signing, thereby divesting a title already vested, would be manifestly unjust, and cannot be sanctioned.

These views dispose of this case, and we are not required to determine whether this treaty, if it had become a law at an earlier date, would have secured the plaintiffs in error the interest which they claim in the real estate left by Yaker at his death.

Judgment affirmed."

J. RIBAS É HIJO v. UNITED STATES.

(United States District Court for the District of Porto Rico, 1901. 1 Porto Rico Federal Reports, 71.)

The Congress of the United States declared that war existed with Spain from April 21, 1898. On August 12, 1898, hostilities between Spain and the United States were suspended, upon the signature of a project of agreement embodying the terms of a basis for the establishment of peace.

Before the cessation of hostilities, the United States seized a vessel named Paz, belonging to the plaintiff, for the storage of coal. The plaintiff claimed that the vessel was used for twelve months and two weeks, that is to say, from July 26, 1898, to August 12, 1899.

The answer of the United States admitted the alleged use from July 28, 1898, to May, 1899, but denied liability upon the ground that the vessel belonging to the plaintiff was enemy property, and was so seized by the military forces of the United States.

8 Mr. Justice Wayne, in Davis v. Police Jury, 9 How. 280, 289, 13 L. Ed. 138 (1850), says:

"All treaties, as well those for cessions of territory as for other purposes, are binding upon the contracting parties, unless when otherwise provided in them, from the day they are signed. The ratification of them relates back to the time of signing. Vattel, B. 4, c. 2, § 22; Mart Summary, B. 8, c. 7, § 5. "It is true that, in a treaty for the cession of territory, its national character continues, for all commercial purposes; but full sovereignty, for the exercise of it, does not pass to the nation to which it is transferred until actual delivery. But it is also true, that the exercise of sovereignty by the ceding country ceases except for strictly municipal purposes, especially for granting lands. And for the same reason in both cases;-because, after the treaty is made, there is not in either the union of possession and the right to the territory which must concur to give plenum dominium et utile. To give that, there must be the jus in rem and the jus in re, or what is called in the common law of England the juris et seisinae conjunctio. "This general law of property applies to the right of territory no less than to other rights, and all writers upon the law of nations concur, that the practice and conventional law of nations have been conformable. to this principle.' Puffendorf, par Barbeyrac, lib. 4, c. 9, § 8, note 2.

"In this case, after the treaty was made, and until Louisiana was delivered to France, its possession continued in Spain. The right to the territory, though in France, was imperfect until ratified, but absolute by ratification from the date of the treaty."

The learned justice cited with approval, indeed he based his argument and opinion upon the judgment of Sir William Scott in The Fama, 5 C. Rob. 106 (1804), ante, p. 181.

The plaintiff brought action for ten thousand dollars, for the seizure and use of the vessel. The District Court dismissed the suit, and the plaintiff petitioned for a rehearing of the cause of action." HOLT, Judge, delivered the following opinion:

A rehearing is asked upon the ground that the court has found, as a matter of fact, that the use continued until April, 1899, and as the protocol, followed by the President's proclamation, was dated August 12, 1898, the complainants say they should recover on a quantum meruit the value of the use of the vessel between these dates. This was a seizure in time of war, and not in time of peace. It was, as has been said, a special case arising from the necessary operation of war, and the war power of the government concluded it was necessary to take and use the property. Even conceding that the seizure did not terminate all right of the Spanish owner in the property, or to any use of it, yet the protocol and proclamation did not end the war. The protocol worked a mere truce. The President has not the power to terminate the war by treaty without the advice or consent of the Senate of the United States. If a treaty be silent as to when it is to become effective, the weight of authority is that it does not become so until ratified, and this was not done until in April, 1899, and the war did not end by treaty until then; and all the use made by the government of the vessel was justified by the rules of war and international law, without compensation. The motion is overruled and rehearing denied.10

SECTION 3.-INTERPRETATION OF TREATIES

GEOFROY v. RIGGS.

(Supreme Court of the United States, 1890. 133 U. S. 258, 10, Sup. Ct. 295, 33 L. Ed. 642.)

In Equity. The bill alleged that the suit was "a purely friendly suit." The defendants demurred to the bill, and it was dismissed. The com plainants appealed. The court stated the case as follows:

On the 19th day of January, 1888, T. Lawrason Riggs, a citizen of the United States and a resident of the District of Columbia, died at Washington, intestate, seized in fee of real estate of great value in the District. The complainants are citizens and residents of France and nephews of the deceased. On the 12th of March, 1872, the sister of

The shortened statement of the facts has been substituted for that of the report.

10 Affirmed in J. Ribas y Hijo v. U. S., 194 U. S. 315, 24 Sup. Ct. 727, 48 L Ed. 994 (1904).

the deceased, then named Kate S. Riggs, intermarried with Louis de Geofroy, of France. She was at the time a resident of the District of Columbia and a citizen of the United States. He was then and always has been a citizen of France. The complainants are the children of this marriage, and are infants now residing with their father in France. One of them was born July 14, 1873, at Pekin, in China, whilst his father was the French minister plenipotentiary to that country, and was there only as such minister. The other was born October 18, 1875, at Cannes, in France. Their mother, who was a sister of all the defendants except Medora, wife of the defendant E. Francis Riggs, died February 7, 1881. The deceased, T. Lawrason Riggs, left one brother, E. Francis Riggs, and three sisters, Alice L. Riggs, Jane A. Riggs and Cecilia Howard, surviving him, but no descendants of any deceased brother or deceased sister except the complainants.

The defendants, with the exception of Cecilia Howard, are, and always have been, citizens of the United States and residents of the District of Columbia. Cecilia Howard, in 1867, intermarried with Henry Howard, a British subject, and since that time has resided with him in England.

The real property described in the bill of complaint cannot be divided without actual loss and injury, and the interest of the complainants, if they have any, as well as of the defendants, in the property would be promoted by its sale and a division of the proceeds.

To the bill of complaint setting up these facts and praying a sale of the premises described and a division of the proceeds among the parties to the suit according to their respective rights and interests the defendants demurred, on the ground that the complainants were incapable of inheriting from their uncle any interest in the real estate. The Supreme Court of the District of Columbia sustained the demurrer and dismissed the bill. From the decree the case is brought to this court on appeal.

Mr. Justice FIELD, after stating the case, delivered the opinion of the court..

The complainants are both citizens of France. The fact that one of them was born in Pekin, China, does not change his citizenship. His father was a Frenchman, and by the law of France a child of a Frenchman, though born in a foreign country, retains the citizenship of his father. In this case, also, his father was engaged, at the time of the son's birth, in the diplomatic service of France, being its minister plenipotentiary to China, and by public law the children of ambassadors and ministers accredited to another country retain the citizenship of their father.

The question presented for solution, therefore, is whether the complainants, being citizens and residents of France, inherit an interest in the real estate in the District of Columbia of which their uncle, a citizen of the United States and a resident of the District, died seized.

In more general terms the question is: can citizens of France take land in the District of Columbia by descent from citizens of the United States?

The complainants contend that they inherit an estate in the property described, by force of the stipulation of article 7 of the convention between the United States and France, concluded February 23, 1853 (10 Stat. 996), and the provisions of the act of Congress of March 3, 1887 (Comp. St. §§ 3498-3500), to restrict the ownership of real estate in the territories to American citizens. The 7th article

of that convention is as follows:

*

"In all states of the Union, whose existing laws permit it, so long and to the same extent as the said laws shall remain in force, Frenchmen shall enjoy the right of possessing personal and real property by the same title and in the same manner as the citizens of the United States. They shall be free to dispose of it as they may please, either gratuitously or for value received, by donation, testament, or otherwise, just as those citizens themselves; and in no case shall they be subjected to taxes on transfer, inheritance, or any others different from those paid by the latter, or to taxes which shall not be equally imposed. "As to the states of the Union, by whose existing laws aliens are not permitted to hold real estate, the President engages to recommend to them the passage of such laws as may be necessary for the purpose of conferring this right.

"In like manner, but with the reservation of the ulterior right of establishing reciprocity in regard to possession and inheritance, the government of France accords to the citizens of the United States the same rights within its territory in respect to real and personal property, and to inheritance, as are enjoyed there by its own citizens." 10 Stat. 996.

This article is not happily drawn. It leaves in doubt what is meant by "states of the Union." Ordinarily these terms would be held to apply to those political communities exercising various attributes of sovereignty which compose the United States, as distinguished from the organized municipalities known as territories and the District of Columbia. And yet separate communities, with an independent local government, are often described as states, though the extent of their political sovereignty be limited by relations to a more general government or to other countries. Halleck on Int. Law, c. 3, §§ 5, 6, 7. The term is used in general jurisprudence and by writers on public law as denoting organized political societies with an established government. Within this definition the District of Columbia, under the government of the United States, is as much a state as any of those political communities which compose the United States. Were there no other territory under the government of the United States, it would not be questioned that the District of Columbia would be a state within the meaning of international law; and it is not perceived that it is any less a state within that meaning because other states and other terri

tory are also under the same government. In Hepburn v. Ellzey, 2 Cranch, 445, 452, 2 L. Ed. 332, the question arose whether a resident and a citizen of the District of Columbia could sue a citizen of Virginia in the Circuit Court of the United States. The court, by Chief Justice Marshall, in deciding the question, conceded that the District of Columbia was distinct political society, and therefore a state according to the definition of writers on general law; but held that the act of Congress in providing for controversies between citizens of different states in the Circuit Courts, referred to that term as used in the Constitution, and therefore to one of the States composing the United States. A similar concession, that the District of Columbia, being a separate political community, is, in a certain sense, a state, is made by this court in the recent case of Metropolitan Railroad Co. v. District of Columbia, 132 U. S. 1, 9, 10 Sup. Ct. 19, 33 L. Ed. 231, decided at the present term.

Aside from the question in which of these significations the terms are used in the convention of 1853, we think the construction of article 7 is free from difficulty. In some states aliens were permitted to hold real estate, but not to take by inheritance. To this right to hold real estate in some states reference is had by the words "permit it" in the first clause, and it is alluded to in the second clause as not permitted in others. This will be manifest if we read the second clause before the first. This construction, as well observed by counsel, gives consistency and harmony to all the provisions of the article, and comports with its character as an agreement intended to confer reciprocal rights on the citizens of each country with respect to property held by them within the territory of the other. To construe the first clause as providing that Frenchmen shall enjoy the right of possessing personal and real property by the same title and in the same manner as citizens of the United States, in states, so long as their laws permit such enjoyment, is to give a meaning to the article by which nothing is conferred not already possessed, and leaves no adequate reason for the concession by France of rights to citizens of the United States, made in the third clause. We do not think this construction admissible. It is a rule, in construing treaties as well as laws, to give a sensible meaning to all their provisions if that be practicable. "The interpretation, therefore," says Vattel, "which would render a treaty null and inefficient cannot be admitted;" and again, "it ought to be interpreted in such a manner as that it may have its effect, and not prove vain and nugatory." 11 Vattel, book II, c. 17. As we read the article it declares that in all the states of the Union by whose laws aliens are permitted to hold real estate, so long as such laws remain in force, Frenchmen shall enjoy the right

11 "L'interprétation qui rendrait un acte nul et sans effet, ne peut donc être admise. * * Il faut l'interpréter de manière qu'il puisse avoir son effet, qu'il ne se trouve pas vain et illusoire." 2 Droit des Gens, 265, édition Paris, 1863, par Pradier-Fodéré.

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