278 WRIGHT— POWER TO MEET RESPONSIBILITIES. 



It is not clear, however, just how far a nation is bound to sup- 

 press such acts in its territory. Field lays down in his Interna- 

 tional Code that : ^*^ 



" One who uses his asylum for prompting hostilities against a foreign 

 country may be proceeded against under the law of the nation of his asylum, 

 or may be surrendered to the nation aggrieved." 



It does not appear, however, that American law recognizes an inter- 

 national responsibility either itself to punish such offenses or to 

 aid the foreign government in punishing them.'^ As has been no- 

 ticed very few offenses against foreign states are punishable in the 

 federal courts. The counterfeiting of foreign securities is the 

 most important exception. The statutes relating to insurrection 

 and conspiracy to destroy property abroad have been enacted for 

 national defense rather than for the enforcement of international 

 law. The same is true of the acts of Congress providing for the 

 exclusion and deportation of alien anarchists and for the punish- 

 ment of persons acting while the United States is at war so as " to 

 bring the form of government of the United States into contempt, 

 scorn, contumely and disrepute." Such alien, sedition, and espion- 

 age acts are for the protection of the United States rather than for 

 the suppression of anarchy or sedition as an international crime. '^ 

 President Roosevelt in 1901 urged that "anarchy be declared an 

 offense against the law of nations through treaties among all civi- 

 lized powers." This result has not been achieved, though a num- 

 ber of American extradition treaties, concluded thereafter, ex- 

 pressly exclude attempts against the life of the Head of a State 

 from the category of political offenses. ^^ 



'^o Field, Int. Code, sec. 207, p. 86. 



51 Moore, Digest, 2 : 430. 



52 Alien Act, June 25, 1798 (for two years), i Stat. 570; Exclusion of 

 seditious aliens, act Feb. 5, 1917, and expulsion of such aliens, act Oct. 16, 

 1918. Sedition act, July 14, 1798 (for two years), i Stat. 596; June 15, 1917, 

 Title I, sec. 3, amended May 16, 1918, sec. i (for war period), 40 Stat. 353; 

 Comp. Stat., sec. I02iii. See Abrams v. U. S., 250 U. S. 616 (1919). 



53 Moore, Digest, 2: 434. See Treaties, Brazil, 1897, ratified 1903; Den- 

 mark, 1902; Guatemala. 1903; Spain, 1904; Protocol, 1907; Cuba, 1904. 



