§ 13. The law of war can no more wholly dispense with Retaliation than can the law of nations, of which it is a branch. Yet civilized nations acknowledge Retaliation as the sternest feature of war. A reckless enemy often leaves to his opponent no other means of securing himself against the repetition of barbarous outrage. The American people demand of their generals that Retaliation be never resorted to as a measure of mere revenge, but only as a means of protective retribution, and, moreover, cautiously, justly, and unavoidably; that is to say, retaliation shall only be resorted to after careful inquiry, not blinded by passion, into the real occurrence, and the character of the misdeeds that may demand retribution, after an unsuccessful summons of the enemy to punish the evil-doers, and without transgressing the bounds of strict retaliation. Doubtful Retaliation removes the belligerents farther and farther from the mitigating rules of a regular war, and by rapid steps leads them nearer to the internecine wars of savages. PUBLIC AND PRIVATE PROPERTY OF THE ENEMY. PROTECTION OF PERSONS, AND ESPECIALLY WOMEN; OF RELIGION, THE ARTS AND SCIENCES. PUNISHMENT OF CRIMES AGAINST THE INHABITANTS OF HOSTILE COUNTRIES. § 14. A victorious army appropriates all public money, seizes all public movable property until further direction by its government, and sequesters, for its own benefit, or that of its government, all real property belonging to the hostile government or nation. § 15. A victorious army, by the martial power inherent in the same, may suspend, change, disacknowledge, or abolish, as far as the martial power extends, the relations which arise from the services due, according to the existing laws of the invaded country, from one citizen, subject, or native of the same to another. The commander of the army must leave it to the ultimate treaty of peace to settle the permanency of this change. § 16. As a general rule, the property belonging to churches, to hospitals, or other establishments of an exclusively charitable or eleemosynary character, to establishments of education, or foundations for the promotion of knowledge, whether public schools, universities, academies of learning or observatories, museums of the fine arts, or of a scientific character—such property shall not be considered by the armies of the United States, public property in the sense of paragraph 14. In exceptional cases, such as richly endowed churches or convents, their property may be taxed with military contributions. § 17. Classical works of art, noble fabrics, libraries, scientific collections, or precious instruments, such as astronomic telescopes, as well as hospitals, must be tenderly secured in the name of common humanity and civilization, against all avoidable injury, even when they are contained in fortified places, whilst besieged or bombarded.