obscuration, the legal profession, and more particularly the judiciary, are principally responsible. The subject of constitutional or public law has received, of late years, but little consideration from the profession, in comparison with that bestowed upon it at an earlier period,--and this though new questions under that law have been continuously presenting themselves upon which the earlier writers had bestowed little or no attention. The fourth Article has always been an "unexplored part of the Constitution.” The received commentators have hardly touched upon its provisions. This volume may be claimed to exhibit the first attempt at collating the various decisions bearing on the interpretation and construction of its several clauses, and deriving some general canons for their application in determining the rights and obligations of private persons. It has been remarked by foreign jurists that there must be a portion of the private law of the United States which is like international law in its effect. As this portion is greatly determined by the clauses of the fourth Article, so it is obvious that they cannot be applied without judicial reference to the principles of international law, public and private, as received by all civilized nations. But, as yet, the judicial exposition of the international or quasi-international questions arising under this Article has not elicited any great degree of admiration in any quarter. The attempt to exhibit these important provisions of the Constitution, upon which some of the leading decisions of the American courts have been founded, in connection with elementary doctrines of private international law, is a presumption on the part of the writer for which no excuse can be offered, if it be a presumption. The understanding of these clauses is, however, indispensable to the fair consideration of the questions relating to slavery under the Constitution of the United States; and on these scribimus, indocti doctique. The doubt will naturally suggest itself, whether the questions discussed in this work are not about to pass, or have not already passed, out of the sphere of juristical discussion, and are not now to be determined by the sword. That the present volume should be published under the existing state of public affairs, was certainly not foreseen by the writer when the work was begun. That these questions, in connection with public law, may be greatly modified by events presently occurring, need not be disputed : qui vivra verra. Every student of the history of jurisprudence knows, however, that private law is a very long-lived thing; one which even great revolutions are sometimes ineffectual to change. But whatever its consequences on the law of personal condition may be, it is certain that the opinions and decisions cited in this work are not the least among the causes of the existing civil contest. New York, January, 1862. CONTENTS. THE LOCAL MUNICIPAL LAWS OF THE UNITED STATES AFFECTING CONDITIONS OF FREEDOM AND ITS CONTRARIES. THE SCBJECT CONTINCED. LEGISLA- TION IN THE ORIGINAL THIRTEEN STATES. THE STATES KENTCCKY, MAINE, Clussification of the States and Territories. TION IN THE STATES OHIO, INDIANA, ILLINOIS, MICHIGAN, WISCONSIN, MIS- SISSIPPI, AND ALABAMA, FORMED IN TERRITORY CEDED BY THE ORIGINAL TION IN THE STATES AND TERRITORIES FORMED IN LANDS ACQUIRED BY TREATY OR CONQUEST ; THE STATES LOUISIANA, MISSOURI, ARKANSAS, IOWA, AND MINNESOTA; THE TERRITORIES NEBRASKA AND KANSAS, AND THE INDIAN TERRITORY ; THE STATES FLORIDA, TEXAS, CALIFORNIA, AND ORE- Legislation of the States and Territories in the third class. 581. Private international law briefly described, 582. How far the distinction between persons and things in interna- 583. Two political sources of the law prevailing in each State, 584. Alienage in respect to national and local law; foreign and domes- 585. Application of international law in cases of temporary subjection The pricate international law of the United States distinguished in view of its political basis. 586. In this international law the source of the internal law must be 587. The condition of persons is primarily determined by the judicial 588. International private law in each State rests on its several power, 224 589. Of provisions in the Constitution creating an exception, 590. Word “State" understood to extend to Territories and the District 591. Of the possibly direct operation on private persons of such pro- 592. Consequences from different views of the nature of the Constitu- 593. Consequences of regarding these provisions as compacts between 594. Under either theory there is place for international private law, 228 595. Force of clauses which should apply to foreign aliens, 596. Powers of the States and National Government, in applying inter- 597. Recognition of a general international private law, founded on 598. How this law is judicially ascertained, 699. The international law of the United States distinguished as na- B |
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