318 A Positive Century (1815–1914)Th e Savage World
Even more problematic than relations between the civilized and the barbar-
ian states were those between the civilized and the savage states, where even
treaty relations were frequently lacking. Some doubted whether there could
be any legal ties at all between the two groups of states. John Stuart Mill was
very candid on this point. “To suppose that the same international customs,
and the same rule of international morality” could prevail with savage na-
tions as with civilized ones was, he insisted, “a grave error.” Th e reason was
the absence of a common underlying principle of reciprocity, which was the
essential basis for the rule of law. As a result, according to Mill, no course of
conduct toward a savage state could ever constitute a violation of the law of
nations. Positivist lawyers tended to agree. More specifi cally, they were
inclined to hold that relations with the savage states were governed by con-
siderations of morality, but not of law, properly speaking.
Th e result of this way of thinking was to place questions of relations with
the savage states outside the conceptual framework of mainstream positivist
thought altogether. For this reason, nineteenth- century international lawyers
accorded remarkably little attention to the phenomenon of imperialism. In
fact, legal aspects of nineteenth- century imperialism in Africa, Southeast
Asia, and the Pacifi c remains a seriously underexplored subject to the present
day. Th e contrast with Eu ro pe an imperialism of the fourteenth to seventeenth
centuries is very striking in this regard. It has been observed that, in the ear-
lier period, considerable attention had been given to legal issues. Th e expla-
nation, of course, lies in the fact that, in that earlier period, the dominant legal
framework was natural law— with its inherently universalistic ethos.
Nineteenth- century lawyers were largely content to engage in a classifi ca-
tion pro cess regarding states that were less than fully sovereign (or merely
“quasi- sovereign,” to employ a term that came into use during this period).
Quasi- sovereignty came in various forms. Protectorates, for example, were
basically states that were internally self- governing but whose foreign rela-
tions were conducted by one of the major powers. Th e term was invented in
1815 to describe Britain’s oversight of the Ionian Islands in the Mediterra-
nean. Terminology was sometimes borrowed from medieval feudal law,
with some countries described as vassal states. “Suzerainty” was another
feudal import that was dragooned into the ser vice of nineteenth- century