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Civitas Maxima: Wolff, Vattel and the Fate of Republicanism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 February 2017

Nicholas Greenwood Onuf
Nicholas Greenwood Onuf*
Affiliation:
School of International Service, American University
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Extract

For more than two decades, historians of the United States have energetically debated the relative importance of liberalism and republicanism in the 1770s and 1780s. Was the late eighteenth century a time of progress, and events culminating in the ratification of the Constitution a triumph for individual rights and liberal society, as convention held? Or was it a time of decay, and the events of the founding a renewal of citizen virtue in defense of the common good? Political theorists and constitutional scholars joined the debate, extending it beyond the founding and noting its relevance to our own time. Everyone agreed that liberalism eventually prevailed, more or less completely, for better or for worse. Just when it did so, and why, were questions always asked but never satisfactorily answered as the debate ran its course.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Journal of International Law , Volume 88 , Issue 2 , April 1994 , pp. 280 - 303
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of International Law 1994

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References

1 See Peter S. Onuf, Reflections on the Founding: Constitutional Historiography in Bicentennial Perspective, 46 Wm. & Mary Q. (3d ser.) 341, 350–56 (1989); Daniel T. Rodgers, Republicanism: The Career of a Concept, 79 J. Am. Hist. 11, 12–19 (1992), for useful summaries.

2 The master statement of the conventional view is Louis Hartz, The Liberal Tradition in America: An Interpretation of American Political Thought Since the Revolution (1955). For the republican view, see Bernard Bailyn, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (1967); Gordon S. Wood, The Creation of the American Republic, 1776–1787 (1969); J. G. A. Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition (1975). For liberal responses, see Joyce Appleby, Capitalism and a New Social Order: The Republican Vision of the 1790s (1984); John Patrick Diggins, The Lost Soul of American Politics: Virtue, Self-Interest and the Foundations of Liberalism (1984); Joyce Appleby, Liberalism and Republicanism in the Historical Imagination (1992).

3 As to political theory, see Michael Lienesch, New Order of the Ages: Time, the Constitution, and the Making of Modern American Political Thought (1988); Thomas L. Pangle, The Spirit of Modern Republicanism: The Moral Vision of the American Founders and the Philosophy of Locke (1988); Conceptual Change and the Constitution (Terence Ball & J. G. A. Pocock eds., 1988). For the debate among constitutional legal scholars, see Richard H. Fallon, Jr., What Is Republicanism, and Is It Worth Reviving?, 102 Harv. L. Rev. 1695 (1989), and material there cited.

4 Rodgers, supra note 1, at 11. See id. on the whole story.

5 Indicatively, Anne-Marie Slaughter Burley recently reviewed the state of theoretical scholarship without mentioning republicanism, in International Law and International Relations Theory: A Dual Agenda, 87 AJIL 205 (1993).

6 See id. at 225–35 for implicit acknowledgment of the boundary's regulatory function. This follows an attack on claims that the boundary between the two spheres is impermeable and precedes a brief consideration of its integrity.

7 Pocock, supra note 2, at 505.

8 See, e.g., D. H. L. von Ompteda, Litteratur des Gesammelten sowohl natürlichen als positiven Völkerrechts (Regensberg, J. L. Montags sel. Erben 1785), reported by Otfried Nippold, Introduction (Francis J. Hemelt trans.) to 2 Christian Wolff, Jus gentium methodo scientifica pertractatum, at xli–xlii (Joseph H. Drake trans., Carnegie ed. 1934) (1764); Jean Pierre Chambrier d'Oleires, Note to 1838 ed., in 1 Emmerich de Vattel, Le Droit des gens ou principes de la loi naturelle appliqués à la conduite et aux affaires des nations et des douverains 59–63 (M. P. Pradier-Fodéré ed., Paris, Guillaumin 1863); Henry Wheaton, History of the Law of Nations in Europe and America 178–79, 185–86 (1845) [hereinafter HISTORY], repeated in Henry Wheaton, Elements of International Law 10–12 (George G. Wilson ed., Carnegie ed. 1936) (Richard Henry Dana, Jr., ed., 1866); Carl von Kaltenborn und Strachau, Kritik des Völkerrechts nach dem jetzigen Standpunkte der Wissenschaft (Leipzig, G. Mayer 1847), also reported in Nippold, supra, at xliv; A. Mallarmé, Emerde Vattel, in Les Fondateurs du droit International 481, 504, 589–92 (A. Pillet ed., 1904); 1 Lassa Oppenheim, International Law 86 (1905); id. at 98 (Hersch Lauter-pacht ed., 8th ed. 1955); Coleman Phillipson, Emmerich de Vattel, in Great Jurists of the World 477, 493 (John MacDonell & Edward Manson eds., 1914); Albert Lapradelle, Introduction to 3 Emmerich de Vattel, The Law of Nations or The Principles of Natural Law Applied to the Conduct and the Affairs of Nations and of Sovereigns, at xxv (Charles G. Fenwick trans., Carnegie ed. 1916) (1758) [hereinafter The Law]; Nippold, supra, at xl–xlv (written 1917); Edwin De Witt Dickinson, The Equality of States in International Law 97 (1920); J. Kosters, Les Fondements du droit des gens: Contribution à la théorie générate du droit des gens, 4 Bibliotheca Visserlana 1, 73 (1925); P. E. Corbett, Law and Society in the Relations of States 30 (1951); Arthur Nussbaum, A Concise History of the Law of Nations 153–54, 158 (rev. ed. 1954); 2 Theodore Ruyssen, Les Sources doctrinales de l'internationalisme 504–11 (1958); Charles De Visscher, Theory and Reality in Public International Law 20 (P. E. Corbett trans., rev. ed. 1968 from French ed. 1960); Peter Pavel Remec, The Position of the Individual in International Law According to Grotius and Vattel 144, 190–91 (1960); F. H. Hinsley, Power and the Pursuit of Peace: Theory and Practice in the History of Relations between States 167 (1963); F. H. Hinsley, Sovereignty 192–94 (1966); E. B. F. Midgley, The Natural Law Tradition and the Theory of International Relations 180–85 (1975); Francis Stephen Ruddy, International Law in the Enlightenment 70–71, 101 (1975); Manfred Lachs, The Teacher in International Law (Teachings and Teaching) 58–59 (1982); Andrew Linklater, Men and Citizens in the Theory of International Relations 94, 213–14 n.16 (1982); Julius Stone, Visions of World Order 86 (1984); Martti Koskenniemi, From Apology to Utopia 90–91 (1989); Martin Wight, International Theory 41 (Gabriele Wight & Brian Porter eds., 1992). Drawn mostly from English-language materials, this chronologically arranged list is illustrative, not exhaustive.

9 For a bibliography that includes a number of obscure items, see Marcel Thomann, Introduction to Christian Wolff, Jus Gentium, 25 Christian Wolff Gesammelte Werke, at vii, lvii–viii (Marcel Thomann ed., 1972) (1749) [hereinafter Werke].

10 Thomann, supra note 9; Christian Wolff, Institutiones juris naturae et gentium, 26 Werke, supra note 9, §1090, at 680–82 (Marcel Thomann ed., 1969). Hereinafter I refer to the photo-reprinted 1764 edition for the Latin text of Wolff's treatise, because it was used for the English translation, supra note 8, and is more widely available in the United States than the photo-reprint of the 1749 edition, supra note 9. 1 Christian Wolff, Jus Gentium Methodo scientifica pertractatum (Carnegie ed. 1934) (1764) [hereinafter Jus Gentium].

11 2 Emmerich de Vattel, Le Droit des gens ou principes de la loi naturelle appliqués à la conduite et aux affaires des nations et des souverains, bk. III, ch. iii, §47, at 39 (Carnegie ed., 2 vols. 1916) (1758). Hereinafter I use this edition in preference to the 1863 edition, supra note 8, for the French text.

12 I tell this story in an as yet unpublished essay entitled “Imagined Republics.”

13 James Tully, Editor's Introduction to Samuel Pufendorf, On the Duty of Man and Citizen, at xvii (James Tully ed. & Michael Silverstone trans., 1991) (1673).

14 Id., in reference specifically to Pufendorf.

15 2 Wolff, supra note 8.

16 Vattel, The Law, supra note 8, at 8a (preface).

17 Wolff, Jus Gentium, supra note 10, at 9–19.

18 Somewhat confusingly, §22 and its commentary also hold that the voluntary law of nations derives “from the concept of the supreme state,” the commentary adding, “so that it is not necessary to rely by blind impulse on the deeds and customs and decisions of the more civilized nations.” Wolff had earlier (commentary, §§10, 15) castigated Grotius and everyone else for failing to derive the voluntary law of nations from such a notion.

19 One is Midgley, supra note 8, at 180.

20 1 Alphonse Rivier, Principes du droit des gens 9 (Paris, A. Rousseau 1896); Louis Olive, Wolff, in Les Fondateurs du droit International, supra note 8, at 447, 459.

21 Corbett, Ruysssen, Ruddy, all supra note 8.

22 Chambrier d'Oleires, Wheaton, History, Nippold (Staatengesellschaft), Ruddy (again), supra note 8.

23 1 Vattel, supra note 11, at xvii; Ompteda, Wheaton, History (again), Mallarmé, Phillipson, supra note 8.

24 Wheaton, History (yet again), supra note 8.

25 Kaltenborn (Völkerrechtsgemeinschaft), Kosters, supra note 8.

26 Phillipson (again), supra note 8.

27 Stone, supra note 8.

28 Thomann, supra note 9, at xxxvii–viii.

29 J.-L. Kluber, Droit des gens Moderne de l'Europe 18 (M. A. Ott ed., Paris, Guillaumin 1861); Oppenheim, both eds. supra note 8, at pp. there cited; Hersch Lauterpacht, The Nature of International Law and General Jurisprudence (1932), in 2 International Law, Being the Collected Papers of Hersch Lauterpacht, pt. 1 at 3, 17 (Elihu Lauterpacht ed., 1975); Walter Schiffer, The Legal Community of Mankind 73 (1954); C. Wilfred Jenks, The Common Law of Mankind 68 (1958); Thomann (again), supra note 9, at xxxvi–viii.

30 The Politics of Aristotle, bk. I, ch. i, §1 (1252a), at 1 (Ernest Barker trans., 1946) [hereinafter Aristotle].

31 Id., ch. ii, §8 (1252b), at 4.

32 The Politics of Johannes Althusius 35–37 (Frederick S. Carney trans., 1964) (3d ed. 1614) [hereinafter Althusius]. See infra text at notes 45, 80, on “republic” and its relation to “city” in Althusius's system.

33 “Unio autem sic facta, appellatur civitas, sive societas civilis, atque etiam persona civilis … .” Thomas Hobbes, De cive, The Latin Version, bk. V, ch. ix, at 134 (Howard Warrender ed., 1983) (ms. & 1st ed. 1641; & 2 eds. 1647). The same passage in the first English edition (1651) reads: “Now union thus made is called a City, or civill society, and also a civill Person … .” De Cive, The English Version 89 (Howard Warrender ed., 1983). On Hobbes's likely participation in this translation, see Editor's Introduction, id. at 4–8.

34 John Locke, Two Treatises of Government, Second Treatise §89, at 325 (Peter Laslett ed., 1988) (1713).

35 Id. §6, at 270–71. See also §§89, 95, at 325, 330–31. On Vattel's use of the term “civil society,” see text after note 110 infra.

36 For overviews, see Adam Seligman, The Idea of Civil Society (1992); Jean L. Cohen & Andrew Arato, Civil Society and Political Theory (1992). Harvey C Mansfield, Jr., attributed the distinction between state and civil society to Hobbes, but I find no evidence to support this conclusion in at least literal terms. Prefigured in Hobbes's position, it may be understood as Hobbesian. See Harvey C. Mansfield, Jr., On the Impersonality of the Modern State: A Comment on Machiavelli's Use of Stato, 77 Am. Pol. Sci. Rev. 849, 856 (1983).

37 Cf. Leo Strauss, The City and Man 30 (1964).

38 Cicero, The Republic, in De re publica, De legibus (Clinton Walker Keyes trans., 1928).

39 Cecil Nathan Sidney Woolf, Bartolus of Sassoferrato: His Position in the History of Medieval Political Thought 115–18 (1913). See also 1 Quentin Skinner, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, The Renaissance 8–12 (1978), on Bartolus and “the City Republics or civitates” in relation to the empire.

40 Consider the opening words of The Prince: “All states [Tutti gli stati], all dominions that have held and do hold empire over men have been and are either republics or principalities.” Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince 61 (Harvey C. Mansfield, Jr., trans., 1985) (n.d.) (ed. note omitted), and Il Principe 11 (Bettino Craxis ed., 1986).

41 See Jean Bodin, The Six Bookes of a Commonweale (Eng. trans. 1606, corrected by Kenneth D. McRae 1962). In Appendix B, McRae provides both the French and the Latin terminology Bodin used for key concepts. “Republic” is defined at A74, forms of rule at A76.

42 Althusius, supra note 32, at 61.

43 Id.

44 Bodin, supra note 41, at A75. See generally Nicholas Greenwood Onuf, Sovereignty: Outline of a Conceptual History, 16 Alternatives 425 (1991).

45 Althusius, supra note 32, at 64–69. See also Otto Gierke, The Development of Political Theory 154–63 (Bernard Freyd trans., 1939) (1880).

46 Gierke, supra note 45, at 143–54; Otto Friedrich von Gierke, Political Theories of the Middle Age 37–61 (Frederic William Maitland trans., 1938) (1881); 2 Skinner, supra note 39, The Age of the Reformation 332–48; Brian Tierney, Religion, Law and the Growth of Constitutional Thought 1150–1650, at 54–79 (1982).

47 Gierke, supra note 46, at 38.

48 Cf. Harold D. Lasswell & Abraham Kaplan, Power and Society: A Framework for Political Inquiry 231 (1950).

49 Bodin, supra note 41, at 50.

50 Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, bk. II, ch. xvii, at 227 (C. B. Macpherson ed., 1968) (1651). Cf. id. at 81 (Hobbes's introduction) (“For by Art is created that great LEVIATHAN called a COMMONWEALTH, or STATE (in latine CIVITAS) which is but an Artificiall Man …”).

51 Locke, supra note 34, §133, at 355.

52 1 Skinner, supra note 39, at xxiii.

53 Ferdinand Tönnies, Community and Society [Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft] (Charles P. Loomis trans. & ed., 1963) (1887).

54 Richard Hooker, Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, preface, bk. I, bk. VIII (Arthur Stephen McGrade ed., 1989) (1593 in part, & later mss.).

55 See, e.g., Locke, supra note 34, §§112, 116, at 344–45.

56 Henry Sidgwick, The Development of European Polity 1 (1903); Lasswell & Kaplan, supra note 48, at 214–16.

57 Cf. J. H. Hexter, The Vision of Politics on the Eve of the Reformation: More, Machiavelli, Seysell 150–72 (1957); 2 Skinner, supra note 46, at 353–54; Mansfield, supra note 36.

58 Hexter, supra note 57, at 171 & 192. Nor does The Prince employ generic alternatives to “lo stato.” This is in marked contrast to The Discourses, which of course reflects Machiavelli's republican concerns for the body politic. Id. at 170.

59 Mansfield, supra note 36, at 855–56.

60 Id.; 1 Skinner, supra note 39, at ix–x; 2 id., supra note 46, at 349–58.

61 1 Samuel Pufendorf, De Jure Naturae et gentium libri Octo, bk. VII, at 646-771 passim (Carnegie ed. 1934) (1688).

62 In a well-known passage, Rousseau held that the social contract

produces a moral and collective body … which receives from this same act its unity, its common self, its life and its will. This public person … formerly took the name city, and at present takes the name republic or body politic, which is called state by its members when it is passive, sovereign when it is active, power when compared to others like itself.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, On the Social Contract, bk. I, ch. vi, at 24–25 (Donald A. Cress trans., 1983) (Rousseau's footnote deleted).

63 Nippold, supra note 8, at xxi–ii. As Crown Prince, Frederick admired Wolff, commending his work to Voltaire, and ardently criticized Machiavelli. As King, however, he is remembered for his statecraft as much as for his “Enlightened” views. On Frederick, Wolff and Voltaire, see Paul Sonnino, Introduction to Frederick of Prussia, The Refutation of Machiavelli's Prince or Anti-Machiavel 13 (Paul Sonnino trans., 1981) (1740 ed., rev.).

64 See 2 Wolff, supra note 8, §§60–70, at 38–42.

65 Id. at 42.

66 Id. §§35–41, at 24–27.

671 Vattel, supra note 11, at xvii; Wheaton, History, Mallarmé, supra note 8; Rivier, Olive, supra note 20. Ruyssen, supra note 8, used the superlative.

68 Ompteda, Chambrier d'Oleires, Wheaton, History (again), supra note 8.

69 Wheaton, History (yet again), Rosters, supra note 8; Thomann, supra note 9, at xxxvii–viii.

70 Oppenheim, supra note 8; Schiffer, Jenks, supra note 29; Stone, supra note 8. Klöber, supra note 29, used “universal” and “world” together; the translation by Ruddy, supra note 8, is “world-wide.”

71 Remec, Wight, supra note 8.

72 Wolff, supra note 8, at 13; Jus gentium, supra note 10, at 4.

73 Cf. Woolf, supra note 39, at 174–82; R. W. Carlyle & A. J. Carlyle, Political Theory from 1300 to 1600, at 78–79 n.2 (1950) (quoting Bartolus's Latin); Martin Wight, Systems of States 136–37 (1977) (misleadingly referring to “classes of states”).

74 Aristotle, supra note 30, bk. I, ch. ii, §§5, 8 (1252b), at 4.

75 Cf. Gierke, supra note 45, at 259; Gierke, supra note 46, at 96. See Otto Gierke, Natural Law and the Theory of Society 1500 to 1800, at 35 (Ernest Barker trans., 1957), for “higher and wider communities” and “progressively higher and progressively broader social formations.” In this context, “superior” is the equivalent of “major,” and Drake's construction of “maxima” as “supreme” has at least some justification.

76 See Bodin, supra note 41, bk. III, ch. vii, at 361, and ed. note at A128; Gierke, supra note 75, at 64–67.

77 Gierke's interpretation is similar. Gierke, supra note 75, at 64, 67. On the theory of corporations, Gierke's work is indispensable. See also Tierney, supra note 46, at 19-28; J. P. Canning, The Corporation in (he Political Thought of the Italian Jurists of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries, 1 Hist. Pol. Thought 9 (1980); J. P. Canning, Law, Sovereignty and Corporation Theory, 1300–1450, in The Cambridge History of Medieval Political Thought c. 350-c. 1450, at 454 (J. H. Burns ed., 1988); Harold J. Berman, Law and Revolution: The Formation of the Western Legal Tradition 215–21 (1983); Antony Black, Guilds and Civil Society in European Political Thought from the Twelfth Century to the Present 215–21 (1984).

78 See Gierke, supra note 75, at 75.

79 Althusius, supra note 32, at 12.

80 See text at note 42 supra. See generally Aristotle, supra note 30, at 22–23.

81 See text at note 45 supra. The quoted phrase is from Gierke, supra note 75, at 73.

82 See text at note 32 supra.

83 In a brief text, On Natural Law, written in German. The Political Writings of Leibniz 77 (Patrick Riley trans., 1972) (1838). A Latin heading reads “Divisio Societam”; the German text has “Gemeinschaft.”

84 Id. at 79. As Patrick Riley observed, “Leibniz' fifth and sixth degrees of natural society are grafted onto Aristotelian distinctions and appear to be derived from Johannes Althusius … .”

Id. n.1.

85 Aristotle, supra note 30, bk. VII, ch. xiii, §5 (1332a), at 312. See generally the Ethics, from which Aristotle took this passage.

86 Codex iuris gentium (Praefatio), in Leibniz, supra note 83, at 165, 171; On Natural Law, supra note 83, at 77.

87 Nippold, supra note 8, at xiv–xv.

88 See, e.g., Ernest Barker, Translator's Introduction to Gierke, supra note 75, at xliii; Arthur O. Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being: A Study of the History of an Idea 175–76 (1936); Julius Stone, The Province and Function of Law: Law as Logic, Justice, and Social Control 232 n.49 (1950). See further Ernst Cassirer, The Philosophy of the Enlightenment 34 (Fritz C A. Koellin & James P. Pettegrove trans., 1951) (“Wolff's logic and methodology differ from those of Leibniz in that they attempt to reduce the variety of their deductions to as simple and uniform an arrangement as possible.”).

89 “[I]ndividuals bind themselves to the whole because they wish to promote the common good, consequently the happiness of their nation.” Wolff, supra note 8, §135, at 75. Inferred is a duty to promote the happiness of oneself and others, which §162, at 87, finds applicable to nations as well.

90 Lovejoy, supra note 88. On Leibniz, see id. at 144–82; on 18th-century thought, see id. at 183–287.

91 See text after note 17 supra; Wolff, Jus Gentium, supra note 10, at 3–4.

92 Gierke, supra note 75, at 137, 332–33 n.253.

93 Id. at 136; see also Thomann, supra note 28, at xxxvii–viii.

94 Locke, supra note 34, §44, at 298.

95 Gierke, supra note 75, at 135–37. “Shadowy” is his description in reference to Leibniz.

96 Wolff, supra note 8, at 17.

97 Id.; see also p. 286 supra. Personae morales clearly differ from personae singularis (id. §2), by being corporate in character. Equally clearly, the terms “civil person” and “moral person” are inter changeable.

98 Gierke, supra note 75, at 76, 167–68; Peter Onuf & Nicholas Onuf, Federal Union, Modern World: The Law of Nations in an Age of Revolutions, 1776–1814, at 65–69 (1993).

99 The Federalist No. 51, at 350–51 (J. Madison) (Jacob E. Cooke ed., 1961). Recent efforts to conceptualize the founding period of the United States in republican terms (see supra note 2) consistently underestimate the importance of the federal union as a spatial arrangement of corporate entities, namely, the federal union at one level and the state republics at the next. While civic-minded-ness might suffice for a small republic, the Constitution solved problems brought on by the size of the United States. For a full treatment, see Onuf & Onuf, supra note 98, at 74–87.

100 2 Pufendorf, supra note 61, bk. VII, ch. v, §§12–15, at 1037–43 (C. H. Oldfather & W. A. Oldfather trans.).

101 Emmerich de Vattel, Défense du systéme leibnitien contre les objections et les imputations de M. de Crousaz, contenues dans l'examen de l'essai L'Homme de Pope (1741). Vattel was born in 1714.

102 Christian Wolff, Jus naturae, 17–24 Werke, supra note 9 (Marcel Thomann ed., 1968–1972) (1740–48). They total 6,590 pages and 9,230 numbered paragraphs. A few years later, Vattel published a commentary on selected paragraphs from these eight volumes, Questions de droit naturel, et observations sur le traite du droit de la nature de M. le Baron de Wolf (Berne, Societe Typographique 1762) [hereinafter Questions].

103 Vattel, The Law, supra note 8, at 7a–8a. The other quotations in this paragraph are at 8a.

104 Id. at 8a.

105 Ruddy, supra note 8, at 69.

106 Vattel, The Law, supra note 8, Introduction, §3, at 3. Cf. Wolff, Jus gentium, supra note 10, §1, quoted in text after note 17 supra.

107 One was Wolff's position with respect to patrimonial kingdoms, the second Wolff's position with respect to the use of poisoned weapons in time of war. Vattel, The Law, supra note 8, at 8a–9a.

108 Id. at 7a note k; 1 Vattel, supra note 11, at xiv: “Nations, ou les États Souverains, etant des Personnes morales … ,” as compared to Wolff, Jus Gentium, supra note 8, at 8A: “Gentes sint personae morales … .” Wolff understood sovereignty in a civil context. Id. §103, at 60. Recall Wolff's remark in the Prolegomena, §15, that “[s]ome sovereignty over individual nations belongs to nations as a whole,” that is, the civitas maxima; the commentary notes that “this sovereignty has a certain resemblance to civil sovereignty.” Id. at 15. Cf. this inaccurate judgment: “Wolff set forth the basic conceptual foundations of classical positivist international law substantially as they remain to this day. As the cornerstone of the law of nations, he posited the principle of the sovereign equality of states, in recognizably modern form.” Stephen C. Neff, Friends But No Allies: Economic Liberalism and the Law of Nations 24 (1990).

109 Vattel, The Law, supra note 8, at 8a. See id. for quotations in this and the following paragraph.

110 Id. at 9a; see also bk. II, ch. i, §3, at 114.

111 Wolff, Jus Gentium, supra note 8, §8 commentary, at 12. Wolff acknowledged that, “although a nation can be thought of which is spread over a vast expanse, and does not seem to need the aid of other nations,” it nevertheless can and ought to aid them, and be aided by them. Id. (emphasis added). See also p. 285 supra.

112 Vattel, The Law, supra note 8, Introduction, §15, at 6.

113 Id. §13. Again, “we may boldly lay down this general principle: Each State owes to every other State all that it owes to itself, as far as the other is in actual need of its help and such help can be given without the State neglecting its duties towards itself.” Id., bk. II, ch. i, §3, at 114.

114 See Linklater, supra note 8, at 85–89.

115 Vattel, The Law, supra note 8, at 10a.

116 See p. 286 supra.

117 Vattel, The Law, supra note 8, at 10a. Recall that each state “claims to be, and actually is, independent of all the others.” Id. at 9a, quoted in text after note 109 supra.

118 id. at 11a.

119 Charles G. Fenwick, The Authority of Vattel, 7 Am. Pol. Sci. Rev. 370 (1913); Daniel George Lang, Foreign Policy in the Early Republic: The Law of Nations and the Balance of Power (1985).

120 1 Hugo Grotius, De jure belli ac pacis libri tres, Prolegomena, §§8, 12, n. p. (Latin) (Carnegie ed. 1913); 2 id. at 12, 14 (Francis W. Kelsey trans.) (1646); Cicero, supra note 38, Laws, bk. I, chs. v–vi, at 314–19.

121 Wolff, supra note 8, §163 commentary, at 87; Wolff, Jus Gentium, supra note 10, at 59.

122 “Therefore in the present work … we have so presented the law of nations, that … those things may be easily distinguished which come from different sources.” Those “things” are the necessary law, the voluntary law, and particular obligations that nations accept but Wolff excluded from consideration. Wolff, supra note 8, at 8 (preface); see also text after note 18 supra.

123 See text at note 118 supra.

124 Vattel, The Law, supra note 8, at 11a.

125 Id. Cf. text after note 18 supra.

126 Id., Introduction, §27, at 9.

127 Id.

128 7 The Writings of James Madison 204 (Gaillard Hunt ed., 1908). See further Onuf & Onuf, supra note 98, at 197–211.

129 The Writings of James Madison, supra note 128, at 208.

130 Id. at 238.

131 Id. at 240; see also 238, 332.

132 Id. at 239 note, 240 and especially 332: “In testing the British claim, then, by the law of nations, recurrence must be had to other sources than the abstract dictates of reason; to those very sources from which it has been shewn that her claim is an unauthorized innovation on the law of nations.”

133 Id. at 208. The term “source” appears only later in the text.

134 Henry Wheaton, Elements of International Law with a Sketch of the History of the Science, pt. I, ch. i, §15, at 48–50 (1836). Wheaton later acknowledged Madison with quotation marks and citation, Elements of International Law, supra note 8, at 21. With the arrival of a modern conception of sources, writers are detached from their texts and the texts themselves no longer function as unified, internally coherent systems of authority. David Kennedy, whom I have just paraphrased, has dated this doctrinal turn from about 1900, although it would seem to have taken place in the early decades of the 19th century. David Kennedy, Primitive Legal Scholarship, 27 Harv. Int'l L.J. 1, 3–7(1986).

135 Vattel, The Law, supra note 8, bk. Ill, ch. iii, at 243–53.

136 Wolff, Jus Gentium, supra note 10, §§642–44, 646–51, at 330–36.

137 Id. §647, at 332.

138 Vattel, The Law, supra note 8, bk. Ill, ch. iii, §47, at 251. See also Alfred Vagts & Detlev F. Vagts, The Balance of Power in International Law: A History of an Idea, 73 AJIL 555, 562 (1979); Linklater, supra note 8, at 90–92.

139 Vattel, The Law, supra note 8, bk. III, ch. iii, §47, at 251.

140 Hinsley, Power and the Pursuit of Peace, supra note 8, at 161–64; Terry Nardin, Law, Morality and the Relations of States 62–63 (1983). Enlightenment writers also thought of themselves as constituting a “republic of letters.” Vattel remarked that “la République des Lettres a perdu l'illustre M. Wolf” while he was preparing his commentary on Wolff's system of natural law. Vattel, Questions, supra note 102, at xi.

141 Vattel, The Law, supra note 8, bk. III, ch. iii, §47, at 251.

144 Paul W. Schroeder, Did the Vienna Settlement Rest on a Balance of Power?, 97 Am. Hist. Rev. 683, 698 (1992).

142 Linklater, supra note 8, at 86–89; quote at 87.

143 So Anne-Marie Burley seems to suggest in The Alien Tort Statute and the Judiciary Act of 1789: A Badge of Honor, 83 AJIL 461, 484–86 (1983).

144 Paul W. Schroeder, Did the Vienna Settlement Rest on a Balance of Power?,97 AM. HIST. REV. 683, 698 (1992).