Henry Brockholst Livingston

“ By the same clause of the constitution, Congress have power to punish offences against the law of nations, and yet it would hardly be deemed a fair and legitimate execution of this authority, to declare, that all offences against the law of nations, without defining any one of them, should be punished with death. ”

“ It is not certain, that on examination, the crime would not be found to be more accurately defined in the code thus referred to, than in any writer on the law of nations; but the objection to the reference in both cases is the same; that it is the duty of Congress to incorporate into their own statutes a definition in terms, and not to refer the citizens of the United States for rules of conduct to the statutes or laws of any foreign country, with which it is not to be presumed that they are acquainted. ”

“ Nor is there any hardship in this, for the great body of the community have it in their power to become acquainted with the criminal code under which they live; not so when acts which constitute a crime are to be collected from a variety of writers, either in different languages, or under the disadvantage of translations, and from a code with whose provisions even professional men are not always acquainted. ”