INTERVENTION

From Agepedia

INTERVENTION, in politics; a word which has been used, particularly since the congresses of Troppau, Laybach and Verona (see Congress, and Holy Alliance), to express the armed interposition [intervention armee) of one state in the domestic affairs of another. The right of armed intervention has never been so distinctly pronounced, and acted upon, as in modern times, since the congress of Vienna. It was a natural consequence of the holy alliance, and the congresses of rulers, or their representatives, assembled to prop the pillars of despotism. (See Italy, France, since 1819, Naples, and Spain.) Such armed interventions as have lately taken place in Europe arise from the fellowfeeling of sovereigns, who claim the right of assisting each other against their subjects, and directly contravene the right of independent developement which belongs to the character of a nation. Yet to deny the right of forcible intervention in toto, would be to condemn the interference of the powers of Europe to save the Greeks from extirpation; and we might inquire, who, if the mad tyranny of don Miguel were to continue for years, and the Portuguese nation to be cruelly oppressed by a military force, would blame a foreign power for interfering ? Or if the French, instead of actually conquering Algiers, had merely destroyed the government of the piratical soldiery, for the sake of liberating the natives, whom they oppressed, who could blame such an intervention ? The works of Fievee (De VEspagne et des Consequences de VIntervention Armee, 3d edit., Paris, 1823), of Bignon (Du Congres de Troppau, Paris, 1821, and Les Cabinets et les Peuples depuis 1815, jusqu'a la Fin de 1822, 3d edit., Paris, 1823), of De Pradt, &c, as well as the important debates on the subject of the French war of intervention in Spain, in both the French chambers, and in the British parliament, 1823, have exhausted the subject. The first statesmen of France and England then exerted themselves to throw light on the doctrine of armed intervention, which had already been applied to the Poles, treating it both in its general principles and in its application to particular cases. Among the state papers relating to the right of intervention according to the latest principles, the following are particularly important:the declaration of the English minister, lord Castlereagh, of the 19th January, 1821, and the circular of Verona, 14th December, 1822. With regard to the application of this doctrine, by the European powers, to the Spanish American colonies, the U. States and England declared themselves so categorically, in 1824, that no congress of the sovereigns was held on that subject. The U. States are the power which acts most implicitly upon the principle of nonintervention. (See Independence.) Recently, the interest of most of the European monarchs, which induced them to pronounce at Laybach the right of armed intervention, has prompted them to deny it in the protocol of the five great powers, issued at London, in 1831, denouncing foreign intervention in the affairs of Belgium; and a similar declaration is expected in regard to Poland ; the reason of which is, that the absolute monarchs at present see clearly how much the security of their thrones would be jeopardized by a war.