REVISION AND CODIFICATION OF LAWS, ETC.

7

Section 151 of the bill adding to existing law a provision punishing the counterfeiting of Government securities by the employment of lithographic processes is an illustration of this purpose.

Second. To provide for the punishment of certain offenses which in the experience of the departments have been found to be of frequent occurrence, but for the punishment of which there is at present no statute.

Section 225 of the bill, making it a penal offense to present a fraudulent claim for the loss of a registered letter, etc., is an illustration of new enactments under this head.

Third. The advantage of assembling under this title and making their violation penal, certain provisions in existing law that are now merely directory, the strict observance of which is, nevertheless, important in the administration of government.

Section 173 of the bill forfeiting materials for counterfeiting is an illustration.

It is believed that on examination the proposed new sections will make clear the necessity for their enactment and that no further explanation of them is required.

NEW SECTIONS.

The committee has recommended the enactment of 21 new sections, as follows:

OFFENSES AGAINST THE OPERATIONS OF THE GOVERNMENT.

Section 33: False acknowledgments.

Section 47: Unlawfully entering fort, etc.

OFFENSES AGAINST OFFICIAL DUTIES.

Section 107: Falsely certifying, etc., as to record of deeds, etc.
Section 108. Other false certificates.

OFFENSES AGAINST PUBLIC JUSTICE.

Section 133: Juror or judicial officer, etc., accepting bribe.
Section 134: Witness accepting bribe.

Section 138: Prisoner escaping or attempting to escape.

OFFENSES AGAINST THE CURRENCY, COINAGE, ETC.

Section 163: Connecting parts of different instruments.

OFFENSES AGAINST THE POSTAL SERVICE.

Section 225: False claims for registered letters, etc.
Section 232: Definitions.

OFFENSES WITHIN THE ADMIRALTY AND MARITIME AND THE TERRITORIAL JURISDIOTION OF THE UNITED STATES.

Section 269: Definitions.

Section 271: Manslaughter.

Section 272: Punishment for murder; for manslaughter.

Section 288: Laws punishing certain offenses in the Territories made applicable.

8

REVISION AND CODIFICATION OF LAWS, ETC.

CERTAIN OFFENSES IN THE TERRITORIES.

Section 308: Places within which certain sections shall apply.

GENERAL AND SPECIAL PROVISIONS.

Section 332: Felonies and misdemeanors.

Section 334: Construction of certain words.

Section 335: Omission of words "hard labor" not to deprive court of power to impose.

Section 336: Arrangement and classification of sections.
Section 337: Jurisdiction of circuit and district courts.

CLASSIFICATION.

The classification adopted by your committee does not depart widely from that observed in the existing codification, yet it differs therefrom in some respects not wholly unimportant. The order in which the several chapters appear is distinctly different from the present arrangement. While these differences may not be deemed very, if at all, essential, it may be well to outline them and assign briefly our reasons for the departure. We give below the classification of offenses and arrangement of chapters, first, according to Revised Statutes, and second, in accordance with the plan we have adopted.

REVISED STATUTES.

Chapter one: General provisions.

Chapter two: Crimes against the existence of the Government.

Chapter three: Crimes arising within the maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States.

Chapter four: Crimes against justice.

Chapter five: Crimes against the operations of the Government.

Chapter six: Official misconduct, etc.

Chapter seven: Crimes against the elective franchise and civil rights of citizens.

Chapter eight: The punishment of accessories.

Chapter nine: Prisoners and their treatment.

PLAN ADOPTED BY COMMITTEE.

Chapter one: Offenses against the existence of the Government.

Chapter two: Offenses against neutrality.

Chapter three: Offenses against the elective franchise and civil rights of citizens.

Chapter four: Offenses against the operations of the Government.

Chapter five: Offenses relating to official duties.

Chapter six: Offenses against public justice.

Chapter seven: Offenses against the currency, coinage, etc.

Chapter eight: Offenses against the postal service.

Chapter nine: Offenses against foreign and interstate commerce.

Chapter ten: The slave trade and peonage.

Chapter eleven: Offenses within the admiralty and maritime and the terri

torial jurisdiction of the United States.

Chapter twelve: Piracy and other offenses upon the seas.
Chapter thirteen: Certain offenses in the Territories.

Chapter fourteen: General and special provisions.

Chapter fifteen: Repealing provisions.

Under the classification "Crimes against operations of the Government," in the present codification, are included offenses against the currency and against the postal service. It has seemed to your committee that to assemble all penal provisions for protection of the currency and coinage under a separate head, and all penal legislation

REVISION AND CODIFICATION OF LAWS, ETC.

9

for protection of the postal service under another, will greatly simplify the arrangement and afford readier access to the law in every case. Hence these two new chapters.

The foreign and interstate commerce of this country has assumed proportions so vast, is growing so rapidly, and legislative enactments pertaining thereto are already so numerous that it also seemed proper to collect the penal legislation relative thereto under a distinctive head.

"Chapter 8, The punishment of accessories," Revised Statutes, is unnecessary in the revision reported by your committee, as the subject-matter thereof (punishment of accessories) is covered by the general provision in chapter 14 hereinafter referred to.

The several sections which now constitute chapter 9, criminal title Revised Statutes, "Prisoners and their treatment," have been omitted from the penal title, as reported by your committee, for the reason that, in the plan adopted by the Commission, such sections will be distributed to other and more appropriate titles. Most of them will be found under the title "Penal and reformatory institutions," reported by the Commission. As these sections are not penal in character, but are simply enactments relating to the treatment and confinement of prisoners and convicts, it is the judgment of your committee that the plan of the Commission is the more logical and systematic disposition of them.

In the Revised Statutes many sections, penal in character, pertaining to the slave trade do not appear under the crimes title, but are a part of a separate and independent title, namely, "Title LXX, The slave trade," while other sections similar in purpose and character are found in chapters of the crimes title. It has seemed to your committee that the more orderly and systematic arrangement is to include them all in a separate chapter under the penal title. They will be found in chapter 10 of the bill reported.

Your committee has also included in this title a chapter, viz, Chapter II, under the heading "Neutrality." The sections constituting this chapter are not included in the criminal title of the Revised Statutes, but are provided for in a separate title, viz, Title LXVII. They are penal in character and unquestionably should appear in the penal title.

OFFENSES WITHIN THE ADMIRALTY AND MARITIME JURISDICTION.

A more comprehensive and uniform designation of the waters within the admiralty and maritime jurisdiction of the United States seemed to your committee desirable. In existing law the water or territory within which commission of the act denounced is made criminal is stated at more or less length in each section. The Commission, at page 1829, volume 2, of its report, has undertaken to name specifically every water to which the admiralty and maritime jurisdiction extends, and has then provided that certain acts committed on any such waters shall be crimes, etc. While the plan of the Commission is a great improvement on the existing system, or want of system, it is open to the objection that the list may possibly not include every place within such jurisdiction Therefore your committee has agreed upon what seems to it to be a brief general description, which com

10

REVISION AND CODIFICATION OF LAWS, ETC.

prehends every water to which the admiralty and maritime jurisdiction extends, namely:

SEC. 269. The crimes and offenses defined in this chapter shall be punished as herein prescribed:

First. When committed on the high seas, or on any other waters within the admiralty and maritime jurisdiction of the United States and out of the jurisdiction of any particular State, or when committed within the admiralty and maritime jurisdiction of the United States and out of the jurisdiction of any particular State, on board any vessel belonging in whole or in part to the United States or any citizen thereof, or to any corporation created by or under the laws of the United States or of any State, Territory, or District thereof. Second. When committed upon any vessel registered, licensed, or enrolled under the laws of the United States, and being on a voyage upon the waters of any of the Great Lakes, namely, Lake Superior, Lake Michigan, Lake Huron, Lake Saint Clair, Lake Erie, Lake Ontario, or any of the waters connecting any of said lakes, or upon the River Saint Lawrence, where the same constitutes the international boundary line.

That the admiralty and maritime jurisdiction of the United States extends to the high seas and all navigable waters within the territory of the United States will not be questioned. It seems equally clear that it extends to vessels belonging to the United States or to citizens thereof when on a navigable water within the limits of a foreign State, and all cases arising on board such vessel while on any such waters are clearly cases within the admiralty and maritime jurisdiction of the United States.

In the case of the Eagle (8 Wall., 15) the court, after stating the fact that the case of the Genesee Chief (12 Howard, 443) had established the doctrine that the navigability of a water and not the ebb and flow of the tide is the test of admiralty jurisdiction, said:

It follows, as a necessary consequence of this interpretation of the grant in that instrument, the district courts, upon whom the admiralty jurisdiction was exclusively conferred by the judiciary act of 1789, can take cognizance of all civil causes of admiralty jurisdiction upon the Lakes and waters connecting them, the same as upon the high seas, bays, and rivers navigable from the sea. These waters fall within the same category and are subject to the same jurisdiction, and hence the circumstance that a portion of them lie within the limits of another sovereignty constitutes no objection to the exercise of this power. Before the limit of tide water was removed by the judgment in the case of the Genesee Chief this jurisdiction was constantly exercised in cases of marine torts upon the high seas, bays, and rivers in which the tide ebbed and flowed occurring in any part of the world, and in respect to which an American ship was concerned, and, since that judgment, occurring upon any bay or public river as far as navigable, irrespective of the tide.

Since the recent acts of Parliament in England removing the ancient restrictions by the common-law courts upon the admiralty jurisdiction it seems to be exercised as freely and broadly as in this country. The case of the Diana arose out of a collision on the great Holland Canal in 1862. An exception was taken to that jurisdiction, founded upon the old objection, but was overruled by Doctor Lushington. So in the case of the Courier, which was a collision on the Rio Grande in foreign waters; and the Griefswald the same.

In the United States v. Rodgers (150 U. S., 249) the court, at pages 263, 264, 265, and 276, said:

The Detroit River from shore to shore is within the admiralty jurisdiction of the United States and connects with the open waters of the Lakes-high seas, as we hold them to be within the meaning of the statute. From the boundary line near its center to the Canadian shore is out of the jurisdiction of the State of Michigan.

It is true * that, as a general principle, the criminal laws of a nation do not operate beyond its territorial limits and that to give any government or its judicial tribunals the right to punish any act or transaction as a

REVISION AND CODIFICATION OF LAWS, ETC.

11

crime it must have occurred within those limits. We accept the doctrine as a general rule, but there are exceptions to it, as fully recognized in the doctrine itself. One of those exceptions is that offenses committed upon vessels belonging to citizens of the United States, within their admiralty jurisdiction (that is, within navigable waters), though out of the territorial limits of the United States, may be judicially considered when the vessel and parties are brought within their territorial jurisdiction. As we have before stated, a vessel is deemed part of the territory of the country to which she belongs. Upon that subject we quote the language of Mr. Webster, while Secretary of State, in his letter to Lord Ashburton of August, 1842. Speaking for the Government of the United States, he stated, with great clearness and force, the doctrine which is now recognized by all countries. He said:

"It is natural to consider the vessels of a nation as parts of its territory though at sea, as the state retains its jurisdiction over them, and according to the commonly received custom this jurisdiction is preserved over the vessels even in parts of the sea subject to a foreign dominion. This is the doctrine of the law of nations, clearly laid down by writers of received authority and entirely conformable, as it is supposed, with the practice of modern nations. If a murder be committed on board of an American vessel by one of the crew upon another or upon a passenger, or by a passenger on one of the crew or another passenger, while such vessel is lying in a port within the jurisdiction of a foreign state or sovereignty, the offense is cognizable and punishable by the proper court of the United States in the same manner as if such offense had been committee on board the vessel on the high seas.

"The law of England is supposed to be the same. It is true that the jurisdiction of a nation over a vessel belonging to it while lying in the port of another is not necessarily wholly exclusive. We do not consider or so assert it. For any unlawful acts done by her while thus lying in port, and for all contracts entered into while there by her master or owners, she and they must, doubtless, be answerable to the laws of the place. Nor if her master or crew, while on board in such port, break the peace of the community by the commission of crimes, can exemption be claimed for them. But nevertheless the law of nations, as I have stated it, and the statutes of governments founded on that law, as I have referred to them, show that enlightened nations in modern times do clearly hold that the jurisdiction and laws of a nation accompany her ships not only over the high seas, but into ports and harbors or wheresoever else they may be water borne, for the general purpose of governing and regulating the rights, duties, and obligations of those on board thereof, and that, to the extent of the exercise of this jurisdiction, they are considered as parts of the territory of the nation herself." (6 Webster's Works, 306, 307.)

The place in the Detroit River within the territorial limits of the Dominion of Canada where this offense is alleged to have been committed was doubtless "within the admiralty jurisdiction of the United States," under the decision in the Genesee Chief, and was "out of the jurisdiction of any particular State," under the decision in United States. Brailsford (5 Wheat., 184, 189, 200), already cited. Nor is there any doubt of the power of Congress to punish crimes committed on American vessels, wherever they may be afloat. (United States v. Furlong, 5 Wheat., 184, 194; Crapo v. Kelly, 16 Wall., 610, 624–626.)

While it is true that a vessel is deemed a part of the territory of the country to which she belongs, a case arising on board of her or growing out of the manner in which she is sailed is a case " of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction," and hence within the admiralty and maritime jurisdiction of the country to which she belongs.

Thus, Mr. Benedict, in his work on Admiralty, third edition, page 99, says:

Admiralty, a court having cognizance of all maritime affairs, civil as well as criminal. Maritime, relating to the sea.

And on page 100:

If we examine the etymology or received use of the words admiralty and maritime jurisdiction, we shall find that they include the judicial jurisdiction of the admiral and of all maritime causes or causes arising from things done upon and relating to the sea.