5714. NAVIGATION, Freedom of.—[continued].
What sentiment is written
in deeper characters on the heart of man than
that the ocean is free to all men, and their
rivers to all their inhabitants? Is there a
man, savage or civilized, unbiased by habit,
who does not feel and attest this truth? Accordingly,
in all tracts of country united under
the same political society, we find this
natural right universally acknowledged and
protected by laying the navigable rivers open
to all their inhabitants. When their rivers
enter the limits of another society, if the right
of the upper inhabitants to descend the
stream is in any case obstructed, it is an act
of force by a stronger society against a
weaker, condemned by the judgment of mankind.
The late case of Antwerp and the
Scheldt was a striking proof of a general
union of sentiment on this point; as it is believed
that Amsterdam had scarcely an advocate
out of Holland, and even there its
pretensions were advocated on the ground of
treaties, and not of natural right.—
Mississippi River Instructions. Washington ed. vii, 577.
Ford ed., v, 468.
(March. 1792)
