to declare to the several States, that whatever those rights (i. e., the rights of citizens of that State),—as you grant or establish them to your own citizens, or as you limit or qualify, or impose restrictions on their exercise, the same, neither more nor less, shall be the measure of the rights of citizens of other States within your own jurisdiction.[319]
But the citizen from another State must comply with the laws of the State into which he comes before he can have the protection of its sovereignty.
The Constitution forbids only such legislation affecting citizens of the respective States as will substantially or practically put a citizen of one State in a condition of alienage when he is within, or when he removes to, another State, or when asserting in another State the rights that commonly appertain to those who are part of the political community known as the People of the United States, by and for whom the government of the Union was ordained and established.[320]
124. The test here is jurisdiction. No State has jurisdiction that is denied it by the Constitution of the United States. Each State has power so far as its jurisdiction, or sovereignty, extends, to declare what shall be offences against its laws, and citizens of other States within its jurisdiction are subject to those laws.[321]
Fugitives from justice escaping from a State or Territory to another are subject to extradition.[322] Upon the Executive of the State or Territory in which the accused is found rests the responsibility of determining, in some legal mode, whether he is a fugitive from the justice of the demanding State. It is within the jurisdiction of the State or Territory into which the accused has fled to demand competent proof that he is in fact a fugitive from the demanding State; otherwise the jurisdiction of the demanding State would extend over the State or Territory into which the accused has fled. But such proof being established, the accused “shall be delivered up” as the federal Constitution prescribes.[323] The principle here is that of State jurisdiction as limited by the supreme law.
125. But the question of powers, or rights, by extradition, raises the question of right of asylum. Do
the States of the Union occupy towards each other, in respect to fugitives from justice, the relation of foreign nations, in the same sense in which the general government stands towards independent sovereignties, on that subject; and, in the further assumption that a fugitive from justice acquires in the State to which he may flee some State or personal right of protection, improperly called a right of asylum, which secures to him exemption from trial and punishment for a crime committed in another State, unless such crime is made the special object or ground of his rendition?[324]
To answer this question in the affirmative is to violate the sole object of the Constitution and acts of Congress concerning the surrender of fugitives from justice. Foreign nations stand in treaty relations with the United States and with each other. The States composing the American Union do not stand, and by the Constitution, cannot stand in treaty relations with one another or with any other State or power.[325]
126. A fugitive from a foreign nation seeking refuge in the United States is not extraditable unless by the terms of the treaty between that nation and the United States. There is nothing in the Constitution, or in the Statutes at large of the United States in reference to interstate rendition of fugitives from justice which can be regarded as establishing any compact between the States of the Union (such as a treaty between the United States and another nation does or may contain), limiting their operation to particular or designated offenses. And it is questionable whether the States, or any of them, could constitutionally enter into any agreement or stipulation one with another for the purpose of defining or limiting the offenses for which fugitives would or should be surrendered. “The plain answer is that the laws of the United States do not recognize any right of asylum on the part of the fugitive from justice in any State to which he has fled.”[326] The principle here laid down finds further explication: To apply the rule of international, or foreign extradition to interstate rendition involves the confusion of two essentially different things, which rest upon entirely different principles.[327] In the former, the extradition depends upon treaty contract, or stipulation, which rests upon good faith, and in respect to which the sovereign upon whom the demand is made can exercise discretion, as well as investigate the charge on which the surrender is demanded, there being no rule of comity under and by nature of which independent nations are required or expected to withhold from fugitives within their jurisdiction the right of asylum. In the matter of interstate rendition, however, there is the binding force and obligation, not of contract, but of the supreme law of the land, which imposes no conditions, or limitations, upon the jurisdiction and authority of the State to which the fugitive is returned.[328]
127. The decision as to whether a State possesses a republican form of government,—or what government in a State is the lawful government rests with the political, not the judicial power. “It is the province of the court to expound the law, not to make it.”[329] Thus the courts follow the political authority.