The Law of Nations. Emer de Vattel

crown: they have caused themselves to be acknowledged heads of the church; and this regulation is equally approved by reason and sound policy, and is also conformable to ancient custom. The first christian emperors exercised all the functions of heads of the church; they made laws on subjects relating to it,^*—summoned councils, and presided in them,— appointed and deposed bishops, &c. In Switzerland there are wise republics, whose sovereigns, knowing the full extent of the supreme authority, have rendered the ministers of religion subject to it, without offering violence to their consciences. They have prepared a formulary of the doctrines that are to be preached, and published laws of ecclesiastical discipline, such as they would have it exercised in the countries under their jurisdiction,—in order that those who will not conform to these establishments may not devote themselves to the service of the church. They keep all the ministers of religion in a lawful dependence, and suffer no exertion of church discipline but under their own authority. It is not probable that religion will ever occasion disturbances in these republics.

§145. Pernicious consequences of the contrary opinion.

      If Constantine and his successors had caused themselves to be formally acknowledged heads of the church,—and if Christian kings and princes had, in this instance, known how to maintain the rights of sovereignty,—would the world ever have witnessed those horrid disorders produced by the pride and ambition of some popes and ecclesiastics, emboldened by the weakness of princes, and supported by the superstition of the people,—<66>rivers of blood shed in the quarrels of monks, about speculative questions that were often unintelligible, and almost always as useless to the salvation of souls, as in themselves indifferent to the welfare of society,—citizens and even brothers armed against each other,—subjects excited to revolt, and kings hurled from their thrones? Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum!⁴³ The history of the emperors Henry IV.⁴⁴ Frederic I.⁴⁵ Frederic II.⁴⁶ and Louis of Bavaria, are well known. Was it not the independence of the ecclesiastics,— was it not that system in which the affairs of religion are submitted to a foreign power,—that plunged France into the horrors of the league, and had nearly deprived her of the best and greatest of her kings? Had it not been for that strange and dangerous system, would a foreigner, pope Sixtus V. have undertaken to violate the fundamental law of the kingdom, and declared the lawful heir incapable of wearing the crown? Would the world have seen, at other times and in other places,^* the succession to the crown rendered uncertain by a bare informality—the want of a dispensation, whose validity was disputed, and which a foreign prelate claimed the sole right of granting? Would that same foreigner have arrogated to himself the power of pronouncing on the legitimacy of the issue of a king? Would kings have been assassinated in consequence of a detestable doctrine?^† Would a part of France have been afraid to acknowledge the best of their kings,^‡ until he had received absolution from Rome? And would many other princes have been unable to give a solid peace to their people, because no decision could be formed within their own dominions on articles or conditions in which religion was interested?^§

§146. The abuses particularised. 1. The power of the popes.

      All we have advanced on this subject, so evidently flows from the notions of independence and sovereignty, that it will never be disputed by any honest man who endeavours to reason justly. If a state cannot finally determine every thing relating to religion, the nation is not free, and the prince is but half a sovereign. There is no medium in this case; either each state must, within its own territories, possess supreme power in this respect, as well as in all others, or we must adopt the system of Boniface VIII.⁴⁷ and consider all Roman catholic countries as forming only one state, of which the pope shall be the supreme head, and the kings subordinate administrators of temporal affairs, each in his province,— nearly as the sultans were formerly under the authority of the caliphs. We know that the above-mentioned pope had the presumption to write to Philip the Fair, king of France, Scire te volumus, quod in spiritualibus & tempo-<67>ralibus nobis subes^*—“We would have thee know that thou art subject to us as well in temporals as in spirituals.” And we may see in the canon law^† his famous bull Unam sanctam,⁴⁸ in which he attributes to the church two swords, or a double power, spiritual and temporal,—condemns those who think otherwise, as men, who, after the example of the Manicheans, establish two principles,—and finally declares, that it is an article of faith, necessary to salvation, to believe that every human creature is subject to the Roman pontiff.^‡

      We shall consider the enormous power of the popes as the first abuse that sprung from this system, which divests sovereigns of their authority in matters of religion. This power in a foreign court directly militates against the independence of nations and the sovereignty of princes. It is capable of overturning a state; and wherever it is acknowledged, the sovereign finds it impossible to exercise his authority in such a manner as is most for the advantage of the nation. We have already, in the last section, given several remarkable instances of this; and history presents others without number. The senate of Sweden having condemned Trollius,⁴⁹ archbishop of Upsal, for the crime of rebellion, to be degraded from his see, and to end his days in a monastery, pope Leo X.⁵⁰ had the audacity to excommunicate the administrator Steno, and the whole senate, and sentenced them to rebuild at their own expense a fortress belonging to the archbishop, which they had caused to be demolished, and pay a fine of a hundred thousand ducats to the deposed prelate.^* The barbarous Christiern,⁵¹ king of Denmark, took advantage of this decree to lay waste the territories of Sweden, and to spill the blood of the most illustrious of her nobility. Paul V.⁵² thundered out an interdict against Venice, on account of some very wise laws made with respect to the government of the city, but which displeased that pontiff, who thus threw the republic into an embarrassment, from which all the wisdom and firmness of the senate found it difficult to extricate it. Pius V.⁵³ in his <68> bull In Coena Domini, of the year 1567, declares, that all princes who shall introduce into their dominions any new taxes, of what nature soever they be, or shall increase the ancient ones, without having first obtained the approbation of the holy see, are ipso facto excommunicated. Is not this a direct attack on the independence of nations, and a subversion of the authority of sovereigns?

      In those unhappy times, those dark ages that preceded the revival of literature and the reformation, the popes attempted to regulate the actions of princes, under the pretence of conscience,—to judge of the validity of their treaties,—to break their alliances, and declare them null and void. But those attempts met with a vigorous resistance, even in a country which is generally thought to have then possessed valour alone, with a very small portion of knowledge. The pope’s nuncio, in order to detach the Swiss from the interests of France, published a monitory against all those cantons that favoured Charles VIII. declaring them excommunicated,⁵⁴ if within the space of fifteen days they did not abandon the cause of that prince, and enter into the confederacy which was formed against him: but the Swiss opposed this act by protesting against it as an iniquitous abuse, and caused their protest to be publicly posted up in all the places under their jurisdiction,—thus shewing their contempt for a proceeding that was equally absurd and derogatory to the rights of sovereigns.^* We shall mention several other similar attempts, when we come to treat of the faith of treaties.

§147. 2. Important employments conferred by a foreign power.

      This power in the popes has given birth to another abuse, that deserves the utmost attention from a wise government. We see several countries in which ecclesiastical dignities, and all the higher benefices, are distributed by a foreign power,—by the pope,—who bestows them on his creatures, and very often on men who are not subjects of the state. This practice is at once a violation of the nation’s rights, and of the principles of common policy. A nation ought not to suffer foreigners to dictate laws to her, to interfere in her concerns, or deprive her of her natural advantages: and yet how does it happen that so many states still tamely suffer a foreigner to dispose of posts and employments of the highest importance