said, the relations of which it is an incident may have an essentially local character; being such as could not be upheld, or continued, except in and for some jurisdiction by whose local law they were created. The relation of master and servant, when consisting in the involuntary absolute servitude of one person in respect to all objects of action-correlative to the right of another private person, is one which might continue the same in any jurisdiction. Whenever the servitude is limited, and in reference to specific local personalities things or circumstances, it is a condition which cannot exist in other states, or national jurisdictions, to which the subject of that condition may be transferred. Such a condition of bondage cannot, therefore, become one recognized by universal jurisprudence, or a law of nations. Absolute servitude of a legal person, in respect to all objects of action, might, however, be so recognized under principles having that historical character. Still more easily may chattel slavery be so recognized; it being a condition which in every state may be the same; for a thing-the object of rights, may be such within any territorial jurisdiction.'

§ 113. Whatever incidents in the personal condition of an alien should be ascribed to universal jurisprudence, by the tribunals of any one national jurisdiction, would be sustained, as under the international private law of the forum, while he should continue therein in alienage, and would become recognized effects of the municipal (internal) private law on his acquiring a domicil; taking effect as a personal law, (ante, § 54.) In other words, the rule of action, to which those incidents should be ascribed, would have like operation in the new forum upon the condition of the person coming from another jurisdiction, whether he should, or should not acquire a domicil in the new forum. While considered an alien, the operation of such rule would be classified under international law; and upon his acquiring a domicil, the same rule would become a recognized part of the municipal (internal) law. In this case, there would be no conflict between the laws of different jurisdictions, and no illustration of the so-called rule of comity, (ante, § 96.)

§ 114. If any incident of the personal condition of the alien 1 Compare §§ 44—47.,

is not founded on, or supported by this universal jurisprudence, or historical law of nations, its support in the forum of jurisdiction is then dependent upon the principle of comity, or that principle (the reason and nature of which has been before explained, §§ 76-78,) which gives admission to the effects of foreign laws, so far as natural circumstances of condition admit therein of the continuous existence of relations which first arose under the law of the former domicil; and the foreign law, creating those rights and obligations, may receive a personal extent under the authority of the sovereign of the new forum—the forum of jurisdiction. But the operation either of the law of nations— universal jurisprudence-or of the judicial rule of comity, upon the condition of alien persons, may always be contravened by the autonomic legislation of the supreme power. And the legal effect of each is also constantly subject to the limitation of a judicial application of rules, identified with the local law, (the internal law,) having universal personal extent. For if the local law attributes any rights, or obligations, universally within its jurisdiction,-i. e., to all natural persons, or to all natural persons in certain circumstances of natural condition, the possession of which is inconsistent with the relations formerly sustained by such persons under the law of their previous domicil, then the rights and obligations which, in those relations, constituted conditions of freedom, or its opposites, cannot, according to the general principles before stated, (§§ 77, 88,) be judicially sustained, nor receive a personal and international extent, under the authority of the sovereign of the forum of jurisdiction, either by force of comity-the judicial rule-or by being the effects of rules which may antecedently have been actually common among all nations, or have acquired the historical character of a law of nations.

§ 115. In determining what principles affecting the condition of persons domiciled under the local law, (or, in other words, what principles of the internal law,) are to be taken to have this universal personal extent to all natural persons within the national jurisdiction, the most authoritative indication is in such statutory enactments as may give this extent to the attribution of any right. Next in order are judicial precedents of

antecedent tribunals representing the same political source of law; though, from the manner in which the extent of any principle is judicially determined, such precedents are hardly distinguishable—separately from the customary recognition of universal jurisprudence, (see ante, $$ 99, 100.) In countries wherein jurisprudence has long been developed, the test of this universality of extent will ordinarily be found in one or the other of these sources of law-either the law of nations, or positive legislation. But if cases, affecting personal condition, are supposable in which these do not apply, it may be taken to be a legitimate result of the axiomatic principles of jurisprudence, rendered legally authoritative by the practice of legislating states, that wherever (in whatever national, or independent jurisdiction,) the juridical declaration of capacity for legal rights is not made by creating a relative condition of legal superiority for certain natural persons over other natural persons, but is judicially recognized as the statement of a law in the secondary sense of the word law, or of a mode of existence, antecedent to all rules of action embraced in the positive law of that jurisdiction, it has therein (in that jurisdiction) the character of a law of universal personal extent, which must be judicially applied as municipal (internal) law, and also as international law. Where, therefore, the local, or municipal law, operating as the internal, or territorial law, upon persons regarded as its native, or domiciled subjects, takes cognizance of them as legal persons, as well as natural persons, attributing to them capacity for legal rights and duties, simply as a part or incident of the attributes of natural persons, the constituents of society, it thereby declares, or recognizes a natural law or principle-a law in the secondary sense-which must be received and applied by its tribunals, or judicial officers, as a universal law in reference to natural persons appearing within its jurisdiction. And, in this case, no law of a foreign jurisdiction regarding a natural person as a thing, or chattel-the object of rights only, without capacity for rights-can be allowed by those tribunals to have international recognition; unless, by direct act of positive legislation, (statutes, or treaties,) such law of a foreign jurisdiction, formerly binding on the alien, is al

lowed to take effect as a law personal to him, and exceptional to the local, or territorial law. The alien must be regarded, in all judicial processes, like the native or domiciled inhabitants of the jurisdiction, as being possessed of all the rights which the local law attributes to natural persons who are not aliens, and as owing only those obligations which are derived from some law for legal persons, and of such a character that they may be recognized internationally without contravening in other respects the law of natural rights and universal application as judicially known in that jurisdiction.'

$116. But personality or capacity for legal rights might be recognized in all natural persons by the laws of one national jurisdiction, though relations might also be established, under those laws, which would give to one person a control over another, such as is inconsistent with the legal possession of personal liberty by the latter; and these rights of control and correlative obligations of subjection might be internationally recognized in other national jurisdictions, as the incidents of a relation between legal persons. Thus the loss of personal liberty under the criminal law of another state might be international ly supported, while the personality of the individual whose freedom is compromised or denied is not disallowed. Or the relations of parent and child, guardian and ward, master and servant, where the servitude of the latter is involuntary, though not of the chattel character,-might be internationally allowed in a jurisdiction wherein, on the grounds above stated, chattel slavery could be disallowed or ignored, under a judicial application of the private international law. But it is impossible to conceive of a legal attribution of personality without at the same time attributing some definite or specific legal rights, individual or relative (ante §§ 45, 46.) Whenever legal obligations are attributed to a natural person, the law, which creates those obligations, must enable him by a legal capacity for choice and action, to fulfil those obligations,-recognizing such action to be according to a legal faculty or power of action, and consequently recognizing a certain possession of legal rights. It would otherwise enable others to act in reference to him simply

1 See ante, § 102.

as an object; and so make him a chattel or thing, to which not even legal obligations can be attributed. Legal personality must consist in and by rights, (§§ 43, 44.) The municipal (local or internal) law must make this recognition of personality by the attribution of some rights; though it is not necessary, and is, indeed, naturally impossible, that all persons should sustain similar relations. Some rights, however, may be attributed to persons which are not incidents of relations of specific persons to other specific persons, or which may be equally attributed to any number of persons; while others must be taken to be incidents of relations caused by laws having, necessarily, limited personal extent, (§§ 55-57.) Where by the local or internal law all domiciled inhabitants are recognized as legal persons, irrespectively of the possession of relative rights, ordinarily so called, (§ 40,) and that recognition of legal personality is made, not simply as the attribution of a naked right to life, protected by public criminal law, vindicating the welfare of the state, (§ 45,) but by attributing definite individual or absolute rights, protected by the private law of remedy,-there the local law, attributing those rights, must be looked upon as the recognition of, or statement of, a law in the secondary sense, a natural law; and those rights be taken to be the incidents of a state of things existing independently of rules of action established by the state. Being of this character it may be judicially taken to be a law of universal personal extent; that is, one applying to all persons within the power or recognized territorial jurisdiction of that law, and those rights may be attributed to all, as being natural or primordial rights,—that is, rights incident to the condition of persons in the simple primordial relation of individual. members of civil society. Where the right of personal liberty is thus attributed by the municipal (internal) law to each individual domiciled within the limits of a state or national jurisdiction, it must be taken to be attributed to those natural persons under a law intended, by its political source, to be a law of universal personal application; which is to be judicially taken to apply to all persons within the territorial jurisdiction of that law, irrespectively of their domicil or their previous subjection to other laws or jurisdictions; and this attribution of that right