WRIGHT— POWER TO MAKE POLITICAL DECISIONS. 377 



hostilities but the treaty-making power must ordinarily act to ter- 

 minate the war. 



" I have yet to learn," wrote Secretary of State Bayard. " that a war 

 in which the belligerents, as was the case with the late Civil War, are 

 persistent and determined, can be said to have closed until peace is con- 

 clusively established, either by treaty when the war is foreign, or when civil 

 by proclamation of the termination of hostilities on one side and the ac- 

 ceptance of such proclamation on the other. The surrender of the main 

 armies of one of the belligerents does not of itself work such termination." 2* 



However, as the quotation suggests, war may be terminated in two 

 other ways, by complete conquest, causing annihilation of one bel- 

 ligerent, or by cessation of hostilities and tacit acceptance of peace 

 by both parties.'^ The South African and American civil wars 

 illustrate the first method ; the wars between Spain and her revolt- 

 ing American colonies the second. 



213. The Power to Recognize the Termination of War. 



What authority in the United States can determine the exact 

 date at which a war terminates in these circumstances? The ques- 

 tion is one of fact and the recognition of facts in international rela- 

 tions is normally a function of the President. Thus President 

 Johnson proclaimed the end of the Civil War and the courts recog- 

 nized these proclamations as authoritative.-^ Secretary of State 

 Seward seems to have assumed likewise that the Executive could 

 recognize the end of a war between two foreign states, when in 1868 

 he informed the Spanish minister that "the United States may find 

 itself obliged to decide the question whether the war still exists be- 

 tween Spain and Peru, or whether that war has come to an end." ^^ 



The question of terminating a war by proclamation, made by 

 one side and acquiesced in by the other, was raised by the Knox 



2* Moore, Digest, 7: 2>2>7- Jefferson thought "general letters of mark 

 and reprisal " might be preferred to a formal declaration of war, " be- 

 cause, on a repeal of their edicts by the belligerent, a revocation of the 

 letters of mark restores peace without the delay, difficulties and ceremonies 

 of a treaty." Letter to Mr. Lincoln, 1808, ibid., 7: 123. 



25 Wilson and Tucker, op. cit., pp. 281-282. 



2« 14 Stat. 81 r, 13 Stat. 814, The Protector, 12 Wall. 700. 



27 Moore, Digest, 7 : 337. 



