WAPENTAKE. In Saxon Law. A subdi vision of a country, used in Yorkshire, Lin colnshire, Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire. 1 Poll. & Maitl. 543.
It was called a wapentake from wagon, arms, and tao, to touch ; because when the chief of the hun dred entered upon his office he appeared in the field on a certain day, on horseback, with a pike In his hand, and all the principal men met him with lances. Upon this he alighted, and they all touched his pike with their lances, in token of their submis sion to hie authority. In this court causes of great moment were heard and determined, as Mr. Dugdale has shown from several records. Besides which it took cognizance of theft, trials by ordeal, view of frankpledge, and the like ; whence after the con quest it was called the sheriff's tourn, and as re garded the examination of the pledges, the court of the view of frankpledge. These pledges were no other than the freemen within the liberty, who, ac cording to an institution of King Alfred, were mutually pledged for the good behavior of each oth er. Fortescue, de Laud. c. 24 ; Dugdale, Orig. Jur.
27 ; 4 Bia. Corn. 273. Sir Thomas Smith derives it from the custom of taking away the arms at the muster of each hundred, from those who could not find sureties for good behavior. Rep. Angl. lib. 2, c. 16.
WAR. An armed contest between nations. Grotius, de Jur. Bell. 1. 1, c. 1. The state of nations among whom there is an interrup tion of all pacific relations, and a general contention by force, authorized by the sov ereign. 1 Kent *61.
An armed contest to maintain the rights of a nation or to bring about a settlement of its disputes with other nations. It is also de fined as a hostile contest with armies between two or more states claiming sufficient rights. Snow, Lect. Int. L. 82.
A civil war is one confined to a single na tion. It is public on the part of the estab lished government, and private on the part of the people resisting its authority, but both the parties are entitled to all the rights of war as against each other, and even as re spects neutral nations ; Wheat. Int. L. § 296.
The right of making war belongs in every civilized cation to the supreme power of the state. The exercise of this right is regulated
by the fundamental laws in each country, and may be delegated to its inferior author ities in remote possessions, or even to a com mercial corporation. A contest by force be tween independent sovereign states is called a public war. If it is declared in form, or duly commenced, it entitles both the belliger ent parties to all the rights of war against each other. A formal declaration of war to the enemy was once considered necessary to legalize hostilities between nations. The Romans declared war with religious cere mony; and an invasion without a declaration was unlawful ; 1 Kent *53. The present us age is to publish a manifesto within the ter ritory of the state declaring war, announcing the existence of hostilities and the motives for commencing them, usually to warn neu tral states ; Snow, Lect. Int. L. 82. A civil war is never declared ; Boyd's Wheat. Int. L. § 294. It dates from the time the insurgents are declared belligerents ; Snow, Lect. Int. L. 82. Even where there is a formal declaration of war, there is said to be strong tendency to date the war from the first act of hostility ; id. That the recent tendency is to consider a declaration of war desirable and necessary, see 28 Am. L. Rev. 754. Since the time of Bynkershoek it has been the settled practice in Europe that war may lawfully exist by a declaration which is unilateral, or without a declaration on either side; it may begin by mutual hostilities ; 1 Kent 54 ; at least as to subjects of a belligerent state ; L. R. 3 Adm. & Eec. 390; but some public act should be done to announce to the people a state of war, and to apprise neutrals of its existence ; 1 Halleck, Int. Law, Baker's ed. 542. A state of war may exist without any formal decla ration of it by either party, and this is true of both civil and foreign war ; Prize Cases, 2 Black (U. S.) 635, 17 L. Ed. 459. A state of civil war exists whenever the regular course of justice is interrupted by insurrection ; id.