[BOOK III.

OF STATES AND THEIR RIGHTS.

CHAPTER I.

OF THE SOVEREIGNTY, INDEPENDENCE AND EQUALITY OF STATES.

THE existence of an analogy between the Law of Nations and that kind of law (sometimes called "municipal" law) which regulates the mutual relations of the members of a particular state, depends upon an assumed resemblance in nature and situation of a private person and a State. Some such resemblance is, no doubt, to be found, and accounts for much of the language in which the Law of Nations has spontaneously clothed itself. But the resemblance is by no means so complete as is often supposed, and many of the fallacious modes of reasoning by which the subject has been infected are due to a prevalent misconception of the amount and quality of this resemblance. The resemblance, indeed, between a private citizen in a State and the State itself, as a member of a society of States, becomes less and less noticeable, as a simple monarchical system of government becomes exchanged, in one State after another, for more complex systems, -as a constitutional monarchy, a republic, or a federal government. The States contemplated by Grotius, Pufendorf and Vattel were subject either to a purely monarchical system of government or to a republican or federal system of the most inartificial type. Even England presented to foreigners the spectacle of a monarchical constitution scarcely less imperfect

Cin dignity and vigour than France and Spain. In this way, when first the Law of Nations came to maturity, the persons who seemed the proper subjects of it were rather the individual rulers of every State than the several States themselves. The States were not only lost sight of in their governments, but the governments were almost eclipsed by their most conspicuous personal representatives. The analogy between municipal law and the Law of Nations thus seemed to be tolerably complete.

The political changes in Europe and on the continent of America during the last hundred years have had no more striking consequences than the altered conception which they have introduced of the true subjects of the Law of Nations, that is, States. The depression of ancient monarchies, the development and organisation of "nationalities" based upon race, the extension and substantiation of representative systems of government, and the diffusion of sentiments favourable to individual liberty and to public justice, have all contributed to release the State from a supposed identity with its personal ruler, on the one hand, or with a mere casual assemblage of individual atoms, on the other. The State is now, and henceforth, seen to be an aggregate of human beings (the number of whom cannot be definitely assigned, though both superior and inferior limits no doubt exist), having definite relations to territory, to social existence, to government, and to certain moral ideas, of which the ideas of a past and a future, and of a national unity, are the most dominant and unmistakable. From this enlarged, and yet (in some directions) circumscribed, conception of the State, other essential attributes of the State are derivatively deduced.

In modern text-books the most signal and decisive attributes of a State are usually said to be "sovereignty" and "independence." A formal distinction is not com

[monly made between the import of these terms, though, from the way in which they are severally used, it would seem that the notion which underlies them is one of which sovereignty represents the positive, and independence the negative, side. The sovereignty of a State is the inherent capacity it enjoys to select, to maintain, or to change its own form of government; to exercise plenary civil and criminal jurisdiction over its own subjects; to alienate or (subject to the claims of other States) to acquire territory; to make, with other States, a fair competitive claim to the use of common things, such as the ocean and unoccupied territory; and to uphold, by every means in its power, the integrity of its existence both against external and internal enemies.

It is obvious that the sovereignty here described can only be fully exercised by any one State with the practical concurrence and co-operation of every other State. Thus the positive enjoyment and exercise of sovereignty implies, as its negative and essential correlative, independence; that is, exemption from every species of interference on the part of other States.

Theoretically speaking, nothing could be more intelligible or less artificial than these conceptions of sovereignty and independence. It happens, however, that, owing to historical and political causes, the States of the civilized world are so situated in respect to each other, that it is more true that the clear notions of sovereignty and independence have been, during the past century, only with the utmost difficulty liberating themselves and obtaining for themselves complete recognition than that they have been occasionally clouded and confused by anomalous facts. The progress of civilization itself, and the increased intercourse of modern States, have, by generating between them special ties of all sorts,-commercial, political, diplomatic and social,-done much really to impair the simplicity of the above notions. Furthermore, the internal revolutions and constitutional

[spasms which have of late convulsed the society of European States, have created a class of temporary, but very pressing, problems, incessantly demanding fresh solutions, as to the actual existence or non-existence of a new or old State, and its consequent claim to independence.

It has become the fashion among recent text-book writers to denote the modern complications in the fact and notion of sovereignty by, first, distributing sovereign States properly so called into those which are wholly, and those which are only "half," sovereign, and thereupon opposing all sovereign States of either kind to States which are either members of highly organized unions of States, or are closely associated together by a permanent league resting on a system of reciprocal treaties. Thus a "half-sovereign" State would differ from a sovereign State only in being liable to some permanent obligation (imposed otherwise than by treaty) in respect of a sovereign State. Such an obligation might consist in the liability to pay a yearly tribute, to furnish a military or naval contingent, to accord exclusive commercial privileges, or merely to rendering marked kinds of ceremonial respect. Instances of such States are supplied by Egypt and the European provinces over which Turkey claims peculiar rights, and by some of the native States of India. The late North German Confederation, the Swiss Confederation, and the United States of America, supply instances of "confederated unions" of States; while Austria and Hungary, Sweden and Norway, and, perhaps, the United States of America under the original Articles of Confederation, and before the existing constitution was settled, may severally be taken as illustrating the species of sovereignty in which the sovereignty of an individual state is limited by a permanent constitutional tie to another State. This constitutional tie may be of a variety of kinds, according as it owes its existence to purely historical causes,

Cor to a conscious regard to political expediency. Thus the mutual relations of Sweden and Norway, and of Austria and Hungary, resemble the relation of England to Scotland and to Ireland before the complete political union of these countries severally. The relations of the American States, on the other hand, as conceived by the Articles of Confederation, rather resembled the relations of States merely connected with each other by a treaty of alliance of indefinite duration, such as at various times existed between the different States of ancient Greece.

It will be conjectured from this description of the celebrated mode of classification adverted to, that its practical use and importance is very small. The classes into which it distributes States are either so large and indefinite in their limits, or, when broken up into parts, so prolific in microscopic details, that the only conceivable purpose of the classification fails of being reached. Either no proposition whatever can be predicated of any single class of States contemplated by the mode of arrangement, or any proposition which can be predicated is so large and general in its terms as to amount to little more than the announcement of a truism.

Nevertheless, the facts brought into relief by the affected classification of States according to the alleged gradations and modes of their sovereignty are, in themselves, of very great significance. They point, indeed, to the conclusion that, in a social and political constitution, such as that of modern European and American States, sovereignty and independence are terms too vague and abstract to be of practical use in political discussion, except when hedged about with such limitations as the actual circumstances of each particular State call for. The chief value of these terms is found in the general weight they give to two important principles which, when properly understood, in view of their applicability