Page:Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, Volume 1.djvu/576

 562 IV. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY a firm standing in politics in the sixties. Whereas before that time the movement had been toward separation, now it was toward consohdation. People felt the tie of nationality stronger than the aspiration for individual development. The unification of Italy and of Germany, the federation of Canada, the prevalence of corporate feeling in America which, first passionately expressed by Webster, prevailed in '65, mark the principle of association in political affairs. In business the great combinations of capital have been the salient features of the change. Professor Dicey, in a most suggestive series of lectures a few years ago, pointed out many ways in which the English law had been affected by this progress of thought during the nineteenth century. Since the thought of the whole world has been similarly affected we should expect to find, and we do find, that not merely English law but universal jurisprudence has developed in the direction of the progress of thought, — during the first period in the direction of strengthening and preserving individual rights, both of small states and of individuals, during the second period in the direction of creating, recognizing, and regulating great combinations, whether of states or of individuals. Let us develop this line of thought by examining the progress of law in a few striking particulars. The most striking development of the law of nations dur- ing the last century has been in the direction of international constitutional law, if I may so call it, rather than of the substantive private law of nations. At the beginning of the period the fundamental doctrine of international law was the equahty of all states great or small, and this idea, as one might expect, was fully recognized and insisted on during the first fifty years of the century. There was little devel- opment in the law otherwise. Each nation adopted and enforced its own idea of national rights, and was power- less to force its ideas upon other nations. When, at the beginning of the century, France set up her absurd notions of her own national rights, other nations were powerless to restrain or to teach her. There was no international legis- lature or court, no method of declaring or of developing