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"from any of its duties by a change in the form of its civil government. The body politic is still the same, though it may have a different organ of communication" (y).

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CXXXIV. Puffendorf, in his chapter " De mutatione et "interitu civitatum," adds the authority of Sweden to fortify these positions in one of the best chapters of his treatise on "De Jure Naturæ et Gentium" (z).

CXXXV. We have, then, this opinion of the continuity of the rights and obligations of a State confirmed by the unanimous authority of the most celebrated jurists and statesmen (a) of all countries. This accumulation of authorities must not be regarded as an idle parade of evidence, because, as has been already observed, a proposition which

(y) Kent's Commentaries on American Law, vol. i. pp. 25, 26.

Wheaton (Elém. i. 33) speaks fully to the same effect: "Un Etat est un corps changeant quant aux membres qui composent la société, mais quant à la société même, c'est le même corps dont l'existence est perpétuée par une succession constante de membres nouveaux. Cette existence continue tant qu'aucun changement fondamental n'a été introduit dans l'Etat."

(2) L. viii. c. xiv.

(a) "L'unité permanente qui s'établit, et le développement progressif qui s'opère par cette tradition incessante des hommes aux hommes, et des générations aux générations, c'est là le genre humain; c'est son originalité et sa grandeur; c'est un des traits qui marquent l'homme pour la souveraineté dans ce monde, et pour l'immortalité au-delà de ce monde.

"C'est de là que dérivent et par là que se fondent la famille et l'Etat, la propriété et l'hérédité, la patrie, l'histoire, la gloire, tous les faits et tous les sentiments qui constituent la vie étendue et perpétuelle de l'humanité au milieu de l'apparition si bornée et de la disparition si rapide des individus humains.

"La République sociale supprime tout cela; elle ne voit dans les hommes que des êtres isolés et éphémères qui ne paraissent dans la vie et sur cette terre, théâtre de la vie, que pour y prendre leur subsistance et leur plaisir, chacun pour son compte seul, au même titre et sans autre fin.

"C'est précisément la condition des animaux. Parmi eux, point de lien, point d'action qui survive aux individus et s'étende à tous; point d'appropriation permanente, point de transmission héréditaire, point d'ensemble ni de progrès dans la vie de l'espèce; rien que des individus qui paraissent et passent, prenant en passant leur part des biens de la

is maintained by the concurrent voice of eminent jurists of various civilized countries becomes ipso facto, as it were, a part of International law (b).

CXXXVI. We arrive, then, with confidence at the conclusion, that this reciprocal observance of good faith, whether it be plighted to the payment of debts or to the fulfilment of the stipulations of treaties (c), is binding upon all nations. This good faith is the great moral ligament which binds together the different nations of the globe (d). Without this, war would be, as has been sometimes asserted, the perpetual destiny of mankind, and that miserable fiction of shallow declamation and specious sophistry would be reality and truth.

CXXXVII. It remains only to add a proposition which is indeed a corollary from the foregoing statements. If a nation be divided into various distinct societies, the obligations which had accrued to the whole, before the division, are, unless they have been the subject of a special agreement, rateably binding upon the different parts (e): "Contra

terre et des plaisirs de la vie, dans la mesure de leur besoin et de leur force qui font leur droit.”—De la Démocratie en France, par M. Guizot, pp. 58-60.

(b) Vide ante, ch. vii. p. 62.

(c) "Item foedera pacis et induciarum possunt sub hoc capite collocari, non quatenus servanda sunt postquam sunt facta; hoc enim potius pertinet ad jus naturale."-Suarez de Legibus et Deo Legislatore, p. 109.

(d) "Je ne crois pas " (says Abbé Mably) "qu'il soit nécessaire de parler dans cet ouvrage de la fidélité scrupuleuse avec laquelle les Etats doivent remplir leurs engagemens; je ne fais pas ici un traité de droit naturel. D'ailleurs que pourrois-je ajouter à ce que tant de savans hommes ont écrit sur cette matière ? Exécuter ces promesses, c'est le bien de la société générale, c'est la base de tout le bonheur de chaque société particulière; tout nous le prouve, tout nous le démontre, cette vérité dont de mauvais raisonneurs veulent douter est connue des peuples, le moins policés; et les princes malheureux, qui se font un jeu de leurs sermens, feignent de la respecter, si leur ambition n'est pas stupide ou brutale."-Tome i. p. 111.

(e) "Dass übrigens die Acten der Staatsgewalt eines frühern Herrschers, welche der Verfassung des regierten Staates entsprechen, auch für den Nachfolger verbindlich sind, kann gewiss nach internationalem Recht in

"evenit" (as Grotius expresses himself) "ut quæ una civitas "fuerat, dividatur, aut consensu mutuo, aut vi bellica, sicut "corpus imperii Persici divisum est in Alexandri successores.

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Quod cum fit, plura pro uno existunt summa imperia, cum "suo jure in partes singulas. Si quid autem commune "fuerit, id aut communiter est administrandum, aut pro "ratis portionibus dividendum " (f). And "so" (says Mr. Chancellor Kent) "if a State should be divided in respect "to territory, its rights and obligations are not impaired; "and if they have not been apportioned by special agree"ment, those rights are to be enjoyed, and those obligations "fulfilled, by all the parts in common" (g). So Mr. Justice Story, delivering a judgment in the Supreme Court of the United States, observed: "It has been asserted as a principle "of the common law, that the division of an empire creates no forfeiture of previously vested rights of property; and "this principle is equally consonant with the common sense ❝ of mankind, and the maxims of eternal justice "(h). Lastly, it should be observed, that this principle is in viridi observantia in International practice, and was incorporated into the treaty by which the modern kingdom of Belgium was established (i).

keinen Zweifel gezogen werden."-Heffters, s. 57, p. 111; Zachariä, Staats- und Bundesrecht, s. 58.

(f) Grotius, 1. ii. c. ix. s. 10.

(g) Kent's Commentaries, vol. i. p. 25.

(h) Terrett and Others v. Taylor and Others, 9 Cranch (American) Reports, 50; citing Kelly v. Harrison, 2 John. c. 29; Jackson v. Lunn, 5 John. c. 109 (American); Calvin's Case, 7 Co. 27.

(i) Wheaton's Hist. 546.

PART THE THIRD.

CHAPTER I.

OBJECTS OF INTERNATIONAL LAW.

CXXXVIII. THE Sources and the Subjects of International Law having been stated, it remains to consider the Objects of this system of jurisprudence; that is, the Rights which are to be ascertained, protected, and enforced by this law (a).

CXXXIX. These rights flow as moral and logical consequences from the positions laid down in the first chapter with regard to the Individuality and Intercommunion of States, and from the definition of a State in the second chapter. Some of these rights concern more immediately the internal and domestic, others the external and foreign, condition of a State. Moreover, the rights of nations, like the rights of individuals, admit of a general division into rights which relate to persons, to things, and to the mode of their enforcement.

CXL. These are rights properly so called-rights stricti juris; but the constant intercourse and increasing civilization of nations has given rise to a usage and practice which greatly mitigates the severity with which these rights,

(a) "Jus gentium est sedium occupatio, ædificatio, munitio, bella, captivitates, servitutes, postliminia, fœdera, paces, induciæ, legatorum non violandorum religio, connubia inter alienigenas prohibita. Hoc inde jus gentium appellatur, quia eo jure omnes fere gentes utuntur.”— Decret. i. Dist. i. c. ix.

abstractedly considered, might be exercised, both with respect to the foreign community, in its aggregate capacity, and with respect to the persons of the individual members belonging to it. This usage is called comitas gentium—the comity of nations-droit de convenance.

CXLI. With regard to the intercourse of individual members of different States, this COMITY has been suffered to grow up into what may be termed a jus gentium privatum ; and which requires, on account of its magnitude and importance, a separate and distinct notice in another part of this work.

CXLII. With regard to a State in its aggregate capacity, questions of Comity, being much fewer in kind, and rarer in occurrence, may be conveniently mentioned and distinguished in the general treatment of rights properly so called.

CXLIII. But with regard to both, the fundamental distinction between the usage of comity and the right stricti juris must never be forgotten (b).

(b) "Non minus sollicite separavimus ea quæ juris sunt, stricte ac proprie dicti, unde restitutionis obligatio oritur, et ea quæ juris esse dicuntur, quia aliter agere cum alio aliquo rectæ rationis dictato pugnat." -Grot. Proleg. s. 41.

In the case of the Maria, Lord Stowell observes (speaking of Art. 12 of the Order of Council, 1664, which directs, "That when any ship, met withal by the Royal Navy or other ship commissionated, shall fight or make resist, the said ship and goods shall be adjudged lawful prize"): "I am aware that in those orders and proclamations are to be found some articles not very consistent with the law of nations as understood now, or indeed at that time, for they are expressly censured by Lord Clarendon. But the article I refer to is not of those he reprehends; and it is observable that Sir Robert Wiseman, then the King's Advocate-General, who reported upon the Articles in 1673, and expresses a disapprobation of some of them as harsh and novel, does not mark this article with any observation of censure. I am therefore warranted in saying that it was the rule, and the undisputed rule, of the British Admiralty. I will not say that that rule may not have been broken in upon in some instances by considerations of comity or of policy, by which it may be fit that the administration of this species of law should be tempered in the hands of those tribunals which have a right to entertain and apply them; for no man can deny that a State may recede from its extreme rights, and that its supreme