Henry Billings Brown

“ The free use of the ocean for navigation and fishing is common to all mankind, and the public jurists generally and explicitly deny that the main ocean can ever be appropriated. The subjects of all nations meet there, in times of peace, on a footing of entire equality and independence. No nation has any right of jurisdiction at sea, except it be over the persons of its own subjects, in its own public and private vessels.'
From time immemorial, the term 'high seas' ans been used to import the uninclosed and open ocean without the fauces terrae. ”

“ All have the same equal right to its use, as to the air they breathe, and to the sun that warms them. Seas are the great highways traced by nature between the different parts of the world, to facilitate and expedite communication between the various nations who inhabit it. ”

“ If it be true that the lakes are high seas, it logically follows that any European power may punish a crime committed upon the lakes in their own courts, whenever it is able to lay hands upon the offender. ”

“ No nation, therefore, has a right to take possession of the open sea, or claim the sole use of it, to the exclusion of other nations. * * * Nay, more, a nation which, without a legitimate claim, would arrogate to itself an exclusive right to the sea, and support its pretensions by force, does an injury to all nations ”