ern public jurists as not being logically deduced from acknowledged principles. Still it must be admitted that certain changes in the internal constitution of one of the contracting States, or in the person of its sovereign, may have the effect of annulling preexisting treaties between their respective governments. The obligation of treaties, by whatever denomination they may be called, is founded, not merely upon the contract itself, but upon those mutual relations between the two States which may have induced them to enter into certain engagements. Whether the treaty be termed real or personal, it will continue so long as these relations exist. The moment they cease to exist, by means of a change in the social organization of one of the contracting parties, of such a nature and of such importance as would have prevented the other party from entering into the contract had he foreseen this change, the treaty ceases to be obligatory upon him.17

Public debts.

§ 30. As to public debts-whether due to or from the revolutionized State a mere change in the form of government, or in the person of the ruler, does not affect their obligation. The essential form of the State, that which constitutes it an independent community, remains the same; its accidental form only is changed. The debts being contracted in the name of the State, by its authorized agents, for its public use, the nation continues liable for them, notwithstanding the change in its internal constitution. (a) The new government succeeds to the fiscal rights, and is bound to fulfil the fiscal obligations of the former government.

It becomes entitled to the public domain and other property

States undoubtedly did no act in the way of recognizing the independence or even belligerency of Hungary, but confidentially and secretly took its own mode of making sure of its ground in being the earliest, consistently with international law, to recognize the independence of a nation with whose cause it sympathized. The episode belongs rather to history, as indicating the policy and feeling of the United States.

See note 41, on Intervention on Mexico.]-D.

[17 The separation of Belgium from the kingdom of the Netherlands, and the change wrought thereby in the relations of Holland with the great powers, were held by the United States to justify it in withdrawing from an agreement to accept the King of the Netherlands as an umpire on the north-eastern boundary question. When Texas agreed to unite itself to the Republic of the United States, France and England notified her that she did not thereby cease to be bound by her treaty obligations with those powers. Lord Aberdeen to Mr. Eliot, Dec. 3, 1845. Sen. Doc. vii. 375.]—D.

(a) Grotius, de Jur. Bel. ac Pac. lib. ii. cap. 9, §§ 8, 1-3. Puffendorf, de Jur. Nat. et Gent. lib. viii. cap. 12, §§ 1, 2, 3.

of the State, and is bound to pay its debts previously contracted. (b) 18

main and

§31. As to the public domain and private rights of Public doproperty. If the revolution be successful, and the inter- private nal change in the constitution of the State is finally property. confirmed by the event of the contest, the public domain passes

rights of

(b) Heffter, Das europäische Völkerrecht, § 24. Bona non intelliguntur nisi deducto ære alieno.

[18 Teran Bonds.-By the annexation of Texas to the United States, the power to lay and collect duties on imports passed to the latter but Texas retained her public lands, pledged to the payment of her debts; and the act of annexation declared that they should in no event be a charge on the United States. Afterwards, the United States took portions of those public lands, agreeing to pay therefor ten millions of dollars, half to be retained until the holders of the bonds of Texas, for which her customs duties were pledged, should release their claims. By a later act, the United States reserved three-quarters of the sum, to be paid pro ratâ among the bondholders, on their releasing their claims. Some of these bondholders were British subjects; and the claims of one (James Holford) were submitted to the mixed commission established under the convention of Feb. 8, 1853; but the commission decided that the claims were not within the jurisdiction of the commission, as they had never been matter of diplomatic demand by Great Britain on the United States. Report of the Commission under the Convention of 1853, 382-426. U. S. Laws, v. 797; viii. 446; x. 617.

It certainly would not be satisfactory to say that the United States discharges its obligation to the creditors of Texas, to whom her customs were pledged, by paying only the amount of the customs received. The United States determines what those duties shall be, in reference to the interests and policy of the whole republic. The condition of Texas is changed by her annexation. The new government has a large control over the material resources of the inhabitants, in the way of internal revenues, excise, or direct taxation, in its demands on the services of the people, and in the debts it can impose; in fact, the entire public system of Texas has passed into other hands, and no such state of things any longer exists as that to which the creditor looked. It may be better or worse, but it is not the same; and, if the duties laid by the United States and collected in Texan ports did not in fact pay the debts, it would be unjust for the United States to limit the payment of the creditor to them. The truth is, by the annexation the United States changed the nature of the thing pledged, and is bound generally to do equity to the creditor.

In the separations and re-arrangements of nations in Europe, special provisions are usually made for the payment of public debts; and the principle seems admitted, that, in case of a division of a State, each new State is bound for the whole debt contracted by the former; and, in the case of a union of States, it seems equally clear that, as the whole must defend the part in war, which is the international process of attachment, it must practically pay the debt, although the foreign power may look only to the people and land of the State which made the contract. The formation of the new State so alters the nature of all the securities the creditor looked to, that the new State has a general obligation to see that he does not suffer by the change.

See Art. 13 of treaty of 1839, for the separation of Belgium; and the treaty of Zurich, ceding Lombardy to Sardinia.]—D.

to the new government; but this mutation is not necessarily attended with any alteration whatever in private rights of property.

It may, however, be attended by such a change: it is competent for the national authority to work a transmutation, total or partial, of the property belonging to the vanquished party; and if actually confiscated, the fact must be taken for right. But to work such a transfer of proprietary rights, some positive and unequivocal act of confiscation is essential.

If, on the other hand, the revolution in the government of the State is followed by a restoration of the ancient order of things, both public and private property, not actually confiscated, revert to the original proprietor on the restoration of the legitimate government, as in the case of conquest they revert to the former owners, on the evacuation of the territory occupied by the public enemy. The national domain, not actually alienated by any intermediate act of the State, returns to the sovereign along with the sovereignty. Private property, temporarily sequestered, returns to the former owner, as in the case of such property recaptured from an enemy in war on the principle of the jus postliminii.

But if the national domain has been alienated, or the private property confiscated by some intervening act of the State, the question as to the validity of such transfer becomes more difficult of solution.

Even the lawful sovereign of a country may, or may not, by the particular municipal constitution of the State, have the power of alienating the public domain. The general presumption, in mere internal transactions with his own subjects, is, that he is not so authorized. (a) But in the case of international transactions, where foreigners and foreign governments are concerned, the authority is presumed to exist, and may be inferred from the general treaty-making power, unless there be some express limitation in the fundamental laws of the State. So, also, where foreign governments and their subjects treat with the actual head of the State, or the government de facto, recognized by the acquiescence of the nation, for the acquisition of any portion of the public domain or of private confiscated property, the acts of such government must, on principle, be considered valid by the lawful sover

(a) Puffendorf, de Jur. Nat. et Gent. lib. viii. cap. 12, §§ 1-3. Vattel, Droit des Gens, liv. i. chap. 21, §§ 260, 261.

eign on his restoration, although they were the acts of him who is considered by the restored sovereign as an usurper. (b) On the other hand, it seems that such alienations of public or private property to the subjects of the State, may be annulled or confirmed, as to their internal effects, at the will of the restored legitimate sovereign, guided by such motives of policy as may. influence his counsels, reserving the legal rights of bona fidei purchasers under such alienation to be indemnified for ameliorations. (e)

Where the price or equivalent of the property sold or exchanged has accrued to the actual use and profit of the State, the transfer may be confirmed, and the original proprietors indemnified out of the public treasury, as was done in respect to the lands of the emigrant French nobility, confiscated and sold during the revolution. So, also, the sales of the national domains situate in the German and Belgian provinces, united to France during the revolution, and again detached from the French territory by the treaties of Paris and Vienna in 1814 and 1815, or in the countries composing the Rhenish Confederation in the kingdom of Italy, and the Papal States, were, in general, confirmed by these treaties, by the Germanic Diet, or by the acts of the respective restored sovereigns. But a long and intricate litigation ensued before the Germanic Diet, in respect to the alienation of the domains in the countries composing the kingdom of Westphalia. The Elector of Hesse Cassel and the Duke of Brunswick refused to confirm these alienations in respect to their territory, whilst Prussia, which power had acknowledged the King of Westphalia, also acknowledged the validity of his acts in the countries annexed to the Prussian dominions by the treaties of Vienna. (d)

§32. As to wrongs or injuries done to the government Wrongs or citizens of another State; - it seems, that, on strict and injuries. principle, the nation continues responsible to other States for the damages incurred for such wrongs or injuries, notwithstanding an intermediate change in the form of its government, or in the persons of its rulers. This principle was applied in all its rigor by the vic

(5) Grotius, de Jur. Bel. ac Pac. lib. ii. cap. 14, § 16.

(e) Klüber, Droit des Gens, sec. ii. chap. 1, § 258.

(d) Conversations Lexikon, art. Domainen-verkäuf. Heffter, Das europäische Völkerrecht, § 188. Klüber, Oeffentliches Recht des deutschen Bundes, § 169. Rotteck und Welcker, Staats-Lexikon, art. Domainen-käufer.

torious allied powers in their treaties of peace with France in 1814 and 1815. More recent examples of its practical application have occurred in the negotiations between the United States and France, Holland, and Naples, relating to the spoliations committed on American commerce under the government of Napoleon and the vassal States connected with the French empire. The responsibility of the restored government of France for those acts of the preceding ruler was hardly denied by it, even during the reigns of the Bourbon kings of the elder branch, Louis XVIII. and Charles X.; and was expressly admitted by the present government (Louis Philippe's) in the treaty of indemnities concluded with the United States in 1831. The application of the same principle to the measures of confiscation adopted by Murat in the kingdom of Naples was contested by the restored government of that country; but the discussions which ensued were at last terminated, in the same manner, by a treaty of indemnities concluded between the American and Neapolitan governments.19

States de

fined.

Sovereign § 33. A sovereign State is generally defined to be any nation or people, whatever may be the form of its internal constitution, which governs itself independently of foreign powers. (a)

This definition, unless taken with great qualifications, cannot be admitted as entirely accurate. Some States are completely sovereign and independent, acknowledging no superior but the Supreme Ruler and Governor of the universe. The sovereignty of other States is limited and qualified in various degrees.

Equality All sovereign States are equal in the eye of internaof sovereign States. tional law, whatever may be their relative power. The sovereignty of a particular State is not impaired by its occasional obedience to the commands of other States, or even the habitual influence exercised by them over its councils. It is only when this obedience, or this influence, assumes the form of express compact, that the sovereignty of the State, inferior in power, is legally affected by its connection with the other. Treaties of equal alliance, freely contracted between independent States, do not impair

[19 The British and French governments made reclamations on Mexico for property of British subjects seized by a faction, which, during a civil war, was in actual possession of the capital. The tripartite treaty between Great Britain, France, and Spain of Oct. 31, 1861, and Lord John Russell's instructions to Sir C. Wycke, 1861. Annual Register, 1861, p. 216.] — D.

(a) Vattel, Droit des Gens, liv. i. chap. 1, § 4.