270 WRIGHT— POWER TO MEET RESPONSIBILITIES. 



Resolved, that it be further recommended to the several states to 

 erect tribunals in each state, or vest ones already existing with 

 power to decide on offenses against the law of nations not contained 

 in the foregoing enumeration." ^^ 



113. Offenses against Persons Protected by International Law. 

 By an act of September 24, 1789, the first Congress under the 



Constitution gave district courts jurisdiction of suits brought by 

 aliens for torts " in violation of the law of nations or of a treaty 

 of the United States," and the Supreme Court was given exclusive 

 jurisdiction of suits against public ministers " as a court of law can 

 have consistently with the law of nations." These provisions re- 

 main unchanged in the present judicial code of 1911.^* An act of 

 April 30, 1790, still in effect, prescribes criminal penalties for 

 assaulting or serving out process against public ministers or their 

 " domestics or domestic servants ... in violation of the law of 

 nations." ^^ 



An act of August 29, 1842, passed after the McLeod case had 

 shown the inability of the national government to release persons 

 entitled to immunity under international law from state jurisdic- 

 tion, gives federal courts jurisdiction to release on habeas corpus, 

 persons claiming any right under treaty or a right "the validity 

 and effect of which depends upon the law of nations." ^^ 



114. Offenses Committed on the High Seas. 



The crimes act of April 30, 1790, provided for the punishment 

 of various crimes committed on the high seas but the courts inter- 

 preted this act in accord with international law, as confined to 

 crimes committed by American citizens or in American vessels in 

 all cases except piracy. ^^ The act was amended in 1819 so as to 

 punish all persons guilty of " piracy as defined by the law of na- 



13 Journ. Cong., 5: 161, 232; 7: 181, Ford ed., 14: 635, 914; 21: 1137. 

 1* I Stat. 76, sees. 9, 13 ; Rev. Stat., sec. 563, els. 16, 687 ; Jud. Code of 

 191 1, 36 Stat. 1087, see. 24, els. 17, 233. 



15 I Stat. 117, sees. 25, 28; Rev. Stat., sees. 4062, 4064. 



16 5 Stat. 539; Rev. Stat. 753- 



i^U. S. V. Palmer, 3 Wheat. 610; U. S. v. Klintock, 5 Wheat. 144, 152; 

 Moore, Digest, 2: 956. 



