will divide the Sovereign States who are Subjects of International Law into two classes. The six Great Powers and the United States of America we place in the first class, and in the second the remainder of the body of Independent and Sovereign States. For the reasons already mentioned, we regard as inapplicable the usual divisions. Confederations and Unions either do all their external business through one government, or they do not. If they do, they are in the eye of International Law exactly like other Sovereign States. If they do not, the political communities which compose them are either wholly independent or part-sovereign. In no case, are they a special kind of Sovereign State, requiring to be distinguished from the rest by any peculiarity in their external relations. § 49. The questions connected with Part-Sovereign States next demand our attention. Though, as a general rule, the domestic government in a political community exercises over the members of that community Part-Sovereign all the powers of sovereignty, it is obvious that it might exercise a portion of them only, the remainder being vested in the government of another country, or given to some central authority, or even suspended altogether. When the powers thus shared concern internal affairs, International Law has nothing to do with the case; neither has it when the home government deals with internal affairs, and some other authority possesses complete control of foreign relations, though both cases are important to the student of Constitutional Law and must be carefully classified by him. But when the external affairs of a community are directed partly by its domestic rulers and partly by the rulers of another country, International Law recognizes in that community a state unlike fully independent states, seeing that the rulers cannot exercise all the powers of external sovereignty, and yet capable of being ranked among its subjects, seeing that the local government does control some portion of the relations with other states. Communities of this kind are generally distinguished from independent states by the epithet Semi-Sovereign; but as the term seems to imply an equal division of the powers of sovereignty between the local and the foreign rulers, we will use instead the adjective PartSovereign, since it more correctly describes a class of communities in which any proportion of the powers of external sovereignty, from nearly all to almost none, may be possessed by the home government. The Part-Sovereign States known to International Law may be defined as Political Communities in which the domestic rulers possess a portion only of the powers of external sovereignty, the remainder being exercised by some other political body, or even suspended altogether. When a political community is obliged to submit itself habitually in matters of importance to the control of another state, it is said to be under the suzerainty of that state and is in a condition of part-sovereignty. When a number of political communities have joined themselves together into that loose form of Confederation which is called a Staatenbund, each of the states thus confederated, and also the central authority of the Confederation, are, as we have already seen, in a condition of part-sovereignty. When a state is neutralized by a great international treaty, and is therefore deprived of the right of making war for any other purpose than the defence of its own territory from attack, it is in a condition of part-sovereignty. We thus obtain three divisions of Part-Sovereign States, and it will be convenient to consider each division separately. But before we do so, we must exclude altogether from our classification such communities as the Native States of India and the Indian tribes of North America. The former are sometimes spoken of as independent states; but in reality they are not even part-sovereign in the sense given to that term in International Law, for they may not make war or peace or enter into negotiations with any power except Great 1 See §§ 245, 246. Britain.1 The latter have been adjudged by the United States Supreme Court in the case of the Cherokee Nation v. . the State of Georgia, not to be foreign states, but "domestic dependent nations."2 They cannot deal in any way with any power other than the United States, and consequently International Law knows nothing of them. The same exclusion might be pronounced upon the tiny republic of San Marino in Italy, but for the fact that in 1899 the signature of an Extradition Treaty with Great Britain brought it for the first time in 400 years into diplomatic relations with an important external power. It enjoyed for centuries local selfgovernment under protection of the States of the Church, and in 1862 the King of Italy took the place they previously occupied.3 § 50. The relation of Suzerain and vassal is far less frequent now than it was before the French Revolution, when the states of the Holy Roman Empire were reck- Communities oned among political communities whose soy- under a Suzerain. ereignty was defective. They had, however, been practically independent since the Peace of Westphalia in 1648; and the dissolution of the Empire in 1806 was but the last step in a long series of events which had been gradually destroying the authority of the successors of Augustus and Charlemagne. At the present time the states under the control of a Suzerain are few in number. Most of them are to be found among the outlying provinces of the Turkish Empire. The oppressed Christian populations of these districts have from time to time risen against the authority of the Sultan; and it has been the policy of the Great Powers to develop in them the faculty of self-government by compelling the Porte to grant first local autonomy, then a greater or less measure of liberty in dealing with external affairs, and 1 Statesman's Year Book for 1894, p. 118; see also Preamble of 39 and 40 Vict., c. 46. 2 Peters, Reports of the United States Supreme Court, V., 1. & Twiss, Law of Nations, § 36. finally complete independence. Thus the principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia possessed few privileges beyond that of having their governors or Hospodars elected by their . own nobility, till the treaties of Kutschuk-Kainardji in 1774 and Adrianople in 1829 made them into Part-Sovereign States under the suzerainty of the Porte and the guarantee of Russia. The treaty of Paris of 1856 substituted a European for a Russian guarantee. In 1861 the persistence of the inhabitants was successful in extorting from the Porte the union of the two principalities into the one realm of Roumania; and in 1878 the independence of Roumania was recognized by the Great Powers and Turkey. Its ruler, Prince Charles of Hohenzollern, took the title of King in 1881. The case of Roumania may be regarded as fairly typical. What we have said of it would apply mutatis mutandis to Servia, and will in all probability apply in the course of time to the principality of Bulgaria, which was freed from the Turkish yoke with more or less completeness by the Treaty of Berlin in 1878. Montenegro stood on a somewhat different footing. Its Prince claimed never to have lost his independence, while the Sultan asserted the rights of a Suzerain over the country. The dispute, after being the cause of countless wars, was ended by the Treaty of Berlin, wherein the independence of Montenegro was recognized by all the signatory powers who had not recognized it before. It will be seen, therefore, that Roumania, Servia, and Montenegro are now completely Sovereign States, and accordingly they belong to the first of the classes into which we have divided the Subjects of International Law. Bulgaria, however, must be regarded as a Part-Sovereign State under the suzerainty of the Porte. It is governed as an autonomous principality by a Prince in whose line the dignity has been made hereditary. In 1886 the province of Eastern Roumelia was united to it by the force of a popular movement. The Great Powers have made no attempt to undo the work of this successful revolution, though they have not accorded a formal recognition to the union. They have treated in the same way the election of Ferdinand of Coburgh as Prince of Bulgaria in 1887, after the forced abdication of Prince Alexander. The Treaty of Berlin constituted Bulgaria "an autonomous and tributary Principality under the suzerainty of His Imperial Majesty, the Sultan." Ottoman troops were to be excluded entirely from its territory, which was to be defended by a national militia. The treaty was silent as to the right of negotiating with foreign powers, though it implied that such a right existed by the provision for the conclusion of a Railway Convention immediately after the termination of the war. In 1883, however, the representative of the principality was not allowed to sign a convention about the navigation of the Danube, the signature of the Porte being held to suffice. But since then the rulers of Bulgaria have shown great activity in the management of foreign as well as domestic affairs. They have waged a successful war with Servia, and have constantly negotiated with foreign powers for the recognition of the changes they have effected in the internal arrangements of their country. It is clear that they already possess a large share of the external sovereignty over the principality; and probably they will before long obtain it all, and become absolutely independent. But at present we must rank the country among those Part-Sovereign States which are under a Suzerain. The position of Egypt is peculiar and anomalous; but there can be no doubt that by the letter of international documents it has been constituted a Part-Sovereign State under the suzerainty of the Porte. It was for centuries a province of the Ottoman Empire; but in 1831 its ruler, Mehemet Ali, revolted against the Sultan. After some years of successful warfare he was on the point of taking Constan 1 For the territorial and other arrangements referred to in the text, see Holland, European Concert in the Eastern Question, Ch. VI., and Twiss, Law of Nations, Chs. IV. and V. |