yland, who could fly to arms with the promptitude of Roman citizens,
when the hand of oppression was lifted up against themselves; who could
behold their country desolated and their citizens slaughtered; who could
brave with unshaken firmness every calamity of war before they would
submit to the smallest infringement of their rights--that this very
people could yet see thousands of their fellow-creatures, within the
limits of their territory, bending beneath an unnatural yoke, and,
instead of being assiduous to destroy their shackles, be anxious to
immortalize their duration, so that a nation of slaves might forever
exist in a country whose freedom is its boast.

[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. 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