refuge, not of those who wish to avoid war, but only of
those who have preferred war and been beaten at it. The American
precedent should thus become a powerful influence for promoting the
cause of genuine international arbitration, and so for the preservation
of peace between nations.

[Sidenote: Does Debt Follow Sovereignty?]

Equally unexpected and important to the development of ordered liberty
and good government in the world was the American refusal to accept any
responsibility, for themselves or for the Cubans, on account of the
so-called Cuban debt. The principle asserted from the outset by the
American Commissioners, and finally maintained, in negotiating the
Peace of Paris, was that a national debt incurred in efforts to subdue
a colony, even if called a colonial debt, or secured by a pledge of
colonial revenues, cannot be attached in the nature of a mortgage to
the territory of that colony, so that when the colony gains its
independence it may still be held for the cost of the unsuccessful
efforts to keep it in subjection.

The first intimations that no part of the so-called Cuban debt would
either be assumed by the United States or transferred with the
territory to the Cubans, were met with an outcry from every bourse in
Europe. Bankers, investors, and the financial world in general had
taken it for granted that bonds which had been regularly issued by the
Power exercising sovereignty over the territory, and which specifically
pledged the revenues of custom-houses in that territory for the payment
of the interest and ultimately of the principal, must be recognized.
Not to do it, they said, would be bald, unblushing repudiation--a thing
least to be looked for or tolerated in a nation of spotless credit and
great wealth, which in past times of trial had made many sacrifices to
preserve its financial honor untarnished.

It must be admitted that modern precedents were not altogether in favor
of the American position. Treaties ceding territory not infrequently
provide for the assumption by the new sovereign of a proportional part
of the general obligations of the ceding state. This is usually true
when the territory ceded is so considerable as to form an important
portion of the dismembered country. Even "the great conqueror of this
century," as the Spanish Commissioners exclaimed in one of their
arguments, "never dared to violate this rule of eternal justice in any
of the treaties he concluded with those sov