5272.] These provide for a hearing of a judicial character, and
then, if that results in a determination that a surrender should
be made, it may be ordered on a warrant from the State
Department.

On the other hand, the peculiar provision of the Constitution of
the United States which makes treaties the supreme law of the
land calls upon the courts to enforce them according to whatever
interpretation they may conclude to give them, even if it should
differ from that adopted by the President or the State
Department. If a treaty prescribes a rule by which the rights of
private individuals are to be determined, and those rights are
such as can be appropriately made the subject of a lawsuit, the
court before which it may be brought has as full authority to
construe the treaty as it would have to construe an act of
Congress, were the matter in controversy one of a statutory
nature. They cannot be appropriately made the subject of a
lawsuit so long as the questions involved are under active
consideration in the course of diplomatic negotiation and pending
for decision before the President. Let him, however, once make
his decision and the doors of the court fly open.

These principles are well illustrated by some incidents of our
controversy with Great Britain over the seal fisheries in Behring
Sea. There was a serious dispute between the two governments as
to the limits of our jurisdiction over the waters adjacent to
Alaska. We maintained that it ran to the middle of Behring's
Straits and from the meridian of 172 deg. to that of 193 deg. west
longitude. Great Britain contended for the three-mile limit.
Pending diplomatic negotiations as to this point, one of our