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The Congress of Vienna of 1815, in a large measure under the influence of Baron Humboldt, laid down the following rules:

(1) Navigation for the purpose of trade is not to be interdicted to any person on such navigable waters as traverse the territory of several states, this being conditioned on their conformity to local police regulations. (2) Tariffs for this purpose are to be established on a uniform and permanent basis (façon uniforme et invariable) and in such a way as not to prevent trade.

(3) The rights of "ancrage," of "nolis," and of "relâche forcée," etc., to be abolished.

(4) Each state will undertake such works as are useful in improving navigation.

(5) "Bureaux de perception" to be confined to such action as is strictly necessary.

(6) Frontier customs offices are to be so conducted as not unnecessarily to impede navigation.

The vagueness of these rules has led to many questions, which have been more or less solved by conventions between the parties in interest. 2 Fiore, Droit Int. (2d ed., 1885, translated by Antoine), § 761. Fiore proceeds to discuss in much detail the general rules of international law in respect to navigable rivers.

VI.-LAKES AND INLAND SEAS.

§ 31.

The right and title to the shores of the Great Lakes is in the sev eral States, and not in the United States.

6 Op., 172, Cushing, 1853.

As to conventions with Great Britain in respect to the great North American lakes, see infra, § 150.

An inland sea or lake belongs to the state in which it is territorially situated. As illustrations may be mentioned the inland lakes, whose entire body is within the United States, and the Sea of Azov. Those portions of the sea which are bounded by several European states were at one time claimed to belong in common to the states by which they are bounded; but this claim is not now allowed. The fact that both shores of an arm of the sea, as in the case with Magellan's Straits, have, subsequent to its adoption as a public highway, been under the possession of a single power, does not change its public character. Nor, it is now finally settled, can a strait which separates two or more countries (e. g., the British Channel or the Sound) be placed under their joint control, so as to put other countries at a disadvantage. distinctive rule has been adopted in reference to the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus, which, even in times of peace, are closed to the ships of war of all European nations, a rule only deviated from in cases of peculiar courtesy. Since 1871, the merchant ships of all nations have equal rights on the Black Sea.

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Whart. Com. Am. Law, § 192; Woolsey, § 57; and see, also, Holtzendorff, Enc.
1222, referring to Twiss's "Territorial Waters" in the Nautical Magazine,
1878; Stork, Jurisdiktion in Küstengewässern.

Under the treaty of Paris of 1856, the Black Sea is neutralized, and by a sub-
sequent convention Russia and Turkey limited their naval force on the
Black Sea. By a treaty of March 13, 1871, it is provided that "the Black
Sea remains open, as heretofore, to the mercantile marine of all nations."
For a specification of treaties referring to Turkey and the Black Sea, see
Phill., op. cit., 295 ff. As to neutralization see infra, § 40.

As to the North American lakes in respect to treaty limitations, sec infra, § 40.

VII. MARGINAL BELT OF SEA.

§ 32.

"The greatest distance to which any respectable assent among nations has been at any time given, has been the extent of the human sight, estimated at upwards of twenty miles, and the smallest distance, I believe, claimed by any nation whatever, is the utmost range of a cannon ball, usually stated at one sea league. The character of our coast, remarkable in considerable parts of it for admitting no vessels of size to pass near the shores, would entitle us, in reason, to as broad a margin of protected navigation as any nation whatever."

Mr. Jefferson, Sec. of State, to Mr. Genet, Nov. 8, 1793. MSS. Notes, For. Leg; 1 Am. State Pap. (For. Rel.), 183; 1 Wait's Am. St. Pap., 195.

The limit of one sea league from shore is provisionally adopted as that of the territorial sea of the United States.

Mr. Jefferson, Sec. of State, to the Minister of Great Britain, Nov. 8, 1793. MSS. Notes, For. Leg. (See, also, letter to District Attorneys, Nov. 10, 1793. MSS. Dom. Let.)

As to lines between head lands, see supra, §§ 27, 28; as to bays, supra, § 28.

"Our jurisdiction has been fixed (at least for the purpose of regulat ing the conduct of the Government in regard to any events arising out of the repsent European war) to extend three geographical miles (or nearly three and a half English miles) from our shores, with the exception of any waters or bays which are so land-locked as to be unquestionably within the jurisdiction of the United States, be their extent what they may."

Mr. Pickering, Sec. of State, to Gov. of Va., Sept. 2, 1796. MSS. Dom. Let. "The President (Mr. Jefferson, in an informal conversation) mentioned a late act of hostility committed by a French privateer near Charleston, S. C., and said we ought to assume, as a principle, that the neutrality of our territory should extend to the Gulf Stream, which was a natural boundary, and within which we ought not to suffer any hostility to be committed. Mr. Gaillard observed that on a former occasion in Mr. Jefferson's correspondence with Genet, and by an act of Congress at that period, we had seemed only to claim the usual distance of three miles from the coast; but the President replied that he had then assumed that principle because Genet, by his intemperance, forced us to fix on some point, and we were not then prepared to assert the claim of jurisdiction to the extent we are in reason entitled to; but he had taken care to reserve this subject for future consideration with a view to this same doctrine for which he now contends."

1 J. Q. Adams's Mem., 376-7.

"There could surely be no pretext for allowing less than a marine league from the shore, that being the narrowest allowance found in any authorities on the law of nations. If any nation can fairly claim a greater extent the United States have pleas which cannot be rejected;

and if any nation is more particularly bound by its own example not to control our claim, Great Britain must be so by the extent of her own claims to jurisdiction on the seas which surround her. It is hoped, at least, that within the extent of one league you will be able to obtain an effectual prohibition of British ships of war from repeating the irregu larities which have so much vexed our commerce and provoked the public resentment, and against which an article in your instructions emphatically provides. It cannot be too earnestly pressed on the British Government that in applying the remedy copied from regulations heretofore enforced against a violation of the neutral rights of British harbors and coasts, nothing more will be done than what is essential to the preservation of harmony between the two nations. In no case is the temptation or the facility greater to ships of war for annoying our commerce than in their hovering on our coasts and about our harbors; nor is the national sensibility in any case more justly or more highly excited than by such insults. The communications lately made to Mr. Monroe, with respect to the conduct of British commanders even within our own waters, will strengthen the claim for such an arrangement on this subject, and for such new orders from the British Government as will be a satisfactory security against future causes of complaint."

Mr. Madison, Sec. of State, to Messrs. Monroe and Pinkney, Feb. 3, 1807. MSS.
Instruc. to Ministers.

"The right of a government to seize a vessel within its own jurisdiction for an actual or presumed violation of the laws and to bring her to a trial before the competent tribunal cannot be denied."

Mr. Gallatin, minister at Paris, to Baron Pasquier, minister of foreign affairs,
June 28, 1821; 2 Gallatin's Writings, 186.

"A vessel on the high seas, beyond the distance of a marine league from the shore, is regarded as part of the territory of the nation to which she belongs, and subjected exclusively to the jurisdiction of that nation."

Mr. Webster, Sec. of State, to Lord Ashburton, Aug. 1, 1842; MSS. Notes Gr.
Brit.; 6 Webster's Works, 306; Whart. Conf. of Laws, § 356.

"The exclusive jurisdiction of a nation extends to the ports, harbors, bays, mouths of rivers, and adjacent parts of sea inclosed by headlands, and, also, to the distance of a marine league, or as far as a cannon shot will reach from the shore along all its coasts." Within these limits the sovereign of the mainland may arrest, by due process of law, alleged offenders on board of foreign merchant ships.

Mr. Buchanan, Sec. of State, to Mr. Jordan, Jan. 23, 1849. MSS. Dom. Let. "This Government adheres to, recognizes, and insists upon the princifle that the maritime jurisdiction of any nation covers a full marine league from its coast, and that acts of hostility or of authority within a marine league of any foreign country by naval officers of the United

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States are strictly prohibited, and will bring upon such officer the displeasure of this Government."

Mr. Seward, Sec. of State, to Mr. Welles, Sec. of the Navy, Aug. 4, 1862. MSS.
Dom. Let.

See, further, Mr. Seward to Mr. Welles, Oct. 10, 1862. Ibid.

"The undersigned would observe, in the first place, that there are two principles bearing on the subject which are universally admitted, namely, first, that the sea is open to all nations, and secondly, that there is a portion of the sea adjacent to every nation over which the sovereignty of that nation extends to the exclusion of every other polit ical authority.

"A third principle bearing on the subject is also well established, namely, that this exclusive sovereignty of a nation, thus abridging the universal liberty of the seas, extends no farther than the power of the nation to maintain it by force, stationed on the coast, extends. This principle is tersely expressed in the maxim Terræ dominium finitur ubi finitur armarum vis.

"But it must always be a matter of uncertainty and dispute at what point the force of arms exerted on the coast can actually reach. The publicists rather advanced towards than reached a solution when they laid down the rule that the limit of the force is the range of a cannonball. The range of a cannon-ball is shorter or longer according to the circumstances of projection, and it must be always liable to change with the improvement of the science of ordnance. Such uncertainty upon a point of jurisdiction or sovereignty would be productive of many and endless controversies and conflicts. A more practical limit of national jurisdiction upon the high seas was indispensably necessary, and this was found, as the undersigned thinks, in fixing the limit at three miles from the coast. This limit was early proposed by the publicists of all maritime nations. While it is not insisted that all nations have accepted or acquiesced and bound themselves to abide by this rule when applied to themselves, yet three points involved in the subject are insisted upon by the United States: First, that this limit has been generally recognized by nations; second, that no other general rule has been accepted; and third, that if any state has succeeded in fixing for itself a larger limit, this has been done by the exercise of maritime power, and constitutes an exception to the general understanding which fixes the range of a cannon-shot (when it is made the test of jurisdiction) at three miles. So generally is this rule accepted that writers commonly use the expressions of a range of cannon-shot and three miles as equivalents of each other. In other cases they use the latter expression as a substi tute for the former. Thus Wildman, in his 'Plain directions to naval officers as to the law of search, capture, and prize' (page 12, ed. London, 1854), says: "The capture of vessels within the territory of a neutral state, or within three miles of the coast, is illegal with respect

to the neutral sovereign,'

"Impressed by these general views, the United States are not prepared to admit that Spain, without a formal concurrence of other nations, can exercise exclusive sovereignty upon the open sea beyond a line of three miles from the coast, so as to deprive them of the rights common to all nations upon the open sea.

"The United States admit that they have a temporary interest (during the present insurrection) to maintain a broad freedom of the seas, so as to render their naval operations as effective as may be consistent with the law of nations.

Mr. Seward, Sec. of State, to Mr. Tassara, Dec. 16, 1862. MSS. Notes, Spain. "Nevertheless it cannot be admitted, nor indeed is Mr. Tassara understood to claim, that the mere assertion of a sovereign, by an act of legislation, however solemn, can have the effect to establish and fix its external maritime jurisdiction. His right to a jurisdiction of three miles is derived not from his own decree but from the law of nations, and exists even though he may never have proclaimed or asserted it by any decree or declaration whatsoever. He cannot, by a mere decree, extend the limit and fix it. at six miles, because, if he could, he could in the same manner, and upon motives of interest, ambition, or even upon caprice, fix it at ten, or twenty, or fifty miles, without the consent or acquiescence of other powers which have a common right with himself in the freedom of all the oceans. Such a pretension could never be successfully or rightfully maintained.

"It results from these remarks, that while it is admitted that on the part of Spain the claim is not one of new creation, it is practically one that has only recently been presented to the United States, and for aught that appears is entirely new to other maritime powers.

"The undersigned is far from intimating that these facts furnish conclusive reasons for denying the claim a respectful consideration. On the contrary, he very cheerfully proceeds to consider a farther argument, derived, as Mr. Tassara supposes, from reason and justice, which he has urged in respect to the claim. This ground is, that the shore of Cuba is, by reason of its islets and smaller rocks, such as to require that the maritime jurisdiction of Cuba, in order to purposes of effective defense and police, should be extended to the breadth of six miles. The undersigned has examined what are supposed to be accurate charts of the coast of Cuba, and if he is not misled by some error of the chart, or of the process of examination, he has ascertained that nearly half of the coast of Cuba is practically free from reefs, rocks, and keys, and that the seas adjacent to that part of the island which includes the great harbors of Cabanos, Havana, Matanzas, and Santiago are very deep, while in fact the greatest depth of the passage between Cuba and Florida is found within five miles of the coast of Cuba, off the harbor of Havana."

Mr, Seward, Sec. of State, to Mr. Tassara, Aug. 10, 1863, MSS. Notes, Spain,

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