200 'JL'ii^ TREATY OF WASHINGTON. 



THEORY OF ARBITRATION. 



Sovereign States, it has been said, should be trust- 

 ed to do justice spontaneously, and without humbling 

 themselves to be judged by an arbitrator. It might 

 with just as good reason be said that all men should 

 be trusted to do justice spontaneously, and without 

 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 applicable 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 w^ell of 

 men in political society as of individual men. Ad- 

 mit that in a majority 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 attempt 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 authority as such within the limits of each sov- 

 ereigli 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 accordincr to circumstances, as 



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