200 'i'JIl^ TWIIATY OF WASIIIXGTOX. 



Tlir.nUY OK AUniTUATION. 



Sovereign States, it lias been said, slioiild be trust- 

 ed to (1(^ justice s])ontaueously, and v»itl»out h\uubling 

 tliemsclves to be judged by an arbitrator. It might 

 "vvith just as good reason be fcaid tliat all men should 

 be trusted to do justice spontaneously, and \vithout 

 humbling themselves to be judged by a tribunal. 

 The experience of mankind contradicts each of these 

 propositions. Diverse views of the facts, and of the 

 rules of right aj-)])licable to the facts, to say nothing 

 of prejudice, passion, pride of opinion, are inseparable 

 from human affairs, because they are conditions of 

 the human mind, influencing the actions as well of 

 men in political society as of individual men. Ad- 

 mit iliat in a m.'ijority of cases reason will prevail to 

 prevent or to settle controversies between individual 

 persons ; but reason does not suffice in all cases, and 

 it is for such exceptional cases that tribunals of jus- 

 tice exist, without which, in the attem];t of men to 

 right themselves, society would be dissolved into a 

 state of anarchy and bloodshed. The considerations 

 which recommend the establishment of tribunals hav- 

 ing autliority as such within the limits of eacli sov- 

 ereign State, are still more cogent when applied to 

 sovereign States themselves, which, having no com- 

 mon superior, must of necessity determine their dif 

 ferences by war, unless they accept the mediation of 

 some friendly Power to restore concord between them, 

 ^ or unless they recur to arbitration, by mutual consent, 

 in one form or another according to circumstances, as 



