Justice Sprague (Amy Warwick, _2 Sprague 150_) says: Confiscations of property, not for any use that has been made of it, which go not against an offending thing, but are inflicted for the personal delinquency of the owner, are punitive, and punishment should be inflicted only upon due conviction of personal guilt. The communities whose rights are now invaded and whose property is confiscated, ought to be protected under the law of nations. For, by this law is understood that code of public instruction which defines the rights and prescribes the duties of nations in their intercourse with each other. The faithful observance of this law is essential to national character and the happiness of mankind. According to Montesquieu, it is founded on the principle that different nations ought to do each other as much good in peace, and as little harm in war, as possible. The most useful and practical part of the law of nations is instituted or positive law, founded on usage, consent, and agreement. It is impossible to separate this law from natural jurisprudence, or to consider that it does not derive much of its force and dignity from the same principle of right reason, the same views of the nature and constitution of man, and the same sanction of divine revelation, as those 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. That eminent jurist, Chancellor Kent, says that the science of public law should not be separated from that of ethics, nor encourage the dangerous suggestion that governments are not strictly bound by the obligations of truth, justice, and humanity in relation to other powers, as they are in the management of their own local concerns. States or bodies politic are to be considered as moral persons, having a public will, capable and free to do right and wrong, inasmuch as they are collections of individuals, each of whom carries with him into the service of the community the same binding law of morality and religion which ought to control his conduct in private life.