which might be convoyed by an American man-of-war. Suppose it 

 should be attacked somewhere on the high seas. Can itnotbe defended*? 

 What is the nian-of war convoying them for, except for the purposes of 

 defence? Wherever upon the seas a nation's property is, if that prop- 

 erty is in any manner assailed, it must protect it. Commerce could 

 not exist; the intercourse of nations could not subsist, except upon 

 these principles. Let it be supposed that the citizens of some foreign 

 nation should commit a trespass upon the property of citizens of the 

 United States somewhere upon the high seas, and the owners of that 

 property should make complaint to their own Government, and that 

 Government should go to the nation to which the trespassers belonged, 

 and complain and say: "The citizens of your nation have been injur- 

 ing the property of our citizens on the high seas; we ask you to make 

 redress". The answer would be: " Can you not protect your own citi- 

 zens. Have you not just as much power to protect your citizens on the 

 high seas as we have? If a trespass was attempted against them, why 

 did they not resist and beat off the trespassers, and if they were not 

 able to do that they may resort to the courts of any nation in the world 

 to obtain their redress ". 



