skill of an able lawyer. In criminal cases the offender was to be tried by the laws and authorities of his own country. In civil cases between American citizens in China their consuls were to have exclusive jurisdiction, and civil cases between Americans and Chinese were to be adjusted by the joint action of the authorities of the two nations.
On this subject Mr. Cushing's position was that Western nations could not make civilization the test of equality of intercourse, for it was impossible to deny to China a high degree of civilization, though, in many respects, differing from theirs; but it is such as to give to her as complete a title to the appellation of civilized, as many, if not most, of the states of Christendom can claim. In an exhaustive review of the subject to the Secretary of State, he said: "I entered China with the formed general conviction, that the United States ought not to concede to any foreign state, under any circumstances, jurisdiction over the life and liberty of any citizen of the United States, unless that foreign state be of our own family of nations; in a word, a Christian state. The states of Christendom are bound together by treaties, which confer mutual rights and prescribe reciprocal obligations. … How different the condition of things out of the limits of Christendom. … As between them and us, there is no community of ideas, no common law of nations, no interchange of good offices." To none of the governments of this character did it seem to him safe to commit the lives and liberties of citizens of the United States.
The privilege of exterritoriality had a very early
