BOOKS.
EUROPEAN JURIBPRUDEXCE.1 Tax book of Hugo Grotius, says the illustrionceuthor of the cog-. nate work which we propose to review, introduced into the coun- cils of monarchs and into -their battlefields some precepts of
maxims of justice and humanity, which, before his time, were overborne and nullified by the vehemence of passion or the so- phistry of antiquated or erroneous doctrines. A similar service may possibly be promoted by the distinguished critic's own eluci- dation of the New Law of European States.
Terenzio Mamiani, we may remind our readers, possesses "one of the fairest Italian reputations of our time." This last direct descendant of the ancient house, Della Itovere was born about sixty years ago at Pesaro, in the Romagna, then "included in the kingdom of Italy, constructed by the wild genius of the first Napoleon." In the insurrection of the Roman legation of 1831, Mamiani played a leading part. Escaping, from a port on the Adriatic coast, after his refusal to sign the capitulation of Ancona and his special exemption from the ensuing amnesty, he was captured, with the rest of the party, by an Austrian cruiser, and suffered. nine months captivity at Venice. Subsequently, Mamiani one eta brilliant circle of Italian scholars and philosophers, re- sided. for fifteen years at Paris. On the proclamation of the amnesty of Pius IX., he was invited to return to the Roman states.; an unconditional resumption of citizenship being, at his awn instance, eventually accorded. When .a parliamentary con- stitution was established, Mamiani was appointed President of the Council of Ministers. His conduct in office was wise and virtuous. He endeavoured to preserve constitutional government ; to recon struct the. Italian league against Austria ; and retrieve the liber- ties of the Peninsula. He protested against the French interven- tion proposed, says Mr. Acton, by Cavaignac, but erroneously as- eribecl to the President (Louis Napoleon), though he oven before his election had publicly disapproved it. Since the subversion of Roman independence, and the fall of Sicily and Venice, "Count Mamiam, like Farini, has pursued a career of honourable usefulness in Piedmont." As founder of the Academy. of Genoa, as Professor of Modern History in the University of Turin, as Member of the Chamber of Deputies, and since January of the present year,. as Minister of Public Instruction, Mamiani has constantly exhibited a high-minded patriotism and an admirable sagacity. Among his many valuable services we must number the compo- sition of a treatise entitled D'un Nuovo Diritto Europeo pub- lished four months ago, at Turin, and of which an English trans- lation is now offered us by Mr. Acton, under the designation of Rights of Nations, or New Law of European States. This valuable essay reminds us of two other masterly treatises, con- ceived in a common spirit ; Mr. J. S. Mill's Liberty, and William Humboldt's Sphere and Duties of Government. Mamiani, like his two predecessors, proclaims as a cardinal principle the right of free and spontaneous growth, applying to states and nations the doctrine of individualism. There is, he conceives, a science of international law, conformable to the highest requisitions of morality and reason. He attempts to elicit at least the elements of this science, ratiocinatively and historically, but rather it may be by a speculative or eclectic than a strictly scientific process.
Preferring, however, exposition to critical comment, we pro- ceed to give some account of a book which abounds with noble thoughts, sound conclusions, and luminous indications, on the subject of European law and which has therefore very great merit, even if it should be considered not to fulfil the conditions of rigorously scientific investigation. The province of international law is by Mamiani defined to be the determination of the social and political bearings between state and state, and of the moral and juridical rule for valuing, limiting, and characterizing these mutual relations. Continual progress towards the perfection of individuals and the community is the.true social end. This community is called a state, and a state is an individual member of the great
is universal common- wealth, of the human race. A state s partly an artificial and partly a human structure. It is a moral entity ; and may be 3.e,scribed as an association of families, dwelling under a certain zenith and within certain frontiers and intending to attain, by assiduous cooperation, the ultimate degree of social conjunction and reciprocity. Material unity of persons and habitations does not constitute a state, but spontaneous concurrence of thoughts and wills—in a word, moral unity. Hence, we may say that the state is always intrinsically autonomous or self-ruling ; that there ought to be no states dependent on others, and yet exhibit- ing amoral and political duplicity ; that leagues and confedera- tions, which mechanically or violently maintain a multiplicity of states., violate the ethical state-personality ; that a moral con- junction, however, of the constituent parts of a nation is possible, even though each part, accidentally and temporarily, has its own separate system of self-rule ; and that the process of aggregation, while admitting of many gradations and- successive transforma- tions, can never legally forego the essential characteristic of all action,—peculiar and complete spontaneousness.
Count Mamiani, as may be supposed, repudiates the maxims which the treaties of the Congress of Vienna either express or
* Rights of Nations; or the New Law of European States Applied to the Affairs of Italy. By Count Mamiani. Translated from the Italian, and edited, with the Author's additions and corrections, by Roger Acton. Published by W. Jeffs. apply, or leave to be inferred, contrasting with them the leading maxims of the new law of Europe, the result of the growth of public: opinion ; the common suggestions of an universal moral in- . tuition and of his own philosophical elaboration. In opposition ' to the. Viennese doctrineof absolute monarchical power he pro- claims the absolute sovereignty of reason and justice, and its li- mited exercise bya national aristocracy of knowledge and virtue. In opposition to-the seltool of legitimacy, he desires the identity. of monarchy with the stale; the right of isprince,to.call in the aid of foreign arms against his own subjects; to grant or revoke po- pular liberty arbitrarily ;. to: exchange provinces with a fellow potentate, by independent compact, and without. oonsent of the inhabitants ; to have a plurality of crowns ; to defeat a. juridical principle by pleading.the legality, of treaties; to prohibit popular appeal to diplomacy against oppression ; to govern, if a protes- tant, the Reformed Church, at his own discretion; or, if a Catholic, to make concordats with Rome, injurious to the state, or repres- sive of the national and spiritual liberty of his people ; and lastly he denies that the affairs of all Europe, and the whole European faw, are to ho maintained, and modified by the.Penterchy or five great powers. In opposition to the edicts.of the Vienna system of law, he asserts that government to be legitimate which has the consent of the governed, and. which competently satisfies the pro- gressive, aim of-society. ; he maintains that the state is not identical with its head, but that it is the nation which ought to be repre- sented at foreign courts and in congresses ; that the inward li- berty or self-rule of the peoples, is subject to no limits, but those prescribed by morality or political wisdom ; that the principle of non-intervention is without any exception to be maintained ; that civil communities are to compose, enlarge, anddissolve themselves, in accordance with the right of spontaneousness and nationality.; that the open and,genuine consent of the inhabitants is requisite for any change or cession.of territory ; that fidelity to treaties is due when they do not oonflict with the eternal rules of justice ; that in framing them the concurrence of all the interested states is required ; that every people which. is not officially represented is yet, by the title of. humanity and by virtue of the moral sonti-. ment, possessed of an incontrovertible right of legitimate appeal and just relief ; and, finally, that though allied in spirit and inten- tion, the State and-Church are quite separate in their functions and authority.
Such is a succinct abstract of Count. Mamiani's principal theorems and deductions. It will be observed that one important result is the speculative establishment of the rule of non- intervention. To be a legitimate principle of morality, however,
(we recall the words of Mr. this doctrine of non-interven- tion must be accepted by all governments. Till then, " interven- tion to enforce non-intervention is always rightful, always moral, if not always prudent."
But to quit the theoretic for the practical point of view. The principle of a progressive development of the law of national sovereignty receives, in the present day) an emphatic and
magnificent illustration; in the recent series of social and political events in the country, to whose affairs the author of The Rights of Nations has especially applied the " new law of European States." Great. Britain appears on the whole to have consistently cultivated the polioy of non-intervention ; and has given a signal proof of her adhesion to the principle, in the course which she has adopted in regard to Italy, withholding," in the words of the Queen's principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, "her assent to any measures for intervention by force to regulate the internal government of Italian States, and by using her influence to maintain and consolidate any regular and orderly governments which the Italians may form. for themselves:" England has ever had affinities with " picturesque and melodious Italy," the land whose art inspired or influenced the song of Chaucer, Spenser; Shakspeare,Byron Shelley, and Leigh Hunt. We trust that Europe may have already entered on a wiser and nobler ca- reer, and that without prejudice to the just interests of their sister. states, England with her. vigorous common sense and. indus- trial energy, France with her logical enthusiasms and chivalrous courtesies, and Italy, with her clear intelligence and love of art, may rise together to a heroic sense of their high national des- tinies, and to a.noble determination to fulfil...their imperial duties as the more responsible members, of the universal commonwealth of humanity.
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