NON-INTERVENTION AMONG NATIONS, THE PRINCIPLE OF. 



623 



other states ; in other words, it is the right 

 (law) of nature applied to the mutual relations 

 of states among themselves." The obligatory- 

 force of this law is, therefore, the same as that 

 which obliges a man not to interfere with the 

 life or liberty of his neighbor. Asserting the 

 equal sovereignty and independence of all 

 states, it follows that to each belongs the 

 right of non-intervention or non-interference 

 as against all others. France, subsequent to 

 her first revolution of 1789, when threatened 

 by successive coalitions of the great European 

 monarchies, relying on the independence of 

 nations, contended for non-intervention as a 

 right.* Understood as an expression of the 

 independence of states, the principle of non- 

 intervention is not denied by any publicist; 

 and even the famous " Holy Alliance " of Eu- 

 ropean sovereigns, which was a negation of 

 that principle, while it violated the principle, 

 professed to respect the independence of na- 

 tions. 



NON-INTERVENTION EXPLAINED. But an ex 

 planation of the term "non-intervention," as 

 here used, is necessary. " In order rightly to 

 define the question of non-intervention," says 

 this writer, " we begin with giving the true 

 meaning of the word intervention ; and this is 

 the more necessary, because intervention is 

 often spoken of in various senses, and many 

 times in a sense different from that which it 

 ought to have : ' According to the strict signi- 

 fication of the word, to intervene would ex- 

 press the interposing of one or more powers 

 between two peoples at variance, or between 

 the contending parties of one and the same 

 people. And this is understood of armed, or, 

 at all events, coactive intervention ; inasmuch 

 as the non-coactive and simply amicable is 

 never and in no case unlawful, and in most 

 cases it is even wished for and welcomed. In 

 diplomacy, however, the modern use of that 

 word makes it more properly to signify the 

 interfering of one or more powers in the in- 

 ternal affairs of an independent state, when- 

 ever the condition of those affairs is likely to 

 prove of serious detriment to others.' t We 

 intend by intervention to designate meddling 

 in the internal affairs of a nation, let this be 

 amicable which, though caused by the broth- 

 erhood of peoples, is yet unlawful and humili- 

 ating or let it be coercive; for either form 

 of it constitutes an intermeddling. And from 

 the idea we assign to the word intervention, it 

 will follow that the principle of non-interven- 

 tion is applicable to all those cases in which a 

 foreign state will interpose in the relations 

 existing between government and governed, 

 between citizens and citizens of one and the 

 same nation." 



WHEN is A NATION RESPONSIBLE FOR ITS 

 ACTS ? Nations being thus constituted, each 

 equal in sovereignty and independence, and as 

 possessing an absolute right of non-interven- 



* Lawrence's Wheaton's " Elements," etc., p. 120. 

 t "JSlew European Public Eight,'' chap, ix, iv. 



tion on the part of others, it may be asked, 

 When is a nation responsible for its acts ? Then 

 only is a state responsible for its acts when 

 these impair the right of others ; and then there 

 is injury done to the right of others when this 

 right is so just and evident that the violation 

 of it is manifestly prejudicial, or seriously dan- 

 gerous, to the power concerned. Thus, a state, 

 whose existence should be made to depend on 

 the injuries done to others, has no right to ex- 

 ist; and intervention there is just, because the 

 independence of any one must never be exag- 

 gerated to the point of becoming injurious to 

 the independence of others. Such states, there- 

 fore, as should intend to live by piracy, would 

 have no right to exist. In like manner, a state 

 which should purpose to found for itself a uni- 

 versal monarchy, or declare its intention to im- 

 pose its own principles on other states by the 

 force of arms, would violate the independence 

 of others, and should be punished.* 



Great caution is required here, says the writ- 

 er, and he maintains that this extreme remedy 

 should be adopted only when no satisfactory 

 diplomatic explanations are given, and when a 

 state provokes agitation in other countries and 

 violates their independence to such a degree 

 as to render an armed intervention for their 

 very existence indispensable. " But so long as 

 such declarations of principles are only poet- 

 ical aspirations, so long as foreign states have 

 the power of repressing agitations within their 

 own limits, they must abstain from invading 

 the territory of a threatened state, and not 

 act as the potentates of Europe did in the last 

 century, when they invaded France under the 

 pretext of a platonic declaration issued by the 

 French constituency that it would with arms 

 support those people in foreign countries who 

 should demand their freedom. This interven- 

 tion was unjust, and has been the source of 

 many great evils, because that declaration did 

 not constitute a grave danger to the existence 

 of the intervening states, as they possessed 

 within themselves the power to suppress any 

 rising of their own people. We hold that in- 

 tervention is to be used only as an extreme 

 remedy under circumstances of the most se- 

 rious character. In this case it is not a viola- 

 tion of our principle. For, certainly, that state 

 which proclaims universal monarchy, or in- 

 tends to enforce on a-nother people the ob- 

 servance of its own principles,does not exercise 

 a right belonging to it, because it oversteps the 

 limits of its own territory ; and hence it follows 

 that the intervention is just nay, according to 

 our views, there would be in this case only 

 legitimate defense on the part of foreign states, 

 but no intervention, as no internal affair of 

 the threatening state is interfered with." 



* If the end of the last and the beginning 1 of the present 

 century saw all Europe combined against France, it was not 

 on account of the internal changes which France thought 

 necessary for her own political and civil reformation ; but be- 

 cause she attempted to propagate, first, her principles, and 

 afterward her dominion, by the sword. Lawrence's Whea- 

 ton's " Elements," p. 122. 



