Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

“ The Liberty and the Carolinian were employed for public and Government purposes, and were owned pro hac vice by the United States. It is suggested that the Western Maid was a merchant vessel at the time of the collision, but the fact that the food was to be paid for and the other details adverted to in argument cannot disguise the obvious truth, that she was engaged in a public service that was one of the constituents of our activity in the war and its sequel and that had no more to do with ordinary merchandizing than if she had carried a regiment of troops. ”

“ Also we must realize that the authority that makes the law is itself superior to it, and that if it consents to apply to itself the rules that it applies to others the consent is free and may be withheld. ”

“ The only question really open to debate is whether a liability attached to the ships which although dormant while the United States was in possession became enforcible as soon as the vessels came into hands that could be sued. ”

“ The sovereign does not create justice in an ethical sense, to be sure, and there may be cases in which it would not dare to deny that justice for fear of war or revolution. Sovereignty is a question of power, and no human power is unlimited. ”

“ A gloss is attempted to be put upon it-which we think is unjustified and inaccurate unless, indeed, it can be asserted that the writer of the opinion did not know the meaning of the words he used, and, that the members of the court who concurred with him were equally deficient in understanding. ”

“ By becoming the actor, the United States, it was said, waived their exemption from direct suit and opened 'to consideration all claims and equities in regard to the property libeled'-not, of course, that the waiver of exemption created the 'claims and equities,' They, it was explicitly said, were created against the offending vessel by the collision. ”

“ Neither case has militating force. The latter case decided nothing but that a state cannot be sued without its consent; an indisputable proposition which this court in its opinion had to clear from confusing or disturbing circumstances. In the former case, The Queen City, a steam tug, was in the possession and service of the state of New York and to have awarded process against it as the District Court did, would have arrested the service. ”

“ It would be a strange thing if the law created a fiction to accomplish the result supposed. It is totally immaterial that in dealing with private wrongs the fiction, however originated, is in force. See Liverpool, Brazil & River Plate Steam Navigation Co. v. Brooklyn Eastern District Terminal, 251 U.S. 48, 53, 40 Sup. Ct. 66, 64 L. Ed. 130. The personality of a public vessel is merged in that of the sovereign. The Fidelity, 16 Blatchford, 569, 573, Fed. Cas. No. 4,758; In re State of New York-The Queen City, 256 U.S. 503, 41 Sup. ”