There are other reasons for believing that the "three rules" will never be communicated to the other powers. No conference can take place for the purpose of examining them without opening the door to the discussion of the whole maritime law. In the answer of the British government to the proposition of Russia to take part in the conference of Brussels, it insists that the discussion should be limited to the objects of humanity in which it originated, at the suggestion of "The Society for the Amelioration of the Condition of Prisoners of War." England would not take exception to the discussion of details respecting the operations of war on land, which it may appear useful and practicable to consider, but she declares that she is firmly resolved not to enter into any discussion as to the rules of international law, regulating the relations of belligerents, and not to contract any new obligation, or any new engagement of any kind with regard to general principles.

The conference of Brussels proposes objects altogether different from the matter to which the rules of the treaty of Washington apply. That treaty refers to the relations between belligerents and neutrals, while the invitation to the conference of Brussels has been followed by the project of a code for war, regulating the conduct to be pursued by the belligerents themselves and the manner of making war on land. England, which had taken part in the convention of Geneva for wounded soldiers and in that of St. Petersburg relative to explosive balls, had reason to believe, which is indeed indicated in the dispatch of Count Gortschakoff of the 30th of April, "that the projet which had been submitted to the examination of the cabinets was only a point of departure for the ulterior deliberations which might prepare the way for a general understanding."

The motive of the reservations made by England may be readily appreciated. Although only rules for war on land had been proposed, the discussions once entered upon might go far beyond the point indicated. England has never been willing to consider any modification of maritime law, and she is opposed to every thing which could restrict her authority on the sea. We may well deduce from the spirit of the notes exchanged between Russia and England that the latter power regrets the concessions which she made in favor of neutrals in becoming a party to the "declaration" of Paris of 1856, by which, among other things, she acknowledged the immunity of enemy's goods on board of neutral vessels whilst neutral property in enemy's ships was also protected from seizure. Unless torpedoes should accomplish a revolution in naval warfare, England will not again voluntarily enter on the discussion of maritime law in a European congress.* England probably believed, at the epoch of the declaration of Paris, that she would have for her concessions an equivalent in the abolition of privateering without according the immunity of private property, thus placing the commerce of the whole world under the con

That the concessions made at the congress of Paris were always unacceptable to the public sentiment of England, all the debates in Parliament from the date of the "declaration" to the answer of the Earl of Derby to the interpellation, on the 3d of July, 1874, of the Earl of Denbigh, as to the conference of Brussels, will show. The last (September) number of the (London) Law Magazine, which reached us since our letter was sent to Geneva, contains an article suggesting a return to the old British system of maritime law, while it deprecates any immunity from capture of enemy's property at sea, and condemns the concessions as to enemy's property on neutral vessels made by the ⚫ declaration" of Paris.

trol of her military marine. The United States have never consented to the abolition of privateering, and they will not do so as long as their vessels are exposed to be captured by vessels of the British navy, but had they acceeded to the “declaration of Paris,” a single regulation giving to their merchant's ships, which would otherwise have been privateers, the character of a volunteer navy, would have rendered the prohibition illusory. This was done in our civil war, in which the blockade was principally maintained by vessels purchased or chartered from the merchant service and invested with all the prerogatives of ships of war. Moreover, after the first year of the war there were no confederate privateers. They had all become public ships.*

England would prefer losing all the advantages of the "three rules" which have cost her fifteen and a half millions of dollars, than to accord the immunity of private property on the sea, a rule which was adopted by Prussia, Italy and Austria-Hungary in the war of 1866, and by Germany in the first months of the war with France of 1870. Nor could she allow to be discussed before an international assembly her rule of "indirect voyages," which she maintains in spite of the law of blockade established by the treaty of Paris, the principles of which would limit the effects of a blockade to the operations of the vessels in the waters adjacent to the blockading port. This rule of “indirect voyages," according to which the right is assumed of seizing a neutral vessel going out of a neutral port bound for another neutral port (no matter at what distance from the blockaded port) on the suspicion that the cargo, after having been landed at a neutral port, would be afterward sent to a blockaded port, was, it will be recollected, invoked by the United States in the exceptional condition in which they were placed during the civil war. It is the rule which we successfully combatted before the mixed commission under the 12th article of the treaty of Washington in the case of the Circassian. And it is with satisfaction that we infer from the correspondence now before us that the government of the United States is disposed to return to those doctrines which it ever put forward before the war of secession, and even to insist on the abolishing of commercial blockade. +

In conclusion-it cannot be doubted that there is an end of the "three rules." They are not in terms annulled between the two parties to the treaty; but this we may expect will happen on the first change in the administration at Washington. In no case will they be presented to the acceptance of the other powers, nor will they ever become an integral part of the law of nations, and no one can regret that rules growing out of the exigency of the moment, established, as Vernon Harcourt has well explained, by the electrical telegraph, will not enter into the law of nations and to transfer from belligerents to neutrals the expenses of wars to which the latter are strangers.

It would seem that Prussia, also, proposed, during the Franco-Prussian war, to have recourse to a volunteer navy, though, unlike the case of the American volunteer navy, the owners of the merchant ships were to have an interest in their vessels. By a decree of 24th of July, 1870, an appeal was made to ship owners to place their vessels at the disposition of the government. They were not to be employed in the capture of private property, but only against vessels belonging to the French government and they were to be rewarded according to the rank and size of the vessels captured or destroyed.

See our essay on " Belligerent and Sovereign Rights as regards Neutrals during the War of Secession,"

Our opposition to the "three rules" does not arise from the considerations which have caused the negotiations between the two contracting parties for their presentation to the "great powers " to fail. On the contrary, since there no longer exists the right of visitation for the search of enemy's property on board of neutral vessels, we are of opinion, as we have on several occasions stated, that the duty of prohibiting the exportation of materials of war and of arms by their citizens should be imposed on neutral governments, in exchange for the abandonment of the belligerent right of search for contraband of war, which now constitutes the only exception to the immuuity of neutral merchant vessels at sea.

It is the interpretation which the tribunal of Geneva has accorded to the term "due diligence" as it is found in the first and third rules which renders the rules unacceptable. According to that interpretation "due diligence ought to be exercised by the neutral governments in exact proportion to the risk to which either of the belligerents may be exposed, from a failure to fulfill the obligations of neutrals on their part." The neutrals are thus made to guarantee, in every case, the property of a belligerent, which may be within their jurisdiction, against the violation of their neutrality by the other belligerents.

Since the three rules" have been put aside, the attention of publicists has been drawn from the consideration of the duties of neutrals to the relations between the belligerents themselves, and while we render justice to the philanthropists, who make every effort to solace the sufferings of humanity, we may be permitted to doubt whether it is possible to mitigate the calamities arising from war, otherwise than by causing war to cease altogether. Our friend and colleague, Mr. Hautefeuille, contends against the immunity of private property at sea, a proposition which, according to him, is directly contrary to the law of humanity. He even denies the principle of the rules, which is founded on the supposed fact that private property is inviolable on land - a proposition which, taken in its full extent, is very far from being true.

"War," says he, "is the most terrible scourge with which God can afflict the human race, but it is not only terrible by the number of men who succumb under the immediate blows of the enemy, but it is even much more so by the consequences, perhaps less immediate but inevitable, which it brings with it. Nations suffer a great deal more from these consequences than from the direct effects of war. In order that a war may be of short duration, it is necessary to leave to its operations the fullest scope. War ought to be terrible in order to inspire nations and sovereigns with a great horror of it, because this horror may avert vain quarrels and induce parties to be moderate in their pretensions, even when they are the most just. It is in that conviction that we have applauded all discoveries, all improvements, which in our times render weapons of war so murderous. These inventions, these improvements, are really services rendered to humanity, because by making war more terrible they forcibly abridge its duration and consequently spare to belligerent nations immense sufferings."

Bluntschli, wishing to proscribe the employment of chain bullets in wars on laud, and of red hot bullets and couronnes foudroyantes in maritime wars, says, speaking of the convention of 1868: "Russia has proposed to interdict explosible balls, but she has not extended this prohibition to all explosible projectiles

whatsoever." See French edition of 1870, note to section 560. In the German edition of 1873, section 558, a, he inserts, as a rule, the declaration of the Congress of St. Petersburg, which prohibits the employment of any projectile, of a weight inferior to four hundred grammes, which is either explosible or loaded with fulminating or inflammable materials. In the commentary annexed to the article it is said "the declaration refers only to musket balls and not to the great artillery projectiles, which are likewise explosible and make still more severe wounds. These are regarded as necessary to carry on war effectually."

Our illustrious colleague Heffter is more consistent, when he says "the laws of war proscribe the use of instruments of destruction which, with a single blow and by mechanical means, strike down entire masses of troops and reducing man to the role of an inert being, increase uselessly the effusion of blood. We cite the employ of cross-bar bullets (boulets ramés) in a battle on land, or red-hot bullets or couronnes foudroyantes in a naval battle, projectiles which, with a single explosion, annihilate ships with all on board of them."

The Prussian government had proposed to extend the application of the convention of St. Petersburg by a note of the 29th of June, 1868, according to which several other means of destruction were prohibited, but England was not disposed to consent to it. Her numerical weakness obliges her to rely principally for her defense upon the destructive weapons which she has invented, and upon the application of science to the discovery of others.

We do not find any mention of torpedoes in any work upon international law. They possess all the qualities of the munitions of war interdicted by Heffter, whilst they furnish the best proofs of the wisdom of Hautefeuille's principle as preventing by their destructiveness all wars. It was two years ago that the "Admiral" of the navy of the United States, in explaining in my presence, to my guest, Mr. Schleiden (formerly the Hanseatic minister to the United States and subsequently a member of the REICHSTAG), at the great naval station for the manufacture of torpedoes in this harbor, the manner of employing them, did not hesitate to declare that there could never be another naval battle. Our fleet, which blockaded the southern coast during the civil war, he said, suffered greatly from torpedoes, and if the confederates had brought them to their present state of perfection, the blockade would have been impossible. It is now known how to apply torpedoes at sea, and no vessel ever goes from our navy yards without being provided with them.

The study of torpedoes forms an obligatory part of the regular course of education of every American naval officer.

We may ask of Germany, who owes to her torpedoes, imperfect as they were, the security of her coasts and the freedom of her ports from blockade during the Franco-German war, if it was not better for her to tolerate the injuries done to her by the sharpshooters and the inhabitants of the towns who armed themselves in their own behalf for the defense of their homes, and for which the Prussian ordinance of 1813 afforded a precedent, than to enter into negotiations to regulate anew the relations of belligerents to one another. Any such discussion might well place torpedoes in the same category with explosive balls, and induce the application to them of the principle advanced by their great publicist, Heffter, who, as we have seen,

objects to the employment of projectiles, which may annihilate by a single explosion a vessel with its whole complement of men. Torpedoes explain why we did not hear any thing of that great French fleet which at the commencement of the Franco-German war, it was vaunted was superior to that of Great Britain.

We have seen it mentioned in some foreign newspapers that the United States have been invited to be represented in the conference. We have no other knowledge whether it be so or not. The American journals have not spoken of it and we have learned nothing on the subject from the department of State.*

If the object before the congress had related to maritime law, America might have been obliged, looking to the propositions hitherto made by her, to take part in it. But as the programme referred 'only to regulating armies on land, questions respecting which can scarcely become matters of practical application between us and the powers of continental Europe, it was, probably, thought expedient not to abandon our system, which nearly a century had sanctioned, and to expose ourselves to the embarrassments of foreign combinations.

All that we have learned to the present time respecting the "conference," indicates that in abstaining from causing itself to be represented at Brussels, the American government has acted wisely. France and Austria, as well as England, have accompanied adhesion with reservations. Agreeing as we do with Russia and Germany on maritime law, without regular armies and accustomed to depend on our citizen-soldiers for the defense of our soil against invasion, we are not in a situation blindly to admit the superior right of an army of occupation and the illegality of popular resistance nor to accept without reserve a military code, notwithstanding its American origin, which was 'composed with a view to a state of civil war.+

I do not wish by what has been said to derogate from the merit of those philanthropists who devote themselves to the mitigation of the evils of war. My object is to show that the cause of humanity can only be advanced by putting an end to war itself. And it is precisely to accomplish this result by good offices and arbitration that the efforts of publicists are now directed.

It is to be remembered that there was a declaration made by the congress of Paris of 1856, that "States between whom any serious difficulties should arise would, as far as circumstances would permit, before appealing to arms, have recourse to the good offices of a friendly power." The declaration by itself did not go very far, but we only recollect one occasion, the case of Luxembourg, in which the principle has been invoked. The conference of Brussels might well present it anew to the "powers" as the most efficacious means of advancing the cause of humanity, while awaiting the accomplishment of your beautiful idea, The United States of Europe," on the model of our

* It is said in a telegraphic dispatch from Mr. Watson, British charge d'affaires, to the Earl of Derby, dated Washington, July 18, 1874: "The Russian government invited the government of the United States on the 8th inst., and again yesterday, to be represented at Brussels conference. The government of the United States have declined, on the ground of the lateness of the invitation."

+ The Brussels conference, which was in session when this letter was written, adjourned before the meeting of the Institute. Its proceedings, which were in the interest of the conquerors, are not likely to be attended with any important results.

Union, such as it existed in the minds of its founders and which, before our horrible civil war, I had flattered myself might be extended to the Universe.

We do not believe that the suggestion, which we last year had the boldness to make, that the characters of the arbitrators, named by the litigant parties, whether it be that of judges or advocates, should be defined, has since lost its importance. As to the Tribunal of Geneva, it would be impossible to ascribe to the American and English commissioners any other functions than those of advocates. One of them had been the minister of the United States in London during the whole period in which the reclamations had their origin, whilst the other announced that he regarded himself, in some sort, as the representative of Her Britannic Majesty. This is a point properly open to discussion, and it will appear, according to the opinions expressed in the English house of Commons, even by members of the government, in referring to the value, which should be attributed to the decision at Geneva as a precedent, that the functions of the commissioners were in no respect judicial.

We may here refer, though it has not yet received the sanction of congress, to an expedient recently proposed, to diminish the occasions for international disputes arising from the private claims of foreigners reclamations, which might otherwise become matters of diplomatic discussions, and on the failure of negotiations even give rise to war.

It is an international principle universally recognized that a nation cannot have recourse to diplomatic means for injuries caused by another nation to its subjects, till it has exhausted all the modes for procuring redress afforded by the other State. It has been proposed to establish at Washington a tribunal to examine the reclamations of citizens of foreign nations against the government. It is to be a permanent court, controlled by precedents, and for that purpose all its decisions, with the reason for them, are to be published. The judgments should be conformable to the law of nations; but after the decision is rendered there is still an appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States, which is the tribunal of last resort for all judicial discussions of federal competence. These judg ments, it is true, would not be obligatory on foreign governments, but it is supposed that there would be few occasions in which they would be disposed to go beyond them.

On the other hand, we are obliged to refer to a fact which has inflicted, if not a fatal, at least a very serious blow, to the cause of arbitration. Perhaps there never was a matter relating to the competence of a tribunal which gave rise to so much dispute as the question between the British and American agents at Geneva, with respect to the so-called "indirect claims." This dispute almost compromised the execution of the treaty. The United States interpreting, in their way, the article of the convention for the so-called Alabama claims, preferred reclamation having a national character and assumed to be entitled to be indemnified:

1. For losses caused by the transfer of vessels belonging to the American merchant marine to the British flag.

2. For the increased insurance arising from the fear of the confederate cruisers.

3. For the prolongation of the war and the increase of the expense of the war thereby rendered necessary.

England gave instructions to her agent to retire from

the commission if these reclamations continued to be maintained by the United States. We all remember the happy tact of the commissioners in anticipating the discussion of these points, by a declaration somewhat out of the regular order of procedure, that these claims, according to the principles of international law applicable to such cases, cannot form the basis of a decree of indemnity or of the calculation of international damages.

The arbitrators continued their task, in order to decide for which of the Alabama claims England was under an obligation, according to the terms of the treaty, to pay indemnities. The acts of each of the confederate cruisers were discussed separately, and the obligations of England limited to those acts of the vessels explicitly indicated. The arbitrators decided, moreover, that there was no reason to accord to the United States any indemnity for the expense of the pursuit of confederate vessels, and in estimating the amount of the indemnity (fifteen and a half millions of dollars) for the ships and cargoes destroyed by the confederate vessels, for whose acts England was responsible, the value of each vessel and cargo was separately estimated and the sum awarded was the total of these losses. In this sum was included the amount paid by the insurers as making a part of the loss. The sum which Great Britain was to pay was neither increased nor diminished by the fact of an insurance. It has been maintained, however, in Congress that the United States are not subjected to any restrictions in the distribution of the indemnity by the decision of the arbitrators, but that they have a right to retain it in the treasury or to distribute it according to their own arbitrary will.

In the reports of the committee provisions had been expressly made for the augmented insurance rejected by the arbitrators, while for the first time we believe in municipal law or in international discussions an effort was made to deprive the underwriters of the title, with which they are invested in exchange for the payment of losses for the property insured by them and after more than two years had intervened since the payment of the indemnity into the treasury, commissioners have been appointed to answer the demands of a portion of the claimants, not exceeding, it is understood, $3,000,000, while the board is at the same time prohibited to accord any thing to the insurers.*

Although in no respects interested in any manner either for myself or for others in the fund in question, I have protested by all the means at the disposition of a simple publicist against the action of Congress, calculated as it is to give a fatal blow to the so much vaunted principle of arbitration.

It was at this moment when Congress was violating the most sacred obligations of a trustee, by repudiating the best considered judgment that arbitrators were capable of rendering, that the senate passed a resolution to recommend the adoption of arbitration, as a method just and practicable to terminate international differences and to cause war to cease, and that arbitra

*The terms of the act of June 23, 1874, are: "And no claim shall be admissible or allowed by said court arising in favor of any insurance company or insurer, either in its or his own right or as assignee, or otherwise, in the right of a person or party insured as aforesaid, unless such claimant shall show to the satisfaction of said court that during the late rebellion the sum of its or his losses, in respect to its or his war risk, exceeded the sum of its or his premiums or other gains upon or in respect to such war risks; and in case of any such allowance the same shall not be greater than such excess of loss."

tion ought to be considered as a suitable form of procedure among nations.

I have too long delayed speaking of matters which were specially confided to me. Distance and other obstacles have prevented my placing myself in correspondence with my colleagues of the committee upon private international law. I consequently do not know what subjects may be brought before the Institute. You who had the goodness to afford me the opportunity to present in your learned Review in advance, even of the third volume of my "Commentaire," my Study on Marriage, will recognize the importance of an international law to regulate that domestic contract.

I will refer for the details of the history of marriage, to the monograph of which I have spoken. It is proper, however, to recall that monogamy in opposition to polygamy is rather the indication of the progress of civilization than a fact belonging to any particular dogma. Without derogating the least from the innumerable benefits which Christianity has conferred, it must be admitted it is not entirely correct to attribute to its doctrines the abolition of polygamy.

Polygamy was not only tolerated by the people chosen by God, as the depository of his laws and the precursor of Christianity, but it was authorized by the example of the patriarchs themselves. On the other hand, polygyamy' was not a legal institution either in Greece or Rome. With results almost identical in the two countries monogamy existed in principle, and the union of a man and a woman by marriage constituted, as at the present time, the most important of all contracts. Polygamy was from the earliest history altogether exceptional.

We are not to suppose any derogation from the character of vir and uxor in the existence, at the side of connubium of the concubinat, which may be assimilated to the quasi German marriage, recognized in our time as morganatic, or marriage of the left hand. The parties could not before the dissolution of the first union of this nature contract a new one. An inequality of condition or fortune was almost the only circumstance which distinguished concubinat from justæ nuptiæ. In the one case, as in the other, no civil or religious ceremony was necessary to validate the contract.

The Jews became monogamists, not by reason of any change in the rules of their religion, but from their obedience to the civil law of the countries where they resided, and polygamy exists still among them in those countries which do not forbid its practice. We do not even find a formal prohibition of it in the New Testament, unless it be in the exceptional case of a bishop.

Marriage, as recognized in the christian countries of Europe and America, is not the same thing as the union between men and women which exist in countries not christian, and the same motive which accords to foreigners residing in the Ottoman States, in China, Japan, and the other eastern countries, the privilege of carrying with them laws of their own country, and even administering justice for themselves is equally applicable to marriage.

In christian countries it is acknowledged as a principle making an integral part of the law of nations, that marriage to be valid must be celebrated according to the law of the country where it takes place, whether the mere consent of the parties is sufficient, as is virtually the case in the United States, or it is necessary

to have the presence of a priest or the formal regulations of a civil law, are required to be followed.

The christian church recognized from the beginning the fundamental principle of the Roman law, which declares that marriage results from the consent of the parties even without any formalities. In the apostolical constitution there is no nuptial benediction, though all other forms of prayer are spoken of. It is from the Council of Trent (1545 to 1563) that we are to date the religious marriage, and although the council pronounced anathemas against every one who denied that marriage was one of the evangelical sacraments, it was not willing to declare invalid marriages contracted without the ecclesiastical benediction, and it even exposed to excommunication those who should maintain that the marriage of the children of a family contracted without the consent of the parents was null.

At the epoch of the edict of Trent it was universally acknowledged by the common law of Europe that the mutual consent of the parties made a valid marriage. The decree was not and never has been acknowledged as obligatory except for Roman Catholics, and by them only as matter of religion, and even, according to the Papal bulls, the church held for valid a clandestine marriage of a Protestant with a Catholic, although it considered it a sin.

The rule of the edict of Trent has force of law only by the promulgation of the ordinances of the different sovereigns who adopted it. Consequently in the Spanish and French colonies, where it was not published, as also in the English colonies, it never went into effect. The Council of Trent, although acknowledged by the Catholics, was never recognized by the government in France, but the royal ordinances prohibiting clandestine marriages went even beyond the council in the regulations relative to curates. The evangelical ordinances of Germany, though not refusing to marriage a religious character, did not acknowledge it as a sacrament. It was only at the end of the last century and at the commencement of the present that religious marriages assumed in Germany the character of an absolute necessity. It was not until 1843 that the House of Lords, as a tribunal of last resort, decided that according to the English common law marriages celebrated by an ecclesiastic ordained by a bishop are alone valid.

The special legislations of Europe have not been inspired by the civil or religious nature of this union nor by the desire to prohibit incest, but altogether by the interest of the privileged classes to prevent messalliances. As Sir James Macintosh well expressed it, "Legislation of Europe on the subject of marriage has been a contest of patrimony against matrimony." The natural consequences of this has been to re-establish in its most vexatious attributes the paternal authority of the Roman law, to substitute marriage of interest to marriage of inclination, and in one word, to subordinate all other considerations to that of social position. The edict of Trent, in declaring that the curate should celebrate the marriage, had explicitly in view to prevent marriages of children of good families without the consent of their parents. The ordinance of Blois, 1579, contains most severe prohibitions against clandestine marriages, and declares that the priest who celebrates them shall be punished as if accessory to a rape. During the century which preceded Lord Hardewicke's act of 1753, the Lords passed several acts to prevent clandestine marriages, that is to say, to pro

tect the aristocracy against the improvident marriages of their prodigal heirs, but these bills all failed in the House of Commons.

Although as to the principle that a marriage must conform to the law of the country where it is celebrated, all nations are agreed, it is otherwise with respect to another rule. In the United States and in England, a marriage which is not impeached for incest or expressly prohibited by the principles of the country of the parties is recognized as valid if it is celebrated according to the law of the place where it takes place, whether the parties are citizens or foreigners, and notwithstanding the absence of the formalities which might be required in their own country. Not only according to the French code, which is still the principle of the municipal law of several countries of Europe, but in the States whose institutions are based upon the common law of Germany, it is the established rule that there citizens carry with them their personal status of origin, while the conditions of marriage prescribed for the inhabitants of the country where the parties contracting marriage must be followed.* It thence happens that cases may occur where a person married in a foreign country, and who is bound by marital obligations in the country where the marriage is celebrated, has neither the rights or obligations of a married person in his own country, in consequence of having failed to observe the formalities prescribed by its laws.

Neither England or France has any other law for the marriage of foreigners than those which equally apply to their citizens or subjects. The English law has no provision on the subject of marriage of foreigners. In England such marriages, if they take place, come under the general law of marriage of the country. The regulations prescribed for the inhabitants of the country must be followed. Foreigners can have no dispensations as to residence or other conditions different from those accorded to the English themselves, whatever may be the form of marriage that they adopt.

It was declared at the time of the preparation of the French codes, in answer to the question of the First Consul, with respect to marriages of foreigners in France: "Foreigners residing in France are subject to French laws."

The rule is the same in the United States. There, however, no previous residence is required. In England a residence from seven to twenty-eight days is necessary. In France a continuous residence of six months in the same commune is required to establish a matrimonial domicile. In Italy, according to the present code, and in Prussia, even before the new law of marriage, foreigners belonging to countries which have not registers of the etat civil were dispensed with fulfilling the conditions connected with it as to marriages which are required in the case of the inhabitants of the country.

In the United States, although, as in Scotland for regular marriages the different States have made laws respecting marriage. These regulations have been interpreted as directory, the omission of which will not invalidate the marriage. The American jurisprudence as to marriage is everywhere such as is declared in the act of the legislature of Massachusetts, where it is said: Section 22. "When the fact of mar

See our Commentaire Sur le Droit International, tom. III. p. 270-389.