Doubtless the courts of every civilized nation recognize
and apply both the law of nature and the law of nations, but only
on the ground that they are included, or are presumed to be
included, in the national law, or jurisprudence. Doubtless, too,
the nation holds from God, under the law of nature, but only by
virtue of the fact that it is a nation; and when it is a nation
dependent on no other, it holds from God all the rights and
powers of any independent sovereign nation. There is no right
behind the fact needed to legalize the fact, or to put the nation
that is in fact a nation in possession of full national rights.
In the case of a new nation, or people, lately an integral part
of another people, or subject to another people@ the right of the
prior sovereign must be extinguished indeed, but the extinction
of that right is necessary to complete the fact, which otherwise
would be only an initial, inchoate fact, not a fait accompli.
But that right ceases when its claimant, willingly or
unwillingly, formally or virtually, abandons it; and he does so
when he practically abandons the struggle, and shows no ability
or intention of soon renewing it with any reasonable prospect of
success.
The notion of right, independent of the fact as applied to
sovereignty, is founded in error. Empty titles to states and
kingdoms are of no validity.
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