of this great body owe it to one another for the common good, and owe it to themselves for the security of their country, to prevent the progress of any other members who should seek to overthrow this balance, which would turn to the certain ruin of all the other members of the same body. Whatever changes or affects this general system of Europe is too dangerous, and draws after it infinite mis chiefs." Whatever may be the value of these philanthropic principles, history reminds us that when they were most loudly professed they were most frequently violated, and that no cause of war seems to have been so frequent or so fatal as the spurious pretext of restoring peace and defend ing the general tranquillity of the world. Thus, it was to balance the power of the house of Austria that Cardinal Richelieu flung France into the quarrels of Germany in the Thirty Years War, and even lent her aid to the Protestant cause. It was to balance the encroaching and aggressive power of Louis XIV. that numerous combinations were formed between England, Austria, and Holland, which, after nearly half a century of almost uninterrupted contests and bloodshed, ended in the peace of Utrecht. The pretext of Frederick II., when he was meditating some act of rapine, generally was that he believed some hostile combination had been formed against him, which it was wise to antici pate. In short, no cause of war has been more frequently alleged and acted upon, than that a proper consideration for the balance of power rendered it necessary to take forcible measures to avert some remote or hypothetical
danger.It is obviously a maxim, not only of policy but of com mon sense and human nature, that the weak should combine to protect themselves against the strong, and that when the independence of minor states is threatened by the ambition or the overwhelming superiority of a power aiming at universal empire, they will do wisely to unite for the purposes of self-defence and resistance. Frederick II. himself says, in his Anti-Machiavel, where he laid down precepts which he did not practise, " When the excessive aggrandisement of one power threatens to overwhelm all others, it is the part of wisdom to oppose barriers to its encroachments, whilst there is yet time to stay the torrent. The clouds are seen to gather, the lightning announces a coming storm, and the sovereign who is unable to contend against the tempest will, if he is wise, unite himself with all those who are menaced by the same common danger. Had the kings of Egypt, Syria, and Macedonia confederated together against the Roman power, they would not have fallen under its oppressive yoke ; an alliance prudently contracted, and a war carried on with energy, would have saved the ancient world from universal despotism." So too, Hume, in his celebrated Essay on the Balance of Power, endeavours to show that the ancients were familiar with the principle both as statesmen and historians, and, for example, he avers that whoever will read Demosthenes s oration for the Megalopolitans, will see the utmost refine ments on this principle that ever entered into the head of a Venetian or European speculatist.
But with great respect to these illustrious authorities, they appear to have discussed, under the name of the balance of power, a principle which might more fitly be termed a theory of warlike alliances. The object of the balance of power, rightly understood, is not to carry on war with success, but to avoid war altogether, by establish ing a common interest and obligation in the maintenance of the conditions of peace. When war is declared, public law is suspended, and each state must be guided by what it conceives to be its own interest and duty. If the theory of the balance of power has any value at all, it is not in the hour of violence and bloodshed, when the fate of nations may be decided on a field of battle, but rather in those negotiations which must eventually terminate the contest, which commonly bring together for that purpose the representatives of all the belligerents, and which are de signed to provide against the recurrence of these calamities.
The ablest and most eloquent champion of the system of equipoise in the present century was the Chevalier von Gentz, who published his Fragments upon the Balance of Poiver in Europe, in 1806, under the influence of the cata strophe which had subjugated the Continent, and who subse quently took an active part at the Congress of Vienna in the attempts to constitute a new system of European policy. Gentz defines the balance of power as "a constitution subsisting between neighbouring states more or less con nected with one another, by virtue of which no one among them can injure the independence or essential rights of another, without meeting with effectual resistance on some side, and consequently exposing itself to danger." And he rests this constitution on four propositions : (1.) That no state must ever become so powerful as to coerce all the rest ; (2.) That every state which infringes the conditions is liable to be coerced by the others ; (3.) That the fear of coercion should keep all within the bounds of modera tion; and (4.) That a state having attained a degree of power to defy the union should be treated as a common enemy. He argues that by a strict adherence to these principles wars would be averted, excessive power restrained, and the independent existence of the humblest members of the confederacy secured. But, for the reasons we have previously assigned, it is a fallacy to suppose that even the civilised states of Europe have ever naturally formed a confederacy, or that their relations are governed by common rules of action, recognised alike by all of them. That theory sup plies a very insecure basis for the balance of power and the maintenance of peace. The law of nations, not being im posed or sanctioned by any supreme and sovereign authority, is, in fact, reducible to the general laws of morality, which ought to regulate the dealings of mankind, except when it has been expressed and established in the form of a contract, binding on all the parties to that obligation. To determine the true character and limits of the balance of power, we must have recourse, not to vague general principles, but to positive law, framed in the shape of international contracts, which are termed treaties, and which have been sanctioned at different epochs of modern history by a congress of states. This historical treatment of the subject leads us to more tangible and solid ground ; and it will be seen that on these occasions more especially attempts have been made to establish a balance of power in Europe upon the basis of general treaties ; and that these attempts have been rewarded by considerable, though not by permanent, success in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries.
to the horrors of the Thirty Years War, and to adjust the conflicting claims of rival creeds and hostile princes, appears to have originated with the emperor of Germany in 1G40. The attempt to restore peace by the authority of the Germanic Diet had failed. It became necessary to have recourse to mediating powers, and after a protracted pre liminary negotiation, the Congress of Miinster or Westphalia opened on the llth July 1643, the Catholic and Protes tant belligerents being represented on the one hand, and the mediating powers, France, Sweden, Venice, and the Pope, on the other. We do not propose in this place to follow the train of these complicated negotiations. It is enough for our present purpose to remark that the great treaty which resulted from them, and was signed on the 24th October 1648, became the basis of the public law of Europe, and the first official recognition, of the existence of
a European balance of power. The conditions established
