NATIONAL GALLERY NATIONS. 



137 



laws ; for instance, in order to pay the sum exacted 

 by the allies, and to create an entailed estate for the 

 duke De Richelieu. For the indemnification of the 

 emigrants, see Emigrants, and France. 



NATIONAL GALLERY. This splendid English 

 collection comprises the greater part of the pictures 

 which belonged to the late Mr Angerstein. They 

 were purchased, by order of George IV., for forty 

 thousand pounds, as the foundation of a national 

 gallery, and were first exhibited to the public in 

 May, 1824. Amongst them are the Village Festival, 

 by Wilkie ; Marriage a la Mode, by Hogarth ; 

 Christ raising Lazarus, by Sebastian del Piombo ; 

 the Woman taken in Adultery, by Rembrandt ; 

 Julius II. by Raphael ; and beautiful specimens of 

 Cuyp, Vandyck, Annibal Caracci, Claude, G. Pous- 

 sin, Rubens, Titian, Coreggio, N. Poussin, Domeni- 

 chino, and Velasquez. 



NATIONAL GUARDS. See Guards. 



NATIONAL INSTITUTE. See Institute, Na- 

 tional. 



NATIONS, LAW OF. By national law, or, as it 

 ia more commonly called, the law of nations, we 

 understand that portion of public law which con- 

 cents the rights, duties, and obligations of nations. 

 This is a very comprehensive subject, and can only 

 b glanced at in this place, since a full and accurate 

 examination would occupy volumes. Nations are 

 considered as moral persons, having duties to per- 

 form, as well as rights to enforce, and are bound to 

 tlie observance of the great principles of justice, 

 vhich are applicable to the relations which subsist 

 1-etween each nation and its own subjects, and 

 between each nation and every other nation. Vattel 

 <ias defined the law of nations to be the science 

 which teaches the rights subsisting between nations 

 or states, and the obligations correspondent to those 

 rights. But it is obvious that he here speaks of one 

 branch only of that law, and that he altogether 

 passes by another most important branch ; namely, 

 the rights and obligations which subsist between the 

 nation and its own subjects. It would be more cor- 

 rect, therefore, to divide it into two great leading heads, 

 namely, the internal law of nations, or that which 

 arises from the relations between the sovereign and 

 the people, and the external law of nations, or that 

 which arises from the relations between different 

 nations. The former may be properly called the 

 public law of the state, whether it arise from the 

 principles of natural justice, or from positive institu- 

 tion. The latter is appropriately called international 

 law, and is again divisible into two heads, the one 

 which regulates the rights, intercourse, and obliga- 

 tions of nations, as such, with each 'other ; the 

 other, which regulates the rights and obligations 

 more immediately belonging to their respective sub- 

 jects. Thus the rights and duties of ambassadors 

 belong to that head which respects the nation in its 

 sovereign capacity ; and the rights of the subjects of 

 one nation to property situated within the territory 

 of another nation, belong to the latter head. The 

 former is frequently denominated the public law of 

 nations, and the latter the private law of nations. The 

 great foundation on which the law of nations rests, 

 is the law of nature, or that system of principles 

 which is deduced by human reason from the nature 

 of man, and his social obligations, for the direction 

 and government of human societies. Not that every 

 principle of natural law is applicable to nations, in 

 the same way and manner as it is to individuals ; 

 but that nations, being moral persons, are bound by 

 the same principles, so far as they admit of a just 

 implication to them. And among Christian nations, 

 these principles are illustrated and enforced by the 

 superior sanctions and doctrines of divine revelation. 



It is obvious, that the principles of natural law are 

 not, of themselves, sufficient to regulate, in a fixed 

 and definitive manner, all the complicated relations of 

 society ; for, in many cases, no rule is, or can be, 

 furnished by human reason, which is, necessarily, 

 the sole and true rule to govern them. There are 

 many cases in which the rule is a matter of indif- 

 ference, or of convenience, or of arbitrary regula- 

 tion ; and every nation is free to adopt or reject the 

 rule which is framed by another. There are, again, 

 other cases, in which a nation may justly yield up its 

 own strict rights, or modify them, without any depar- 

 ture from the principles of justice, or moral obliga- 

 tion. The law of nations may, therefore, be divided 

 into two great classes of principles, namely, those 

 which arise from natural or universal law, and those 

 which are of mere positive institution. The former 

 is denominated the universal law of nations ; the 

 latter, the positive law of nations. And the latter is 

 again divisible into the customary law, or that which 

 arises from the silent consent of nations, as evidenced 

 by general usages and customs, and habits of inter- 

 course ; and the conventional law, which arises from 

 express compacts, or treaties between nations, or in 

 a particular state, from the fundamental constitution 

 of such state. We do not propose, in this place, to 

 enter upon any theoretical investigation of the princi- 

 ples of the law of nations, but merely to present a 

 practical summary of the most important of them. 

 Our object is to furnish a guide to the actual state of 

 this branch of public jurisprudence, rather than an 

 exposition of the reasons on which it is founded. In 

 considering this subject, it is our design to treat, 

 first, of the internal law of nations, or that which 

 concerns a nation considered by itself; and, second- 

 ly, the external law of nations, or that which con- 

 cerns its intercourse and relations with other states. 



1. Nations considered in themselves. When any 

 society of men, or body politic, is united for the 

 purposes of government, and for mutual protection, 

 we are accustomed to call such society, or body 

 politic, a state, or nation. To every state, or nation, 

 we ascribe the attributes of sovereignty, indepen- 

 dence, and equality with every other. Every nation 

 which governs itself, without dependence upon any 

 foreign power, is deemed a sovereign state. By 

 sovereignty, is meant the absolute right to exercise 

 supreme power, without any responsibility to any 

 superior, except God. This is sovereignty, in its 

 largest sense; and in this view it is despotic and 

 uncontrollable. But it must not be understood that 

 the possession of such an absolute, despotic sove- 

 reignty, is indispensable to the existence of a nation, 

 or that it is ordinarily conferred, or proper to be con- 

 ferred, upon its own functionaries. All that is meant 

 is, that it is competent for the people composing any 

 state, or nation, to exercise such power, or to confide 

 it to their public functionaries ; and the exercise of 

 of it by either cannot, properly, be questioned by any 

 foreign state or government. Theoretically speak- 

 ing, this absolute sovereignty may be said to In- 

 inherent in every nation, as a potential attribute ; 

 but, practically speaking, it rarely has any existence, 

 as an actual attribute, in the organization of any 

 government. The forms of government are divisible 

 into three sorts: democracies, or governments by 

 the people ; aristocracies, or governments of a select 

 few ; and monarchies, or governments of a single 

 head ; and each of these may be variously mixed up 

 with the others, so as to form a complex government, 

 such as a representative democracy, or republic, or a 

 limited monarchy, or a limited aristocracy. In a 

 pure despotism, indeed, all sovereign power is con- 

 centrated in the head ; but such a government rarely 

 exists; for, in governments usually styled despotic, 



