Chap. VI.]

DUTIES OF PATRIOTISM.

131

per se ), while they consider themselves at liberty to evade, andthis, too, with a safe conscience, such laws as make any thing anoffence (malum prohibitum), which was not such before their'enactment. For instance, theft is intrinsically a crime, in itsnature ; but smuggling is an offence made such by the enact-ment of law. This distinction, when made for the purpose ofobeying one law, and evading or breaking another, is unquestion-ably unsound. The law of the land is one of the chief moralrules by which the conduct of all is to be squared, and with avery few exceptions, and those of a character clearly extraordi-nary, is morally binding on all.*

CHAPTER VII.

MORAL DUTIES OF THE UNITED STATES, REGARDED ASCOMMUNITIES, TO ONE ANOTHER.

Independent states, kingdoms, empires, commonwealths,all civil communities, under whatever name, are moral persons,endowed with understanding, will, and conscience, capable ofmerit or demerit, responsible for their acts, and charged withduties of various kinds, f

^The United States owe to one another all the duties pre-scribed by the Law of Nature and Nations, which independentnations owe to each other. The principle which lies at thefoundation of these duties, says Montesquieu, is, that “ differentnations ought to do each other as much good in peace, and aslittle harm in war, as possible, without injury to their true inter-ests.”!: Lord Bacon says, “ The Divine Law is the perfectionboth of the Law of Nature and Nations,” and he applies the lawof Christian charity, § and the law of our neighbour, || “whichincludes the Samaritan as well as the Levite,” to the case of

* See pp. 29 - 32,100.t L’Esprit des Lois, Book I. c. 3.

|| “ Lex proximi,” Lake x. 29 - 37.

t Vattel, Preliminary Principles, § 2.§ “Lex charitatis,” Matt. vii. 12.