though they may be foreigners, and have committed no particular offence against the United States; and in executing this power, it has de clared, in conformity with the law of nations, that the punishment of piracy shall be death. The act of Congress, which declares certain offences to be piracy which are not so by the law of nations, was intended to punish them as offences against the United States, and not as offences against the human race;* and such an offence, committed by a person not a citizen of the United States, on board of a vessel belonging exclusively to subjects of a foreign state, is not piracy under the statute, nor punishable in the Federal Courts. The offence, in such cases, must be left to be punished by the nation under whose flag the vessel sails, and whose particular jurisdiction extends to all on board; for it is a clear and settled principle, that the jurisdiction of every nation extends to its own citizens, on board of its own public and private vessels, at sea. But murder and robbery committed on the high seas by persons on board of a vessel not at the time belonging to any foreign power, but in possession of a crew acting in defiance of all law, and acknowledging obedience to no government, is within the act of Congress, and punishable in the courts of the United States; for although the statute does not apply to offences committed against the particular sovereignty of a foreign power, and on board of a vessel belonging at the time, in fact as well as of right, to a subject of a foreign state, and in virtue of such property subject to his control, yet it does extend to all offences committed against all nations, by persons * 3 Wheaton, 610, † Rutherford's Inst., b. ii., ch. xi. who, by common consent, are amenable to the laws of all nations.* * In pursuance of this principle, the moment a vessel assumes a piratical character, she loses all claim to national character, and the crew, whether citizens or foreigners, are equally punishable under the statute, for acts which it declares to be piracy. The laws of the United States declare those acts piracy on one of their own citizens, which would be merely belligerant acts if committed on a foreigner; and a citizen of the United States who offends against the government or his fellow-citizens, under colour of a foreign commission, is punishable in the same manner as if he had no commission. The acts of an alien, under the sanction of a national commission, may be hostile, and his government may be responsible for them, but they are not regarded as piratical; and this rule extends to the Barbary powers, who are now regarded, by the law of nations, as lawful powers, and not as they deserve to be, pirates. Felony, when committed on the high seas, amounts in effect to piracy, and has, to a considerable extent, been so declared by Congress, who, in pursuance of the authority vested in them by the Constitution, have enacted that any person, on the high seas, or in any open roadstead or bay where the sea ebbs and flows, committing the crime of robbery in and upon any vessel, or its crew or lading, shall be adjudged a pirate; and farther, that "if any person concerned in any piratical cruise or enterprise, or being of the crew or ship's company of any piratical ship or vessel, shall land and commit robbery on * 5 Wheaton, 144. Laws of U. S., 1820, § 3. shore, such person shall be adjudged a pirate;” in which last respect, the statute seems to be merey declaratory of the law of nations. * The power to define and punish piracy and felonies on the high seas is exclusive in its nature; but it has been doubted whether the power to punish other offences against international law ought not to be considered as exclusively vested in Congress, on the ground that the law of nations forms a part of the common law of every state in the Union, and that violations of it may be committed on land as well as at sea. The jurisdiction of the several states is certainly superseded in regard to those offences against international law which are committed at sea; but it does not seem, however, to follow, as a necessary consequence, that it is also superseded in regard to those committed on shore. These offences are of various kinds, and the power to define and punish them is, with great propriety, given to Congress, as it prevents difficulties which might arise from the doubt of a concurrent jurisdiction of them by the states; and, so far as they have been defined by Congress, they may be said to arise under the Constitution and laws of the United States, and to be finally, if not exclusively, cognizable under the Federal authority. But there are some such offences not enumerated in the acts of Congress; and if the doctrine be sound, that the criminal jurisdiction of the Union is confined to cases expressly provided for by Congress, either those violations of international law, of which the punishment remains unprovided for by Congress, must go unpunished, or the state courts must entertain jurisdiction * Doug., 615. of them. The United States being alone responsible to foreign nations for all that affects their mutual intercourse, it rests with the National Government to declare what shall constitute offences against the law regulating that intercourse, and to prescribe suitable punishments for their commission. But if cases arise for which no provision has been made by Congress, both the national and state governments, within the spheres of their respective jurisdictions, are thrown upon those general principles, which, being enforced by other nations, those nations have a right to require to be applied in their favour. The offences falling more immediately under the cognizance of the law of nations are, besides piracy, violations of safe-conducts, and infringements of the rights of ambassadors and other public ministers. A safe-conduct or passport contains a pledge of the public faith that it shall be duly respected, and the observance of this duty is essential to the character of the government which grants it. In furtherance of the general sanction of public law, Congress has provided that persons violating a safe-conduct or passport granted by the government of the United States, shall, on conviction, be subjected to fine and imprisonment. The same punishment is inflicted upon persons offering violence to ambassadors or other public ministers, or being concerned in prosecuting or arresting them; and the process whereby their persons, or those of their domestics, may be imprisoned, or their goods seized or attached, is declared void. The policy of these laws regards such proceedings against foreign ministers as highly injurious to a free and liberal communication between different governments, and mischievous in their consequences to any nation. They tend, most certainly, to provoke the resentment of the sovereign whom the envoy represents, and to bring upon the country the calamity of war; and, therefore, every civilized nation has an equal interest in upholding the privileges of their representatives abroad, and punishing the breaches of them by its own citizens. III. The power of regulating foreign commerce is intimately connected with the power of concluding treaties, especially those of commerce and navigation, and is, with equal propriety, submitted to the National Government. The oppressed and degraded state of commerce before the adoption of the Federal Constitution, and the injury it sustained from the impotent and disconnected efforts of the several states to counteract the restrictions imposed on it by foreign nations, with a view to their own interests, contributed more, perhaps, to the introduction of our present system of government, than any other of the numerous evils proceeding from the feebleness of the Confederation. The former Congress, indeed, possessed the power of making commercial treaties, but its inability to enforce them rendered that power, in a great degree, useless; and all who were capable of estimating the influence of commerce on national prosperity, perceived the necessity of giving the control over this important subject to the General Government. It is not, therefore, matter of surprise, that the grant should be as extensive as the mischiefs that had been experienced; and it is equally apparent that to construe the grant so |