134 APPENDIX TO CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 
‘(THE DOCTRINE ALWAYS ASSERTED. 
“Tt thus appears that our Government asserted this doctrine in its infancy. It 
was announced by Mr. Jefferson as Secretary of State and by the Attorney-General 
in 1793. Mr. Pickering, Secretary of State in 1796, reaffirms it, in his letter to the 
Governor of Virginia, in the following language: ‘Our jurisdiction has been fixed 
to extend 3 geographical miles from our shores, with the exception of any waters or 
bays which are so landlocked as to be unquestionably within the jurisdiction of the 
States, be their extent what they may.’ (Wheaton’s ‘International Law,’ vol. i, sec. 
32, pp. 2-100. 
Ne rote Secretary of State, to Mr. Jordan, in 1849, reiterates this rule 
in the following language: ‘The exclusive jurisdiction of a nation extends to the 
ports, harbours, bays, mouths of rivers, and adjacent parts of the sea inclosed by 
headlands.’ (Idem, p. 101.) 
“Mr. Seward, in the Senate in 1852, substantially enunciates the same doctrine by 
declaring that, if we relied alone upon the old rule that only those bays whose 
entrance from headland to headland do not exceed 6 miles are within the territorial 
jurisdiction of the adjoining nation, our dominion to all the larger and more 
important arms of the sea on both our Atlantic and Pacific coasts would have to be 
surrendered. Our right to jurisdiction over these rests with the rule of interna- 
tional law which gives a nation jurisdiction over waters embraced within its land 
dominion. 
““BEHRING’S SEA INLAND WATER. 
“It thus appears that from our earliest history, contemporaneously with our accept- 
ance of the principle of the marine league belt and supported by the same high 
authorities is the assertion of the doctrine of our right to dominion over our inland 
waters under the Treaty of 1867, and on this rule of international law we base our 
claim to jurisdiction and dominion over the waters of the Behring’s Sea. While it 
is, no doubt, true that a nation cannot by Treaty acquire dominion in contravention 
of the law of nations, it is none the less true that, whatever title or dominion our 
grantor, Russia, possessed under the law of nations at the time of the Treaty 
115 of Cession in 1867, passed and now rightfully belongs to the United States. 
Having determined the law, we are next led to inquire as to whether Behring’s 
Sea is an inland water or a part of the open ocean, and what was Russia’s jurisdiction 
over it. 
‘‘Behring’s Sea is an inland water. Beginning on the eastern coast of Asia, this 
body of water, formerly known as the Sea of Kamchatka, is bounded by the Penin- 
sula of Kamchatka and Eastern Siberia to the Behring’s Strait. From the American 
side of this strait the waters of the Behring Sea wash the coast of the mainland of 
Alaska as far south as the Peninsula of Alaska. From the extremity of this penin- 
sula, in a long, sweeping curve, the Aleutian Islands stretch in a continuous chain 
almost to the shores of Kamchatka, thus encasing the sea. 
‘“CRUSSIA’S TITLE AND DOMINION. 
“Tt will not be denied that at the time the United States acquired the Territory 
of Alaska by the Treaty of 1867, the waters of the Behring’s Sea washed only the 
shores of Russian territory. The territory on the Asiatic side she had possessed 
‘since the memory of man runneth not to the contrary.’ Her title to the other por- 
tions of those shores and her dominion over the waters of the Behring’s Sea are 
‘based on ‘discovery and settlement.’ 
‘(POSSESSION AND SUPREMACY. 
“The right of a nation to acquire new territory by discovery and possession has 
been so universally recognized by the law of nations that a citation of authorities is 
scarcely necessary. Upon this subject the most eminent ag well as the most con- 
servative of authorities says: ‘All mankind have an equal right to things that have 
not yet fallen into the possession of any one, and those things belong to the person 
who first takes possession of them. When, therefore, a nation finds a country unin- 
habited and without an owner, it may lawfully take possession of it, and after it 
has sufficiently made known its will in this respect it cannot be deprived of it by 
another nation.’ 
““<Thus navigators going on voyages of discovery, furnished with a commission 
from their Sovereign, meeting islands or other lands in a desert state, have taken 
possession of them in the name of their nation, and this title has been usually 
respected, provided it was soon followed by a real possession.’ ‘When a nation 
takes possession of a country to which no prior owner can lay claim, it is considered 
as acquiring the empire or sovereignty of it at the same time with the domain.’ ‘The 
whole space over which a nation extends its government becomes the seat of its 
jurisdiction and is called its territory.’ (Vattel, p. 98.) 
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