It is sometimes a delicate question to determine whether to recognize a community as a nation or not.  Thus, if a dependency is seeking to become independent, our personal sympathies are naturally with it, and yet it might be contrary to the law of nations, an “unfriendly act” to the sovereign power, for our government to recognize its independence.  During the struggle of the Spanish-American colonies for separate political existence, John Quincy Adams, then (1822) secretary of state, formulated the proper rule of action thus:  “In every question relating to the independence of a nation two principles are involved, one of right and the other of fact, the former exclusively depending upon the determination of the nation itself, and the latter resulting from the successful execution of that determination ...  The government of the United States yielded to an obligation of duty of the highest order by recognizing as independent states nations which, after deliberately asserting their right to that character, have maintained and established it against all the resistance which had been or could be brought to oppose it.  This recognition is ... the mere acknowledgment of existing facts.” [Footnote:  Wharton’s International Law Digest, Volume I., page 162.]

Although sovereignty implies the right of a government to enter freely into such relations with any other nation as may be mutually agreeable, the nations of Europe feel at liberty in self-defense to interfere with any arrangements that threaten the “balance of power.”  Thus France would feel justified in opposing a very close alliance between Prussia and Spain.

It is our good fortune not to have any dangerous neighbors.  We are reasonably sure of peace so long as we act in accordance with the counsel of Washington, “Friendly relations with all, entangling alliances with none.”

Jurisdiction.—­It is clear that the authority of a nation properly extends over the land within its borders and over its inland waters.  It is equally clear that no nation should have exclusive jurisdiction over the ocean.  It is generally understood that a nation’s authority extends out into the sea a marine league from shore.  But difficulty is encountered in determining a rule of jurisdiction over bays, straits, wide-mouthed rivers and other coast-waters.  Shall the United States of right freely navigate the St. Lawrence to its mouth, and the British the Yukon?  Should Denmark receive tribute of ships passing through the sounds to the Baltic, and may Turkey prohibit foreign war vessels from passing through the Bosphorus?  Is the mouth of the Amazon part of the “high seas?” Is Hudson’s Bay?  Is Delaware Bay?  The difficulty is to formulate a rule that shall not unnecessarily abridge commercial freedom but shall still have due regard to national defense.  The question at large is not settled yet, but it seems to be agreed that in the cases of bays not more than ten miles wide at the mouth, the marine league shall be measured from a straight line joining the headlands.