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Elements of International Law: With a Sketch of the History of the Science (Classic Reprint)
(Excerpt from Elements of International Law: With a Sketch...)
Excerpt from Elements of International Law: With a Sketch of the History of the Science
3. Natural law applied to the intercourse of states 4. Law of nations distinguished from natural law 5. Law of nature and law of nations asserted to be identical by Hobbes and Pufl'endorf 6. How far the law of nations is a positive law derived from the positive consent of nations 7. Law of nations derived from reason and usage 8. The law of nations is not merely the law of nature applied to sovereign states a a 9. There is no universal law of nations 10. International law between Christian and Mohammedan nations 11. Definition of international law 12. In what sense the rules of conduct between states are called laws Divisions of international law 14. Sources of international law.
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Enquiry into the Validity of the British Claim to a right of Visitation and Search
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Enquiry Into The Validity Of The British Claim To A Right Of Visitation And Search Of American Vessels Suspected To Be Engaged In The African Slave-trade
(Wheaton, Henry. Enquiry Into the Validity of the British ...)
Wheaton, Henry. Enquiry Into the Validity of the British Claim to a Right of Visitation and Search of American Vessels Suspected to be Engaged in the African Slave-Trade. Philadelphia: Lea & Blanchard, 1842. 151 pp. Reprinted 2004 by The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd. Hardcover. New.
* Reprint of the first edition. Wheaton 1785-1848 was a distinguished attorney and diplomat. His Elements of International Law (1836) established him as America's foremost authority on that subject. Published simultaneously in the United States and Great Britain, Enquiry criticizes Britain's seizure of American vessels engaged in the Atlantic slave trade. Although the importation of slaves was prohibited by law at this time, Wheaton rejected the right of other nations to enforce this American law. Instead of serving the United States, he reasons, such actions are a violation of its sovereignty.
Henry Wheaton was a United States lawyer, jurist and diplomat.
Background
Henry Wheaton was born in Providence, R. I, the son of Seth and Abigail (Wheaton) Wheaton. He was descended through both his parents, who were first cousins, from Robert Wheaton, who emigrated from Wales to Massachusetts between 1630 and 1636, settling first in Salem and later in Rehoboth. Through his mother, Henry was said to be descended also from William Goffe, the regicide. Seth Wheaton was a successful merchant and at his death was president of the Rhode Island branch of the Bank of the United States; his wife was a woman of fine intellect and culture, whose influence on her son was exceeded only by that of his maternal uncle, Dr. Levi Wheaton.
Education
Wheaton was fitted for college at the University Grammar School, Providence, and entered Rhode Island College (now Brown University) at the age of thirteen. When he graduated, in September 1802, he delivered a commencement oration on "Progress of the Mathematical and Physical Sciences during the Eighteenth Century. " After reading law in a Providence law office, he went to Europe in the spring of 1805, studied Civil Law at Poitiers, translated into English the new Code Napoléon, and visited Paris.
Career
In 1806, after his return from Europe, he began the practice of law in Providence. During his college days, Wheaton showed such interest in the public affairs of the French nation that he was known as "Citizen Wheaton" by his fellow students. This interest in government showed itself after his graduation in articles contributed to the Rhode Island Patriot and to the National Intelligencer; and in a patriotic oration, delivered on July 4, 1810, which was favorably commented upon by Jefferson, to whose school of political thinking all of Wheaton's near relatives belonged. Recognition of his talents came in 1812 when he moved to New York City to become editor of the National Advocate, the local organ of the administration party. During the nearly three years of his editorship he wrote intelligently and with learning on the questions of international law and policy growing out of the War of 1812, and was often the mouthpiece of the administration. He served also, from October 26, 1814, as division judge-advocate of the army. In May 1815 he was appointed a justice of the marine court of New York City, an office which he held until July 1819; and for part of this period, beginning in 1816, he held also the office of United States Supreme Court reporter, of which he was the incumbent until 1827. He was a member of the New York State constitutional convention of 1821, in which he stood out for three propositions: incorporation of private corporations only by authority of a general act, local taxation for common schools, and an independent and irremovable judiciary. In November 1823 he was elected to the New York Assembly; and after serving one term was an unsuccessful candidate for a seat in the United States Senate. From April 1825 to March 1827, when he was succeeded by J. C. Spencer, he served with Benjamin F. Butler and John Duer as a commissioner to revise the laws of New York. While there is no detailed record of his part in this revision (of 1829), there is evidence that he drew up the general plan which was followed by his colleagues. With his pen, he was continuously active. In 1815 he framed a national bankruptcy law and urged its passage by Congress; in the same year he published A Digest of the Law of Maritime Captures and Prizes; in 1821 he published A Digest of the Decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States; in 1823 he edited William Selwyn's Abridgment of the Law of Nisi Prius; and in 1826 he published a meritorious work entitled Some Account of the Life, Writings and Speeches of William Pinkney, a second edition of which was included in Jared Sparks's Library of American Biography. Meanwhile, during twelve of these years, Wheaton published annually a volume of the decisions of the United States Supreme Court. At first he served without salary, depending upon the sale of the Reports for his compensation, but beginning in 1817 he received also payment of $1, 000 a year. He took his duties seriously and greatly added to the value of the volumes by the extent and excellence of his notes. "No reporter in modern times, " said Daniel Webster, "has inserted so much and so valuable matter of his own". During this time Wheaton was occasionally associated with Webster and others as counsel in cases heard by the Supreme Court. After his retirement from the reportership, his Reports were the subject of a suit in which it was decided that "no reporter has or can have any copyright in the written opinions delivered by this court. " The year 1827 marked the beginning of the second phase of Wheaton's career. In that year, President John Quincy Adams appointed him chargé d'affaires to Denmark, and although acceptance of this post meant the renunciation of the benefits to be derived from the professional position that he had reached at home - except for the profits from the sale of his Reports - he sailed for Copenhagen in July, and reached his post in September. His only predecessor here was George W. Erving, who in 1811 had been sent on a special mission in reference to seizures of American vessels. Wheaton's particular duty was to bring these negotiations to a conclusion. He found it a difficult task, for Denmark never admitted violating American neutral rights; nevertheless, Wheaton brought about agreement on a treaty of indemnity, signed March 28, 1830, by the terms of which the sum of $650, 000 was paid to the United States for the benefit of American merchants and all Danish claims were renounced. The payment amounted to one-fifth more than the figure Wheaton had been instructed to insist upon. The treaty has a special importance because it was the prototype of treaties of similar purpose later negotiated with France and Naples. A large part of Wheaton's success in Denmark was due to his interest in the history of Scandinavia and the facility with which he acquired the Danish language. Little more than a year after his arrival in Copenhagen, he published in the North American Review (October 1828) an article on Schlegel's study, in Danish, of the public law of Denmark, and he was the familiar associate of the philologist R. C. Rask and the poet A. G. "hlenschläger. In addition to articles on Scandinavian literature and legal systems, he published History of the Northmen (1831). In a revised second edition, which was translated into French in 1844 by Paul Guillot, he definitely committed himself to the view of the pre-Columbian discovery of America by the Northmen. During a visit to England in 1827 he made the acquaintance of Jeremy Bentham and in 1830, while visiting Paris, he was presented to Louis Philippe by Lafayette. In 1833 he returned to the United States on leave of absence, for the purpose of prosecuting his suit against Peters. The outcome of this suit was a considerable financial loss to Wheaton, but his return to Europe was a personal triumph, for, at the request of Prussia, he was appointed chargé d'affaires at Berlin, March 7, 1835. In June of that year he arrived at his new post, where the United States had not been represented since 1797. The occasion for his appointment was the desire to establish commercial relations with the states of the German Zollverein or customs union, which by 1834 had superseded the Confederation set up by the Congress at Vienna. The publication of Wheaton's Elements of International Law in 1836 was indirectly the cause of his promotion, March 7, 1837, to be envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to Prussia, a change which materially aided him in his diplomatic tasks. At the end of six years, on March 24, 1844, he secured signatures to a treaty with Prussia which provided for a reduction of the duty on tobacco and rice and the admission of unmanufactured cotton, duty free. In return, the United States was to reduce the duties on silks, looking-glass plates, toys, linens, and other articles not coming into competition with American products and manufactures. The United States Senate rejected the treaty, however, on the ground that the Constitution gave to Congress the sole power to regulate commerce and pass revenue laws. The Senate disapproved also a treaty providing for the extradition of criminals, which was subsequently revived by President Fillmore and accepted by the Senate. An important series of treaties negotiated by Wheaton and put into effect provided for the abrogation of the droit d'aubaine and the droit de détraction in Hanover, Württemberg, Hesse-Cassel, Saxony, Nassau, and Bavaria. The first had imposed a tax of ten per centum on all property accruing to emigrants in the United States on the death of relatives at home; and the second had taxed, at the same rate, sales of property by persons about to leave their native country. It has been the custom to commiserate Wheaton because President Polk, instead of transferring him to Paris or London, saw fit to request his resignation. Having adopted diplomacy as a career, Wheaton took it as a reproof and a disgrace to be involuntarily retired, and many European officials failed to understand the American political exigencies which brought about his recall. According to standards of a later day, however, Wheaton had an extraordinarily long and successful diplomatic career. He served continuously under six successive presidents, J. Q. Adams, Jackson, Van Buren, Harrison, Tyler, and Polk, and he retired at the age of sixty. He presented his letter of recall to the King of Prussia on July 18, 1846, but did not return to the United States until the spring of 1847. Public dinners were given him in New York and Philadelphia, and Harvard College offered him a lectureship in civil and international law. He began the preparation of lectures, but his failing health prevented their completion. He died at Dorchester, Massachussets, in March 1848, and was buried at Providence, R. I.
Achievements
Notable as were Wheaton's accomplishments in other fields, his most distinguished achievement was his work as an expounder and historian of international law. All of his training and experience combined to fit him for the writing of his Elements of International Law, first published in 1836 while he was accredited to Berlin. The London edition was in two volumes and the Philadelphia edition in one. Prefixed to this treatise was a sketch of the history of international law. The immediate success of the Elements encouraged Wheaton to further efforts, by which the prefatory historical sketch was expanded into a separate work of 462 pages entitled Histoire des progrès du droit des gens en Europe depuis la Paix de Westphalie jusqu'au Congrès de Vienne, avec un précis historique du droit des gens européen avant la Paix de Westphalie. Written in French for a competition conducted by the French Institute, it won honorable mention. It was published in Leipzig in 1841, and in New York in 1845, with the title, History of the Law of Nations in Europe and America, from the Earliest Times to the Treaty of Washington, 1842. He published in Philadelphia in 1842 a study entitled, Enquiry into the Validity of the British Claim to a Right of Visitation and Search of American Vessels Suspected to be Engaged in the African Slave Trade. From a third edition of the Elements published in Philadelphia in 1846, Wheaton eliminated the historical sketch and substituted therefor numerous references to the separate History. The two are in fact companion volumes, which ought to be read together. One other edition of the Elements was prepared by Wheaton - the fourth edition, written in French and published in Leipzig in 1848, and after his death - but it was issued repeatedly in English and in French, and was translated into Italian, Spanish, and Chinese. A two-volume edition, in English, appeared as late as 1929. According to Professor A. C. McLaughlin, Wheaton's name should be linked with those of the greatest of American legal writers. "In jurisprudence, " he says, "Marshall and Kent and Story and Wheaton, by judicial opinion or by written text, laid the foundations of American public and private law, and ably performed a creative task such as rarely, if ever, before fell to the lot of the jurist". Not only on account of his writings and his diplomatic career, but also because of two fortuitous circumstances, will he be remembered. Mention has already been made of the case of Wheaton vs. Peters; his name is also connected with an even more famous case tried long after his death, William B. Lawrence vs. Richard Henry Dana. This suit was over the alleged unfair use by Dana, in the eighth edition of the Elements, of Lawrence's notes to the sixth and seventh editions. Judged by the honors that he received, Wheaton's place is not insignificant. The doctorate in law was conferred upon him by Brown, Hamilton and Harvard; in 1830, he was elected to membership in both the Scandinavian and Icelandic literary societies; he was a foreign member of the Prussian Royal Academy of Sciences; and in 1842, he was elected to the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences in the French Institute.
(Wheaton, Henry. Enquiry Into the Validity of the British ...)
Personality
Quotes from others about the person
Some years after his death, a British critic commented that "no American ever had about him less of the peculiar stamp which marks the citizen of a new State [than Henry Wheaton]. He was a man of refinement and of great cultivation, and enjoyed public life in the calm and dignified way which is usual with the higher officials of the European nations. "
Connections
In 1811 he married his cousin, Catharine Wheaton, daughter of Dr. Levi Wheaton. They had two daughters and a son.
