George Fox Tucker

“ Therefore, in a war between the United States and a belligerent which admits of slavery, if a person held in bondage by that belligerent be captured by or come as a fugitive under the protection of the military forces of the United States, such person is immediately entitled to the rights and privileges of a freeman. To return such person into slavery would amount to enslaving a free person, and neither the United States nor any officer under their authority can enslave any human being. ”

“ Ever since the formation and coexistence of modern nations, and ever since wars have become great national wars, war has come to be acknowledged not to be its own end, but the means to obtain great ends of state, or to consist in defense against wrong; and no conventional restriction of the modes adopted to injure the enemy is any longer admitted; but the law of war imposes many limitations and restrictions on principles of justice, faith, and honor. ”

“ Nevertheless, as civilization has advanced during the last centuries, so has likewise steadily advanced, especially in war on land, the distinction between the private individual belonging to a hostile country and the hostile country itself, with its men in arms. The principle has been more and more acknowledged that the unarmed citizen is to be spared in person, property, and honor as much as the exigencies of war will admit. ”

“ The modern tendency is to remove from the neutral all possible inconveniences which might result from war between states with which the neutral is at peace. The normal relations between neutral and neutral are unimpaired. As the neutral is at peace with the belligerents, the relations between the neutral and the belligerents are affected only so far as the necessities of belligerent operations demand. "Every restriction, however, upon the rights of a neutral or belligerent must have a clear and undoubted rule and reason. The burden of proof lies upon the restraining government." ”

“ This obligation of non-intervention does not extend to the limitation of acts involving no display or threat of force, as in the case of mediation and arbitration. Nor can it be claimed that the obligation of non-intervention can be urged against measures undertaken by a state to preserve its fundamental right to existence. There is no right of intervention, as has been sometimes argued, though an act of intervention may be some [79] times justifiable in itself. [103] Intervention is the attempt of one or more states, by means of force, to coerce another state in its purely state action. ”

“ While it is admitted that a state or states may sometimes interfere to prevent one state from unduly oppressing another, as in the intervention of the powers in Greece in 1827, yet it is generally held that to interfere because the internal affairs of a given state are not conducted in a manner pleasing to the foreign state is to give a sanction to an act that would result in far more evil than good. ”

“ This does not imply that force, as by war, reprisals, or otherwise, may not be used in bringing about a condition of affairs which may lead a state, without parting with its independence, to make such sacrifices as may be necessary to put an end thereto. No constraint can be put upon the negotiators of the treaty by threats of personal violence, or in any way to prohibit their free action, without invalidating their acts. There is no freedom of consent when the agreement is reached through fraud of either party, and treaties so obtained are not valid. ”

“ So soon as a man is armed by a sovereign government and takes the soldier's oath of fidelity, he is a belligerent; his killing, wounding, or other warlike acts are not individual crimes or offenses. No belligerent has a right to declare that enemies of a certain class, color, or condition, when properly organized as soldiers, will not be treated by him as public enemies. ”

“ As a vessel of war can without inconvenience to a foreign state pass through or remain within its maritime jurisdiction, it is customary to accord to the vessel and crew immunity from local jurisdiction and freedom of passage unless withheld for special reason. "Their immunity from local jurisdiction has come to be more absolute than that of the official residence of ambassadors, and probably for the reason that they have the efficient means of resistance which an ambassador has not." ”

“ As the subjects of a state are necessary for its existence, the right of self-preservation has been held to justify certain acts of states to secure to their subjects in their relations with foreign states such rights as the foreign states would accord to their own subjects under similar circumstances. That a local tribunal within a purely domestic division of a state cannot secure to foreigners rights to which they are entitled, in no way frees that state, whose sovereignty extends over such domestic division, from responsibility for violation of the foreigner's right. ”

“ A prisoner of war is subject to no punishment for being a public enemy, nor is any revenge wreaked upon him by the intentional infliction of any suffering, or disgrace, by cruel imprisonment, want of food, by mutilation, death, or any other barbarity. ”