As the right of society, to prescribe those rules by which property may be acquired and preserved is not,
and cannot be drawn into question; as the title to lands, especially, is and must be admitted to depend entirely on
the law of the nation in which they lie; it will be necessary, in pursuing this inquiry, to examine, not singly those
principles of abstract justice, which the Creator of all things has impressed on the mind of his creature man, and
which are admitted to regulate, in a great degree, the rights of civilized nations, whose perfect independence is
acknowledged; but those principles also which our own government has adopted in the particular case, and
given us as the rule for our decision.