262 AYES ISLAND. 



its own citizens, tending to enhance such security, cannot be com- 

 plained of. The only question in relation to such regulations and 

 restrictions is between such State and its citizens, and as *to their not 

 being in derogation of the rights of the latter, or impairing those 

 rights under the law of nations. 



The abolition of privateering by the convention of Paris of 1856, so 

 far forth as respects the seven States, parties to that convention, is at 

 least suggestive of the self-imposed prohibition, by all of those States, 

 against the granting thereafter of commissions to private armed ves- 

 sels, in principle extending to both kinds of letters of reprisal. Whilst 

 we do not accede to the policy of the abolition of general reprisals or 

 privateering, insomuch as the employment of public vessels is less 

 expensive to the claimants than their own private vessels ; insomuch 

 as abuses are less likely to occur in the execution of the writ of special 

 reprisals ; insomuch as resistance would be less likely to be made to 

 public officers in public ships ; insomuch as public officers intrusted 

 with the execution of such letters would be more fully under the con- 

 trol of the State issuing them, and would be disinterested and impar- 

 tial, it is submitted that the employment of such officers and such 

 vessels to execute this particular duty, is consistent with sound policy 

 and reason as well as with the law of nations. 



XII. All the authorities require that special letters of reprisal 

 should be granted by order of the sovereign of the State, or that 

 branch of the public authority to which the power of directing the 

 intercourse of such State with other States is intrusted by its consti- 

 tution. 



We concede that the power to issue or authorize the issue of general 

 or extraordinary commissions of reprisal or letters of marque is, by the 

 first article, eighth section of the Constitution, vestsd in Congress ; 

 but the authority to issue special reprisals, under the law of nations, 

 is, we contend, appropriately an executive function, not included in 

 that delegation, but left to be exercised by the executive branch of the 

 government, as one of the necessarily inherent and implied powers, 

 founded on the constitutional duty to ' ' take care that the laws be faith- 

 fully executed;" (see art. 2, § 3 ;) the jus gentium being included in 

 that requisition. 



The Articles of Confederation between the United States of America, 

 adopted during the war of the Kevolution, contain two clauses perti- 

 nent to this subject. (See 1 U. S. Stat, at Large, p. 4.) 



Article 6, section 5, among other prohibitions upon the respective 

 States, contains the following: '^Nor shall any State grant permission 

 to any ships or vessels of war, nor letters of marque or reprisal, except 

 it be after a declaration q/" ?^ar by the United States in Congress assem- 

 bled, and then only against the kingdoms and State, and the subjects 

 thereof, against which war has so been declared, and under such reg- 

 ulations as shall be established by the United States in Congress assem- 

 bled," &c. (1 U. S. Stat, at Large, pp. 5, *7.) 



Article 9, section 1, provides that ''the United States in Congress 

 assembled, shall have the sole exclusive right and power of establish- 

 ing rules for deciding, in all cases, what captures on land and water 

 shall be legal, and in what manner prizes taken by land or naval forces 



