GARDNER'S INSTITUTES.

CHAPTER I.

NATIONS, NATIONAL IMMUNITY, SOVEREIGNTY AND EXECUTIVE ORGANS.

SECTION 1. As nations are the parties or political bodies subject to national duties, and possessed of national rights, which are treated of by public law, our first inquiry is what is a nation, what is a sovereignty, and what are its attributes?

A nation is an association of States, families or men, for the publicly avowed object of forming one of the community of nations, of governing itself without dependence on a foreign power, and having an organized government in some form capable of performing all international duties. Such an association, whatever may be its origin, is a sovereign State, with all the rights and duties pertaining to one of the family of nations.

No change in the internal organization of a nation affects the question of its nationality. England, under her kings John and Charles II., was the same nation that the Protector Cromwell presided over with an ability far surpassing that of any of her kings. The international rights and duties of nations are not generally affected by changes in their internal form of government. (Grotius on P. & W. B. 2, c. 9, § 8, and c. 16, § 16. 1 Kent's

Com. 5th ed. 167; Wheat. Int. L. P. 1, c. 2, § 11. Vattel, B. 2, c. 14, § 215.) The rule and exceptions are explained in the twelfth chapter.

The actual existence of a nation is a fact to be judged of by other powers, and a recognition of the fact by treaty or otherwise is merely an attestation of it by the State recognising the new one. A recognition is not the giving or transfer of a national character, but a simple admission that it exists at and before the date of the recognition. This principle is now well established.

Independent States sometimes submit to qualifications of their sovereignty by a treaty or compact of union called a constitution or confederation. The original thirteen colonies of the United States repudiated the government of Great Britain, and assumed to act as independent sovereignties in 1775, and July 4th, 1776, as the thirteen United States of America, they declared to the world that thus associated they assumed the position of a republican nation. These thirteen States, forming the United States, November 15th, 1777, formed a perpetual confederation, giving to the Continental Congress a portion of their sovereign powers, and retaining all municipal and a part of their national sovereignty. While known to other nations as the United States of America by their general Congress, the latter had no efficient internal power of compulsory action on the States and the people. Hence arose our Constitution, which conferred all national powers of the States on the general government, and constituted a Supreme National Court to decide all controversies between two or more States, and all questions under the treaties, constitution and laws of the Union. Vermont afterwards forcibly constituted herself a State de facto, by organizing a State government and repelling the jurisdiction of New-York. Her position of sovereignty, earned on many a revolutionary field of battle, was acknowledged

by the Commissioners of New-York in 1790, and in 1791 she was admitted into the Union. (3 N. Y. R. St. App. 423, 424. 1 U. S. St. L. 191.)

The 11th article of the confederation provided for the admission of Canada, if she joined the confederacy, and of other colonies, if nine of the United States consented.

The Constitution provided for the addition of new States, and of territory to form additional States from. These States, on the 1st of January, 1851, numbered thirty-one. The States cannot form compacts among themselves without the assent of Congress, nor can they make any treaty with any foreign power. The national government has the exclusive charge of our foreign relations, the exclusive control over foreign commerce and commerce among the States, and it has the sole power to declare war and make peace, to support armies and navies. The States, then, except in some few particulars, are sovereignties as to municipal law within their respective limits, and all their nationality is vested in the general government. Each State of our Union is bound to respect the sovereignty of every other, and avoid all interference with its domestic law and polity.

Nations that divest themselves of the power of declaring war or making peace, as the States of our Union have done, or assign to another State their right to the free navigation of the high seas, or become, in fact, by conquest or compact, dependent nations, as Carthage was after her league with the Romans subsequent to the second Punic war, lose their nationality, and are to be deemed subject nations. (Grotius on P. & W. B. 2, c. 15, § 7.

If a nation is forced by a victorious enemy to allow, as a condition of peace, the garrisoning of certain fortresses or cities by the enemy's troops, it does not thereby lose its sovereignty and nationality. This was the condition

of Prussia for a time after the victories of Napoleon, and afterwards of France immediately succeeding the battle of Waterloo.

Nations organized by the controlling conventions of foreign powers, when duly established, as Belgium and Greece, belong to the family of nations.

A nation may lose its nationality by allowing another State habitually to control its internal affairs; as this is inconsistent with national independence.

The existence of a nation is a question of fact to be judged of by other nations, and in reference to this, every other nation decides for itself.

EQUALITY OF NATIONS.

SEC. 2. All nations duly organized, whether Christian or not, whether large or small, republican or monarchical, are equal; possess the same international rights, and are bound by the same international duties. (Grotius on P. & W. B. 2, c. 9, § 8. Wheat. Hist. L. N. 230.) Our declaration to the world in 1776 was, "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness." These great truths, the universal, inherent, natural right of self-government, and the equality of all nations and all men in political rights, affirm, of necessity, the entire equality of all organized nations in the view of public

law. Vattel maintains the right of a nation to change its government as it may judge expedient. (B. 1, c. 3, §§ 32, 33, and c. 5, §§ 61, 66.) The changes of the governments of France, Great Britain and other States, and their recognition, have practically affirmed the doctrine of our Declaration of Independence, that the right of self-government resides in the body of every nation. The Constitution of the French Republic of 1848 re-asserts the same doctrine. The election of Louis Napoleon, Emperor of the French, in 1852, rests on this principle.

NATIONAL INTERNAL IMMUNITY.

SEC. 3. From the sovereignty of a nation, and its inherent and natural right of self-government, follows of necessity the principle that the internal administration of every sovereign State belongs to its citizens only, and that no power has any right to interfere in the internal government of a foreign country. (See Am. St. Pap. from 1811 to 1815, pp. 631, 632. Wheat. Int. L. P. 2, c. 1, § 15. Vattel, B. 2, c. 1, § 18; c. 4, §§ 54, 57. President Jackson's Mess. of 1836.) In the instructions of Henry Clay, Secretary of State of the United States, communicating, with the sanction of President Adams, the general principles of our Republic, in his instructions to our ministers to the Congress of Panama, in 1826, we have this doctrine clearly and strongly laid down. The Secretary says: "Finally, I have it in charge to direct your attention to the forms of government and to the cause of free institutions on this Continent. The United States never have been and are not now animated by any spirit of propagandism. They prefer, to all other forms of government, and are perfectly satisfied with, their own confederacy. Allowing no foreign interference, either in the formation or in the conduct of their government, they are equally scrupulous in refraining from interference in the original structure or