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.