necessarily appertain to it. This de facto existence is not dependent upon the will of any other state or states.1 The entrance of the state into the international statehood, however, depends entirely upon the recognition by those states already within this circle. Whatever advantages membership in this circle may confer, and whatever duties it may impose, do not fall upon the new state until its existence is generally recognized by the states already within the international circle. These advantages and duties, as between the recognizing and recognized state, immediately follow recognition but do not necessarily extend to other states than those actually party to the recognition. The basis of this family of nations or international circle which admits. other states to membership is historical, resting on the polity of the older European states. These states, through the relations into which they were brought

1 The internal acts of a de facto state are valid, whatever the attitude of the international circle. As an example, in 1777, during the Revolutionary War, the British governor of Florida made a grant of land in what is now the southern part of the United States. Fifty years later a descendant of the grantee laid claim to the land, but the Supreme Court of the United States declared, "It has never been admitted by the United States that they acquired anything by way of cession from Great Britain by that treaty [of Peace, 1783]. It has been viewed only as a recognition of preëxisting rights, and on that principle the soil and the sovereignty, within their acknowledged limits, were as much theirs at the Declaration of Independence as at this hour. By reference to the treaty, it will be found that it amounts to a simple recognition of the independence and limits of the United States, without any language purporting a cession or relinquishment of right, on the part of Great Britain. grants of soil made flagrante bello by the party that fails, can only derive validity from treaty stipulations." Harcourt v. Gaillard, 12 Wheat., 523, 527. See also M'Ilvaine v. Coxe's Lessee, 4 Cr., 209, 212.

...

by reason of proximity and intercourse, developed among themselves a system of action in their mutual dealings; and international law in its beginning proposed to set forth what this system was and should be.1 This family of states could not permit new accessions to its membership unless these new states were properly constituted to assume the mutual relationships, and as to the proper qualifications for admission in each case, the states already within the family claim and exercise the right to judge.

The circumstances of recognition vary.

(1) The most numerous instances are in consequence of division which involves the recognition of the existence of more than one state within the limits which had formerly been under a single jurisdiction. This may be preceded by recognition of the belligerency of a revolted community within the jurisdiction of an existing state, or may be preceded by division of an existing state into two or more states.2 In the first case recognition is a question of national policy, in the second case recognition is usually readily accorded.

(2) In modern times a new state has frequently been formed by the union of two or more existing states.3 The recognition in such a case usually follows immediately.

(3) A state after existence for a period of years may be formally admitted into the family of states. Japan, for centuries a de facto state, was only recently fully

1 Suarez, "De Legibus," 6.

2 Wheat., D., 41 n.

8 United States of Central America, Nov. 1, 1898, from Republics of Nicaragua, Salvador, and Honduras.

admitted to international statehood.1 Turkey, so long the dread of Europe, was formally received by the Treaty of Paris, 1856.

(4) New states may be formed in territory hitherto outside any de facto state jurisdiction, or within regions hitherto considered savage. The examples of this class are mainly Africans, as in the creation of the Congo Free State under the International Association of the Congo. The United States recognized the Congo Free State by acknowledging its flag, April 22, 1884. Liberia, originally established by the American colonization Society in 1821, as a refuge for negroes from America since 1847, has been recognized as an independent republic.

(5) From another point of view recognition may be individual or collective. Recognition is individual when a state, independently of any other, acknowledges the international statehood of a new state. This was the method of recognition of the United States. Collective recognition is by the concerted action of several states at the same time. This has taken place most often in the admission of minor states to the European family of states, as in the cases of Greece by the powers at the Conference of London, 1830; Belgium, 1831; Montenegro, Servia, and Roumania, at the Congress of Berlin, 1878. The Congo Free State was acknowledged by the International Congo Conference at Berlin, 1885.

(c) The act constituting recognition of a new state may be formal, as by a declaration, proclamation, treaty,

1 Japan has been generally recognized since 1894, and her foreign relations have been in course of readjustment..

sending and receiving ambassadors, salute of flag, etc., or informal, by implication through the grant of an exequatur to a consul from the new state, or other act which indicates an acknowledgment of international rights and obligations.1 It should be observed, however, that the appointment by, or reception within, an existing state of agents to carry on necessary intercourse between the existing state, and the aspirant for recognition does not constitute recognition. It may be essential to have relations with a community the statehood of which is not established, because of commercial and other matters pertaining to the rights of the citizens of the existing state whose interests, or who in person may be within the jurisdiction of the unrecognized community.2 The definite act of recognition is, however, in accord with the decision of the internal authority to which this function is by state law ascribed. As foreign states usually take cognizance of the acts of the executive department only, it is the common custom to consider recognition as an executive function, or as a function residing in the head of the state. In the United States, the President is for foreign affairs the head of the state, and has the authority to recognize new states in any manner other than by those acts, which by the Constitution require the advice and consent of the Senate, as in the conclusion of treaties, and appointment of ambassadors, other public ministers, and consuls. President Grant, in his second annual message, Dec. 5, 1870, said, “As soon as I learned that a republic had been proclaimed at Paris, and that the people of France had acquiesced in the change, the minister of the United States was 11 Whart., § 70. 2 I. Rivier, §§ 44, 125.

directed by telegraph to recognize it, and to tender my congratulations and those of the people of the United States. "1 As President Jackson had in his message in December, 1831, and in the official correspondence with Buenos Ayres denied that country's jurisdiction over the Falkland Islands, Justice McLean said, in rendering his opinion in Williams v. Suffolk Insurance Company, "And can there be any doubt that when the executive branch of the government which is charged with our foreign relations, shall, in its correspondence with foreign nations, assume a fact in regard to sovereignty of any island or country, it is conclusive on the judicial department? And in this view it is not material to inquire, nor is it the province of the court to determine, whether the executive be right or wrong. It is enough to know that in the exercise of his constitutional functions he has decided the question."2 "The President is the executive department." 3

(d) Recognition may be premature and the recognized community may not be able to maintain its place in the international circle, or in case of a struggle with another state may be defeated. The recognizing state must assume in such case whatever consequences may come from its misjudgment, and the parent state may justly question the right of the recognizing state in its action, e.g. the recognition by France of the United

1 See on this subject 1 Whart., § 70.

213 Pet., 415. See also Jones v. United States, 137 U. S. 202; Foster v. Neilson, 2 Pet., 253.

8 State of Mississippi v. Johnson, President, 4 Wall., 475, 500. For late review of the question, see 32 Amer. Law Rev., 390, W. L. Penfield.