Dissenting Opinion: Field, J.

reside and do business here. Thus the treaty of commerce with Italy of February 26, 1871, provides that "Italian citizens in the United States, and citizens of the United States in Italy, shall mutually have liberty to enter, with their ships and cargoes, all the ports of the United States and of Italy respectively, which may be open to foreign commerce. They shall also have liberty to sojourn and reside in all parts whatever of said territories." Art. 1, 17 Stat. $45. These stipulations operate by their own force; that is, they require no legislative action for their enforcement. Treaty of commerce with Great Britain of 1815, art. 1, 8 Stat. 228; renewed and continued for ten years by art. 4 of the treaty of 1818, 8 Stat. 249; and continued indefinitely by art. 1 of the treaty of 1827, 8 Stat. 361; treaty with Bolivia of May 13, 1838, art. 3, 12 Stat. 1003; treaty with Costa Rica of July 10, 1851, art. 2, 10 Stat. 917; treaty with Greece of December, 1837, art. 1, 8 Stat. 498; treaty with Sweden and Norway of July 4, 1827, art. 1, 8 Stat. 346.

The right or privilege being conferred by the treaty, parties seeking to enjoy it take whatever steps.are necessary to carry the provisions into effect. Those who wish to engage in commerce enter our ports with their ships and cargoes; those who wish to reside here select their places of residence, no congressional legislation being required to provide that they shall enjoy the rights and privileges stipulated. All that they can ask, and all that is needed, is such legislation as may be necessary to protect them in such enjoyment. That they have, I think, to some extent, in the clause punishing any conspiracy to prevent or hinder by force the execution of a law of the United States. The section in which this clause appears is a reënactment in part of the act of July 31, 1861, and declares, among other things, a conspiracy of two or more persons to overthrow by force the Government of the United States, cr to oppose by force its authority, or "by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States," or by force to seize and possess any of their property against their authority, to be a high crime, and prescribes for it severe punishment. As thus seen, the section is not intended as a

Dissenting Opinion: Field, J.

protection against isolated or occasional acts of individual personal violence. For such offences the laws of the states make ample provision. It is intended to reach conspiracies against the supremacy and authority of the Government of the United States, and against the enforcement of its laws. It is directed not only against those who conspire to overthrow the government, but those also who conspire to defeat the execution of its laws, including under the latter treaties as well as statutes, and thus permanently deprive others of the rights, benefits, and protection intended to be conferred by such laws. In the case before us, the purpose of the alleged conspirators was to permanently deprive the Chinese residing in Nicolaus - not any particular Chinese, but all of that class of persons of the right of residence conferred by the treaty. That right is not limited to any particular place; it may be exercised wherever it is lawful for any one to reside without encroachment upon the equal right of others. The conspirators well knew, as every one in California knows, the provision of the treaty and its meaning, and their purpose was to nullify and defeat it.

A treaty, in conferring a right of residence, requires no congressional legislation for the enforcement of that right; the treaty in that particular is executed by the intended beneficiaries. They select their residence. They are not required, as said above, to reside in any particular place, or do business there. A conspiracy to prevent by force a residence in the town or county selected by them appears to me, therefore, to be a conspiracy to prevent the operation - that is, the execution of a law of the United States, and to be within the letter and spirit of the third clause of § 5336. If the conspirators can expel the Chinese from their residence in the town and county of their selection without being amenable to any law of the United States, they can, with like exemption from legal liability, expel the Chinese from the entire state, and thus utterly defeat the stipulations of the treaty.

So, also, a conspiracy to prevent by force ships belonging to subjects of a foreign nation-not any particular ship, but ships generally belonging to them from entering our ports with their cargoes would, in my judgment, be a conspiracy to pre

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Dissenting Opinion: Field, J.

vent by force the operation of the treaty with that nation, which stipulates that its subjects shall have that privilege. And in all other cases where a clause of a treaty conferring rights or privileges operates by its own terms and does not require congressional legislation to give it effect, a conspiracy to prevent by force their enjoyment is a conspiracy to prevent by force the execution of a law of the United States; that is, to prevent its having, with respect to the rights and privileges stipulated, any effectual operation. I do not see how Congress could improve the matter, or do more than it has already done, by declaring that those who thus conspire by force to deprive parties of the rights or privileges conferred by a treaty should be punished. Its declaration to that effect would be no more than what the present law provides.

The last clause of § 5508 declares that "if two or more persons go in disguise on the highway, or on the premises of another, with intent to prevent or hinder the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege so secured, [by the Constitution or laws of the United States,] they shall be fined not more than five thousand dollars, and imprisoned not more than ten years; and shall, moreover, be thereafter ineligible to any office or place of honor, profit, or trust created by the Constitution or laws of the United States."

I do not agree with the majority of the court that this clause is limited in its application only to offences against citizens. The first clause of the section is thus limited, but, in my judgment, the last is more extensive, and reaches an invasion of the premises of any one, whether citizen or alien, by two or more persons for the unlawful purposes mentioned. But I am not clear that the qualification of going "in disguise" on the highway does not also extend to the going on the premises of another and thus render the clause inapplicable to the case before the court; though there is much force in the view of Mr. Justice Harlan, that the clause should be read as though its words were: "If two or more persons go on the highway in disguise, or on the premises of another, with the intent,' &c., thus making the words "in disguise" apply only to the offence on the highway. If his view be correct, the last pro

Syllabus.

vision of the clause would describe the exact offence charged against the plaintiff in error and his co-conspirators - that they went on the premises of the Chinese with the intent to deprive them of rights and privileges conferred by the treaty the law of the land-an intent which they carried out by forcibly expelling the Chinese from the town and county of their residence aud business. But without adopting or rejecting his view, I prefer to place my dissent upon what I deem the erroneous construction by the court of the third clause of § 5336, in holding that it does not cover this case, but applies only to cases where there has been a forcible resistance to measures adopted by Congress for the execution of a law, or a treaty of the United States.

The result of the decision is, that there is no national law which can be invoked for the protection of the subjects of China in their right to reside and do business in this country, notwithstanding the language of the treaty with that empire. And the same result must follow with reference to similar rights and privileges of the subjects or citizens resident in this country of any other nation with which we have a treaty with like stipulations. Their only protection against any forcible resistance to the execution of these stipulations in their favor is to be found in the laws of the different states. Such a result is one to be deplored.

VITERBO v. FRIEDLANDER.

APPEAL FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF LOUISIANA.

Submitted January 4, 1886.- Decided March 7, 1887.

The Civil Code of Louisiana, following the civil law of Rome, Spain, and France, and differing from the common law, regards a lease for years as a mere transfer of the thing leased; and holds the landlord bound, without any express covenant, to keep it in repair and otherwise fit for the use for which it is leased, even when the want of repair or the unfitness is caused by an inevitable accident; and if he does not do so, authorizes the tenant to have the lease annulled or the rent abated.

Statement of Facts.

In construing those articles of the Civil Code of Louisiana, which were originally enacted both in French and in English, the French text may be taken into consideration for the purpose of clearing up obscurities or ambiguities in the English text.

The breaking of a crevasse in the levees by the waters of the Mississippi River is a fortuitous or unforeseen event, within the meaning of the Civil Code of Louisiana; and if in consequence thereof a sugar plantation, leased for five years, with the buildings, mules and implements necessary for the cultivation of sugar cane, and with the growing crop of cane (which the lessee agrees to cut and plant as seed cane, and, by way of reimbursing the lessor for, to leave a certain amount of growing cane on the plantation at the end of the lease), is overflowed for three months, all the cane destroyed, the canals and ditches necessary for drainage filled up, the bridges swept away, and a deposit from three to six inches deep left over the whole ground, making it necessary, in order to cultivate it as a sugar plantation the following year, to spend large sums of money to dig out canals and ditches, repair bridges, and buy seed cane, the plantation is partially destroyed, or ceases to be fit for the use for which it was leased, within the meaning of articles 2697 (2667) and 2699 (2669) of that code, and the lessee is entitled to have the lease annulled; notwithstanding the provision of article 2743 (2714) that the tenant of a predial estate cannot claim an abatement of rent for a destruction of the whole or a part of his crop by inevitable accidents, unless they are of such a nature that they could not have been foreseen by either party when the lease was made.

THIS was a petition, filed October 2, 1884, by a citizen of France against a citizen of Louisiana, to annul a lease of a sugar plantation from the defendant to the petitioner for five years; and alleging that by an extraordinary rise of the Mississippi River, which could not have been foreseen, and without any fault of the lessee, a crevasse was made in the levees of a neighboring plantation, the leased plantation overflowed, all the cane destroyed, and the plantation rendered wholly unfit for the purpose for which it had been leased; and that the petitioner requested the defendant, as soon as the water from the crevasse should have withdrawn, to put back the plantation in the same condition as when leased, and to replace the plant cane and stubble, and the defendant refused to do so. By direction of the Circuit Court, the case was transferred to the chancery side, and the petitioner filed a bill in equity, containing similar allegations, and praying for like relief.

The lease in question was dated October 27, 1883, and was