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CHAPTER XL.

THE RIGHTS AND DUTIES OF STATES.

ARTICLE IV.

Section 1.-Full faith and credit shall be given in each State to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other State. And the Congress may by general laws prescribe the manner in which such acts, records, and proceedings shall be proved, and the effect thereof.

For

578. Public Acts, Records, Etc.-The public acts referred to are acts of the Legislatures; the records are the records of wills, deeds, and legislative journals; the judicial proceedings are the orders and judgments of courts. a State to give full faith and credit to the acts and records of another State, is to give to them the same credit that the State to which they belong gives them. This provision is obviously essential to the domestic peace and order of a federal union like the United States. Even the Articles of Confederation contained the same provision in somewhat different words.

Section 2, Clause 1.-The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States.

579. Privileges and Immunities.-Whatever privileges and immunities any State accords to its own citizens, it must accord to the citizens of all the States who may happen to reside in it or visit it. A citizen of one State going into another cannot claim the privileges and immunities that he has enjoyed, unless they are also accorded by the State into which he goes to its own citizens. Inability to read is a bar to voting in Massachusetts and Connecticut,

and an illiterate citizen moving into either of those States from Rhode Island or Vermont cannot claim the right to vote because he has hitherto enjoyed that right. Still, civil and political rights are nearly the same in all the States. This provision was also contained in the Articles of Confederation, and is obviously necessary in a federal republic.

580. A Citizen Defined.-Previous to 1868 neither the National Constitution nor laws contained a definition of a citizen. The States made their own definitions, and there was more or less contrariety. Slaves were never citizens in any State; and Chief Justice Taney, in the Dred Scott decision, denied that free negroes were ever citizens "in the sense of the Constitution." The fact is, however, that they were citizens, and even voted on the same terms as white citizens, in several States, when the Constitution was framed and for some time afterwards. Amendment XIV. contains this definition of citizenship: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." A citizen of the United States is not, however, necessarily a citizen of any State; he may reside in a Territory or in the District of Columbia.

Section 2, Clause 2.—A person charged in any State with treason, felony, or other crime, who shall flee from justice, and be found in another State, shall, on demand of the executive authority of the State from which he fled, be delivered up to be removed to the State having jurisdiction of the crime.

581. Fugitives from Justice.-The National authority embraces all the States, and it can, by its own officers, arrest offenders against its laws anywhere within the National boundaries. The treason of this clause is therefore treason against a State. A felony is a crime punishable by death or imprisonment. The jurisdiction of a State is limited by its own boundaries; a State can punish only offenses committed against its own laws; criminals often escape from one State into another; while the United States,

save in cases of domestic violence, have nothing to do with enforcing State laws: hence there must be such a provision as this if criminals are to be punished and society protected. It is copied from the Articles of Confederation almost word for word.

The surrender by one nation to another claiming him of a person charged with crime, is known as extradition. This is not a right under the Law of Nations, but is commonly provided for between nations by treaty stipulations. The surrender of a criminal by one State to another under our system is also called extradition.

582. Surrendering Fugitives from Justice.-The Constitution says the demand for such a fugitive shall be made by the Executive of the State from which he escapes, but does not say who shall make the surrender. There was some friction at this point until, in 1793, Congress legislated on the subject.

The procedure now is for the Governor making a requisition for a criminal to address it to the Governor of the State to which the criminal has fled, distinctly stating the crime charged. The fugitive may be arrested and held in custody before the requisition is received, or made; but if not, then it becomes the duty of the Governor receiving it to order his immediate arrest, and his delivery to the agent of the Governor from whom the demand comes. The fugitive is then taken back to the State from which he fled, for trial. The Governor on whom such a demand is made has no right to go behind it to inquire into the merits of the case, but should obey the call; it makes no difference whether the offense charged be or be not a crime in the State where the criminal is found; still this rule is not always followed.

Section 2, Clause 3.-No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.

583. Fugitives from Service.-The States authorizing slavery in 1787 could provide for the capture and surrender of all fugitive slaves belonging to their citizens found within their own borders, but not for those fleeing beyond them. Hence the introduction of this clause into the Constitution as a part of the third compromise. It applied as

much to apprentices, or persons bound to service for a number of years, as to slaves, but it was inserted in the interest of slave-holders.

The clause in relation to fugitives from service is vaguer and more general than that in relation to fugitives from justice. It does not say how or by whom the capture or surrender shall be made. In 1793 Congress enacted a law for carrying the clause into effect, and in 1850 it enacted the law known as the Fugitive Slave Law, which was much more rigorous and efficient than the previous one. This law was one of the immediate causes that led to the election of President Lincoln, to the Civil War, the Emancipation Proclamation, and the Thirteenth Amendment. Congress repealed the law of 1850 and the slave sections of the law of 1793 in 1864.

CHAPTER XLI.

NEW STATES: THE TERRITORIAL SYSTEM.

ARTICLE IV.

REFERENCES.

Hinsdale, The Old Northwest (The author shows how the Thirteen Colonies were constituted by the royal charters, Chaps. VI.–VII.; defines the Northwestern land claims, XI., and gives in extenso, XII., XIII., the history of the cessions); Fiske, The Critical Period of American History (Chap. V. deals particularly with the political bearings of the Western land question, and especially as a factor in the formation of the Constitution); Adams, Maryland's Influence on Western Land Cessions to the United States. (This monograph deals particularly with the subject as related to the Articles of Confederation); Bancroft, Vol. VI., p. 277 et seq.

Section 3, Clause 1.--New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new State shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other State, nor any State be formed by the junction of two or more States, or parts of States, without the consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.

Section 3, Clause 2.-The Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to prejudice any claims of the United States, or of any particular State.

584. Western Land Claims.-At its formation, the American Union and the thirteen States were coextensive : there was no public domain. There were indeed large bodies of unoccupied lands on the Atlantic Slope, while the Lake Basin and the Mississippi Valley were wildernesses, but these waste lands were all claimed by certain of the States as their individual possessions. The case stood thus the boundaries of New Hampshire, Rhode Island,

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