The passage is so clear in itself as almost to require no comment. But perhaps the beginning of the second paragraph should be specially noted. It has been claimed, Story says, that comity is not sufficiently suggestive of the obligation to give effect to the foreign law and that there is a paramount moral duty to do so. Here he is, of course, referassuming, that such a moral duty does exist, it is clearly one of imperfect obligation, like that of beneficence, humanity, and charity. Every nation must be the final judge for itself, not only of the nature and extent of the duty, but of the occasions, on which its exercise may be justly demanded. And, certainly, there can be no pretense to say, that any foreign nation has a right to require the full recognition and execution of its own laws in other territories, when those laws are deemed oppressive or injurious to the rights or interests of the inhabitants of the latter or where their moral character is questionable, or their provisions impolitic. Even in other cases, it is difficult to perceive a clear foundation in morals, or in natural law, for declaring, that any nation has a right (all others being equal in sovereignty) to insist, that its own possible laws shall be of superior obligation in a foreign realm to the domestic laws of the latter, of an equally positive character. What intrinsic right has one nation to declare, that no contract shall be binding, which is made by any of its subjects in a foreign country, unless they are twenty-five years of age, more than another nation, where the contract is made, to declare, that such contract shall be binding, if made by an persons of twenty-one years of age? One should suppose, that if there be any thing clearly within the scope of national sovereignty, it is the right to fix, what shall be the rule to govern contracts made within its own territories. That a nation ought not to make its own jurisprudence an instrument of injustice for other nations, or their subjects, may be admitted. But in a vast variety of cases, which may be put, the rejection of the laws of a foreign nation may work less injustice, than the enforcement of them will remedy. And, here again, every nation must judge for itself, what is its true duty in the administration of justice. It is not to be taken for granted, that the rule of the foreign nation is right, and that its own is wrong. The true foundation, on which the administration of international law must rest, is, that the rules, which are to govern, are those, which arise from mutual interest and utility, from a sense of the inconveniences, which would result from a contrary doctrine, and from a sort of moral necessity to do justice, in order that justice may be done to us in return.184 184Conflict, pp. 33f.
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