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admitted to State or district asylums, confining itself in exceptional cases to giving information through the diplomatic channel, in order that the relatives may have the opportunity to care for the individual."

Mr. Olney, Sec. of State, to Mr. Hengelmüller, Austrian min., Jan. 13, 1897, For. Rel. 1897, 13-14.

Mr. Hengelmüller, in a note to Mr. Sherman, Secretary of State, May 19,
1897, stated that in all cases where American citizens had become
insane in Austria they had been removed to the public asylums where
they had been treated and cared for, and that application for compen-
sation or for the removal of such persons to their homes had not
been made until sometime afterwards, and then through the diplo-
matic channel. The United States, said Mr. Hengelmüller, had
referred to the fact that when the case was reversed and insane
foreigners were admitted into American State or district asylums
the United States presented no claim for indemnity to their govern-
ments. In this relation, Mr. Hengelmüller brought to the notice of
the Department of State the case of an insane person, said to be an
Austrian subject, who was confined in a jail in Virginia as a lunatic,
and stated that his being confined in jail instead of being taken to
an insane asylum was not in harmony with the principles of humanity
or with the course pursued towards American citizens who had be
come insane in Austria-Hungary. (For. Rel. 1897, 14.)

Nov. 16, 1896, Mr. Hengelmüller renewed a request that Amalie or
Amalia Roeber, an insane inmate of the general hospital at Vienna,
be brought back to the United States. It appeared that she came to
the United States with an aunt when nine years old; that in Sept.,
1867, she married Emil Roeber, who in the following month, became
a citizen of the United States; and that she obtained a passport
from the American legation in Vienna in 1888. It did not appear
when she went to Europe, nor where she last previously resided,
though it was stated that she had lived partly in New York and
partly in Boston. But, said the Department of State, waiving the
question whether before she became insane she intended to return to
the United States, "it would necessarily have to be determined of
what State she was a resident before the authorities thereof would be
justified, if at all, in receiving her. If this cannot be definitely
shown, it naturally follows that neither the State of New York nor
that of Massachusetts can be rightfully expected to assume such a
charge. There is no Federal law or appropriation, moreover, under
which an insane citizen of the United States can be returned from
Europe to this country. If, therefore, the friends or relatives of the
person in question cannot be found, or will not have her removed,
the Department perceives no way in the present status of the case by
which a compliance with the request of your Government can be
effected." (Mr. Olney, Sec. of State, to Mr. Hengelmüller, Jan. 9,
1897, For. Rel. 1897, 11, 12; MS. Notes to Aust. Leg. IX. 292.)
A similar request was made by Mr. Hengelmüller, Nov. 4, 1896, in the case
of Albert Levy, also an insane inmate of the general hospital at
Vienna. It appeared that he was naturalized at San Francisco in
1887, and that he had an American passport which was issued in
1896. The request was referred to the governor of California, who

answered that the police authorities of San Francisco were unable to obtain any information concerning Levy except that he was thought to be of unsound mind when he lived there; that he apparently had no relatives in the United States; and that he was understood to have had an Austrian wife who did not accompany him to America. The governor also said that the State of California could take no action in the matter; that it cared for all dependent afflicted inhabitants, but had no law to authorize the sending abroad for persons who would be a proper charge on the State if they resided within its jurisdiction. (Mr. Sherman, Sec. of State, to Mr. Hengelmüller, June 18, 1897, For. Rel. 1897, 15.)

Feb. 15, 1889, Congress passed a bill appropriating $250,000 to enable the President to protect the interests of the United States and to provide for the security of persons and property of citizens of the United States on the Isthmus of Panama, in such manner as he might deem expedient. The immediate occasion of this appropriation was the stoppage of work on the proposed interoceanic canal, by reason of the failure of the French company, whereby from 12,000 to 15,000 men were thrown out of employment, a third of whom were said to be American citizens. The Colombian Government, apprehensive lest the presence of a large number of unemployed and destitute men on the Isthmus might give rise to grave disorders, appealed to foreign governments to take away their destitute citizens. This appeal was laid before Congress, with special reference to the stipulations of Art. 35 of the treaty of 1846, with regard to the transit. By an executive order of February 26, 1889, issued in execution of the act in question, the President directed the transportation to their homes of American citizens who were destitute in the Department of Panama. The act and the order were construed as warranting the furnishing, where necessary, of subsistence to destitute citizens while awaiting a vessel, and indispensable clothing suitable to the climate into which they were going.

Congressional Record, Feb. 15, 1889, 50 Cong. 2 sess., pp. 1936-1938; Mr.
Rives, Assist. Sec. of State, to Mr. Adamson, cons. gen. at Panama,
No. 186, Feb. 19, 1889, 129 MS. Inst. Consuls, 25; Mr. Adee, Second
Assist. Sec. of State, to Mr. Adamson, No. 188, March 16, 1889, id. 235.

"As a sequel to the failure of a scheme for the colonization in Mexico of negroes, mostly emigrants from Alabama under contract, a great number of these helpless and suffering people, starving and smitten with contagious disease, made their way or were assisted to the frontier, where, in wretched plight, they were quarantined by the Texas authorities. Learning of their destitute condition, I directed rations to be temporarily furnished them through the War Department. At the expiration of their quarantine they were conveyed by the railway companies at comparatively nominal rates to their homes

in Alabama, upon my assurance, in the absence of any fund available for the cost of their transportation, that I would recommend to Congress an appropriation for its payment. I now strongly urge upon Congress the propriety of making such an appropriation. It should be remembered that the measures taken were dictated not only by sympathy and humanity, but by a conviction that it was not compatible with the dignity of this Government that so large a body of our dependent citizens should be thrown for relief upon the charity of a neighboring state."

President Cleveland, annual message, Dec. 2, 1895, For. Rel. 1895, xxx.

CHAPTER XI.

DOMICIL.

I. A SOURCE OF CIVIL STATUS, § 487.

II. BELLIGERENT DOMICIL, § 488.

III. THRASHER'S CASE, § 489.

IV. THE KOSZTA CASE.

1. Marcy-Hulsemann Correspondence, § 490.

2. Interpretations, § 491.

I. A SOURCE OF CIVIL STATUS.

$ 487.

By a person's domicil is meant, generally speaking, his permanent home. It is the criterion, in English and American law, of civil as distinguished from political status. The case is the same in the law of other countries, though not of all. In Italy, for example, civil status follows the political; and so it does to a great extent in France, and in countries which, like Belgium, have followed the French civil code. It is not, however, conversely true that in countries where civil status is derived from domicil the political status follows the civil. In such countries the two conceptions are distinct, neither being dependent upon the other. In primitive times it was not so. In days when the people were generally attached to the soil, when individuals traveled little and seldom changed their abode, domicil was the general criterion of status, political as well as civil, if, indeed, it can be said that such a distinction then existed. But, with the passing away of the feudal system and the rise of the modern national state, together with the coincident development of commerce and industry, political allegiance-allegiance to the nation-became, as a distinct conception, the test of national character, while domicil, whether national or quasi-national, or merely municipal, remained the test of rights in civil relations.

As the test of civil status, domicil directly affects a person's civil rights and obligations, in respect of personal capacity, legitimacy, intestacy, and various other matters. It may also materially affect the extent of his liabilities, as in matters of taxation; for, while all persons within the jurisdiction of a state owe obedience to its laws, those who live continuously under their protection may, by so doing, reciprocally acquire rights and incur obligations more extensive.

than pertain to merely transient persons. These things belong, however, chiefly to the domain of private international law, and are primarily of juridical rather than of political cognizance. In consonance with this principle, it has often been argued that political intervention should be sparingly granted to citizens who complain of the action of the tribunals of a foreign country in which they are domiciled. Sometimes the argument has been carried further; so far, indeed, as to treat the assumption of a foreign domicil as a renunciation not only of the right to intervention, but also of national allegiance-in other words, as an act of complete expatriation. This view is believed to be exceptional, and, unless under peculiar circumstances, scarcely capable of justification on modern principles.

In only one particular is domicil generally admitted to determine national character, and that is in matters of prize, where, the object being to strike at the enemy's resources, all persons settled in the enemy's country are held to be tinctured with his belligerent character, so far as concerns their trade, so that their property may be captured on the high seas as enemy property. This doctrine is known by the title "belligerent" or "commercial" doinicil; and its reason and object are further characterized by the circumstance that the courts have not always exacted, as a condition of the status thus described, the same intention of permanent residence as in cases of domicil in the ordinary sense. On the contrary, there has been a tendency to treat persons as having a belligerent domicil because they are found to be in fact inhabitants of the enemy's country.

Belligerent domicil, in giving a national character in matters of prize, works no change of allegiance. Not only is there an entire agreement on this point, but it is frequently stipulated by treaty that, if war should break out between the contracting parties, the citizens of each residing in the territories of the other shall be permitted quietly to remain there, paying obedience to the laws. It is obvious that nations do not by such stipulations intend in case of war to release their citizens from their allegiance, much less to transfer it from the one to the other; nor yet to interfere with the usual operation of the law of prize. The complete dissociation of the special national character, derived from belligerent domicil, from the general and paramount national character, derived from political allegiance, is also well exemplified by the ruling of the English and American courts that the property of a person engaged in trade in a belligerent country may be captured as enemy's property, even though such person be a foreign consul.

In Guier v. O'Daniel (1806), 1 Binney, 349 n., domicil is defined as “a residence at a particular place, accompanied with positive or presumptive proof of continuing it an unlimited time." This defini

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