Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 8.djvu/166

150 ISO HARVARD LAW REVIEW, foreign nations ; second, the consequences with respect to dealings with sister States. If each State possesses this full sovereignty, it may at any time do acts which will surely embroil itself in war with foreign nations, a war which may result disastrously and may involve other States in international difficulties. Both the border States and the sea- board States would be peculiarly liable to such troubles ; and the Constitution was framed with the express view of preventing such occurrences. The inadmissibility of this claim of sovereign power on the part of a State is clearly pointed out by Judge Story. " The States, as such, are not known in our intercourse with for- eign nations, and not recognized as common sovereigns on the ocean. And if they were permitted to exercise criminal or civil jurisdiction thereon, there would be endless embarrassments aris- ing from the conflict of their laws, and the most serious dangers of perpetual controversies with foreign nations. In short, the peace of the Union would be constantly put at hazard by acts over which it had no control, and by assertions of right which it might wholly disclaim."^ Equally alarming consequences will result from the doctrine that a State may, with impunity, authorize aggressions upon the prop- erty of the citizens of a sister State. If it be established that the agents of the authorizing State cannot be called to account in the Federal Courts for their acts, then, in all cases of serious injury one of three results must follow, either (i) the assailed State must submit to gross injustice ; or (2) laws will be passed of a retaliatory nature; such as were actually passed by three States "during the steamboat controversy," and which "threatened the safety and security of the Union ;" ^ or (3) the injured State must resort to the right of revolution, secede from the Union, and go to war with the aggressive State. If the aggrieved State had never become a member of the Union, the right of making war would have been left to her as a last resort. But when New Hampshire entered the Union, she expressly gave up the right of making war, or conclude a treaty of peace. Her hands are tied. " Bound hand and foot by the prohibitions of the Constitution, a complaining State can neither treat, agree, or fight with its adversary without the consent of Congress." ^ Does she 1 Story on the Constitution, s. 1673. *Sec. 12 Peters, p. 726.
 * Story, J., II Peters, 159-160.