CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



109 



regarded by tho United States; nor a mere 

 domestic question,' as it ia represented by 

 ,a!iUh (iovornment. It is protracted and 

 ...us civil war. 



\ civil commotion is directed against indi- 

 viduals >r against civil magistrates. It may 

 ivacli tin- Miiinlard of sedition or insurrection 

 in which a soverign may bo disobeyed: but it 

 is still a State crime, to bo suppressed and pun- 

 ished lv State authority without intervention, 

 ami without affecting tho rights of foreign Gov- 

 ernments. A civil war, on the contrary, is a 

 contest of arms between a part of the citizens 

 on oiiq side, and tho sovereign or those who 

 obey him, on tho other; in regard to which the 

 action of foreign Governments may become 

 absolutely necessary. 'It is sufficient,' Vattel 

 says, 'that the malcontents have some reason 

 to take up arms in order that the disturbance 

 should be called civil war and not rebellion.' 

 (Vattel, liv. iiL, ch. xviii., sees. 290-295.) 



" The people of Cuba present the best reasons 

 for the contest they wage. It has every claim 

 to tho sympathy and support of the friends of 

 liberty, equality, and justice. It is a race strug- 

 gling for independence; an enslaved people 

 contending for liberty; a nation fighting for 

 national existence. The contest in which they 

 are engaged has all the attributes of barbarous 

 and bloody civil war, aggravated by the dis- 

 orders and crimes of anarchy. Our first duty 

 is to treat it as war, .and, in accordance with 

 the law of nations, to declare and maintain, in 

 regard to the parties engaged therein, a strict 

 and impartial neutrality. 



" ' A civil war,' Vattel says, ' is when a party 

 arises in a State which no longer obeys the 

 sovereign, and is sufficiently strong to make 

 head against him, or when in a republic the 

 nation is divided into two opposite factions, 

 and both sides take up arms.' 



" ' Civil war breaks the bonds of society and 

 of the Government ; it gives rise in a nation to 

 two independent parties, who acknowledge no 

 common judge. They are in the position of 

 two nations who engage in disputes, and, not 

 being able to reconcile them, have recourse to 

 arms. The common laws of Avar are in civil 

 wars to be observed on both sides. The same 

 reasons which make them obligatory between 

 foreign States render them more necessary in 

 the unhappy circumstances where two exasper- 

 ated parties are destroying their common coun- 

 try.' (Vattel, liv. iii., ch. xviii., sees. 290-295.) 



" ' When a nation becomes divided into two 

 parties absolutely independent, and no longer 

 acknowledges a superior, the State is dissolved, 

 and the war betwixt the two parties in every 

 respect is the same as that of a public war 

 between two different nations. The obligation 

 of observing the common law of war is therc- 

 ' fore absolutely indispensable to both parties, 

 and the same which the law of Nature obliges 

 all nations to observe between State and State. 1 

 (Vattel, 'Droit dcs Gens,' liv. iii., ch. xviii., 

 sees. 290-205.) 



"'When a part of a State takes up arms 

 against tho Government, if it is sufficiently 

 strong to resist its action and to constitute two 

 parties of LMiuully-balanced forces, tho existence 

 c.t civil war in thenceforth determined. If tho 

 conspirators against the Government have not 

 tho moans of assuming this position, their move- 

 ment does not pass beyond a rebellion. A true 

 civil war breaks the bonds of society by divid- 

 ing it in fact into two independent societies; 

 it is for this consideration that wo treat of it in 

 international law ; since each party forms, as 

 it were, a separate nation, both should be re- 

 garded as subject to the laws of war. This 

 subjection to the law of nations is the more 

 necessary in civil wars, since these, by nourish- 

 ing more hatred and resentments than foreign 

 wars, require more tho corrective of the law 

 of nations in order to moderate their ravages.' 

 (Riquelrae, 'Elementos de Derecho Publico,' 

 cap. 14, torn, i., p. 172.) 



" ' When a faction is formed in a State which 

 takes up arms against tho sovereign in order 

 to wrest from him the supreme power or im- 

 pose conditions on him, or when a republic is 

 divided into two parties which mutually treat 

 each other as enemies, this war is called civil 

 war. Civil wars frequently commence by pop- 

 ular tumults, which in nowise concern foreign 

 nations; but, when one faction or party obtains 

 dominion over an extensive territory, gives laws 

 to it, establishes a government in it, administers 

 justice, and, in a word, exercises acts of sov- 

 ereignty, it is a person, in the law of nations ; 

 and however so much one of the two parties 

 gives to the other the title of rebel or tyrant, 

 the foreign powers which desire to maintain 

 their neutrality ought to consider both as two 

 States, independent as respects one another and 

 other States, who recognize no judge of their 

 differences.' (Bello, 'Principios de Derecho 

 Internacional,' cap. 10, p. 267.) 



"M. Bluntschli, whom Laboulaye places in 

 the first rank of jurists and publicists, and styles 

 'the illustrious professor of Heidelberg,' in 

 one of the most recent and learned of the works 

 of international law, is more emphatic as to 

 the duty of Governments to recognize contend- 

 ing factions as belligerents. 



" In this code of international law, in defin- 

 ing the character of war and tho principles of 

 neutrality, he says : ' War is an armed contest 

 between different States upon a question of 

 public right.' * They recognize the quality 

 of belligerents in armed forces, who, not hav- 

 ing been recognized by any State already 

 existing as having the right to contend in 

 arms, have secured to themselves a military 

 organization, and combat in good faith in the 

 place of and as a State for a principle of 

 public right.' (Bluntschli, pp. 270, 271.) 



" ' There ia an exception,' ho continues, 

 'to the rule that wars can take place only 

 between States. When a political party seeks 

 the realization of certain public objects, and 

 organizes itself as a State, it becomes in a cer- 



