[Footnote 21:  Highly distinguished as a lawyer, orator, and diplomatist; a native of Maryland.]

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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.  You may call these rights by what name you please.  You may call them iron rights:—­I care not.  It is more than enough for me that they are RIGHTS.  It is more than enough for me that they come before you encircled and adorned by the laurels which we have torn from the brow of the naval genius of England:  that they come before you recommended, and endeared, and consecrated by a thousand recollections, which it would be baseness and folly not to cherish, and that they are mingled in fancy and in fact with all the elements of our future greatness....

We are now, thank God, once more at peace.  Our belligerent rights may therefore sleep for a season.  May their repose be long and profound!  But the time must arrive when the interests and honor of this great nation will command them to awake; and when it does arrive, I feel undoubting confidence that they will rise from their slumber in the fullness of their strength and majesty, unenfeebled and unimpaired by the judgment of this high court.

The skill and valor of our infant navy, which has illuminated every sea, and dazzled the master states of Europe by the splendor of its triumphs, have given us a pledge which I trust will continue to be dear to every American heart, and to influence the future course of our policy, that the ocean is destined to acknowledge the youthful dominion of the West.

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=_James Madison, 1751-1836._= (Manual, p. 486.)

From his “Report of Debates in the Federal Convention.”

=_72._= VALUE OF A RECORD OF THE DEBATES.

The close of the war, however, brought no cure for the public embarrassments.  The states relieved from the pressure of foreign danger, and flushed with the enjoyment of independent and sovereign power, instead of a diminished disposition to part with it, persevered in omissions, and in measures, incompatible with their relations to the federal government, and with those among themselves.