Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 68.djvu/410

406 of Satan' and 'Pope of the Atheists.' The Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, three years after the death of Grotius, closed the Thirty Years War in Germany, the Eighty Years' War in the Netherlands, and a long era of savagery in many parts of the globe. It shows clearly the influence of Grotius's advanced ideas, being founded upon his doctrine of the essential independence and equality of all sovereign states, and the laws of justice and mercy. In the progress of man from war, lawless and savage, to war restricted and obedient to international law, no name is entitled to rank with his. He is the father of modern international law, so far as it deals with the rights of peace and war. He has had several eminent successors, especially Puffendorf, Bynkershoek and Vattel. These four are called by Phillimore 'The Umpires of International Disputes.' They are followed closely by a second quartette, the British judges—Stowell, and the American judges—Marshall, Story and Field.

International law is unique in one respect. It has no material force behind it. It is a proof of the supreme force of gentleness—the irresistible pressure and final triumph of what is just and merciful. To the few who have contributed conspicuously to its growth in the past, and to those laboring therein to-day, civilization owes an unpayable debt. Private individuals have created it, and yet the nations have been glad to accept. British judges have repeatedly declared that 'International law is in full force in Britain.' It is so in America and other countries. We have in this self-created, self-developing and self-forcing agency one of the two most powerful and beneficent instruments for the peace and progress of the world.

The most important recent reforms effected in the laws of war are those of the Treaty of Paris (1856), the Treaty of Washington (1871), which settled the Alabama Claims, and the Brussels Declaration of 1874.

The Treaty of Paris marks an era as having enshrined certain principles. First, it abolished privateering. Henceforth, war on the sea is confined to national warships, organized and manned by officers and men in the service of the state. Commerce is no longer subject to attack by private adventurers seeking spoil. Second, it ruled that a blockade to be recognized must be effective. Third, it established the doctrine that an enemy's goods in a neutral ship are free, except contraband. These were great steps forward.

America declined to accept the first (in which, however, she has now concurred) unless private property was totally exempt on sea as on land, for which she has long contended, and which the powers, except Britain, have generally favored. So strongly has the current set recently in its favor that hopes are entertained that the forthcoming conference at The Hague may reach this desirable result. It is the