After the peace of Versailles, in 1763, formal declarations of war of any kind seem to have been discontinued, and all the necessary and legitimate consequences of war flow at once from a state of public hostilities, duly recognized and explicitly announced by a domestic manifesto or state paper.
In the war between England and France, in 1778, the first public act on the part of the English government was recalling its minister; and that single act was considered by France as a breach of the peace between the two countries. There was no other declaration of war, though each government afterwards published a manifesto in vindication of its claims and conduct.
The same thing may be said of the war which broke out in 1793, and again in 1803; and, indeed, in the war of 1756, though a solemn and formal declaration of war, in the ancient style, was made in June, 1756, vigorous hostilities had been carried on between England and France for a year preceding.
In the war declared by the United States against England, in 1812, hostilities were immediately commenced on our part as soon as the act of Congress was passed, without waiting to communicate to the English government any notice of our intentions.
But though a solemn declaration, or previous notice to the enemy, be now laid aside, it is essential that some formal public act, proceeding directly from the competent source, should announce to the people at home their new relations and duties growing out of a state of war, and which should equally apprise neutral nations of the fact, to enable them to conform their conduct to the rights belonging to the new state of things. War, says Vattel, is at present published and declared by manifestoes.
Such an official act operates from its date to legalize all hostile acts, in like manner as a treaty of peace operates from its date to annul them.
As war cannot lawfully be commenced on the part of the United States without an act of Congress, such an act is, of course, a formal official notice to all the world, and equivalent to the most solemn declaration.
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