be received as conclusive evidence, or not. But that doubt is now resolved, and it is settled that the judges may, and if they deem it necessary should, look beyond the printed statute book and examine the original engrossed bills on file in the office of the secretary of State; and it seems that the journals kept by the two houses may also be consulted.*

We have thus far considered statutes in their incipient stages; we are now to consider the attributes and incidents of laws regularly and constitutionally passed; and, first, let us examine their

Authority and Jurisdiction.t-It is well settled, that

* Purdy vs. The People, 4 Hill, 384; De Bow vs. The People, 1 Denio, 9; Commercial Bank of Buffalo vs. Sparrow, 2 Denio, 97.

+ Mr. Dwarris (vol. ii. p. 516) thus enumerates the incidents of statutes. His enumeration includes some maxims which are equally applicable to the common law; and those I have omitted:

I. An act of Parliament binds all persons, but such as are specially saved by it.-And. 148, pl. 82.

II. A statute which gives corporal punishment, does not bind an infant. Contra of other statutes, if they do not except infants.-Doc. and Stud., lib. 2, fol. 113.

III. Every statute made against an injury gives a remedy by action, expressly or impliedly.-2 Inst., 55.

IV. An act of Parliament cannot alter by reason of time; but the common law may, since cessante ratione, cessat lex.-Str. 190.

V. When statutes are made, there are some things which are exempted and foreprized out of the provisions thereof, by the law of reason, though not expressly mentioned; thus, things for necessity's sake, or to prevent a failure of justice, are excepted out of statutes.-Plowd. Com., 13 b; 2 Inst.,

118.

VI. Whenever an act gives any thing generally, and without any special intention declared or rationally to be inferred, it gives it always subject to the general control and order of the common law. Show., 455.

VII. Whenever a statute gives or provides any thing, the common law provides all necessary remedies and requisites.-The Protector vs. Ashfield, Hard. 62; 1 Inst. 235; 2 Inst. 225; Bac. Ab., Tit. Statute.

VIII. In statutes, incidents are always supplied by intendments; in other words, wherever a power is given by a statute, every thing necessary to the making of it effectual is given by implication, for the maxim is,

while every nation possesses an exclusive jurisdiction within its own boundaries, neither constitutions nor statutes have any intrinsic force, ex proprio vigore, beyond the territory of the sovereignty which enacts them, and the respect which is paid to them elsewhere depends on comity alone.* A modification of this principle is contained in the proposition that, although the laws of a country have no direct controlling force except within its own limits, yet that every nation has a right to bind its own subjects by its own laws in any place, that is to say when they return within its territorial jurisdiction so as to give an opportunity to exercise sovereignty over them. This, however, involves the consideration of the question of allegiance and of its duration, which do not properly fall within the scope of this work. As a general proposition, the rule is good, that no nation is bound to respect the laws of another nation, except as to persons or property within the limits of the latter. This is the general rule of our law, and this, too, is the language of the great civilians. "Constat, igitur," says Rodenburg, "extra territorium legem dicere licere nemini, idque si fecerit quis, impune ei non pareri, quippe ibi cessat statutorum fundamentum, robur, et jurisdictio." "Nullum statutum," says P.

Quando lex aliquid concedit, concedere videtur et id per quod devenitur ad illud. 2 Inst., 366; 12 Rep., 130, 131; and Quando aliquod prohibetur, prohibetur et omne per quod devenitur ad illud.

IX. If an offense be made felony by a statute, such statute does, by necessary consequence, subject the offender to the like attainder and forfeiture, and does require the like construction as to those who shall be accounted accessories before or after the fact, and to all other intents and purposes, as a felony at the common law does.-Dwarris, p. 517.

*Story, Confl. Laws, p. 7, §7; p. 19, §18; p. 20, § 20. Commonwealth of Kentucky vs. Bassford, 6 Hill, p. 527. Blanchard vs. Russell, 13 Mass. 1. Bank of Augusta vs. Earle, 13 Peters, p. 519. Op. of Taney, C. J., p. 584. Story, Conflict Laws, p. 21, § 21; p. 23, § 22.

De Stat., ch. 3, § 1, p. 7; Story, Confl. of Laws, § 21.

Voet,* "sive in rem, sive in personam, si de ratione juris civilis sermo instituatur sese, extendit ultra statuentes territorium." And so says Boullenois: "Of strict right, no laws made by a sovereign have any force or authority except within the limits of his dominion."+ "A sovereign," says Toullier, "can issue his commands to his own subjects only; his power does not extend to foreigners."+

Within each jurisdiction, however, the law binds all alike. Lex uno ore omnes alloquitur. This maxim, says Lord Coke, is the pride of the English law.§ It is, indeed, proper to bear in mind that this principle, that within the limits of its jurisdiction the law controls alike, without distinction, the property and condition of all those who inhabit the territory, paying no regard, as a general thing, to the birth-place or origin of any particular individual, is of modern introduction, and results from the increased equality and intercourse that our times have created. At Rome, there were two systems of law, one for citizens and the other for foreigners; and in the middle ages the distinction was even more striking. "In the same district," says Savigny, "in the same town, the Lombard lived under the Lombard law, the Roman under the Roman law. The characteristics of personal laws are equally visible in the individuals of the different Germanic tribes; and the Franks, the Burgundians, the Goths,

* De Stat., § 4, ch. 2, n. 7, p. 124. Id., 130, 138; ed. 1661. "De droit etroit, toutes les lois que fait un souverain n'ont force et autorité que dans l'etendue de sa domination."-1 Boullenois, Prin. Gen., 6, p. 4.

"Le souverain ne peut commander qu'à ses sujets; sa puissance ne s'etend point sur les etrangers."-Toullier, vol. i. p. 92; Tit. prel. sect. 8,

§ 2 Inst. 184.

lived on the same soil, each under his own law. This is the explanation of the following passage, in a letter from Agobardus to Louis le Debonnaire: 'We often see talking together five persons of whom no two obey the same law.'"* The most prominent remains of this system in our time are to be found in the disabilities of aliens, fast giving way before a more enlightened civilization; but in this country the peculiar and anomalous position of the Indian and African races furnish an illustration of an analogous state of things.

To the general rule thus stated, there exists, however, one marked exception, growing out of what is called international comity. How far the laws of other states or nations will be regarded as a matter of comity, depends on various considerations. "Whatever extraterritorial force," says Mr. Justice Story, "laws are to have, is the result not of any original power to extend them abroad, but of that respect which, from motives of public policy, other nations are disposed to yield to them, giving them effect, as the phrase is, sub mutuæ vicissitudinis obtentu, with a wise and liberal regard to common convenience and mutual benefits and necessities."+"Whatever force and obligation," says the same learned writer,t "the laws of one country have in another, depend solely upon the laws or municipal

* "Dans le même pays, dans la même ville, le Lombard vivait d'apres la loi Lombarde, le Romain d'apres la loi Romain. L'esprit des lois personelles regnait egalement parmi les individus des divers tribus Germaniques; et les Francs, les Bourguignons, les Goths, vivaient sur le même sol chacun d'apres son droit. Aussi s'explique le passage suivant d'une lettre d'Agobardus à Louis le Debonnaire: 'On voit souvent converser ensemble cinq personnes dont aucun n'obeit aux mêmes lois.'"-Savigny, Hist. Droit Romain au Moyen Age, ch. 3, § 30.

+ Conflict of Laws, p. 7, § 7. Saul vs. His Creditors, 17 Martin, 569. Confl., § 23, p. 23.

regulations of the latter, that is to say, upon its own proper jurisprudence and polity, and upon its own express or tacit consent." The principles of comity which regulate the action of the municipal law, in the recognition and application of foreign law, have been so elaborately examined by Mr. Justice Story, that I shall dismiss this branch of my subject with the following extract from his great work.

"No nation," he says, "can be justly required to yield up its own fundamental policy and institutions in favor of those of another nation. Much less can any nation be required to sacrifice its own interests in favor of another, or to enforce doctrines which, in a moral or political view, are incompatible with its own safety or happiness, or conscientious regard to justice and duty. It is difficult to conceive," he says again,† “upon what ground a claim can be rested to give to any municipal laws an extra-territorial effect, when those laws are prejudicial to the rights of other nations or to those of the subjects." And again, "The true foundation on which the administration of international law must rest, is that the rules which are to govern are those which arise from mutual interest and utility, from a sense of the inconvenience which would result from a contrary doctrine, and from a sort of moral necessity to do justice, in order that justice may be done in return." And again,§ "There is, then, not only no impropriety in the use of the phrase 'Comity of Nations,' but it is the most appropriate phrase to express the true foundation and extent of the obligation of the laws of one nation within the territories of another. It is derived altogether from the voluntary consent of the latter, and is inadmissible when it is contrary to its known policy or prejudicial to its interests. In the silence of any positive rule affirming or denying, or restraining the operations of foreign laws, courts of justice presume the tacit adoption of them by their own government, unless they are repugnant to its policy or prejudicial to its interests. It is not the comity of the courts, but the comity of the nation, which is administered and ascertained in the same way and guided by the same reasoning by which all other principles of the municipal law are ascertained and guided."

* Confl. of Laws, p. 25, § 25.

+ Page 34, § 35.

+ Page 32, § 32.

Page 36, § 38.