representatives of that Government assert that the people of Hawaii are
unfit for popular government and frankly avow that they can be best
ruled by arbitrary or despotic power.

The law of nations is founded upon reason and justice, and the rules of
conduct governing individual relations between citizens or subjects of a
civilized state are equally applicable as between enlightened nations.

The considerations that international law is without a court for its
enforcement and that obedience to its commands practically depends upon
good faith instead of upon the mandate of a superior tribunal only
give additional sanction to the law itself and brand any deliberate
infraction of it not merely as a wrong, but as a disgrace. A man of
true honor protects the unwritten word which binds his conscience more
scrupulously, if possible, than he does the bond a breach of which
subjects him to legal liabilities, and the United States, in aiming to
maintain itself as one of the most enlightened nations, would do its
citizens gross injustice if it applied to its international relations
any other than a high standard of honor and morality. On that ground the
United States can not properly be put in the position of countenancing a
wrong after its commission any more than in that of consenting to it in
advance. On that ground it can not allow itself to refuse to redress an
injury inflicted through an abuse of power by officers clothed with its
authority and wearing its uniform; and on the same ground, if a feeble
but friendly state is in danger of being robbed of its independence and
its sovereignty by a misuse of the name and power of the United States,
the United States can not fail to vindicate its honor and its sense of
justice by an earnest effort to make all possible reparation.

These principles apply to the present case with irresistible force when