leans v. New York Mail Steamship Co. was considered the status of territory of the Southern Confederacy which had been conquered by the federal forces. The court held that the federal forces in possession might exercise the same absolute authority as in the case of territory conquered from a foreign State. The court said:

"Although the city of New Orleans was conquered or taken possession of in a civil war waged on the part of the United States to put down an insurrection and restore the supremacy of the National Government in the Confederate States, that Government had the same power and rights in territory held by conquest as if the territory had belonged to a foreign country, and had been subjugated in a foreign war. The Prize Cases, 2 Black 635; Mrs. Alexander's Cotton, 2 Wall. 404; Mauren v. Ins. Co., 6 Wall. 1. In such cases the conquering power has a right to displace the pre-existing authority, and to assume, to such extent as it may deem proper, the exercise by itself of all the powers and functions of government. It may appoint all the necessary officers and clothe them with designated powers, larger or smaller, according to its pleasure. It may prescribe the revenues to be paid, and apply them to its own use or otherwise. It may do anything necessary to strengthen itself and weaken the enemy. There is no limit to the powers that may be exerted in such cases, save those which are found in the laws and usages of war. These principles have the sanction of all publicists who have considered the subject. They have been repeatedly recognized and applied by this court. Cross v. Harrison, 16 How. 164; Leitensdorfer v. Webb, 20 How. 176; The Grapeshot, 9 Wall. 129. In the case last cited the President had, by Proclamation, established in New Orleans a Provisional Court for the State of Louisiana, and defined its jurisdic20 Wall. 387; 22 L. ed. 354.

tion. This court held the Proclamation a rightful exercise of the power of the Executive, the court valid, and its decrees binding upon the parties brought before it. In such cases the laws of war take the place of the Constitution and laws of the United States as applied in time of peace."

De Facto and De Jure Governments Internationally Viewed. We have now to consider the significance in international relations of the distinction between de facto and de jure Governments.

Though often referred to, and without doubt of considerable political significance, it seems clear that, in municipal courts, the question whether another Government has been recognized by their own Government as de jure, as distinguished from de facto, is juristically unimportant. Indeed there is some difficulty in determining just what significance it attached to the distinction by the departments of government which control the foreign relations of States. Certain it is that when a Government "recognizes" another Government as either de facto or de jure, there is no pronouncement upon its part as to the legality of the steps by means of which that Government may have come into existence. Thus, as Oppenheim says: "Recognition of a new head of a State by no means implies the recognition of such head as the legitimate head of that State. Recognition is, in fact, nothing else than the declaration of other States that they are ready to deal with a certain individual as the highest organ of a particular State, without prejudice to the question whether such individual is, or is not, to be considered as the legitimate head of that State." 10

The writer has not succeeded in finding an official or

10 International Law, 3d ed., vol I, p. 528. Oppenheim here speaks of a head of a State, but as to the point under discussion there is no distinction between recognition of him and that of the Government he represents.

even quasi-official statement of just what is held to be the nature or political importance of the distinction between the recognition by one Government as de facto or as de jure in character, but it would appear that, from the point of view of another Government, a Government is regarded as de jure when it is given full and, presumably, permanent recognition as the organization qualified to speak and act for the territory and people over whom it claims jurisdiction, and especially when a particular individual is formally recognized as the titular head of that Government. Thus it has been officially held that the then existing Government of Mexico was recognized by the United States, October 19, 1915, as de facto in character, and, on August 31, 1917, as de jure when Carranza was recognized as its President.11

However, there have often occurred cases in which one Government, in order to show its displeasure with regard to something done by another Government, has with

"On October 19, 1915, the American Secretary of State, in a letter to the representative of the Mexican Government, said: "MY DEAR MR. ARREDONDO: It is my pleasure to inform you that the President of the United States takes this opportunity of extending recognition to the de facto government of Mexico, of which Gen. Venustiano Carranza is the Chief Executive.

"The Government of the United States will be pleased to receive formally in Washington a diplomatic representative of the de facto government as soon as it shall please Gen. Carranza to designate and appoint such representative; and, reciprocally, the Government of the United States will accredit to the de facto government a diplomatic representative as soon as the President has had opportunity to designate such representative."

On August 31, 1917, the President of the United States, communicating directly with General Carranza, and addressing him as President of the United Mexican States, said:

"Great and Good Friend:

"I have received the letter of the 1st of May last, in which Your Excellency announced your assumption of the Presidency of the Republic and your entrance upon the duties of the office.

"I cordially reciprocate the sentiments you express for the continuance of the friendly relations which have heretofore existed between the United States of America and the United Mexican States, and I assure Your Excellency of my best wishes for your personal welfare and for the prosperity of the Republic over which you have been called to preside."

drawn for a time its diplomatic representatives from the capital or court of that other Government, without thereby indicating, or intending to indicate, that it no longer recognized that Government as the de jure Government of the State in question.

When a Government has come into existence by the forcible or illegal overthrow of a former Government, and, for a time, maintains its authority, but is later overthrown by the former Government which re-establishes its authority, the first Government is spoken of in municipal law, as we have seen, as having had only a de facto existence, but, whatever sort of recognition it may have had from other Governments, those other Governments, as we shall presently see, will hold the re-established Government or, indeed, any other future Government of the State in question, responsible for the acts of the de facto Government. This results from the fundamental doctrine that a sovereign State is internationally responsible for what occurs within its own territory, and for acts of those who, in fact, exercise the dominant political control. In other words, a recognized Government in being is internationally liable not only for its own acts but for those of the Governments which it has overthrown or which have preceded it. And this principle applies equally to treaties or other agreements or undertakings into which the former Governments have entered. domestic or municipal law, however, the doctrine is a very different one, the acts of de facto Governments which do not attain a de jure status, being held wholly illegal, and, therefore not such as to furnish a basis for the claim of legal rights.

In

Recognition. It would appear, then, that, in international relations the distinction between de facto and de jure Governments is of little, if any, legal significance. In either case, the recognition of the Government by the

political department of another Government has substantially the same effect in and upon the courts of the recognizing State. The following are some of the cases which illustrate this.

Luther v. Sago & Co.,12 decided in 1921, was an action brought to establish the plaintiff's title to certain goods imported into England from Russia by the defendant who had bought them from the Republican Government of Russia which, in 1919, had forcibly taken the goods from the plaintiff. The plaintiff contended that the Republican Government had no legal existence as the Government of Russia, and had not been recognized as such by the British Government. As an alternative plea, he contended that the decree of the Republican Government which had ordered the confiscation of his goods was not one which, upon moral grounds, should be given legal effect to by the British courts.

When this case came on for trial, in 1920, in the Court of King's Bench, the court was informed by the British Foreign Office that the British Government had not recognized the Soviet Government as the Government of the Russian Federative Republic or of any sovereign power or State. Mr. Justice Roche, thereupon, speaking for the court, said: "I am therefore unable to recognize it, or to hold that it has sovereignty, or is able by decree to deprive the plaintiffs of their property." However, by the time the case came on for a hearing in the Court of Appeal it appeared that the British Government had altered its position with regard to the Soviet Government. In a letter from the Foreign Office it was declared that the British Government had recognized the Soviet Government as the de facto Government of Russia, and, also that the "Provisional Government," which came into power in March, 1917, and remained in authority until

12 37 T. H. R. 777.