minion over the
numerous people who occupied it? Or has nature, or the great Creator of
all things, conferred these rights over hunters and fishermen, on
agriculturists and manufacturers?

But power, war, conquest, give rights, which, after possession, are
conceded by the world, and which can never be controverted by those on
whom they descend. We proceed, then, to the actual state of things,
having glanced at their origin; because holding it in our recollection
might shed some light on existing pretensions.

The great maritime Powers of Europe discovered and visited different
parts of this continent at nearly the same time. The object was too
immense for any one of them to grasp the whole; and the claimants were
too powerful to submit to the exclusive or unreasonable pretensions of
any single potentate. To avoid bloody conflicts, which might terminate
disastrously to all, it was necessary for the nations of Europe to
establish some principle which all would acknowledge, and which should
decide their respective rights as between themselves. This principle,
suggested by the actual state of things, was, "that discovery gave
title to the Government by whose subjects or by whose authority it was
made, against all other European Governments, which title might be
consummated by possession."[6]

[6] 8th Wh. 573.

This principle, acknowledged by all Europeans, because it was the
interest of all to acknowledge it, gave to the nation making the
discovery, as its inevitable consequence, the sole right of acquiring
the soil and of making settlements on it. It was an exclusive
principle, which shut out the right of competition among those who had
agreed to it; not one which could annul the previous rights of those
who had not agreed to it. It regulated the right given by discovery
among the European discoverers; but could not affect the rights of
those already in possession, either as aboriginal occupants, or as
occupants by virtue of a discovery made before the memory of man. It
gave the exclusive right to purchase, but did not found that right on a
denial of the right of the possessor to sell.

The relation between the Europeans and the natives was determined in
each case by the particular government which asserted and could
maintain this pre-emptive privilege in the particular place. The United
States succeeded to all the claims of Great Britain, both territorial
and political, but no attempt, so far as is known, has