This is a topic that seems to have almost wholly escaped the attention of so-called authorities or publicists on international law. Bonfils, for example (7th ed., p. 135), calls attention to the difference between the recognition of a new state and a new government, but fails to show what the distinction is. Calvo (5th ed., 1, pp. 236 ff.) discusses rather fully recognition of belligerency and independence, but apparently has nothing to say of the recognition of new de facto governments in case of revolution. Even Pradier-Fodéré, the most voluminous of the authorities, seems to have nothing to impart on this subject.

I Beg leave to present in this article for consideration, a few of the characteristic details of what we know, and what has come during the past century to be known generally in the international and political world, as the Monroe Doctrine. I would point out its origin, its meaning, its development with the extension and growing importance of American national influence throughout the nineteenth century, and the importance of its bearing upon the American national life of our day—as well as its compelling power in every great movement of political weight that has taken place in the course of our dealings with foreign nations since the establishment of the Government of the United States. Its ground principle is laid in the deeply-rooted sentiment of the people of this country, upon which the fabric of personal intellectual and political independence from all the rest of the world is built up; for it has for its object the safeguarding and defence of the essential qualities of American freedom. It began to make itself felt at the moment when American freedom came into existence and separated the people of this continent from those who still lived in the old world. The truth is, that at the end of the eighteenth century a revolution had taken place which had not only the result of taking away from Great Britain her North American colonies, but, what was of equal importance in the subsequent development of political relations between sovereign states,—a revolution had taken place in the minds of men. The feudal traditions of government which had obtained for a thousand years, carrying with them the accepted formulas of supremacy and control, on the one hand, and the obligation of obedience, with the duty of submission, on the other, were intentionally removed from the plan of life and from the rule of conduct of men in America.

If the neutrality of Chile be considered with calm judgment in the light of historical reality, it offers no occasion for surprise during the period that extended from the breaking out of the European War until the date at which the United States entered it as a belligerent, that is, from August, 1914, until April, 1917. It is in no wise surprising, I say, since the unneutrality of Chile would be inconceivable at that stage of the war, owing to the circumstances that existed at the time in our hemisphere. Beginning with the latter date, the neutrality of Chile, if, indeed, much less onerous, stands out as a more significant fact, because several of the Latin-American countries “theoretically” adopted the attitude of the United States by declaring war upon the German Empire, while another group of these countries confined itself to breaking off diplomatic relations with that Power. Of the five republics that maintained their neutrality until the end, Chile was, without doubt, the one that had to show greater zeal to keep within the law and to retain the confidence that had always been reposed in her by the most powerful nations of the world.

I have said that the neutrality of Chile, up to April 6, 1917, does not constitute a strange historical phenomenon, because the entire American continent decided frankly in favor of neutrality from the breaking out of the war. No authority upon international law could condemn this attitude by germane arguments, nor would all the eloquence of sentiment possess weight against it.

On March 12, 1915, while the Great War, daily increasing in intensity, was drawing the world more and more into its vortex, the American Governments were, in the name of the President of the United States, invited to send delegates to a conference with the Secretary of the Treasury, at Washington, with a view to establish “closer and more satisfactory financial relations between the American Republics.” To this end it was intimated that the conference would discuss not only problems of banking, but also problems of transportation and of commerce. It thus came about that there assembled in Washington on Monday, May 24, 1915, under the chairmanship of the Honorable William G. McAdoo, Secretary of the Treasury, the first Pan-American Financial Conference.

The subjects submitted to the conference embraced public finance, the monetary situation, the existing banking system, the financing of public improvements and of private enterprises, the extension of inter-American markets, the merchant marine and improved facilities of transportation. It was a program that went beyond the emergencies growing out of the war; and the conference in its deliberations did not confine itself to the adoption of temporary devices. On the contrary, it sought to meet a permanent need by establishing an organization which should devote itself to the carrying out of a task whose importance was not to be measured by temporary conditions, whether of war or of peace.

“Theoretically,” says Hall, “a politically organized community enters of right into the family of states and must be treated in accordance with law, as soon as it is able to show that it possesses the marks of a state.”

Every satisfactory definition of law implies a sanction. Some penalty must be imposed upon a law-breaker, to be exacted, in the last resort, by external power. Force, therefore, is vital to law as it is to war, though normally it plays a less obvious part. A felon who is brought up for trial, condemned, and sent to prison, is induced by force, or by the fear of force, to submit to the court and to punishment. The policeman and the warder are the instruments of external power by which he is constrained to obey.

Force also supplies the most important incentive for securing obedience to law. It is true, as Maine pointed out, that for every man who keeps the law through conscious fear of punishment, there may be hundreds who do so as it were instinctively, and without a thought on the subject. But while this law-abiding spirit, which is characteristic of large sections of a modern community, owes its origin to a number of causes, perhaps the most potent of all has been the enforcement of law through long ages in the past.

It is the purpose of this paper to review the methods and the principles which have been involved in the quasi-international jurisdiction which has been exercised to settle the disputes which have arisen between the members of the great federations which have sprung from the British Empire of the seventeenth century. These methods have not only been widely copied in the past, especially by the various South American states and by Switzerland, but they are likely to become of compelling interest, if ever the world should apply the federal principle to the League of Nations of which we hear so much in these days.

As soon as the colonies were thickly settled on the Atlantic shore of what is now the United States, it was natural for them to become involved in bitter disputes about their conflicting boundaries and trade regulations. These controversies were settled either (1) by informal agreements between the colonies, which were sometimes sanctioned later by the Privy Council, or (2) in the more serious cases by the Council itself acting under the royal prerogative. Since the disputes were almost always concerned with the interpretation of charters which came at least nominally from the King, it was evidently proper that the same King in Council should sit as the arbiter in these controversies. Sometimes the Privy Council decided these issues in London; again it sent out commissioners to bring the parties into agreement on the ground. In every case the authority of the Council was looked upon by the distant colonists with the greatest jealousy, but its legal authority in such matters was never questioned. It is safe to say that from the authority of this administrative body is derived the quasi-international authority of every federal court in the world, except the German Bundesrath whose power to settle the disputes of the members of the German Empire has a wholly distinct origin in the Diets of the Confederation and of the Holy Roman Empire.

The Hague Conference of 1907 had for one of its objects the formation of an international court of justice, the decisions of which were to systematize international law and resolve its inconsistencies. Such an international court, the “Court of Arbitral Justice,” was approved in principle by the Conference, but failed to be established because the Conference was unable to agree on the composition of the court.

The Declaration of Paris of 1856 reads as follows:

1. (1) Privateering is and remains abolished.

2. (2) The neutral flag covers enemy goods with the exception of contraband of war.

3. (3) Neutral goods, with the exception of contraband of war, are not liable to capture under an enemy’s flag.

4. (4) Blockades, in order to be binding, must be effective, that is to say, maintained by a force sufficient to prevent access to the coasts of an enemy.

This declaration was directly and indirectly caused by the Crimean War, beginning in 1854 and ending in 1856, which war was a result of the war between Turkey and Russia, which began in October, 1853.

The ostensible cause of this latter war was a dispute which had arisen upon the custody of the Holy Places in Jerusalem. The real cause was the intention of Russia to begin the dismemberment of the Turkish Empire in Europe. The Czar of Russia suggested in January, 1853, to the British Ambassador at St. Petersburg that England might receive Egypt and Crete as her portion of the proposed result. Prance and England were ready, however, for various reasons, to come to the assistance of Turkey, while Count Cavour, in order to increase the prestige and political position of Sardinia, was desirous of joining the Anglo-French Alliance.