MamaTexan, attempting to legally justify Confederate seizures of Federal properties in the months before the Confederacy's declaration of war on the United States:
"After the Declaration of Secession, the ownership of Ft Sumter did revert to the State, in accordance with the Law of Nations. [I'd also like to note this also covers the causes for a justified war]
quoting: "§ 212. To what the sovereign is bound. But, if the agreement has given nothing to the state which she did not before possess..."
First of all, if I can strip away the double negatives and restate it: none -- zero, zip, nada -- of the many Federal properties seized by secessionist forces, some even before formally declaring secession, none of those properties fell into this category of items to be retained by a state because "she did... before possess..." them.
All seized Federal properties were items which, by definition, Federal, not state, government had built, paid for and owned.
These in no way automatically became properties of Confederate states on their secession -- not even according to your alleged "Law of Nations".
That's one factor which makes the seizures unlawful -- even according to an alleged "Law of Nations".
But second and more important, since when did this particular "Law of Nations" become part and parcel of the United States Constitution?
Since when did a "Law of Nations" supersede our Founders' Original Intent?
Must stop here, out of time, will come back later...
And I'm still waiting for the listing of said seized properties that isn't from the Lincoln Museum or available only via purchase.
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But second and more important, since when did this particular "Law of Nations" become part and parcel of the United States Constitution?
Do you seriously think the Founders threw down less than 5000 words and expected them to restrain the government?
Since the quote from America's Blackstone, George Tucker, seemed insufficient for you, here's
I am much obliged by the kind present you have made us of your edition of Vattel. It came to us in good season, when the circumstances of a rising state make it necessary frequently to consult the law of nations. Accordingly, that copy which I kept, (after depositing one in our own public library here, and sending the other to the college of Massachusetts Bay, as you directed has been continually in the hands of the members of our congress, now sitting, who are much pleased with your notes and preface, and have entertained a high and just esteem for their author. Your manuscript Idee sur le gouvernment et la royauté, is also well relished, and may, in time, have its effect. I thank you, likewise, for the other smaller pieces, which accompanied Vattel.
Benjamin Franklin To Charles-Guillaume-Frédéric Dumas, Philadelphia December 9, 1775.
Having given you this general idea and description of the law of nations; need I expatiate on its dignity and importance? The law of nations is the law of sovereigns. In free states, such as ours, the sovereign or supreme power resides in the people. In free states, therefore, such as ours, the law of nations is the law of the people. Let us again beware of being misled by an ambiguity, sometimes, such is the structure of language, unavoidable. When I say that, in free states, the law of nations is the law of the people; I mean not that it is a law made by the people, or by virtue of their delegated authority; as, in free states, all municipal laws are. But when I say that, in free states, the law of nations is the law of the people; I mean that, as the law of nature, in other words, as the will of nature's God, it is indispensably binding upon the people, in whom the sovereign power resides; and who are, consequently, under the most sacred obligations to exercise that power, or to delegate it to such as will exercise it, in a manner agreeable to those rules and maxims, which the law of nature prescribes to every state, for the happiness of each, and for the happiness of all.
Of the Law of Nations, James Wilson, Lectures on Law
and
There has been a difference of opinion among writers, concerning the foundations of this law. It has been considered by some as a mere system of positive institutions, founded upon consent and usage; while others have insisted that the law of nations was essentially the same as the law of nature, applied to the conduct of nations, in the character of moral persons, susceptible of obligation and laws. We are not to adopt either of these theories as exclusively true. The most useful and practical part of the law of nations is, no doubt, instituted or positive law, founded on usage, consent, and agreement. But it would be improper to separate this law entirely from natural jurisprudence, and not to consider it as deriving much of its force, and dignity, and sanction, from the same principles of right reason, and the same view of the nature and constitution of man, from which the science of morality is deduced. There is a natural and a positive law of nations. By the former, every state, in its relations with other states, is bound to conduct itself with justice, good faith, and benevolence; and this application of the law of nature has been called by Vattel, the necessary law of nations, because nations are bound by the law of nature to observe it; and it is termed by others, the internal law of nations, because it is obligatory upon them in point of conscience.
James Kent, Commentaries