several States are sovereign in their nature and mode of exercise, by each within its own jurisdiction, they are to be considered as sovereign and independent nationalities having full right to establish laws for their own domain by the exercise of those powers.1 § 384. This division and distribution of sovereign power in the United States and the distinction of municipal laws having a variety of territorial jurisdiction, necessitates a distinction of persons as native or alien subjects of these various jurisdictions. The native inhabitant of any one of the States is also, of necessity, subject to the national powers vested in the Government of the United States. But though, in this sense, a native of the United States and subject as such to the authority of the national Government, he would, in every other State, be still an alien in respect to the powers exclusively vested in such other State and the local law proceeding from those powers. Also, since the national authority, vested in the Government of the United States, extends everywhere throughout the dominion of the States, he who by birth is an alien to that national jurisdiction, would be also such in regard to any State in the Union. Buckner v. Finley, 2 Peters, 590. "For all national purposes embraced by the federal Constitution, the States, and the citizens thereof are one, united under the same sovereign authority, and governed by the same laws. In other respects the States are necessarily foreign to and independent of each other. Their constitutions and forms of government being, though republican, altogether different, as are their laws and institutions." See also, Warder v. Arrel, 2 Wash. 298, (Court of Appeals of Virginia,) Washington, J., in Lonsdale v. Brown, 4 Wash. C. C. p. 154, after speaking of the political nature of the union between England and Scotland says, "How different is the union of these States. They are, in their separate political capacities, sovereign and independent of each other, except so far as they have united for their common defence, and for national purposes. They have each a Constitution and form of government, with all the attributes of sovereignty. As to matters of national concern, they form one government, are subject to the same laws, and may be emphatically denominated one people. In all other respects, they are as distinct as different forms of government and different laws can render them. It is true that the citizens of each State are entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in every other State; that the sovereignty of the States, in relation to fugitives from justice and from service, is limited; and that each State is bound to give full faith and credit to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of the sister States. But these privileges and disabilities are mere creatures of the Constitution, and it is quite fair to argue, that the framers of that instrument deemed it necessary to secure them by express provisions." Descriptions like the above will have a variety of significance, according to the political theories of the reader and the speaker. Under the municipal (national) law of the United States, there may therefore be aliens to the whole Union, who, in the view of designating them by brief terms of description, may be termed foreign aliens, and aliens to a State only, who may be termed domestic aliens-a distinction similar to that existing during the colonial period between aliens to the empire and aliens to a colony; and the several States of the Union may sustain, as distinct polities, an international relation to each other, and to other possessors of supreme national power; and the maxims, or rules of action constituting international law, are applicable to the exercise of the sovereign powers held by them. § 385. The maxims of international law, public and private, applied to the relations of the several States toward each other, constitute, therefore, a part of the national municipal law of the United States. The propriety of considering any law as being international, and at the same time a part of the national municipal law, (law limited to the territorial extent of the United States,) arising from the fact, that the several States do possess independent and sovereign powers, and that the possession or distribution of those powers, is determined by the Constitution; which is itself national municipal law. § 386. From the nature of the political bodies or persons upon which it operates, international law is law only in an imperfect sense, for such bodies or persons; and, in its effect upon the rights and relations of private persons, that is, when it becomes private international law, it has the force and authority of law in the strict sense only by being enforced by the source of that municipal (internal) law, whose application to persons it is said to limit.2 In a state or nation wherein the sum of national state power, or the entire sovereignty, is concentrated in one political unity, and in which, of course, all municipal law proceeds from one and the same source, the modification of every part of that law in reference to aliens, (which modification is the private inter several States are sovereign in their nature and mode of exercise, by each within its own jurisdiction, they are to be considered as sovereign and independent nationalities having full right to establish laws for their own domain by the exercise of those powers.1 § 384. This division and distribution of sovereign power in the United States and the distinction of municipal laws having a variety of territorial jurisdiction, necessitates a distinction of persons as native or alien subjects of these various jurisdictions. The native inhabitant of any one of the States is also, of necessity, subject to the national powers vested in the Government of the United States. But though, in this sense, a native of the United States and subject as such to the authority of the national Government, he would, in every other State, be still an alien in respect to the powers exclusively vested in such other State and the local law proceeding from those powers. Also, since the national authority, vested in the Government of the United States, extends everywhere throughout the dominion of the States, he who by birth is an alien to that national jurisdiction, would be also such in regard to any State in the Union. 1 Buckner v. Finley, 2 Peters, 590. "For all national purposes embraced by the federal Constitution, the States, and the citizens thereof are one, united under the same sovereign authority, and governed by the same laws. In other respects the States are necessarily foreign to and independent of each other. Their constitutions and forms of government being, though republican, altogether different, as are their laws and institutions." See also, Warder v. Arrel, Wash. 298, (Court of Appeals of Virginia,) Washington, J., in Lonsdale v. Brown, 4 Wash. C. C. p. 154, after speaking of the political nature of the union between England and Scotland says, "How different is the union of these States. They are, in their separate political capacities, sovereign and independent of each other, except so far as they have united for their common defence, and for national purposes. They have each a Constitution and form of government, with all the attributes of sovereignty. As to matters of national concern, they form one government, are subject to the same laws, and may be emphatically denominated one people. In all other respects, they are as distinct as different forms of government and different laws can render them. It is true that the citizens of each State are entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in every other State; that the sovereignty of the States, in relation to fugitives from justice and from service, is limited; and that each State is bound to give full faith and credit to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of the sister States. But these privileges and disabilities are mere creatures of the Constitution, and it is quite fair to argue, that the framers of that instrument deemed it necessary to secure them by express provisions." Descriptions like the above will have a variety of significance, according to the political theories of the reader and the speaker. Under the municipal (national) law of the United States, there may therefore be aliens to the whole Union, who, in the view of designating them by brief terms of description, may be termed foreign aliens, and aliens to a State only, who may be termed domestic aliens-a distinction similar to that existing during the colonial period between aliens to the empire and aliens to a colony; and the several States of the Union may sustain, as distinct polities, an international relation to each other, and to other possessors of supreme national power; and the maxims, or rules of action constituting international law, are applicable to the exercise of the sovereign powers held by them. § 385. The maxims of international law, public and private, applied to the relations of the several States toward each other, constitute, therefore, a part of the national municipal law of the United States. The propriety of considering any law as being international, and at the same time a part of the national municipal law, (law limited to the territorial extent of the United States,) arising from the fact, that the several States do possess independent and sovereign powers, and that the possession or distribution of those powers, is determined by the Constitution; which is itself national municipal law. § 386. From the nature of the political bodies or persons upon which it operates, international law is law only in an imperfect sense, for such bodies or persons; and, in its effect upon the rights and relations of private persons, that is, when it becomes private international law, it has the force and authority of law in the strict sense only by being enforced by the source of that municipal (internal) law, whose application to persons it is said to limit.2 In a state or nation wherein the sum of national state power, or the entire sovereignty, is concentrated in one political unity, and in which, of course, all municipal law proceeds from one and the same source, the modification of every part of that law in reference to aliens, (which modification is the private inter national law as received within that jurisdiction,)' depends upon one and the same possessor of sovereign power. If within a single state or nationality the sum of sovereign powers can be divided between different depositories, each of which is a source of municipal law, the question would arise,-by whom is the modification of those laws in respect to aliens, to be made ?or, from whom does the international law, which regulates the application of those laws to aliens, proceed? Within the limits of any one of the United States, all persons are subject to a sovereignty divided between the national Government and the State; and each is a source of municipal law for that jurisdiction. The powers held by each of these being sovereign, the laws proceeding from each affect, according to their purpose, all persons found within their assigned territorial dominion; and the application of each of those divisions of municipal law to the rights and relations of aliens would be fixed, for each, by its own sovereign source. Or-to express the same somewhat differently,—the international rules modifying the application of either of these divisions of municipal law to the relations and rights of aliens, would be those allowed by the originating source of that division of municipal law. Those rights and obligations of persons which were under the control of one of those sources of law, in the case of native-born subjects, would, as rights and obligations of an alien subject, be determined by the same power, that is, the same source of law. § 387. But it is only foreign aliens, who, within any State of the Union, are aliens at the same time towards the jurisdiction and forum of each of these divisions of municipal law and their respective sources. Domestic aliens are such as are always at the same time native or domiciled subjects of the national law. In the case of the first, that is, the foreign alien, the application of both parts of the municipal law, the national and the local, is to be considered in the case of the second, that is, the domestic alien, only the application of one of those divisions-the local. This modification of the municipal laws of 3 Ante, p. 65. |