Daily Ohio statesman. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1855-1870, 1861-06-19
The Law of blockade.
[srorn the London Times. !

III lnl5 LefrlDle CONTEST DebWeen the NOfLn
and the South is to 60 on we must watch our
selves very narrowly, or we shall be certainly
involved in it. We have two parties eagerly
bidding for our aid and jealousy watching our
actions. We have merchants and shipoHners
sharply alive to the opportunities of turning any
circumstances to advantage, and ready to test
every point in the law of blockade. The real
business of this war is indubitably the blockade
of the Southern p0rts-not now, perhaps, for
the last cotton crop is, for the most part stored
in our European warehouses; but in few
months the question will be whether the North
can Theoretically seal the South, and then Ian.
cashire will be hungering for cotton, and the
Federal States will be fainting for the supplies
by which it should be paid for. But even al
ready we see the commencement of future diff
ficulties. The American news we published
yesterday pictures to us o single American war
steamer cruising off the harbor Of Charleston
and declaring strict blockade of "the whole
Southern coast of the United States of Ameri
ca" Tho Niagara boards the Liverpool ships
and warns them off the coast, and she Is strictly
within her belligerent rights in SO doing. At
other times she is engaged in most exciting
chase of other less obedient British craft which,
under the hope of good freight, atand the risk
of race, and sometimes make good their Gu
trance into the blockaded port. AS time wears
on these chases will become much more numer.
GUS, and if Governor Seward has already had
occasion to utter dark threats against the French
Emperor for some fancied tendencies of South
ern character, we may expect what these, COM
plications will be as soon as it becomes the di-
rect pecuniary interest of every merchant and
shipowner of Europe to break this blockade of
q quarter of continent. 1t will be found very
difficult to keep sealed what all the world has
an interest in breaking; and we cannot hope
that the watchers will always maintain an un-
failing good humor in dealing with the hosts Of
evadeEs. We may depend upon it that we shall
soon have revival Of those old questions so IA.
milar in our history. What the law of block
ade is no one knows. True it may be read in
treaties and may be found laid down in text
books. But these text books have not tho au-
thority to be derived from consistency, and have
never been obeyed in practice. They have for
the most part been written by two different
schools of jurists,--the subjects of warning Pow.
ers, and the subjects of neutral Powers. All
the authorities OF this country are in favor of
the most generous Interpretation of the rights
of belligerent Powers, for we have always been
belligerent; it has always been our interest to
give belligerent Power the strongest possible
rights over neutral ships; and our Prize Courts
have always been laying down doctrines which
the rest of the world repudated as illegal and
untenable. The consequence is that we ehall
now find ourselves in false position in all these
questions. We shall be bound by our own de
cisions, which will tell against our own inter.
ests as neutrals, and we shall have to submit to
rules of maritime public law which very much
increase the evils we must necessarily endure
from the blockade, however inefficient, of the
coast which is to us SO important both for ex-
ports and imports. ..
We should have no right to complain Of this
if there were really any code of maritime law
But there is no such thing. five were at war
tomorrow, we should have no chance of en-
forcing against the neutral nations the rules to
which we ourselves are about to submit Pc
dants may look for the law of nations in the
frolics of text writer's, but practical men will
seek for it in the facts of history. When we,
as belligerents, have sought to enforce our right
to take an enemy'g goods out Of friendly yes
sells, we have always been met by great league
of all the maritime nations, and have been
obliged to abate our pretensiors. We have
never found IL to much purpose to quote the
most revered authorities in our favor. Den
mark, and Russia, and France and Spain have
always been ready to make code for the occa.
sion, and that code we have been compelled to
accept. Wehave kept it up as an old principle,
Just as we kept up our claims to be Sovereigns
Of France; but it has never done us any practi
cal good, and it is now likely to lead us into
considerable practical difficulty. There can be
no dispute among those who have looked into
the subject that we have never read the mari
time law of nations as the French have read it,
and that at no period has thepractice of Europe
been uniform even upon the most important
principles which guide US in our dealings with
tsn,a aha .