QUESTION ON. 33 



clearly within the language employed and also a resort to verbal 

 niceties and forced construction to avoid cases clearly within the scope 

 of the language employed. The object in the end is to discover the 

 true sense in which the words were used. These principles will be 

 found stated with fullness and precision in the text-books and cases 

 cited below." 



MEANING OF "LIBERTY." 



The British Case referring to the term " Liberty," says : " The 

 term liberty as here used, is equivalent merely to permission. It is 

 true that when granted by treaty it became as between Great Britain 

 and the United States a matter of right, but there can be no question 

 as to the extent of what was granted." 6 



The United States does not agree that the word liberty when used 

 in connection with the grant of an incorporeal hereditament has ever 

 been construed as " equivalent merely to permission," but in view 

 of the admission in the British Case that when granted by treaty 

 it became as between Great Britain and the United States, a matter 

 of right, the United States feels relieved of the necessity of going 

 into an exhaustive discussion of the meaning of the term. By the 

 common law of England, the word liberty has always been synony- 

 mous with the word franchise, but it has been applied to a peculiar 

 form of franchise to grants of incorporeal hereditaments in the 

 nature of franchises out of the King's prerogatives, made by the 

 Crown to subjects, and it included grants of a forest, park, warren, 

 or fishery. 



It was natural, in view of the well-known use of the term in 

 English and American law, that the British negotiators should 

 prefer to employ in and about a grant of a right of fishery by the 

 Crown of Great Britain, the technical terms by which such grants 



Legal and Political Hermeneutics, Francis Lieber, chap. I, sec. VIII; chap. 

 Ill, sees. VII and VIII ; chap. IV, sec. Ill to sec. XVII, inclusive. Sutherland 

 on Statutory Construction, sees. 347, 348, and 349. Sedgwick on Statutes and 

 Constitutions, chap. VII, p. 291, et seq. Stephenson v. Higginson (3 H. L. Cases, 

 685). Attorney-General v. Sillem (2 H. C., 351). Barber Asphalt Paving Com- 

 pany v. Watt (51 La. Ann., 1345). Warner v. Connecticut Mutual Life Insur- 

 ance Co. (109 U. S., 357). In re Ross (140 U. S. 475). United States v. Hart- 

 well (6 Wallace (U. S.), 395). 



& British Case, 47. 



"Jacobs Law Dictionary (English, 1811) title, Franchise, vol. Ill, pp. 122 

 et seq. Burns Law Dictionary (English, 1792) title, Franchise, pp. 384 et seq. 

 Williams Law Dictionary (English, 1816) title, Franchise. Potts Law Diction- 

 ary (English, 1803) title, Liberty. Blackstone's Commentaries, book 2, p. 37. 



