9



                  EXTRADITION BETWEEN THE STATES.
   Such would be precisely the rules by which the conduct of the
States of this Union toward each other would be regulated if they
were independent nations. But when they adopted the Constitution
of the United States they surrendered the sovereign powers of levying
war, concluding peace and making treaties, either with foreign nations
or between each other; and, so far as the subject of extradition among
themselves was concerned, accepted the provision contained in the sec-
ond section of the fourth article of the Constitution, as follows:
   " A person charged in any State with treason, felony or other crime,
who shall flee from justice and be found in another State, shall, on (le-
mtiand of the executive authority of the State from which he fled, be
delivered up to be removed to the State having jurisdiction of the
crime. "
   This provision conferred upon each State the right to demand,
through its executive authority, a fugitive from its justice, when found
in another, and imposed the correlative duty upon the executive au-
thority upon whom the demand should be made to surrender him up,
precisely as in case of an extradition treaty between two independent
nations; and in order to prescribe a uniform method in which this right
should be asserted, on the one hand, and the corresponding duty per-
formed on the other, Congress passed the act of February 12, 1793,
which, as your Honor is aware, remains the law to this day, providing
that the demand should be accompanied by a copy of an indictment
found, or an affidavit made before some magistrate, charging the person
demanded with having committed treason, felony or other crime, and
certified to be authentic by the executive authority making the de-
mnand; and on the other hand requiring the executive authority of
whom a demand is thus made to cause the fugitive to be arrested and
delivered up as therein provided.
   Now, your Honor will observe that this provision of the Constitu-
tion, and the statute enacted to give it effect, refer exclusively to the
rights andl duties of the several States as such, acting respectively
through their chief executive authorities; and neither has the remotest
reference, directly or by implication, to the right of a State to hold
a person charged with crime against its laws who may be brought with-
in its jurisdiction by other means. They do, however, afford a State
from whose borders a person may be kidnaped, the amplest and the
easiest means for vindicating its sovereignty, by demanding the offend-
       2