248 ORAL ARGUMENT OF JAMES C. CARTER, ESQ. 



coast and did what was called "hover", that is not proceed upon her 

 voyage, but wait there apparently ior a favorable time to run in, she 

 subjected herself to the penalty of those laws, and might be captured. 

 I think no nation has ever resisted the enactment or enforcement of 

 those laws. 



The President. I do not think you are quite right about that. 



Mr. Carte u. So far as I am aware. There may have been cases 

 where they were enforced under exceedingly unreasonable conditions; 

 but I do not myself remember them. 



The President. I believe cases of that sort have given rise to inter- 

 national communication, between nations. It may be that tiiey have 

 led to agreements. 



Mr. Carter. Of course, I will not be at all certain that such has not 

 been the case. My acquaintance with them, I confess, has been derived 

 mainly from the treatment of them that we find in books of international 

 law; they are treated in such books as exercises of the power of self- 

 defence, not objected to by nations, uidess they are attempted to be 

 enforced in a very unreasonable way. To illustrate them, 1 must again 

 reter to a decision which I have alluded to once before. 



This was the case where a vessel was seized in time of peace outside 

 the three-mile limit for a violation of a regulation such as I have alluded 

 to. It is the case of Church v. Hubbart. (2 Crauch U. S. Sup. Court 

 Eeports, p. 189.) I read from the opinion of Mr. Chief Justice Mar- 

 shall on page 181 of my printed argument: 



That the law of nations prohibits the exercise of any act of authority over a ves- 

 sel iu the situation of the Auf-ora and that the seizure is, on that account, a mere 

 maritime trespass, not within the exception, cannot be admitted. To reason i'rom 

 the extent of the jirotection a nation will aft'ord to foreigners, to the extent of the 

 means it may use for its own security, does not seem to be perfectly correct. It is 

 opposed by priiicijilea which are universally acknowledged. The authority of a 

 nation within its own territory is absolute and exclusive. The seizure of a vessel 

 withiu the range of its cannon by a foreign force is an invasion of that territory, and 

 is a hostile act which it is its duty to repel. But its power to secure itself from 

 injury may certainly be exercised beyond the limits of its territory. 



Upon this principle the right of a belligerent to search a neutral vessel on the high 

 seas for contraband of war is universally admitted, because the belligerent has a 

 right toprevent the injury done to himself by the assistance inteuded for his enemy. 

 So, too, a nation has a right to prohibit any commerce with its colonies. Any attempt 

 to violate the laws made to protect this right is an injury to itself which it may 

 prevent and it has a right to use the means necessary for its jirevention. These 

 means do not appear to be limited within any certain marked boundaries, which 

 remain the same at all times and in all situations. If they are such as unnecessarily 

 to vex and harrass foreign lawful commerce, foreign nations will resist their exor- 

 cise. If they are such as are reasonable and necessary to secure their laws from 

 violation, they will be submitted to. 



In different seas and on different coasts, a wider or more contracted range in which 

 to exercise the vigilance of the government will be assented to. Thug in the Channel, 

 where a very great part of the commerce to and from all the north of Euroi)e passes 

 through a very narrow sea, the seizure of vessels on susiticion of attempting an illicit 

 trade must necessarily be restricted to very narrow limits ; but on the coast of South 

 America, seldom frequented by vessels but for the purpose of illicit trade, the vigi- 

 lance of the government may be extended somewhat further, and foreign nations sub- 

 mit to such regulations as are reasonable in themselves and are really necessary to 

 secure that monopoly of colonial commerce, which is claimed by all natious holding 

 distant possessions. 



If this right be extended too far, the exercise of it will be resisted. It has occa- 

 sioned long and frequent contests which have sometimes ended in open war. The 

 English, it will be well recollected, complained of the right claimed by Spain to 

 search their vessels on the high seas, which was carried so far that the Guarda Costas 

 of that nation seized vessels not in the neighborhood of their coasts. .> This practice 

 was the subject of long and fruitless negotiations, and at length of open war. The 

 right of the Spaniards was supposed to be exercised uurea8oual)ly and vexatiously, 

 but it never was contended that it could only be exercised within the range of the 

 cannon from their batteries. 



