"Special Message
December 18, 1893
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
...
The law of nations is rounded upon reason and justice, and the rules of conduct governing individual relations between citizens or subjects of a civilized state are equally applicable as between enlightened nations. "
"Special Message
July 14, 1870
To the Senate of the United States:
I transmit to the Senate, in answer to their resolution of the 7th instant, a report from the Secretary of State, with accompanying documents.
U. S. GRANT.
DEPARTMENT OF STATE,
Washington, July 14, 1870.
...
The public measures designed to maintain unimpaired the domestic sovereignty and the international neutrality of the United States were independent of this policy, though apparently incidental to it. The municipal laws enacted by Congress then and since have been but declarations of the law of nations. They are essential to the preservation of our national dignity and honor; they have for their object to repress and punish all enterprises of private war, one of the last relics of mediaeval barbarism; and they have descended to us from the fathers of the Republic, supported and enforced by every succeeding President of the United States. "