Since the principal purpose in sending ambassadors is to secure peace by cultivating friendly relations with other governments, it is evidently wise before making an appointment to any country to learn whether the person whom it is expected to send is acceptable to that country. Accordingly it is customary before making the appointment public to make the nomination privately to the foreign government and to express the hope that it will be found acceptable. Even the nominee knows nothing of it, and is thus saved the pain of rejection in case that should occur. If there is no personal objection to the nominee, and if there is no doubt that his country possesses full sovereignty and is therefore entitled to send ambassadors, his government is notified of the fact that he is acceptable; but should there be any objection to him—and sometimes very trifling ones will suffice—his government is notified that he is persona non grata (not an agreeable person), and it proceeds to make other nominations. Not only has the foreign government the right to reject a nominee but also to demand his recall at any time if there is any well grounded dissatisfaction with him. One American ambassador was recalled because complaint was made about his bad manners.
SOVEREIGNTY OF A STATE.
Since the power to send ambassadors is conditioned upon the sovereignty of a state we may be pardoned for a glance at international law for the meaning of sovereignty. The essential attributes of a state are—
- (1) Equality—in a legal sense—a small country the equal of a larger one.
- (2) Independence, freedom from all other states.
- (3) Sovereignty.
- (4) Fixed locality—boundary.
- (5) Its people must be organized into a political society.
Woolsey, who mentions the first three only, says that they “cannot exist apart, and perhaps the single conception of sovereignty, or of self-protection, may include them all”. It is “the power of entering into relations with other states and of governing its own subjects”. Thus it follows that no dependency or colony can send a diplomat of any rank whatever.
After the appointment of any one to the diplomatic service, the manner of which will be mentioned later, he must take the oath of allegiance and is then given a pamphlet of printed instructions by the State Department. He is furnished with a letter of credence from the President to the foreign government and is expected to reach his post within a given time, and to stay there until the expiration of his appointment unless he is given special permission to leave. Having reached his destination, he is formally presented to the sovereign, unless he is a chargé d’affaires, makes calls upon his colleagues, and secures his exequatur. It is wise to make an early call upon the dean of the diplomatic body, who is generally the oldest official member of the diplomatic corps, for instruction as to local customs, ceremonies and etiquette.
Our government has generally assumed an attitude of indifference to matters of form and ceremony—an independence which has cost it no little prestige, and its diplomats a great deal of annoyance. It should be granted that forms and ceremonies have their place in diplomatic affairs, and that each court or capital has a right to its own long-established usages. But we have rather been inclined to turn up our noses at such foreign nonsense, forgetting that in matters of form there is sound discretion in the precept, “When in Rome do as the Romans do”. But the government seems to have cared less for the art of being agreeable than for the science of being successful, regardless of the fact that in diplomacy the one is a prerequisite to the other. Two illustrations of this may be given—the appointment of ambassadors and the question of a diplomatic uniform.
It is only within the present decade that the United States has begun to exercise its constitutional right to be represented wherever it chooses by diplomats of the first rank, i. e., ambassadors. Previously its highest representatives abroad were diplomats of the second rank, i. e., ministers, who though thoroughly competent to handle the business were simply out-ranked by every ambassador of every second or third rate power in the world. This we could afford to ignore so far as it is merely a question of sentiment, but when it compels an American diplomat after waiting hours for an audience to give place to any ambassador who happens along, and when it implies an acceptance on our part of a secondary place among the nations, it is sheer nonsense to continue the practice. Our reasons were, first an ambassador is supposed to represent the person of his sovereign, and as we have no sovereign we should have no ambassadors; and second, the office itself was supposed to involve a greater outlay of money and a more gorgeous and elaborate display than was consistent with the simplicity of republican tastes.
As to the diplomatic uniform, which is not the same thing as a court dress, by the way, the same objections have been urged. The mistake that we have made is in assuming that “the rule should emanate from home, and not from abroad”; for while we have an undoubted right to establish our own customs at our national capital, others might be excused for thinking us priggish when we attempt to carry those customs abroad, especially when in defiance of customs in general usage and of long standing. But so it stands recorded in the statutes, that American diplomatic officers shall wear no distinguishing uniform; and as a consequence, at an evening reception in some brilliant foreign capital you will see the diplomatic corps of other nations appropriately distinguished, while the American diplomat appears in the costume worn by the servants and waiters, that is, plain evening dress. What diplomats sometime complain of in this connection is not the lack of distinction, but that they are rather unpleasantly distinguished.