A treaty of cession is a deed of the ceded territory by the sovereign grantor, and the deed is to receive an equitable construction. United States v Arredondo, 6 Pet. 710. In doubtful cases that construction is to be adopted which will work the least injustice-which will put the contract on the foundation of justice and equity rather than of inequality. Mr. Livingston, Sec. of State, to Baron Lederer, Nov. 5, 1832, MS. Notes to For. Legs., V. 63. "It is a general principle of construction with respect to treaties that they shall be liberally construed, so as to carry out the apparent intention of the parties to secure equality and reciprocity between them. As they are contracts between independent nations, in their construction words are to be taken in their ordinary meaning, as understood in the public law of nations, and not in any artificial or special sense impressed upon them by local law, unless such restricted sense is clearly intended. And it has been held by this court that where a treaty admits of two constructions, one restrictive of rights that may be claimed under it and the other favorable to them, the latter is to be preferred. Hauenstein v. Lynham, 100 U. S. 483, 487." Geofry v. Riggs (1890), 133 U. S. 258, 271. See, to the same effect, United States v. Auguisola, 1 Wall. 352. Technical rules of construction ought not to be applied to treaties with the Indians. Taney, At. Gen., 1831, 2 Op. 465. A stipulation, though inconvenient, must be fulfilled if it be explicit; but, in case of doubt, the inconveniences which would result from a particular construction may be used as an argument to show that that construction can not be conformable to the intent of the parties. Mr. Livingston, Sec. of State, to Baron Lederer, Nov. 5, 1832, MS. Notes to For. Legs., V. 63. The doctrine of a performance cy pres, so just and appropriate in the civil concerns of private persons, belongs not to the solemn compacts of nations, so far as judicial tribunals are called upon to interpret or enforce them. The Amiable Isabella, 6 Wheat. 1, 73. In the construction of treaties, the general doctrine is that any special advantage conceded by a party under any one article is in consideration of all the advantages enjoyed by the same party under that and all other articles of the treaty. Cushing, At. Gen., 1853, 6 Op. 148. When a treaty is executed in more than one language, each language being that of a contracting party, each document, so signed and attested, is to be regarded as an original, and the sense of the treaty is to be drawn from them collectively. United States v. Arredondo, 6 Pet. 691, 710. Where treaties are drawn up in two languages each text is considered as the equivalent of the other and as being in a sense explanatory of it. Thus interpreted the two texts have a common meaning. Both parties to it stand on a footing of equality, and the object sought to be attained by them is accomplished. Mr. Hay, Sec. of State, to Mr. Beaupré, No. 331, Nov. 16, 1900, MS. Inst. "Treaties are subjected to the following general rules which govern all contractual engagements: "(1) There must be a concurrence of minds to one and the same thing. "(2) The interpretation of obscure terms in a treaty is a matter of fact, as to which extrinsic evidence may be taken for the purpose of explaining objective obscurity. "(3) Construction of treaties is a matter of law, to be governed by the same rules mutatis mutandis, as prevail in the construction of contracts and statutes. "(4) As contracts may be modified and rescinded, so may treaties. "(5) Immoral stipulations are void in treaties as they are in contracts. "(6) Construction is to be distinguished from interpretation.' 'Construction' gives the general sense of a treaty and is applied by rules of logic; interpretation' gives the meaning of particular terms, to be explained by local circumstances and by the idioms the framers of the treaty had in mind. “(7) If two meanings are admissible, that is to be preferred which the party proposing the clause knew at the time to be that which was held by the party accepting it. "Treaties are distinguishable from contracts as follows: "(1) Contracts (unless we regard marriage as a contract) are, in all cases, the subjects of a suit for debt or damages, or for a specific thing. But no such suit lies on breach of treaty. "(2) Contracts can only be vacated or rescinded by consent, or by the action of a court. But this is not necessarily the case with a treaty. There is no court which can be appealed to to dissolve it, and when one party violates its terms the practice is for the other party to declare it not to be any longer binding. "(3) While a contract may be annulled on the ground of fraudulent influence exercised by strength over weakness, such a reason can not be set up for regarding a treaty as a nullity, since all nations are supposed to stand on the same footing, with equal opportunities of detecting fraud, and there are many cases of finesse and false coloring or suppression of facts which would avoid contracts, which would not, mutatis mutandis, avoid a treaty. If suppressio veri abrogated treaties to the extent it abrogates contracts, few treaties would stand. "(4) A treaty based upon a war accepts the results determined by the war, unless otherwise provided, while a contract does not necessarily assume the existing relations of the parties as a basis. The uti possidetis is the basis of every treaty of peace, unless it be otherwise agreed. Peace gives a final and perfect title to captures without condemnation, and, as it forbids all force, it destroys all hopes of recovery (of vessels) as much as if the vessel was carried infra præsidia and condemned."" Wharton, Int. Law Digest, § 133. II. 36, citing Kent's Com. 173, as citing The Legal Tender, reported in Wheat. Dig. 302; The Schooner Sophie, 6 Rob. Ad. 138. Wharton, Com. on Am. Law, § 157, p. 234, is cited by Wharton (Int Law Digest, II. 37), as authority for the additional proposition: “(5) A consideration is essential to give effect to a contract, but it is possible to conceive of a treaty which has no consideration." On the question of repugnancy the following rules are laid down by President Woolsey: "1. That earlier clauses are to be explained by later ones, which were added, it is reasonable to suppose, for the sake of explanation, or which at least express the last mind of the parties. So also later treaties explain or abrogate older ones. "2. Special clauses have the preference over general, and for the most part prohibitory over permissive. “In treaties made with different parties the inquiry in cases of conflict touches the moral obligation as well as the meaning. Here the earlier treaty must evidently stand against the later, and if possible, must determine its import where the two seem to conflict. "In general, conditional clauses are inoperative, as long as the condition is unfulfilled; and are made null when it becomes impossible. Where things promised in a treaty are incompatible, the promisee may choose which he will demand the performance of, but here and elsewhere an act of expediency ought to give way to an act of justice." Woolsey, Int. Law, § 113. "A treaty of cession is a deed of the ceded territory by the soyereign grantor, and the deed is to receive an equitable construction. The obligation of the new power to protect the inhabitants in the enjoyment of their property is but the assertion of a principle of natural justice." Davis's Notes, U. S. Treaty Vol. (1776–1887), 1228, citing Soulard v. In the controversy between the United States and Great Britain, which took place in 1876, concerning the refusal of the British Government to surrender Winslow under Article X. of the treaty of 1842 unless a stipulation should be given by the United States that he should not be tried for an offense other than that for which he was delivered up, Mr. Fish stated that the President could not recognize the right of one power to change at its pleasure and without the assent of the other power the terms and conditions of an executory agreement in a treaty duly ratified between them. The British government did not dissent from this principle, but argued that the construction which it had given to the treaty was the correct one. Mr. Fish, Sec. of State, to Mr. Hoffman, chargé, No. 864, March 31, 1876, 2. PARTICULAR STIPULATIONS. § 764. Articles of reciprocity, constituting mutual and correlative engagements, do not come within such expressions as " favor," or "freely if the concessions were freely made," or "if the concessions were conditional on allowing the same compensation." Cushing, At. Gen., 1853, 6 Op. 148. By Article VII. of the convention between the United States and · France of February 23, 1853, Frenchmen were entitled to hold real property by the same title and in the same manner as citizens of the United States, "in all the States of the Union, whose existing laws permit it." It was held that the District of Columbia as a political community was to be considered as one of " the States of the Union" within the meaning of this provision and that a citizen of France might take land in the District of Columbia by descent from a citizen of the United States. Geofroy r. Riggs (1890), 133 U. S. 258. Article 6 of the treaty of April 3, 1783, between the United States and Sweden, as revived in article 17 of the treaty of July 4, 1827, between the same powers, provides that the subjects of the contract ing parties may "dispose of their goods and effects" by donation or otherwise, and that "their heirs shall receive the succession even ab intestato," and that "these inheritances" shall be exempt from certain charges. Held, that the word "effects" (represented in the French draft of the treaty by the word "biens," which, in civil law, includes immovables as well as movables), when construed with the words "heirs," "succession," and "inheritances," includes real as well as personal property; so that an alien resident of Sweden may inherit land from a resident citizen of Illinois, notwithstanding the provision in the laws of 1887, p. 5, forbidding it. Adams v. Akerlund, 168 III. 632, 48 N. E. 454. The treaty of the United States with Würtemberg of December, 1844 (article 2), provides that, when an alien shall inherit any real property, he shall be allowed two years in which to sell it, which time may be reasonably prolonged, according to the circumstances. Held, that the clause," which time may be reasonably prolonged according to the circumstances," should be made effective by the courts, by granting such time as would be reasonable. Scharpf v. Schmidt (1898), 172 III. 255, 50 N. E. 182. A treaty of cession is a deed or grant by one sovereign to another, which transfers nothing to which he had no right of property, and only such right as he owned and could convey to the grantee. Mitchel v. United States, 9 Pet. 711. A treaty of cession is to be construed in accordance with the state of things at the time existing. Strother v. Lucas, 12 Pet. 410. Territory acquired by treaty or conquest is subject, so far as concerns titles to property and prior rights of status, to the same law as it was subject to before the transfer. United States v. Moreno, 1 Wall. 400. A stipulation for the protection of rights of private property covers inchoate as well as matured rights. Delassus v. United States, 9 Pet. 117; Strother v. Lucas, 12 Pet. 410. The term "grant" in a treaty comprehends not only one made in form, but also any concession, warrant, order, or permission to survey, possess, or settle, whether evidenced by writing or parol, or presumed from possession; and in the term "laws" is included custom and |