Lords, and the Gospel the foundation of all law and human obligation. In one or two centuries this happy consummation of prophetic vision may be realized.

The treaty of Paris with Turkey, and the treaties with China and Japan, have now settled the principle of religious freedom, and the right of foreign nations to interfere to enforce such right in favor of natives as well as foreigners.

RIGHTS OF PROPERTY AND JURISDICTION.

SEC. 4. Another leading attribute of sovereignty is the right of ownership of every nation of all ungranted lands within it, and of a general and exclusive jurisdiction over its territory. (Grotius on P. & W. B. 2, c. 8, § 9. Ruth. Inst. 488. Calder vs. Bull, 3 Dallas, 386. 6 Cranch, 142. 16 Pet. 367, 409. 8 Wheat. 543. 5 Pet. 1. 1 Pet. 542.) The law of comity imposes limitations on this rule.

In our Union the aborigines had only a possessory title, and in the original thirteen States each owned in fee, subject to the Indian right, all ungranted lands within their respective limits; and beyond the States the residue of the ungranted lands were vested in fee in the United States, subject to the Indian possessory right to the extent of the national limits. All territory added by treaty or conquest is national domain.

The English possessions in America were claimed by virtue of discovery, and not by conquest. (16 Pet. 409. 5 Wend. R. 445.)

By the treaty of peace of 1783 all the rights of Great Britain to the territory of the Union, and its appurtenant rights of fishery on the banks of Newfoundland, &c., were acknowledged to be in the United States, and in the States respectively. (16 Pet. 410, and the cases in this section cited. 12 Wheat. 523. Wheat. Int. L. P. 3, c. 2, § 9.)

As a consequence of this doctrine, the right of preemption of Indian lands has been, by State laws and acts of Congress, secured to the government, State or national, owning the fee. And hence the State laws secure to the States, by escheat, all lands within their respective limits having no legal owners. Hence, also, no contract or treaty is allowed to be made by any foreign nation with Indians located within the United States. They are, as to us, dependent tribes. (5 Pet. 1.)

The right of nations to colonize a country like the United States in its original state, over which a few Indians roamed and hunted, and to cultivate it, is plain by the law of nature and of nations. God commanded Adam, as the penalty of his transgression, and as the permanent law of all his posterity, to possess the earth, to till it and live by toil. The gift was to all to cultivate. And Paley, in his Moral Philosophy, says, that by the law of nature no man can make title to any particular portion of the earth except by actual incorporation of his labor with it, and by separate appropriation. The Pilgrim Fathers, by the pen of Robert Cushman, asserted their right of colonization, on the ground, 1st. That the land belonged to the King of England by discovery; 2d. That one object of the settlers was the conversion of the Indians; that the land was "spacious and void," and that the Indians ran over the grass" like "foxes and wild beasts;" that they had no "faculty to use either the land or the commodities of it;" that "as the ancient patriarchs, therefore, removed from straighter places into more roomy, where the land lay idle and waste, and none used it-though there dwelt inhabitants by them-as in Genesis xiii. 6, 11, 12; xii. 20, so it is lawful now to take a land which none useth, and make use of it." 3d. That they settled by the consent of the Great Sachem, Massasoit, and other sachems ruling there, and that the Great Sachem acknowledged King

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James as his sovereign, and they settled as an English colony at Plymouth; that the Great Sachem gave them permission to settle any land within the wide range of his power. (Chronicles of the Pilgrims, 242 to 245, and n. 1, to 245. Paley's Mor. Philosophy, ed. of 1806, p. 94.) As the earth was given to all men to cultivate, the Indian possessory title seemed hardly sustained by the law of God or by sound ethical law. The pilgrims and their successors have respected all actual Indian possessions; and the United States and the several States of the Union have, prior to 1852, probably paid the Indians, for their imperfect title, ten millions of dollars or more.

RIGHT OF ACQUISITION.

SEC. 5. Nations, by virtue of their sovereignty, have not only a right to acquire territory by purchase or conquest, but also by the right of prior discovery and actual settlement of an unoccupied country. (1 Pet. 542, ante, § 4. Grotius on P. & W. B. 2, c. 2, § 4. Wheat. Int. L. P. 2, c. 4, § 5.) Puffendorf, Vattel, Von Martens, Kluber, Hefter and Oppenheim are all to the same effect. In such case title by discovery must be followed by actual, continued and exclusive occupancy to perfect it. (See Webster's Letter of 21st of August, 1852, to Charge d'Affaires of Peru, in reference to the Lobos Islands.)

The Secretary says: "As to the claim of Peru to those islands, founded on the law of proximity, the question will appear to be free of doubt. The well-settled rule of modern public law on this point is, that the right of jurisdiction of any nation whose territories may border on the sea, extends to the distance of a cannon shot or three marine miles from the shore, this being the supposed limit to which a defence of the coast from the land itself can be extended.

"The whole discussion, therefore, must turn upon this, viz. the Lobos Islands lying in the open ocean, so far from any continental possessions of Peru as not to belong to that country by the law of proximity or adjacent position, has the government of that country exercised such unequivocal acts of absolute sovereignty and ownership over them as to give to her a right to their exclusive possession, as against the United States and their citizens, by the law of indisputable possession? And the undersigned repeats that this is not a question between Peru and other governments who may have more or less distinctly admitted her right, but it is a question between Peru and the United States who have so long exercised that right, and remonstrated against its interruption.

"The government of the United States, however, is prepared to give due consideration to all facts tending to show possession or occupancy of the Lobos Islands by Peru, and is not inclined to stop or preclude discussion until the whole matter shall be thoroughly investigated. If there are any facts or arguments which have not been brought to its consideration, they shall receive the most respectful and friendly attention. If it shall turn out that, as has been intimated above, those islands are uninhabited and uninhabitable, and therefore incapable of being legally possessed or held by any one nation, they and their contents must be considered as the common property of all. Or if, unprotected by the presence of Peruvian authorities and without actual possession, their use has been by Peru abandoned or conceded, without limitation of time, to citizens of the United States for a long period, or yielded in consequence of the remonstrance of this government or its agents, then no exclusive ownership can be pretended against the United States at least." Peru afterwards satisfied our government that the title of Peru was complete. A settlement made under a parent State carries with it

its jurisdiction and nationality. But if such colony is made upon an independent national organization, and it becomes actually capable of performing international rights and duties, then it becomes one of the family of nations.

SEC. 6. It is said that contiguity gives one nation, other things being equal, a superior right to colonize a country and extend its jurisdiction over it. By this principle a settlement at the mouth of a river might perhaps be deemed to extend over the country drained by it. The United States claimed Oregon under the treaty with France ceding Louisiana, and that of Spain ceding Florida, and her rights to Oregon, by prior discovery and settlement, Spanish and American, and by contiguity. The Oregon treaty of 1846 happily adjusted the conflicting claims of our Republic and Great Britain, and fixed our northern boundary at latitude 49, and made the extensive and noble harbor of the Straits of Fuca common to both nations. This doctrine enables a maritime State to hold as part of its territory all islands within three marine miles of its coasts.

All questions of national boundary are fit subjects of arbitrament, if they cannot be settled by negotiation. All such questions ought to be adjusted by negotiation, or by arbitrament, if there are any real doubts in the case.

STRAITS OF FUCA COMMON TO BOTH NATIONS. RIGHTS TO RIVERS, LAKES, &C.

SEC. 7. A nation's sovereignty covers its entire territory, land, rivers, lakes and islands. (Grotius on P. & W. B. 2, c. 8, § 9. Vattel, B. 1, c. 18, § 204; c. 22, §§ 266, 274. And where a river, sound or lake is a national or State boundary, the middle of it, or of the channel, is the line, unless by compact or usage a different boundary is agreed on. (Vattel, B. 1, c. 22, §§ 266, 274. 5 Wheat. 379. Grotius on P. & W. B. 2, c. 3, §§ 16-18. 3 Mason, 147. Wheat. Int. L. P. 2, c. 4, §§ 9-11.)