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Law of nations   /lɔ əv nˈeɪʃənz/   Listen
Law of nations

noun
1.
The body of laws governing relations between nations.  Synonym: international law.






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"Law of nations" Quotes from Famous Books



... common by a number of tribes. The fact of this consensus to certain laws on the part of different races was supposed to imply that these were fragments of some larger whole, which came eventually to be called indifferently the Law of Nature, or the Law of Nations. For at almost the very date when this Law of Nations was beginning thus to be built up, the Greek notion of one supreme law, which governed the whole race and dated from the lost Golden Age, came to the knowledge of the lawyers of Rome. They proceeded to identify ...
— Mediaeval Socialism • Bede Jarrett

... indulgent. But my brother soon rectified my views; or, if any doubts remained, he impressed me, at least, with a sense of my paramount duty to himself, which was threefold. First, it seems that I owed military allegiant to him, as my commander-in-chief, whenever we "took the field;" secondly, by the law of nations, I, being a cadet of my house, owed suit and service to him who was its head; and he assured me, that twice in a year, on my birthday and on his, he had a right, strictly speaking, to make me lie down, and to set his foot upon my neck; lastly, by a law not ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey

... clear-sighted; but they shrink from devoting themselves to it, for fear of using a razor, as is said, to cut stones. "I have no mind," wrote Leibnitz to Basnage, who had exhorted him to compile an immense Corpus of unpublished and printed documents relating to the history of the law of nations; "I have no mind to turn transcriber.... Does it not occur to you that the advice you give me resembles that of a man who should wish to marry his friend to a shrew? For to engage a man in a lifelong ...
— Introduction to the Study of History • Charles V. Langlois

... forfeiture; and further, that I have given instructions to those officers to whom it belongs, to cause prosecutions to be instituted against all persons who shall, within the cognizance of the courts of the United States, violate the law of nations with respect to the powers at war, ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing

... Britain," the reply concluded, "will stand or fall alone; and even in the event of ultimate defeat, the King of England will prefer to make terms with the sovereigns opposed to him rather than with those whose acts have proved them to be beyond the pale of the law of nations." ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith

... law labors of this great man were in support of those national principles which are more closely identified with his name than with that of any other individual. In advocating the cause of his client, he had to argue that the terms of the treaty of peace with England and the law of nations were of more force than a statute passed by the Legislature of the State of New York. He carried the court as decidedly with him as public opinion was against him; and he had to defend himself in several pamphlets, which he did with his usual success. As time went on, it became ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various

... any right in force, is to frustrate all right, and involve every thing in confusion, violence, and rapine. With these two, the last must fall; since, if the parent cannot justly be made a slave, neither can the child be born in slavery. "The law of nations, says Baron Montesquieu, has doomed prisoners to slavery, to prevent their being slain; the Roman civil law permitted debtors, whom their creditors might treat ill, to sell themselves. And the law of nature requires that ...
— Some Historical Account of Guinea, Its Situation, Produce, and the General Disposition of Its Inhabitants • Anthony Benezet

... and Captain William Maze, or Mace, and other subjects, natives or inhabitants of New York, and elsewhere, in our plantations in America, have associated themselves, with divers others, wicked and ill-disposed persons, and do, against the law of nations, commit many and great piracies, robberies, and depredations on the seas upon the parts of America, and in other parts, to the great hindrance and discouragement of trade and navigation, and to the great danger and hurt of our loving subjects, ...
— Great Pirate Stories • Various

... wilderness, fathomed its secret places, traversed its trails and passes, marking them with his own blood and more vividly with that of the natives. Incidentally, by right of their discoveries and occupation of the wilderness, much of it became by the law of nations a part of the lands of the United States, though still nominally claimed by Mexico. Two years after the return of the famous Lewis-and-Clark expedition, Andrew Henry "discovered" South Pass (1808), and ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh

... would like to see an armed force landed upon our shores to take part with one or the other of the great political parties; and closed with a few strong words, as true at this day as then:—"If you acquit the defendant, you say to the world that the United States have renounced the law of nations,—that they permit their citizens not only to violate their own laws with impunity, but to invade the people of other countries with hostile force in a time of peace, as avarice, ambition, or the thought of plunder may dictate. Such a decision would justify the acts of the pirate on the ocean, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various

... appears, is impracticable. Because submarines are in effect outlaws when used as the German submarines have been used against merchant shipping, it is impossible to defend ships against their attacks as the law of nations has assumed that merchantmen would defend themselves against privateers or cruisers, visible craft giving chase upon the ...
— Why We are at War • Woodrow Wilson

... has not adhered to the declaration of Paris, the government, respecting the principles of the law of nations, proposes to observe, and hereby orders to be observed, the ...
— The Boys of '98 • James Otis

... Great Britain; and that, although the United States Government admitted the practice of capturing enemy's property in neutral ships, however objectionable in theory, to be part of the traditional and recognized law of nations. Going on from step to step, in the vain endeavor by some means to injure the maritime predominance of Great Britain, which defied the efforts both of their navy and of their privateers, the French Legislature in January, 1798, decreed that any ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan

... All infidels, of whatsoever sect or religion they may be or whatever may be their sins, hold and possess in conformity with the natural and divine law and the law of nations, the property they acquire without prejudice to others; and likewise their principalities, kingdoms, estates, lordships, dignities, and jurisdictions. 2. Although four different classes of infidels exist, there is but one method instituted by divine providence ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt

... has violated the law of nations; for yesterday she inveigled my own natural cully from me, a married lord, and made him false to ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden

... The sole ground on which indemnity has been refused is the alleged illegality of the tenure by which the monarch who made the seizures held his crown. This defense, always unfounded in any principle of the law of nations, now universally abandoned, even by those powers upon whom the responsibility for acts of past rulers bore the most heavily, will unquestionably be given up by His Sicilian Majesty, whose counsels will receive an impulse ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, - Vol. 2, Part 3, Andrew Jackson, 1st term • Edited by James D. Richardson

... would seem that Isidore wrongly divided human statutes or human law (Etym. v, 4, seqq.). For under this law he includes the "law of nations," so called, because, as he says, "nearly all nations use it." But as he says, "natural law is that which is common to all nations." Therefore the law of nations is not contained under positive human law, ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas

... Praslin to require the Archduke to order the Prince of Conde to leave his dominions. And when the Archduke declined with dignity to be guilty of any such breach of the law of nations, Henry dispatched Coeuvres secretly to Brussels to carry off thence the princess. But Maria de' Medici was on the alert, anti frustrated the design by sending a warning of what was intended to the Marquis Spinola, as a result of which the Prince de Conde and his wife ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini

... where this difficulty does not occur; and in which, therefore, these duties are obligatory, and these rights are to be asserted. It has ever been the method of public jurists to draw a great part of the analogies, on which they form the law of nations, from the principles of law which prevail in civil community. Civil laws are not all of them merely positive. Those, which are rather conclusions of legal reason than matters of statutable provision, belong to universal ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke

... blubbering! Get up! Look here! See this! (Get me that diary, Will.) If the Germans won't release your relations from jail on account of this Baganda, this is a written book that will make them do it! In this book are the names of men who have broken treaties and the law of nations. When the Germans know the British Government in London has this book under lock and key, they will think it a little thing to release your relations for ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy

... was so sudden and so universal, that all parties approved, or were forced to seem to approve it. The old king died the next day, as the courtiers said, for joy; the prince of Quifferiquimini was buried in spite of his appeal to the law of nations; and the youngest princess went distracted, and was shut up in a madhouse, calling out day and night for ...
— Hieroglyphic Tales • Horace Walpole

... embraced Romanism: afterwards he became a Protestant. Then politics interested him, and he engaged in controversy on the side of William III. He was appointed Commissioner of a Court for Trying Foreigners. In 1693 he published an essay on the Law of Nations When fifty-four, in 1710, he entered so vigorously into theological controversy, arising out of Trinitarian criticism, that his marked satire led to his books being condemned by the House of Commons, and burnt by the hangman. He resented this indignity ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts

... their warlike disposition, joined the Etruscans in a fight against the Gauls. This was probably only an insignificant and isolated engagement. Such is the account of Livy, who goes on to say that the Gauls, as soon as they perceived this violation in the law of nations, gave the signal for a retreat, and, having called upon the gods to avenge the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various

... their best to bewilder the public mind and to give factitious prestige to a conspiracy against free government and civilization by talking about the right of revolution, as if it were some acknowledged principle of the Law of Nations. There is a right, and sometimes a duty, of rebellion, as there is also a right and sometimes a duty of hanging men for it; but rebellion continues to be rebellion until it has accomplished its object and secured the acknowledgment of it from the other party to the quarrel, and from the world ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various

... of Vienna that the one point which England required as the sine qua non was the abolition of the slave trade. For that purpose England not only asserted itself, but interfered up to the utmost limit, perhaps beyond the limits of the law of nations, with all the powers of the world. Therefore, you had a perfect right to believe, to suppose, that in a question, in a matter in which we were not only internationally but morally interested, the questions ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various

... the city by land, while the fleet blockaded the river. A single Greek vessel, having received orders to summon the defenders of the place to surrender it, had the boldness to enter the town, whereupon it was set upon by the Egyptians, captured, and destroyed. Contrarily to the law of nations, which protects ambassadors and their escort, the crew was torn limb from limb, and an outrage thus committed which Cambyses was justified in punishing with extreme severity. Upon the fall of the city, ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson

... which he was appointed Governor did not give him such a power. If he exercised it, he usurped it; and therefore, every step we take in the examination of his conduct in Bengal, as in every step we take upon the same subject everywhere else, we look for the justification of his conduct to laws,—the Law of Nations, the laws of this country, and the laws of the country ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XII. (of XII.) • Edmund Burke

... invaded, and to the advice to close his gates, he answered, "Do you see these two doors? now, then, if I am attacked, I am determined to defend myself to the last drop of my blood, to serve as an example to the universe of the law of nations, violated in my person. Do not imagine that I shall follow your advice. The gates of an ambassador shall be ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... L1,250,000 a year for every 100,000 men actually employed in the war. It was further stipulated that a European Congress at the close of the war should endeavour to fix more surely the principles of the Law of Nations and establish a federative system. Above all, the allies bound themselves not to hinder the popular wish in France respecting the form of government—a clause which deprived the war of the Third Coalition of that monarchical character which ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... about as much as most schoolboys after a discipline of thirteen years; of the law of the land as much as enables me to keep 'within the statute'—to use the poacher's vocabulary. I did study the 'Spirit of Laws' and the Law of Nations; but when I saw the latter violated every month, I gave up my attempts at so useless an accomplishment;—of geography, I have seen more land on maps than I should wish to traverse on foot;—of mathematics, enough to give ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore

... I. Of Justice and Law II. Of the law of nature, the law of nations, and the civil law III. Of the law of persons IV. Of men free born V. Of freedmen VI. Of persons unable to manumit, and the causes of their incapacity VII. Of the repeal of the lex Fufia Caninia VIII. Of persons independent or dependent IX. Of paternal ...
— The Institutes of Justinian • Caesar Flavius Justinian

... describe them. They are intelligent and well-informed, and can never say, either before an earthly tribunal or at the bar of God, "We knew not of ourselves what was right." They are acquainted with the principles of the law of nations. They are proficient in the knowledge of Constitutional law. They are teachers of common law, and frame and execute statute law. They acknowledge that there is a just and impartial God, and are not altogether unacquainted with the law of Christian love and kindness. They claim for themselves the ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various

... tribunal of the world's public opinion of having planned and willed war; of the revolting deeds committed in Belgium and northern France, of the infamy of the Lusitania murders, of innumerable violations of The Hague convention and the law of nations, of abominable and perfidious plotting in friendly countries and shameless abuse of their hospitality, of crime heaped upon crime in hideous defiance of the laws of ...
— Right Above Race • Otto Hermann Kahn

... be the saying of a brave general, that when he heard the enemies' batteries firing, it always seemed to him that he heard his own name called out. Does not Prussia also hear her own name loudly pronounced, in those cannon-shots fired off in the Baltic and Black Sea for the public law of nations by Europe's brave champions? By what means did the great Elector establish the honour of the Prussian name, except by bravely taking the field, as a model of German princes, against the superior force of Louis XIV.? The policy, to which the Prussian government has again pledged ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 238, May 20, 1854 • Various

... of France appeared, by the tenor of his declaration of war, to imagine that his power and dignity entitled him to set at naught alike the natural rights of mankind and the law of nations; it resembled, indeed, rather the threat of a predatory incursion on the part of a barbarian chief than the justification of the taking up of arms by a civilized government. Without adducing a single cause of complaint, he satisfied himself with declaring that the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson

... the intercourse with foreign nations, to wit: to make treaties; to send and receive ambassadors, other public ministers, and consuls; to define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations; to regulate foreign commerce, including a power to prohibit, after the year 1808, the importation of slaves, and to lay an intermediate duty of ten dollars per head, as a discouragement to such importations. This class of powers ...
— The Federalist Papers

... under ordinary circumstances, it would have had no consequences. In 1818, as Monroe's secretary of war, Calhoun had occasion at a cabinet meeting to express some censure of Andrew Jackson's conduct of the Seminole war—a censure which was deserved, since Jackson had violated the law of nations in pursuing his enemy into a foreign country. Twelve years later, when Jackson was President and Calhoun, as Vice-President, was in direct line of succession, so to speak, Jackson heard of Calhoun's remarks, flew into a violent rage, came out as Calhoun's ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson

... present him before a judge."[778] The Roman lawyers also, if they could find a moment during gestation when the mother had been free, employed legal fiction to assume that the child had been born at that moment.[779] Florentinus defined slavery as "a custom of the law of nations by which one man, contrary to the law of nature, is subjected to the dominion of another."[780] Ulpian likewise said that, "as far as natural law is concerned, all ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner

... inform you that the barque Excelsior was, on the 8th of July, 1854, and the first year of the Quinquinambo Independence, formally condemned by the Federal Council of Quinquinambo, for having aided and assisted the enemy with munitions of war and supplies, against the law of nations, and the tacit and implied good-will between the Republic of the United States and the struggling Confederacies of South America; and that, in pursuance thereof, and under the law of reprisals and letters of marque, was taken possession ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte

... probably the origin of laws. Law, in its most comprehensive sense, signifies a rule of action laid down[152] by a superior. Divine law is manifested (1) by the law of nature, and (2) by revelation. The law of nations is an arbitrary arrangement, founded on the law of nature and the law of revelation: its perfection depends obviously on its correspondence with the divine law. Hence, by common consent, the greatest praise is given to those laws of ancient nations ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack

... was to be restored to the knights of St. John under the guarantee of a third power. Prisoners of war were to be released on payment of their debts, and the question of the charge for their maintenance was to be settled by the definitive treaty in accordance with the law of nations and ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick

... should sometimes be tempted to acts of violence or robbery? He is only doing what his habits and ideas have taught him to think commendable. He is doing what men in a more civilized state would have done under the same circumstances, what they daily do under the sanction of the law of nations—a law that provides not for the safety, privileges, and protection of the Aborigines, and owners of the soil, but which merely lays down rules for the direction of the privileged robber in the distribution of the booty of any newly discovered ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre

... the pen of Mr. J. Q. Adams. This gentleman wrote a series of essays for the public prints, under the signature of "Columbus," reviewing the course of Mr. Genet. In these articles, he pointed out, with great clearness, the principles of the law of nations applicable to the situation of the country in the neutral line of policy which had been ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward

... no honour, and as little morality, does not the morality of a nation consist in its preserving itself in as much happiness as it can? The invasion of Portugal by Spain in the last war, and the partition of Poland, have abrogated the law Of nations. Kings have left no ties between one another. Their duty to their people is still allowed. He is a good King that preserves his people: and if temporizing answers that end, is it not justifiable? You who are as moral as wise, answer my questions. ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole

... taken in this business, that speedy and condign punishment may be applied to Captain Patterson, when his crime shall be duly inquired into and established. The Congress having an utter abhorrence of all irregular and culpable violation of the law of nations, and of that respect and friendship, which they entertain for the French nation, we wish you would communicate this to their Excellencies the Governor and General ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various

... instructed to stand by us as far as possible on all the principal questions. It forms a really fine body, its head being Count Munster, whom I have already found very agreeable at Berlin and Paris, and its main authority in the law of nations being Professor Zorn, of the University of Konigsberg; but, curiously enough, as if by a whim, the next man on its list is Professor Baron von Stengel of Munich, who has written a book AGAINST arbitration; and next to him comes Colonel Schwartzhoff, said to be ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White

... is why one thing should belong to one man and another thing to another. The second is why this particular field should belong to this man, that field to that man. With regard to the former inquiry, it may be said that the ownership of things is according to the law of nations, but with regard to the second, it may be said to result from the positive law, because in former times one thing was appropriated by one man and another thing by another.' It must not be supposed, ...
— An Essay on Mediaeval Economic Teaching • George O'Brien

... slavery was an established institution in all countries.[478] Some pagan philosophers, like Seneca, maintained that all men are by nature free and equal, still by the law of nations slavery was upheld in all lands; and it was an axiom among the ruling classes, that "the human race exists for the sake of the few." Aristotle held that no perfect household could exist without slaves and freemen and that the natural law, as well as the law of nations, makes a distinction ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various

... trial, and upon conviction sacrificed to justice. While these steps were taken to rescue the nation from the reproach of violence and rapacity, which her neighbours had urged with such eagerness, equal spirit was exerted in convincing neutral powers that they should not with impunity contravene the law of nations, in favouring the enemies of Great Britain. A great number of causes were tried relating to disputed captures, and many Dutch vessels, with their cargoes, were condemned, after a fair hearing, notwithstanding the loud clamours of that people, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... promotion of their own welfare. The principle of self-determination will remain as long as men believe in the right of self-government and are willing to die for it. It was Woodrow Wilson who wrote that principle into the law of nations, even though he failed to obtain a universal application of it. Tacitus said of the Catti tribesmen, "Others go to battle; these go to war," and Mr. Wilson went to war in behalf of the democratic theory of government extended to all the affairs of the nations. That war is not yet ...
— Woodrow Wilson's Administration and Achievements • Frank B. Lord and James William Bryan

... Dutch governor. On the one hand it was argued, if he entered their state (for so they called it then) he was amenable to their laws, and ought to be cited, condemned, and put into the stocks, as an example to evil-doers. On the other hand, they got hold of a Dutch book on the Law of Nations, to cite agin him; but it was written in Latin, and although it contained all about it, they couldn't find the place, for their minister said there was no index to it. Well, it was said, if we are independent, so is he, and whoever heard of a king or a prince ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... ship, the General Armstrong, during the war of 1812, by a British fleet, while lying in the neutral port of Fayal, and therefore entitled to the protection of the Portuguese government. According to the law of nations, Portugal is responsible for her failure to protect her; and although Great Britain is the party in equity responsible, the United States have to look, in conformity to law, only to Portugal. The claims have been ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various

... define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas and offences against the law of nations; ...
— History of the United States, Volume 6 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews

... for this end, that when by the grace of His divinity the chain of slavery wherewith we were held had been broken He might restore us to our pristine liberty, it is a salutary deed if men, whom nature originally produced free, and whom the law of nations has subjected to the yoke of slavery, be restored by the benefit of manumission to the liberty in which they were born. And so moved by loving-kindness and consideration of the case, we make you Montana and Thomas, slaves of the holy ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.

... representative. I have a most deep and thorough conviction, that a new era has arisen in the world, that new and dangerous combinations are taking place, promulgating doctrines and fraught with consequences wholly subversive in their tendency of the public law of nations and of the general liberties of mankind. Whether this be so, or not, is the question which I now propose to examine, upon such grounds of information as are afforded by the common and public ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster

... and a wash-tub. The plainer and humbler of these beds was designed for the burly Mr. Javins; the others had been made ready for the extraordinary envoys (not envoys extraordinary) who, in defiance of all precedent and the "law of nations," ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various

... as early as June 5, 1793, in the letter of Mr. Jefferson, Secretary of State, to the French Minister, our Government has recognized the law of nations as an "integral part" of the laws ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various

... and, specially, his Table Talk, pub. 1689, of which Coleridge said "there is more weighty bullion sense in this book than I can find in the same number of pages of any uninspired writer." He was likewise the author of various treatises on constitutional matters and the law of nations, including Mare Clausum (a Closed Sea), in defence of the property of England in its circumfluent seas. Most of these were ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin

... Terburg, just presented by a liberal Englishman to the National Gallery at London. Here are the plenipotentiaries of Holland, Spain, and Austria, uniting in the great treaty which constitutes an epoch in the Law of Nations. The engraving by Suyderhoef is rare and interesting. Similar in character is the Death of Chatham, by Copley, where the illustrious statesman is surrounded by the peers he had been addressing—every one a portrait. To this list must be added the pictures ...
— The Best Portraits in Engraving • Charles Sumner

... Mr Jay, that previous to his application, he had endeavored to induce the Ministry of that nation to conduct itself with respect to the States, in a manner more agreeable to the rights of humanity and the law of nations founded on those rights, but that the party in favor of Great ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various

... war. On the other hand, the disturbance wrought by the enforcement of the Trespass Act was already creating fresh wrongs much faster than it was righting old ones; and it is for such reasons as this that both in the common law and in the law of nations the principle has been firmly established that "the fruits of immovables belong to the captor as long as he remains in actual possession of them." The Trespass Act contravened this principle, and it also contravened the ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske

... address, in which he took possession for France of the country of Louisiana; of all its peoples and productions, from the mouth of the Ohio; of all the rivers flowing into the Mississippi from their sources, and of the main stream to its mouth in the sea. Thus, according to the law of nations, as then existing, the whole valley of the Mississippi was annexed to France; a magnificent acquisition, of which that country was destined to enjoy a very small section, and finally ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... Chancellor, during the sitting of the Reichstag on Aug. 4, 1914, settles this question definitely: "We are in a state of legitimate defense. NECESSITY KNOWS NO LAW. Our troops have occupied Luxemburg and have perhaps already penetrated into Belgium. This is against the law of nations." ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times

... civilization as opposed to barbarism. We should as a neutral State remain in contact with all Europe, which would have to guarantee our existence. The sanctuaries of Christendom would be safeguarded by assigning to them an extra-territorial status such as is well-known to the law of nations. We should form a guard of honor about these sanctuaries, answering for the fulfilment of this duty with our existence. This guard of honor would be the great symbol of the solution of the Jewish Question after eighteen centuries of ...
— The Jewish State • Theodor Herzl

... fever. To oppose Caesar's will, expose oneself from the first moment to his anger? To act thus one would need to be a child that knows not what it says. From Lygia's own words it appears that she is, properly speaking, not really a hostage, but a maiden forgotten by her own people. No law of nations protects her; and even if it did, Caesar is powerful enough to trample on it in a moment of anger. It has pleased Caesar to take her, and he will dispose of her. Thenceforth she is at his will, above which there is not another ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... what in the opinion of the German Government corresponded most closely with the general opinion of the civilized world, the Chancellor then declared: "We recognize the rights which the Law of Nations actually concedes to belligerents with regard to neutral vessels and neutral trade and traffic. We do not ignore the duties imposed by a state of war upon the ship owners, merchants, and vessels of a neutral state, but we require of the ...
— Neutral Rights and Obligations in the Anglo-Boer War • Robert Granville Campbell

... which side the law of nations should throw the guilt of most atrocious murder, is of little comparative consequence, or whether it should attach it to both sides equally; but that the deliberate starving to death of twenty thousand helpless persons should be regarded as a crime ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various

... delivered and the seal whole; and should the seal be broken, it would be a manifest fraud, and breach of trust. Nay, so strongly is this covenant implied, that there needs no special agreement in the case; it is a compact which men are put under by the law of nations, and the common consent of mankind. When you send a letter sealed to the post- house, you have not indeed a special agreement with all persons through whose hands it passes, that it shall not be opened by any hand , but his only to whom it is directed; yet men know themselves to be under ...
— The Trial of the Witnessses of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ • Thomas Sherlock

... longer the cause of Austria, but that of Germany. And this cause will not succumb; God will not allow a great and noble people to be trampled under foot by a foreign tyrant, who bids defiance to the most sacred treaties and the law of nations, and who would like to overthrow all thrones to convert the foreign kingdoms and empires into provinces of his empire, blot out the history of the nations and dynasties, and have all engulfed by ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach

... riots, and by violence and terror domineer over those who are weaker than themselves. No wonder that they plunder provinces and offer the seat of judgment for sale, knocking it down after an auction to the highest bidder, since it is the law of nations that you may sell what ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca

... alleged it, silenced every doubt, and excluded all negotiation. The ignominious terms of peace were rejected with disdain. One of the ambassadors of the tyrant was dismissed with the haughty answer of Constantius; his colleagues, as unworthy of the privileges of the law of nations, were put in irons; and the contending powers prepared to wage an ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... Mexico. It's ag'in the law of nations for soldiers from one country to march in time o' ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin

... which the King declares, He will have preserved in its due descent. Now our Author despairing, it seems, that an Exclusion should pass by Bill, urges, That the Right of Nature and Nations will impower Subjects to deliver a Protestant Kingdom from a Popish King. The Law of Nations, is so undoubtedly, against him, that I am sure he dares not stick to that Plea: but will be forc'd to reply, that the Civil Law was made in favour of Monarchy: why then did he appeal to it? And for the Law of Nature, I know not what it has to do with Protestants ...
— His Majesties Declaration Defended • John Dryden

... mountains by the right of discovery. In 1673, Padre Marquette, with his companion, Joliet, of Quebec, both subjects of the crown of France, had passed down the Mississippi in a canoe quite to the Arkansas, thereby, according to an alleged maxim in the law of nations, establishing the right of their sovereign, not merely to the river so discovered and its adjacent lands, but to all the country drained by its tributary streams, of which the Ohio was one; a claim, the ramifications of which might be spread, like ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving

... incident of the seizure of the Confederate envoys, Mason and Slidell, who were passengers on the British merchant ship, the Trent. These men had run the blockade which had now drawn its strangling line along the whole coast of the Confederacy; they had boarded the Trent at Havana, and under the law of nations were safe from capture. But Captain Wilkes of the United States Navy, more zealous than discreet, overhauled the Trent and took off the two Confederates. Every thoughtless Northerner went wild with joy. At last the government had done something. Even the ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson

... Kathayan or Chinese language, who stood before the emperor, and Kazi Yusof, fell prostrate before him, entreating him not to proceed to that extremity, as it might have very bad consequences to put them to death, and would give occasion for the world to say that the emperor had violated the law of nations in the persons of these ambassadors. The emperor at length yielded to their reasons and entreaties, and Kazi Yusof went with great joy to let them know that they were pardoned. The emperor even condescended to send them victuals; but, being ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr

... entire world has, on the other hand, often acquainted readers with these facts, thus giving to them all possible publicity. In consequence of the accomplishment of these various formalities, and as the law of nations prescribes that 'derelict' territories belong to whoever will take possession of them, and as the island of Trinidad, which has been abandoned for years, certainly belongs to the aforesaid category, his Serene Highness Prince James I was ...
— Real Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis

... that treaty Great Britain had stipulated that naval stores should be prohibited as contraband of war, and Webster, in common with others, assumed with reluctance that such prohibition was in accordance with the general law of nations, although admitting that this was the most vulnerable article of the treaty. Further investigation satisfied him of his error, and he frankly avowed it in the later essay, where he says: "For the honor of my country, and the essential interests ...
— Noah Webster - American Men of Letters • Horace E. Scudder

... enter his territories, when sent to notify her Majesty's hereditary succession to her husband; but bade him be told, he would not receive an ambassador from a murderess. Is it not shocking that the law of nations, and the law of politeness, should not yet have abrogated the laws of justice and good-sense in a nation reckoned so civilised as the Chinese? What an age do we live in, if there is still a country where the Crown does not take away all ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole

... to be mistaken. He spoke bravely in favor of the protection and extension of the fur-trade, [Footnote: Annals of Cong., 17 Cong., 1 Sess., I., 416; cf. ibid., 18 Cong., I Sess., I., 456.] pointing out that inasmuch as England occupied Oregon, she would, under the law of nations, have the right of possession until the question of sovereignty were decided. He warned his countrymen, in 1823, that Great Britain would monopolize the Pacific Ocean, and by obtaining control of the Rocky Mountain fur-trade would be able to launch the Indians of the north and west ...
— Rise of the New West, 1819-1829 - Volume 14 in the series American Nation: A History • Frederick Jackson Turner

... confiscate the property of rebels, excited the greatest interest, giving rise to a long debate. It was founded on the faulty idea that a territorial war, existing between two distinct parts of the country, could be treated as an insurrection. The law of nations treats such a war as a contest between two separate powers, to be governed by the laws of war. Confiscation in such a war is not a measure to be applied to individuals in a revolting section, but if the revolt is subdued, ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman

... people, composed of all the social excrescences, have exhausted our patience and provoked war with their perfidious machinations, with their acts of treachery, with their outrages against the law of nations and ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman

... view of the question to affirm that opium was the principal object at stake during this war. The real point was whether the Chinese government could be allowed the possession of rights which were unrecognized in the law of nations and which rendered the continuance of intercourse with foreigners an impossibility. What China sought to retain was never claimed by any other nation, and could only have been established by extraordinary military power. When people talk, therefore, of the injustice of this war as another ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger

... obligations which the male sex lie under, with regard to chastity, we may observe, that according to the general notions of the world, they bear nearly the same proportion to the obligations of women, as the obligations of the law of nations do to those of the law of nature. It is contrary to the interest of civil society, that men should have an entire liberty of indulging their appetites in venereal enjoyment: But as this interest is weaker than in the case of the female sex, the moral ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume

... you know; and it only remains for me to thank you for the kindness you have shown me, and to assure you of my gratitude. By the law of nations, I am already your slave, and I have only my heart, that is my own, to offer you. But what am I saying? My own? Alas, madame, it was yours from the first moment I ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Andrew Lang.

... it now appears, is impracticable. Because submarines are in effect outlaws when used as the German submarines have been used against merchant shipping, it is impossible to defend ships against their attacks, as the law of nations has assumed that merchantmen would defend themselves against privateers or cruisers, visible craft giving ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell

... prevail, in defiance of all human laws, for it cannot be avoided, but so long as contracts be suffered, many offences shall follow thereby."—(Doctor and Student, c. 3.) In buying and selling, the law of nations connives at some cunning and overreaching in respect of the price. By the civil law, a just price is said to be that, whereby neither the buyer nor seller is injured above one moiety of the true and common value; and in ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19, No. 543, Saturday, April 21, 1832. • Various

... "there are two provisions in the Constitution, under one of which the case must fall." The Fourth Article says that "new States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union." "In my judgment," said Mr. Stevens, "this is the controlling provision in this case. Unless the law of Nations is a dead letter, the late war between the two acknowledged belligerents severed their original contracts and broke all the ties that bound them together. The future condition of the conquered power ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... Biron cried, his voice trembling with indignation. "And are those safe or at peace who came here trusting to his word, who lay in his palace and slept in his beds? Where are they, and how have they fared, that you dare appeal to the law of nations, or he to the loyalty of Biron? And for you to beard me, whose brother to-day hounded the dogs of this vile city on the noblest in France, who have leagued yourself with a crew of foreigners to do a deed which will make our country stink ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman

... the 27th of August the court gave judgment "that the plea of the defendant was good for so much of the time as he held under the British commander-in-chief; because, in the opinion of the court, a liberal construction of the law of nations would make it so." As this decision involved a great principle, and would materially affect the whigs whose property had been occupied by the tories during the war, it produced ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis

... are not properly governed by the law of nature, because lex is aliquid rationis. Wherefore they err who would make the law of nature to differ in kind from jus gentium, which natural reason hath taught to all nations. For this law of nations per se speciem non facit, as saith Mynsingerus.(1141) And the law of nature is also, by the heathen writers, often called jus gentium, as Rosinus noteth.(1142) If any will needs have the law of nature distinguished from the law of nations, let them either take Aquinas' ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie

... of comradeship, of respect, and of affection. We grieve profoundly that, under the baleful influence of a military system and its lawless dreams of conquest, she whom we once honored now stands revealed as the common enemy of Europe and of all peoples which respect the law of nations. We must carry on the war on which we have entered. For us, as for Belgium, it is a war of defense, ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various

... her, and left her to do the most of the speaking. I think he was right. According to my ideas woman's love should be regarded as fair prize of war,—as long as the war has been earned on with due adherence to the recognized law of nations. When it has been fairly won, let it be firmly held. I have no opinion of ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope

... such proportions that we are in a state of actual war. Nor does it make any difference that it is a civil war. It has just been decided by the Supreme Court of the United States, that we have the same rights against the people and States in rebellion, by the law of nations, that we should have against alien enemies. The property of non-combatants is liable to confiscation, as enemies' property; and it makes no difference that some of them are personally loyal. All the inhabitants of the Rebel States have the rights of enemies only. The recent cases ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... going to write about the Americans[861]. If you have picked up any hints among your lawyers, who are great masters of the law of nations, or if your own mind suggests any thing, let me know. But mum, it is ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell

... between owners of estates and their neighbors, and the major between sovereigns of kingdoms and their neighbors. Except for size the only difference is that the minor conflicts are held within limits by a country's laws and the major by the law of nations; each may wish to transgress its laws, but the minor cannot, and while the major can, still the ...
— Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence • Emanuel Swedenborg

... law? Certainly not; for law is the perfection of reason—it always tends to conform thereto—and that which is not reason is not law. Well did Justinian write: "Live honestly, hurt nobody, and render to every one his just dues." The law of nations? Verily not; for it is a system of rules deducible from reason and natural justice, and established by universal consent, to regulate the conduct and mutual intercourse between independent States. The Declaration of Independence? Far from it; because the prologue of that incomparable instrument ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams

... law of nations; or offences committed in violation of any treaty made, or hereafter to be made, between Her Majesty and any foreign State; or offences committed on ...
— England's Case Against Home Rule • Albert Venn Dicey

... benefit anticipated under the maxim here set up. True, they would often find their heavy disappointment in the more grievous yoke of that invader whom they had aided. But the temptation of a momentary gain would always exist for the improvident many, if such a maxim were received into the law of nations; and, if it would not always triumph, we should owe it in that case to the blessing that God has made nations proud. Even in the case where men had received a license from public law for deserting their sovereign, thanks be to the celestial ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey

... necessity of appealing to every name and authority of barbarism, tyranny, and usurpation that are to be found; and from these he says, "From the practice of one part of Asia or other I have taken my rule." But your Lordships will show him that in Asia as well as in Europe the same law of nations prevails, the same principles are continually resorted to, and the same maxims sacredly held and strenuously maintained, and, however disobeyed, no man suffers from the breach of them who does not know how and where to complain of that breach,—that Asia is enlightened in ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... custom of France, every prisoner of war, even were it king, dauphin, or other prince, might be redeemed in the name of the King of England in consideration of an indemnity of ten thousand livres granted to the capturer." Nothing was more opposed to the common law of nations and to the feudal spirit, often grasping, but noble at bottom. For four months still, John of Luxembourg hesitated; but his aunt, Joan, died at Boulogne, on the 13th of November, and Joan of Arc had no longer near him this powerful intercessor. The ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... ruled by laws and customs, are governed partly by their own particular laws, and partly by those laws which are common to all mankind. The law which a people enacts is called the Civil Law of that people, but that which natural reason appoints for all mankind is called the Law of Nations, because all nations use it." The part of the law "which natural reason appoints for all mankind" was the element which the Edict of the Praetor was supposed to have worked into Roman jurisprudence. Elsewhere it ...
— Ancient Law - Its Connection to the History of Early Society • Sir Henry James Sumner Maine

... however, and a manifest outrage against the law of nations, as well as of humanity, to mix with those banditti, the Moorish and Turkish prisoners who are taken in the prosecution of open war. It is certainly no justification of this barbarous practice, that the Christian ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett

... be translated "flattering song," but candid or sacred seems more consonant with the character of a Bard, whose motto was "Y gwir yn erbyn y byd." We may presume that Aneurin on this occasion displayed his heraldic badge, which, according to the law of nations, would immediately cause a ...
— Y Gododin - A Poem on the Battle of Cattraeth • Aneurin

... reception, his dignified and elegant manners, and graceful conversation, will never be obliterated from my recollection. After M. de Noailles had initiated me in the first steps of diplomacy, he advised me to go to one of the German universities to study the law of nations and foreign languages. I accordingly repaired to Leipsic, about the time when the French Revolution ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... Robespierre is not a thorough-going man; bold in Logic at least? To the like effect, or still more plainly, spake young Saint-Just, the black-haired, mild-toned youth. Danton is on mission, in the Netherlands, during this preliminary work. The rest, far as one reads, welter amid Law of Nations, Social Contract, Juristics, Syllogistics; to us barren as the East wind. In fact, what can be more unprofitable than the sight of Seven Hundred and Forty-nine ingenious men, struggling with their whole force and industry, for a long course of weeks, to do at ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... 1867). The Chinese government expressly states that this step is intended as adopting the customs of diplomatic intercourse peculiar to the West, and that in so doing the Chinese Empire means to conform to the law of nations, as understood among the European states. It therefore adopted "Wheaton's International Law" as the text-book and authority to be used in its Foreign Office, and had it carefully translated into Chinese for the ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke

... letters. I do not complain so bitterly of these lost years, since they have brought me the best gift of my life, your love and friendship; but my enemies here, commanded from France, have bided their time, till an accident has given them a cue to dispose of me without openly breaking the accepted law of nations. They could not decently hang a hostage, for whom they had signed articles; but they have got their chance, as they think, to try me ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... o' war and the law of nations," he averred. "People take advantage of age and disability"—he glanced at the blacksmith, whose left hand mechanically grasped the stump of his right arm—"as if that could protect 'em in acts o' treason an' treachery;" then with a blast ...
— The Raid Of The Guerilla - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)

... the prince, "to tell you the rest, since you are not unacquainted with all that passed afterwards. But I am obliged in duty to thank you for your goodness and generosity, and to beg of you to let me know how I may shew my gratitude. According to the law of nations I am already your slave, and cannot make you an offer of my person; there only remains my heart: but, alas! princess, what do I say? My heart is no longer my own, your charms have forced it from me, but in such a manner, that I will never ask for it again, but yield it up; give ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous

... the cause frequently prescribes the rule of competency. Thus all the questions which concern maritime commerce evidently fall under the cognizance of the Federal tribunals. *g Almost all these questions are connected with the interpretation of the law of nations, and in this respect they essentially interest the Union in relation to foreign powers. Moreover, as the sea is not included within the limits of any peculiar jurisdiction, the national courts can only hear causes which ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville

... element. Consequently the vigilance of many of Uncle Sam's officials was relaxed, and they winked the other eye as the invaders marched towards Canada, instead of endeavoring to stop them from committing a breach of the law of nations in regard to neutrality. ...
— Troublous Times in Canada - A History of the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870 • John A. Macdonald

... ostentatious show of religion which was sadly belied by the manners and customs of the people. At all events, a person bearing his Britannic Majesty's commission was entitled, as a prisoner of war according to the law of nations, to all the respect due to his rank as an officer and ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston

... part of the jurisdiction and jurisprudence of the court; in its dominion over all that belongs to the law of nations, whether occupied with the weighty questions of peace and war, and the multitudinous disturbances of public and private law which follow the change from one to the other; or with the complications of foreign intercourse and commerce with all the world, which ...
— Eulogy on Chief-Justice Chase - Delivered by William M. Evarts before the Alumni of - Dartmouth College, at Hanover • William M. Evarts

... however, not contrary to justice; for justice in this case must be measured by the law of nations. But the purchase of slaves was not contrary to this law. The Slave-trade was a trade with the consent of the inhabitants of two nations, and procured by no terror, nor by any act of violence whatever. Slavery had existed from the first ages ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson

... Washington to lay the facts before President Van Buren and to remonstrate vigorously against the laxity which permitted an armed force to organize within the borders of the Republic for an attack upon its peaceful neighbour. Such laxity was against the law of nations. As a result of Durham's spirited action, the military forces on both sides of the boundary-line worked in concert to put down such lawlessness. President Van Buren's attitude, however, cost him his popularity in ...
— The Winning of Popular Government - A Chronicle of the Union of 1841 • Archibald Macmechan

... if their master was overturned; and, finally, above all, he wished at the moment of his seizing the crown to inspire such terror, that no one in future should think of resisting him. Every thing was violated in this single action: the European law of nations, the constitution such as it then existed, public shame, humanity, and religion. Nothing could go beyond it; every thing was therefore to be dreaded from the man who had committed it. It was thought for some time in France, that the murder of ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein

... I., in his celebrated decree, "wished to become man, in order, by grace and liberty, to break the chains of our slavery, it is right and good to bestow again upon man, whom nature has permitted to be born free, but whom the law of nations has brought under the yoke of slavery, the blessing of their original liberty." Through all the middle ages—called by Protestants the dark ages of the world—the echo of these words of Gregory I. is heard; and in the thirteenth ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller

... plunging about in the water like naiads, it would of course be impossible for me to say how far they were improved by lack of costume, since I looked in another direction, and kept my eyes faithfully closed from the very beginning. The question now occurred to me, Would I not be justified by the law of nations in breaking the blockade? It was now or never. If they once commenced dressing, farewell to hope! Well, I did it. Heaven only knows how I got through the terrible ordeal. I only remember that desperation gave strength ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne

... Roman law, either left here in the days of Papinian, or imported by Vacarius and his followers; but, above all, to that inexhaustible reservoir of legal antiquities and learning, the feodal law, or, as Spelman[s] has entitled it, the law of nations in our western orb. These primary rules and fundamental principles should be weighed and compared with the precepts of the law of nature, and the practice of other countries; should be explained by reasons, illustrated by examples, and confirmed by undoubted authorities; ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone

... slavery, deduced from the law of nations, we commend to the special attention of the candid reader. Indeed, it is from the recognition of the duty of the various races and nations composing the human family, to contribute their part for the advancement and good of the whole, not only that slavery has existed in all ages, but ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various

... diplomatic career, we need hardly say, are many and various. To a perfect knowledge of history and the law of nations should be united a knowledge of the privileges and duties of diplomatic agents, an acquaintance with the conduct and management of negotiations, the physical and moral statistics, the political, military, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various

... Hardy's view was this, that if the blockading power was not in a position to render the blockade efficient over the whole coast, it was not recognisable anywhere by the law of nations; but, whilst expressing this erroneous view of blockade, he added, "nor can I resist the right which the Government of Chili has to establish and maintain blockade on the same footing as ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 1 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald

... soldiers than he wants for himself, he must help his friends." The Swedish ambassadors had been insolently ordered by Wallenstein to withdraw from the conference at Lubeck; and when, unawed by this command, they were courageous enough to remain, contrary to the law of nations, he had threatened them with violence. Ferdinand had also insulted the Swedish flag, and intercepted the king's despatches to Transylvania. He also threw every obstacle in the way of a peace betwixt Poland and Sweden, supported the pretensions of Sigismund to the Swedish throne, and denied ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... recognise no superior in acts to be executed by themselves, within their own limits. But, Sir, I am so well satisfied that Congress wish to avoid discussions, which must be treated with great delicacy by nations situated as ours are, where every demand on the one part, not strictly authorised by the law of nations, might derogate from the generous protection, which we make it our boast to have received, and the denial of just rights on the other subject us to the imputation of ingratitude, that I think you may safely rely upon their practice, when some future occasion ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various

... at once against my heart! to attack me thus right and left! Ha! This is contrary to the law of nations, the combat is too unequal, and I must cry ...
— The Pretentious Young Ladies • Moliere

... squadron threatened to bombard Naples and Genoa and to bring an army into Italy. For lack of this element of greatness, France silently swallowed the greatest humiliations, and could only complain of the violence of English cruisers, which pillaged our commerce, in violation of the law of nations,"[87] during the years of nominal peace that elapsed between the time when the French fleet was confined to protecting the Spanish against the English and the outbreak of formal war. The explanation of these differing views seems not very hard. The two ministers had tacitly agreed to follow ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan

... compelled to formulate a jus gentium, a law of nations, to deal with those who held, to him, a place beyond the pale of law as he knew it. [Footnote: See SIR HENRY MAINE, Ancient Law, chapter iii.] Many centuries have elapsed since pagan philosophers taught the ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton

... his first Defence of the English People was in print. In this great pamphlet Milton asserts, as against the doctrine of the divine right of kings, the undisputed sovereignty of the people; and he maintains the proposition that, as well by the law of God, as by the law of nations, and the law of England, a king of England may be brought to trial and death, the people being discharged from all obligations of loyalty when a lawful prince becomes a tyrant, or gives himself over to sloth ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell

... but of the law of nations, others do naturally found it and discover it also in animals. They that are so thick-skinned as still to credit the story of the Phoenix, may say something for animal burning. More serious conjectures find some examples of sepulture in elephants, cranes, the sepul- chral ...
— Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend • Sir Thomas Browne

... was a man entirely devoid of energy, and he looked with apathy upon the numerous aggressions made by the Texians upon the borders of Mexico. As soon however, as the Mexicans heard that the Texians, in spite of the law of nations, had sent an expedition to Santa Fe, at the very time that they were making overtures for peace and recognition of their independence, they called upon Bustamente to account for his culpable want of energy. Believing himself secure against any revolution, the president answered ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat

... prohibited under Mexican law, this territory must by the law of nations remain free until slavery was, by positive enactment, authorized therein. This ancient and universal law, however, was soon to be disregarded or denied by the advocates of the doctrine that the Constitution of the United States spread itself over territories, and, by force of it, ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer

... itself. If abuses occur, we can get them remedied by proper representations; and, if these last fail, we have the usual appeal of nations. As well might it be said, the law of the land shall not be administered, because the sheriff's officers are guilty of abuses, as to say the law of nations shall cease because we apprehend that certain commercial rivalries may induce others to transcend them. When the wrong is done, it will be time enough ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper

... the two kings held the regal power not only in common, but in concord also. Several years after, some relatives of king Tatius beat the ambassadors of the Laurentes, and when the Laurentes commenced proceedings according to the law of nations, the influence of his friends and their importunities had more weight with Tatius. He therefore drew upon himself the punishment due to them; for he is slain at Lavinium, in a tumult which arose on his going thither to ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius

... usefulness, of war amongst nations. All the causes of war, the occasions upon which it is likely to arise, the true and the ostensible motives, are gradually evolved, are examined, searched, valued, by publicists; and by such means, in the further progress of men, a comprehensive law of nations will finally be accumulated, not such as now passes for international law, (a worthless code that has no weight in the practice of nations, nor deserves any,) but one which will exhaust the great body of cases under which ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey

... marine actually issued decrees pronouncing the captures made at Maranhao to have been illegal, alleging that they were seized under the Brazilian flag, although in truth the flag of the enemy was flying at the time both in the forts and ships; declaring me a violator of the law of nations and law of the land; accusing me of having been guilty of an insult to the Emperor and the empire, and decreeing costs and damages against me under these infamous pretences? Can your excellency perceive either justice or decency in these decrees? Do they in any degree ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald

... for us. As it regards the latter point it may be said, that while Congress has power to define offences against the laws of nations, and thus, if any public power, to pronounce authoritatively what the law of nations is, the executive through the Secretary of State, in practice, gives the lead in all international questions. In this way the Monroe doctrine appeared; in this way most other positions have been advanced; and perhaps this could not be otherwise. But we ought to remember ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin

... Immediately upon the organization of the Confederate cabinet, an agent was sent to England to negotiate for vessels and guns. But, though this agent was a man of wonderful resources and great diplomacy, he found an almost insuperable obstacle in the universally recognized law of nations, to the effect that no neutral nation shall sell vessels or munitions of war to belligerents. It is true that this agent, Capt. Bulloch, did succeed in securing three ships,—the "Florida," the "Shenandoah," and the ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... arrived at Southampton on November 27, and when her captain told his story indignation knew no bounds. The law of nations had been set at defiance, and the right of asylum under the British flag had been violated. The clamour of the Press and of the streets grew suddenly fierce and strong, and the universal feeling of the moment found expression in the phrase, 'Bear ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid

... of the Middle Ages more and more independent States arose on the European continent, and during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the necessity for a Law of Nations made itself felt. A multitude of Sovereign States had now established themselves which, although they were absolutely independent of one another, were knitted together by constant commercial and other intercourse, ...
— The League of Nations and its Problems - Three Lectures • Lassa Oppenheim

... maritime law of nations universally and immemorially received there is an established method of determination whether the capture be or be not lawful prize. Before the ship or goods can be disposed of by the captor there must be a regular judicial proceeding wherein both parties may be heard and ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... proper for sprightly, gay subjects, I shall conform to that, and reserve those which are serious for English. I shall not therefore mention to you, at present, your Greek or Latin, your study of the Law of Nature, or the Law of Nations, the Rights of People, or of Individuals; but rather discuss the subject of your Amusements and Pleasures; for, to say the truth, one must have some. May I be permitted to inquire of what nature yours are? Do they consist in ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield

... his prison. There lurked in his mind, nevertheless, an impression that even a convict should have a fair chance. The idea was not expressed, but existed in him. Everybody, he would have said, ought to have a fair chance, and as the law of nations forbids the use of explosive bullets in warfare, the laws of humanity seemed to forbid the use of bloodhounds in the pursuit of criminals. He had a very great respect for the squire's character and principles, but the cold-blooded way in which Mr. Juxon had spoken of catching and probably ...
— A Tale of a Lonely Parish • F. Marion Crawford

... there were found the golden rod of Romulus, the brazen tables on which the Laws of the Twelve Tables were engraved, and other brasses with records of treaties with other nations. Fabius was accused of having done all the harm by having broken the law of nations, but he was spared at the entreaty of his friends. Manlius was surnamed Capitolinus, and had a house granted him on the Capitol; and Camillus when he laid down his dictatorship, was saluted as like Romulus—another ...
— Young Folks' History of Rome • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... tragic representation of so doleful misfortunes, when in the year 1655 Corralat, king of Mindanao, proclaimed war against the Christian name. He began his treachery by the inhuman murders of two fathers of the Society whom their rank as ambassadors, which is so greatly respected by the law of nations, did not aid. That prince was in Philipinas what Gustavus Adolphus, king of Suecia, was in Alemania, namely, the thunderbolt of Lucifer, the scourge of Catholicism, and the Attila of the evangelical ministers, who never practiced courtesy toward them except when force or some reason of state compelled ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 41 of 55, 1691-1700 • Various

... examine what were the terms of that ultimatum, with which we refused to comply? Acts of hostility had been openly threatened against our allies, an hostility founded upon the assumption of a right which would at once supersede the whole law of nations: a demand was made by France upon Holland to open the navigation of the Scheldt, on the ground of a general and national right, in violation of positive treaty; this claim we discussed, at the time, not so much on account of its immediate importance (though it was important ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones

... into trouble by engaging in contraband trade, they would not receive the protection of the United States, and would be liable to prosecution for the commission of acts of a nature to "violate the law of nations." It is manifest that the question whether or not the French treaty was still in operation was of great practical importance. If it was still in force, the treaty formed part of the law of the land, and American citizens might plead immunity for acts done in ...
— Washington and His Colleagues • Henry Jones Ford

... characteristic of Old Hickory. He acted upon the theory that by the law of nations any citizen of one land making war upon another land, the two being at peace, becomes an outlaw. International law has no such doctrine, and most likely the maxim occurred to Jackson rather as an excuse after the act than in the way of forethought. Nor was it ever proved that the two victims were ...
— History of the United States, Volume 3 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews

... condemned only to penal servitude, were liberated in 1870, three years later, by the Italian Government, on the ground that they were merely political prisoners. The attempt in which they had been engaged would, however, even in time of declared war, have been regarded as a crime against the law of nations. ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford

... and precipices of that inaccessible country. They feared, too, for their children, their wives and their country; and all the flower of Chosroes' army railed bitterly at him for having broken his plighted word and violated the common law of nations, by invading a Roman State in a most unwarrantable manner, in time of peace, and for having insulted an ancient and most powerful State which he would not be able to conquer in war. The soldiers were on the point of breaking out into revolt, had not Chosroes, alarmed at the ...
— The Secret History of the Court of Justinian • Procopius

... magistracy, as, for instance, at Ulm, sided with the soldiery against the citizens. The slothful bishops and abbots of the empire were, on the other hand, treated with the utmost respect by the Catholic soldiery. The infringement of the law of nations by the arrest of Semonville, the French ambassador to Constantinople, and of Maret, the French ambassador to Naples, and the seizure of their papers on neutral ground, in the Valtelline, by Austria, ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks

... threatened to be bitter the Queen issued a proclamation declaring her "determination to maintain a strict and impartial neutrality in the contest between the said contending parties." The rights of belligerents—in other words, all the rights of war according to the law of nations—were granted to the South equally with the North; and her Majesty's subjects were warned against aiding ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery

... important a blow to the power of Achin that we read of no further attempts to renew the war until the year 1635, when the king, encouraged by the feuds which at this time prevailed in Malacca, again violated the law of nations, to him little known, by imprisoning their ambassador, and caused all the Portuguese about his court to be murdered. No military operations however immediately took place in ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden

... different, having reference to two entirely different matters. The sovereign right of every nation to rule over itself, to alter its own institutions, to change the form of its own government, is a common public law of nations, common to all, and, therefore, put under the common guarantee of all. This sovereign right of every nation to dispose of itself, you, the people of the United States must recognize; for it is the common law ...
— Select Speeches of Kossuth • Kossuth

... Doctrine exists today with all the force of a law of nations, and no country of Europe ...
— Latin America and the United States - Addresses by Elihu Root • Elihu Root

... has broken no law of this land or of this District. She has a right to dwell here under our laws, so long as she shall obey them, and there is no law of this District, nor this republic, nor of any state, any monarchy, not even any law of nations, which could be invoked to dismiss her from a capital where, though unwelcome, she has a right to remain. I may be unwelcome to you, you to me, either of us to any man; yet, having done no treason, so long as we pay our debts and observe the law, no man may raise hand ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough



Words linked to "Law of nations" :   civil law, marine law, admiralty law, law, maritime law, international law, jurisprudence



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