172 EMPLOYMENT OF THE PLEBISCITE [470 



not Otherwise proclaimed, must be testified by a vote of the popula- 

 tion or its representatives, and that international law has adopted 

 this principle by its practical recognition in the Treaty of Turin, 

 which regulated the cession of Savoy to France, in the Treaty of 

 London, by which the Ionian Islands were ceded to Greece, in the 

 Treaty of Vienna, which stipulated for the eventual cession of 

 Venetia to Italy, and in that portion of the Treaty of Prague, which 

 referred to Northern Slesvig. For an answer to this doctrine in its 

 extreme form it is only necessary to traverse the allegation of fact. 

 The principle that the wishes of a population are to be consulted 

 when the territory which they inhabit is ceded has not been adopted 

 into international law, and can not be adopted into it until title 

 by conquest has disappeared. The pretension that it was sanctioned 

 by the treaties cited has an air rather of mockery than of serious 

 statement, when the circumstances accompanying the cession of 

 Savoy and Nice are remembered, and when the only treaty of the 

 number, the breach of which opportunity and desire combined to 

 render possible, remained unobserved and has finally been cancelled. 

 As to the milder form of the doctrine, it is only to be said that states 

 being the sole international units, the inhabitants of a ceded terri- 

 tory, whether acting as an organized body or an unorganized mass 

 of individuals, have no more power to confirm or to reject the 

 action of their state than is possessed by a single individual. . . .2 



A. S. Hershey is equally emphatic when he states that 

 " it is certain that the legal validity of a title based on ces- 

 sion does not require such action [the holding of a plebi- 

 scite or vote in Assembly] on the part of the inhabitants 

 of the ceded territory."^ L. F. L. Oppenheim considers it 

 "doubtful whether the Law of Nations will ever make it a 

 condition of every cession that it must be ratified by a 

 plebiscite." He grants that " the necessities of international 

 policy may now and then allow or even demand such a 

 plebiscite," but he adds that " in most cases they will not 

 allow it."* 



In the light of the expressions of eminent authority we 

 understand why, in 1867, Secretary of State W. H. Seward 

 gave only his unofficial consent to the plebiscite which was 

 to decide whether or not the inhabitants of the islands of St. 

 Croix and St. John wished to be annexed to the United States. 

 He apparently did not wish to recognize the principle of the 

 plebiscite in the transfer of territory nor to create a prece- 

 dent through its recognition which might prove embarassing 



2 Hall. pp. 46-47. 



' Hershey, p. 184. 



* Oppenheim, vol. i, p. 274. 



