TWELFTH DAY, APRIL 20™, 1893. ■ 



[The Tribunal convened pursuant to adjournment.] 



The President. Mr. Carter, will you proceed? 



Mr. Carter. Mr. President, my argument yesterday had a twofold 

 character. It was designed, in the tirst place, to show that by tlie 

 doctrines of municii)al law everywhere acce[)ted, the fur-seals were the 

 property of the United States. In the next ])hice, my purpose was, if 

 there were any doubts concerning that conclusion arising out of ditl'er- 

 ences between the nature and habits of the seals and tliose of otlier 

 animals in respect to which the question of property had been decided 

 by the municipal law, to more particularly ex]>lain that tlie proper way 

 to, remove them was to look to the foundation upon which the institu- 

 tion of property itself stood, and that if we should tind that there 

 were the same reasons for awarding to the United States projierty in 

 the fur-seals as there were for awarding proi)erty in anything, the con- 

 clusion would become, as it seemed to me, irresistible. With that 

 view I engaged in an inquiry into the general foundations of the law 

 of property in order to show tliat proi)erty was not founded upon rob- 

 bery or force, or based upon any arbitrary distinctions, but that it was 

 established for great social purposes and to satisfy great social neces- 

 sities; that the earth was originally the common property of the race, 

 an<l that the division of the face of the earth into distinct possessions 

 allotted to different nations, did not disphice the right of mankind in 

 general to an enjoyment of all the benefits of the earth; that the 

 establishment of the institution of i)roperty, so far from displacing this 

 right, was really the principal means and the effective means, by which 

 that right was worked out and made practicably available; that con- 

 sequently the right of property, whether in nations or in individuals, 

 was subject to two limitations; the first was that it was not held by 

 an absolute title; that so far as any nation had more of a thing than 

 its necessities required it held the superabundance subject to a trust 

 for the benefit of mankind. Second, that the Kse only of things is 

 given, not the stock, or principal thing; that that was to be ])reservi'd 

 for the benefit of future generations. I next endeavored to show that 

 these deductions from the law of nature were confirmed by the actual 

 practice and usage of mankind ; that, although under municii)al law 

 as between individuals one could not call another to account for an 

 abuse of the right of property or for an attcmjit to destroy it, and there 

 were not generally laws for the correction of abuses of the law of 

 property by individuals, the motive ot self interest being sufficient for 

 the purposes of protection, yet there were, or might be, excejitional 

 cases even in municipal policy, where there were dangers that indi- 

 viduals would abuse the right of proj)erty, in which tlie state would 

 prevent that abuse; that the jiractice of nations still lurther illustraled 

 the truth that the title to property was not absolute, and that wher- 

 ever there was a nation in possession of a great bounty of Providence, 

 B S, PT XII liJ 177 



