In opening this meeting of the American Society of International Law, which I hope will be the first of many meetings in unbroken succession to continue long after we personally have ceased to take part in affairs, let me welcome you to the beginning of your labors for a more thorough understanding of this important and fascinating subject. It is impossible that the human mind should be addressed to questions better worth its noblest efforts, offering a greater opportunity for usefulness in the exercise of its powers, or more full of historical and contemporary interest, than in the field of international rights and duties. The change in the theory and practice of government which has marked the century since the establishment of the American Union has shifted the determination of great questions of domestic national policy from a few rulers in each country to the great body of the people, who render the ultimate decision under all modern constitutional governments. Coincident with that change the practice of diplomacy has ceased to be a mystery confined to a few learned men who strive to give effect to the wishes of personal rulers, and has become a representative function answering to the opinions and the will of the multitude of citizens, who themselves create the relations between states and determine the issues of friendship and estrangement, of peace and war. Under the new system there are many dangers from which the old system was free. The rules and customs which the experience of centuries had shown to be essential to the maintenance of peace and good understanding between nations have little weight with the new popular masters of diplomacy; the precedents and agreements of opinion which have carried so great a part of the rights and duties of nations toward each other beyond the pale of discussion are but little understood. The education of public opinion, which should lead the sovereign people in each country to understand the definite limitations upon national rights and the full scope and responsibility of national duties, has only just begun. Information, understanding, leadership of opinion in these matters, so vital to wise judgment and right action in international affairs, are much needed. This society may serve as a collegium, in the true sense of the word, in which all who choose to seek a broader knowledge of the law that governs the affairs of nations may give each to the other the incitement of earnest and faithful study and may give to the great body of our countrymen a clearer view of their international rights and responsibilities.

International law — to use Bentham's innovation of 1789, which has found favor with the public, instead of the older, more expressive term, law of nations—has been variously denounced and praised as international morality or ethics; international courtesy or convention in the social sense of the word; comity as distinguished from rule of law; or merely and finally as the foreign policy, such as the Monroe Doctrine, which at a particular time happens to catch the fancy of nations. If admitted as law in general or as possessing some of the elements of ordinary municipal law, the principle that pinches is declared not to be law and to have no binding force whatever, because there is no supreme court of nations in which the dispute may be litigated and no sheriff to execute the decree, supposing that one had actually been delivered. But the judgment of a municipal court is not self-executing, as, for instance, when President Jackson stamped his foot, saying: “John Marshall has made the decision; now let him execute it!” The executive officer of the court, the sheriff or marshal, did not enforce it, and that, forsooth, changed the nature of the transaction! Suppose the sheriff meets resistance in performing the mandate of the court, the armed force of the nation may be called upon and in final result the nation is in the field.

The pre-Tridentine œcumenical councils of the Roman Catholic church were, as Dr. Francis Wharton has well remarked, international congresses, working toward the establishment of a uniform law for the civilized world. It was a law confined to one set of subjects; but among them were those having to do with the family relation, and which were therefore of the first importance to human society. Each nation of Christendom was represented in these gatherings by its sovereign or political delegates, as well as by its bishops, and it was for each nation, acting through its political departments, to ratify or reject such rules or laws in these respects as the council might propose.

The representation of political sovereignty in the Council of Trent was slight, and in the only œcumenical council since called by Eome — that of the Vatican — it was wholly wanting; Bavaria being the only power (though all European cabinets were consulted) which intimated a willingness to send an official delegate.

The increase of popular control over national conduct, which marks the political development of our time, makes it constantly more important that the great body of the people in each country should have a just conception of their international rights and duties.

A novel case has recently arisen involving the liability of a foreign government to indemnify an American corporation (a missionary board) for the death of its employees by mob violence. The case grew out of the assault in 1905 of a mob of native Chinese upon the American Protestant Mission Station at Lienchou, province of Quantung, China, resulting in the death of four missionaries and one child.

The dominant note of political development during the nineteenth century was undoubtedly nationalism, and the political forces of the century, intricate and involved as their action was, may be understood and analyzed with the greatest clearness from the point of view of the struggle for complete national existence and unity which was going on in all the principal countries of the earth. Nations are readily personified, and there is a unity and sequence in their action which makes it appear very concrete when compared with other political influences and movements. Thus, when toward the end of the century, after the great struggles in the United States, Germany, and Italy had been decided in favor of the national principle, it seemed as if the latter were bound to exercise an almost exclusive sway over the future destinies of humanity, as if the twentieth century would be taken up with a fierce economic and military competition among the nationalities who had achieved a complete political existence. Under such conditions, international or diplomatic action would have had for its main function the maintenance of a political balance or equilibrium which would prevent the undue aggrandizement of any one state or nation. Such indeed had been the original and continuing purpose of diplomatic action.

On February 15, 1905, the president of the United States transmitted to the senate, with an accompanying message, the protocol of an agreement, signed eleven days earlier, between the United States and the Dominican Republic, providing for the collection and disbursement by the United States of the customs revenues of the Dominican Republic. On February 25, 1907, a little more than two years later, the senate ratified an independent convention between the United States and the Dominican Republic, signed at Santo Domingo City by the plenipotentiaries on the 8th inst. preceding, providing for the assistance of the United States in the collection and application of the customs revenues of the Dominican Republic. At this time of writing the new convention awaits only the approval of the Dominican congress to become operative.

The first Congress of the Revolution assembled in Carpenter's Hall, Philadelphia, September 5, 1774. An address to the king of England was adopted and transmitted to the agents of several of the colonies in London, with instructions to present it to the king. They were to ask the aid of such Englishmen as they might have reason to believe were “friends to American Liberty.” The instructions were drafted October 26, 1774, by John Jay and Richard Henry Lee, and were sent to Paul Wentworth, who represented New Hampshire, Charles Garth, a member of Parliament, the agent of South Carolina; William Bollan, agent of the Massachusetts Council; Thomas Life, the agent of Connecticut; Edmund Burke, who had been chosen agent of New York in 1771; Arthur Lee, who held an appointment to succeed Benjamin Franklin as agent of the Massachusetts Assembly; and Franklin himself, who had been appointed in 1765 agent of Pennsylvania, in 1768 of Georiga, in the same year of New Jersey, and in 1770 of the Massachusetts Assembly.

The consular service of the United States has been for a long time the object of a great deal of criticism, some of which unfortunately has been well founded but much has been due to imperfect acquaintance with the legitimate functions of consuls and, therefore, to lack of ability to judge accurately of their shortcomings. It is of interest to note that of recent years the criticism has been for the most part confined to our own country, while from the people of other nations our consuls have received unstinted praise for their activity and efficiency, and our system has been frequently held up abroad as a model after which to reorganize some of the older European systems the virtues of which it has been the custom of our people to extol. But while it is true that in many respects our consuls have shown themselves the equals if not the superiors of the consuls of other nations, the fact remains that our service has been uneven in point of efficiency; there has been no satisfactory organization; little care has been exercised in the selection of persons for appointment; and the salaries and equipment have been far from adequate. Repeated attempts to correct these defects have been made during a period dating almost from the beginning of the government, but, with the exception of the improvements made in 1856, all these attempts have failed largely because they lacked the support of any considerable public sentiment.

Because of the many contributions made by America to the world's ideals of government, the nation has the feeling that it is quite adequate to work out its own principles on all other subjects without the aid of any other people. “ What have we to do with abroad ? ” said a United States senator from Ohio, only thirty years ago; and the word “ un-American ” covers a multitude of virtues. In fact the roots of American institutions of all kinds, social, economic, and political, are in the traditions of the English race; and American ideals have been modified by the experience of other European nations. Nor has the western hemisphere been separated from the great current of world affairs. Its destinies have been closely interwoven with those of Europe; and since 1895 the United States has awakened to the fact that it not only is a part of the sisterhood of nations, but is destined to be one of the half dozen states which will powerfully influence the future of all the continents. The world is no longer round about America; America is part of the world.