Intercession

“ For who, upon any other motive than immediate interest, would form an alliance with a power which, upon the first appearance of danger, gives up a confederate, to purchase, not a large extent of territory, not a new field of commerce, not a port or a citadel, but an abject neutrality! ”

“ Without entering into a minuter discussion of the merits of the peace, we may observe, in the imprudent hurry with which the first overtures from France were accepted, in the conduct of the negotiation, and terms of the treaty, the strongest marks of that precipitate spirit of concession, with which a certain part of your subjects have been at all times ready to purchase a peace with the natural enemies of this country. ”

“ Gentlemen, you may call the union which binds us an empire, you may call it a federation, you may call it an offensive and defensive alliance of the closest kind—you may call it what you will—the name is of subordinate consequence while mutual sympathy and sentiment retain that binding force which, as we have seen in this Jubilee week, you are all so generously prepared to acknowledge in your relations with the old country. ”

“ If we concede an inch, concession would follow concession—compromise would follow compromise, until our ranks would be so broken that effectual resistance would be impossible. We must meet the enemy on the frontier, with a fixed determination of maintaining our position at every hazard. ”

“ No effort of imagination in the civilized party could run any parallel or similitude between the making of a treaty at Ghent, Paris, London, or Washington, as between real nationalities, and the treaty in the woods with grimly painted and greased, blanketed and feathered barbarians, apostrophizing sun and moon in their rhetoric, grunting out their assent or dissent, with an eye to the coming feast and the distribution of the presents. ”

“ I am persuaded that it is a point of true Policy to make these Concessions at a time when they may be received as a matter of favour, and when it is in Our own power to regulate and direct the manner of applying them, rather than to wait till they shall be extorted from us by a necessity which shall neither leave us any discretion in the form nor any merit in the substance of what We give. ”

“ Syndicates and boards breathe more freely when the barriers of nose are broken down, and a good mediocrity of feature may yet avert a war or preserve a treaty. At all events, a study of our chief contemporaries will bear out a considerable portion of this reasoning. ”

“ At the epoch of a general peace, cession shall be made to the United Provinces of portions of territory equivalent in extent to the cession contained in the 12th article, and in a position most convenient to the republic of the United Provinces.
17. Until the general peace, such a number of French troops shall be stationed in the necessary places as shall be deemed adequate to the defence of them. ”

“ What guaranty did we hold in a treaty celebrated with a military despot, a temporary chief, or a sudden usurper, that such a treaty could be maintained before the nation? What constitutional or legal right would an American general or commissioner have, to enter into such a compact? ”

“ Directly circumstances change, and they change constantly, the most solemn treaties are torn up, as Russia tore up the Treaty of Paris, or as Austria tore up the Treaty of Berlin. All history is full of torn-up treaties. ”

“ The United States, Great Britain, Russia, France, Italy, Belgium, Portugal, Serbia, Greece, together with Spain, Holland, Norway, Sweden, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, and other nations where the will of the people is the law, must unite in an alliance which will insist on arbitration as a means of settling disputes. ”

“ If we carry our views out of France, and look at the dreadful catalogue of all the breaches of treaty, all the acts of perfidy at which I have only glanced, and which are precisely commensurate with the number of treaties which the Republic have made (for I have sought in vain for any one which it has made and which it has not broken) ”

“ If hostilities should cease to-morrow, you would be better friends than ever."
"But the principle, sir! The right of the thing, and the wrong of the thing! Can we parley with traitors? Can we negotiate with armed rebellion? Is it not our paramount duty to set at rest forever the doctrine of secession?"
"As a matter of policy, perhaps. But as a right, I doubt it. Your government I look upon as a mere agency appointed by contracting parties to transact certain affairs for their convenience. ”

“ I am mistaken if any men, bodies of men or Countries, will enter into any compact or treaty, if one of the three is to have a negative controul over the other two, but granting that it is an evil it will infallibly work its own cure.—there must be reciprocity or no Union. ”

“ The government has charge of the foreign political relations, conducts negotiations, makes preliminary stipulations, signs and causes to be signed and concluded all treaties of peace and alliance, truce, neutrality, commerce, and other conventions. ”

“ The possible case where a province revolts, secedes from the mother country, and, after having successfully defended itself against the attempts of the latter to reconquer it, unites itself with the territory of another State, is a case of merger by cession of the whole territory. ”

“ If any instrument ought to receive an equitable and liberal interpretation, affected by the events which preceded, it is that of a great treaty of confederation between various states, who were compressed into union by obvious motives and considerations, of common wrongs sustained, mutual errors committed, and equal advantages to be gained. ”

“ Where are all the leagues of antiquity or of modern Europe? Where are all such leagues and treaties even of the last century? Where is our own alliance with France of 1778? Where all such alliances and treaties even of the first half of the present century? They are all extinguished. Experience proves—the voice of history proclaims—that treaties or alliances between independent Powers are always of short duration, being soon swept before the gust of contending passions, or melted in the crucible of conflicting interests. ”

“ Premonitory movements were observed, and in some instances seconded, as in France, in others allayed by power or concessions, as in Austria and Great Britain. But when the whole is only a right, the acquisition of a part is only a prelude to a struggle for more, and this has been seen in every nation where concession was made to the people, or wrung by force from the rulers. ”

“ Nothing is at first sight more wearisome than the long line of alliances, triple and quadruple, the endless negotiations, the interminable congresses, the innumerable treaties, which make up the history of Europe during the earlier half of the eighteenth century ”

“ The analogy between treaty-making and legislation logics, is striking when a congress agrees upon general principles which are afterwards accepted by a large number of states, as, for instance, in the case of the Geneva convention for improving the treatment of the wounded. Many political treaties containing "transitory" conventions, with reference to recognition, boundary, or cession, become, as it were, the title-deeds of the nations to which they relate. 1 But the closest analogy of a treaty is to. a contract in private law, as will appear from the immediately following paragraphs. ”

“ But the house seemed to have nothing more at heart, than a strict inquiry into the state of the nation, with respect to foreign alliances. Some discourses had been published in print, about the beginning of the session, boldly complaining of certain articles in the Barrier-treaty, concluded about three years since by the lord viscount Townshend, between Great Britain and the States General; and showing, in many particulars, the unequal conduct of the powers in our alliance, in furnishing their quotas and supplies. ”

“ Now we have one cause of war; attempt to negotiate a dissolution of the Union, and we shall have fifty. And the number would be all the more, by reason of the parties with whom we should have to negotiate. ”

“ Rep. p. 802) :
'The power to acquire territory, other than the territory northwest of the Ohio river (which belonged to the United States at the adoption of the Constitution) , is derived from the treaty-making power and the power to declare and carry on war. The incidents of these powers are those of national sovereignty, and belong to all independent governments. The power to make acquisitions of territory by conquest, by treaty, and by cession is an incident of national sovereignty. ”

“ In opposition to this original right, possessed by the undisputed occupants of every country; to this recognition of that right, which is evidenced by our history, in every change through which we have passed; is placed the charters granted by the monarch of a distant and distinct region, parcelling out a territory in possession of others whom he could not remove and did not attempt to remove, and the cession made of his claims by the treaty of peace. ”

“ When they treat with an enemy, relative to a suspension of hostilities, the chief who is commissioned to undertake the negociation, if it is not brought about by the mediation of some neighbouring band, abates nothing of his natural haughtiness: even when the affairs of his country are in the worst situation, he makes no concessions, but endeavours to persuade his adversaries that it is their interest to put an end to the war. ”

“ Frederick the Great, L'Histoire de mon Temps.
The interest of the State, said Frederick, ought to serve as the rule to sovereigns in their regard for treaties and alliances. Alliances may be broken: (1) when the ally fails to fulfil his engagements; (2) when the ally is thinking of deceiving you, and there remains to you no resource except to anticipate him; (3) when une force majeure overwhelms you, and constrains you to break your treaties; and (4) when there is a lack of adequate means to continue war. ”

“ Treaties of peace and of commerce, treaties which impose a claim on the finances of the State, those which relate to the personal status and property rights of French subjects abroad, do not become valid until they have been voted by the two Chambers. No cession, exchange, or increase of territory can take place except by virtue of a law. ”

“ In a narrower sense treaties may be divided into many classes, as political, economic, guarantee, surety, neutrality, alliance, friendship, boundary, cession, exchange, jurisdiction, extradition, commerce, navigation, peace, etc., and conventions relating to property of various kinds, including literary and artistic, to post and telegraph, etc. ”

“ In this context, any concession made, no matter how small and insignificant, is often considered the first of many other greater concessions to follow, leading eventually to the destruction of those surrendering to compromise. ”

“ In negotiations between two independent states, it is sheer impertinence for one of the parties to claim that the other should do that which is a matter of internal action, however wise and good the policy might be. ”

“ Then conclude with us a treaty, which shall own each nation to be alike independent of the other. If you will swear to do this I will spare your lives and let you go without ransom, each man of you giving up your arms merely and keeping his clothes untouched, and you shall pass in sight of our army as prisoners, whom we ... set free of our own will, when we might have killed them, or sold them, or held them to ransom.’
The Consuls and officers of the army vowed to observe this treaty, and six hundred knights were given as hostages to the Samnites. ”

“ One of the immediate consequences of the commencement of hostilities is the interdiction of all commercial intercourse between the subjects of the States at war without the license of their respective Governments. ”

“ Of powers which the sovereign may exercise only in pursuance of authority specially conferred by law there are five, as follows: alienation, cession, or exchange of any portion of Spanish territory; incorporation of new territory; admission of foreign troops into the kingdom; ratification of all treaties which are binding individually upon Spaniards, and of treaties of offensive alliance which stipulate the payment of subsidies to any foreign power, or which relate especially to commerce; and abdication of the crown in favor of the heir-presumptive. ”

“ Oh, what an admirable addition to the temptation to perfidy, when there are two series of treaties, public treaties which bind you towards the nation in daylight, and secret treaties containing contrary clauses! One cannot altogether fail to keep one's word.... ”

“ No two or more states shall enter into any treaty, confederation, or alliance whatever between them, without the consent of the United States in Congress assembled, specifying accurately the purposes for which the same is to be entered into and how long it shall continue. ”

“ If the principle of this decision be applicable as between different portions of one and the same empire, with how much more force does it apply as between nations or Governments entirely separate, and absolutely independent of each other? For in this precise attitude the States of this Union stand with reference to this subject, and with reference to the tenure of every description of property vested under their laws and held within their territorial jurisdiction. ”

“ It was this article of the treaty of the 20th of November 1815, rather than the “Holy Alliance,” that formed the basis of the serious effort made by the great powers, between 1815 and 1822, to govern Europe in concert, which will be found outlined in the article on the history of Europe. In general it proved that an alliance, to be effective, must be clearly defined as to its objects, and that in the long run the treaty in which these objects are defined must—to quote Bismarck’s somewhat cynical dictum—“be reinforced by the interests” of the parties concerned. ”