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A truce or armistice is a temporary suspension of the operations of war. "A general truce can be made only by the sovereign power, or its agents specially employed for this purpose. A special or par tial truce may be concluded according to the usage of nations by a military officer, even by a subordinate one within his district."* During the truce "nothing can be done to the prejudice of either party by the other which could have been prevented in war."

A treaty is a contract between two or more nations. Each nation determines for itself in whose hands the treaty-making power shall be placed. Treaties in order to be binding must be signed by those negotiating them, and ratified according to the requirements of the respective governments of the nations entering into treaty. "A treaty made by a minister abroad, when ratified by his sovereign, relates back to the time of signing. If one party violates the stipulations of a treaty, the other is absolved from obligation to observe it.

"A treaty of peace leaves every thing in the state in which it finds it, if there be no express stipulation on the subject. If nothing be said in the treaty of peace about the conquered country or places, they remain with the possessor, and his title cannot afterwards be called in question." †

Piracy is forbidden by the law of nations. Piracy

* Woolsey.

+ Kent.

is an offence against all nations, and is punishable by all. The African slave trade is declared to be piracy by the statute laws of England and the United States. As all the nations of Christendom have not united in declaring it piracy, it is not so regarded by the law of nations.

International law is recognized in the legislation of nations. Each nation has laws rendering its viola tion penal. According to Blackstone, it is in England held to be a part of the law of the land. The United States, by acts of Congress and by judicial decisions, have endeavored to maintain its obligations.

CHAPTER XXI.

DIFFERENT KINDS OF LAW.

DIVINE aw is the will of God. His will is obligatory on men as moral beings in whatever way it may be made known. It is made known to us by the exercise of our moral faculties and by revelation. This law is also termed the moral law, the law of rectitude, and the law of nature. All other kinds of law should be conformed to it. No law should ever enjoin or permit that which is not in accordance with the law of God-that which is not right.

Constitutional Law is, as we have seen, a system of fundamental rules for the government of a nation, determining the form of the government and the extent of its powers.

International Law, called also the law of nations, is, as has been stated and illustrated in a former chapter, a system of rules assented to by all the nations of Christendom for the regulation of their intercourse in peace and in war.

Municipal Law is a rule of civil conduct prescribed by the supreme power in a State. "Municipal law is composed of written and unwritten, or of statute and common law."

Statute Law is "the express written will of the legislature, rendered authentic by certain prescribed forms and ceremonies."

"The Common Law," says Burrill, is "that branch of the law of England which does not owe its origin to parliamentary enactment-being a collection of customs, rules, and maxims, which have acquired the force of law by immemorial usage recognized and declared by judicial decisions."

“ "A great proportion of the rules and maxims which constitute the immense code of the common law," says Kent, "grew into use by gradual adoption, and received from time to time the sanction of the courts of justice without any legislative act or interference. It was the application of the dictates of natural justice and of cultivated reason to particular cases." In the just language of Sir Matthew Hale, the common law of England is "not the product of the wisdom of some one man or society of men in any one age, but of the wisdom, counsel, experience, and observation of many ages of wise and observing men." "But though the great body of the common law consists of a collection of principles to be found in the opinions of sages or deduced from universal and in

memorial usage, and receiving progressively the sanction of the courts, it is nevertheless true that the common law, so far as it is applicable to our situation and government, has been recognized and adopted as one entire system by the constitutions of Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, and Maryland. It has been assumed by the courts of justice or declared by statutes, with like modification, as the law of the land in every State. It was imported by our colonial ancestors as far as it was applicable, and sanctioned by royal charters and colonial statutes. It is also the established doctrine that English statutes passed before the emigration of our ancestors, and applicable to our situation, and in amendment of the law, constitute a part of the common law of this country."

The Civil Law is the Roman law as comprised in the Code, Institutes, Pandects, and Novels of Justinian and his successors.

"The Code, in twelve books, is a collection of all the imperial statutes that were thought worth preserv ing from Hadrian to Justinian."

The Institutes or elements of Roman law, in four books, contain the fundamental principles of the ancient law in a small body, for the use and benefit of students at law.

The Pandects are an abridgment, in fifty books, of the decisions of prætors and the writings and opinions of the ancient sages in the law. This work

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