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Show -37- of nations, as that of individuals is of municipal law. The interest of a part gives way to that of the -whole; the particular to the general. The former is subordinate; the latter paramount * « » A most authentic and unequivocal confirmation of this doctrine has been afforded at a recent epoch by the parties to the European alliance 3 .and largely, as is believed, through the enlightened instrumentality of Great 'Britain at the negotiation of the treaties at the Congress of Vienna,, It has been stipulated in those treaties that the Rhine, the Neckar, the Mayne, the Moselle ', the Muese, and the Schelde ^ are to be free to all nations. The object of these stipu- lations has undoubtedly been to lay the navigation of these rivers ef- fectively open to all the people dwelling upon their banks or within their neighborhood, and to abolish those unnatural and unjust restrictions by which the inhabitants of the interior of Germany have been too often de- prived of their outlet to the sea by an abuse of that sovereignty rather than its rights which would impute an exclusive dominion over a river to ar;y one State not holding all its shores. • • a There is no principle of national law and universal justice upon which the provisions of the Vienna treaties are founded that does not apply to sustain the right of the, people of the United States to navigate the St. Lawrence, The relations between the soil and the water, and those of man to both- form the eternal basis of this right* These relations are too intimate and powerful to be separated. A nation deprived of the use of the water flowing through its soil would see itself stripped of many of its most beneficial uses 'of the soil itself; so that its' right to use the water, and freely to pass over it5 becomes an indispensable adjunct to its territorial rights."88 These claims Great Britain flatly refused to recognize, but apparently conceded that the United State's had some sort of moral right to insist upon "an equitable treaty arrangement with Great Britain for the navigation of the river to the soa»* It is possible, moreover, that Great Britain recognized the probabilities of very inconvenient retaliation by the United States, and therefore, passively permitted passage and navigation of the St. Lawrence to the sea over a period of years while diplomatic exchanges were taking place»°9 Freedom of navigation on 3i4.75~3i4.76. (Italics added.) 8^5 American State Papers, Foreign Relations, !7l9~579* esPe 571 • ™ne Amer- ican plenipotentiary was Richard Rush. (Italics added.,) -ICaeckenbeeck, International Rivers, 206-213, where the whole controversy ±6 .sketched, including the following Quotation from a letter sent to 7Jashing"fcon by the representative of the United States on October 21, 1827? "Upon the whole, I have great hopes thata setting aside the abstract notion of right * and though no arrangement by treaty should take place, our citizens will, ere long, and. through the acts of Great Britain alone, enjoy all the benefits of the navi- gation which they could obtain* even if the right were recognized. Should "this" expectation be disappointed, it is probable that a sufficient remedy will be> found in the power to retaliate above St» Regis." Kaeckenbeeck summarizes prior negotiations in part as followsj "The UnS-ted States declare themselves ready to accept the principle of reciprocity. If the boundary river Columbia is found to be navigables the United States are ready to recognize the right of British subjects to navigate on it as far as the sea* If |