327] THE PLEBISCITE IN ANCIENT AND FEUDAL TIMES 29 



Modern international law sanctions the transfer of terri- 

 tory from one state to another under the following forms : 

 by succession, by conventional exchange or sale, by volun- 

 tary cession or cession enforced by treaty of peace (after 

 conquest), by lease* and, recently, also, by pledge.^ 



Territorial changes by succession were chiefly responsible 

 for the formation of the great European nations, partly 

 also for the dismemberment of others. They were as a rule 

 conditioned by dynastic family pacts but they are " no longer 

 possible for those peoples who concede the principle that 

 sovereignty resides in the nation."® 



Exchanges of territory between states, usually known as 

 frontier rectifications or determinations, as a rule cover 

 small areas, but the territories exchanged are sometimes 

 of considerable size, as was, for instance, the part of Bess- 

 arabia which Rumania, by the Treaty of Berlin in 1878, was 

 forced to exchange with Russia for the islands at the con- 

 flux of the Danube, the Sandjak of Toultcha and a strip of 

 the Dobrudja.'' 



Territorial changes by sale are too numerous to be cited 

 here ; suffice it to mention the purchase by the United States 

 of Louisiana, and of the Danish West Indies.* 



Voluntary cessions have been equally frequent in the 

 past.® However, the old maxim that " the sovereign held 

 eminent domain over the soil, that the inhabitant was the 

 subject of the sovereign and that the sovereign had legally 

 the power to dispose freely of the soil and the inhabitant "^° 



court declared that "the nationality of the inhabitants of territory 

 acquired by conquest or cession becomes that of the government 

 under whose dominion they pass, subject to the right of election 

 on their part to retain their former nationality by removal or other- 

 wise as may be provided" (Willoughby, The Constitutional Law of 

 the United States, New York, 1910, vol. i, pp. 443-444). 



* H. Bonfils, Manuel de droit international public, 3rd ed., Paris, 

 1901, nos. 564-569, 571 ^ 



■* Oppenhcim, vol. i, p. 271. 



* Bonfils, no. 564. 



"* E. Hertslct, The Map of Europe by Treaty . . . since the Gen- 

 eral Peace of 1814, London, 1875-91, vol. iv, p. 2791. 



* Extended list given by Bonfils, no. 5^. 

 » Bonfils, no. 567. 



'"T, I'lmck-Hnntano, and A. Sorcl, Precis du droit des gens, 3rd 

 cd., Paris, lyoo, p. 156. 



