The Law of Nations - Emer de Vattel Natural Law and Enlightenment Classics

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to the state, the nation would certainly have a right to change it by a new law. <25> Salus populi suprema lex,—the safety of the people is the supreme law; and this law is agreeable to the strictest justice,—the people having united in society only with a view to their safety and greater advantage.*

      This pretended proprietory right attributed to princes is a chimera produced by an abuse which its supporters would fain make of the laws respecting private inheritances. The state neither is nor can be a patrimony, since the end of patrimony is the advantage of the possessor, whereas the prince is established only for the advantage of the state.* The consequence is evident: if the nation plainly perceives that the heir of her prince would be a pernicious sovereign, she has a right to exclude him.

      The authors whom we oppose, grant this right to a despotic prince, while they refuse it to nations. This is because they consider such a prince as a real proprietor of the empire, and will not acknowledge that the care of their own safety, and the right to govern themselves, still essentially belong to the society, although they have intrusted them, even without any express reserve, to a monarch and his heirs. In their opinion, the kingdom is the inheritance of the prince, in the same manner as his field and his flocks,—a maxim injurious to human nature, and which they would not have dared to advance in an enlightened age, if it had not the support of an authority which too often proves stronger than reason and justice.

      A nation may, for the same reason, oblige one branch who removes to another country, to renounce all claim to the crown, as a daughter who marries a foreign prince. These renunciations, required or approved by the state, are perfectly valid, since they are equivalent to a law that such persons and their posterity should be excluded from the throne. Thus the laws of England have for ever rejected every Roman Catholic. “Thus a law of Russia, made at the beginning of the reign of Elizabeth, most <26> wisely excludes from the possession of the crown every heir possessed of another monarchy; and thus the law of Portugal disqualifies every foreigner who lays claim to the crown by right of blood.”*

      Some celebrated authors, in other respects very learned and judicious, have then deviated from the true principles in treating of renunciations. They have largely expatiated on the rights of children born or to be born, of the transmission of those rights, &c. But they ought to have considered the succession, less as a property of the reigning family, than as a law of the state. From this clear and incontestable principle we easily deduce the whole doctrine of renunciations. Those required or approved by the state are valid and sacred: they are fundamental laws:—those not authorised by the state can only be obligatory on the prince who made them. They cannot injure his posterity; and he himself may recede from them in case the state stands in need of him and gives him an invitation: for he owes his services to a people who had committed their safety to his care. For the same reason, the prince cannot lawfully resign at an unseasonable juncture, to the detriment of the state, and abandon in imminent danger a nation that had put itself under his care.†

      In ordinary cases, when the state may follow the established rule without being exposed to very great and manifest danger, it is certain that every descendent ought to succeed when the order of succession calls him to the throne, however great may appear his incapacity to rule by himself. This is a consequence of the spirit of the law that established the succession: for the people had recourse to it, only to prevent the troubles which would otherwise be almost inevitable at every change. Now little advances would have been made towards obtaining this end, if, at the death of a prince, the people were allowed to examine the capacity of his heir, before they acknowledged him for their sovereign. “What a door would this open for usurpers or malcontents!—It was to avoid these inconveniences that the order of succession was established; and nothing more wise could have been done; since by this means no more is required than his being the king’s son, and his being actually alive,—which can admit of no dispute: but on the other hand there is no rule fixed to judge of the capacity or incapacity to reign.”* Though the succession was not established for the particular advantage of the sovereign and his family, but for that of the state, the heir apparent has nevertheless a right, to which justice requires that regard should be paid. His right is subordinate to that of the nation, and to the safety of the state; but it ought to take place when the public welfare does not oppose it. <27>

      These reasons have the greater weight, since the law or the state may remedy the incapacity of the prince by nominating a regent, as is practised in cases of minority. This regent is, during the whole time of his administration, invested with the royal authority; but he exercises it in the king’s name.

      The principles we have just established respecting the successive or hereditary right, manifestly shew that a prince has no right to divide his state among his children. Every sovereignty, properly so called, is, in its own nature, one, and indivisible, since those who have united in society cannot be separated in spite of themselves. Those partitions, so contrary to the nature of sovereignty and the preservation of states, have been much in use: but an end has been put to them, wherever the people, and princes themselves, have had a clear view of their greatest interest, and the foundation of their safety.

      But when a prince has united several different nations under his authority, his empire is then properly an assemblage of several societies subject to the same head; and there exists no natural objection to his dividing them among his children: he may distribute them, if there be neither law nor compact to the contrary, and if each of those nations consents to receive the sovereign he appoints for it. For this reason France was divisible under the two first races.* But being entirely consolidated under the third, it has since been considered as a single kingdom,—it has become indivisible,—and a fundamental law has declared it so. That law, wisely providing for the preservation and splendour of the kingdom, irrevocably unites to the crown all the acquisitions of its kings.

      The same principles will also furnish us with the solution of a celebrated question. When the right of succession becomes uncertain in a successive or hereditary state, and two or three competitors lay claim to the crown,—it is asked, Who shall be the judge of their pretensions? Some learned men, resting on the opinion that sovereigns are subject to no other judge but God, have maintained that the competitors for the crown, while their right remains uncertain, ought either to come to an amicable compromise,—enter into articles among themselves,—chuse arbitrators,—have recourse even to the drawing of lots,—or, finally, determine the dispute by arms; and that the subjects cannot in any manner decide the question. One might be astonished that celebrated authors should have maintained such a doctrine. But since, even in speculative philosophy, there is nothing so absurd as not to have been advanced by one or other of the philosophers,† what can be expected from the human mind, when seduced by interest or fear? What! in a question that concerns <28> none so much as the nation,—that relates to a power established only with a view to the happiness of the people,—in a quarrel that is to decide for ever their dearest interests, and their very safety,— are they to stand by as unconcerned spectators? Are they to allow strangers, or the blind decision of arms, to appoint them a master, as a flock of sheep are to wait till it be determined whether they are to be delivered up to the butcher, or restored to the care of their shepherd?

      But, say they, the nation has divested itself of all jurisdiction, by giving itself up to a sovereign; it has submitted to the reigning family; it has given to those who are descended from that family a right which nobody can take from them; it

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