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This Europeanization of the law was made explicit by a number of 19th century scholars.
More emphasis was put upon the fact that international law was the law of `` civilized nations '' ; ;
Kent and Story, the great early American scholars, repeatedly made use of this phrase, or of `` Christian nations '', which is a substantial equivalent.
Wheaton stated that the public law was essentially `` limited to the civilized and Christian peoples of Europe or to those of European origin ''.
Of course it had always been of European origin in fact, but it had maintained a universal outlook under the natural law theory.
Now, with virtually every writer, not only was the European origin of public law acknowledged as a historical phenomenon, but the rules thus established by the advanced civilizations of Europe were to be imposed on others.
The European customs on which international law was based were to become, by force and fiat, the customs that others were to accept as law if they were to join this community as sovereign states.
Hall, for example, was quite explicit on this point when he said states outside European civilization must formally enter into the circle of law-governed countries.
They must do something with the acquiescence of the latter, or some of them, which amounts to an acceptance of the law in its entirety beyond all possibility of misconstruction ''.
During the nineteenth century these views were protested by virtually all the Latin American writers, though ineffectively, just as the new nations of Africa and Asia protest them, with more effect, today.

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