reported. Held, that Congress, when it legislated, had before it all the claims and did not discriminate between them; that, if the meaning of the treaty was doubtful, it was competent for Congress to resolve the doubt and accept responsibility for all the claims; that it was natural for Congress to adopt the interpretation of the Interior Department; and that, at any rate, the language was broad enough to cover claims arising out of acts of Indians as well as out of acts of white men. United States v. Navarre (1899), 173 U. S. 77. The United States Supreme Court has no power to set itself up as the instrumentality for enforcing the provisions of a treaty with a foreign nation which the government of the United States, as a sovereign power, chooses to disregard. Botiller . Dominguez, 130 U. S. 238; 9 S. Ct. Rep. 525. A court can not inquire whether a treaty was properly executed or whether it was procured by undue influence. Leighton v. United States, 29 Ct. Cl. 288. The granting an injunction to restrain the Executive from making payment under a treaty is not within the province of the judiciary. Grundy, At. Gen., 1839, 3 Op. 471. "I have had the honor to receive your letter of the 29th ultimo in relation to the pending application in the supreme court of this District for a writ of mandamus against the Secretary of State at the instance of La Abra Silver Mining Company, in which you embody, as your own, the report of Mr. Solicitor-General Phillips to you. "The suggestion of Chief Justice Carter, as reported by Mr. Phillips, namely, that a pro forma judgment with a view to an appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States was all that was wanted by the parties can not be entertained for a moment with my consent. I have a most decided objection to any judgment, pro forma or otherwise, being rendered against the Secretary of State. "The pending case involves, as I view it, an important question in regard to the relative powers of the several branches of the national government. It is for this reason, if no other, entitled to a full hearing in every court through which it may have to pass before reaching the Supreme Court of the United States. : "The powers of the President are fixed by the Constitution. He has in this matter only exercised the treaty-making power. Congress, a coordinate branch of the government, can not enlarge those powers, and most certainly can not restrict or limit them." Mr. Frelinghuysen, Sec. of State, to Mr. Brewster, Dec. 4, 1882, 144, MS. 5. DATE OF TAKING EFFECT. $ 762. A treaty is binding on the contracting parties, unless otherwise provided, from the date of its signature, the exchange of ratifications having, in such case, a retroactive effect, confirming the treaty from that date. Davis . Concordia, 9 How. 280; Hylton . Brown, 1 Wash. C. C. 343; See, as to the treaty with France of Feb. 23, 1853, Succession of Schaffer, The treaty by which France ceded Louisiana to the United States took effect from its date, April 30, 1803. Its subsequent ratification and the formal transfer of possession have relation to that date. The same rule applies to the treaty of San Ildefonso, Oct. 1. 1800, by which France acquired Louisiana from Spain. United States v. Reynes, 9 How. 127; Davis . Concordia, id. 280. So far as it affects the relations of the sovereigns concerned, a treaty when ratified operates from the day of its signature. Hence, although the ratifications of the treaty of peace between the United States and Spain, which was signed December 10, 1898, were not exchanged till April 11, 1899, it was held that sec. 10 of the act of March 3, 1899 (30 Stat. 1151), prohibiting unauthorized obstructions to navigation in the waters of the United States, applied to the navigable waters of Porto Rico. It was observed that, while certain provisions of the treaty became operative from the date of the exchange of ratifications and others (as Arts. IV. and VI.) upon signature, "the relinquishment of sovereignty and cession of domain, which were the main purposes of the treaty, and were formulated in several articles, are unqualified and must be regarded as immediate and absolute from the date of signature, subject only to the possibility of a failure of ratification. It is impossible to suppose that the sovereignty of the United States in its full scope did not attach at once or was suspended until ratification should be complete.' Knox, At. Gen., Oct. 17, 1901, 551, 558, citing United States v. Arredondo, 6 Pet. 691; Haver v. Yaker, 9 Wall. 321; United States v. Reynes, 9 How. 127; Davis v. Concordia, 9 How. 280; De Lima v. Bidwell, 182 U. S. 1, 200; Downes v. Bidwell, 182 U'. S. 244, 287; Dooley v. United States, 182 U. S. 222, 230; Halleck, Int. Law (1861), 815, and discussing Halleck, Int. Law (1861), 855. The Attorney-General, referring to Halleck, Int. Law (1861), 831, said: "It is difficult to conceive that so far as matters of sovereign do minion are concerned there is any break of continuity between the cessation of hostilities and the negotiation of a treaty of cession, or between negotiation and ratification; and if ratification is followed by legislation respecting the acquired territory, which fully emphasizes the assumption of the new duties and rights of sovereignty, I can conceive no valid reason for doubting that this sovereignty extends over all the usual public phases thereof, including the jurisdiction over public waters, from the moment when hostilities resulted in military control of the acquired territory." (23 Op. 556-557.) The States of New Granada, Ecuador, and Venezuela, formerly constituting the original Republic of Colombia, established by treaty a board of commissioners to hear and determine claims against that Republic and to fix the proportion due thereon from each of such States. The commissioners rejected a claim presented by a citizen of the United States on the ground that the capture, out of which the claim grew, took place a few days before the exchange of the ratifications of the treaty between the United States and Colombia, by which it was stipulated that free ships should make free goods. The Department of State said that this objection was fully answered by the statement "that, although the treaty stipulates that certain of its parts are to remain in force twelve years from the exchange of the ratifications, this is by no means tantamount to saying that it was not to be operative until that exchange should have been effected. The treaty had been ratified by both parties before the capture, and as the exchange of the ratifications is a mere ceremony, intended only to furnish each party with formal proof of the ratification of the other, no doubt is entertained of our right to insist upon the application of the treaty to any case that might have occurred under it subsequently to its ratification by Colombia.” Mr. Forsyth, Sec. of State, to Mr. Semple, chargé d'affaires to New "But a different rule prevails when the treaty operates on individual rights. The principle of relation does not apply to rights of this character, which were vested before the treaty was ratified; it is not considered as concluded until there is an exchange of ratifications." Davis, Notes, U. S. Treaty Vol. (1776–1887), 1228, citing Davis v. Con- See Montault v. United States, 12 Howard, 47. The rule that treaties, where individual rights are concerned, take effect not on the date of their signature, but on that of the exchange of ratifications, was held to be applicable to the exaction of duties on merchandise, in the case of the annexation of Porto Rico by the United States under the treaty with Spain, signed at Paris, Dec. 10, 1898, the ratifications of which were exchanged on April 11, 1899. Dooley v. United States (1901), 182 U. S. 222, citing Haver r. Yaker, 9 See also, Armstrong . Bidwell (1903), 124 Fed. Rep. 690. "When a treaty requires a series of legislative enactments to take place after exchange of ratifications before it can become operative, it will take effect as a national compact, on its being proclaimed, but it cannot become operative as to the particular engagements until all the requisite legislation has taken place.” Davis, Notes, U. S. Treaty Vol. (1776–1887), 1228, citing Cushing, At. A treaty which does not require legislation to make it operative will be executed by the courts from the time of its proclamation. Cushing, At. Gen., 1854, 6 Op. 750; Foster v. Neilson, 2 Pet. 314; United The United States adhered to the Industrial Property Convention, "this adhesion to take effect internationally from the date of deposit of their ratifications at Berne." See For. Rel. 1884, 548. Mr. Bayard, Sec. of State, to Mr. Ervin, April 26, 1887, 164 MS. Dom. See, however, as to the need of legislation to give effect to this treaty, Where an Indian treaty provided that it should be obligatory as soon as it should be ratified by the President and the Senate, it did not take effect until signed by the President, although it should have been previously ratified by the Senate, and accepted by the Indians. Shepard r. Northwestern Life Ins. Co., 40 Fed. Rep. 341. During the Revolutionary war various States, among which was Virginia, passed acts of sequestration and confiscation, by which it was provided that, if the American debtor should pay into the State treasury the debt due to his British creditor, such payment should constitute an effectual plea in bar to a subsequent action for the recovery of the debt. When the representatives of the United States and Great Britain met at Paris to negotiate for peace, the question of the confiscated debts became a subject of controversy, especially in connection with that of the claims of the loyalists for the confiscation of their estates. Franklin and Jay, though they did not advocate the policy of confiscating debts, hesitated, chiefly on the ground of a want of authority in the existing national government to override the acts of the States. John Adams, however, when he arrived on the scene, took high national ground, and ended the discussion by declaring, in the presence of the British plenipotentiaries, that, so far as he was concerned, he "had no notion of cheating anybody;" that the question of paying debts and the question of compensating the loyalists were two, and that, while he was opposed to compensating the loyalists, he would agree to a stipulation to secure the payment of debts. It was therefore provided, in the 4th. article of the treaty of peace, that creditors on either side should meet with no lawful impediment to the recovery in full sterling money of bona fide debts contracted prior to the war. This stipulation not only purported to override State laws, but was strongly retroactive. The State courts, holding themselves to be bound by the local statutes, refused to enforce it. To meet this difficulty, there was inserted in the Constitution of the United States the clause declaring treaties then made, or which should be made, to be the supreme law of the land, in spite of anything in the constitution or laws of any State to the contrary. On the strength of this provision, the question was carried before the Supreme Court of the United States, by which it was held that the treaty restored to the original creditor his right to sue. Ware v. Hylton, 3 Dallas 199; John Marshall, by J. B. Moore, Political "In mere private cases between individuals, a court will and ought to struggle hard against a construction which will, by a retrospective operation, affect the rights of parties, but in great national concerns, where individual rights, acquired by war, are sacrificed for national purposes, the contract making the sacrifice ought always to receive a construction conforming to its manifest import; and if the nation has given up the vested rights of its citizens, it is not for the court, but for the government, to consider whether it be a case proper for compensation." Marshall, C. J., United States v. Schooner Peggy (1801), 1 Cranch, 103, 109. This language was used with reference to the provisions of the convention between the United States and France of September 30, 1800, for the restoration of property captured but not definitively condemned. The convention having intervened since the judgment below, it was held that the Supreme Court was bound to order the restoration, without regard to the merits of the judgment. By an act of the legislature of Maryland of 1780 French subjects were empowered to inherit real estate in that State, subject to the proviso that, within ten years after inheriting, they should settle in and become citizens of the State, or else enfeoff a citizen of some |