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Show -16- same effect as though the Union were non-existent.36 Under the constitution, the territorial possessions of the Union became the wards of the federal government, which was in full sovereignty over them pend- ing their growth to the maturity of statehood and the delivery to the new States of the original sovereignty as relinquished by the respective sovereigns from whom such territories were acquired, but diminished by the federal constitution to fit precisely the measure of sovereignty retained by each of the original thirteen States. This does not mean, however, that the new States when so created are relieved of the sovereign commitments of their federal guardian made during their territorial wardship. On the contrary, they are bound there- by to the' same extent as the original States under their pre-constitutional treaties. This is also true of any agreement between a territorial government and one of the States, made with either the express or the implie.d consent of Congress.37 Consequently, new States admitted into the .American" Union are quite as fully subject to international law as the original thirteen States. The constitutional consent of the States for the Supreme Court of the United States to decide controversies between them prescribes no system of law by which the Court must be guided. In disputes about the meaning of the various provisions of the constitution that instrument itself must always furnish the solution; "but there is not likely to be a controversy between States over sovereign rights in their waters to. which any part of the constitution would directly apply except the commerce clause. As to any controversy not covered by the provisions of the constitution, the Supreme Court is left without ex- press direction or restraint. But, never theless, the consent of the States to judicial settlement of their differences is a substitution of law in the place of force; and the only .law* by which any sovereign has ever permitted himself to be restrained is international lav/. It can hardly be doubted that the original States intended primarily to make their controversies justiciable under that law which alone affords a standard of conduct among sovereigns; and to which appeal was made, in good faith or bad, to jiustify the conduct of nearly every sovereign who drew his sword against another even at that early age in modern international law when the federal constitution was adopted. Under -the rule that a contract is presumed to have been made for inter- pretation in the -law of the forum, nothing to the contrary appearing, the consent of the States to judicial settlement of their controversies was pre- sumably given under an implied condition calling for adjudication according to international law, which alone prevails in the forum of sovereign pavers. 36 The legislature and the political heads of a State government are subject to limitations of the State constitution in making compacts with other States, which must take notice of such limitations just as nations of the world must do in respect to treaties made by the President and the Senate of the United States. If a S"bate constitution oontains no restraint on legislative power to make compact's with other States, none can be implied except such as arise from the fundamental purposes of government. -^Greem v. Biddle, 8 Wheat. (U.S.) 1, 5 L. Ed. 5^7 (1823) j .United. States v. Winans, 198 'U.S. 371, 25 Sup. Ct. 662, I4.9 L. Ed, IO89 (1905); People of New York ex. rel, Kennedy v. Becker, 2J4I U. S. 556, 36 Sup. Ct. 705, 60 L. Ed. 1166 |