Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/133/258/
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 18:09:45+00:00

Document:
A citizen of France can take land in the District of Columbia by descent from a citizen of the United States.
The treaty power of the United States extends to the protection to be afforded to citizens of a foreign country owning property in this country and to the manner in which that property may be transferred, devised, or inherited.
The District of Columbia, as a political community, is one of "the states of the union," within the meaning of that term as used in Article 7 of the Consular Convention of February 23, 1853, with France.
Article 7 of the Convention with France of September 30, 1800, construed.
Article 7 of the Consular Convention with France of February 23, 1853, construed.
Riggs, left one brother, E. Francis Riggs, and three sisters, Alice L. Riggs, Jane A. Riggs and Cecilia Howard, surviving him, but no descendants of any deceased brother or deceased sister except the complainants.
The defendants, with the exception of Cecilia Howard, are and always have been citizens of the United States and residents of the District of Columbia. Cecilia Howard, in 1867, intermarried with Henry Howard, a British subject, and since that time has resided with him in England.
The real property described in the bill of complaint cannot be divided without actual loss and injury, and the interest of the complainants, if they have any, as well as of the defendants, in the property would be promoted by its sale and a division of the proceeds.
To the bill of complaint setting up these facts and praying a sale of the premises described and a division of the proceeds among the parties to the suit according to their respective rights and interests the defendants demurred on the ground that the complainants were incapable of inheriting from their uncle any interest in the real estate. The Supreme Court of the District of Columbia sustained the demurrer and dismissed the bill. From the decree the case is brought to this Court on appeal.
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 seised. 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?
"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.
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, and 29 U. S. 4 Pet. 393.
"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."
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 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.
been, within the present century, the frequent subject of treaty arrangement. The treaty power, as expressed in the Constitution, is in terms unlimited except by those restraints which are found in that instrument against the action of the government or of its departments, and those arising from the nature of the government itself and of that of the states. It would not be contended that it extends so far as to authorize what the Constitution forbids, or a change in the character of the government, or in that of one of the states, or a cession of any portion of the territory of the latter, without its consent. Fort Leavenworth Railroad Co. v. Lowe, 114 U. S. 525, 114 U. S. 541. But, with these exceptions, it is not perceived that there is any limit to the questions which can be adjusted touching any matter which is properly the subject of negotiation with a foreign country. Ware v. Hylton, 3 Dall. 199; Chirac v. Chirac, 2 Wheat. 259; Hauenstein v. Lynham, 100 U. S. 483; 8 Opinions Attys.Gen. 417; People v. Gerke, 5 Cal. 381.
"In all the states of the union whose existing laws permit it, so long and to the same extent as the said laws shall remain in force, Frenchmen shall enjoy the right of possessing personal and real property by the same title, and in the same manner, as the citizens of the United States. They shall be free to dispose of it as they may please, either gratuitously or for value received, by donation, testament, or otherwise, just as those citizens themselves, and in no case shall they be subjected to taxes on transfer, inheritance, or any others, different from those paid by the latter, or to taxes which shall not be equally imposed."
"As to the states of the union by whose existing laws aliens are not permitted to hold real estate, the President engages to recommend to them the passage of such laws as may be necessary of the purpose of conferring this right."
"In like manner, but with the reservation of the ulterior right of establishing reciprocity in regard to possession and inheritance, the government of France accords to the citizens of the United States the same rights within its territory in respect to real and personal property and to inheritance as are enjoyed there by its own citizens."
not be questioned that the District of Columbia would be a "state" within the meaning of international law, and it is not perceived that it is any less a state within that meaning because other states and other territory are also under the same government. In Hepburn v. Ellzey, 2 Cranch 445, 6 U. S. 452, the question arose whether a resident and a citizen of the District of Columbia could sue a citizen of Virginia in the circuit court of the United States. The Court, by Chief Justice Marshall, in deciding the question, conceded that the District of Columbia was a distinct political society, and therefore a "state," according to the definition of writers on general law, but held that the act of Congress, in providing for controversies between citizens of different "states" in the circuit courts, referred to that term as used in the Constitution, and therefore to one of the states composing the United States. A similar concession, that the District of Columbia, being a separate political community, is in a certain sense a state, is made by this Court in the recent case of Metropolitan Railroad Co. v. District of Columbia, 132 U. S. 1, 132 U. S. 9, decided at the present term.
which nothing is conferred not already possessed, and leaves no adequate reason for the concession by France of rights to citizens of the United States, made in the third clause. We do not think this construction admissible. It is a rule, in construing treaties as well as laws, to give a sensible meaning to all their provisions if that be practicable. "The interpretation, therefore," says Vattel, "which would render a treaty null and inefficient cannot be admitted," and again, "it ought to be interpreted in such a manner as that it may have its effect, and not prove vain and nugatory." Vattel, Book II, c. 17. As we read the article, it declares that, in all the states of the union by whose laws aliens are permitted to hold real estate, so long as such laws remain in force, Frenchmen shall enjoy the right of possessing personal and real property by the same title, and in the same manner, as citizens of the United States. They shall be free to dispose of it as they may please -- by donation, testament, or otherwise -- just as those citizens themselves. But, as to the states by whose existing laws aliens are not permitted to hold real estate, the treaty engages that the President shall recommend to them the passage of such laws as may be necessary for the purpose of conferring that right.
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. 487. The stipulation that the government of France in like manner accords to the citizens of the United States the same rights within its territory in respect to real and personal property and inheritance as are enjoyed there by its own citizens indicates that that government considered that similar rights were extended to its citizens within the territory of the United States whatever the designation given to their different political communities.
We are therefore of opinion that this is the meaning of the article in question -- that there shall be reciprocity in respect to the acquisition and inheritance of property in one country by the citizens of the other; that is, in all political communities in the United States where legislation permits aliens to hold real estate, the disability of Frenchmen from alienage in disposing and inheriting property, real and personal, is removed, and the same right of disposition and inheritance of property in France is accorded to citizens of the United States as are there enjoyed by its own citizens. This construction finds support in the first section of the Act of March 3, 1887, 24 Stat. 476, c. 340. That section declares that it shall be unlawful for any person or persons not citizens of the United States, or who have not declared their intention to become citizens, to thereafter acquire, hold, or own real estate or any interest therein in any of the territories of the United States or in the District of Columbia except such as may be acquired by inheritance, or, in good faith, in the ordinary course of justice, in the collection of debts previously created. There is here a plain implication that property in the District of Columbia and in the territories may be acquired by aliens by inheritance, under existing laws, and no property could be acquired by them in the District by inheritance except by virtue of the law of Maryland as it existed when adopted by the United States during the existence of the convention of 1800, or under the seventh article of the convention of 1853.
Reversed, and the cause remanded with direction to overrule the demurrer of the defendants, and it is so ordered.

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