At the time, leading international law jurists said that nations should recognize rebellious states if and when they achieved de facto independence. But Sumner—who used to teach the law of nations at Harvard—broke with the prevailing doctrine and argued that de facto independence should not suffice for the Confederacy’s international recognition because it was battling “against Human Rights.”21 This was a novel idea. No international law jurist had ever argued for the rule that Sumner proposed. He asserted that nations should recognize revolutions and support them with arms only when that
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