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The treaty clauses of the Constitution are of sufficient importance to demand more consideration than is generally accorded to them in works on constitutional and international law, and it was my original intention to consider only the questions arising under them, but as the work progressed, it broadened in its scope so that now it treats of many questions of a cognate nature to which these clauses give rise.

While no two lawyers will, perhaps, agree that one particular branch of a question is more important than another-in a sense they are all equally important-yet I have treated some subjects at length and others more concisely. The constitutional prohibitions on the states to enter into treaties, the making, taking effect and termination of treaties, and the federal questions arising under treaties, are treated, it is believed, with sufficient completeness. Specially, have I devoted attention to the construction of treaties, the extent of the treaty-making power, and the conflict between treaties and acts of Congress, state constitutions and statutes. The law relative to international extradition dependent on treaty, the rights and duties of consuls, the acquisition of territory by treaty, together with naturalization and expatriation, has been also rather fully considered, while the chapters on the responsibility of the government for mob violence and claims against governments-covering only a part of the ground, it is true-may possess an interest from another than a purely legal standpoint.

It has been my aim to give the law as stated by the courts, but I have not hesitated, when I deemed it proper, to express my own views, placing them, however, in separate sections. It may not be inappropriate to add that I believe that the United States is a sovereign nation, fully capable, where not restrained by the limitations of the Constitution, of exercising all the powers that attach to sovereignty, and consequently that the treaty power should be construed in a broad and liberal spirit, and held to extend to all those subjects that are ordinarily disposed of by international negotiation.

San Francisco, May 1, 1908.

ROBERT T. DEVLIN.

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