ORAL ARGUMENT OF JAMES C. CARTER, ESQ. 103 



nations because they are defensive acts of force which she has a right 

 to exert. She would be quite right to exert them even if the laws had 

 not been passed. If Great Britain had no hovering law upon her stat- 

 ute book, she would have a right to give instructions to her cruisers to 

 prevent vessels hovering upon her coast under circumstances calculated 

 to excite suspicion that they were engaged in smuggling; and if other 

 powers should complain of that, the only question would be whether it 

 was reasonable or not. Great Britain, being a constitutional Govern- 

 ment, of course cannot very well capture vessels upon the high seas, 

 carry them in and libel them in her courts for condemnation, without a 

 system of municipal law providing for it. Neither can the United 

 States. In such countries, not under an absolute Government, it is 

 necessary to have enactments of municipal law for the purpose of gov- 

 erning seizures in the case of condemnation. These methods are all 

 prescribed by municipal laws. These municipal laws are perfectly 

 valid and binding — valid and binding as laws upon the citizens of the 

 nation enacting them, valid and binding upon citizens of other states, 

 not as laws, but because they are reasonable exertions of a self-defensive 

 power. 



The circumstance that they are enacted into laws does not, of course, 

 take away from them their validity. It only serves to render them 

 more reasonable, because it subjects foreign citizens only to the same 

 rule to which the citizens of the country themselves are subjected. 

 Quarantine regulations are of the same character. A nation must have 

 the right to protect itself against the entrance of contagious disease, 

 No people in the world, on the ground that the seas are free, have a 

 right to bring disease into dangerous proximity to the coasts of another 

 nation; and if for the purpose of keeping infection clear of coa-^ts, it 

 were necessary to keep vessels 100 miles off the coast, the right to do 

 it would exist. 



There is no such thing as universal rules in international law, or in 

 respect to the freedom of the seas, as there are no universal rules in 

 respect to anything. Everything in the world depends upon circum- 

 stances. 



Whatever right, whatever acts of power, it is necessary for a nation 

 to assert upon the high seas in order to protect its own essential inter- 

 ests, if they are fair, if they are moderate, if they are reasonable, if 

 they are suited to the exigencies of the case, if they do not transcend 

 the necessity which creates them, they are valid, and all other nations 

 in the world are bound to respect them. 



The President. If I understand you aright, your contention would 

 be that the action of nations on the high seas is founded on the same 

 principles in time of war as in time of peace? 



Mr. Carter. Precisely. My position cannot be better stated than 

 that. What gives these extraordinary rights to nations in times of 

 war, is necessity — the necessity of self defence. The same necessity can 

 arise in times of peace just as well, and whenever it does arise, it 

 demands the same remedies, and the same remedies are applied. 



The President. Would you like to rest awhile, Mr. Carter"? 



Mr. Carter. No, I am not at all tired. 



The President. The manner in which you express your views inter- 

 ests us very highly. 



Mr. Carter. I thank you. 



This right of self-defence, which I assert and which is so entirely 

 different from the right of sovereign jurisdiction, does not militate at 

 all against the freedom of the seas. It asserts the freedom of the seas. 



