Page:Diplomacy and the Study of International Relations (1919).djvu/11

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
Preface
vii

in the composition and character of the House of Representatives sufficient grounds for rejecting the claim that it should be admitted to a share with the President and the Senate in the making of treaties. Hamilton did not forecast a smooth path of peace and amity for his country. ‘It ought never to be forgotten’, he wrote in The Federalist of February 22, 1788, ‘that a firm union of this country under an efficient government, will probably be an increasing object of jealousy to more than one nation of Europe; and that enterprises to subvert it will sometimes originate in the intrigues of foreign Powers, and will seldom fail to be patronized and abetted by some of them.’ Even in 'The Farewell Address' of Washington, which came, from the pen of Hamilton, all is not idealism and hopefulness in the sphere of foreign relations. But Hamilton's impressive warning in The Federalist against endowing the House of Representatives with a share in the treaty-making power rests on reasoning and carries significance that are not confined either to his own day or to his own country. ‘Accurate and comprehensive knowledge of foreign politics; a steady and systematic adherence to the same views; a nice and uniform sensibility to national character; decision, secrecy, and dispatch, are incompatible with the genius of a body so variable and so numerous.’

No apology should be needed for the attention given in this book to works on International Law and on the History of International Law. Political Science without History, it has been said, has no root; and History without Political Science has no fruit. The history of international relations has fruit for each age in treaties, which the international lawyer interprets as expressions of movement of thought, and in the developing of conventions and standards that are recognized in the Society of Nations. In the history of International Law is shown a large part of the fruit of the