but external sovereignty also, or the power of dealing with foreign affairs. The commonwealths which compose the American Union possess all the features we have enumerated as the distinguishing marks of states. They are, therefore, rightly so called; but historical and political reasons have sometimes caused them to be alluded to as Sovereign States. Strictly speaking, this is a mistake. By the Constitution of the United States all dealings with foreign powers are left to the central government. The Executive and Legislature of any and every state in the Union are devoid of the slightest power to act in these matters, and have to submit to what is done by the authorities at Washington. They have none of the attributes of external sovereignty. They cannot make war or peace, nor can they send agents to foreign powers or receive agents from them. In other words, they are states, but they are not Sovereign States.

But it is not necessary in order that a society may be a Sovereign State that its ruler or rulers should never submit to the will of others. In fact, the most powerful empires in the world frequently modify their course of action in deference to the wishes of neighboring states; and no one dreams of asserting that they lose their independence thereby. It is only when such submission becomes habitual that the state so hampered ceases to be fully sovereign. When Russia, for instance, in 1878, consented to take back the Treaty of San Stefano, which she had made separately with Turkey, and to allow all the Great Powers to settle the questions at issue in the East by an instrument negotiated at Berlin, she did nothing to impair her sovereignty. But if it were part of the public law of Europe that every treaty made by Russia must be referred to an European Congress, it would be impossible to regard her as a fully independent state. The characteristics, therefore, of a Sovereign State are two. Its government must receive habitual obedience from the bulk of the people and it must not render habitual obedience to any earthly superior.

ilized Sovereign

of International

Law.

§ 44.

But before a Sovereign State can become a Subject of International Law it must possess other marks in addition to Only the more civ- those we have just enumerated. A wandering States are subjects tribe with no fixed territory to call its own might nevertheless obey implicitly a chief who took no commands from other rulers. A race of savages settled on the land might be in the same predicament. Even a mere fortuitous concourse of men, like a band of pirates, might be temporarily under the sway of a chief with unrestricted power; or a very minute group ruled in civilized fashion might exist in some remote corner of the globe. Yet none of these communities would be subject to International Law, because they would want various characteristics, which, though not essential to sovereignty, are essential to membership in the family of nations. For there are many communities outside the sphere of International Law, though they are independent states. They neither grant to others, nor claim for themselves the strict observance of its rules. Justice and humanity should be scrupulously adhered to in all dealings with them, but they are not fit subjects for the application of legal technicalities. It would, for instance, be absurd to expect the Sultan of Morocco to establish a Prize Court, or to require the dwarfs of the central African forest to receive a permanent diplomatic mission. Since then there are in existence communities which have all the attributes of independence, and yet are not received into the family of nations, it is necessary to inquire what further marks a community must possess, over and above the marks of sovereignty, before it can take its place among those states whose intercourse is regulated by the highly developed system of rules which we call International Law. It is evident, in the first place, that a certain degree of civilization is necessary, though it is difficult to define the exact amount. The strongest evidence of the willingness of some

enlightened chief of South Sea Islanders to conform to civilized usages in the matter of international intercourse would in all probability be insufficient to induce the governments of Europe and America to deal with him as they deal with one another. On the other hand, Turkey, China, and Japan were formally placed under International Law as soon as they expressed a desire to submit themselves to it. In matters of this kind, no general rule can be laid down. The area within which the law of nations operates is supposed to coincide with the area of civilization. To be received within it is to obtain a kind of international testimonial of good conduct and respectability; and when a state hitherto accounted barbarous desires admission, the leading powers settle the case upon its merits. In addition to the attainment of a certain, or rather an uncertain, amount of civilization, a state must have possession of a fixed territory before it can obtain the privilege of admission into the family of nations. The rules of modern International Law are so permeated from end to end with the idea of territorial sovereignty that they would be entirely inapplicable to any body politic that was not permanently settled upon a portion of the earth's surface which in its collective capacity it owned. Even if we could suppose a nomadic tribe to have attained the requisite degree of civilization, its lack of territorial organization would be amply sufficient to exclude it from the pale of International Law. But a civilized and independent community, settled upon a tract of land, may be so small that it would be absurd to clothe it with the rights. and obligations given by the law of nations to Sovereign States. Such a minute community might exist unnoticed in some distant corner of the world. This is actually the case with the inhabitants of Pitcairn Island,1 a little rock in the South Pacific, peopled by a few score descendants of the muti

1 Pitcairn Island is now a part of the British Empire, being under the supervision of the Governor of New South Wales. But the inhabitants practically manage their own concerns; and their connection with the mother country is maintained by an occasional visit from a British man-of-war.

neers of the Bounty, who settled upon it in 1790. Here we have a community which possesses a fixed territory; but it is so small, so remote, and so unimportant, that it remains unnoticed by civilized states, except for an occasional visit from one of their ships. When such communities exist in close contiguity to larger political bodies, they are soon absorbed altogether, or reduced to a position of dependence, or perhaps united with similar communities in a Confederation. When they are far away from the main currents of political and commercial life, they are allowed to rest unnoticed and undisturbed. A body politic completely supreme over all its members, and subject to no external authority, must have reached a certain degree of civilization, have ceased to be nomadic and become owner of a fixed territory, have provided for the continuity of its existence, and have attained a certain size and importance, before it can be regarded as one of those Sovereign States which are Subjects of International Law.

continuity. The

different kinds of

Confederation.

§ 45.

The Sovereign States which are Subjects of International Law are regarded as units in their dealings with other states. State-life and its They are corporate bodies, acting through their governments. Each state is bound by the engagements entered into by its rulers on its behalf, as long as they have been made in accordance with its own law and constitution. Other states have no right to dictate what individual or body in a state shall conduct its external affairs. As long as there is such an individual or body of individuals, they must transact their business with him or them. If no such authority exists, they can decline to transact business at all; and if a state remains for any length of time in such a condition of revolution or anarchy that no one has authority to speak on its behalf, it will soon cease to be a Subject of International Law in its existing form, though in all probability its territory and people will enter into new combinations and still retain under changed conditions some place in the ranks of civilized states. The

continuity of a state, and consequently its liability to be called upon to fulfil the international obligations it has contracted, is not affected by change of government or loss of outlying territory. But if it splits up into several states, or is obliterated altogether like Poland, or enters with others, like each of the American colonies whose independence was recognized by Great Britain in 1783, into a union for the formation of a new state, it loses its corporate existence as a Subject of International Law. When this happens, the circumstances of each case decide what is to become of the debts and other obligations with which the lost state was burdened. In some instances they disappear with the body corporate to which they belonged; in others an equitable division of them is made. The law of nations lays down. no clear rules with regard to these matters;1 but it does clearly say that if a state desires to have intercourse with other states, there must be some authority within it capable of pledging it to a given course of conduct.

This is true of Confederations no less than of states which are organic wholes in their internal organization. Confederations are generally divided into two kinds, for neither of which is there a good term in the English language. The first, called in German a Bundesstaat, comprises those unions in which the central authority alone can deal with foreign powers and settle external affairs, the various members of the Confederation having control over their internal affairs only. In the second, called a Staatenbund, are included all Confederations where the states which have agreed to unite have retained for themselves the power of dealing directly with others in some matters, the remaining external affairs being reserved by the federal bond to the central authority.2 Unions of the first kind have been called Supreme Federal Governments, unions of the second kind Systems of Confederated States. The best examples of the former now in

See Appendix, § I.

2 Heffter, Das Europäische Völkerrecht, §§ 20, 21. 8 Austin, Jurisprudence, I., 264.