Francis Lieber

Extract

This year, 1913, is the fiftieth anniversary of a very important event in the history of international law ― the adoption and enforcement by the American Government of the code of rules governing the conduct of armies in the field, which is known to the American army as General Orders No. 100, of 1863. It happens that without any intention to create a coincidence the seventh annual meeting of the American Society of International Law is appointed and we are met here, exactly fifty years after the twenty-fourth day of April, 1863, when President Lincoln promulgated that famous order. It seems appropriate for this Society at this time to celebrate the event by paying honor to Francis Lieber, the author of the instructions embodied in the order.