Cheraw gazette. [volume] (Cheraw, S.C.) 1835-1838, 1836-02-02

Oc OUCc uuInUleu, tUc CIduSc, Us CAPouiiqSu
by you, must be applied to oil cases what.
socver, which fall within its operation. If
State can pass laws on the subject Of sla.
very, making the acts ofthe citizens of 9th.
er States, done within their respective States
and while they are actual residents thereof,
crimes against the State cnacting such laws,
and thereby acquire tht. right to have these
citizens delivered to it for trial and punish
ment, the same State may pass laws on
other subjects which will have the same ef-
feet, and establish the same right to demand
the citizens of other States who may violate
these laws, although they have meyer been
within the limits of that State. The right
to demand, and the obligation to deliver up,
arc co-cxtensivc. In cases to which the
constitutional right to demand attaches,
there is not, and cannot be, any right in the
Executive on whom the rcquisAion is made
to withhold the offender, whatever be the
character ofthc act which is made crime
bv the laws of the State demanding him.
Ihave presented this view ofthe subject. not
merely to exhibit the dangerous conscquen-
ces that would be likely to result from adop-
ting the construction you have given to this
clause of the Constitution, and thence to
deduce an argument against the presump-
ton that the trainers of that instrument IN
tended to confer right that in its exercise
would produce such consequences; but l
have considered the subject in this view,
principally for the purpose Of showing that
the obligation on. fife part of the States to
deliver up their citizens in such cases as the
one you have presented, is an essential d..
minution of the powers which they would
possess as independent sovcreigntics, and
that the sound rule Of Construction which
you properly concedc to be applicable to
those parts of the Constitution which trans.
fer power to the General Government, up.
plies with equal force and pcrtinency to such
parts oft as destroy or transfer any portion
of the sovereignty Of the States. If the
fact that this. clause of the Constitution
confirms and enlarges the rights Of the
States, as they existed before the forma-
ton of the General Government, constitutes
as you contend, an argument in favor OF
giving it q liberal construction, is not this
argument neutralizcd by t.,c consideration
that what it gives to the States in one re-
spect, it takes away from them in another?
IT, by this clause, the right to demand fugi-
tives is given to the States, in cases in
which they had it not before the adoption
Of the Constitution, the corrclatirc right to
refuse, in such cases, to deliver up, which
must then have existed in all the States, is
also taken away by it. Ifyour construc-
ton be correct, this ca lse has cone. red the
power on each State to pass laws that have
an extra.territorial operation, and to pre-
scribe rules TO which the citizens Of all 9th.
er States must conform, or be subject to the
criminal judicature Of every State passing
such laws. This is undoubtedly charging
the rights of the States in one respect, but
it is serious diminution Of their sovereign
ty in another. 1t is moro than cnlarging
former rights it is conferimg new ones
it is giving to some of the municiple laws of
each State, an extraordinary character-a
character that renders them obligatory be.
vond the territory Of the sovereign power
which enacts them. 1t is subjecting the
citizens of all States to new duties, to be
imposed upon them by power to which
they owe no allegiance, and under the juris.
diction of which they have never placed
themselves. 1t is creating new obligations
to be performed by the respective govern.
ments Of the States.
Ihave not been able to find the doctrine
advanced by any writer onthe law of nations,
that it is the duty of a sovereign state to de.
liver its own citizens to a foreign power, to
be punished for acts done by them while
within the territory of their own sovereign.
The passage you have quoted from Vattel,
which speaks of delivering up the offender,
l am persuaded does not apply to such q
case, but to the actual case of common flu.
gitivcs. The paragraph preceding the one
from which you have made the quotation, is
as follows: "If the offended state keeps the
guilty in his power, he may, without diff.
Guilty, punish him. and oblige him to make
satisfaction. If the guilty escape and re.
turns into his own country, justice may be
demanded from his sovereign" This wri.
ter, not having specified a case like tire one
under consideration, but having mentioned
the cases of ordinary fugitives, must, think
be understood to refer to these as presenting
occasions for delivering up offenders, OF
Withholding them, according to tn: nature
of the case, or the circumstances attending
it."
The demand made BY one Independent
nation upon an other to deliver up fitgitivcs,
II mean in the literal sense of the word
is not, believe generally regarded as found.
ed in u wel.cstablishcd principle Of right.
The right to demand, and the duty to sur.
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