sors. The climax of complication was reached when Christian von Wolf, a Professor at Halle, in the preface of his Jus Gentium, published in 1749, divided the law of nations into Natural or Necessary Law, Voluntary Law, Conventional Law, and Customary Law; and, as if these were not enough, referred incidentally to an Internal and an External Law. Other writers simplified these divisions to some extent; but still a most unnecessary and unprofitable elaboration was kept up. Even Wheaton accepts the distinction between a Natural and a Voluntary Law of Nations, and argues that the Voluntary Law is a genus, comprising the two species of Conventional Law introduced by treaty, and Customary Law derived from usage. But, like other writers, he forgets or ignores these distinctions when he sets forth the actual rules of his science. He does not then give us a chapter or two on Natural Law and many chapters on Voluntary Law with its two great subdivisions. But instead we have a most able and instructive series of chapters on the various rights possessed by states, and on War and Neutrality, in the course of which we are not even informed whether a given rule comes from convention or from usage, so completely are the divisions originally given dropped when the work of dealing with the subject in a systematic manner is seriously undertaken. Divisions which do not divide are useless; and in the present case some of them are mischievous as well, for they imply a belief in the theory that by some process of reasoning or intuition a law can be evolved which is binding on states apart from their consent, and thus tend to revive the old confusion between what is and what ought to be. Instead of attempting the unprofitable task of distinguishing the rules of International Law according to their origin, it is better to divide the subject into heads according to the different kinds of rights. possessed by states and their corresponding obligations. 1 International Law, § 9. § 68. If we make our attempt at division on the lines just indicated, we shall find at once that states possess, by virtue of States possess normal and abnormal rights and obligations. the law they have created for themselves, certain rights and obligations in their ordinary condition of peace, and that certain other rights and obligations are obtained, in addition to or in qualification of these, when a state is in the condition of belligerency or neutrality. Fortunately, in the modern world, peace is regarded as the usual and proper condition for nations. No writer would now venture to say with Machiavelli, “A prince is to have no other design, or thought, or study but war, and the art and discipline of it." We have come to regard the business of good government as the most important art of rulers, and to include in it the practice of all honorable means of avoiding war. The rights and obligations which belong to states in their capacity of members of the family of nations are connected with peace and the state of peace. They may be called normal rights and obligations and they are possessed by every independent state which is a subject of International Law. Just as the law of the land clothes every child born under its authority with certain rights which are his through no act of his own, so International Law gives to the states under its authority certain rights which belong to them through the mere fact of subjection to it. And just as an individual can, by the exercise of his will, place himself in a position whereby he acquires rights and obligations he did not possess before, so a state can by an act of corporate volition place itself in a position whereby it acquires rights and obligations it did not possess before. No man, for instance, can marry without making up his mind to do so; and no state can go to war or remain neutral in a war between other states without making up its mind to do so. But if a man does enter into matrimony, he 1 The Prince, Ch. XIV. acquires rights which did not belong to him as a mere subject and citizen, and comes under obligations which were not binding upon him in his previous condition; and if a state becomes a belligerent or a neutral, it acquires rights and becomes liable to obligations of which it knew nothing as a mere subject of International Law. A belligerent, for example, has, in the right of search, a power over neutral vessels it could not exercise in its ordinary condition of peace;1 and its obligation to submit to restrictions upon the freedom of its cruisers to stay in the ports of friendly powers and make what purchases they please there, modifies a previously existing right of unrestricted intercourse.2 Those rights and obligations which a state possesses as a belligerent or a neutral we may call abnormal, to distinguish them from the normal rights and obligations which belong to it as a subject of International Law. And this distinction is fundamental. It gives us our first great division, and is the pivot on which our whole classification turns. § 69. Normal rights and obligations Independence, diction, Equality, abnormal rights and obligations Neutrality. with War and Starting, then, with the normal rights and obligations of states, we find that they are concerned with Independence, Property, Jurisdiction, Equality, and Diplomacy. Each of these gives us an important subject, fairly well marked off from other subjects, and capable of being treated by itself as a distinct head. The rules of International Law group themselves under these heads in a convenient manner without much overlapping; and we thus obtain a means of dividing one portion of our subject into titles or chapters in a way which shows the relation of its various parts to one another and to the whole. The other great division, that of the abnormal rights and obligations of states, naturally falls under two heads-those of War and 1 See § 210. 2 See § 251. Neutrality. Each of these is very important, and requires more space for its consideration than any one of the subjects enumerated in connection with normal rights and obligations. We shall, therefore, subdivide them when we come to deal with them in detail. Here it will be sufficient to remark that, since normal rights and obligations are connected with peace, we obtain a division of International Law into the Law of Peace, the Law of War, and the Law of Neutrality, each of which will be considered in one of the three following parts of this book. The subjoined table will enable the student to see at a glance the arrangement of our subject we propose to adopt. The divisions of this table are clear and definite, and it is hoped that the principles on which they are based will commend themselves to the judgment of intelligent readers. PART II. THE LAW OF PEACE. CHAPTER I. RIGHTS AND OBLIGATIONS CONNECTED WITH INDEPENDENCE. § 70. Definition and nature of the pendence. right of inde INDEPENDENCE may be defined as The right of a state to manage all its affairs, whether external or internal, without interference from other states, as long as it respects the corresponding right possessed by each fully-sovereign member of the family of nations. This right of independent action is the natural result of sovereignty: it is, in fact, sovereignty looked at from the point of view of other nations. When a state is entirely its own master, it is sovereign as regards itself, independent as regards others. Independence is, therefore, predicated by modern International Law of all the sovereign states who are its subjects. But it must not be forgotten that, till the time of Grotius, the notion of universal sovereignty was the dominant conception in the minds of thinkers and writers on international relations. They held that there was, or at least that there ought to be, a common superior over nations. The last lingering remnants of this idea were shattered in the storms of |