These are of the recognition of the independence of Texas. the words of the resolute and patriotic Jackson. They are evidence that the United States, in addition to the test imposed by public law as the condition of the recognition of independence by a neutral state (to wit, that the revolted state shall constitute in fact a body politic, having a government in substance as well as in name, possessed of all the elements of stability,' and forming de facto, 'if left to itself, a state among the nations, reasonably capable of discharging the duties of a state'), has imposed for its own governance in dealing with cases like these the further condition that recognition of independent statehood is not due to a revolted dependency until the danger of its being again subjugated by the parent state has entirely passed away. "This extreme test was, in fact, applied in the case of Texas. The Congress to whom President Jackson referred the question as one 'probably leading to war,' and therefore a proper subject for a previous understanding with that body by whom war can alone be declared and by whom all the provisions for sustaining its perils must be furnished,' left the matter of the recognition of Texas to the discretion of the Executive, providing merely for the sending of a diplomatic agent when the President should be satisfied that the Republic of Texas had become an independent state.' It was so recognized by President Van Buren, who commissioned a chargé d'affaires March 7, 1837, after Mexico had abandoned an attempt to reconquer the Texan territory, and when there was at the time no bona fide contést going on between the insurgent province and its former sovereign. "I said in my message of December last, 'It is to be seriously considered whether the Cuban insurrection possesses beyond dispute the attributes of statehood which alone can demand the recognition of belligerency in its favor.' The same requirement must certainly be no less seriously considered when the graver issue of recognizing independence is in question, for no less positive test can be applied to the greater act than to the lesser; while, on the other hand, the influences and consequences of the struggle upon the internal policy of the recognizing state, which form important factors when the recognition of belligerency is concerned, are secondary, if not rightly eliminable, factors when the real question is whether the community claiming recognition is or is not independent beyond peradventure. "Nor from the standpoint of expediency do I think it would be wise or prudent for this Government to recognize at the present time the independence of the so-called Cuban Republic. Such recognition is not necessary in order to enable the United States to intervene and pacify the island. To commit this country now to the recognition of any particular government in Cuba might subject us to embarrassing conditions of international obligation toward the organization so recognized. In case of intervention our conduct would be subject to the approval or disapproval of such government. We would be require o submit to its direction and to assume to it the mere relation of a friendly ally. "When it shall appear hereafter that there is within the island a government capable of performing the duties and discharging the functions of a separate nation, and having, as a matter of fact, the proper forms and attributes of nationality, such government can be promptly and readily recognized and the relations and interests of the United States with such nation adjusted." President McKinley, special message, April 11, 1898, H. Ex. Doc. 405, 55 Cong. 2 sess., 8-10. "Both the legislative and executive branches of the government concurred in not recognizing the existence of any such government as the Republic of Cuba." (Neely . Henkle (1901), 180 U. S. 109, 125.) The joint resolution of Congress approved April 20, 1898, declaring the people of Cuba to be free and independent, and Joint Resolution, directing the President to use the Army and Navy for April 20, 1898. the purpose of causing the withdrawal of the Government of Spain from the island," is given hereafter in the chapter on "Intervention." The independent government of the Republic of Cuba was formally installed May 19, 1902. 14. RECOGNITION OF EUROPEAN STATES. § 41. By the congress of Vienna Belgium and Holland were united, the Belgic provinces being placed under the sovereignty of Belgium. the King of the Netherlands. In September, 1830, the Belgians declared their independence. October 14, 1831, the plenipotentiaries of Austria, France, Great Britain, Prussia, and Russia, in conference at London, agreed upon twenty-four articles as a basis of a definite arrangement between the two countries. This arrangement was not accepted by the Netherlands, and on November 15, 1831, the plenipotentiaries above mentioned, together with a plenipotentiary of the King of the Belgians, signed at London a treaty by which it was agreed that Belgium should form "an independent and perpetually neutral State." The United States recognized the independence of Belgium by issuing an exequatur to the Belgian consul at New York January 6, 1832. Greece. C September 30, 1825, the British Government issued a proclamation of neutrality with reference to the contest in which the Ottoman Porte and Greece had been for some years past engaged." By a protocol signed at St. Petersburg March 23 a 30 Stat. 738. Hertslet's Map of Europe by Treaty, I. 40, 37, 248. Hertslet, Map of Europe by Treaty, II. 858, 863, 980. The treaty of 1831 was superseded by the treaty of April 19, 1839, id. 979. d Hertslet, Map of Europe by Treaty, I. 731. April 4, 1826, Great Britain and Russia agreed to offer their mediation on the basis of the recognition of Greece as a tributary dependency by the Ottoman Porte." By a treaty signed at London July 6, 1827, Great Britain, France, and Russia agreed to offer their mediation to Turkey on the same basis, and coincidently to make to the contending parties a demand for an immediate armistice, as a preliminary and indispensable condition to the opening of any negotiations. The independence of Greece was further guaranteed by an agreement between the same powers December 12, 1828. Meanwhile war had broken out between Russia and Turkey, and on September 9, 1829, the Porte adhered to the treaty of London of July 6, 1827, and declared that it would subscribe to all the decisions which the London conference should adopt. By Art. IX. of the treaty of peace with Russia signed at Adrianople September 14, 1829, Turkey adhered to the protocol adopted by the London conference on the 22d of the preceding March, by which the independence of Greece was guaranteed, under the suzerainty of the Porte. By a convention signed at London May 7 1832, between Great Britain, France, and Russia on the one part and Bavaria on the other, the former powers, duly authorized for this purpose by the Greek nation," offered the crown of Greece to Prince Frederick Otho of Bavaria, second son of the King of Bavaria, who accepted it in behalf of his son, then a minor. "The undersigned Secretary of State of the United States has the honor to acknowledge the receipt of a note signed by the ministers plenipotentiary of Great Britain, France and Russia dated the 18th of April instant. "By this note the said ministers plenipotentiary are pleased to communicate to the Government of the United States that the courts of Great Britain, France and Russia, contracting parties to the public acts by which Greece has been constituted an independent state, and duly authorized by the Greek nation, have called to the sovereignty of this new state, the Prince Otho of Bavaria, and that this prince has taken the title of King of Greece by virtue of this arrangement, that in pursuance of a convention, signed the 7th of May last, and ratified on the 30th of June following by His Imperial Majesty the Emperor of all the Russias and their Majesties the Kings of Great Britain and of France and by the King of Bavaria, as tutor of his son, the Prince Otho, the three courts by which the said ministers plenipotentiary are accredited to the Government of the United States had engaged to request from other Governments the recognition of Prince Otho as King of Greece and that in accordance with this stipulation, the said a Hertslet, Map of Europe by Treaty, I. 741. b Id. I. 769. c Id. II. 798. d Id. II. 812. Id. II. 804. fld. II. 893. ministers plenipotentiary had received instructions, simultaneously and in common to invite, as by said note they do invite, the Government of the United States to acknowledge the Prince Otho of Bavaria as King of Greece. "This note has been laid before the President of the United States, who has directed the undersigned to inform the ministers plenipotentiary of the said three powers that it has been the principle, and the invariable practice of the United States to recognize that as the legal government of another nation, which, by its establishment in the actual exercise of political power might be supposed to have received the express or implied assent of the people, and that he is therefore happy that the assurance given by the three mediating powers, that they were duly authorized to make the arrangement they announce, by the people of Greece, will enable him on the part of the United States, without departing from their known principles in similar cases, to acknowledge the Prince Otho of Bavaria, as the King of Greece, and to comply with the request of the high mediating powers, on his reception by the people of that country as their sovereign." Mr. Livingston, Sec. of State, to Sir Charles R. Vaughan, Mr. Serurier, and November 7, 1837, the United States formally acknowledged the independence of Greece by empowering Mr. Stevenson, then minister at London, to negotiate with that power a treaty of commerce and navigation. Such a treaty was signed at London December 10/22, 1837, Mr. Tricoupi, then Greek plenipotentiary at that capital, representing the Government of Greece. In 1848 a general parliament met at Palermo, Sicily, which then formed part of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, declared Case of Sicily. the Bourbons dethroned, adopted a constitution, and elected the Duke of Genoa, son of the Sardinian King, as King of Sicily. The consul of the United States at Palermo, on receiving notice of the facts from the minister of foreign affairs of the new Government, at once recognized "the nationality and independence of Sicily on the part of the United States." About a month afterwards the Sicilian minister of foreign affairs wrote to the consul, and, observing that he had seen in the official journal of Naples a notice that the newly appointed consul of the United States at Messina had obtained an exequatur from the Neapolitan Government, stated that "a commission presented to, and rendered executory by, a government foreign to Sicily" could not be of any avail there. The Department of State, when advised of the consul's action, did not immediately answer, since it supposed that his "recognition of the independence of the Sicilian Government, being a mere nullity in itself, would pass away and be forgotten." But when it learned that the minister of foreign affairs of the new Government viewed the matter in a different light, it decided that a longer silence would be improper, and instructed the consul as follows: "It is very true that the Government of the United States has, from its origin, always recognized de facto governments as soon as they have clearly manifested their ability to maintain their independence., We do not go behind the existing government to involve ourselves in the question of legitimacy. "But what authority is to recognize upon the application of these principles to a new government claiming to exist over an island which constituted an integral part of the dominions of a sovereign with whom our relations are of a friendly character? This act of high sovereign power certainly can not, without instructions, be performed by a consul, whose functions are purely commercial; and he ought never under any conceivable circumstances to assume such a high responsibility." Mr. Buchanan, Sec. of State, to Mr. Marston, consul at Palermo, Oct. 31, 1848, 10 MS. Desp. to consuls, 489; replying to dispatches of Mr. Marston of July 11, and Aug. 28, 1848, 2 MS. Consular Letters, Palermo, 1839-1849. "My purpose, as freely avowed in this correspondence, was to have acknowledged the independence of Hungary had she Case of Hungary. succeeded in establishing a government de facto on a basis sufficiently permanent in its character to have justified me in doing so, according to the usages and settled principles of this Government; and although she is now fallen, and many of her gallant patriots are in exile or in chains, I am free still to declare that had she been successful in the maintenance of such a government as we could have recognized, we should have been the first to welcome her into the family of nations." President Taylor, special message, Mar. 28, 1850. "In the course of the year 1848 and the early part of 1849 a considerable number of Hungarians came to the United States. Among them were individuals representing themselves to be in the confidence of the revolutionary government, and by these persons the President was strongly urged to recognize the existence of that government. In these applications, and in the manner in which they were viewed by the President, there was nothing unusual; still less was there anything unauthorized by the law of nations. It is the right of every independent state to enter into friendly relations with every other independent state. Of course, questions of prudence naturally arise in reference to new states brought by successful revolutions into the H. Doc. 551-8 |