Volume IV Part 24 (1/2)
[37] The first object of this club was the propagation of Jacobin principles.
APPENDIX.
EXTRACTS FROM VATTEL'S LAW OF NATIONS.
[The t.i.tles, Marginal Abstracts, and Notes are by Mr. BURKE, excepting such of the Notes as are here distinguished.]
CASES OF INTERFERENCE WITH INDEPENDENT POWERS.
”If, then, there is anywhere a nation of a _restless and mischievous_ disposition, always ready _to injure others, to traverse their designs, and to raise domestic troubles_[38] it is not to be doubted that all have a right to join _in order to repress, chastise, and put it ever after out of its power_ to injure them. Such should be the just fruits of the policy which Machiavel praises in Caesar Borgia. The conduct followed by Philip the Second, King of Spain, _was adapted to unite all Europe against him_; and it was from just reasons that Henry the Great formed the design of humbling a power _formidable by its forces and pernicious by its maxims_.”--Book II. ch. iv. -- 53.
”Let us apply to the unjust what we have said above (-- 53) of a mischievous or maleficent nation. If there be any that makes an open profession _of trampling justice under foot, of despising and violating the right of others_,[39] whenever it finds an opportunity, _the interest of human society will authorize all others to unite in order to humble and chastise it_. We do not here forget the maxim established in our preliminaries, that it does not belong to nations to usurp the power of being judges of each other. In particular cases, liable to the least doubt, it ought to be supposed that each of the parties may have some right; and the injustice of that which has committed the injury may proceed from error, and not from a general contempt of justice. _But if, by constant maxims, and by a continued conduct_, one nation shows that it has evidently this pernicious disposition, and that it considers no right as sacred, the safety of the human race requires that it should be suppressed. To form and support an unjust pretension is to do an injury _not only to him who is interested in this pretension, but to mock at justice in general, and to injure all nations_.”--Ibid. ch. v. -- 70.
[Sidenote: To succor against tyranny.]
[Sidenote: Case of English Revolution.]
[Sidenote: An odious tyrant.]
[Sidenote: Rebellious people.]
[Sidenote: Case of civil war.]
[Sidenote: Sovereign and his people, when distinct powers.]
”If the prince, attacking the fundamental laws, gives his subjects a legal right to resist him, if tyranny, _becoming insupportable_, obliges the nation to rise in their defence, every foreign power has a right to succor an oppressed people who implore their a.s.sistance. The English justly complained of James the Second. _The n.o.bility and the most distinguished patriots_ resolved to put a check on his enterprises, which manifestly tended to overthrow the Const.i.tution and to destroy the liberties and the religion of the people, _and therefore applied for a.s.sistance to the United Provinces_. The authority of the Prince of Orange had, doubtless, an influence on the deliberations of the States-General; but it did not make them commit injustice: for when a people, from good reasons, take up arms against an oppressor, _justice and generosity require that brave men should be a.s.sisted in the defence of their liberties_. Whenever, therefore, a civil war is kindled in a state, foreign powers may a.s.sist that party which appears to them to have justice on their side. _He who a.s.sists an odious tyrant, he who declares FOR AN UNJUST AND REBELLIOUS PEOPLE, offends against his duty_.
When the bands of the political society are broken, or at least suspended between the sovereign and his people, they may then be considered as two distinct powers; and since each is independent of all foreign authority, n.o.body has a right to judge them. Either may be in the right, and each of those who grant their a.s.sistance may believe that he supports a good cause. It follows, then, in virtue of the voluntary law of nations, (see Prelim. -- 21,) that the two parties may act as having an equal right, and behave accordingly, till the decision of the affair.
[Sidenote: Not to be pursued to an extreme.]
[Sidenote: Endeavor to persuade subjects to a revolt.]
”But we ought not to abuse this maxim for authorizing odious proceedings against the tranquillity of states. It is a violation of the law of nations _to persuade those subjects to revolt who actually obey their sovereign, though they complain of his government_.
[Sidenote: Attempt to excite subjects to revolt.]
”The practice of nations is conformable to our maxims. When the German Protestants came to the a.s.sistance of the Reformed in France, the court never undertook to treat them otherwise than as common enemies, and according to the laws of war. France at the same time a.s.sisted the Netherlands, which took up arms against Spain, and did not pretend that her troops should be considered upon any other footing than as auxiliaries in a regular war. _But no power avoids complaining of an atrocious injury, if any one attempts by his emissaries to excite his subjects to revolt_.
[Sidenote: Tyrants.]
”As to those monsters, who, under the t.i.tle of sovereigns, render themselves the scourges and horror of the human race,--these are savage beasts, from which every brave man may justly purge the earth. All antiquity has praised Hercules for delivering the world from an Antaeus, a Busiris, and a Diomedes.”--Ibid. ch. iv. -- 56.
After stating that nations have no right to interfere in domestic concerns, he proceeds,--”But this rule does not preclude them from espousing the quarrel of a dethroned king, and a.s.sisting him, if he appears to have justice on his side. They then declare themselves enemies of the nation which has acknowledged his rival; as, when two _different nations_ are at war, they are at liberty to a.s.sist that whose quarrel they shall think has the fairest appearance.”--Book IV. ch. ii.
-- 14.
CASE OF ALLIANCES.