though all the great nations of Europe and America have resisted these invasions of neutral rights, and of the freedom of the seas by arms, diplomatists, judicial tribunals, and writers on public law, are found echoing without reflection the decisions of the British admiralty, or sustaining these pretended belligerent rights.

The principal object of our work is to overthrow these piratical principles and practices, to establish on a firm foundation the freedom of the seas, to render wars unprofitable by giving absolute immunity. to private property at sea as well as on land, to secure to neutral ships free trade, and to make a state of hostilities inconsistent with the interest of warring nations. Our aim is to prove that the interest and duty of states and empires demand in all inter national transactions the observance of peace, justice and mercy. Our code of public law rests upon the eternal and immutable principles of right reason, sanctioned by the King of kings.

The doctrine of the Gospel of peace, identical with the law of nature, form our immovable basis; and our effort has been to explain the elementary principles which God has made for the government of all nations.

Since writing this work, we have been politely shown by the agent of the Peace Society, the recorded sentiments of the venerable and learned John Quincy Adams, former President of the United States, a distinguished civilian and patriot, in favor of peace and of the practicability of restraining wars, and establishing permanent pacific relations among Christian nations. His opinions confirming our own, are concurred in by Henry Clay, and United States Senators Bates and Choate of Massachusetts, Merrick of Maryland, Woodbridge of Michigan, Johnson of Louisiana, Huntington of Connecticut, Miller of New Jersey, N. P. Tallmadge of New-York, and Phelps of Vermont. Silas Wright, the other United States Senator of New-York, and General Scott, have recorded similar pacific opinions. Senator Wright has well said that this great pacific condition is to be looked for by making the people of each nation more wise, just and humane. This will be the natural effect of general education, and a knowledge of the true principles of Christianity.

The sentiments of Mr. Adams were concurred in by the Hon. Robert C. Winthrop, member of Congress from Boston, and other members and distinguished civilians and divines. We are happy to find from such a source, a sanction of our efforts to establish pacific principles by a treatise upon the Moral Law of Nations.

Our First Part is intended to show the external or international duties of our Republic; and the Second Part its internal jurisdiction and duties. The latter is a brief and elementary illustration. Our plan is to exhibit our Republic in its external and internal relations, rights and duties. Our readers will judge of the degree of success that has attended our humble efforts.

TROY, N. Y., July, 1844.

DANIEL GARDNER.

1

INTRODUCTION.

As our American Republic of the United States is based upon the principle of the sovereignty of the people, represented by the officers of the various departments of government, it is manifest that there must be an American polity. The invention of a representative free government belongs to our colonial ancestors, and they in 1620, presented to the world the first example of forming a government based upon a written contract signed by its founders. The Pilgrim constitution signed at Plymouth was still more remarkable in declaring that the powers of the rulers of the primitive republic were derived from the people to be governed, and that the administration should be in accordance with and in obedience to the law of God. Under this Pilgrim constitution, the new state sat down in the wilderness, under the canopy of approving Heaven. A pure democracy was the first result of the plan adopted; but as the settlements expanded, delegates to a general court were naturally deputed to represent the freemen of the distant towns; and hence arose a representative system of free government. This is of native American growth, and from such a government founded on such principles, naturally arises a system of American law, original in its character, as well as in the circumstances that gave it birth. This system of American polity we propose to unfold in a brief and elementary form, so far as relates to the international rights and duties of our republic, and her internal jurisdiction over the states and people of the United States, and her obligations to them.

We shall endeavor to discover and declare the law of nations, as the hand of the Almighty has written it in the history of the world, from the time of Abraham to that of Napoleon. We shall show that the revealed law of the Gospel, is identical with the law of nature or Moral Law of Nations, as made known by history; and that they

both teach us the great truth, that national offences of necessity produce their own punishment. We shall demonstrate that the instability of governments, ancient and modern, has arisen by natural and necessary consequence from national violations of the law of God, which from the beginning prescribed peace, equity and humanity, as duties essential to the existence of nations.

Our historic review will establish the fact that force, brute force, was the principle by which ancient nations attained power, and finally lost their existence. By the sword they rose, and by the sword they fell. In tracing the erection of the stupendous fabric of Roman dominion, as well as that of other ancient governments, it is necessary to cast the eye over a long line of centuries, which when viewed together, unfold the great moral truth that jurisdiction, property and persons acquired by a nation by the sword, are invariably lost by the sword, and that national violations of peace, equity and humanity, have always produced their own punishment. It will also be made evident that the moral constitution of man, which makes violence beget violence, must of necessity make national offences in the course of centuries punish themselves.

We shall show that the Christian religion, as far as its influence has extended, has given to the world a mental standard in place of the sword. It appeals to the souls of men, to their intellect, to their moral sense, and not to their bodies. Christianity presents a mental, moral government, instead of a corporeal one. Cicero, without thinking of Christianity, correctly says, "there are two sorts of disputing in the world, the one by reason and the other by open force; and the former of these being that which is agreeable to the nature of man, and the latter to that of brutes." Christianity is indeed agreeable to the nature of man, and calculated to promote perfect civilization, and to give solid and permanent prosperity to nations. We shall make it appear from history that nations have enjoyed prosperity, security and happiness, in proportion as they have observed the eternal laws of equity and right, and that the degree of national observance of the golden rule has always measured the amount of national felicity.

In the course of this review of the historic period, it will appear that the universal destruction of ancient nations was owing to the universal national principle, that might gives right, that power and success were the only standard of national elevation. And that in modern times, the sword has been the disturber and destroyer of national existence and national felicity. In short, we mean to propose a new way