One of the earliest examples of a sort of ratification is found in the treaty between Justinian and the Persian King, Chosroes, in 561 A. D. In this case the sovereigns agreed to accept that which their plenipotentiaries had promised and agreed upon. The French-Swiss alliance of May 28, 1777, was sanctioned by solemn oaths. It was the custom in earlier times to take hostages to insure ratification; this Grotius believed entirely proper. The oath gave way to a mere act or declaration of ratification.

Grotius likened a plenipotentiary to a mandatory, holding that all agreements reached by him were binding upon the sovereign from the time of signature, unless the secret instructions were transcended. Thus he regarded ratification as a mere form, not affecting the validity of the treaty. Likewise Martens, writing in 1789 at the time of the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, believed that if a mandatory had not exceeded his secret instructions, all that he agreed to was binding upon the state represented, and that the law of nations required no particular ratification (ratification particulière). Pufendorf regarded treaties valid from signature and thought ratification superfluous.

When, in 1914, the Great War broke upon an astonished world, we rather took comfort to ourselves in the thought that no matter how swiftly and vigorously military operations might be prosecuted, the Conventions of Geneva and of The Hague would insure humane care and chivalrous treatment to the prisoners of war of both sides. Perhaps unconsciously we based our feeling of assurance in this regard upon two assumptions. The first of these was that the terms of those conventions were of themselves legally binding upon the parties to the great conflict; and the second that in this day and generation of high development in the elements of morality and humanity the belligerents would feel themselves morally if not technically constrained to abide by the principles, and to follow, in practice, the honorable provisions of the conventions.

There are two particular conventions falling under consideration in this connection. These are, the Convention Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land, generally referred to as Hague IV of 1907; and the Convention for the Adaptation to Maritime War of the Principles of the Geneva Convention of 1906, commonly known as Hague X of 1907. Each of these agreements contains a provisional article, practically identical in the two instances, worded substantially as follows:

During the negotiations leading up to the Congress of Westphalia a considerable number of problems of diplomatic procedure arose which occasioned serious delays in the conclusion of peace. The convoking of a general peace congress of the majority of the European states was a new departure in international practice; and in view of the great differences of these states in religion, politics, interests and language it was necessary to reach preliminary agreements on procedure before the actual work of making peace could begin. These agreements were not easily and quickly made; and the eight or nine years of negotiations which preceded the Congress of Westphalia are a good illustration of the fact that the diplomatic practice of today is the result of an evolutionary process.

The corps diplomatique did not take form until the end of the fifteenth century; and for a century and more following its appearance, ambassadors and statesmen consumed a large part of their time in wranglings over the proper mode for conducting diplomatic business or the proper courtesies to be observed in international intercourse.

Dowries v. Bidwell. This is really the most important judgment in all the Insular Cases so far as a determination of the present status of Porto Rico is concerned. It is interesting because in it the now famous doctrine of non-incorporation is developed. It will be well, however, to state at the outset that in this case there was no majority opinion of the court and that the decision was reached merely by the concurrence of a majority of the judges in what is styled in the syllabus of the case as the conclusion and judgment of the court.

In view of the great diversity of opinion evinced by the judges in this case, as will later appear, it was regarded at the time by very able lawyers and commentators of note as a very doubtful precedent which the court might not feel in the future bound to accept as the settled law of the land. So far, however, it has stood the test of time, and although the recent passage of the so-called Jones-Shafroth Act, extending to Porto Ricans a large measure of self-government and the privilege of American citizenship, seemed to reopen the question of the juridical status of Porto Rico and require the rejection or modification of the doctrines laid down or relied upon in this important decision, its conclusions have been affirmed and ratified and are largely accepted at the present time as a correct expression of the national sense. It is at any rate the only authoritative declaration of the present status of Porto Rico so far made by any competent branch of the government. It is therefore important to examine this decision somewhat at length in order to ascertain and determine the present status of the Island and the particular doctrines upon which that status is supposed to be founded.