The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke Volume IV Part 24

[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.

[Sidenote: When an alliance to preserve a king takes place.]

[Sidenote: King does not lose his quality by the loss of his kingdom.]

"It is asked if that alliance subsists with the king and the royal family when by some revolution they are deprived of their crown. We have lately remarked, (-- 194,) that a personal alliance expires with the reign of him who contracted it: but that is to be understood of an alliance with the state, limited, as to its duration, to the reign of the contracting king. This of which we are here speaking is of another nature. For though it binds the state, since it is bound by all the public acts of its sovereign, it is made directly in favor of the king and his family; it would therefore be absurd for it to terminate _at the moment when they have need of it, and at an event against which it was made_. Besides, the king does not lose his quality merely by the loss of his kingdom. _If he is stripped of it unjustly by an usurper, or by rebels, he preserves his rights, in the number of which are his alliances_.[40]

[Sidenote: Case wherein aid may be given to a deposed king.]

"But who shall judge if the king be dethroned lawfully or by violence?

An independent nation acknowledges no judge. If the body of the nation declares the king deprived of his rights by the abuse he has made of them, and deposes him, it may justly do it _when its grievances are well founded_, and no other power has a right to censure it. The personal ally of this king ought not then to a.s.sist him against the nation that has made use of its right in deposing him: if he attempts it, he injures that nation. England declared war against Louis the Fourteenth, in the year 1688, for supporting the interest of James the Second, who was deposed in form by the nation. The same country declared war against him a second time, at the beginning of the present century, because that prince acknowledged the son of the deposed James, under the name of James the Third. In doubtful cases, and _when the body of the nation has not p.r.o.nounced, or HAS NOT p.r.o.nOUNCED FREELY_, a sovereign may naturally support and defend an ally; and it is then that the voluntary law of nations subsists between different states. The party that has driven out the king pretends to have right on its side; this unhappy king and his ally flatter themselves with having the same advantage; and as they have no common judge upon earth, they have no other method to take but to apply to arms to terminate the dispute; they therefore engage in a formal war.

[Sidenote: Not obliged to pursue his right beyond a certain point.]

"In short, when the foreign prince has faithfully fulfilled his engagements towards an unfortunate monarch, when he has done in his defence, or to procure his restoration, all he was obliged to perform in virtue of the alliance, if his efforts are ineffectual, the dethroned prince cannot require him to support an endless war in his favor, or expect that he will eternally remain the enemy of the nation or of the sovereign who has deprived him of the throne. He must think of peace, abandon the ally, and consider him as having himself abandoned his right through necessity. Thus Louis the Fourteenth was obliged to abandon James the Second, and to acknowledge King William, though he had at first treated him as an usurper.

[Sidenote: Case of defence against subjects.]

[Sidenote: Case where real alliances may be renounced.]

"The same question presents itself in real alliances, and, in general, in all alliances made with the state, and not in particular with a king for the defence of his person. An ally ought, doubtless, to be defended against every invasion, against every foreign violence, _and even against his rebellious subjects: in the same manner a republic ought to be defended against the enterprises of one who attempts to destroy the public liberty_. But it ought to be remembered that an ally of the state or the nation is not its judge. If the nation has deposed its king in form,--if the people of a republic have driven out their magistrates and set themselves at liberty, or acknowledged the authority of an usurper, either expressly or tacitly,--to oppose these domestic regulations, by disputing their justice or validity, would be to interfere in the government of the nation, and to do it an injury. (See -- 54, and following, of this Book.) The ally remains the ally of the state, notwithstanding the change that has happened in it. _However, when this change renders the alliance useless, dangerous, or disagreeable, it may renounce it; for it may say, upon a good foundation, that it would not have entered into an alliance with that nation, had it been under the present form of government._

[Sidenote: Not an eternal war.]

"We may say here, what we have said on a personal alliance: however just the cause of that king may be who is driven from the throne either by his subjects or by a foreign usurper, his aides are not obliged to support _an eternal war_ in his favor. After having made ineffectual efforts to restore him, they must at length give peace to their people, and come to an accommodation with the usurper, and for that purpose treat with him as with a lawful sovereign. Louis the Fourteenth, exhausted by a b.l.o.o.d.y and unsuccessful war, offered at Gertruydenberg to abandon his grandson, whom he had placed on the throne of Spain; and when affairs had changed their appearance, Charles of Austria, the rival of Philip, saw himself, in his turn, abandoned by his allies. They grew weary of exhausting their states in order to give him the possession of a crown which they believed to be his due, but which, to all appearance, they should never be able to procure for him."--Book II. ch. xii. ---- 196, 197.

DANGEROUS POWER.

[Sidenote: All nations may join.]

"It is still easier to prove, that, should this formidable power betray any unjust and ambitious dispositions by doing the least injustice to another, every nation may avail themselves of the occasion, and join their forces to those of the party injured, in order to reduce that ambitious power, and disable it from so easily oppressing its neighbors, or keeping them in continual awe and fear. For an injury gives a nation a right to provide for its future safety by taking away from the violator the means of oppression. It is lawful, and even praiseworthy, to a.s.sist those who are oppressed, or unjustly attacked."--Book III. ch.

iii. -- 45.

SYSTEM OF EUROPE.

[Sidenote: Europe a republic to preserve order and liberty.]

"Europe forms a political system, a body where the whole is connected by the relations and different interests of nations inhabiting this part of the world. It is not, as anciently, a confused heap of detached pieces, each of which thought itself very little concerned in the fate of others, and seldom regarded things which did not immediately relate to it. The continual attention of sovereigns to what is on the carpet, the constant residence of ministers, and _the perpetual negotiations, make Europe a kind of a republic, the members of which, though independent, unite, through the ties of common interest, for the maintenance of order and liberty_. Hence arose that famous scheme of the political equilibrium, or balance of power, by which is understood such a disposition of things as no power is able absolutely to predominate or to prescribe laws to others."--Book III. ch. iii. -- 47.

"Confederacies would be a sure way of preserving the equilibrium, and supporting the liberty of nations, did all princes thoroughly understand their true interests, and regulate all their steps for the good of the state."--Ibid. -- 49.

CONTRIBUTIONS IN THE ENEMY'S COUNTRY.

[Sidenote: To be moderate.]