from a consideration of the moral ends and duties of nations.
The primary ends of civil government are the conservation of men's lives, bodies, and goods. But there are also remote and ultimate ends, which pertain to Morals, Duty, Obligations, and Justice.
For moral character is an idea—as true, exact, and absolute, applied to a nation as to a man. A moral system which claims authority only in its private, persona], application to men, but withdraws from them so soon as the individual is merged in the association or the body politic, is nothing but vagueness, darkness, and confusion. "Nations and individuals," says Channing, "are subjected to one law. The moral principle is the life of communities." Under no moral code can the individual eschew truth and justice. Neither can the nation throw them aside, and perform its functions, treating right, and truth, and principle as matters of indifference: for the magistrate and the lawgiver meet the august presence of Truth alike in all the details of administrative law, and in the commonest minutiae of civil regulation.
We cannot, indeed, speak of the conscience of a nation; for conscience is so personal a quality, that it is only by a strong figure of speech that we can apply it to nations. But all those moral qualities which are subsidiary to conscience are so manifestly brought out and recognized in all, even the minutest, acts and offices of government, that it is but a bare, distinct verity, and no metaphor, to speak of the moral duties and obligations of nations.
