as individuals. (2 U. S. St. L. pp. 339, 340-342. Wheat. Int. L. P. 2, c. 2, § 9.)

States, in virtue of their sovereignty, may exempt by law citizens or foreigners from suits, to such extent as they shall think fit, unless prohibited by organic or constitutional law. (14 Pet. R. 745.)

Armies are not permitted to enter a neutral country without express permission of its sovereign or executive, on account of the great danger of injury to the country. (Wheat. Int. L. P. 2, c. 2, § 9. 4 Hamilton's Works, 48, 49.) But ships of war may enter the ports or waters of a neutral State, unless forbidden, if they demean themselves peaceably. But if they are prohibited from entering the waters, or hovering on the coasts of a neutral nation on account of any hostile act or interruption of the trade of the ports of such State, they must abstain from such ports, maritime curtilage and contiguous waters, or the neutral may use force to drive them off. (Ib. 2 U. S. St. L. 605-606. 1 Am. St. Pap. 261. See c. 1, § 9.)

SEC. 3. When an army enters a foreign State by consent, or armed vessels enter its waters by an implied permission of the neutral, the jurisdiction of the army and of the armed vessels remain in the military and civil tribunals of the nation to which they belong. (Ante, § 2. Wheat. Int. L. P. 2, c. 2, §§ 7-12.) No army or armed ship thus admitted by consent, express or implied, can lawfully commit any act of hostility there. (Ib.)

Public armed ships, driven into the ports of a friendly power by distress, are exempt from the local jurisdiction, if they behave peaceably. (Ib. 146. (Ib. 146. 2 U. S. St. L. 605.)

It has been maintained, and with good reason, that private ships, carried by force or driven by distress into foreign ports, ought not to be subject to the local juris

diction if no attempt to trade is made there, and if no act is done there on board the ship in violation of the peace or the law of nations. (Wheat. Hist. L. N. 723. Webster's Letter to Ld. Ashburton. Webster's Dipl. & Of. Papers, pp. 83-91.) It is clear that, where a vessel is forced into a foreign port by distress, no penalty attaches to such entry. (Wheat. Hist. L. N. 735.) If any crime be committed there by any of the passengers or crew, they may be subjected to the lex loci. (2 U. S. St. L. Wheat. Int. L. P. 2, c. 2, § 9.) A ship of war may, if permitted by a neutral, carry prizes into its ports, and hold them there. (5 Hamilton's Works, 132, 133. 7 Ib. 135.)

339.

SEC. 4. A nation is under no obligation to grant a passage through its territory to a foreign army, and it may lawfully withhold the use of its maritime curtilage or contiguous waters to public armed ships. (2 U. S. St. L. 605, 606.) Upon this principle, the strait connecting the Mediterranean with the Black Sea is closed by the Porte against all foreign ships of war, though it is open to all merchant ships of all nations having friendly relations with the Porte. Our republic has exercised this power of excluding armed ships from our waters; and President Jefferson thought it reasonable that ships of war, seeking to capture merchant ships of an enemy trading to and from our ports, ought to be compelled to cruise beyond the Gulf Stream. This exclusion of these armed ships from our waters arose from their interference with the commerce of our ports.

Public and private armed ships may justly forfeit the right of entering a nation's waters by any hostile acts or proceedings near her coasts, injurious to her commerce. (Wheat. Int. L. P. 2, c. 2, § 9. 3 U. S. St. L. 449, 89.) Nor is a foreign armed vessel permitted to harbor criminals in foreign ports, or within the curtilage of a

foreign State. In such cases, criminals may be arrested. (2 U. S. St. L. 339, 340, 342. Wheat. Int. L. P. 2, c. 2, §§ 9, 13.) According to Cæsar, it was a permanent rule of Roman policy to forbid to foreign armies a passage through Roman territory. And it was a wise one.

If a foreign army enters a neutral territory or an armed ship neutral waters, and there commits hostilities, the officers and soldiers are not liable, civilly or criminally, for the act is national. It may be sufficient cause of war or ground for demand of national satisfaction, but the law of nations allows no responsibility to attach to the officers and soldiers, the instruments of the nation committing the aggression. (See the opinion of Mr. Lee, Attorney-General of the United States, to the Secretary of State, of December 29th, 1797; and the letters of Daniel Webster, Secretary of State, and of Mr. Fox, the British Minister, relative to the McLeod case, copied into the report of that case in 25 Wend. R. 507, 512, notes. 26 Ib. 691, 692, 699 and onward.) In the McLeod case, the invasion of our territory and destroying the Caroline, and killing a man on board, was claimed to be an act of self-defence on the part of the British force, and the affair was properly considered by our able civilian, Webster, as exclusively a national matter.

Upon the same principle, if a public or private armed ship of a nation capture a neutral ship, and she is sent in for adjudication, the captors cannot be sued for the act in the courts of the neutral. It is a national act, and if the ship is wrongfully condemned or is not restored to the neutral owners, it becomes a national wrong, to be redressed by the political power. (3 Dall. R. 129.) But this exception does not extend to prize goods illegally captured, in violation of the jurisdiction of the neutral State, and brought within its territory or maritime curtilage by the captors. In such case, the courts of the neu

tral may take cognizance of the matter, and award restitution of the goods so illegally captured. (8 Wheat. 352. Wheat. Int. L. P. 2, c. 2, § 9.)

TERRITORIAL JURISDICTION.

SEC. 6. All persons within the territory of a nation, as well foreigners as other persons, owe obedience to its laws and are subject to them, as well as property found there. (9 Wheat. 370. 11 Pet. 138, 139. Wheat. Int.

L. P. 2, c. 2, §§ 1, 2, 12, 13, 19. Story's Confl. L. §§ 18, 19, 550.) This general rule has limitations. This power includes pirates, and all piratical offences on the high seas and on the islands and coasts of a country. (Wheat. Int. L. P. 2, c. 2, §§ 12, 15.)

The Constitution of the United States has secured to the citizens of each State "all privileges and immunities of citizens of the several States;" has forbidden the States to pass ex post facto criminal and penal laws, and laws impairing the obligation of contracts, or taking life, liberty or property without due process of law.

A State may, indeed, if it can arrest the offender within its territory, or induce his extradition by the State authorities of his residence, punish him, though the crime was matured beyond its limits, and executed within them by innocent agents. (Adams vs. People, 1 Comst. R. 173.) Subject to constitutional limitations our States are municipal sovereignties, and the law of national comity applicable between nations is part of the public law of our Union, as between State and State, and as between any State and the District of Columbia, and a State and the territories of the Union. (1 U. S. St. L. 302. 2 lb. 116, § 6. 13 Pet. 590. 4 How. 285, and cases therein cited. 2 Pet. 179, 586, 688. 10 Ib. 579, showing bills

of exchange drawn in one State on a drawee in another have the qualities of a foreign bill of exchange.

EXTRA TERRITORIAL JURISDICTION.

The sovereignty of a nation subjects to its laws and tribunals not only property and persons within its territory, but its citizens on the high seas and abroad; and pirates, for offences against the law of nations, may be brought within their action. (8 How. 493. Wheat. Int. L. P. 2, c. 2, §§ 6, 10, 11. Story's Conf. L. 2d ed. §§ 18, 19.)

The actual location of property, movable or immovable, within the limits of a State, subjects it to its laws and tribunals. Contracts made within the territories of a nation or State, or transactions occurring there, if brought before foreign tribunals for adjudication, are generally, by national comity, decided according to the lex loci contractus, or of the place of the transaction. (Story's Confl. L. §§ 18, 19, 251, 263, 267, 431. Wheat. Int. L. P. 2. c. 2, §§ 3, 5, 6, 7. 6 How. 550. 1 Ib. 28. 8 Pet. 361. 2 Burr. 1079, 1080. 8 How. 493, 494.)

Though nations have exclusive jurisdiction over their respective territories, and the force and effect there of foreign or extra territorial transactions, and the privileges of foreigners there depend generally on the lex loci, the law of nations, founded on the golden rule of the Gospel, has affixed limits to this territorial power, which all gov ernments are deemed to assent to. This law of national comity excepts from the jurisdiction of the lex loci foreign ministers and diplomatic representatives, with attendants and effects, foreign kings, emperors, presidents or executives, foreign ships of war entering a nation's ports by presumed permission, or in distress, merchant ships forced