The sovereign compact and the clash of duties: Protecting citizens abroad versus respecting foreign sovereignty

“ Surely a citizen of the United States has as much right in any one of the states as he would have in a foreign land, however remote or however powerful its government may be. Protection at home in the secure enjoyment of the rights of person and property is the foundation of all human government, without which its forms are a mockery and with which mere forms of government become a matter of indifference. Protection goes with allegiance, and allegiance ceases to be a duty when protection is denied. ”

“ It is the right of every American citizen to have full and ample protection in the enjoyment of life, liberty, and happiness; and the duty of the United States, in those places where it has the sole and exclusive jurisdiction, to extend that protecting hand over them; and the duty of the States and Territories in their respective jurisdictions, subject to the constitution and laws of the United States, to extend a like protecting hand. ”

“ On the other hand, the constitutions of all civilized governments, whether written or unwritten, the principles of the civil as well as those of the common law, and the teachings of wise men of ancient and of modern times, recognize as a duty the protection of individual or selfish interests. They recognize as just and necessary the restraint and punishment of wrong-doers, and the protection of the rights and interests of the individual in person and property. ”

“ The extension of the judiciary power of the United States to such controversies, appears to me to be wise, because it is honest, and because it is useful. It is honest, because it provides for doing justice without respect of persons, and by securing individual citizens as well as States, in their respective rights, performs the promise which every free Government makes to every free citizen, of equal justice and protection. It is useful, because it is honest, because it leaves not even the most obscure and friendless citizen without means of obtaining justice from a neighbouring State ”

“ Under the influence of the right of protection over its subjects abroad which every State holds, and the corresponding duty of every State to treat aliens on its territory with a certain consideration, an alien, provided he owns a nationality at all, cannot be outlawed in foreign countries, but must be afforded protection of his person and property. ”

“ HOW CITIZENS ABROAD ARE PROTECTED. One of the things that makes citizenship desirable is the protection which it secures. This is particularly grateful when one is in a foreign country. What a feeling of strength and security one has when far away from home among strangers to know that his rights must be respected, to realize that behind him is the might of the nation!
Passports.—A United States passport is an instrument in writing, issued by the secretary of state and under his seal, informing the world that the bearer is a citizen of the United States, that he travels under its protection. ”

“ Justice STORY said, speaking for the court, that 'the laws of no nation can justly extend beyond its own jurisdiction, except so far as regards its own citizens. They can have no force to control the sovereignty or rights of any other nation within its own jurisdiction. ”

“ And as a corollary of the recognized power of a government thus to deal with its own citizen by a decree which would be operative within its own borders, irrespective of any extraterritorial efficacy, it follows that the right of another sovereignty exists, under principles of comity, to give to a decree so rendered such efficacy as to that government may seem to be justified by its conceptions of duty and public policy. ”

“ A sovereign has jurisdiction of offenses which take effect within his territory, although concocted or commenced outside of it; but the right is denied of any foreign sovereign to punish a citizen of the United States for an offense consummated on our soil in violation of our laws, even though the offense be against a subject or citizen of such sovereign. ”

“ If the national government shows itself so regardless of the honor and interests of a State as has been evinced by the cold indifference with which negotiations for the last fifty years have been carried on, it becomes the solemn duty of the sovereignty thus trampled upon to rise and maintain its own rights. ”

“ In another sense, according to some writers [5] , every State, which governs itself without any dependence on another power, is a sovereign State. Whether, with regard to her own citizens, this is the case of the State of Georgia; whether those citizens have done, as the individuals of England are said, by their late instructors, to have done, surrendered the Supreme Power to the State or Government, and reserved nothing to themselves; or whether, like the people of other States, and of the United States, the citizens of Georgia have reserved the Supreme Power in their own hands ”

“ Here we see the people acting as sovereigns of the whole country; and in the language of sovereignty, establishing a Constitution by which it was their will, that the State Governments should be bound, and to which the State Constitutions should be made to conform. Every State Constitution is a compact made by and between the citizens of a State to govern themselves in a certain manner; and the Constitution of the United States is likewise a compact made by the people of the United States to govern themselves as to general objects, in a certain manner. ”

“ DUTIES.--For every right, the people have a corresponding duty; and for every privilege they enjoy, there is a trust for them to discharge. The large personal freedom possessed by the American citizens imposes equally as large public responsibilities. It is the duty of every citizen to obey the law, to aid in securing justice, to respect authority, to love his country, and to labor for the public good. No one can be a useful member of society unless he respects the laws and institutions of the land. The people themselves have established this government, both State and national ”

“ The right of suffrage is one of great power and value, being the basis of all free government, and is jealously guarded by the laws of the land.
DUTIES.--The people have extensive rights and they have equally extensive duties. Each citizen has rights that others must respect. It is the duty of each to observe and regard the rights of all other persons; and when he does not, the law interferes by its officers and deprives him of his own rights by fine or imprisonment, and in some instances by a still more severe penalty. It is the duty of the people to love and serve the country ”

“ The kind and extent of the rights recognized and protected in any country determine the form of its government. As a rule, there is more freedom among citizens of a republic than among those of other governments, because a republic guarantees more rights.
RIGHTS AND DUTIES.
People have many rights, and they have as many duties. Each right given to a person is a trust placed in his hands for him to discharge. A right implies a duty, and a duty implies a right. ”

“ The truth is, however, that the citizen's first duty is to maintain his rights, as it is the purchaser's first duty to receive the thing for which he has contracted.
336. Our rights in society are numerous; the right of enjoying life and property; the right of exerting our physical and mental powers in an innocent manner; but, the great right of all, and without which there is, in fact, no right, is, the right of taking a part in the making of the laws by which we are governed. This right is founded in that law of Nature spoken of above; it springs out of the very principle of civil society ”

“ The justification of the constraint exercised by the State upon its own citizens is the necessity for security, the obligation of self-defence, which arises from the fact that outside the State there are other States, each endowed like itself with sovereignty, each of them maintaining by force its conception of right. ”

“ 'To secure these rights,' says the Declaration of Independence, 'governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.' The very highest duty of the States, when they entered into the Union under the Constitution, was to protect all persons within their boundaries in the enjoyment of these 'unalienable rights with which they were endowed by their Creator.' Sovereignty, for this purpose, rests alone with the States. It is no more the duty or within the power of the United States to punish for a conspiracy to falsely imprison or murder within a State, than it would be to punish for false imprisonment or murder itself. ”

“ In other words, if the State in which a citizen of the United States may reside can not, does not or will not protect him in the exercise and enjoyment of his personal, civil and political rights, he is without a remedy. The result is that the Federal Government is placed in the awkward and anomalous position of exacting support and allegiance from its citizens, to whom it can not in return afford protection, unless they should be outside the boundaries of their own country. ”

“ The right of a government to maintain its existence -- self-preservation -- is the most pervasive aspect of sovereignty. "Security against foreign danger," wrote Madison, "is one of the primitive objects of civil society." ”

“ The head of the judiciary is appointed by the Supreme Leader, who in turn appoints the head of the Supreme Court and the chief public prosecutor. According to the constitution, under the supervision of the head of the judiciary, the Court of Administrative Justice investigates the grievances of citizens with regard to government officials, organs, and statutes. In practice, however, citizens' ability to sue the government is limited. It appeared that citizens were not able to bring lawsuits against the government for civil or human rights violations. ”

“ No-one shall be privileged, favoured, injured, deprived of any right or exempt from any duty because ofhis ancestry,sex,race,language,territoryoforigin, religion,political or ideological convictions,education, economic situation or social condition. ARTICLE 14 Portuguese citizens sojourning or residing abroad shall enjoy the protection of the state in the exercise of their rights and shall be subject to such duties as are not incompatible with their absence from the country. ”

“ But here again the confusion of thought consists in mistaking the scope and extent of the sovereign power of the United States as a nation, and its relation to its citizens, and their relations to it. It presumes that government does not, by its very nature, benefit the citizen and his property wherever found. Indeed, the argument, while holding on to citizenship, belittles and destroys its advantages and blessings by denying the possession by government of an essential power required to make citizenship completely beneficial. ”

“ When citizens of the United States voluntarily go into a foreign country, they must abide by the laws there in force, and will not be protected by their own Government from the consequences of an offense against those laws committed in such foreign country; but watchful care and interest of this Government over its citizens are not relinquished because they have gone abroad, and if charged with crime committed in the foreign land a fair and open trial, conducted with decent regard for justice and humanity, will be demanded for them. ”

“ By what acts expatriation may be assumed to have been accomplished, how long an American citizen may reside abroad and receive the protection of our passport, whether any degree of protection should be extended to one who has made the declaration of intention to become a citizen of the United States but has not secured naturalization, are questions of serious import, involving personal rights and often producing friction between this Government and foreign governments. ”

“ A nation whose foreign policy is characterized by a firm insistence on respect for its citizens' rights never sacrifices the respect of other nations—even the respect of those against whom the action is taken. A national policy that insists upon the prompt and generous fulfillment of international duty in the protection of foreigners and in payment for damages done them is one that will do more to make America respected among the other nations of the New World than will one whose chief feature is the exchange of courtesies in which hard facts are glossed. ”

“ As yet, so far as I am aware, there has been no violation of our neutrality rights, which, as well as our duties in that respect, it shall be my endeavor to maintain and observe.
It is with regret I announce that no further payment has been received from the Government of Venezuela on account of awards in favor of citizens of the United States. Hopes have been entertained that if that Republic could escape both foreign and civil war for a few years its great natural resources would enable it to honor its obligations. ”

“ But some of them have been a prey to such continuous revolutionary misrule as to have grown impotent either to do their duties to outsiders or to enforce their rights against outsiders. The United States has not the slightest desire to make aggressions on any one of these states. On the contrary, it will submit to much from them without showing resentment. If any great civilized power, Russia or Germany, for instance, had behaved toward us as Venezuela under Castro behaved, this country would have gone to war at once. ”

“ The question is, therefore, whether States have a right to jurisdiction over acts of foreigners committed in foreign countries, and whether the home State of such an alien has a duty to acquiesce in the latter's punishment in case he comes into the power of these States. The question must be answered in the negative. For at the time such criminal acts are committed the perpetrators are neither under the territorial nor under the personal supremacy of the States concerned. And a State can only require respect for its laws from such aliens as are permanently or transiently within its territory. ”

“ To controversies between a State, or the citizens thereof; and foreign States, citizens or subjects; because, as every nation is responsible for the conduct of its citizens towards other nations; all questions touching the justice due to foreign nations, or people, ought to be ascertained by, and depend on national authority. Even this cursory view of the judicial powers of the United States, leaves the mind strongly impressed with the importance of them to the preservation of the tranquillity, the equal sovereignty, and the equal right of the people. ”

“ To controversies between a state, or the citizens thereof, and foreign states, citizens, or subjects; because, as every nation is responsible for the conduct of its citizens towards other nations, all questions touching the justice due to foreign nations, or people, ought to be ascertained by, and depend on, national authority. Even this cursory view of the judicial powers of the United States leaves the mind strongly impressed with the importance of them to the preservation of the tranquility, the equal sovereignty, and the equal rights of the people. ”

“ We have sent ships as far toward the points of actual disturbance as it is possible for them to go, where they offer refuge to those obliged to flee, and we have the promise of other powers which have ships in the neighborhood that our citizens as well as theirs will be received and protected on board those ships. On the demand of our minister orders have been issued by the Sultan that Turkish soldiers shall guard and escort to the coast American refugees. ”

“ Now there is certainly, as far as the Law of Nations is concerned, no duty incumbent upon a State to exercise its protection over its citizens abroad. The matter is absolutely in the discretion of every State, and no citizen abroad has by International Law, although he may have it by Municipal Law, a right to demand protection from his home State. Often for political reasons States have in certain cases refused the exercise of their right of protection over citizens abroad. ”