If a portion of a state is acquired by conquest, the basis of acquisition is usually fixed by treaty; if not thus determined, the public property and general rights of territorial jurisdiction pass to the conqueror. The nonpolitical rights of the inhabitants remain, unless changed by the conqueror." In the case of Count Platen Hallemund, who was tried by the courts of Prussia in 1866 for treason, the opinion was given that the mere forcible conquest of a country did not, of itself, create the relation of sovereign and subject between the conqueror and the conquered; that in order to create such a relation there must be an express or tacit submission to the new government. This might be by formal action or by simple retention of domicile in the conquered territory.

The jurisdiction of a state is suspended in the territory occupied by an enemy. Acts done during the period of military occupancy rest for their authority upon the occupant. In case the occupancy is converted into complete dominion through conquest, the authority of the conquered state is regarded as as at an end from the date of effective occupancy by the con

fully asserted. But, although this title is acquired and maintained by force, humanity, acting on public opinion, has prescribed rules and limits by which it may be governed. Thus it is a rule that the captured shall not be wantonly oppressed, and that their condition shall remain as eligible as is compatible with the objects of the conquest. Most usually they are incorporated with the victorious nation, and become subjects or citizens of the government with which they are connected. The new and old members of the society mingle with each other, the distinction between them is gradually lost, and they become one people. Where this incorporation is practicable, humanity demands, and a wise policy requires, that the rights of the conquered to property should remain unimpaired, that the new subjects should be governed as equitably as the old, and that confidence in their security should gradually banish the painful sense of their being separated from their ancient connections and united by force to strangers. When the conquest is complete, and the conquered inhabitants can be blended with the conquerors, or safely governed as a distinct people, public opinion, which not even the conqueror can disregard, imposes those restraints upon him, and he cannot neglect them without injury to his name and hazard of his power." Johnson v. McIntosh, 8 Wheat. 543, 5 L. Ed. 681.

United States v. Moreno, 1 Wall. 400, 17 L. Ed. 633.

1 Halleck, Int. Law (4th Ed.) 510.

queror, and acts subsequent to that time derive validity from his sanction. In 1833, in the case of United States v. Percheman, Mr. Chief Justice Marshall said:

"It may not be unworthy of remark that it is very unusual, even in cases of conquest, for the conqueror to do more than to displace the sovereign and assume dominion over the country. The modern usage of nations, which has become law, would be violated, that sense of justice and of right which is acknowledged and felt by the whole civilized world would be outraged, if private property should be generally confiscated, and private rights annulled. The people change their allegiance; their relation to their ancient sovereign is dissolved; but their relations to each other, and their rights of property, remain undisturbed."

Later the United States court said in regard to the effect of conquest on property rights:

"By the law of nations, the inhabitants, citizens, or subjects of a conquered or ceded country, territory, or province retain all the rights of property which have not been taken from them by the orders of the conqueror, or the laws of the sovereign who acquired it by cession, and remain under their former laws until they shall be changed." 10

In the case of United States et al. v. Huckabee the Supreme Court set forth quite fully the attitude of the United States: "All captures in war vest primarily in the sovereign; but in respect to real property Chancellor Kent says the acquisition by the conqueror is not fully consummated until confirmed by a treaty of peace or by the entire submission or destruction of the state to which it belonged, which latter rule controls the question in the case before the court, as, the confederation having been utterly destroyed, no treaty of peace was or could be made, as a treaty requires at least two contracting parties. Power to acquire territory, either by conquest or treaty, is vested by the Constitution in the United States. Conquered territory, however, is usually held as a mere military occupation until the fate of the nation from which it is conquered is determined; but if the nation is entirely subdued,

97 Pet. 51, 8 L. Ed. 604.

10 Mitchell v. United States, 9 Pet. 715, 9 L. Ed. 283.

or in case it be destroyed and ceases to exist, the right of occupation becomes permanent and the title vests absolutely in the conqueror. Complete conquest, by whatever mode it may be perfected, carries with it all the rights of the former government; or, in other words, the conqueror, by the completion of his conquest, becomes the absolute owner of the property conquered from the enemy nation or state. His rights are no longer limited to mere occupation of what he has taken into his actual possession, but they extend to all the property and rights of the conquered state, including even debts as well as personal and real property." 11

Hall summarizes the effects of conquest by saying: "The effects of conquest are:

"1. To validate acts done in excess of the rights of a military occupant between the time that the intention to conquer has been signified and that at which conquest is proved to be completed.

"2. To confer upon the conquering state property in the conquered territory, and to invest it with the rights and affect it with the obligations which have been mentioned as accompanying a territory upon its absorption into a foreign state.

"3. To invest the conquering state with sovereignty over all subjects of a wholly conquered state, and over such subjects of a partially conquered state as are identified with the conquered territory at the time when the conquest is definitively effected, so that they become subjects of the state and are naturalized for external purposes, without necessarily acquiring the full status of subject or citizen for internal purposes. The persons who are so identified with conquered territory that their nationality is changed by the fact of conquest are, of course, mainly those who are native of and established upon it at the moment of conquest. To these must be added persons native of another part of the dismembered state, who are established on the conquered territory and continue their residence there. Correlatively persons native of the conquered territory, but established in another part of the state to which it formerly belonged, ought to be considered to be subjects of the latter."

" 12

11 16 Wall. 414, 21 L. Ed. 457.

12 Hall, Int. Law (5th Ed.) p. 570.

CESSATION OF HOSTILITIES.

164. Certain wars have come to an end by the simple cessation of hostilities.

When war comes to an end by a simple cessation of hostilities, not only the subjects of the belligerent states, but also those of neutral states, are in doubt as to the extent of their rights and their status. Instances of this mode of terminating a war occurred in 1716, when Sweden and Poland were engaged in war, and simply ceased hostilities; in 1720, when France and Spain ceased hostilities; and in 1801, in the war of Russia against Persia. The wars waged by Spain with her South American colonies, ceased in 1826 some time before the independence of the different states was acknowledged. The independence of Venezuela was not fully recognized by Spain till twenty-five years after the cessation of active hostilities.

The uncertainties resulting from such methods of terminating war have led in recent times to the general practice of making known by announcement the return of peace, even in cases of civil war. Such proclamations were made at the close of the Civil War in the United States in 1865 from time to time as hostilities ceased in different areas.13 In the case of The Protector the United States Supreme Court said in 1871 in regard to the duration of the American Civil War:

"Acts of hostility by the insurgents occurred at periods so various, and of such different degrees of importance, and in parts of the country so remote from each other, both at the commencement and the close of the late Civil War, that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to say on what precise day it began or terminated. It is necessary, therefore, to refer to some public act of the political departments of the government to fix the dates; and, for obvious reasons, those of the executive department, which may be, and in fact was, at the commencement of hostilities, obliged to act during the recess of Congress, must be taken.

"The proclamation of intended blockade by the President may, therefore, be assumed as marking the first of these dates,

136 Messages and Papers of the Presidents, p. 308 ff.

and the proclamation that the war had closed as marking the second. But the war did not begin or close at the same time in all the states. There were two proclamations of intended blockade the first, of the 19th of April, 1861 (12 Stat. 1258), embracing the states of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas; the second, of the 27th of April, 1861 (12 Stat. 1259), embracing the states of Virginia and North Carolina; and there were two proclamations declaring that the war had closed-one issued on the 2d of April, 1866 (14 Stat. 811), embracing the states of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama, Louisiana, and Arkansas; and the other, issued on the 20th of August, 1866 (14 Stat. 814), embracing the state of Texas.

"In the absence of more certain criteria, of equally general application, we must take the dates of these proclamations as ascertaining the commencement and the close of the war in the states mentioned in them." 14

EFFECT OF CESSATION OF HOSTILITIES.

165. The effect of the termination of war by the cessation of hostilities is usually to introduce the principle of uti possidetis.

While it may be difficult to determine at what period hostilities actually cease, yet, if that period is determined, it is customary to regard conditions prevailing at that time as the normal conditions, and to regard the territory and property held by either belligerent at the time of cessation as vested in the holder, uti possidetis.

"Unless the parties stipulate otherwise, the effect of a treaty of peace is that everything remains in such condition as it was at the time peace was concluded. Thus, all movable state property, as munitions, provisions, arms, money, horses, means of transport, and the like, seized by an invading belligerent, remain his property, as likewise do the fruits of immovable property seized by him. Thus, further, if nothing is stipulated regarding conquered territory, it remains in the hands of 14 The Protector, 12 Wall. 700, 20 L. Ed. 463.