ever, it must acknowledge that it lacks complete sovereignty, Emperor Henry VI. conferred upon Richard I. the kingdom of Arles, and the Emperor Baldwin gave to the Duke of Burgundy the kingdom of Thessalonia. By bequests, not only were whole sovereignties dis posed of, but the orders of succession were frequently changed. Thus Charles II., King of Sicily and Count of Provence, changed by will the order of succession to the county, and the claims of Charles VIII. to the throne of Naples were founded upon the adoption of Louis of Anjou, by Jane, Queen of Naples, 1380, which was evidenced to all Europe by a solemn and public deed. In 1544 the English Parliament declared the succession to the Crown, but omitted to make any arrangement in the case of failure of issue of the children of Henry VIII. The King, by his will, named the descendants of his sister Mary, Duchess of Suffolk, as heirs in case of such failure." Halleck's International Law, third London edition, vol. 1, 1893, pp. 153-157.

66

PROFESSOR LAWRENCE'S VIEWS ON TITLE BY CESSION.

‘Among the titles it is possible to obtain through the transfer of territories already in the possession of civilized states, the most important is title by cession.

"Cession is the formal handing over by agreement of territorial possessions from one state to another. The agreement is embodied in a treaty which usually contains stipulations as to the transfer along with the ceded district of a proportionate share of the public debt of the ceding state. Moreover, questions connected with the rights of citizenship of its inhabitants and rights over the state domains within it are usually settled in the treaty; but no general rule can be laid down as to these matters. The stipulations respecting them will vary with the circumstances of each case.

"Since cession is the usual method whereby changes are effected in the distribution of territory among states which are subjects of International Law, it follows that cessions may take place in consequence of transactions of various kinds. Of these we will consider first Sale. It is not very frequent; but cases of it are to be found even in modern times, as when in 1867 the United States purchased Russian America for $7,200,000. The next ground of cession is Gift. Free gifts of territory are not altogether unknown, though as a rule the intercourse of states is not conducted on principles of lavish generosity. Yet a government that desired for special purposes to retain another's good-will has been known to make a gift of territory by treaty of cession. Thus in 1762, France ceded to Spain the colony of Louisiana, in order to indemnify her for the loss of Florida, which had been transferred to England by the Treaty of Paris; and in 1850 Great Britain ceded to the United States a portion of the Horseshoe Reef in Lake Erie, in order that the government of Washington might erect a lighthouse thereon. But in matters of transfer of territory the gift is far more often forced than free. A state beaten in a war is sometimes obliged to make over a province or a colony to the victor as one of the conditions of peace. In

and that it cannot rank among the great and independent powers of the world."

Such is the condition of every State of this Union. No one of them is completely sovereign, because the people have either delegated certain elements of sovereignty to the Central Government, viewing it from a federal standpoint, or viewing it from a national standpoint, they have vested the Central Government with certain elements of sovereignty to the exclusion of the States. One of the elements of sovereignty which the States do not possess is this right of acquisition of additional territory. No one of them can extend its borders without the consent of the Central Government.3

Not having surrendered any of its fully sovereign powers, as to the matters wholly within its own domain, the United States therefore possesses, in common with every other sovereign power, this right of acquisition of territory which, in the light of international law as we are now viewing it, includes the right to acquire, and to exercise sovereignty

deed, most cessions are the results of warfare and come under the head of forced gifts. One of the most recent instances is to be found in the cession of Alsace and part of Lorraine by France to Germany. This was done by the Treaty of Frankfort of 1871, and was one of the results of the defeat and downfall of France in the war of that and the preceding year. The last ground of cession we will mention is Exchange. It was common enough in times when territories were cut and carved in order to make provision for the scions of ruling families, but the growth of the principle that populations should have a voice in the settlement of their political destiny has made it comparatively rare. We can, however, find one instance in recent European history. By the Treaty of Berlin of 1878 Roumania ceded to Russia that portion of Bessarabia given to it at Russia's expense in the Treaty of Paris of 1856, and received in exchange the Dobroutcha, which was taken from Turkey." Lawrence's Principles of International Law, section 97, pp. 156-157.

See also Woolsey's Int. Law, § 53, p. 62; Hall's Int. Law, § 7, p. 45; Glenn's Int. Law, § 37, p. 49; Phillimore's Int. Law, vol. 1, §§ 268-270, and 275; Calvo's Int. Law, vol. 1,§§ 291-299.

2" Semi-Sovereign States do not possess all the essential rights of sovereignty, and therefore, can be regarded as subjects of international law only indirectly, or at least in a subordinate degree." Halleck's Int. Law (Baker's 3d English Edition), § 17, p. 74, Vol. I.

See Hall's Int. Law, p. 31; Woolsey's Int. Law, p. 35; Glenn's Int. Law, § 9, p. 17, and see citations collected in footnote, Glenn, p. 17.

8 U. S. Const. Art. I., § 10 and see § 19 of this volume, ante.

over, whatever territory it may desire and can obtain by any method recognized by international law, and also to extend such sovereignty over all of the inhabitants thereof.

$44. Methods of acquisition of Territory. There are various ways in which a sovereign power may increase its territory and extend its sovereignty. Those recognized by international law (besides accretion by the acts of the elements) are as follows:1

I. DISCOVERY AND OCCUPATION.-The original title to all of North and South America is based upon this method of acquisition. The United States added the Oregon district to its domain by the discovery of the mouth of the Columbia River by Captain Gray, the expedition of Lewis and Clarke, and the Astoria settlement. The title of the United States to the Guano and Midway Islands also rests upon discovery and occupation.

II. CONQUEST.-The right of the victorious nation to retain the ownership of invaded and conquered territory is still recognized by international law. Few recent titles rest exclusively upon conquest, however, as it has practically become a universal custom to settle ownership of territory and boundary lines after every war by a treaty; the conquering power generally, and properly, insists upon an unequivocal cession of the territory which it accepts as indemnity, or retains as conquered, so as to avoid all subsequent questions of ownership and sovereignty. For this reason it is sometimes difficult to determine whether territory so acquired is conquered or ceded; this applies to our Mexican territory acquired in 1848, as well as to our latest acquisitions. In both instances we held, and could have retained, them as conquered, but we obtained cessions thereof in the treaties of peace concluded on terminating the wars.

4 American Ins. Co. vs. Canter, U. S. Sup. Ct. 1828, 1 Peters, 511, MARSHALL, Ch. J.

Jones vs. United States, U. S. Sup. Ct. 1890, 137 U. S. 202, GRAY, J.

$ 44.

1 See report of Charles E. Magoon, law officer, Division of Insular Affairs, War Department February, 1890. Senate Document 234, 56th Congress, 1st session, for the legal aspects of the territorial acquisitions of the United States.

III. CESSION BY ONE SOVEREIGN POWER TO ANOTHER.This may be either,

a. For a monetary consideration, without the element of conquest or coercion, as was the case when we purchased Louisiana from France in 1803, Florida from Spain in 1819, Arizona from Mexico in 1853, and Alaska from Russia in 1867.

b. By exchange of territory, which, to some extent was an element of our purchase of Florida, when we ceded to Spain a part of Texas, which, up to that time, we had claimed was included in the Louisiana purchase.

c. At the end of a war, partly for indemnity and partly for other considerations, as was the case when California and other Mexican territory was ceded in 1848, and the Philippines. Porto Rico and Guam were transferred to us in 1898.

d. Without any consideration except good-will, as was the case when Great Britain ceded Horse Shoe Reef in Lake Erie to the United States in 1850.

IV. BY ANNEXATION, WHEN Two GOVERNMENTS BY TREATY OR RECIPROCAL LEGISLATION, UNITE UNDER THE GOVERNMENT OF ONE OR THE OTHER.-This was the case when Texas was admitted to the Union as a State and surrendered her independent government for the conditions of statehood in the United States in 1845, and also when Hawaii became a part of the territory of the United States under congressional resolution in 1898.

The title of the present domain of the United States, therefore, rests upon every different method of acquisition known to international law, but as to every portion thereof the title is clear and recognizable by that law as well as by our own laws, as they have been defined and construed by the Supreme Court.2

NOTE BY AUTHOR ON ACQUISITIONS OF TERRITORY BY UNITED STATES.

In December, 1898, immediately after the conclusion of the Treaty of Paris between the United States and Spain, the author published a pamphlet entitled "OUR TREATY WITH SPAIN," in which the various territorial annexations of the United States were enumerated as follows (The treaty volume referred to is the edition of 1889):

The right of the United States to acquire territory has been the sub

§ 45. Cessions of Territory to other powers than United States. All the instances of transfer given above relate to

ject of a vast amount of debate in Congress and in the papers. There are some who deny the right, but it is difficult to conceive on what authority. The Supreme Court has decided that the United States is a nation, and as such has all the rights of sovereignty that every other sovereign nation has, and can exercise them just as broadly, including the right of acquisition of territory.

As to right of acquisition and the right to govern territory when acquired, see also, Pomeroy's Constitution, 494-498, Jones vs. U. S. (the Navassa Islands case), 137 U. S. pp. 202-212; Justice Miller's Lectures on the Constitution, 35, 36, 55, 57; Justice Curtis's Opinion (Dred Scott case), 19 Howard, 612-614.

These cases and opinions are all based upon the broad declaration made by Chief Justice Marshall, in 1824, in American Ins. Co. vs. Canter, 1 Peters, 511, p. 542: "The Constitution confers absolutely on the Government of the Union the power to make war and to make treaties; consequently that government possesses the power of acquiring territory either by conquest or by treaty."

Cessions of Territory made to the United States.-This (the cession of territory in the treaty of Paris of 1898) is the second cession of territory made by Spain to the United States, and, at least the eleventh acquisition of territory, by the United States, increasing its original area of less than a million square miles to its present magnificent domain three times as large in area and over fifteen times as great in population; the first cession made by Spain was in 1819 under the Adams-de Onis Treaty, by which Spain ceded Florida to the United States, in consideration of $5,000,000, which was the liquidated amount of the claims owed by Spain to citizens of the United States for depredations upon our commerce and in territory adjoining Florida.

The United States has acquired Territory as follows:

By the Treaty of Peace with Great Britain after the Revolutionary War, when the original boundaries of the United States were fixed, and Great Britain renounced all jurisdiction over the territory therein, which included not only the thirteen original States themselves, but also a part of what was afterwards included in the Northwest Territory; the original territory extended from what is now Canada on the north-the boundary line between which and the United States has been fixed by several subsequent treaties and arbitrations-to the northerly line of Florida on the south; from the Atlantic on the east, to the Mississippi on the west, containing about eight hundred and twenty-five thousand square miles. (U. S. Treaty Volume, p. 375.)

The acquisitions of territory since that time have been:

(1) Louisiana, consisting, including Oregon the discovery and occupation of which grew out of this acquisition, of over a million square miles, ceded by France to the United States under treaty of April 30, 1803, ratified October 21, 1803, by which France, under Napoleon Bonaparte as First Consul, through Barbé Marbois, ceded the territory for 60,000,000