Argument for Appellees. It is insisted that upon the construction placed by the appellees upon this article of the treaty, the citizens of France were left without benefit from the compact. But if France received no advantage from the article, she at least yielded nothing by adopting it. Under the provisions of the Code Napoleon, the citizen of another country had been exempted from the droit d'aubaine, in France, only when by treaty between the two nations, the French citizen had been thus relieved in the foreign country. By the law of July 14, 1819, however, these provisions were abolished, and the capacity of aliens to acquire, hold and transmit real and personal estate was rendered—as it still remains that of French citizens. The privileges conferred by the 7th article of the treaty upon citizens of the United States were, therefore, no greater than those which were conceded under the general law of France, at the date of the treaty. "The ulterior right of establishing reciprocity," reserved in the third clause of the article, enabled the government of France to impose, at its discretion, upon citizens of the United States, such incapacities as might be laid, in our own country, upon citizens of France, under the laws of the States, Territories or District of Columbia. Hence, if, by reason of those laws, the citizens of France derived no advantage from the article, none could continue to except by the sufferance of that country to citizens of the United States. accrue Were it conceded that the words, "States of the Union," as employed in article 7 of the convention, properly embrace the District of Columbia, it would still be essential for the appellants, in order to entitle them to the protection of the article, to establish the existence within the district, both at the date of the convention and at the time of the death of their ancestor, of some law whereby French citizens or subjects, residing in France, had been rendered competent to take lands, by descent, from a citizen of the United States. By the common law, as the same was transplanted into Maryland, the alien was excluded from the acquisition of land Argument for Appellees. by descent. Buchanan v. Deshon, 1 Har. & G. 280, 289; Guyer's Lessee v. Smith, 22 Maryland, 239; S. C. 85 Am. Dec. 650. The act of Maryland of December 19, 1791, ratifying her cession to the United States, provides, in effect, in its 6th section, that "any foreigner" may, by deed or will, take and hold lands within the ceded territory, and such land may be conveyed by him, and be transmitted to and inherited by his heirs and relations, as if he and they were citizens of Maryland. It has long been settled, however, that these provisions do not remove the disability, arising from common law principles, of an alien to inherit lands lying in this District from a citizen thereof. Spratt v. Spratt, 1 Pet. 343; Spratt v. Spratt, 4 Pet. 393; Jost v. Jost, 1 Mackey, 493. Nor are the restrictions and disabilities removed by the act of March 3, 1887, 24 Stat. 476, c. 340. A later statute which does not expressly repeal, in whole or in part, any previous legislation upon the subject to which it relates, cannot be viewed as wholly superseding such legislation by substitution, revision or otherwise, unless the new statute either embraces, in itself, the entire field covered by former enactments, or manifests a plain intention to furnish, per se, a new and exclusive system upon the subject to which they refer. United States v. Tynen, 11 Wall. 88, 92; Henderson's Tobacco, 11 Wall. 652; Murdock v. Memphis, 20 Wall. 590, 617; King v. Cornell, 106 U. S. 395; Red Rock v. Henry, 106 U. S. 596; Cook County Nat. Bank v. United States, 107 U. S. 445; Pana v. Bowler, 107 U. S. 529. The basis, it is evident, of this proposition, is that repeals by implication are not to be favored; that they are founded upon the repugnance which arises between the new law and the old; and that the extent of such repugnance is the measure of such repeals. Arthur v. Homer, 96 U. S. 137; Ex parte Crow Dog, 109 U. S. 556; Chew Heong v. United States, 112 U. S. 536; United States v. Langston, 118 U. S. 389; Chicago Railway Co. v. United States, 127 U. S. 406. The act, in its title, is "An Act to restrict the ownership of Opinion of the Court. real estate in the Territories to American citizens, and so forth." It contains no repealing clause. The language of the first three sections is the language of prohibition. It is to the "violation of the provisions" in those sections that the penal clauses of the fourth section apply. And as titles by inheritance are excepted from its prohibitions, the act, as to such titles, is neither penal nor inhibitory. Titles by inheritance being thus exempted from the prohibitions of the section, to such titles the act is without application; and they are to be regulated by the laws in force at the time of the passage of the act. MR. JUSTICE FIELD, after stating the case, delivered the opinion of the court. The complainants are both citizens of France. The fact that one of them was born in Pekin, China, does not change his citizenship. His father was a Frenchman, and by the law of France a child of a Frenchman, though born in a foreign country, retains the citizenship of his father. In this case, also, his father was engaged, at the time of the son's birth, in the diplomatic service of France, being its minister plenipotentiary to China, and by public law the children of ambassadors and ministers accredited to another country retain the citizenship of their father. The question presented for solution, therefore, is whether the complainants, being citizens and residents of France, inherit an interest in the real estate in the District of Columbia of which their uncle, a citizen of the United States and a resident of the District, died seized. In more general terms the question is: can citizens of France take land in the District of Columbia by descent from citizens of the United States? The complainants contend that they inherit an estate in the property described, by force of the stipulation of article 7 of the convention between the United States and France, concluded February 23, 1853, and the provisions of the act of Congress of March 3, 1887, to restrict the ownership of real estate in the Territories to American citizens. Before consid Opinion of the Court. ering the effect of this article and of the act of 1887, a brief reference will be had to the laws of Maryland in force on the 27th of February, 1801, which were on that day declared by act of Congress to be in force in the District of Columbia. The language of the act is "that the laws of the State of Maryland as they now exist shall be and continue in force in that part of the said District which was ceded by that State to the United States, and by them accepted." 2 Stat. 103, c. 15, § 1. A part of these laws was the common law, and two acts of Maryland, one passed in March, 1780, "to declare and ascertain the privileges of the subjects of France" within that State; the other, passed December 19, 1791, to ratify her cession to the United States, entitled "An Act concerning the Territory of Columbia and the City of Washington." The common law, unmodified by statute or treaty, would have excluded aliens from inheriting lands in the United States from a citizen thereof. Its doctrine is that aliens have no inheritable blood through which a title can be transferred by operation of law. The act of Maryland of 1780 modified that law so far as to allow a subject of France who had settled in that State, and given assurances of allegiance and attachment to it as required of citizens, to devise to French subjects, who for that purpose were to be deemed citizens of the State. Act of March, 1780, c. 8, § 5, 1 Dorsey's Laws of Maryland, 158. It also provided that if the decedent died intestate his natural kindred, whether residing in France or elsewhere, should inherit his real estate in like manner as if such decedent and his kindred were citizens of the United States. It had no bearing, however, upon the inheritance of a subject of France, except from a Frenchman domiciled in the State. The act of Maryland of December 19, 1791, which provided in its sixth section that any foreigner might, by deed or will thereafter made, take and hold lands within the State in the same manner as if he were a citizen thereof, and that the lands might be conveyed by him, and transmitted to and inherited by his heirs and relations as if he and they were citizens of the State, did not do away with the disability of foreigners to take real Opinion of the Court. property within that State by inheritance from a citizen of the United States. It was so held in effect in Spratt v. Spratt, 1 Pet. 343; S. C. 4 Pet. 393. On the 30th of September, 1800, a convention of peace, commerce and navigation was concluded between France and the United States, the 7th article of which provided that "the citizens and inhabitants of the United States shall be at liberty to dispose by testament, donation or otherwise, of their goods, movable and immovable, holden in the territory of the French Republic in Europe, and the citizens of the French Republic shall have the same liberty with regard to goods movable and immovable, holden in the territory of the United States, in favor of such persons as they shall think proper. The citizens and inhabitants of either of the two countries, who shall be heirs of goods, movable or immovable, in the other, shall be able to succeed ab intestato, without being obliged to obtain letters of naturalization, and without having the effect of this provision contested or impeded under any pretext whatever." 8 Stat. 182. This article, by its terms, suspended, during the existence of the treaty, the provisions of the common law of Maryland and of the statutes of that State of 1780 and of 1791, so far as they prevented citizens of France from taking by inheritance from citizens of the United States, property, real or personal, situated therein. That the treaty power of the United States extends to all proper subjects of negotiation between our government and the governments of other nations, is clear. It is also clear that the protection which should be afforded to the citizens of one country owning property in another, and the manner in which that property may be transferred, devised or inherited, are fitting subjects for such negotiation and of regulation by mutual stipulations between the two countries. As commercial intercourse increases between different countries the residence of citizens of one country within the territory of the other naturally follows, and the removal of their disability from alienage to hold, transfer and inherit property in such cases tends to promote amicable relations. Such removal has |