are given in pawn or mortgaged, and if the revenues are ceded as an equivalent for the interest of the debt, it is the fact called antichresis. But these securities have no effect upon the obligations of the treaty. The party giving the security is no more excusable for refusing or neglecting to perform his engagements than if no securities whatever had been given.1

$ 33. Questions have sometimes arisen with respect to the duration of the guarantee, and the withdrawal or release of the security. The guarantee naturally subsists until the stipulations guaranteed are performed, unless a certain time has been agreed upon for its termination. A general and indefinite treaty of guarantee may be changed or modified the same as any other treaty. As soon as the debt is paid, or the particular engagement is accomplished for which the security was given, the security ends, and the pledge should be returned, or the towns or provinces, held in pawn or under mortgage, should be restored in the same condition in which they were received, so far as depends upon the holder. But this is not always done by those who thus hold the possession; ⚫ the temptation,' says Vattel, 'is delicious; they have recourse to a thousand quibbles,—a thousand pretences, to retain an important place, or a country under their obedience. The subject is too odious for us to allege examples; they are well enough known, and sufficiently numerous, to convince every sensible nation that it is very imprudent to make over such securities. But if the debt be not paid at the appointed time, or if the treaty be not fulfilled, what has been given in security may be retained and appropriated, or the mortgage seized, at least until the debt be discharged, or a just compensation made. The house of Savoy had mortgaged the country of Vaud to the cantons of Berne and Fribourg; and these two cantons, finding that no payments were made, had recourse to arms, and took possession of the country. The duke of Savoy, instead of immediately satisfying their just demands, opposed force to force, and gave them still further grounds of complaint; wherefore the cantons, finally successful in the contest, have since retained possession of that fine country, as well

1 Vattel, Droit des Gens, liv. ii. ch. xvi. §§ 235, 241; Gunther, Europ. Völkerrecht, b. ii. p. 154; Real, Science du Gouvernement, tome v. ch. iii. sec. viii.; Heineccius, Elem. Juris, p. 209.

for the payment of the debt as to defray the expenses of the war, and to obtain a just indemnification.' '

§ 34. Treaties may be dissolved, or their stipulations may terminate in various ways. Some expire by their own limitation, while others are terminated by war between the contracting parties; some are permanent in their nature, and although their operation may be suspended during war, they revive on the return of peace, unless expressly abrogated or altered by a new compact; while others again have reference to both peace and war, or exclusively to a state of war, and consequently continue in force, notwithstanding an entire interruption of pacific relations between the contracting parties. Thus, treaties made for a fixed period of time, or for a specified object, expire on the termination of the time designated, or the accomplishment of the object specified. Treaties of alliance, of succour and subsidy, of commerce and navigation—in fine, all stipulations having reference exclusively to pacific relations, cannot be construed to subsist after such relations have become hostile. Nor is a positive declaration of war necessary to produce this result. In the difficulties of the United States with France, in 1798-9, no public war was declared, but the two States were regarded as in hostile relation to each other, and subsisting treaties were held to be dissolved. Stipulations, which relate to boundaries, to the tenure of property, to public debts, etc., and which are permanent in their nature, are suspended by war, but revive as soon as hostilities cease. The treaties of 1783 and 1794, between the United States and Great Britain, respecting confiscations and alienage, were of a permanent character, and the supreme court held that they were not abrogated by the war of 1812, although their enforcement was, for the time being, suspended. Stipulations relating to prizes, prisoners of war, blockades, contraband, etc., are unaffected by a declaration of war between the contracting parties, and can only be annulled by new treaties, or in the manner provided in the instruments themselves.2

1 Vattel, Droit des Gens, liv. ii. ch. xvi. §§ 243, 244; Kluber, Droit des Gens Mod., § 156; Garden, De la Diplomatie, liv. iv. sec. i. § 1.

2 Kent, Com. on Am. Law, vol. i. p. 177; Riquelme, Derecho Pub. Int., lib. i. tit. i. cap. xv.; Benton, Thirty Yours, &c., vol. i. p. 487; Bas v. Tingy, 4 Dallas R., 37; Webster's Works, vol. iv. p. 162. In the case of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel' v. New Haven, &c. (5 Curtis R. 493), the Court did not feel inclined to admit the doctrine

$35. But the obligations of treaties, even where some of their stipulations are, in their terms, perpetual, expire in case either of the contracting parties loses its existence as an independent State, or in case its internal constitution is so changed as to render the treaty inapplicable to the new condition of things. With respect to alliances, Vattel remarks, that when a people are forced to receive laws, they may legally renounce their preceding treaties, if he, with whom they are constrained to enter into an alliance, requires it from them. As they then lose a part of their sovereignty, their ancient treaties fall with the powers that had concluded them. This is a necessity that cannot be imputed to them, and since they had a right to submit themselves absolutely, and to renounce all sovereignty, if it became necessary for their preservation; by a much stronger reason they have a right, under the same necessity, to abandon their allies. But a generous people will try every resource before they will submit to so severe and humiliating a law.'1

§ 36. A distinction must be made between obligations and debts already incurred, and those which would be incurred if the treaty had not been terminated before its time by such a change in the circumstances of one of the contracting parties as to render it inapplicable. A change of condition, as

that treaties become extinguished ipso facto by war between the two governments unless they should be revived by an express or implied renewal on the return of peace.' Whatever might be the latitude of doctrine laid down by elementary writers on the law of nations dealing in general terms in relation to the subject of private property, the Court was satisfied that there may be treaties of such a nature as to their object and import that war will put an end to them, but where treaties contemplate a permanent arrangement of territorial and other national rights, or which in their terms are meant to provide for the event of an intervening war, it would be against every principle of just interpretation to hold them extinguished by the event of war. 'If such were the law, even the treaty of 1783, so far as it fixed our limits and acknowledged our independence, would be gone, and we should have had again to struggle for both upon original revolutionary principles. Such a construction was never asserted and would be so monstrous as to supersede all reasoning.' In 1830, the Master of the Rolls, in deciding a question on the 37 Geo. III., cap 97, and the treaty of 1794, whether American subjects who held lands in England were to be considered, in respect of such lands, as aliens or subjects of Great Britain, or whether the war of 1812 had determined the treaty, said: "The privileges of natives being reciprocally given not only to the actual possessors of land, but to their heirs and assigns, it is a reasonable construction that it was the intention of the treaty that the operation of the treaty should be permanent, and not depend upon the continuance of a state of peace. (Sutton v. Sutton, 1 R. & M. 663.) 1 Vattel, Droit des Gens, liv. ii. ch. xii. § 176.

1

the partial loss of its sovereignty and independence,—will not, in general, release such a State from obligations already incurred, although it may prevent any new ones from occurring out of the same instrument, the stipulations of which are no longer applicable or obligatory.'

6

§ 37. Treaties of every kind,' says Kent, 'are to receive a fair and liberal interpretation, according to the intention of the contracting parties, and to be kept with the most scrupulous good faith. Their meaning is to be ascertained by the same rules of construction and course of reasoning which we apply to the interpretation of private contracts.' The same general rule is laid down by Wheaton, but he adds: Such is the inevitable imperfection and ambiguity of all human language, that the mere words alone of any writing, literally expounded, will go a very little way toward explaining the meaning. Certain technical rules of interpretation have, therefore, been adopted by writers on ethics and public law, to explain the meaning of international compacts, in cases of doubt.' These rules are most fully expounded by Grotius, Vattel, Rutherforth and Paley. We will give a brief outline of the principles of interpretation, as laid down by these authors.2

§ 38. Grotius has devoted an entire chapter to the interpretation of difficult and ambiguous terms. He sets out with

1 Wheaton, Elem. Int. Law, pt. iii. ch. ii. § 10 ; Phillimore, On Int. Law, vol. i. § 137; Suarez, de Legibus, &c., p. 109; Bello, Derecho Internacional, pt. i. cap. ix. § 3. Alsace, &c., took no part of the great debt of France in 1871.

During the war between Great Britain and the United States, it was enacted by the latter country that all persons who paid debts due to British subjects into the loan office would have a good discharge. When peace was concluded, the treaty provided that 'creditors of either side should meet with no lawful impediments for the recovery of their debts.” It was held by the Supreme Court of the United States that the defendant who had paid his debt to the loan office must, nevertheless, pay it again. That Court considered that in the construction of contracts words are to be taken in their natural and obvious meaning, unless some good reason be assigned to show that they should be understood in a different sense; that the universality of the terms is equal to an express specification on the treaty, and, indeed, includes it. It is fair and conclusive reasoning that if any description of debtors or class of cases were intended to be excepted, it would have been specified. The indefinite and sweeping words made use of by the parties exclude the idea of any class of cases having been intended to be excepted, and explode the doctrine of constructive discrimination. (Ware v. Highton, 3 Dall. R. 199.)

Kent, Com. on Am. Law, vol. i. p. 174; Wheaton, Elem. Int. Law, pt. iii. ch. ii. § 17.

the saying of Cicero, that, 'When you promise, we must consider rather what you mean, than what you say.' But as inward motives are not in themselves discernible, we can determine what they were only from the words used, and conjectures drawn from other parts of the treaty, and from the peculiar circumstances of the particular case. These, he says, must sometimes be considered together, and sometimes separately. Words are not to be strictly construed according to their etymology, but according to their common use, as, Use is the judge, the law, and rule of speech.' Technical words, or terms of art, are to be construed according to their meaning in such art. Conjectures are to be drawn from the subject matter, the effect of the terms used, and the circumstances under which the engagement was entered into. He divides things promised into three classes, favourable, odious, and mixed. Favourable promises are those which carry in them an equality and a common advantage; odious promises are those where the charge and burthen is all on one side; and mixed promises are those which partake of both characters, but in which the favourable predominates. In the first, he says, the words must be taken in their full propriety, as they are generally understood, and if ambiguous, they must be allowed their largest sense. In the second, the words are to be taken in a stricter sense, whether they have reference to the subject matter, time, or circumstances. In the third kind of promises, the words are to be taken according to the character of the particular stipulation in which they occur, or of the particular matter or circumstances to which they refer. These distinctions are particularly commented on by Vattel.'

$ 39. Vattel lays down several maxims for the interpretation of treaties, which may be briefly stated as follows: Ist. It is not allowable to interpret what has no need of interpretation, for when a treaty is conceived in clear and precise terms, and the sense is manifest, and leads to no absurdity, there can be no reason for refusing the sense which is naturally presented and manifest. To go elsewhere in search of conjectures, is to endeavour to elude it. 2nd. If he who could, and ought to have explained himself clearly, has not done so, he cannot be allowed to introduce subsequent restrictions for his own benefit. Pactionem obscuram iis nocere, in quorum

1 Grotius, de fur. Bel. ac Pac., lib. ii. cap. xvi.