applicable by judicial tribunals, either those of the national government or those of the several States according to the constitutional distribution of sovereign powers between that government and the States, in determining the rights and obligations of persons in reference to anterior subjection to other jurisdictions, including the condition or status of those who are aliens either to the United States or to some one of the several States.

§ 599. According to the various extent of the powers held by the national government and the States this international law will be either national or local law.

But in its application to persons it may also be distinguished as either domestic international law or foreign international law. The priority in exposition of one or the other of these portions of the international law is determined by the following considerations.

In the exposition of the fundamental principle of international law determining the judicial allowance or disallowance (irrespective of legislation having international effect) of rights and obligations of private persons created by the laws of jurisdictions to which they have anteriorly been subject, it was shown that the presumptive maintenance of relations created by the foreign law, which was there stated, will be controlled by whatever principles of the local law may be of universal personal extent, or may attribute rights or obligations to all persons within the forum of jurisdiction and being in certain circumstances of natural condition."

From this it appears, that, in the judicial determination of private international law, the existence of a local or internal law must be presupposed; and therefore that, in the order of historical development, the exposition of the internal law of a country precedes that of the international law as therein received.

To whatever extent the State tribunals may determine the rights and obligations of foreign or domestic aliens, under customary private international law, they must necessarily dis

1 Ante, § 88.

That is, in every forum wherein law is known as having had territorial extent. The exceptional case of countries not before inhabited by permanent civilized communities has been repeatedly noticed in the historical parts of this work.

criminate such principles of the local or internal law of the State as have universal personal extent in and for its several jurisdiction.

So, too, in determining the rights and obligations of foreign aliens under customary private international law, it will be necessary for the national judiciary in like manner to discriminate whatever principles contained in the national municipal (internal) law may have this universal extent.

The law which, in the several States, determines the status of domestic aliens, and which is herein designated domestic international law, is a portion of the municipal (internal) law of the United States regarded as a single integral state in the family of nations. It is, in its authority, identified either with the national law or with the local law of a State. Hence, in order to know what principles have that universal personal extent under the national jurisdiction which will limit the recognition, by the national tribunals, of rights and obligations created by foreign laws, it is necessary to examine first this domestic international law, so far at least as it may be identified with the juridical will of the nation, as well as that portion of the national law which is more obviously internal in its character and operation.'

It has herein already been assumed, that, wherein their rights and obligations are not determined by the national law, the foreign alien and the domestic alien are in the same position in respect to the sovereign powers held by the States severally -the "reserved" powers. Therefore the law which in each State, while resting on the local authority, determines the rights and obligations of domestic aliens, is not internal law of the State in contrast with that which, resting on the same authority, determines the rights and obligations of foreign aliens. Nevertheless, from the geographical propinquity of the States and their political and other affinities, the juridical action of the State power in reference to domestic aliens must be presumed to have preceded its like action in reference to foreign aliens. If not more nearly connected in character with the internal law of the State, the domestic international law of

Ante, § 398.

the State must, as compared with its foreign international law, be at least first in the order of historical development; and therefore, with the internal law, it may be judicially referred to for the exhibition of whatever principles may, by having universal personal extent, control the judicial allowance of the laws of foreign countries.

The exposition of all law determining the rights and obligations of foreign aliens-foreign international law, as herein designated—is therefore naturally preceded by that of the domestic international law of the United States, in its two principal divisions:

1. That law which, though international by the character of the persons to whom it applies, is identified in its source and authority with the national municipal (internal) law, and which therefore, if acting on private persons, is law in the strict sense independently of the will of the several States in which it operates; which division, in distinction from the second, has herein been denominated quasi-international law.

2. That which, though international by the character of the persons to whom it applies, is identified in its authority with some local municipal (State) law; and which, if distinguished from this local law in its origin, source, or authority, is not law in the strict sense of the word.

The first of these is found either

a. In the Constitution itself, operating as private law; or, b. In the legislation of Congress under the Constitution.

CHAPTER XXI.

OF THE DOMESTIC INTERNATIONAL LAW OF THE UNITED STATES. THE SUBJECT CONTINUED. GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS RESPECTING THE PROVISIONS OF THE FOURTH ARTICLE OF THE CONSTITUTION.

§ 600. The constitutional provisions which, under the distribution made in the last section, may form the first subdivision of the domestic international law identified in authority with the national municipal law, are herein to be considered principally in their effect upon relations of private persons in which those rights and obligations are involved which enter into the condition of freedom and its contraries.

If any clauses of the Constitution have the effect of private international law for the several States, by limiting or extending the operation of their respective local laws, they are, it may be assumed,' those contained in the first and second sections of the Fourth Article, which are as follows:

SECTION I.

"1. Full faith and credit shall be given in each State to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other State. And the congress may, by general laws, prescribe the manner in which such acts, records and proceedings, shall be proved, and the effect thereof."

1 Duponceau, in his Brief View of the Constitution, gives only a few lines to this Article, on p. 45, but they are worth noting. They are:-" Public law between the States.-This is what Tacitus calls humanitatis commercia, and what has been still more elegantly called fœdera generis humani. Our Constitution says but little on this important subject. What it says, however, is susceptible of much development, and it is hoped will receive it." It is herein held that the caption would be more correctly given as Public and private law between the States. The sections above cited have the character of private law, by acting directly on private persons; the other sections of the Article have rather the character of public law.

SECTION II.

"1. The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States.

"2. A person charged in any State with treason, felony, or other crime, who shall flee from justice, and be found in another State, shall, on demand of the executive authority of the State from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the State having jurisdiction of the crime.

"3. No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due."

§ 601. In these provisions rights and obligations are expressly or impliedly spoken of as having legal recognition in, or as attaching to private persons under State jurisdictions other than that in which the relations which those rights and obligations constitute were first created; and persons are considered as appearing in some one of the States in the character of aliens to the local law of that State, and as having rights or sustaining obligations under the law of their previous domicil, or that of some one State jurisdiction to which they have been previously subject. They regulate, in some degree, the application of State laws to persons coming from other States, and maintain, in otherwise independent jurisdictions, relations which exist under the dominion of another State. They are therefore international in their effect.

But though these provisions are taken to rest for their authority upon the same political power as do other provisions of the Constitution, there may be still some doubt as to the persons who are the immediate subjects of the law which they contain. That is, a question may be raised whether the States, in their political personality, are subjects of the relation created by them, or whether, like other provisions of the Constitution, they operate on natural persons within the limits of the United States independently of the powers vested in the States severally and are law within each State by resting on the national authority of the United States, irrespectively of