The Right of making War is a necessary appendage to the Right to the National Territory; and is to be used, when necessary, for the purpose of defending the Nation from every intrusion of an enemy upon its soil; and also, for the purpose of protecting the citizens from all other violence and injustice, inflicted by strangers. The State is obliged to take measures which may have such an effect; and this is the Obligation of National Defence. All individual Rights stand within the fence of the National Right; and the State is bound to keep this fence entire and substantial. For this purpose, the State is bound to provide an Army, or the means of raising an Army, when the need arises; and to provide the means also of supplying its Army with Officers, and with Munitions of War. The State is bound, also, to keep a watchful eye upon the movements of other States; and if it sees them preparing any evil for itself, to avert the danger by timely precautions. For this purpose, Negotiations with other States may be requisite; and hence, Embassies, Treaties, and the like. Such negotiations, in the discussions to which they lead, necessarily assume the existence of Rights and Obligations between Nations; and thus, we are referred to an International Jus, of which we shall hereafter have to speak. The Obligation of National Defence is the first Obligation of a Nation, for it is necessary to the existence of a Nation. Without

the fulfilment of this Obligation, a State cannot exist, even in the most imperfect form. A State which used no means of defending itself, would soon be blotted out of the Map, by the pressure of surrounding States.

850. The next branch of the State's Obligation of Self-preservation is the Obligation of upholding Law. The last-mentioned obligation regarded foes without the nation; this regards citizens within it. In the former case, we spoke of maintaining the ex

ternal fence which protects the National Existence; we now speak of keeping up the internal barriers of individual Rights. These Rights are to be realized by the Law; and except they are made real by the enforcement of the Law, they cease to exist, and the citizens cease to be citizens. In this case, the State is destroyed by the dissolution of its internal organization, as completely as if it were obliterated by external violence.

851. There are, however, various degrees of such Disorganization, according as the Laws are enforced with more or less vigour and steadiness. Looking merely to the Self-preservation of the State, if the Rights of the more Powerful Class of the Citizens be upheld for them, the State may long subsist, although there are other Classes whose Rights are neglected, or gradually encroached upon. That to do this, is a violation of the Duty of a State, we shall hereafter see. But that the long-continued existence of a State is not inconsistent with the continued prevalence of illegal oppression of some classes of the community, the history of many nations abundantly shows. Still, so far as such practices prevail, the organization of a State is imperfect; its functions do not proceed in a healthy manner. The imperfect or unequal administration of the laws may not be the immediate Death of the State, but it is a grievous Disease, however long it may be protracted. A State, in order to preserve its full vitality, must make the laws to be respected; and respected alike by all classes, high and low; rich and poor. So far as power and wealth can shield their possessors from the hand of the law, such men are placed above the law; and the State has a tendency to fall to pieces, and to cease to be a living State.

852. Another branch of the Obligation of Selfpreservation belonging to States is the Obligation of repressing Sedition. By Sedition, is meant any

course of action separating the citizens from the State, and transferring to a Rival Body the obedience due to the State. When this Rival Body places its strength in external force, it is an Armed Sedition; when it rests its pretensions upon defects in the Right of the Governor, it is a Political Sedition; when it draws men together by their religious sympathies, it is a Religious Sedition. Of whatever kind the Sedition be, it tends, so far as it attains its object, to a destruction of the State. The establishment of a Rival Body, whose officers and laws are obeyed, rather than those of the State, necessarily interferes with and disturbs, and in its natural result, puts a stop to, the functions of government. In this case, as in the others just mentioned, the Life of the State, the body politic, is destroyed; and as its destruction, from defect of national defence, may be represented as death by External Violence, and its destruction from defective administration of the laws, as death by Internal Disease; so the destruction of the State by sedition, may be compared to the fatal effect of an Excrescence which grows in the body, and draws to itself the nutriment which should supply the vital powers.

853. It is a part of the Obligation of Self-preservation belonging to a State, to suppress Sedition, so as to avert this tendency. And this Obligation has always been acknowledged and acted on by all States. The highest form of Sedition is Treason. This, in the English Monarchy, is defined to be an offence committed against the security of the king or kingdom; as to compass the death of the king, or to levy war against him, or to adhere to his enemies, or give them aid, within the realm or without. In all monarchies, such crimes have been visited with the severest punishments. But in other forms of government, no less than in monarchies, attempts to overthrow the existing Government have universally

been treated as Crimes of the highest order. In free States, attempts to crush the Freedom of the People, have been commonly considered as no less atrocious crimes, than attacks upon the Sovereign Authorities: and where the usual course of law has been insufficient to resist and punish such attempts, extraordinary acts, on the part of some members of the State, have been often and generally looked upon as necessary results of the State's obligation to preserve its free condition; such acts were Tyrannicide, and the putting to Death, or sending into Exile ambitious men in ancient times; such acts have been the Impeachment of statesmen in England for attempting to render the royal power absolute.

854. The word Treason (trahison, proditio) implies not only hostile intentions, but fraud, and breach of trust and generally, treachery, a word of the same origin. These notions are, in this general manner, combined with the notion of hostility to the State, or the Sovereign; because Fidelity to the State, and to the Sovereign, are reckoned among the duties of all citizens. A man who joins with strangers, in harming his own Country, is considered as breaking those bands of national duty and affection which, in their hold upon good men, come next after the ties of family duty and affection: and hence, is looked upon with the same kind of sentiments with which we look upon a man who joins with strangers in harming his father or his mother. A man who is hostile to his country may, it would seem, be treated as a public enemy; he deserves not to receive the benefit of his country's laws, or to be protected in his property or other rights. And hence, the existing Government, which, in order to justify and protect its own existence, must identify itself with the Country, treats its own enemies as the enemies of their country, and punishes them as Traitors.

This view shows itself in the distinction made be

tween domestic and foreign enemies; for foreigners coming into the country in a hostile manner are to be dealt with as an enemy; and if taken, executed by martial law. A foreigner cannot be executed for Treason, say the English Lawyers, for he owes no allegiance to the King.

855. Sedition aims at its objects by Conspiracy, the mutual understanding established as to the Plot, or Plan of proceeding; and by Rebellion, the open use of armed force against the Government. If a Government do not put down Conspirators and Rebels, it must soon cease to be a Government; the State, as represented by the Government, must perish. And thus, as we have said, the repression of Armed Sedition is an Obligation incumbent upon the Government, as essential to its Self-preservation.

856. The repression of Political Sedition is, in some of its forms, generally acknowledged as a part of the State's Obligation of Self-preservation. For instance, if a man declare and maintain that the king is an usurper, and has no title to the crown, such discourse must be conceived to have a tendency to incite the king's subjects to rebellion, and is criminal. The English law makes it a grave misdemeanour to print or publish Seditious Libels against the King or his Government. But the genius of free governments, which tolerates a considerable difference of opinions with regard to the justice and wisdom of the acts of the Government, will not allow everything said against the Government and its acts to be treated as Seditious. Accordingly, the English Law permits a man to discuss the measures adopted by the King and his Ministers; but requires this discussion to be conducted fairly, temperately, and with decency, without attributing corrupt motives.

857. The repression of Religious Sedition is, under some of its forms, evidently necessary, as the only means of Self-preservation which the Govern