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8 disposed of the contention made by Russia in the following terms (Foreign Relations of the United States, 1881, p. 1033):

"“These questions of the conflict of local law and international treaty stipulations are among the most common which have engaged the attention of publicists, and it is their concurrent judgment that where a treaty creates a privilege for aliens in express terms, it cannot be limited by the operation of domestic law without a serious breach of the good faith which governs the intercourse of nations. So long as such a conventional engagement in favor of the citizens of another state exists, the law governing natives in like cases is manifestly inapplicable.”"

The State Department has consistently refused to accept the principle now contended for by Russia, not only in our diplomatic relations with that country, but also with other countries as well.

Prior to the Constitution of Switzerland of 1874, under which religious equality is now guaranteed as effectually as in the United States, subjects of Jewish faith were prohibited from establishing themselves in certain Cantons and were under heavy disabilities in others. Representations were made to Switzerland by several European countries, as well as by the United States, in reply to which these Cantons maintained the right to impose the same disabilities on subjects of foreign nations with which Switzerland had concluded treaties of friendship, commerce and intercourse, as were imposed on natives of the same class in Switzerland. In opposition to this contention, Mr. Seward, our Secretary of State, entered into a voluminous correspondence with Mr. Fay, the American representative in Switzerland, instructing him to insist upon the rights of American Jews, notwithstanding the disabilities under which the particular Cantons had placed Jews of Swiss origin.