their sovereignty. Treaties of unequal alliance, guarantee, mediation, and protection, may have the effect of limiting and qualifying the sovereignty according to the stipulations of the treaties. sovereign § 34. States which are thus dependent on other States, Semiin respect to the exercise of certain rights, essential to States. the perfect external sovereignty, have been termed semi-sovereign States. (a) Cracow. Thus the city of Cracow, in Poland, with its territory, City of was declared by the Congress of Vienna to be a perpetually free, independent, and neutral State, under the protection of Russia, Austria, and Prussia. (b) By the final act of the Congress of Vienna, Art. 9, the three great powers, Austria, Russia, and Prussia, mutually engaged to respect, and cause to be respected, at all times, the neutrality of the free city of Cracow and its territory; and they further declared that no armed force should ever be introduced into it under any pretext whatever. It was at the same time reciprocally understood and expressly stipulated that no asylum or protection should be granted in the free city or upon the territory of Cracow to fugitives from justice, or deserters from the dominions of either of the said high powers, and that upon a demand of extradition being made by the competent authorities, such individuals should be arrested and delivered up without delay under sufficient escort to the guard charged to receive them at the frontier. (c) United Ionian Isl § 35. By the convention concluded at Paris on the 5th of November, 1815, between Austria, Great Britain, Prus- States of the sia, and Russia, it is declared (Art. 1,) that the islands ands. of Corfu, Cephalonia, Zante, St. Maura, Ithaca, Cerigo, and Paxo, with their dependencies, shall form a single, free, and independent State; under the denomination of the United States of the Ionian Islands. The second article provides that this State shall be placed under the immediate and exclusive protection of His (a) Klüber, Droit des Gens Moderne de l'Europe, § 24. Heffter, Das europäische Völkerrecht, § 19. (b) Acte du Congrès de Vienne du 9 Juin, 1815, arts. 6, 9, 10. (c) Martens, Nouveau Recueil, tom. ii. 386. Klüber, Acten des Wiener Congresses, Band V. § 138. By a Convention signed at Vienna, Nov. 6, 1846, between Russia, Austria, and Prussia, the city of Cracow was annexed to the Empire of Austria. The governments of Great Britain, France, and Sweden protested against this proceeding as a violation of the Federal act of 1815. Majesty the King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, his heirs and successors. By the third article it is provided that the United States of the Ionian Islands shall regulate, with the approbation of the protecting power, their interior organization and to give all parts of this organization the consistency and necessary action, His Britannic Majesty will devote particular attention to the legislation and general administration of those States. He will appoint a Lord High Commissioner who shall be invested with the necessary authority for this purpose. The fourth article declares, that, in order to carry into effect without delay these stipulations, the Lord High Commissioner shall regulate the forms of convoking a legislative assembly, of which he shall direct the operations, in order to frame a new constitutional charter for the State, to be ratified by His Britannic Majesty. The fifth article stipulates, that, in order to secure to the inhabitants of the United States of the Ionian Islands the advantages resulting from the high protection under which they are placed, as well as for the exercise of the rights incident to this protection, His Britannic Majesty shall have the right of occupying and garrisoning the fortresses and places of the said States. Their military forces shall be under the orders of the commander of the troops of His Britannic Majesty. The sixth article provides that a special convention with the government of the United States of the Ionian Islands shall regulate, according to their revenues, the object relating to the maintenance of the fortresses and the payment of the British garrisons, and their numbers in the time of peace. The same convention shall also ascertain the relations which are to subsist between this armed force and the Ionian government. The seventh article declares that the merchant flag of the Ionian Islands shall bear, together with the colors and arms it bore previous to 1807, those which His Britannic Majesty may grant as a sign of the protection under which the United Ionian States are placed; and to give more weight to this protection, all the Ionian ports are declared, as to honorary and military rights, to be under the British jurisdiction, commercial agents only, or consuls charged only with the care of commercial relations, shall be accredited to the United States of the Ionian Islands; and they shall be subject to the same regulations to which consuls and commercial agents are subject in other independent States. (a) (a) Martens, Nouveau Recueil, tom. ii. 663. On comparing this act with the stipulations of the treaty of Vienna relating to the Republic of Cracow, a material distinction will be perceived between the nature of the respective sovereignty granted to each of these two States. The "free, independent, and strictly neutral city of Cracow" is completely sovereign, though under the protection of Austria, Prussia, and Russia; whilst the Ionian Islands, although they are to form "a single free and independent State," under the protection of Great Britain, are closely connected with the protecting power both by the treaty itself and by the constitution framed in pursuance of its stipulations, in such a manner as materially to abridge both its internal and external sovereignty. In practice, the United States of the Ionian Islands are not only constantly obedient to the commands of the protecting power, but they are governed as a British colony by a Lord High Commissioner named by the British crown, who exercises the entire executive, and participates in the legislative power with the Senate and legislative Assembly, under the constitution of the State. (6) 20 § 36. Besides the free city of Cracow and the United States. of the Ionian Islands, several other semi-sovereign or dependent States are recognized by the existing public law of Europe. These are: 1. The Principalities of Moldavia, Wallachia, and Servia, under the suzeraineté of the Ottoman Porte and the protectorate of Russia, as defined by the successive treaties between these two powers, confirmed by the treaty of Adrianople, 1829. (a) 21 (b) Martens, Précis, du Droit des Gens, liv. i. ch. 2, § 20, note a, 3me édition. (a) Wheaton's Hist. of the Law of Nations, 556–560. [During the Crimean war, the British courts held that the Ionian Islands were not parties, not being so made by Great Britain; and that their vessels were not forbidden to trade in Russian ports. The Leucade, Jurist, i. 549. In 1864, the protectorate of Great Britain over the Ionian Republic was withdrawn, and those islands united to the kingdom of Greece. This was effected by the course described in the speech of the Queen of Great Britain to Parliament, in that year: "Her Majesty having addressed herself to the powers who were contracting parties to the treaty by which the Ionian Republic was placed under the protectorate of Great Britain, and having obtained their consent to the annexation of that republic to the kingdom of Greece, and the States of the Ionian Republic having agreed thereto, the republic of the seven islands has been formally united to the kingdom of Greece; and Her Majesty trusts that the union so made will conduce to the welfare and prosperity of all the subjects of His Majesty the King of the Hellenes."] — D. [ The result of various changes in the condition of the principalities is, that, in 2. The Principality of Monaco, which had been under the Protectorate of France from 1641 until the French Revolution, was replaced under the same protection by the treaty of Paris, 1814, art. 3, for which was substituted that of Sardinia by the treaty of Paris, 1815, art. 1. (b) 22 3. The Republic of Polizza in Dalmatia under the Protectorate of Austria. (c) 23 4. The former Germanic Empire was composed of a great number of States, which, although enjoying what was called territorial superiority, (Landeshoheit,) could not be considered as completely sovereign, on account of their subjection to the legislative and judicial power of the emperor and the empire. These have all been absorbed in the sovereignty of the States composing the present Germanic Confederation, with the exception of the Lordship of Kniphausen, on the North Sea, which still retains its former feudal relation to the Grand Duchy of Oldenburgh, and may, therefore, be considered as a semi-sovereign State. (d) 5. Egypt had been held by the Ottoman Porte, during the dominion of the Mamelukes, rather as a vassal State than as a subject province. The attempts of Mehemet Ali, after the de 1861, Moldavia and Wallachia were formed into one province, under the name of Roumania, or, more commonly, Moldo-Wallachia, with one legislature and one hospodar. The united legislature met in February, 1862. The suzeraineté of Turkey continues, and the principalities are guarantied their privileges and immunities by the parties to the convention of 19th August, 1858, and the treaty of Paris of 30th March, 1856. Almanach de Gotha, 1862, 962, 966. Annuaire des deux Mondes, 1858, pp. 3, 689; 1859, p. 6-12; 1861, p. 560. As to Servia, it was settled by the treaty of Paris of 1856, that it should be under the suzeraineté of the Porte, but with an hereditary prince, whose authority and the rights and immunities of the Servians are under the guaranty of the parties to the treaty. Almanach de Gotha, 1861, p. 884. After the campaign of 1862, Turkey insisted on her sovereign rights over Montenegro, and provided, by a convention to which the prince was compelled to agree, that Turkish garrisons should be received in the country. The convention recognizes the suzeraineté of the Porte. Russia remonstrated against these terms, but England declined to interfere. Lord Russell to the English Ambassador at St. Petersburg, Sept. 30, 1862. Prince Gortschakoff to Baron Brunow, 28 Sept., 1862.] — D. [22 Sardinia had included the communes of Monaco in Nice; and, when Nice was ceded by Italy to France, the Prince of Monaco, by treaty of 2 Feb., 1861, ceded his little territory, except the city, to France, for a pecuniary indemnity.] — D. [28 Heffter, Das europ. Völkerrecht, § 20, note.] -D. (b) Martens, Nouveau Recueil, tom. ii. pp. 5, 687. (c) Martens, Précis du Droit des Gens, liv. i. chap. 2, § 20. (d) Heffter, Das europ. Völkerrecht, § 19. struction of the Mamelukes, to convert his title as a prince-vassal into absolute independence of the Sultan, and even to extend his sway over other adjoining provinces of the empire, produced the convention concluded at London the 15th July, 1840, between four of the great European powers,- Austria, Great Britain, Prussia, and Russia, to which the Ottoman Porte acceded. In consequence of the measures subsequently taken by the contracting parties for the execution of this treaty, the hereditary Pachalick of Egypt was finally vested by the Porte in Mehemet Ali, and his lineal descendants, on the payment of an annual tribute to the Sultan, as his suzerain. All the treaties and all the laws of the Ottoman Empire were to be applicable to Egypt, in the same manner as to other parts of the empire. But the Sultan consented that, on condition of the regular payment of this tribute, the Pacha should collect, in the name and as the delegate of the Sultan, the taxes and imposts legally established, it being, moreover, understood that the Pacha should defray all the expenses of the civil and military administration; and that the military and naval force maintained by him should always be considered as maintained for the service of the State. (e) and vassal § 37. Tributary States, and States having a feudal rela- Tributary tion to each other, are still considered as sovereign, so far States. as their sovereignty is not affected by this relation. Thus, it is evident that the tribute, formerly paid by the principal maritime powers of Europe to the Barbary States, did not at all affect the sovereignty and independence of the former. So also the King of Naples had been a nominal vassal of the Papal See, ever since the eleventh century; but this feudal dependence, abolished in 1818, was never considered as impairing the sovereignty of the kingdom of Naples. (a) Relations between the The political relations between the Ottoman Porte and the Barbary States are of a very anomalous character. Ottoman Their occasional obedience to the commands of the Sul- Porte and the Barbary tan, accompanied with the irregular payment of tribute, States. does not prevent them from being considered by the Christian powers of Europe and America as independent States, with whom the international relations of war and peace are maintained, on the same footing as with other Mohammedan sovereignties. During (e) Wheaton, Hist. Law of Nations, 572-583. |