De Geofroy v. Riggs

• Decision Date: 03 February 1890
• Citation: 33 L.Ed. 642,133 U.S. 258,10 S.Ct. 295
• Parties: DE GEOFROY et al. v. RIGGS et al
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

133 U.S. 258

10 S.Ct. 295

33 L.Ed. 642

DE GEOFROY et al. v. RIGGS et al.

February 3, 1890.

J. Hubley Ashton, for appellants.

John Selden, for appellees.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 259-264 intentionally omitted] Mr. Justice FIELD, after stating the facts as above, delivered the opinion of the court.

The complainants are both citizens of France. The fact that one of them was born in Pekin, China, does not change his citizenship. His father was a Frenchman; and, by the law of France, a child of a Frenchman, though born in a foreign country, retains the citizenship of his father. In this case, also, his father was engaged, at the time of the son's birth, in the diplomatic service of France, being its minister plenipotentiary to China; and by public law the children of ambassadors and ministers accredited to another country retain the citizenship of their father. The question presented for solution, therefore, is whether the complainants, being citizens and residents of France, inherit an interest in the real estate in the District of Columbia of which their uncle, a citizen of the United States, and a resident of the district, died seised. In more general terms, the question is, can citizens of France take land in the District of Columbia by descent from citizens of the United States?

The complainants contend that they inherit an estate in the property described by force of the stipulation of article 7 of the convention between the United States and France, concluded February 23, 1853, and the provisions of the act of congress of March 3, 1887, to restrict the ownership of real estate in the territories to American citizens. Before consid- ering the effect of this article, and of the act of 1887, a brief reference will be had to the laws of Maryland in force on the 27th of February, 1801, which were on that day declared by act of congress to be in force in the District of Columbia. The language of the act is 'that the laws of the state of Maryland, as they now exist, shall be and continue in force in that part of the said District which was ceded by that state to the United States, and by them accepted.' 2 St. 104.

A part of these laws was the common law, and two acts of Maryland,—one passed in March, 1780, 'to declare and ascertain the privileges of the subjects of France' within that state; the other, passed December 19, 1791, to ratify her cession to the United States, entitled 'An act concerning the territory of Columbia and the city of Washington.' The common law, unmodified by statute or treaty, would have excluded aliens from inheriting lands in the United States from a citizen thereof. Its doctrine is that aliens have no inheritable blood, through which a title can be transferred by operation of law. The act of Maryland of 1780 modified that law so far as to allow a subject of France who had settled in that state, and given assurances of allegiance and attachment to it, as required of citizens, to devise to French subjects, who for that purpose were to be deemed citizens of the state. 1 Dorsey, Laws Md. 158. It also provided that, if the decedent died intestate, his natural kindred, whether residing in France or elsewhere, should inherit his real estate in like manner as if such decedent and his kindred were citizens of the United States. It had no bearing, however, upon the inheritan e of a subject of France, except from a Frenchman domiciled in the state. The act of Maryland of December 19, 1791, which provided, in its sixth section, that any foreigner might, by deed or will thereafter made, take and hold lands within the state in the same manner as if he were a citizen thereof, and that the lands might be conveyed by him, and transmitted to and inherited by his heirs and relations, as if he and they were citizen of the state, did not do away with the disability of foreigners to take real property within that state by inheritance from a citizen of the United States. It was so held, in effect, in Spratt v. Spratt, 1 Pet. 343, and 4 Pet. 393. On the 30th of September, 1800, a convention of peace, commerce, and navigation was concluded between France and the United States, the seventh article of which provided that 'the citizens and inhabitants of the United States shall be at liberty to dispose, by testament, donation, or otherwise, of their goods, movable and immovable, holden in the territory of the French republic in Europe, and the citizens of the French republic shall have the same liberty, with regard to goods movable and immovable holden in the territory of the United States, in favor of such persons as they shall think proper. The citizens and inhabitants of either of the two countries, who shall be heirs of goods, movable or immovable, in the other, shall be able to succeed ab intestato without being obliged to obtain letters of naturalization, and without having the effect of this provision contested or impeded under any pretext whatever.' 8 St. 182. This article, by its terms, suspended, during the existence of the treaty, the provisions of the common law of Maryland, and of the statutes of that state of 1780 and 1791, so far as they prevented citizens of France from taking, by inheritance from citizens of the United States, property, real or personal, situated therein. That the treaty power of the United States extends to all proper subjects of negotiation between our government and the governments of other nations is clear. It is also clear that the protection which should be afforded to the citizens of one country owning property in another, and the manner in which that property may be transferred, devised, or inherited, are fitting subjects for such negotiation, and of regulation by mutual stipulations between the two countries. As commercial intercourse increases between different countries, the residence of citizens of one country within the territory of the other naturally follows; and the removal of their disability from alienage to hold, transfer, and inherit property, in such cases, tends to promote amicable relations. Such removal has been, within the present century, the frequent subject of treaty arrangement. The treaty power, as expressed in the constitution, is in terms unlimited, except by those restraints which are found in that instrument against the action of the government, or of its departments, and those arising from the nature of the government itself, and of that of the states. It would not be contended that it extends so far as to authorize what the constitution forbids, or a change in the character of the government, or in that of one of the states, or a cession of any portion of the territory of the latter, without its consent. Railroad Co. v. Lowe, 114 U. S. 525, 541, 5 Sup. Ct. Rep. 995. But, with these exceptions, it is not perceived that there is any limit to the questions which can be adjusted touching any matter which is properly the subject of negotiation with a foreign country. Ware v. Hylton, 3 Dall. 199; Chirac v. Chirac, 2 Wheat. 259; Hauenstein v. Lynham, 100 J.S. 483; 8 Ops. Atty. Gen. 417; People v. Gerke, 5 Cal. 381.

Article 7 of the convention of 1800 was in force when the act of congress adopting the laws of Maryland, February 27, 1801, was passed. That law adopted and continued in force the law of Maryland as it then existed. It did not adopt the law of Maryland as it e isted previous to the treaty; for that would have been in effect to repeal the treaty, so far as the District of Columbia was affected. In adopting it as it then existed, it adopted the law, with its provisions suspended during the continuance of the treaty, so far as they conflicted with it. In other words, the treaty, being part of the supreme law of the land, controlled the statute and common law of Maryland whenever it differed from them. The treaty expired by its own limitation on eight years, pursuant to an article inserted by the senate. 8 St. 192. During its continuance, citizens of France could take property in the District of Columbia by...