"Fees for official services are fixed by the President under section 1745 R. S. Fees for judicial services are fixed by the respective ministers in non-Christian countries under section 4120, R. S.

"Under the present law uniformity can be required only among consulates in the same country."

Mr. Rives, Assist. Sec. of State, to Fifth Auditor of the Treasury, Feb. 11, 1888, 167 MS. Dom. Let. 161.

"SEC. 7. That every consular officer of the United States is hereby required, whenever application is made to him therefor, within the limits of his consulate, to administer to or take from any person any oath, affirmation, affidavit, or deposition, and to perform any other notarial act which any notary public is required or authorized by law to do within the United States; and for every such notarial act performed he shall charge in each instance the appropriate fee prescribed by the President under section seventeen hundred and forty-five, Revised Statutes.

"SEC. 8. That all fees, official or unofficial, received by any officer in the consular service for services rendered in connection with the duties of his office or as a consular officer, including fees for notarial services, and fees for taking depositions, executing commissions or letters rogatory, settling estates, receiving or paying out moneys, caring for or disposing of property, shall be accounted for and paid into the Treasury of the United States, and the sole and only compensation of such officers shall be by salaries fixed by law; but this shall not apply to consular agents, who shall be paid by one half of the fees received in their offices, up to a maximum sum of one thousand dollars in any one year, the other half being accounted for and paid into the Treasury of the United States. And vice-consuls-general, deputy consuls-general, vice-consuls, and deputy consuls, in addition to such compensation as they may be entitled to receive as consuls or clerks, may receive such portion of the salaries of the consul-general or consuls for whom they act as shall be provided by regulation.

"SEC. 9. That fees for the consular certification of invoices shall be, and they hereby are, included with the fees for official services for which the President is authorized by section seventeen hundred and forty-five of the Revised Statutes to prescribe rates or tariffs; and sections twenty-eight hundred and fifty-one and seventeen hundred and twenty-one of the Revised Statutes are hereby repealed.

"SEC. 10. That every consular officer shall be provided and kept supplied with adhesive official stamps, on which shall be printed the equivalent money value of denominations and to amounts to be determined by the Department of State, and shall account quarterly to the Department of State for the use of such stamps and for such of them as shall remain in his hands.

"Whenever a consular officer is required or finds it necessary to perform any consular or notarial act he shall prepare and deliver to the party or parties at whose instance such act is performed a suitable and appropriate document as prescribed in the consular regulations and affix thereto and duly cancel an adhesive stamp or stamps of the denomination or denominations equivalent to the fee prescribed for such consular or notarial act, and no such act shall be legally valid within the jurisdiction of the Government of the United States unless such stamp or stamps is or are affixed and canceled.

"SEC. 11. That this Act shall take effect on the thirtieth day of June, nineteen hundred and six."

Act of April 5, 1906, sections 7-11, entitled "An act to provide for the reorganization of the consular service of the United States."

As to salaries of consuls-general and consuls under this act, see supra, § 732.

"The abstract right of Hayti to act in such matters [the fixing of fees to be charged by her consuls] according to her discretion is not denied. It is only when charges of the kind become so excessive as virtually to constitute an export tax, that they may properly be remonstrated against in a friendly spirit."

Mr. Evarts, Sec. of State, to Mr. Langston, min. to Hayti, No. 5, Nov. 8, 1877, MS. Inst. Hayti, II. 119, acknowledging the receipt of a dispatch of Mr. Langston's predecessor, Mr. Bassett, No. 544, Oct. 23, 1877, relative to the fees chargeable by Haytian consuls.

4. Judicial action.

(1) Province of the courts. § 760.

(2) Rule as to political questions. § 761.

5. Date of taking effect. § 762.

VI. INTERPRETATION.

1. General rules. § 763.

2. Particular stipulations. § 764.

3. Most-favored-nation clauses.

(1) Reciprocal concessions. § 765.

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VI. INTERPRETATION-Continued.

(2) Geographical discriminations. § 766.

(3) Retaliatory or compulsive discriminations. § 767.
(4) Bounties. § 768.

(3) Statute by later treaty. § 777.

(4) State constitutions and statutes by treaties. § 778.

7. Effect of war. § 779.

8. Survival of vested rights. § 780.

I. POWER TO MAKE.

1. PRIOR TO THE CONSTITUTION.

§ 734.

"On the 29th of November, 1775, Congress appointed a 'committee of secret correspondence,' whose duty it would be to correspond with the friends of the colonies in other parts of the world. On the 3d of March, 1776, this committee instructed Silas Deane to proceed to France to enter into communication with M. de Vergennes, and to ascertain, if possible, whether, if the colonies should be forced to form themselves into an independent state, France would.

enter

into any treaty or alliance with them for commerce or defense, or both.' These instructions were signed by Dr. Franklin, Benjamin Harrison, John Dickinson, Robert Morris, and John Jay; and the practical wisdom of the signers is displayed in the first instruction they contain: When you come to Paris you will be introduced to a set of acquaintance, all friends to the Americans; by conversing with them you will have a good opportunity of acquiring Parisian French.'

6

"On the 17th day of the following September, nearly two years prior to the adoption of the Articles of Confederation, Congress took into consideration the plan of treaties to be proposed to foreign nations, with the amendments agreed to by the committee of the whole,' and thereupon adopted a plan of treaty to be proposed to His Most Christian Majesty the French King, which will be found in the secret journal.

"This remarkable state paper contains the germ (often expressed in the identical language) of many of the provisions of subsequent treaties of the United States.

"In one respect it was many years in advance of provisions actually incorporated into any treaty. Its first and second articles stipulated that the citizens of each country in the ports of the other should pay no other duties or imports than the natives were required to pay, and should enjoy the same privileges, immunities, and exemptions in trade, navigation, and commerce which natives enjoyed; and the twelfth article contemplated a similar reciprocal agreement in respect of some exports. It was not until after the peace of 1814 that this principle of reciprocity was incorporated into a treaty of the United States.

"The commissioners who were originally selected by the Continental Congress to conclude treaties with the European powers were Dr. Franklin, Silas Deane, and Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson having declined, Arthur Lee was elected in his place.

"On the 6th of February, 1778, these commissioners concluded a treaty of alliance and a treaty of amity and commerce with the King of France. These important acts were followed by the conclusion of treaties of amity and commerce with the Netherlands, in 1782; and with Sweden in 1783; of the treaty of peace with Great Britain, in 1783 (to which the names of Adams, Franklin, and Jay were attached under a special power); of a treaty of amity and commerce with Prussia in 1785; of a treaty of peace and friendship with Morocco in 1787; and of a consular convention with France, in 1788.

66 In regulating the commercial and political relations between the United States and other powers, these several treaties secured the recognition of the independence of the United States, and also the assent of other powers to many important principles, some of which were not then universally recognized as constituting part of the public law which should govern the intercourse of nations with each other. It is not difficult to recognize, in these provisions, the impress of the statesmanlike intelligence and humane and elevated characters of the members of the Continental Congress, and of the American plenipotentiaries who negotiated the several treaties.

"The evils of war were lessened by agreements that, in case it should break out, time should be given to the citizens of each in the territories of the other to close their business and remove their properties; or that, should differences arise, resort should not be had to force until a friendly application should be made for an arrangement.

"A restraint was imposed upon private war by provisions forbidding the citizens of either power to accept commissions or letters of marque from enemies of the other power when at war; and the acceptance of such commissions or letters was declared to be an act of piracy, which placed the offender beyond the claim of national protection.