City of § 3. Tributary and vassal states. $ 4. Thus the city of Cracow in Poland, with its territory, was declared by the congress of Vienna to be a free, independent, and neutral state, under the protection of Russia, Austria, and Prussia. This state may be occasionally obedient to the commands of these great powers, or its councils may be habitually influenced by them, but its sovereignty still remains, except so far as it is affected by the protectorate which may be lawfully asserted over it in pursuance of the treaties of Vienna. So also tributary states, and states having a feudal relation to each other, are still considered as sovereign so far as their sovereignty is not affected by this relation. Thus it is evident that the tribute formerly paid by the principal maritime powers of Europe to the Barbary states, did not at all affect the sovereignty and independence of the former; whilst that paid by the principalities of Walachia and Moldavia to the Ottoman Porte under the mediation of Russia, can hardly be considered as leaving them any thing more than a shadow of sovereignty. So also the king of Naples has been a nominal. vassal of the Papal see ever since the eleventh century: but this feudal dependence, now abolished, was never considered as impairing the sovereignty of the kingdom of Naples.* Sovereign states may be either single, or may be united Single or together under a common sovereign, or by a federal com united states. § 5. Personal union under the same sove reign. pact, 1. If this union under a common sovereign is not an incorporate union, that is to say, if it is only personal in the reigning sovereign, or even if it is real, yet if the different component parts are united with a perfect equality of rights, the sovereignty of each state remains unimpaired.5 Thus the kingdom of Hanover is held by the King of the 3 Acte du Congrès de Vienne du 9 Juin, 1815, Art. 6, 9, 10, 4 Ward's Hist. of the Law of Nations, vol. ii. p. 69. 5 Grotius, de Jur. Bel. ac Pac. lib. ii. cap. 9, §§ 8, 9. Kluber, Droit des Gens Moderne de l'Europe, pt. i. c. 1. § 27. United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland separately from his insular dominions. Hanover and the United Kingdom are subject to the same prince, without any dependence on each other, both kingdoms retaining their respective national rights of sovereignty. § 6. Real union under the The union of the different states composing the Austrian monarchy is a real union. The hereditary dominions of the house of Austria, the kingdoms of Hungary and Bohemia, same sovethe Lombardo-Venetian kingdom, and other states, are all indissolubly united under the same sceptre, but with distinct fundamental laws and other political institutions. It appears to be an intelligible distinction between the union of the Austrian states, and all other unions which are not merely personal under the same crowned head, that though the separate sovereignty of each state may still subsist internally in respect to its co-ordinate states, and in respect to the imperial crown, yet the sovereignty of each is merged in the general sovereignty of the empire, as to their international relations with foreign powers. reign. § 7. rate union. 2. An incorporate union is such as that which subsists between Scotland and England, and between Great Britain and incorpoIreland, forming out of the three kingdoms an empire united under one crown and one legislature, although each may have distinct laws and a separate administration. The sovereignty of each original kingdom is completely merged in the United Kingdom thus formed by their successive unions. tween Rus land. 3. The union established by the congress of Vienna, be§ 8. tween the empire of Russia and the kingdom of Poland, is Union beof a more anomalous character. By the Final Act of the sia and Pocongress, the duchy of Warsaw was reunited to the Russian empire, and it was stipulated that it should be irrevocably connected with that empire by its constitution, to be possessed by His Majesty the emperor of all the Russias, his heirs and successors in perpetuity, with the title of King of Poland; His Majesty reserving the right to give to this state, enjoying a distinct administration, such interior extension as he should 4 judge proper: and that the Poles subject respectively to Russia, Austria, and Prussia, should obtain a representation and national institutions, regulated according to that mode of political existence which each government to whom they belong should think useful and proper to grant. 6 "Le Duché de Varsovie, à l'exception des provinces et districts, dont il a été autrement disposé dans les articles suivans, est réuni à l'Empire de Russie. Il y sera lié irrévocablement par sa Constitution, pour être possédé par S. M. l'Empereur de toutes les Russies, ses héritiers et ses successeurs à perpétuité. Sa Majesté Imperiale se reserve de donner à cet état, jouissant d'une administration distincte, l'extension intérieure qu'elle jugera convenable. Elle prendra, avec ses autres titres celui de Czar, Roi de Pologne, conformément au protocole usité et consacré par les titres attachés à ses autres possessions. "Les Polonais, sujets respectifs de la Russie, de l'Autriche, et de la Prusse, obtiendront une représentation et des institutions nationales, réglées d'après la mode d'existence politique que chacun des Gouvernemens auxquelles ils appartiennent jugera utile et convenable de leurs accorder."-Art. 1. In consequence of the revolution and reconquest of Poland by Russia, a manifesto was issued by the Emperor Nicholas, on the 26th of February, 1832, by which the kingdom of Poland was declared to be perpetually united (réuni) to the Russian empire, and to form an integral part thereof; the coronation of the emperors of Russia and kings of Poland hereafter to take place at Moscow by one and the same act; Poland to be separately administered, and to preserve its civil and criminal code, subject to alteration and revision by the council of the Russian empire; and consultative provincial states to be established in the different Polish provinces. It is understood that Great Britain and France have protested against the measure of the Russian government as an infraction of the spirit, if not of the letter, of the treaties of Vienna. And it may be stated that so far as the disturbance of the general balance of European power consequent upon the partition of Poland, was meant to be corrected by the above stipulations, they have entirely failed of their effect, either in consequence of the contracting parties not concarring in their actual intentions, or failing to express them with the requisite clearness. Such is the intrinsic imperfection of all human language, that it frequently becomes impossible from the mere words alone of any writing, to ascertain the meaning of the parties. When to this intrinsic defect of every known tongue, is superadded that studied ambiguity, which almost justifies the maxim of a celebrated statesman, an active agent in these transactions, that "language was given to man to conceal his thoughts"—it becomes still more difficult to ascertain the real meaning of words selected to express the result of a compromise between opposite and almost irreconcilable interests and views. At the Congress of Vienna, Great Britain and Federal 4. Sovereign states permanently united together by a fede- $9. ral compact, either form a system of confederated states (pro- union. perly so called) or a supreme federal government, which has been sometimes called a composite state. France avowedly wished to restore the nationality of Poland, with its ancient boundaries as they existed before the first partition of 1772; Austria professed herself not unwilling to sacrifice her share of the dismembered provinces which she had reluctantly received as an equivalent for the inevitable aggrandizement of the other two partitioning states; and Prussia would doubtless have consented to a similar sacrifice for adequate equivalents: but Russia, on the other hand, far from being inclined to give up Lithuania and the other Polish provinces annexed to her empire at the first and second partitions, claimed the Duchy of Warsaw as acquired by right of conquest in war with France. Under these circumstances, the British and French cabinets were induced to consent to relinquish the absolute restoration of Poland as an independent state, in return for the creation of the kingdom of that name to be possessed by the Russian sovereign, by a title distinct from his imperial crown, to be governed by its separate constitution and laws, and capable of being extended by the addition of the other Polish provinces which had been incorporated in the Russian empire; and also in return for the other stipulations in favour of the Poles inhabiting the Prussian and Austrian portions of their former territory, and also for the acknowledgment of the independence of the free city of Cracow, the ancient capital of Poland. Without pretending to scrutinize the various motives which may have influenced the different powers, parties to this arrangement, it must be admitted that nothing is more difficult than to maintain, or regulate the relations between a sovereign nation, and a dependent, or even a co-ordinate state, by means of foreign interference, which must always assume a character offensive to the superior government. If any of the parties to the treaties of Vienna really intended to reserve to the Polish nation the consoling hope of ultimate restoration, and in the mean time to secure to them distinct institutions and privileges as a compensation for the temporary loss of their national independence, and to prevent their being entirely absorbed in the partitioning states,-it must be admitted that this intention has been very inadequately expressed in the text of those treaties—and that it must be sought for in the spirit by which their stipulations were dictated,—which, as already observed, was that of a compromise among the discordant views of all the contracting parties. This compromise has evidently failed of its effect since the Polish revolution of 1830; and the parties to the stipulations in question who seek to avoid the consequences of that event, must go behind the treaty itself, and reverting to the original idea of a complete restoration of Polish independence, must seek to realize that idea by means which are adequate to the end, by remodelling those stipulations so as to guaranty the existence of Poland with its original extent, as a state independent of any connexion with other powers. § 10. rated its own so In the first case, the several states are connected together Confede- by a compact which does not essentially differ from an ordistates, each nary treaty of equal alliance. Consequently the sovereignty retaining of each member of the union remains unimpaired; the resovereignty. lutions of the federal body being enforced, not as laws directly binding on the private individual subjects, but through the agency of each separate government, adopting them, and giving them the force of law within its own jurisdiction. § 11. In the second case, the federal government created by the Supreme act of union, is sovereign and supreme within the sphere of federal government the powers granted to it by that act, and the sovereignty of or compo- each several state is impaired both by the powers thus granted to the federal government, and the limitations thus imposed on the several states' governments. site state. § 12. Germanic confederation. 1. Thus the sovereign princes and free cities of Germany, including the Emperor of Austria and the King of Prussia, in respect to their possessions which formerly belonged to the German empire, the King of Denmark for the duchy of Holstein, and the King of the Netherlands for the grand duchy of Luxembourg, are united in a perpetual league, under the name of the Germanic Confederation. From the extremely complicated constitution of this league, it may at first sight appear doubtful to which of these two classes of federal compacts it properly belongs, and consequently how far the sovereignty of each member of the union is affected or impaired by its regulations. The object of this union is declared to be the preservation of the external and internal security of Germany, the independence and inviolability of the confederated states. All the members of the confederation, as such, are entitled to equal rights. New states may be admitted into the union, by the unanimous consent of the members." The affairs of the union are confided to a federative diet, which sits at Frankfort on the Main, in which the respective 7 Acte Final du Congrès de Vienne, art. 53, 54, 55. Deutche Bundes Acte, vom 8 Juni, 1815, art. 1. Wiener Schluss Acte, vom 15 Mai, 1820, art. 1, 6. |