Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol III).djvu/208

 200 § 1324. As there are incidental powers belonging to the United States in their sovereign capacity, so there are incidental rights, obligations, and duties. It may be asked, how these are to be ascertained. In the first place, as to duties and obligations of a public nature, they are to be ascertained by the law of nations, to which, on asserting our independence, we necessarily became subject. In regard to municipal rights and obligations, whatever differences of opinion may arise in regard to the extent, to which the common law attaches to the national government, no one can doubt, that it must, and ought to be resorted to, in order to ascertain many of its rights and obligations. Thus, when a contract is entered into by the United States, we naturally and necessarily resort to the common law, to interpret its terms, and ascertain its obligations. The same general rights, duties, and limitations, which the common law attaches to contracts of a similar character between private individuals, are applied to the contracts of the government. Thus, if the United States become the holder of a bill of exchange, they are bound to the same diligence, as to giving notice, in order to