58
CONSTITUTION OF THE U. STATES.
[BOOK III.
punish all such offences, which may interrupt our intercourse and harmony with, and our duties to them.[1]
§ 1161. Whether this power, so far as it concerns the law of nations, is an exclusive one, has been doubted by a learned commentator.[2] As, up to the present time, that question may be deemed for most purposes to be a mere speculative question, it is not proposed to discuss it, since it may be better reasoned out, when it shall require judicial decision.
§ 1162. The clause, as it was originally reported in the first draft of the constitution, was in substance, though not in language, as it now stands. It was subsequently amended; and in the second draft stood in its present terms.[3] There is, however, in the Supplement to the Journal, an obscure statement of a question put, to strike out the word "punish," seeming to refer to this clause, which was carried in the affirmative by the vote of six states against five.[4] Yet the constitution itself bears testimony, that it did not prevail.