Des limites naturelles du territoire propre à chaque nation, et à chacune des principales fractions

CHAP. 8: On the natural limits of the territory proper to each nation, and to each of the principal fractions into which it is divided.

IN passing gradually from the state of barbarism to the state of civilization, men give to some of their faculties more development; but they do not change their nature. The time of gestation, the duration of childhood, the weakness and the infirmities that accompany it, are the same in a horde of savages as in a civilized nation. One must not be surprised, therefore, if, on the lowest rung of the social state, the human species groups itself into families as at the highest term of civilization.

Needs analogous to those that preside over the formation and the preservation of each family unite various families into tribes. This second kind of association is no less necessary for the preservation and development of the families that form it, as will be seen further on, than the permanent union of man and woman for the preservation of their children. Thus travelers have never encountered, even in the most barbarous countries, families living in a complete state of isolation from one another.

Independently of the sentiments of sympathy that tend to bring beings of the same species together, families are linked to one another by the alliances they contract, by the mutual services they render, by common habits and a common language, by the resemblance of their ideas or their prejudices, and above all by the enjoyment in common of things that are necessary for their existence, and which are not susceptible of being shared.

I have observed, in the preceding chapter, that wherever nature has presented means of existence to the human species, men have been found who have appropriated them; I must now add that, whenever physical obstacles interrupt communications between equally inhabited lands, each tribe finds the limits of its territory at the points where communications are interrupted. There can, in effect, be no association between families that enjoy nothing in common, that can make no exchange of services, that do not form alliances among themselves, and that, as a result of the state of separation in which they find themselves, cannot express their ideas exactly by the same signs.

The obstacles that interrupt communications between inhabited lands are of various kinds: they are mountains, seas, impassable marshes. Watercourses are obstacles to the coming together of families, or means of communication, according to whether they are more or less considerable, and whether the peoples have made more or less progress in the arts. Rivers that resemble arms of the sea, like some of those on the American continent, are obviously obstacles to all communication for little-civilized nations. When the arts have made progress, these obstacles will still be great enough to prevent numerous and frequent communications.

It results from this that, the less advanced civilization is, the more numerous and isolated from one another are the fractions into which the human race is divided. One of the most incontestable results of the growth of population and the perfection of the arts is, in effect, to gradually make disappear the obstacles that prevent men from dealing with one another. Such a river that would divide completely barbarous men into two enemy hordes, becomes, for the peoples who possess its banks, the means of an active communication, from the moment they have found the art of constructing bridges and boats, and they are industrious enough to effect exchanges. The obstacles that mountains present to the communication of the peoples who occupy their opposite slopes are more easily overcome by civilized nations than by tribes still uncultivated: the arts and riches have furnished us with the means of tracing roads across the steepest mountains.

It must be observed, however, that what divides the human race into great fractions is much less the difficulty of climbing the steepness of the mountains, than the distance at which the great masses of population are constrained to keep themselves, by the nature of things. In general, men multiply in each place in proportion to the subsistence they can grow there, or that commerce and industry can bring there at little cost. It follows from this that the most numerous populations are spread throughout the most spacious and fertile parts of the basins formed by the mountains. As one rises toward the source of the rivers or streams, the valleys gradually narrow, the land is less capable of producing subsistence, and consequently men there become more and more rare. Often the steep flanks of the mountains remain uncultivated or are cultivated only up to a certain height; the cultivators remain there only the time necessary for cultivation or harvest, and descend again into the valleys. The population stops at the point where cultivation and pastures end; what is beyond sometimes forms very extensive spaces that are more or less difficult to cross.

It is not necessary for mountains to be very high to divide into two very distinct fractions the families who possess their opposite slopes; it suffices that they be high enough to prevent daily and habitual communications. The populations that mountains divide, when they are not completely separated, touch each other only at a small number of points. In the places where they touch, the families are not numerous, and on each side they are naturally drawn toward the slope to which they belong, unless they are diverted from it by great interests [^20].

The seas, which are for commerce such powerful means of communication, nevertheless oppose the peoples between which they are found from uniting to form but one nation: the mass of the population is retained on each shore by the dangers and above all by the costs of travel. Maritime communications, besides being expensive, and not without danger, require too much time for them to be frequent and habitual for a great number of persons. A sea, when it has a great extent, is, relative to the peoples who inhabit its shores, a separation almost as effective as a vast desert would be.

The progress of the arts and the growth of the population tend ceaselessly to make disappear the causes that divide the human race into a multitude of fractions foreign and often hostile to one another. As the arts develop, the marshes are drained, the forests are pierced by a multitude of roads, or are transformed into fertile countrysides, the rivers are covered with bridges and boats, the mountains are furrowed with spacious and convenient roads. When civilization thus changes the aspect of a vast country, the various fractions of the population take other names; but everything, however, retains the imprint of the original division. What formed an independent tribe now forms only a city or a village; an association of small peoples now forms only a province or a state. The configuration of the soil remaining the same, the limits that divided two tribes now separate only two cities or two communes.

The countries that have best known how to defend their independence and their liberty are, in general, those where the population is divided in the manner most conformable to the nature of things. It is by observing the limits that independent nations have accepted or have given themselves, that one clearly perceives the territory that forms the property of each people. A small number of examples will suffice to make it well understood how this territory is determined by the configuration of the soil and by the very nature of man.Almost all the peoples of the European continent have been subjected to princes who considered them as family properties; they have been given by testament or by marriage contract, sold or exchanged like flocks. The kings, when they could not acquire them by alliances, fought over them like a prey that Providence had reserved for the most adroit or the strongest, and in the various partitions they have made of them, they have scarcely taken counsel from anything but their ambition and their greed. One would therefore risk going greatly astray if, to find the natural limits of the territory of each nation, and those that divide a people into various fractions, one were to consult the diplomatic treaties and the decrees by which princes have regulated the administration of their states. It may happen, no doubt, that these treaties or decrees recognize the true limits of the territory of a people or a province; but, when that occurs, it is, in general, only an effect of chance, or because one is carried along by the invincible force of things [^21].

There is, in the midst of the great states of the European continent, a small country which, for several centuries, has ceased to be considered the domain of a family, and which, through all revolutions, has found the means to preserve its independence and its liberty. Divided into twenty-two small states, which are called cantons, this country is the place in Europe where the territory of each fraction of the population is limited in the most natural manner. It is not a government which, with ruler and compass in hand, has divided the soil into roughly equal parts, to distribute them to governors invested with an equal share of power. The peoples have submitted to the division that the nature of the soil and the form of the mountains had traced for them. There are, no doubt, even in this country, some anomalies that are the results of war and conquest; but they are less numerous there than in the other parts of the European continent.

If one casts one's eyes upon a map of Switzerland, and if one observes the contours of the great mountains, one will see that this country is formed from the upper part of three great basins; from the highest part of the basin of the Rhine, that of the Rhône, and that of the Ticino [^22]. The part that belongs to the Rhine basin, and which forms the most considerable portion of the Helvetian territory, contains several secondary basins. When these second-order basins have a certain extent, they form distinct states, and each of these states generally has for its limits the edges of the basin in which it is enclosed. The mountains that form these edges often draw close at the point through which the waters escape: it is at the narrowest part of the constriction that the limit on that side is found.

The natural limits of the canton of Grisons, for example, are so well marked that one perceives them at first glance, and one distinguishes equally at first sight the small portions of territory that the inhabitants have conquered from Italy and in the upper part of the valley of the Inn. The population enclosed in the basin of which this canton is formed is itself divided into various fractions, not by the watercourses that traverse the soil, but by the smaller, lower mountains that separate the small valleys at the bottom of which flow the waters that descend from the highest mountains.

We observe the same phenomena in the cantons located in the center of Switzerland, such as Glaris, Uri, Schwyz, Unterwalden. Each of them is limited by a chain of more or less high mountains; and it is then divided into a certain number of valleys, each of which contains a small, distinct population.

The canton of Valais presents an even more remarkable example than that of Grisons of the manner in which peoples are divided by the very nature of things. It is formed of a great basin surrounded on all sides by very high mountains, and which allows the waters that irrigate it to escape only through a narrow outlet. In considering this basin, one might believe that it formerly formed a great lake, and that the waters burst into Lake Geneva by breaking the obstacle that the junction of the mountains opposed to them. The two great chains that form the limits of the canton project into the interior of the basin a multitude of branches that direct themselves, while descending, toward the center. These branches of the two great chains limit the territory of the various fractions of the population spread throughout the lateral valleys.

We shall see elsewhere that, when several valleys or lower basins pour their waters into the same river, the main trunk that carries them to the sea is naturally the common property of all the tribes to which these valleys or basins belong; we shall also see that these tribes, when they do not form a nation subject to the same government, are naturally led to confederate among themselves.

When the men who inhabit a determined country all enjoy their independence and their liberty, they therefore divide themselves into various fractions, like the lands that furnish them with means of existence. It results from this that the strength of each state, or the number of families that compose it, is generally limited, either by the extent and fertility of the territory on which it is placed, or by the industry that it is possible to develop there. It results, moreover, that the smallness or greatness of nations is determined by the nature of things, and that one cannot enlarge or diminish them without exercising, over a more or less considerable number of men, a veritable tyranny. It results, finally, that the efforts made by the governments of Europe to maintain what they call the balance of nations, by arbitrarily fractioning territories, are a veritable struggle against human nature. These arbitrary divisions, far from being guarantees of peace, are, on the contrary, only causes of trouble and war.

Switzerland, which has already furnished us with examples of the limits given by nature to the territory of each nation, also furnishes us with remarkable examples of the difference that exists between the natural strength of the various states. There are some cantons that count only thirteen or fourteen thousand inhabitants; there are others that have only twenty-five or thirty thousand; there are some whose population rises to fifty or sixty thousand; in a few, it rises as high as one hundred fifty or two hundred thousand. A geometer-politician who divided this country with ruler and compass, to make of it fractions roughly equal, either in extent or in population, would certainly increase neither its well-being nor its power. He would produce, on the contrary, many particular evils, and internal strife that would be keenly felt.

If we make the same observations on France as we have made on Switzerland, we will notice the same phenomena; we will find the limits that separate the various fractions of the territory capable of being cultivated to be less strongly pronounced: the territory there will be divided into more considerable fractions; but we will arrive, in the end, at the same results.

The territory that today forms France contains in their entirety only three great basins: that of the Seine, that of the Loire, and that of the Gironde. It comprises, moreover, a part of the basin of the Rhine, a part of that of the Meuse, and the most considerable portion of that of the Rhône. It finally comprises fourteen small, entire basins that pour their waters directly into the Ocean or the Mediterranean, and a small part of the basin of the Scheldt.

The slopes of the mountains that send a part of their waters into the Rhône, and which limit the territories of various states, present a particular phenomenon: they form three very distinct basins, which communicate with one another only by very narrow passages. The first of these basins, which begins at the very source of the Rhône, and which ends at Saint-Maurice, between two immense rocks (the Dent de Morcles and the Dent du Midi), forms the canton of Valais. The second, which begins where the first ends, opens rapidly, and embraces the canton of Vaud, the canton of Geneva, the Pays de Gex, and Savoy; it ends at the point where the river disappears into the rocks, near the Fort de l'Écluse. The third begins at the point where the Saône takes its source in the Monts Fauciles, and ends at the Mediterranean. Although this last receives all the waters of the first two, it can be considered a complete basin, since the disappearance of the river really intercepts all communication with the other two.

The various mountain chains that divide France into several basins, and which thus share the population into more or less large fractions, are far from having the same elevation as those of Switzerland and Savoy. The chain of the Pyrenees which forms, on the south, the vast basin of the Gironde, that of the Adour and that of the Têt, and the part of the chain of the Alps which forms on the east the basin of the Rhône, are the only ones that rise to a great height. The others are not high enough to be completely sterile: with the exception of a certain number of points, they are fit to serve as pastures or are covered with woods. Although they are considerable enough to keep the masses of population spread throughout the basins at a certain distance from one another, they are not sufficient to place an obstacle in the way of communications.

If one compares, for example, the mountains that form the upper basin of the Rhône to those that form the basin of the Seine, one will find that there exists between the one and the other an immense difference. The former are so high that, on the north side, they can be crossed only at a single point and with difficulty. On the south and southeast side, there existed, until the beginning of this century, only a small number of paths practicable only for mules or people on foot. It required the audacious genius of Napoleon, seconded by a great power, by immense riches, and by the arts, to open across these mountains a road whose very existence excites admiration. The mountains that form the basin of the Seine not only can be easily crossed at a great number of points, but they are cut by easy roads, and even by canals.

The differences that exist in the inhabitants of the two countries correspond to those of the places. The population that occupies the long valley that the Rhône traverses, from the point where it takes its source to Saint-Maurice, is separated by high mountains, except at a single point, from all the populations that surround it. It neither speaks nor understands their language; it speaks French, while the peoples by which it is surrounded on almost all sides speak Italian or German. It touches, however, at one point a people that speaks the same language as it; and this point is the narrow and sole opening by which one has been able, at all times, to penetrate into the basin it occupies. The population contained in the basin of the Seine has, on the contrary, always been able to communicate more or less easily with the various populations that occupy the exterior slopes of the mountains by which this great basin is formed. Thus, we do not find between it and the peoples spread throughout the basins by which it is surrounded, differences as pronounced as those that exist between the inhabitants of Valais and the peoples in the midst of whom they are placed.

The natural limits that divide into various fractions the soil from which men draw their means of existence can be arranged into several classes. Some are strongly pronounced, and permit the peoples they separate only difficult, expensive, and consequently infrequent communications: of this number are the seas and the high mountain chains, such as the Pyrenees and the Alps. Limits of this kind, whatever the progress of civilization may be, will always divide the human race into great masses; they will share them into nations.

The natural limits that come next are the mountains that form the basins of rivers, but which do not have enough elevation to prevent numerous communications between the populations they separate. We can place in this class the mountains of the interior of France, which form the basins of the Seine and the Loire, and a part of the basins of the Gironde, the Rhône, and the Rhine. We must place on the same line the chain of mountains that runs from one end of Italy to the other, as well as those of the interior of England. Limits of this class can divide a great nation into various confederated states, like those of Switzerland or of North America, or else into large provinces each having its particular assemblies. If France, for example, had a political organization analogous to that of the United States or of Switzerland, it would count five large states and fourteen or fifteen small ones. There would be between the population of each of these various states roughly the same differences that we have observed between the population of the various cantons of Switzerland [^23].

In observing the manner in which the population of some Swiss cantons is subdivided, we have remarked that in general the mountain chain, which serves as a limit to several cantons, projects, into the interior of each basin, several branches that direct themselves more or less toward the center, while gradually descending. These branches, which separate the valleys among which the basins are shared, form a third kind of limit. The populations they separate are generally very homogeneous, either because they have a common origin, or because they communicate easily with one another.

The length and the spacing of these branches depend less on the elevation of the chain from which they depart than on the extent of the basin into which they project. The branches that divide the canton of Grisons or that of Valais into several valleys, for example, depart from the highest mountains in Europe; yet they are very short, and consequently descend very rapidly. Those that project into the interior of the basin of the Seine, on the contrary, belong to a low chain; but they are very extensive, and present considerable spacings. Often the long branches that detach from a great chain, and which direct themselves into the interior of a basin, divide, and multiply the number of limits; but it is useless to follow these divisions further.

We have seen that what separates nations from one another above all are principally the seas, or mountains high enough to make communications long, difficult, and expensive. It follows from this that the line that separates two nations is found naturally in the highest part of the chain placed between them, at the point where the waters divide. Each of them has the property of the slope that is on its side; and neither can seize the slope that is opposite it, without usurpation and without tyranny. Thus, for example, the slope of the Alps on which flow the waters of the Var, the Rotta, and the Impero, obviously forms a part of France. The treaty that detached it to form the County of Nice and to join it to Piedmont had no other object than to secure for certain powers an entry into French territory. For the same reason, the part of the northern slope of the Pyrenees, which carries its waters into the Bidassoa, does not form a natural part of Spain. Rivers, especially when they are easily navigable, are means of communication, causes of association. One commits a misinterpretation when one considers them as barriers that it is not permitted to cross.

One can observe, in most of the states of Europe, a great number of divisions contrary to the nature of things; but there is none that is more striking, and that has had, for the populations that have suffered it, more fatal effects than that which divides the Iberian Peninsula into two independent states. This country is admirably disposed to form several provincial states, united by a common bond; the populations contained in the basins of the rivers are separated from one another by high mountains. But, so long as the inhabitants of this country see a cause of separation in what nature has made to unite them, and causes of union in what really separates them, it is impossible that they not be continually in a state of constraint, misery, and disorder [^24].Mountains, we say, form the limits that separate nations from one another, and that divide the same people into more or less considerable fractions; but one must not imagine that between two distinct nations, one finds, on all points, a sea or high mountains. Two rivers that follow roughly the same direction are often separated, for a great part of their course, by a more or less high mountain chain; but all mountains lower more or less rapidly as they advance toward the sea. It results from this that the populations situated between the mouths of two rivers are often separated by no very pronounced limit, and that they merge into one another. The same phenomenon is noticeable in an even more striking manner in the parallel valleys that carry their waters into the same river. The branches of mountains that separate them first descend gradually, and often they fade away entirely before reaching the river. In recognizing the natural limits of the territory of each nation or of each fraction of the same people, one must not, therefore, imagine that they are everywhere equally pronounced, and form a system that would be contradicted by the facts.

Seas are, for nations, boundaries that can hardly be mistaken: thus, although it often happens that a people, or, to speak more exactly, its government, extends its domination over a slope that is part of the territory of another people, it is extremely rare that a limit formed by the sea is an object of discussion. The nation that attempted to usurp such a limit from another would derive such weak advantages from it, and would have so much trouble preserving it, that it would soon see itself constrained to abandon it, unless it established at the same time its domination over the entire country.

The peoples whose territory extends to the sea do not admit that their domination ends exactly at the point where the sea begins. All, without exception, consider a certain extent of the sea as forming part of their territory: this is what they call their waters. The reason for this is that each nation considers as its property the thing by which it subsists, and that it is by fishing on their shores that maritime peoples procure means of existence. It must also be added that a people could not watch over its security if it were not admitted that it is the proprietor of a certain extent of the waters of the sea that form its limits[^25].

The various fractions of population that are spread throughout the basin of a river are naturally associated with one another, and form a single nation, or a confederation of various states, when each of them enjoys complete independence. It rarely happens that one of these fractions voluntarily separates from the others to associate with populations spread throughout different basins, and from which it is consequently distant by natural limits. The reason for this is in the advantages that result from any natural association, and in the inconveniences that are the ordinary consequence of unnatural associations. It is in treating of political organization that I will show what these inconveniences and advantages are.

However, circumstances are sometimes encountered where the advantages of a natural association almost entirely disappear, while the inconveniences of an association contrary to the nature of things are little felt. It would, for example, be in the nature of things for the peoples who inhabit the three great fractions that compose the basin of the Rhône to be united among themselves, either by forming a single nation, or by forming various states united by a federal bond. These peoples all speak the same language, can easily trade together, and are enveloped by the same mountain chains. However, if one wished to unite to France those among them who are allied to German cantons and to an Italian canton, one would have to do them great violence. One would equally have to do violence to the inhabitants of Ticino to unite them to Italy, and to separate them from their German or French allies.

The reason for this is not difficult to see. The alliance formed between the inhabitants of the upper parts of the basins of the Rhône, the Rhine, the Ticino, and the Inn, places few burdens on the associates. Each population, or each fraction of population, remains sovereign over its territory for all that concerns its internal affairs. The federal government does not send German judges, administrators, or commanders into the French cantons; it does not send French administrators or magistrates into the German cantons. It needs taxes and troops, because otherwise it could not watch over the common security; but it leaves to each state the care of establishing contributions as it judges suitable, and of making the levies of men as it sees fit. The inhabitants of the mountains of Grisons or of the Oberland do not have the pretension of subjecting to the exercise of the agents of the fisc the winegrowers of Valais or of the canton of Vaud. The latter, for their part, do not venture to vote taxes on the cheeses or on the flocks of the mountain inhabitants. The federal bond thus draws the greatest part of its strength from the independence that each population enjoys in the basin where it has developed.

If the inhabitants of Ticino were separated from the confederation, and reunited with their natural associates of Italy, not only would they lose their independence as a nation, but they would have to bear all the evils that the domination of the Austrian government weighs upon that country; the advantages of this new association would be almost nil; its burdens would be unbearable. Likewise, if the populations of Valais, of the canton of Vaud, and of the canton of Geneva, were separated from the cantons situated in the basin of the Rhine, and reunited with the other inhabitants of the basin of the Rhône, they would lose the advantages that result from their independence and from a low-cost administration, and would have to suffer all the inconveniences of a government that can subsist only by heavy taxes. They could, it is true, spread the products of their industry over a larger stage; they would have more strength and independence as members of a great nation. But these advantages would be purchased by so many burdens and by the loss of so many rights, that there are very few people who would consent to the exchange. We can make the same reasoning about the inhabitants of the left bank of the Rhine as about the peoples who occupy the upper parts of the great basin of the Rhône. Their natural associates would be the peoples spread throughout the basin they themselves inhabit; but these peoples, who ought to form but one federation, are so divided among themselves; they are subjected to such different regimes, and to such hostile foreign influences; they enjoy so little independence and liberty, that it is more advantageous for them to be united to the rest of France. In several respects, they have more independence and liberty, and their industry profits from the advantages that the free commerce of a great nation always offers. It must be added that canals, by uniting great basins, also unite the populations that inhabit them.

One must therefore never lose sight of the fact that, when it is a question of natural associations or of associations contrary to the nature of things, it is always understood that accidental circumstances do not destroy the advantages of the ones and the inconveniences of the others. The genius of men sometimes lowers the barriers that kept peoples divided; but sometimes also their errors and their vices transform into obstacles the means of communication that nature had given them[^26].

It results from what precedes, that the lands fit to furnish men with means of existence are naturally divided into more or less considerable fractions, by seas, mountains, lakes, or by rivers that are wide enough to make communications difficult, expensive, and consequently infrequent; that the high mountain chains, which form the basins of the great rivers, naturally limit the territory of the nations that occupy their opposite slopes; that the less elevated chains that form great basins, without placing powerful obstacles to communications, equally serve as limits to the populations that occupy their contrary slopes, but do not prevent them from associating for their general interests; that the branches projected by the mountain chains into the interior of the river basins divide the territory, and consequently the population of each basin, into various fractions, without destroying the homogeneity of this population; finally, that the size of nations, and that of the various fractions of which they are composed, is naturally determined by the configuration of the soil.

Having expounded how the soil that furnishes them with means of existence is divided among men; having shown moreover that each people, seen en masse, considers itself the proprietor of the soil on which it has developed and without which it could not live; finally, having established that this property of a national territory is never contested by the most zealous partisans of equality, nor even by those who call into question the existence of private property, it remains to show how the properties of individuals and families are formed in the midst of the national territory.

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Notes

[^20]: To form clear ideas of the manner in which the human race is naturally divided, one can represent the valleys situated on the opposite slopes of the mountains as triangles which come together only slightly at their summits, and whose bases move further and further apart. The distance at which these triangles are placed in relation to one another depends on the extent of the plateaus or the elevation of the mountains. In advancing toward the summit of each triangle, the population decreases in compound ratio of the narrowing of lands susceptible to cultivation, the diminution of fertility of the soil, and the difficulty of communications. [^21]: Ignorance has sometimes produced divisions more vicious than those which have been the result of ambition and violence. It suffices, for example, to cast a glance at a map of the United States of America, to be struck by the arbitrariness that reigns in the division of these States. The territory of the United States of Mexico is, on the contrary, divided in the manner most conforming to the nature of things. Time will make the advantages of this latter division and the disadvantages of the former felt. [^22]: Switzerland also includes a part of the basin of the Inn; but this part is so small that it can be neglected here. [^23]: I do not intend to pass any judgment here on the political organization of these peoples; it is a subject that I shall treat later, if I have time. [^24]: One can make, about the states of the center of Europe, the same observations as about the Iberian Peninsula: there is nothing in the world more suited to retard the progress of civilization than this monster that was created in 1815, under the name of Germanic Confederation, and which tends constantly to place under the same regime the populations of the basins of the Rhine, the Elbe, and the Danube. [^25]: The Savages themselves have their waters around their territory like civilized peoples: they do not suffer other peoples to come there to take fish. [^26]: I have proposed in this chapter to simply set forth what are the natural limits of the territory of each nation and of each of the principal fractions of which it is composed; I shall occupy myself with the effects which result, either from divisions contrary to the nature of things, or from the domination exercised by the population of one large area over another population, when I treat of the division and political organization of each people.