284, WRIGHT— POWER TO MEET RESPONSIBILITIES. 



law and treaties (though such a suggestion is contained in the 

 Neagle case), it has been held to confer a power of directing ad- 

 ministrative action of the agencies actually existing through instruc- 

 tions, practically enforceable by the removal power.'* 



Thus the President has been able to accord special police pro- 

 tection to diplomatic officers and other foreigners entitled to pro- 

 tection when necessary.'^ He has ordered the extradition of fugi- 

 tives when required by treaty and the courts have sustained the 

 action. Thus President John Adams extradited one Jonathan 

 Robbins under the Jay treaty and was eloquently sustained in this 

 action by Marshall, then in Congress. " The treaty," he said, " stip- 

 ulating that a murderer shall be delivered up to justice, is as ob- 

 ligatory as an act of Congress making the same declaration." The 

 President's power was sustained in the case of the British Prisoners 

 in 1845 3-iid in the Metzger case in 1847.'*' But in the latter case 

 before the fugitive was delivered, the New York supreme court 

 intervened and released the prisoner on habeas corpus, on the theory 

 that the treaty was not executable without congressional legisla- 

 tion. "'^ This resulted in the act of 1848 providing for extradition.'^^ 

 A similar view was expressed by Justice Catron in 1852'^ but in 

 1893 the supreme court through Justice Gray sustained the early 

 position of Adams and Marshall. ^° 



" The surrender, pursuant to treaty stipulations, of persons residing or 

 found in this country, and charged with crime in another, may be made by 

 the executive authority of the President alone, when no provision has been 

 made by treaty or by statute for an examination of the case by a judge or 

 magistrate. Such was the case of Jonathon Robbins, under article 27 of the 

 treaty with Great Britain of 1794, in which the President's power in this re- 

 gard was demonstrated in the masterly and conclusive argument of John 

 Marshall in the House of Representatives." 



■^■i Infra, sees. 227, 230. 



■^5 Moore, Digest, 4: 622 ct scq. 



■^6 U. S. V. Robbins, Fed. Gas. No. 16175; The British Prisoners, i Wood, 

 and Minn. 66; In re Metzger, 5 How. 176; Taft, Our Chief Magistrate, p. 87; 

 Crandall, op. cit., p. 231. 



'■^/h re Metzger, i Barb. 248 (N. Y., 1847). 



78 9 Stat. 302 ; Rev. Stat., sees. 5270-5279. 



"9/n re Kaine, 14 How. 103, iii (1852). 



80 Fong Yue Ting v. U. S., 149 U. S. 698, 714 (1893) 



