Page:Henry Adams' History of the United States Vol. 2.djvu/357

338 Ellsworth in 1799, was in effect the same; he held that no citizen could dissolve the compact of protection and defence between himself and society without the consent or default of the community. On both sides the law was emphatic to the point that naturalization could not bind the government which did not consent to it; and the United States could hardly require England to respect naturalization papers which the Supreme Court of the United States declared itself unable to respect in a similar case. Nevertheless, while courts and judges declare what the law is or ought to be, they bind only themselves, and their decisions have no necessary effect on the co-ordinate branches of government. While the judges laid down one doctrine in Westminster Hall, Parliament laid down another in St. Stephen's chapel; and no one could say whether the law or the statute was final. The British statute-book contained Acts of Parliament as old as the reign of Queen Anne to encourage the admission of foreign seamen into the British navy, offering them naturalization as an inducement. American legislation went not quite so far, but by making naturalization easy it produced worse results. A little perjury, in no wise unsafe, was alone required in order to transform British seamen into American citizens; and perjury was the commonest commodity in a seaport. The British government was forced to