to full citizenship. A special but smaller class of foreigners - the ἰσοτελεῖς, had a status more nearly like that of the citizen than the ordinary metoeci. In many states of Greece, individual aliens, or whole communities, received by vote some of the most important civic rights, as those of intermarriage, of holding real estate within the territory, and of immunity from taxation (ἐπιγαμία, ἔγκτησις, and ἀτέλεια).

In Rome, foreigners enjoyed those rights which belonged to the jus gentium; they could acquire and dispose of property, could sue in the courts, and had an especial magistrate to attend to their cases at law, but could make no testament, nor had they the connubium and commercium of Roman citizens.

In the Germanic states, after the fall of the Roman empire, foreigners at first were without rights, and a prey to violence, as having no share in political bodies. Hence they needed and fell under the protection of the seigneur, or of his bailiff. In France, especially, the seigneur, as the price of his protec tion, levied a poll-tax on the stranger, and arrogated the right to inherit his goods, when he had no natural heirs within the district. Even the capacity of making a testament was taken away from him, and sometimes even inland heirs were excluded from the succession. Some lords forbade strangers to leave the district after a certain length of residence, and to marry out of it. And sometimes these rights were exercised over Frenchmen from other juristic territories (chatellenies), under the same suzerains. The name by which this right or aggregate of rights went, is jus albinagii, droit d'aubaine, which Mr. Dietz, the highest authority in Romanic philology, derives not from Albanus, a Scotchman, nor from alibi natus, but from alibi simply, formed from the adverb, after the analogy of prochain, lointain.

At length the droit d'aubaine fell to the king alone, and now consisted first in an extraordinary tax levied upon strangers on certain occasions; and secondly, in the king's becoming the heir of strangers who had left no heirs of their body within the kingdom. Many private persons were exempted from the operation of this right by special privilege, and whole

nations, as the United States in 1778, by treaty. Abolished by the constituent assembly in 1790, and reëstablished by the Code Napoleon on the principle of reciprocity, it again disappeared anew from French legislation in 1819, when a law gave to foreigners the right of succession in France to the same extent with native-born Frenchmen.1

§ 68.

Certain classes of aliens are, by the comity of nations, exempted in a greater or less degree from the control Exterritoof the laws, in the land of their temporary sojourn. riality. They are conceived of as bringing their native laws with them out of their native territory, and the name given to the fiction of law, for it seems there must be a fiction of law to explain a very simple fact, is exterritoriality. This privilege is conceded especially (1) to sovereigns traveling abroad with their trains; (2) to ambassadors, their suite, family, and servants; and (3) to the officers and crews of public armed vessels in foreign ports, and to armies in their permitted transit through foreign territory.

Limits of ex

ity.

This privilege is not constant, nor unlimited. The right of entrance into foreign territory, on which the privilege is founded, is one dependent on a comity which cir- territorialcumstances may abridge. Thus, for reasons of state, a sovereign may have the permission refused to him to set foot on a foreign soil, and much more is the like true of ships and armies. When a sovereign is abroad, his person is As to soveinviolate and exempt from the laws of the land, but reigns. he may not exercise acts of sovereignty, not accorded to him by his native laws, as, for instance, that of punishing persons in his suite capitally, -as Queen Christina of Sweden put to death one of her household in France, nor acts hazardous to the safety or the sovereignty of the state where he is sojourning, nor, perhaps, acts which the sovereign of the country himself cannot exercise. Neither then nor at any time will

1 See, especially, Warnkönig, Französ. Rechtsgesch., ii., 180-188, 471, and Do Martens, i., § 90.

Ships of

war.

transit.

this right apply, so as to exempt real or other property, which he may have in the foreign country, from its local laws, with the exception of such effects as he may have brought with him. For the concession of the same right to ambassadors, we refer to the chapter relating to those functionaries. Ships of war, and vessels chartered to convey a sovereign or his representative, are peculiar in this respect, that the vessel is regarded in a certain sense to be part of alien territory moved into the harbors of another state (§ 58). The crews on board the public vessels are under their native laws, but on shore, if guilty of acts of aggression or hostility, can be opposed by force and arrested. So also the vessel itself must pay respect to the port and health laws.2 Crimes committed on shore expose persons belonging to such vessels Armies in not only to complaint before their own sovereign, but also to arrest and trial. Of armies in transit, when such a right is conceded, Vattel says (iii., 8, § 130), that "the grant of passage includes that of every particular thing connected with the passage of troops, and of things without which it would not be practicable; such as the liberty of carrying whatever may be necessary to an army; that of exercising military discipline on the officers and soldiers; and that of buying at a reasonable rate anything an army may want, unless a fear of scarcity renders an exception necessary, when the army must carry with them their provisions." If we are not deceived, crimes committed along the line of march, away from the body of the army, as pilfering and marauding, authorize arrest by the magistrates of the country, and a demand at least that the commanding officers shall bring such crimes to a speedy trial. When the transit of troops is allowed, it is apt to be specially guarded by treaties.

The crews of commercial vessels in foreign ports have in general no such exemption from the law of the place. By the

1 He is not however bound to answer to a suit brought by a subject of another country, unless he is there a subject himself, as the King of Hanover was in England not long ago. When a sovereign enters the courts of another country, he has no special privileges. (Calvo, i., 636, 638.) T. S.

2 Ortolan, i., 218.

Crews of

vessels in

ports.

law of France, however, crimes committed on board of foreign vessels in French ports, where none but the crew are concerned, are not considered as pertaining to the commercial jurisdiction of the courts of France, while offenses French committed on the shore and against others than the vessels' crews come before the tribunals of the kingdom. This is a compromise between territorial sovereignty and the principle or fiction that the ship is a part of the domain of its own nation, wherever found.

Vessels driven into foreign waters against the will of the master are exempted from ordinary charges and jurisdiction, and allowed to depart unhindered.1

§ 69.

Vessels foreign har

driven into

bors out of their course.

Exemption from local jurisdiction has been granted to foreigners from Christian lands, resident in certain. Exemptions

in certain

countries.

Oriental countries; the reasons for which lie in the to foreigners fact, that the laws and usages there prevailing are Eastern quite unlike those of Christendom, and in the natural suspicion of Christian states, that justice will not be administered by the native courts, which leads them to obtain special privileges for their subjects. The arrangements for this purpose are contained in treaties which have a general resemblance to one another. In Turkey, and some other Mohammedan countries, foreigners form communities under their consuls, who exercise over them a jurisdiction, both in civil and criminal matters, which excludes that of the territorial courts. In civil cases an appeal lies to the courts at home, and in criminal, beyond the imposition of fines, the consul has power only to prepare a case for trial before the same tribunals.2 But the extent of power given to its functionaries each nation determines for itself.3

1 Compare Heffter, § 79, and Webster's Letter to Ashburton, respecting the Creole, Works, vi., 303–313.

2 Wheaton, Elements, ii., 2, § 11.

3 When any of these countries changes its system of laws, as Algiers did at the French conquest, the consular functions would cease as a matter of course. Nor

The same system in general has been followed in the treaties of Christian states with China, of which that made by the United States in 1844, and spoken of below under the title of Consuls, may serve as an example. Quite recently the same exterritorial jurisdiction has been granted by the government of Japan to functionaries of the United States resident in that country.1

Aliens losing in part or

entirely the

§ 70.

Foreign residents in most Christian countries can sustain, in the course of time, a closer or more distant relation to the body politic within whose borders they character of live. They can acquire nationality, or in other words, aliens. become naturalized, or they may remain in the territory as domiciliated strangers.

Naturaliza

Naturalization implies the renunciation of a former nationality, and the fact of entrance into a similar relation towards a new body politic. It is possible for a person, without renouncing his country, or expatriating himself,

tion.

do Christian states grant reciprocal privileges to the functionaries of these countries. T. S., citing a paper of D. D. Field.

1 An act was passed by Congress, in 1860, to carry into effect certain stipulations in the treaties between the United States and China, Japan, Siam, Turkey, Persia, Tripoli, Tunis, Morocco, and Muscat, and by which our laws in criminal and civil matters are extended over American citizens in those countries; also the common law, including equity and admiralty. Ministers and consuls have full judicial powers, and can punish by fine or imprisonment, or both, at discretion. The President is authorized to appoint seven Marshals to execute processes, one in Japan, four in China, one in Siam, and one in Turkey. Murder and insurrection, or rebellion against the government of either of said countries, with intent to subvert the same, are made capital offenses, punishable with death. Our consuls or commercial agents on islands not inhabited by any civilized people, or whom we have not recognized by treaty, are also empowered to exercise judicial functions over American citizens. By the treaty with Japan, signed at Yedo, July 29, 1858, offenses shall be tried in the offender's court and according to the law of his country, and the courts of each nation, that is, the consular and the Japanese, are open to creditors belonging to the other nationality. In the same way, by the treaty of 1858 with China, the offender's court and law decide when a criminal act is committed; but where both parties are citizens of the United States, our judges (consuls or others thereto authorized) have jurisdiction. When one is a citizen of the United States, and the other pertains to some other foreign nationality, the judicial arrangements are regulated by treaty between the United States and the sovereign.