All the elementary writers of authority sustain these views of the duty and obligations of states.
Justice requires, says Vattel, that the community or individual be indemnified at the public charge.
The taking, says Grotius, must be for some public advantage; as, for instance, in time of war, the erection of a rampart or fortification, or where his standing corn or storehouses are destroyed to prevent their being of use to the enemy, in which case the person injured should receive a just compensation for the loss he suffers out of the common stock. The state is obliged to repair the damage suffered by any citizen out of the public funds. The conversion cannot take place either to gratify any whim, caprice, or fashion; it must be an actual public necessity. For, do we not read of an instance where some king, perhaps of Prussia, was erecting a magnificent palace at his capital, and, in order to carry out the design of the architect, it became necessary to remove a small unsightly tenement, the property of a poor man, who, though so poor, would not sell his place or consent that it should be removed, and there it remained for years, an eyesore perhaps to many, and yet the king, as the chief depositary of justice, would not permit it to be disturbed, although urged by his flatterers and courtiers to do so, until in lapse of years the owner died, and his successors consented to sell. The historian recalls the justice of the king, that all honest and honorable rulers and men might follow such a noble example of honor and justice. But can any one reasonably praise such an act, and approve of the confiscation of the houses of religious and charitable associations in Italy, and the very suppression and wiping out of the corporation or society itself, without trial, or charge of offence or crime other than the offence of doing good to the human race without pay, fee, or reward here, but looking only to heaven for recompense.
If the Italian government or parliament may to-day confiscate or escheat the property of Catholic communities, and thus commit a breach of the pact made by former rulers, emperors, or governments with the founders of such communities, disregarding all inherent rights of succession and perpetuity, may it not to-morrow also commit a breach of its own compacts or implied guarantees, and confiscate or escheat all the property of churches, school-houses, colleges, of other denominations who have lately or are now building them within Italian jurisdiction? For what obstacle is to prevent it doing so? Having outraged and set aside as nought the moral or human law, styled law of nations, in this respect, may it not do so again in any other, from either whim or caprice? Unless there is some power left in public opinion to restrain it, this is a dilemma from which all the arguments of theoretical political economists or logicians cannot relieve them.