es, by a hair's breadth, upon
any one of these great impersonal declarations of human rights, his acts
cease to have official effect. The substitution of the divine quality of
judgment, of the judicial quality in man, that quality which is bound by
all that honor, by all that respect for human rights, by all that
self-respect can accomplish, to lay aside all fear or favor and decide
justly--the substitution of that quality for the fevered passions of the
hour, for political favor and political hope, for political ambition,
for personal selfishness and personal greed,--that is the contribution,
the great contribution, of the American Constitution to the political
science of the world.

If we pass to the field most ably and interestingly discussed in the
paper to which we have just listened, to the field of international
justice, we find the same principle less fully developed. I had almost
said we find the need for the application of the same principle. All
international law and international justice depend upon national law and
national justice. No assemblage of nations can be expected to establish
and maintain any higher standard in their dealings with one another than
that which each maintains within its own borders. Just as the standard
of justice and civilization in a community depends upon the individual
character of the elements of the community, so the standard of justice
among nations depends upon the standard established in each individual
nation. Now, in the field of international arbitration we find a less
fully developed sense of impersonal justice than we find in our
municipal jurisprudence. Many years ago the Marquis of Salisbury, in a
very able note, pointed out the extreme difficulty which lies in the way
of international arbitration, arising from the difficulty of securing
arbitrators who will act impartially, the trouble being that the world
has not yet passed, in general, out of that stage of development in
which men, even if they be arbitrators, act diplomatically instead of
acting judicially. Arbitrations are too apt, therefore, to lead to
diplomatic compromises rather than to judicial decisions. The remedy is
not in abandoning the principle of arbitration, but it is by pressing on
in every country and among all countries the quickened conscience, the
higher standard, the judicial idea, the sense of the responsibility for
impartial judgment in international affairs, as distinguished from the
opportu