de Vattel: Of States Elective, Successive or Hereditary, and of Those Called Patrimonial

The Law of Nations or the Principles of Natural Law (1758)Emmerich de Vattel

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Of States Elective, Successive or Hereditary, and of Those Called Patrimonial§ 56 Of elective states.§ 57. Whether elective kings are real sovereigns.§ 58. Of successive and hereditary states. The origin of the right of succession.§ 59. Other origins of this right.§ 60. Other sources which still amount to the same thing.§ 61. A nation may change the order of the succession.§ 62. Of renunciations.§ 63. The order of succession ought commonly to be kept.§ 65. Indivisibility of sovereignties.§ 66. Who are to decide disputes respecting the succession to a sovereignty.§ 67. That the right to the succession ought not to depend on the judgment of a foreign power.§ 68. Of states called patrimonial.§ 69. Every true sovereignty is unalienable.§ 70. Duty of a prince who is empowered to nominate his successor. § 71. He must have at least a tacit ratification.

   1. Nimirum, quod publicae salutis causa et communi consensu statatum est, eadem multitudinis voluntate, repus exigentibus, immutari quid obstat? MARIANA, ibid, c. iv.
   2. When Philip II resigned the Netherlands to his daughter Isabella Clara Eugenia, it was said (according to the testimony of Grotius) that it was setting a dangerous precedent, for a prince to treat free citizens as his property, and barter them away like domestic slaves; that, among barbarians, indeed, the extraordinary practice sometimes obtained of transferring governments by will or donation, because those people were incapable of discerning the difference between a prince and a master; but that those, whom superior knowledge enabled to distinguish between what is lawful and what is not, could plainly perceive that the administration of a state is the property of the people (thence usually denominated res-publica); and that, as in every period of the world there have been nations who governed themselves by popular assemblies, or by a senate; there have been others who intrusted the general management of their concerns to princes, For it is not to be imagined, it was added, that legitimate sovereignties have originated from any other source than the consent of the people, who gave themselves all up to a single person, or, for the sake of avoiding the tumults and discord of elections, to a whole family; and those to whom they thus committed themselves were induced, by the prospect of honorable pre-eminence alone, to accept a dignity by which they were bound to promote the general welfare of their fellow-citizens in preference to their own private advantage. GROTIUS. Hist. of the Disturbances in the Netherlands, book ii.
   3. Spirit of Laws, book xxvi. chap. xxiii., where may be seen very good political reasons for these regulations.
   4. See further on.
   5. Memorial in behalf of Madame de Longueville, concerning the principality of Neufchatel, in 1672.
   6. But it is to be observed that those partitions were not made without the approbation and consent of the respective states.
   7. Nesico quomodo nihil tam absurde did potest, quod non dicatur ab aliquo philosophorum. Cicero, de Divinat lib. ii.
   8. Answer in behalf of Madame de Longueville to a memorial in behalf of Madame de Nemours.
   9. Ibid.
   10. See the same memorial, which quotes P. Labbe's Royal Abridgment, page
   11. I take this historical passage from M. Du Port de Tertre's Conspiracies. To him I refer; for I have not the original historians by me. However, I do not enter into the question relating to the birth of Jane: this would here be of no use, The princess had not been declared a bastard according to the laws; the king acknowledged her for his daughter; and besides, whether she was or was not legitimate, the inconveniences resulting from the pope's refusal still remained the same with respect to her and the king of Portugal. — Note. edit. 1797.
   12. P. 154. Forma divortii matrimonialis inter Johannem filium regis Bohemiae et Margaretham ducissam Karinthiae. This divorce is given by the emperor on account of the impotency of the husband, per auctoritatem, says he, nobis rite debitam et concessam.
P. 156. Forma dispensationis super affinitate consanguinitatis inter Ludovicum marchionem Brandenburg et Margaretham ducissam Karinthiae, nec non legitimatio liberorum procreandorum, faciae per dom. Ludovic IV. Rom. imper.
It is only human law, says the emperor, that hinders these marriages intra gradus affinitatis sanguinis, praesertim intra fratres et sorores. De cujus legis praeceptis dispensare solummodo pertinet ad auctoritatem imperatoris seu principis Romanorum. He then opposes and condemns the opinion of those who dare to say that these dispensations depend on ecclesiastics. Both this act and the former are dated in the year 1341.
   13. Grotius De Jure Belli et Pacis lib. i. cap. iii § 12.
   14. The pope, opposing the attempt made upon England by Louis, the son of Philip Augustus, and alleging, as his pretext, that John had rendered himself a vassal of the holy see, received for answer, among other arguments, "that a sovereign had no right to dispose of his states without the consent of his barons, who were bound to defend them." On which occasion the French nobles unanimously exclaimed, that they would, to their last breath, maintain this truth, "that no prince can, of his own private will, give away his kingdom, or render it tributary, and thus enslave the nobility." Velly's Hist. of France, vol. iii. p. 491.