y whatever; nor
to persons who are not military; and until the right of blockade be
restrained to fortified places, actually invested by competent
forces." These words struck directly at measures of war resting upon
long-standing usage, in which the strength of a maritime state such as
Great Britain was vitally implicated.

The claim for private property possesses particular interest; for it
involves a play upon words to the confusion of ideas, which from that
time to this has vitiated the arguments upon which have been based a
prominent feature of American policy. Private property at a standstill
is one thing. It is the unproductive money in a stocking, hid in a
closet. Property belonging to private individuals, but embarked in
that process of transportation and exchange which we call commerce, is
like money in circulation. It is the life-blood of national
prosperity, upon which war depends; and as such is national in its
employment, and only in ownership private. To stop such circulation is
to sap national prosperity; and to sap prosperity, upon which war
depends for its energy, is a measure as truly military as is killing
the men whose arms maintain war in the field. Prohibition of commerce
is enforced at will where an enemy's army holds a territory; if
permitted, it is because it inures to the benefit of the conqueror, or
at least from its restricted scope does not injure him. It will not be
doubted that, should a prohibition on shore be disregarded, the
offending property would be seized in punishment. The sea is the great
scene of commerce. The property transported back and forth,
circulating from state to state in exchanges, is one of the greatest
factors in national wealth. The maritime nations have been, and are,
the wealthy nations. To prohibit such commerce to an enemy is, and
historically has been, a tremendous blow to his fighting power; never
more conspicuously so than in the Napoleonic wars. But prohibition is
a vain show, in war as it is in civil government, if not enforced by
penalties; and the natural penalty against offending property is fine,
extending even to confiscation in extreme cases. The seizure of
enemy's merchant ships and goods, for violating the prohibition
against their engaging in commerce, is what is commonly called the
seizure of private property. Under the methods of the last two
centuries, it has been in administration a process as regular,
legally, as is libelling a ship for an act