Note 114 — TRANSLATION[107] “PERPETUAL PEACE”[108]

See Vattel: Law of Nations, II. Ch. IV. § 55. No foreign power, he says, has a right to judge the conduct and administration of any sovereign or oblige him to alter it. “If he loads his subjects with taxes, or if he treats them with severity, the nation alone is concerned; and no other is called upon to offer redress for his behaviour, or oblige him to follow more wise and equitable maxims.... But (loc. cit. § 56) when the bands of the political society are broken, or at least suspended, between the sovereign and his people, the contending parties may then be considered at two distinct powers; and, since they are both equally independent of all foreign authority, nobody has a right to judge them. Either may be in the right; and each of those who grant their assistance may imagine that he is giving his support to the better cause.” [Tr.]