Further similarity between municipal and international law is to be seen.  The minister appointed to negotiate the treaty is an agent, and his work is subject to the general law of agency.  Thus, if he acts within his instructions, his principal (the nation) is bound by what he does, and the treaty-making power is in honor bound to ratify the treaty.  From this it will properly be inferred that there is an implied understanding that the sovereign, or other power intrusted with the making of treaties, reserves the right to accept or reject the work of the agent. (See sample treaty, page 360.)

Remedy.—­In municipal law, remedy for a wrong is obtained through the courts, if personal influence fails.  Among nations there is no general court having jurisdiction.  If redress cannot be obtained by remonstrance, arbitration, or other peaceful means, it may be sought through retaliation or finally in war.

WAR RELATIONS.

“International law assumes that there must be wars and fightings among nations, and endeavors to lay down rules by which they shall be brought within the limits of justice and humanity.”

Causes.—­A nation may wage war to defend any right which as a state it is bound to protect, to redress wrong, or to prevent injury; for instance, to defend its own sovereignty; to protect a citizen in his rights; to obtain satisfaction for insults to its flag, its ambassadors, or its good name; for the violation of treaty rights; to prevent injury, as by checking the onward march of some “conquering hero.”  War for conquest is not now recognized as legitimate.

Beginning.—­“War between independent sovereignties, is and ought to be, an avowed, open way of obtaining justice.”  Even among the ancients announcements were usually made before war was begun.  The Greeks sent a herald to carry the news.  “Among the Romans the ceremonies of making known the state of war were very punctilious.”  But formal declarations of war are now falling into disuse; not from any intention of taking the enemy unawares, but because of the rapidity with which news is now disseminated.  Still a state is in honor bound to indicate in some way its changed relation.  This is due to the enemy, and just to its own citizens and to neutrals, that they may know how to act.  The enemy is usually informed by the peremptory dismissal of its ambassador; the citizens and neutrals by a manifesto of some kind. (See p.354.)

Between whom.—­War being an interruption of peaceful relations, commerce between the citizens is at an end—­is forbidden.  Contracts between them then become either “impossible in their nature” or “unlawful,” and therefore void.

The war is not between the individual citizens of the two countries, it is between the governments and is waged by authorized agents—­the soldiers and sailors enlisted for the purpose.  “The smallest amount of injury consistent with self-defense and the sad necessity of war, is to be inflicted.”  Passive citizens are not unnecessarily to be molested.