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

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Bernouilli,67 have each done honour to his native country, and essentially benefited it by the glory he acquired. Great ministers, and great generals,—an Oxenstiern,68 a Turenne,69 a Marlborough,70 a Ruyter,71—serve their country in a double capacity, both by their actions, and by their glory. On the other hand, the fear of reflecting a disgrace on his country will furnish the good citizen with a new motive for abstaining from every dishonourable action. And the prince ought not to suffer his subjects to give themselves up to vices capable of bringing infamy on the nation, or even of simply tarnishing the brightness of its glory:—he has a right to suppress and to punish scandalous enormities, which do a real injury to the state.

      The example of the Swiss is very capable of shewing how advantageous glory may prove to a nation. The high reputation they have acquired for their valour, and which they still gloriously support, has preserved them in peace for above two centuries, and rendered all the powers of Europe desirous of their assistance. Louis XI. while dauphin, was witness of the prodigies of valour they performed at the battle of St. Jaques,72 near <93> Basle, and he immediately formed the design of closely attaching to his interest so intrepid a nation.* The twelve hundred gallant heroes, who on this occasion attacked an army of between fifty and sixty thousand veteran troops, first defeated the vanguard of the Armagnacs, which was eighteen thousand strong; afterwards rashly engaging the main body of the army, they perished almost to a man, without being able to complete their victory.* But besides their terrifying the enemy, and preserving Switzerland from a ruinous invasion, they rendered her essential service by the glory they acquired for her arms. A reputation for an inviolable fidelity is no less advantageous to that nation; and they have at all times been jealous of preserving it. The canton of Zug punished with death that unworthy soldier who betrayed the confidence of the duke of Milan by discovering that prince to the French, when, to escape them, he had disguised himself in the habit of the Swiss and placed himself in their ranks as they were marching out of Novara.†

      Since the glory of a nation is a real and substantial advantage, she has a right to defend it, as well as her other advantages. He who attacks her glory does her an injury; and she has a right to exact of him, even by force of arms, a just reparation. We cannot then condemn those measures sometimes taken by sovereigns to support or avenge the dignity of their crown. They are equally just and necessary. If, when they do not proceed from too lofty pretensions, we attribute them to a vain pride, we only betray the grossest ignorance of the art of reigning, and despise one of the firmest supports of the greatness and safety of a state.

       Of the Protection sought by a Nation, and its voluntary Submission to a foreign Power.

      When a nation is not capable of preserving herself from insult and oppression, she may procure the protection of a more powerful state. If she obtains this by only engaging to perform certain articles, as, to pay a tribute in return for the safety obtained,—to furnish her protector with troops,—and to embark in all his wars as a joint concern,—but still reserving to herself the right of administering her own government at pleasure,—it is a <94> simple treaty of protection, that does not at all derogate from her sovereignty, and differs not from the ordinary treaties of alliance otherwise than as it creates a difference in the dignity of the contracting parties.

      But this matter is sometimes carried still farther: and although a nation is under an obligation to preserve with the utmost care the liberty and independence it inherits from nature,—yet, when it has not sufficient strength of itself, and feels itself unable to resist its enemies, it may lawfully subject itself to a more powerful nation on certain conditions agreed to by both parties: and the compact or treaty of submission will thenceforward be the measure and rule of the rights of each. For since the people who enter into subjection resign a right which naturally belongs to them, and transfer it to the other nation, they are perfectly at liberty to annex what conditions they please to this transfer; and the other party, by accepting their submission on this footing, engages to observe religiously all the clauses of the treaty.

      This submission may be varied to infinity, according to the will of the contracting parties: it may either leave the inferior nation a part of the sovereignty, restraining it only in certain respects,—or it may totally abolish it, so that the superior nation shall become the sovereign of the other,—or, finally, the lesser nation may be incorporated with the greater, in order thenceforward to form with it but one and the same state: and then the citizens of the former will have the same privileges as those with whom they are united. The Roman history furnishes examples of each of these three kinds of submission,—1. the allies of the Roman people, such as the inhabitants of Latium were for a long time, who, in several respects, depended on Rome, but, in all others, were governed according to their own laws, and by their own magistrates;— 2. the countries reduced to Roman provinces, as Capua, whose inhabitants submitted absolutely to the Romans;*—3. the nations to which Rome granted the freedom of the city. In after times the emperors granted that privilege to all the nations subject to the empire, and thus transformed all their subjects into citizens.

      In the case of a real subjection to a foreign power, the citizens who do not approve this change are not obliged to submit to it:—they ought to be allowed to sell their effects and retire elsewhere. For my having entered into a society does not oblige me to follow its fate, when it dissolves itself in order to submit to a foreign dominion. I submitted to the society as it then was, to live in that society as the member of a sovereign state, and not in another: I am bound to obey it, while it remains a political society: but when it divests itself of that quality in order to re-<95>ceive its laws from another state, it breaks the bond of union between its members, and releases them from their obligations.

      When a nation has placed itself under the protection of another that is more powerful, or has even entered into subjection to it with a view to receiving its protection,—if the latter does not effectually protect the other in case of need, it is manifest, that, by failing in its engagements, it loses all the rights it had acquired by the convention, and that the other, being disengaged from the obligation it had contracted, re-enters into the possession of all its rights, and recovers its independence, or its liberty. It is to be observed, that this takes place even in cases where the protector does not fail in his engagements through a want of good faith, but merely through inability. For the weaker nation having submitted only for the sake of obtaining protection,—if the other proves unable to fulfil that essential condition, the compact is dissolved;—the weaker resumes its right, and may, if it thinks proper, have recourse to a more effectual protection.* Thus the dukes of Austria, who had acquired a right of protection, and in some sort a sovereignty over the city of Lucerne, being unwilling or unable to protect it effectually, that city concluded an alliance with the three first cantons; and the dukes having carried their complaint to the emperor, the inhabitants of Lucerne replied,

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