may be obliged, if those rights are dependent upon the
construction of acts of Congress or of a treaty, and the case
turns upon a question, public in its nature, which has not been
determined by the political departments in the form of a law
specifically settling it, or authorizing the executive to do
so, to render judgment, "since we have no more right to decline
the jurisdiction which is given than to usurp that which is not
given."[Footnote: _In re_ Cooper, 143 United States
Reports, 472, 503.]

In the following year a convention was concluded between the
United States and Great Britain for the submission of the
question of our jurisdiction over Behring's Sea to arbitration.
The arbitration took place and the award supported the British
contention. Congress passed an act to give it full effect. The
convention provided in terms that "the high contracting parties
engage to consider the result of the proceedings of the tribunal
of arbitration as a full, perfect and final settlement of all the
questions referred to by the arbitrators."

In July, 1891, before the award was made, an American vessel
engaged in the seal fishery outside the three-mile limit was
seized by one of our revenue cutters. A libel was filed by the
United States in the admiralty court for Alaska and she was
condemned. Her owners appealed to the Circuit Court of Appeals,
on the ground that the seizure was made outside of the
jurisdiction of the United States. If so, they were entitled to
her release. The court held that the limits of this jurisdiction
were conclusively settled by the award, and thus adverted to the
claim that they should treat the case as the Supreme Court of the