[Footnote 21: Highly distinguished as a lawyer, orator, and diplomatist;
a native of Maryland.]
* * * * *
From "Speech in the Nereide Case."
=_71._= WAR, AND AMERICAN BELLIGERENT RIGHTS.
I throw into the opposite scale the ponderous claim of War; a claim of
high concernment, not to us only, but to the world; a claim connected
with the maritime strength of this maritime state, with public honor and
individual enterprise, with all those passions and motives which can be
made subservient to national success and glory, in the hour of national
trial and danger. I throw into the same scale the venerable code of
universal law, before which it is the duty of this Court, high as it is
in dignity, and great as are its titles to reverence, to bow down with
submission, I throw into the same scale a solemn treaty, binding upon
the claimant and upon you. In a word, I throw into that scale the rights
of belligerent America, and, as embodied with them, the rights of these
captors, by whose efforts and at whose cost the naval exertions of the
government have been seconded, until our once despised and drooping flag
has been made to wave in triumph, where neither France nor Spain could
venture to show a prow.
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