ORAL ARGUMENT OF JAMES C. CARTER, ESQ. 279 



aj^eeable, to the impulses of linmaiiity — she asks them to forego that 

 aud engage with her in this destructive slaughter upon the seas! Slie 

 is made to say to the United States: " Blot out from your statute-book 

 those laws which declare the killing of female seals to be a crime; forget 

 those precepts of the law of uature which teach us that tlie destruc- 

 tion of any usei'ul race of animals is a crime; forget those ])recepts. and 

 come and engage with us in this work of destruction upon the high 

 seas! Come, together with us, and let us cut open the bellies of these 

 gravid females, just ready to bring forth, and let their living and bleat- 

 ing young fall on the decks ! Come with us, and slaughter these nursing 

 mothers out at sea in search of I'ood, and let their miserable offspring 

 perish on the shore! Come with us, and let us make our decks run red 

 and white with commingling streams of blood and milk!" Are these 

 the regulations which a great and humane nation tenders to the United 

 States as being those to which she is willing to yield her concurrence'? 

 Are these the regulations which the civilization and humanity of Europe, 

 seated on that bench, are ex])ected to approve? 



Mr. President, I have said heretofore in the course of my argument — 

 and I cannot too often insist upon it — that the duty of preserving this 

 useful race of animals belongs to that people which has such a control 

 over them that they can take and api)ly the annual increase and benefit 

 of the animal to the uses ot mankind without diminishing the stock. 

 It is their duty, because they alone have the power to perform the task, 

 and because selfinterest furnishes them with a sufficient motive to 

 insure its performance. Nature has so linked together duty and self- 

 interest as to make the gratification of the one assure the perfornnmce 

 of the other. 



The United States believed that this was its duty, and it engaged 

 in an effort to perform it. There are those who thouglit, and who still 

 think, that that duty should never have been relin(piishe(l by the United 

 States, but that it should have performed it at all liazards, even though 

 it had been obliged to meet the " three quarters of the globe in arms." 

 If it had engaged in its performance with the full exertion of all its 

 power, naval and military, and calamitous consequences had resulted, 

 the humane sentiment of mankind — the |)ubl{c 0])inion of the world — 

 history, in making her final award — would have charged all the respon- 

 sibility for those calanuties upon that nation which had refused to be 

 bound by those great natural laws which ought to be the rule governing 

 the intercourse between nations. 



Butother counsels were followed; and a different course was pursued. 

 The United States, abominating war, viewing hostilities with a power 

 kindred in speech and blood with unutterable dread, always inclined to 

 pacific measures, when a Tribunal was offered, made up from the selected 

 wisdom of the world, for the determination of the rectitude of their con- 

 tention against Great Britain, could not help accepting that offer, and 

 thus obliged itself to forbear from any further efforts in enforcing its 

 rights, aud in discharging that corresponding duty to preserve this race 

 of animals which had been imposed upon it by its situation and by its 

 advantages. That duty it has relinquished; but, although the duty 

 has been relinquished, it has not been extinguished. It has only been 

 transferred from the United States to others. It has been transferred 

 to the members of this Tribunal; and it remains for them to discharge 

 this high duty of preserving from destruction a bounty of Providence 

 designed to be a perpetual blessing to man. That duty is one which 

 it is perfectly easy to perform. The destruction of this race of seals is 

 wholly, absolutely, unnecessary. It can be easily, certainly preserved, 



