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The Puzzle of Peace
The Puzzle of Peace
The Evolution of Peace
in the International System
Gary Goertz, Paul F. Diehl
and
Alexandru Balas

1
1
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by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University
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© Oxford University Press 2016

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 CON T E N T S

Acknowledgments  vii

1. Introduction   1

PART I: The Evolution of International Peace

2. Conceptualizing Interstate Peace and Constituting
the International System   23
3. The Evolution of Peace 1900–2006   56
4. Territorial Issues and the Evolution of Peace   73

PART II: International Territorial Norms, Conflict Management, and Peace

5. The Development of Territorial Norms and the Norm
against Conquest   99
6. Managing New States: Secession, Decolonization, and Peace   120
7. When Territorial Change Happens: The Norm
of Uti Possidetis  138
8. Managing Territorial Conflict and Promoting Peace: Mediation and
Legally Binding Approaches   151
9. Peace at Sea: Managing Maritime Boundaries   183

PART III: Summary and Extensions

10. Conclusions and Implications   201

Afterwords: Some Speculations about the Causes of Peace   213

References  227
Author Biographies   239
Index  241
 AC KNOW L E DG M E N T S

This book began with an exploration of the processes underlying the ter-
mination of enduring rivalries, and much of the initial data collection was
supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation. As the proj-
ect developed and data were collected (including historical narratives),
our sense developed that there was something more going on than the end
of rivalries. Rather, larger-scale dynamics involving peaceful interactions,
largely ignored in much of international conflict research, were at work. Even
as we developed a new rivalry data set (Journal of Peace Research, 2006), we
began to expand our focus to create the first version of our “peace scale”
along which state relationships could be placed (Conflict Management and
Peace Science, 2008). We are grateful to James Klein, who helped develop
those early ideas and collected some of the initial data, as well as serving as
lead author for those initial articles.
As the project evolved to track the evolution of peace, data collection
was supported by the Henning Larsen Fund at the University of Illinois and
later by the Kroc Institute for International Peace at the University of Notre
Dame. Supplementing the data collection efforts of the three authors were
those by our assistants David Bowden, Tyler Pack, and Gina Riccardella.
We thank those institutions and individuals.
Portions of this work were presented in several workshops and lectures.
We received valuable feedback and suggestions from faculty and students
at Göttingen University, Princeton University, the University of Tennessee,
Michigan State University, the University of California, Berkeley, the
University of Massachusetts Amherst, Northwestern University, and the
University of Pittsburgh. Early versions of the book’s chapters were also
presented at annual meetings of the International Studies Association and
the Peace Science Society (International).
Constructive suggestions were also provided by a wide range of indi-
viduals, including Karen Alter, Frank Baumgartner, Reşat Bayer, Kyle
Beardsley, David Carter, Michael Colaresi, Christian Davenport, Ben
Denison, Tanisha Fazal, Derrick Frazier, Douglas Gibler, Nils Petter
Gleditsch, Hein Goemans, Joshua Goldstein, Ryan Griffiths, Paul Hensel,
 ( viii )   Acknowledgments

Adam Irish, Joshua Kertzer, Jason Klocek, Jacek Kugler, Jack Levy, Andrew
Mack, Aila Mantock. Michaela Mattes, Molly Melin, Sara Mitchell, Andrew
Owsiak, Steven Pinker, Brandon Prins, Pat Regan, Gennady Rudkevich,
Megan Shannon, Jaroslav Tir, Konstantinos Travlos, John Vasquez, Peter
Wallenstein, Frank Wayman, and Krista Wiegand. We thank all these indi-
viduals, although, of course, final responsibility is ours.
The Puzzle of Peace
 CH A P T E R 1

Introduction

T here has been a decline in international war over time; that is the
conclusion of three major works published in this decade.1 Each
has received extensive media, scholarly, and policymaking attention. The
Human Security Report (2012), Joshua Goldstein’s Winning the War on War
(2011), and Steven Pinker’s The Better Angels of Our Nature (2011) all track
the incidence of high-level armed conflict over various periods. The general
theme of the latter two books is that war and its direct human costs (e.g.,
battle deaths) have declined over time, and this conclusion holds regard-
less of the historical baseline used for comparison. Pinker’s work makes
an even broader claim, indicating that all forms of violence—from war to
rape to crime to animal cruelty—are less common than they used to be.
The Human Security Report is less sanguine but nevertheless provides strong
empirical evidence that humankind is less prone to interstate war, even as
some other forms of armed conflict (e.g., civil wars) exhibit greater fluctua-
tions. There is a broad consensus that war has been on the decline. Whether
these trends will continue into the future is subject to some debate (Hegre
et al., 2013; National Intelligence Council, 2012).
These empirical analyses provide evidence on the evolution of war and
violence but not on peace per se. In their conception, and indeed in the
modal approach in international conflict research and national security
discourses, peace is defined negatively, as merely the absence of war or

1. This is also a broad consensus across a series of other recent studies—see Gat (2013) for
a review. Nevertheless, this is neither a new proposition nor one that is universally shared.
For example, Mueller (1989) touted the “obsolescence of major war” decades before, and
early decline-of-war claims were made by Woods and Baltzly (1915). Others (Richardson,
1960) took a middle position. There is also no shortage of critics of the proposition that war
has become less frequent, ranging from Sorokin (1937) to, more recently, Sarkees and Wayman
(2010), Braumoeller (2013), and Fazal (2014).
 ( 2 )   The Puzzle of Peace

violence. Indeed, Gleditsch et al. (2014) reviewed the contents of two

aptly named journals, Journal of Peace Research and Journal of Conflict
Resolution, since their inception and found that the focus on negative
peace, the prevention of war and violence, has been predominant, and
especially so in the last twenty-five years. Even those articles that dealt
with human rights, cooperation, and other related topics increasingly
emphasized how these elements serve to reduce armed conflict, thereby
reinforcing the focus on the absence of war.
In the peace-as-not-war conception, North Korea would be considered
at peace with South Korea and the United States, and has been so for more
than six decades. Major military engagements in the form of sustained and
direct fighting between the protagonists have not occurred since 1953.
Similarly, the Iranian-Israeli relationship at least through the first decade
and a half of the twenty-first century is largely “peaceful” in that the only
violence between those two states has involved sporadic, covert acts, such
as the assassination of diplomats and nuclear scientists or the planting of
computer viruses in the software that operates nuclear power plants. Most
policymakers and other observers would scoff at the notion that these rela-
tionships are defined as peaceful. They might be equally incredulous at
lumping together these states with those such as modern-day France and
Germany, historical enemies that now have close political and economic
cooperation and have even integrated elements of their militaries.
The aforementioned works are not unique in how they define peace
as the absence of war. Many prominent examples can easily be found.
An extensive scholarly literature, often quoted by national and inter-
national leaders, explores the “democratic peace” (Russett and Oneal,
2001; for a summary, see Chan, 2012). This is the empirical finding that
democratic states do not fight one another. The empirical regularity is
built on the absence of a bona fide war between two democracies, not
the absence of militarized interactions per se. Even competitors to the
democratic peace, such as the “territorial peace” (Gibler, 2012) and the
“capitalist peace” (Schneider and Gleditsch, 2010), which seek alterna-
tive explanations for the democratic peace, concentrate on the absence
of war rather than more positive conceptions of peace. Similarly, many
have called the post–World War II period the “Long Peace” (Gaddis,
1987), defined as the longest period of history without a war between
major power states. Yet, the Cold War was a period of superpower com-
petition characterized by the development of extensive nuclear arse-
nals, unprecedented military spending, and a variety of proxy wars,
both interstate and civil.
 I n t ro d u c ti o n    ( 3 )

What is missing from these analyses, and even from their critics,
is a clear conception of what it means for actors to be at peace, which
moves beyond the inadequate not-war conceptualization.2 In this book, we
address this limitation by considering the broad range of state relationships
from long-standing rivalry (e.g., India-Pakistan) to integrated friendship (e.g.,
European Union) and various possibilities in between.
As the subtitle of the book indicates, we focus on international conflict
and peace at the system level. We trace the evolution of state relationships
at the international system level to assess not merely whether war and
other militarized conflict are less common (as other authors contend), but
also whether such changes have resulted in more peaceful relationships or
merely represent a shift from the most violent forms of rivalry to others that
still represent significant hostility and heightened risk of armed conflict in
the future.
Why are scholars and decision-makers so focused on war and not
peace more broadly? Most obviously, the costs of war in terms of lives and
expense are substantial, with millions of people directly killed in all forms
of warfare in the twentieth century; this does not even take into account
millions of other deaths indirectly associated with war.3 The costs of war are
also transparent, obvious to policymakers and the domestic constituencies
to which many of them are answerable. Scholarly projects have virtually no
choice other than to look at the decline in war because these are the only
data that they have.
In contrast, peace is considerably more nebulous, with less agreement
on what characteristics constitute the essential core of a peaceful relation-
ship. War can be seen as a distinct event, confined to a relatively narrow
time frame and space, and involves primarily military interactions. Peace
involves many different kinds of interactions; many are diffuse, involve
different actors, and are less subject to easy observation than are mili-
tary encounters. The benefits of peace are also less obvious because they
often involve not paying the costs of war but also create opportunities for
trade and the like that might not be easily traced back to the state of peace.
Researchers also do not have data on peace; they have data sets on conflict

2. There are some exceptions, as we discuss in the next chapter. Kupchan (2010) is one
study that moves beyond the absence of war, but his focus is exclusively on the state-state level
and not at the system level. Furthermore, his concern is only with slowly improving relations
between former rivals and not peace between states that lack hostile interactions in their pasts.
3. These deaths can be civilian ones directly attributable to war but not counted because
most data compilations record only battle deaths of combatants, or they can be indirect fatali-
ties during or after the war related to disease, government reallocation of resources away from
health care, and the like that are the result of a country’s war participation; see Iqbal (2010) and
Ghobarah et al. (2003).
 ( 4 )   The Puzzle of Peace

management, peace treaties, and agreements on ceasefires and the end of

wars, which reflect a very limited conception of peace.
In this volume, we offer the first systematic and comprehensive data
set on international peace. With these data, we hope to encourage others
to begin exploring the causes and consequences of peaceful relationships
between states.

MOVING BEYOND THE ABSENCE

OF WAR TO PEACE

All the works cited earlier and the associated literatures they have gener-
ated rely fundamentally on a “battle-death” view of international conflict.
They reach similar conclusions regarding the evolution of international war
because they all use the same data sets on international conflict (i.e., Uppsala
Conflict Data Program—see Themnér and Wallensteen, 2014),4 which
define wars in terms of the number of people killed or battle deaths.5 Pinker
and others refer to “declining violence” or “declining war,” an event-based
notion of international conflict in which the event is the individual battle
death; the peacefulness of the international system is the aggregation of
individual battle deaths. Such an approach is fundamentally unable to deal
with peace, except as the absence of fatalities.
To conceptualize and measure peace, one must move from an
events-based perspective to a relationship one: peace is a relationship, while
war is an event. This fundamental change in perspective has dramatic rami-
fications for how one looks at international war and peace and its changes
over time. For the most conflictual relationships, we start not with battle
deaths but rather with serious militarized relationships, often designated
as “rivalries” (Diehl and Goertz, 2000; Colaresi et al., 2007). War is one
consequence—and cause as well—of rivalry, but there are many other
behavioral manifestations such as large militaries, arms races, support of
rebel groups in the other state, militarization of society, and the like. In
rivalry relationships, the threat of war is present and states are preparing for
its occurrence; war does not necessarily occur, and battle deaths might be
absent even when lesser military confrontations do occur.
Because peace is a relationship as well, we leverage the concept of rivalry
to think about peace in terms of positive, cooperative relationships between

4. http://www.pcr.uu.se/research/ucdp/datasets/ucdp_prio_armed_conflict_dataset/.
5. Generally, there must be twenty-five or more battle deaths in a conflict for it to appear in
the data set; other collections, such as those from the Correlates of War Project (Sarkees and
Wayman, 2010), have a higher standard of one thousand or more battle-related fatalities.
 I n t ro d u c ti o n    ( 5 )

states. Unlike realists who believe that war always has a nontrivial likelihood
of occurring, war and the use of military force for peaceful states is not even
an option that leaders consider. States can have many disagreements, but
neither side thinks about managing them with the threat or use of force.
For example, the United States and members of the European Union have
numerous differences over trade but never resort to, or even consider, using
military force against one another to protect their interests.
The relationship perspective makes it clear that the international system
is one composed of states and more specifically relationships between the
governments of those states.6 Thus, we regard the international system as
becoming more peaceful when the number and proportion of interstate
relationships that are peaceful, or at least less hostile, increase. This presents
a much stiffer test than the decline of violence thesis that is only concerned
with the absence of war. There are many very hostile relationships (e.g., the
Cold War between the United States and the USSR) that extend for long
periods of time with no or few battle deaths. In cases such as the sixty-plus
years of postwar relations between South and North Korea, the small num-
ber of fatalities is counted as evidence for the decline of violence—we do
not regard that as movement toward peace.
The next chapter discusses in detail how we conceptualize peace. It
goes beyond past conceptions in the scholarly literature, including “stable
peace” and related ideas. Peace is not the absence of war or rivalry, but
rather includes additional features. This produces a very different focus
than the democratic peace and decline of violence literatures. We develop
our own conception of peace and construct five different levels of a peace
scale: severe rivalry, lesser rivalry, negative peace, warm peace, and security
communities, respectively. This chapter also includes operational criteria
for placing state relationships on this peace scale and presents a methodol-
ogy for measuring rivalry and peace in international relationships. To sum-
marize, peace is conceptualized in terms of relationships, not individual
events. We do not rely on battle deaths or counts of wars (which are usually
defined by the number of battle deaths) as a measure of hostility (or peace
in their absence).
Unlike most studies of international conflict, our focus is on the evo-
lution of peace at the international system level. The second chapter also
provides our definition of the international system as a set of state relation-
ships. We look systematically at the behavior of state relationships in the
aggregate rather than individually. Thus, our project is similar to the decline

6. Throughout the book, we concentrate on government relationships rather than those

between private individuals, groups, corporations, or national organizations that cross national
boundaries.
 ( 6 )   The Puzzle of Peace

of war and violence literature, which also explores international system

level trends. We do not focus on major power subsystems as synonymous
with systemic peace, as is the case of many classic (e.g., Waltz, 1979) or
newer (e.g., Braumoeller, 2013) systemic theories. This is not to say that
great power states are not significant in systemic peace; indeed, such states
tend to have more relationships and interactions than others. Rather, they
alone do not define the international system, and it is conceivable that
even a “long peace” (Gaddis, 1987) between leading states in the system
could be accompanied by more violent conflict among lesser states as well
as between major powers and smaller states. For example, the “peaceful”
nineteenth century is one of significant war between European states and
local political entities when European states expanded in almost all regions
of the Global South.
Chapter 2 provides our conceptualization of peace along with an iden-
tification of what constitutes the international system in terms of interstate
relationships. With these important basics under our belt, we can explore
our key system-level query: Is the world becoming more peaceful? To
answer this question, we ask: What would a more peaceful international
system look like? It would be characterized by an increasing number and
percentage of state relationships that fall on the right-hand side of our peace
scale and/or a concordant decrease in hostile relationships (e.g., rivalries).
To understand this involves looking at the dynamics of change. In simple
terms, are the odds of a relationship moving from negative peace to rivalry
lower than the reverse? If this is true, over time the system is becoming
less militarized and conflictual. Similarly, if the probability of moving from
negative peace to positive peace is greater than the inverse, the system is
also becoming more peaceful.
Shifts involving positive peace (warm peace and security commu-
nities) are expected to be hard to reverse; positive peace is a virtual
“absorbing state” (to use the terms of Markov change analysis) or a con-
dition that once achieved does not change. Once relationships reach
positive peace, they are stable. These dynamic processes—if maintained
over significant periods—will produce a more peaceful international
system.
The vast majority of interstate relationships are located in the negative
peace zone (see c­ hapter 3). Relationships can move from this middle zone,
in and out of peace and rivalry. If both were to happen at the same time,
then the system would simultaneously become more peaceful and more
conflictual. As we document, there is almost no movement from posi-
tive peace to negative peace, but significant net movement from rivalry to
negative peace.
 I n t ro d u c ti o n    ( 7 )

Unlike conventional scholarly studies of war and peace, we are look-

ing for an explanation for increasing peace at the system level. Thus, we
are working in what is often called “causes-of-effects” mode: we want
to explain why Y (here peace) has evolved in a particular manner. In
this approach, one starts with a discussion of the occurrence of some
phenomenon (Y) the thing to be explained. After charting the evolu-
tion of peace and rivalry at the international level, we then move to our
explanation of those trends. In this way, our project is different from,
for example, the democratic peace literature, in which the question con-
cerns the effect of democracy on war, an effects-of-causes mode (see
Goertz and Mahoney, 2012, for a brief discussion of causes-of-effects
versus effects-of-causes).
Given that we want to explain a system-level phenomenon, we focus
on change at the system level. Specifically, we focus on how the system has
been altered, which produces changing levels of peace. A classic exam-
ple of this kind of analysis is found in the debate over the war proneness
of bipolar versus multipolar versus unipolar systems (classic studies are
Waltz, 1964; Deutsch and Singer, 1964; Wohlforth, 1999). We argue that
significant changes in international norms explain much of the move to
peace since 1945. These international norms are closely connected to
international law and function—as is true of all law—at the system or
society level. Fundamentally, this is not any different from studies that
assess the impact of domestic laws on the behavior of individuals. In
assessing the effects of those norms, we look at individual state relation-
ships (what has been called the “dyadic level”) and aggregate those on
a global level; the result is a system-level snapshot at any given time of
peace and rivalry writ large.7
We concentrate on state-state relationships and associated conflict and
cooperation, and thus do not take into account civil or intrastate conflict. We do
include cases in which the civil war influences state relationships, (e.g., Rwanda
and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, or South Africa and neighboring
states during apartheid). This is not to dismiss the importance of such civil war,
but that is beyond the scope of our study.8 Thus, when we refer to an increasingly
peaceful international system, we mean the interstate system of relationships.

7. Thus, whereas our dependent variables are the aggregate or sum of the individual units
(relationship) of the system, the independent variables, such as international norms, are sys-
tem properties that are not aggregates of individual and dyadic factors. Conflict studies almost
always work at the individual state or dyadic level whereas system-level factors are typical in
studies of international norms.
8. In c­ hapter 3, we demonstrate that the world is not merely exchanging one type of conflict
(interstate) for another (civil). Indeed, peaceful relationships are actually positively correlated
with civil war occurrence after 1989.
 ( 8 )   The Puzzle of Peace

INCREASING PEACE IN THE

INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM

Our contention is that World War II constitutes the tipping point in the
international system’s movement toward more peace: international peace
is fundamentally a post–World War II phenomenon. In other words, inter-
national peace was virtually nonexistent before World War II. Most schol-
ars of the decline of war and violence look only at the post-1945 period.
Implicit in some analyses, even those with long time horizons, is the notion
of relatively constant linear change over time.9 In contrast, our view is that
these changes have been extremely nonlinear. World War II constitutes a
punctuation point. Considering system-transforming events, most scholars
focus on the world wars. Nevertheless, the two system-transforming events
after 1945 were relatively peaceful: decolonization and the end of the Cold
War. These are periods in which the key international norms about territory
are decisively reinforced.
Our central analysis about patterns in state relationships extends from
1900 through 2006, the latter representing the last year for which we have
data on state relationships. Throughout the book, however, the tempo-
ral period of analysis varies somewhat. For example, to demonstrate the
changes in conflict propensity over territorial issues, a central part of our
argument, we go back to 1648 in one case but more commonly begin with
1816. This is a function, in part, of data availability, but more importantly, it
helps us chart the evolution of changes in the international system; patterns
in earlier eras help us demonstrate the differences that appear after 1945.
In other instances, looking back permits the reader to see the development
of international norms and conflict management mechanisms during the
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, again in contrast to the period in
which international peace increases. Thus, we often report data patterns in
1816–1899 and 1900–1945 aggregates, as well as five-year periods thereaf-
ter; ultimately, we let the empirical patterns dictate the temporal configura-
tions and discuss patterns within periods as appropriate. In a few cases, we
have data and examples that go beyond 2006 and report those as evidence
for or against our thesis.
With these conceptual and data tools in hand, we demonstrate that the
international system has become increasingly peaceful over time, albeit
with some limitations. Chapter 3 tracks changes along the peace scale over

9. Pinker (2011) is an exception in that he notes multiple trends across history, some coun-
tervailing, such as wars becoming shorter and fewer while being more destructive prior to
1945. He does agree with us that the decline of war is a post-1945 phenomenon (personal
communication).
 I n t ro d u c ti o n    ( 9 )

the 1900–2006 period for two sets of state relationships. First, we look at all
state-state relationships in the international system, considering different
decades and where these relationships fall along the peace scale. Most nota-
bly, we consider, by decade and at various other breakpoints (e.g., before
and after the Cold War), whether there are trends away from more hostile
relationships and toward more peaceful ones.
Second, we focus on state pairs that can be classified as rivalries during
some portion of the period under study; these are the states that consti-
tute the greatest threats to international peace and security. Accordingly,
we examine whether or not these most dangerous state relationships are
moving in a more peaceful direction, with appropriate concern for key tran-
sition points. Although several such rivalries are persistent, there has been
a notable decrease in such competitions as many have moved away from
the highest levels of hostility. They have moved into the “negative peace”
category as part of a substantial peaceful shift in relationships.
Our empirical findings for all relationships in the 1900–2006 period
indicate movement in the aggregate toward a more peaceful international
system. Most relationships still fall within the middle range, or negative
peace portion, of the peace scale, neither primarily hostile nor peaceful.
That is, positive peace and rivalry are less common than relationships that
are characterized by neither strong enmity nor close friendship. There has
been a significant increase in the number and percentage of more peace-
ful relationships as states (most notably those in the European Union)
achieve or approach integrated security communities. The trends in a par-
ticularly conflict-prone subset—pairs of states that had been rivals during
the period—indicate greater support for the proposition that the world has
become more peaceful. Starting late in the twentieth century, more peace-
ful relationships developed and former rivals moved toward less hostile
relationships. There is still significant militarized conflict—much of which
does not involve large numbers of battle deaths and thus is more success-
fully managed in one sense. We conclude, based on the first systematic anal-
yses of peace and rivalry, that progress has been made in moving toward a
more peaceful international system.

EXPLAINING INCREASING PEACE

AND DECREASING RIVALRY IN THE
INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM

It is one thing to show that the international system is becoming more peace-
ful and another to explain its evolution. Indeed, the decline-of-war studies
offer much more compelling evidence for the trends noted than they do
 ( 10 )   The Puzzle of Peace

in providing explanations for why violence is less common. Furthermore,

those explanations offer little purchase in accounting for peace.
Our theoretical argument is not designed to serve as a general theory of
international relations in the ways that realism, liberalism, and other “isms”
purport to do. Rather, our story about territorial conflict, norms, and con-
flict management mechanisms is one designed to explain the evolution of
international peace and not a broader set of phenomena. In addition, we
do not direct much attention to alternative explanations for the increasing
peacefulness of the international system. First, we know of very few expla-
nations for system-wide trends that we explore in this volume (again the
focus or dependent variable is peace in the international system). Second,
those that argue for the decline of war do not provide appropriate or con-
vincing explanations for peace, a point we make in subsequent chapters.
Third, we ignore any ad hoc theories that one might develop, but which
no one has systematically explored. Our goal is to thoroughly develop and
present our explanation. We leave to others to explore alternative accounts.
Our approach begins with the well-established empirical fact that dis-
agreements over territorial control are at the heart of the vast majority of
militarized conflicts, wars, and rivalries (Tir and Vasquez, 2012). Thus, if
the international system can manage territorial conflicts—their occur-
rence and consequences—then the international system experiences less
hostility among its constituent units, and that opens up more possibilities
for peaceful interactions between states. If there are three main issues over
which states fight and the most salient of the three is removed or reduced,
the system becomes more peaceful.10
The control of territory lies at the heart of realpolitik, the central tenet
of which is that states act in their national interest to enhance their power.
This orientation has guided scholars of international relations for decades
and is perhaps even more pervasive among national leaders whose policies
of deterrence and coercive measures are predicated on realist notions. Our
argument is that this territorial heart of realpolitik has slowly eroded over
the last century, with the rate accelerating since 1945 and around 1990.
Territorial disputes have long been the source of violent conflict in the
international system. These not only led to wars but also stood as barri-
ers to the development of more peaceful relations between states. In the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, competition over territory was often
between empires: imperialism by definition means increasing state power
through territorial acquisition, thereby generating disputes over borders
and land claims. Thus, territorial disputes were the disagreements that kept

10. This implies a ceteris paribus claim that there are not new issues that replace territory.
 I n t ro d u c ti o n    ( 11 )

many states as rivals with one another and were also the defining issue of
many wars and lesser militarized confrontations.
Core to our argument for why this has taken place are the various ways
that international society has dealt with conflicts over territory. Chapter 4
outlines an issue approach to war and peace with a focus on territory. What
states are willing to fight over has varied quite a bit over the centuries, and
understanding how and why issues enter and leave the agenda for milita-
rized conflict is critical for understanding the rise in peace in the twentieth
century. The second part of the chapter documents empirically how wars
over territory, militarized confrontations short of war over territory, and
territorial claims have decreased over time, often in raw numbers but clearly
vis-à-vis the number of state relationships in the international system. These
patterns are consistent with those in ­chapter 3, which showed a decline in
rivalries and an increase in positive peace relationships.
The causal mechanism by which international society is able to reduce
territorial disputes on the militarized issue agenda is the key to understand-
ing why the international system has become more peaceful. Figure 1.1
illustrates our basic framework. The international system has agreed on a set

International
Territorial Norms
• Against
Conquest Sanctions:
• Against Violent non-recognition
Secession
• Peaceful
Decolonization

Uti Possidetis Territorial Peace

Integrity

Conflict
Management
Processes
• Mediation
• Adjudication

Figure 1.1: Theoretical Framework.

 ( 12 )   The Puzzle of Peace

of norms regulating territory. Collectively, these norms support “territorial

integrity” or the principle that territorial control should not be transferred
or altered, except peacefully and with the consent of the parties involved.
Thus, norms forbid territorial changes effected via military force and coer-
cion. These norms are embodied in state practice, a host of international
treaties in all regions of the world, and the UN Charter; accordingly, some
have achieved the status of international law.
These international territorial norms embody a theory of conflict man-
agement. Essentially, they posit that an international system with stable ter-
ritorial boundaries is a more peaceful one. We argue that this is empirically
true, and the analyses in subsequent chapters confirm this. International
norms therefore have played a major role in making the international sys-
tem more peaceful, consistent with the empirical patterns described in
­chapters 3 and 4.
Changing norms in the international system imply two things: chang-
ing preferences and increasing costs. Over time, states slowly remove ter-
ritorial expansion from their lists of foreign policy goals. This goes hand
in hand with stable territorial boundaries; to support territorial integrity
means that the state has renounced territorial acquisition as a goal vis-à-
vis other states. To acquire territory legitimately and to gain sovereign
control over it requires that the international system—that is, the United
Nations and major powers—recognizes that territorial change. This con-
stitutes a major constraint on territorial expansion. A country might gain
de facto control or independence, but the territory remains contested and
the costs of occupation continue. For example, foreign direct investment
is very unlikely in such contested areas because property rights are not
clear. The primary sanction, therefore, against violations of the territo-
rial norms is the nonrecognition by the international community of any
ill-gotten territorial gains. Violators of international norms might also be
subject to costs in the form of sanctions or other punishments from states
in the system.
As an illustration of normative change, consider the pre-twentieth-cen-
tury international system and its patterns of behavior and norms. For exam-
ple, in the eighteenth century international norms regarding the conquest
of territory were characterized by the following rules:

• Conquest is legal.
• Conquest is a normal and accepted goal of governments.
• Peace treaties confirm and legalize territorial conquest.
• The primary criterion for territorial transfers is effective control over
territory.
 I n t ro d u c ti o n    ( 13 )

If we jump to the post–World War II international system, these norms

have changed:

• Conquest is illegal.
• Territorial integrity is the norm.
• Postwar/postconflict peace agreements after 1945, which in fact become
very rare, do not confirm territorial gains during war.
• The primary criterion for territorial acquisition is recognition by the
international community.

Violating the territorial integrity principle has become much less fre-
quent over time and particularly in the post-1945 period. For example, con-
sider the aftermath of one of those violations. What are the internationally
recognized boundaries of Israel? Israel gained control over a substantial ter-
ritory in Gaza, the West Bank, and the Golan Heights as a result of the 1967
war. It has built settlements and exercised substantial control over most of
these areas. By eighteenth-century rules, this territory would have been rap-
idly accepted as part of Israel by peace treaty with its opponents and by the
international system as a whole (e.g., major powers). Yet, as we approach
the fiftieth anniversary of this war, these are still regarded as “occupied ter-
ritories,” and UN Resolution 242 calling for the return to prewar borders
remains a focal point for any final settlement.
If we can document that the international system is becoming more peace-
ful, how do we know that international norms (and subsequently conflict
management mechanisms) are responsible? To do this, we explore these new
norms of nonviolent territorial change in several ways. Although a full expla-
nation of their origins is beyond the scope of this book, we chart international
law and norms about the use of force and international boundaries over time.
This norm development roughly mirrors the patterns of increasingly peace-
ful relationships noted earlier. Thereafter, we consider how the norms are
reflected in the behavior of states with respect to territorial conflict.
If states recognize the value of stable boundaries and the difficulty of
changing them, then there should be behavioral traces in the evolution of
territorial claims and disputes. The dynamics should be that fewer territo-
rial conflicts occur over time as conflict management mechanisms help
states resolve those disagreements and the disincentives for new claims
increase over time. Our analyses of mediation and adjudication-arbitration,
respectively, indicate that this is the case. In short, the methodology con-
sists of showing that behavioral changes are consistent with the history and
content of international norms and conflict management institutions, as
well as the accompanying changes in aggregate state behavior.
 ( 14 )   The Puzzle of Peace

We focus on several specific territorial norms that together constitute the

core of the international regime supporting territorial integrity. The first is the
basic norm by which states, the UN, and other major players reject territorial
gains made by military force, or what we refer to as the norm against con-
quest. This was not firmly established until after World War II. For example,
colonial empires as well as settler states, such as the United States, expanded
for many centuries based on the military conquest of territory. Beginning in
Latin America and picking up momentum after World War I, states began to
sanction such behavior by refusing to recognize the gains if those territorial
acquisitions were achieved through the barrel of a gun. This was famously
embodied in the Stimson Doctrine, the US declaration of nonrecognition in
those cases. After World War II, the norm was incorporated in Article 2(4)
of the UN Charter: “All Members shall refrain in their international relations
from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political inde-
pendence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes
of the United Nations.”
Our analysis of the norm against conquest in c­ hapter 5 traces its history
from inception to modern manifestations. Our empirical assessment of the
norm demonstrates that conquests and annexations are significantly less
frequent after 1945 than in previous eras to the point that they are virtually
nonexistent since 1975. Territorial claims pressed through the use of military
force have also declined, and there are a series of other state behaviors consis-
tent with the norm against conquest.
A second set of territorial norms deals with the entry of new states into the
international system. It is well documented that new states are particularly
prone to militarized conflicts. Historically, the norms about state entry into
the international system were similar to the interstate rules about conquest.
If the government—secessionist or former colony—of the territory in ques-
tion had effective control over the territory, then it would be accorded rec-
ognition by the major powers and hence in practice by everyone else. The
consent of the population or the method of attaining effective military and
administrative control was not relevant.
In the twentieth century, normative changes modified this new-state
norm and replaced it with several others. The first was the domestic ver-
sion of the international territorial integrity norm and denied legitimacy
to militarized secessionist groups in homeland areas. To become a new
state in this secessionist context via military force was no longer accepted
by the international community. The secession norm legitimated only
new states that emerged out of existing states through peaceful means,
including the permission of those existing states. Critical to the new sys-
tem was that it no longer rested on the classic criterion of effective con-
trol. Thus, the self-proclaimed Republic of Somaliland and the Kurdish
 I n t ro d u c ti o n    ( 15 )

sector of Iraq have not been recognized as states, even though they exer-
cise autonomy in a given geographic area and share many characteristics
of independent states.
The second is what we call the decolonization norm. Colonies were no
longer legitimate, and colonial peoples had a right to independence. This
placed an obligation on colonial states to permit self-determination and
independence and to do so voluntarily and without military resistance.
Starting with the limited League of Nations mandate system and continu-
ing with United Nations support, the decolonization movement took off
such that the number of independent states in the international system
increased dramatically, most of them through peaceful transitions and
increasingly so over time.
We examine these two new-state norms in ­chapter 6, describing their
development through the twentieth century. Data demonstrate that both
norms gained increasing acceptance over time. Decolonization accelerated
after World War II, and an increasing portion of new state entrances into
the international system were completed peacefully with the consent of
colonial powers. In contrast, secessionist movements were not often suc-
cessful, and in particular violent secessionist movements rarely led to new
states. Most relevant for our purposes, these norms paved the way for more
peaceful relations between states. Nonviolent secession and decolonization
limited interstate conflict between host states and those who might sup-
port groups seeking independence. In the postindependence period, the
state independence processes were less frequently militarized and subse-
quent state relationships were friendlier when independence was achieved
by peaceful means.
Our final territorial norm—uti possidetis—requires that the new interna-
tional boundaries should follow preexisting administrative ones. This idea
started with the independence of countries in Latin America in the nine-
teenth century and was formalized most notably in Africa after decoloniza-
tion. This most obviously applies to when new states enter the international
system, but it also can play a role in managing territorial claims challenging
existing boundaries.
Territorial changes do not disappear when these new international norms
are put into place. Thus, the international system needs a way to manage ter-
ritorial change and potential territorial conflicts that result. If there is going
to be a territorial change—peaceful or militarized—there needs to be guide-
lines on how to draw boundaries, either of the new state or changed bound-
aries of existing states. The classic rule of effective control has already been
rejected, and in any case would be a recipe for future war over territory; as
power relationships change, states would be encouraged to revisit the territo-
rial boundaries through military means.
Discovering Diverse Content Through
Random Scribd Documents
 HISTORY OF ELKHART COUNTY 95 Black Spanish and the
Hiimbuts. They were here about the same time with the Cochins and
the Brahmas. Population from 1830 to 1910 In 1830, the year of the
civil organization of Elkhart County, the Federal census enumerators
gave this political division of the state a population of 935. During
the following decade the rich and beautiful valley of the St. Joseph
attracted thousands of agriculturists, who had become weary of
struggling in the contracted areas of the East and sought freedom
and fortune for themselves and their children in the West.
Notwithstanding the lack of canal transportation, the St. Joseph and
Elkhart rivers offered a fair outlet for the home products to Lake
Michigan and thence to the region of the great lakes. And there was
already promise of railroad transportation from the East, by way of
Buffalo, across Northern Indiana. Consequently, Elkhart County
"looked good" to so many plucky emigrants that by 1840 it had a
population of 6,660. In 1850 the United States census reports
indicated that i2,6go people had settled within the limits of the
county, and within the following decade, when the railroads really
came and the solid future of that section of the state was assured,
Elkhart County made its greatest advance in population. In i860 the
figures showed a population of 20,986 and, despite the retarding
effects of the Civil war, it had increased to 26,026 in 1870, and to
33.454 in 1880. Especially since 1890 have the census figures been
of value and interest to home communities, covering, as they do, the
details of townships, towns and cities. We therefore append the
statistics for 1890, 1900 and 1910: 1910 Elkhart County 49-009
Baugo Township 688 Benton Township, including part of Millersburg
Town I. -39 Millersburg Town (part of) J 2 Total for ]\Iillersburg
Town in Benton and Clinton townships 428 Cleveland Township 475
1900 45.05^ 586 1890 39,201 636 1.378 92 1,372 85 481 481 394
511
The text on this page is estimated to be only 25.14%
accurate

96 HISTORY OF ELKHART COUxXTY 1910 1900 1890

Clinton Township, including part of Millersburg Town 1,721 1,772
1,993 Millersburg Town (part of) 356 389 311 Concord Township,
including wards 2 to 6 and part of Elkhart City 19.638 15,694 1.610
Elkhart City (part of ) 17.877 14,108 Total for Elkhart City in Concord
and Osolo townships 19,282 15.184 11,360 Ward I 3.622 Ward 2
2,754 ^^■ard 3 2,483 Ward 4 3,273 Ward 5 ■. . . . 4.3S9 Ward 6
2,761 Elkhart Township, including Goshen City. . 9,696 9,152 7,656
Goshen City 8,514 7,810 6,033 Ward I 2,087 \\'ard 2 1 ,667 Ward 3
1,240 \\'ard 4 1 ,605 Ward 5 1,915 Harrison Township 1.559 i,736
1,915 Jackson Township i ,368 i ,373 i ,430 Jefi'erson Township 957
969 1,059 Locke Township, including part of Xappanee Town 1,973
2,005 989 Nappanee Town (part of) 1.122 1,065 Total for Nappanee
Town in Locke and Union townships 2.260 2.20S 1,493 Middlebury
Township, including Middlebur}Town 1 .660 1 ,692 1 ,72s Middlebury
Town 600 S7- 54Olive Township, including Wakarusa Town. 1,638
i,797 1.375 Wakarusa Town S59 917 Ward I 126 ^^■ard 2 151
Ward 3 186 \\'ard 4 1S8 A\'ard S 208
 HISTORY OF ELKHART COUNTY Osolo Township, including
part of Ward i of Elkhart City 2,137 1,800 Elkhart City (part of ) 1405
1,076 Union Township, including part of Nappanee Town 2,595 2,744
Nappanee Town (part of) 1,138 1,143 Washington Township,
including Bristol Town 1,131 1,173 Bristol Town 535 546 York
Township 533 700 620 1. 135 535 776 Other Illustrative Statistics
The reader will doubtless note as he progresses through these pages
that they are not loaded with figures. When lugged in immoderately,
statistics only becloud the understanding. Their only excuse of
existence in a plain tale or picture is to illustrate : as in the case of
the following tables, which exhibit the comparative wealth, or
taxable power, of the dilTerent townships and corporations in Elkhart
County. Value OF Lanus and Value OF Lots and Total \''alue of Tp.
City. Town Baugo Tp $ 338,020 Benton Tp 880,695 Bristol Corp
69,165 Cleveland Tp 235,310 Clinton Tp 875,050 Concord Tp
829,765 Elkhart City 540,905 Elkhart City (Osolo).. 48.550 Elkhart Tp
869.300 Goshen City 232,490 Harrison Tp 965.790 Jackson Tp
931.015 Jefferson Tp 625,965 Locke Tp 496.805 Middlebury Corp
48.130 Middlebury Tp 70i,435 Improvements Improvements Real
Estate 5.740 8,190 67.535 268.050 6,010.955 180.265 16,645
2,493.7i5 2,690 91,960 $ 343.760 888,885 136,700 235.310 875,050
1.097,815 6,551,860 228,815 885,945 2,726,205 965,790 982,235
625,965 499,495 140,890 701.435
 HISTORY OF ELKHART COUNTY Millersburg Corp 4,8io
Nappanee Tp 62,370 Olive Tp 436,655 Osolo Tp Union Tp Wakarusa
Corp. Washington Tp. York Tp Total 385.210 985-955 54.390
371.530 222,670 51,280 505.255 5.73s :i3.ii5 3.380 56,090 567.625
436,655 385,210 991,690 167,505 371.530 226,050 [,980 $
9,875,730 $21,087,710 Tp. City. Town Value of Personal AND
Corporate Property Baugo Tp $ 98.960 Benton Tp 3",455 Bristol
Corp 94.720 Cleveland Tp 38,635 Clinton Tp 315.745 Concord Tp
315.180 Elkhart City 1,961,610 Elkhart City (Osolo) 126,680 Elkhart
Tp 222,035 Goshen City 1,531,890 Harrison Tp Jackson Tp Jefferson
Tp Locke Tp Middlebury Corp. Middlebury Tp. . . Millersburg Corp.
Nappanee Tp. . . . Olive Tp Osolo Tp Union Tp Wakarausa Corp.
Washington Tp. . York Tp 429.675 450.095 155.925 192.465
220,110 238.715 48,465 439.125 186,235 58,020 370,195 191,620
91,290 77.405 Total Net Value of Taxables $ 839,510 1,460,065
286,865 328,890 1,598,345 2,370.735 9,051,165 345.885 1,582,670
4.512.380 1,391.920 1,631,100 749.965 754,345 367,580 946,390
173,555 1,021,575 641 ,260 428,725 1,513.115 375.040 634.930
439.560 Total 166,250 $33,445,570
 HISTORY OF ELKHART COUNTY 99 It is of interest to note
that the levying of land taxes according to valuation dates from
1835. Previous to that year taxes were levied by the acre,
irrespective of valuation, but with the development of the newer
counties of the state, and the increased and wide variation of values,
it was seen that the old system was unfair. In the year named,
therefore, the Legislature passed an act dividing lands into three
classes, according to their market value, which were taxed
accordingly. Although the law at first was strongly opposed,
presumably by those who had previously been under-taxed, it has
stood up to the present. Receipts and Expenditures The board of
commissioners of the county submits an annual report, in accord
with a legislative act of 1899, showing receipts and expenditures.
From its last statement, for the year ending December 31, 1915, it
appears that the balance in the treasury on January 1st of that year
was $3,740.34; receipts from all sources, $5,065.73 ; total,
$8,806.07. The disbursements for the year were $5,616.66, leaving
a balance, December 31, 1915, of $3,189.41.
 CHAPTER VI SCHOOLS OF THE COUNTY Taxing Non-
Residents for the Schools — The County's First Seat of Learning —
Captain Beane and Other Pioneer Teachers — Hon. E. M.
Chamberlain — School Centers Outside Goshen and Elkhart — Mrs.
Chauncey Hascall's Recollections— Professor Myers on "The Log
Seminaries" — Joel P. Hawks Describes Education at Waterford —
The Middlebury Seminary — Founding of the Township System • —
Explaining the Law to the People — Difficulties in the Way of
Taxation^— Fixing a Teaching Standard — Consolidation OF
Common School Fund — Township Libraries Organized— General
Development of the System — Founding OF Teachers' Institutes —
Education of Colored Children — County Superintendency Created —
Teachers Required to Be Adaptable — Uniformity of Methods and
Text Books — The Teachers' Institutes of Today — Illustr.-\tive
Extracts from Programmes — The Old Country Schoolhouse and the
Centralized Schools of Today — Introduction of Agricultural Science,
Manual Training and Domestic Science — The Present County
System of Education — List of Superintendents — Statistics Showing
Present Status of Schools. For a quarter of a century after the first
settlers of Elkhart County occupied the fertile lands in the valleys of
the Big and Little Elkhart rivers, and in the beautiful and productive
Elkhart Prairie, which stretched between, the increasing population
of the central and eastern sections struggled, often unsuccessfully,
to give the children an education befitting ambitious, intelligent and
practical Americans. During that period there was nothing which, by
100
 HISTORY OF ELKHART COUNTY 101 the most painful
stretch of the imagination, could be called a county-broad system
founded upon the township unit. The schools and their teachings
were crude and only uniform in that it was considered useless and
foolish to go beyond the drilling of the pupil mind in any branch of
learning outside reading, writing, spelling and arithmetic. Both men
and women taught simply to pick up a few needful dollars — the
males usually as stepping stones to either medicine or the law, and
often as a means of enabling I OKLsl (ik()\l SlHooI lloLsL M
lUDLEliLRV ToWNSIIIP, EKIiCTED IN 1836 Edson Foster, in
Foreground. Was a Pupil them to preach the gospel and support
their families at the same time. Everybody was poor and struggling
in those days, and no blame was attached to actual residents for the
poor showing made by the schools. Taxing Xon-Residents for the
Schools At first all the schools were supported by subscription, so
that their efficiency depended largely on local sentiment and the
conse 
 102 HISTORY OF ELKHART COUNTY quent liberality or
financial ability of the neighborhood settlers. This was especially true
of the districts east of the Big Elkhart River which were first settled.
The lands west of that waterway were chiefly held by non-residents
until the early '40s, when the pioneers who were engaged in actual
development commenced to vigorously protest against slaving to
increase the value of lands which were held by investors comfortably
housed in Ohio, Pennsylvania or the farther East. The remedy for the
imposition was successfully applied, and is described by P. M.
Henkel, who came from Southern Ohio about the time it was
devised, in 1843, and was auditor of the county during the period
when the basis of the present township system of education was
being laid. He says: "In the early '40s much of the western portion
of the county was still in a state of nature. Large bodies of land were
held by nonresidents with the hope that by the labors of the
pioneers they would become valuable. That part of the county was
then but sparsely settled. True the Walburns, the Sheetses, the
McCoys, the Pippengers and the Ulerys had penetrated the forest,
built their cabins, felled the trees and opened the roads, to be
followed by others who should take up the work after them. For the
time being they were willing to endure all the privations and
hardships incident to pioneer life for the benefit of their successors.
"Dr. E. W. H. Ellis, then auditor of the county, conceived the idea of
compelling the non-resident landowners to contribute by the way of
taxation to the building of roads and schoolhouses. For this purpose
he induced the Legislature to pass a law by which he could assess
one and one-fourth cents on each acre of land for road purposes.
The citizens had the privilege of working out the tax, while the non-
residents had to pay the money. This money when collected was
returned to the township from which it came, where it was applied
to the purpose for which the tax was raised. The effect of this law
was to induce the non-residents to dispose of their holdings and
permit those lands to pass into the hands of actual settlers." The
County's First Se.\t of Learning Elkhart Prairie was the first seat of
learning in the county. Before Goshen was even platted it is said that
a little log school stood on Wilkinson's Lane, on that prairie, and a
few scholars
 HISTORY OF ELKHART COUNTY 103 were taught by one
Mr. Potts. The second schoolhouse, opened in the early '30s, was on
the school section a mile south of Goshen. Captain Beane and Other
Pioneer Teachers A few years afterward a boy of six years, William
A. Beane by name, was brought from Ohio by his parents and went
to several of these pioneer schools at and near Goshen. In his school
days the teachers of the neighborhood were Capt. Henry Beane, his
father, E. D. Smith, John Deutrow, Sylvester Webster and Nelson
Prentiss, afterward of Albion, Noble County. In the fall of 1843,
young Beane, then in his sixteenth year, became a resident of
Goshen, attended the school of A. C. Carpenter, and soon afterward
became a printer in the Democrat office. Samuel T. Young and T. G.
Harris were also early teachers of Prairie schools. Hon. E. M.
Chamberlain At Elkhart Town one of the first to teach was E. M.
Chamberlain, a young Maine man who had been admitted to the bar
a short time previously. As is well known, he afterward became an
honor to the bench, the Legislature and to Congress. School Centers
Outside Goshen and Elkhart Then east of the Town of Elkhart and in
the northern section of the prairie region, Middlebury and Bristol
opened rural schools at an early day, while south of Goshen, Benton
and New Paris came into the educational field. The first institution of
the kind at Middlebury was a little frame structure, built in the late
'30s, which went by the unusual name of the Red Schoolhouse.
Private schools had been previously taught in several residences, but
this was a village afifair. Before Bristol was platted, in 1835, Miss
Philossa Wheeler taught in a log cabin which stood on its site, the
first schoolhouse erected in town being completed in 1838. Benton,
a short distance southeast of Goshen, just beyond the southern
edge of the prairie and in an oak opening, was laid out by Capt.
Henry Beane, the pioneer schoolmaster. In 1836 the post 
 104 HISTORY OF ELKHART COUNTY office formerly known
as Elkhart Prairie was moved to Benton and a schoolhouse erected in
which said Beane presided as first master. New Paris, which is
directly south of Goshen, was platted in 1838, and a log schoolhouse
was one of the first buildings erected John McGrew was the teacher
who opened it. Mrs. Cii.vuncey Hascall's Recollections Doubtless
other schools were thrown open, away from these centers of
population, large and small, but the educational movement
throughout the county was sporadic, and not directed along
continuous channels through an organized system. Among those
who faithfully participated in such efforts, and bravely assisted in the
task of tiding over the children of those times to the better period of
organized and classified schools, was Mrs. Chauncey S. Hascall, wife
of the pioneer merchant of Goshen. In a paper read before the
Elkhart County Historical Society she says: "In the winters of 1839-
40 and 1840-41 I taught school in the next district west of Goshen. I
received twelve dollars a month, which was considered at that time
a high salary for a woman. Of course it was the typical log
schoolhouse, which the young people of the present day have read
of, and the older ones hold in affectionate remembrance. The writing
desks were shelves attached to the logs on the sides of the room,
and the seats were long benches without backs, with a second row
of the same kind, but lower, for the smaller scholars. A fire in a big
box stove in the center of the room was kept in a roaring condition
by the boys, who w^ere glad of the opportunity of getting a change
of position and a breath of fresh air. The patrons of the school were
mostly Pennsylvania Dutch and spoke their own language in home
and neighborhood intercourses ; consequently English was almost a
foreign language to many of the scholars. "The Stouders,
Studebakers, Cripes, Ulerys and ^Tannings I remember most
distinctly among the scholars, as I boarded with each of their
families a month, instead of taking, as was the custom, the rounds
of the district. It was an experiment having the winter school taught
by a 'schoolma'am,' and the trustees thought I might have some
trouble governing it, but I had ven,- little. The girls and boys were
model children, and must have been well trained at home.
 HISTORY OF ELKHART COUNTY . 105 Those who are Hving
now are gray-haired grandparents, and many have passed to the
other life. "John and David Studebaker, Levi Ulery and Jacob Cline
were the oldest pupils and were nearly grown men. All the older
residents will remember Dave Studebaker, whose residence was in
Goshen many years and who died here esteemed and regretted. I
think there were almost thirty scholars in the school, and among
them the Bartmess boys. "The small scholars of that day, with their
home-made garments, home-made from the shearing of the sheep
to the last stitch in the clothes, made after the same pattern as their
fathers' and mothers' apparel, would make a striking contrast to the
little people of today, with their large collars, and knee pants of the
boys, and the furbelows and fancy dress "fixings' of the girls. "The
three R's were the principal branches taught ; in fact the only ones.
Grammar was an unknown study in the backwoods. One or two little
'Mannings' may have studied geography. There were different
classes in reading and spelling, and the monotonous round was only
varied by an occasional call to help solve some problem in
sulatraction or long division. In arithmetic each studied by himself
and could 'go ahead' as fast as he pleased without being kept back
by slower ones in the class. "Of course not one of the scholars could
have passed a 'high school' examination, but the young farmers
could 'reckon up' the value of their farm produce, read the Bible and
weekly newspaper, properly sign all legal documents and spell better
than half the high school graduates. "There were none of the
modern aids to teachers ; even blackboards were not in use in the
country schools of that day. There were no normal schools for
instruction in the art of teaching; no county or township institutes
where teachers could meet and discuss the new ideas advanced in
educational lines." Professor [Myers ox "The Log SEMix.\RtEs" Prof.
E. B. Myers, so long a teacher in the Elkhart city schools, when a boy
of ten years was brought by his pai-ents to the home farm in York
Township, where he had a taste of the country school of those days.
He describes his boyhood experiences and observations thus : "[NIv
first admission to one of the 'log seminaries' of
 106 HISTORY OF ELKHART COUNTY Elkhart county was in
December, 1846. This spacious, well furnished seat of learning stood
in York township, about two miles west of the village of \Tstula. It
was built of logs hewn on both sides, the cracks chinked and daubed
with clay (there was no lime for schoolhouses at that time), a
horizontal window on each of the four sides and a stove in the
center. This was an aristocratic schoolhouse; it had a floor made of
boards, not your rough puncheons so common elsewhere, but nice
inch-boards laid loosely on the rough-hewn sleepers. The boards
were not nailed down, I suppose for two reasons : first, because in
those days nails were scarce and cost money; secondly, anything
that fell on the floor was pretty apt to go through one of the many
wide cracks and could be recovered only by taking up one or more
of the boards. "The desks of this schoolhouse were marvels of
mechanical skill. Two-inch auger holes were bored in the log walls,
and large oak or hickory pins driven in, and upon these were laid
boards, which were then called 'writing desks.' The seats were made
of slabs, two legs in each and one in the middle to keep them from
sagging when overcrowded. During writing time the pupils all sat
with their faces to the wall and the teacher marched around looking
over their shoulders, criticising or commanding as the occasion
required. There were no shelves under these desks for books, but
what few we had were piled upon the writing desks and around the
comers, wherever convenient. "When not writing or ciphering we
were expected to sit facing the center of the room, and could then
rest our weary backs against the edge of the board that was called
the desk. In front of this and nearer the stove on each side of the
room was placed a slab seat for the little folks who did not write. On
these benches thelittle ones were compelled to sit by the hour,
swinging their feet and waiting for their turn to be called up by the
teacher to 'say their letters' or spell their 'a, b, ab's.' Books or busy
work for beginners were not thought of. "If a child learned his letters
the first term he was supposed to be making satisfactor}' progress.
Especially was this true if it was a winter term, when the larger
pupils were supposed to be entitled to the greater part of the time
and attention of the teacher. The range of studies was not very
wide. A grammar was not seen in that school till some years
afterward. 'It wasn't worth nothing but to learn folks to talk proper,'
and so was summarily discarded.
 HISTORY OF ELKHART COUNTY 107 A year later I took to
the school a copy of Olney's Geography and Atlas which my oldest
sister had used in Chicago. This atlas was very instructive to me in
the way of local geography. All that the northern part of the map of
Indiana contained was the word 'Pottawattamies,' printed in large
letters diagonally across the page. The book undoubtedly saw the
light long before I did. As I was the only pupil in the class I was
always at the head. The recitations of those days were unique. The
first class in the morning was the reading, the highest first and so on
to the a, b, c's. Then followed the writing and the recess. After
recess came more work for the little folks, the lowest first, and
closing the forenoon session with the 'first class in spelling," which
was always an important event in the each half-day session. "There
were no recitations in arithmetic. As the work consisted wholly in
'doing sums,' and as there was no such thing as conformity of text
books, especially in arithmetic, each person worked away at his own
sweet will. Such a thing as an explanation of a subject or principle
was not thought of, much less considered necessary. If we couldn't
do the sums we asked the teacher to show us how, but the showing
how answered for that case only and gave us but little or no
strength to cope with future similar difficulties. "In those days
blackboards and dictionaries were unknown in the ordinary country
school. The teacher was supposed to know everything and freely
gave of his or her knowledge. The teachers of those days never
hesitated at the pronunciation of a long word, but spelled it through
and gave us the pronunciation, which was law and gospel to us."
Joel P. Hawks Describes Education at Waterford Waterford Mills, now
a southern suburb of Goshen, was quite an industrial center and had
gathered considerable of a population by the late '30s. Judge Elias
Baker founded the settlement in 1833 by the building of his log
cabin and grist mill. Several families soon settled in that beautiful
neighborhood of Elkhart Prairie, but the place did not show a
decided growth until the coming of the Hawks families. In 1838
David Gallentine and the senior and junior Cephas Hawks laid out
the Village of Waterford. The milling firm of C. Hawks & Sons had
succeeded to all of the Baker interests. Joel P. Hawks, the youngest
son, in after years became
 108 HISTORY OF ELKHART COUNTY the cornerstone of
Waterford Mills, and when the family interests were transferred to
Goshen was, for thirty years, one of the most prominent citizens of
the county seat. Mr. Hawks came to Waterford with other members
of the family when he was about thirteen years of age, and thus
describes some of his early experiences in gaining an education:
"The first school I attended in Indiana was at Waterford, in the
winter of 1838. The schoolhouse was a new frame affair and had
been painted a gorgeous red. William Baker was the teacher. He was
a man of superior education for those days, but lacked the
adaptability for a teacher. Attention was principally given to the
primary classes ; to spelling and arithmetic, neither grammar nor
reading being taught. I suggested to the teacher the advisability of a
class in reading, but he could not see the use of it; then stated that
if I desired to read he would hear me. Accordingly I stood up alone
and read from my old English reader, while the scholars listened. At
the conclusion, the teacher remarked that he did not think he could
teach me anything in reading, and that was the last that I heard of
the matter. This omission was quite general in the schools of that
day, and it has shown in later years as the scholars of those days are
very poor readers, but fine spellers." The Middleburv Seminary
Among the early special institutions of learning in the county was
one at JNIiddlebury. An advertisement in the Goshen Democrat in
November, 1847, informs the public that the "Middlebury Seminary,"
under the direction of the Misses Casey, would be opened for young
ladies and gentlemen on November 18th. and oft'ered a thorough
course of English instruction at reasonable rates. Such private
institutions no doubt furnished educational opportunities to many
boys and girls of this county from that early day to the present time,
and public education, which in the last century was so materially
supplemented by private enterprise, is not yet so complete and
comprehensive as to entirely displace a school conducted by
individuals or certain societies. School Legisl.xtiox Previous to 1830
Previous to 1830. when the population of Elkhart County had
reached about 1,000 people, with perhaps 200 or 300 children of
 HISTORY OF ELKHART COUNTY 109 school age, various
provisions had been made by the constitution of 1816 and special
legislative enactments for the support of the public schools. Under
the constitution provision was made for the improvement of school
sections and to apply the fund arising from their sale to the
establishment and support of township schools and county
seminaries. But the settlers were poor and the school lands neither
sold nor leased to advantage. Several academies and seminaries
were incorporated in the older counties between 1816 and 1820. "In
1821," says Smith's "History of Indiana," "John BadoUet, David Hart,
William W. Alartin, James Welsch, Daniel S. Caswell, Thomas C.
Searle and John Todd were appointed by the General Assembly a
commission to draft and report to the next Legislature a bill
providing for a general system of education : and they were
instructed to guard particularly against 'any distinction between the
rich and poor.' The commission set about their work conscientiously,
and when it was complete submitted it to Benjamin Parke, who had
been at one time a delegate to Congress and was then the United
States Judge for Indiana. The bill so reported was enacted into a
law, and became the first general law on the subject of education
passed by the Indiana General Assembly. It was passed in 1824, and
bore the title: 'An .\ct to incorporate congressional townships and
providing for public schools therein.' "After providing for the election
by the people of each Congressional township of three persons of
the township to act as school trustees, to whom the control of the
school lands and schools generally were to be given, the law made
the following provision for building school houses : 'Every able-
bodied male person of the age of twenty-one years and upwards
residing within the bounds of such school district shall be liable to
work one day in each week until such building may be completed, or
pay the sum of thirtyseven and one-half cents for every day he may
fail to work.' The same act describes a school house as follows: 'In
all cases such school house shall be eight feet between the floors,
and at least one foot from the surface of the ground to the first floor,
and be furnished in a manner calculated to render comfortable the
teacher and pupils.' The trustees, in lieu of work, were required to
receive lumber, nails, glass, or other necessary materials, at the
current prices. No funds were provided for the pay of teachers ; so
the schools were not free, but they were made open to all, black as
well
 110 HISTORY OF ELKHART COUNTY as white, and it was
not until about 1830 that colored children were excluded from the
schools, and then the exclusion arose from a prejudice excited by
the slavery agitation. Under the law of 1824 the schools were kept
open just as long each year as the patrons could or would pay for
their maintenance. "At nearly every succeeding session of the
General Assembly some law was enacted on the subject of
education, but still no general system was adopted. There was
always an element of opposition that would find some way to get
the laws before the courts, and thus to hamper the attempts to
establish schools. Private citizens did much, and public meetings of
citizens did more, but little could be accomplished in a public way.
School officers had no funds with which to erect houses, or to pay
teachers. They could not levy a tax, except by special permission of
the district, and, even then the expenditure was limited to $50 by
the act of 1834." Public School Funds In the meantime various funds
to be used in the establishment and support of the public schools
were being formed and consolidated. The principal of these were the
Congressional Township fund, raised from the sale of the sections
16, donated by the general Government from the public lands ; the
Bank Tax fund, authorized by a provision in the charter of the State
Bank of Indiana which taxed each of its shares owned by individuals
12J-2 cents annually (one-half of the stock was owned by the state)
; the Seminary fund, created by the sale of all properties of the
county seminaries, ordered by the Legislature in 1832; the Surplus
Revenue fund, donated by the general government in 1836 from the
surplus in the national treasury, Indiana's share in the division
among the states amounting to $806,000, of which the Legislature
set apart $573,000 for the permanent school fund ; the Swamp Land
fund, which included not only that class of lands, but all other
granted to the state for which special provision was not made; the
Saline fund, which had been formed in 1816, when Congress gave
the state all salt springs within its borders with the lands reserved
for their use, and in 1832 authorized the state to sell these
properties and apply the proceeds to the common school fund : and
the Contingent fund, arising from fines, forfeitures and escheats.
These funds were gradually collected, so that with the adoption of
the constitution of
 HISTORY OF ELKHART COUNTY 111 1 85 1, the educators
of the state feh that the time had come to organize a system of
popular education of a fundamental and farreaching nature. The
School Law of 1852 Although this law was passed in 1852, it did not
become practically operative until the first ]\Ionday of April, 1853,
when the township trustees for school purposes were elected
throughout the state. The law committed to the township trustees
the charge of all the educational affairs of the township. It gave
them the control and disbursement of all the school funds; it
intrusted them with the duty of determining the number and location
of all the schoolhouses necessary for the accommodation of the
children of the township; it left to them the making of all contracts
for building, repairing and furnishing schoolhouses ; the purchasing
of fuel; the employment of teachers ; and, lastly, they were to
determine the time of commencing and the period of the
continuance of the schools. Immediately upon the passage of the
law, it met with considerable opposition in all parts of the state. It
was claimed that it would not be possible to select men in all the
townships of the state capable of discharging properly the various
duties required of township trustees ; and, that in many instances,
the summary and discretionary powers with which they were to be
clothed, would be injudiciously exercised. This opposition, however,
resulted only in the complete success of the law, for through it the
people of the state were awakened to the great importance of
electing the ablest and best men to the office — a commendable
practice to which they still earnestly adhere. Explaining the Law to
the People The trustees, on entering on the duties of their office,
were in nearly all cases, greatly embarrassed by the general want of
correct information among the people concerning the new system of
public instruction. The law, in all points, was radically new, providing
for a system wholly different from any to which the people had been
accustomed. Few of the trustees, and still fewer of the people, had
ever read, much less studied the law, hence they were unable to
 112 HISTORY OF ELKHART COUNTY operate properly under
it. To remove these difficulties a pamphlet of upwards of sixty pages,
embracing the law, with its amendments and copious notes,
explanations, instructions and forms of proceedings, was issued from
the office of the superintendent of public instruction. A large edition
was printed and distributed to the several townships of the state, so
that any person, by simply calling on any of the county officials,
would receive a copy without charge. By this means all soon became
acquainted with the whole system. The first duty of the board of
trustees was to establish and conveniently locate a sufficient number
of schools for the education of all the children of their township. In
referring to this matter in his annual report of 1853, Hon. W. C.
Larrabee, the superintendent of public instruction, made these
remarks : '"But the schoolhouses, where are they? And what are
they? In some townships there is not a single schoolhouse of any
kind to be found. In other townships there are a few old, leaky,
dilapidated log cabins, wholly unfit for use even in summer, and in
winter worse than nothing. Before the people can be tolerably
accommodated with schools, there must be erected in this State at
least 3,500 schoolhouses." Previous to the enactment of the
township system, schoolhouses were erected by single districts, but
under this law districts were abolished, district lines obliterated, and
houses previously built by districts became the property of the
township, and all new houses were to be built by the trustees, at the
expense of the township and through an appropriation of township
funds. Difficulties in the Way of Tax.\tion By the law of 1852, each
township in the state was made a municipal corporation, with such
powers and liabilities as, by common usage, belong to such
corporations. Every voter in the township was made a member of
the corporation. The business of the corporation was managed
directly by the whole body of the voters ; in regular or special
township meetings, or by persons chosen by the people, as directors
of the corporation, called township trustees. Among the inherent and
necessary powers of such corporations, stood first and most
important, that of raising, by taxation on the property and polls of
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