Full Text of Case
U.S. Supreme Court
Selective Draft Law Cases, 245 U.S. 366 (1918)
Selective Draft Law Cases
Nos. 663, 664, 665, 666, 681, 769
Argued December 13, 14, 1917
Decided January 7, 1918*
245 U.S. 366
That power, by the very terms of the Constitution being delegated, is supreme. Article VI. In truth, the contention simply assails the wisdom of the framers of the Constitution in conferring authority on Congress, and in not retaining it as it was under the Confederation in the several States. Further, it is said, the right to provide is not denied by calling for volunteer enlistments, but it does not and
Page 245 U. S. 378
cannot include the power to exact enforced military duty by the citizen. This however but challenges the existence of all power, for a governmental power which has no sanction to it and which therefore can only be exercised provided the citizen consents to its exertion is in no substantial sense a power. It is argued, however, that, although this is abstractly true, it is not concretely so, because, as compelled military service is repugnant to a free government and in conflict with all the great guarantees of the Constitution as to individual liberty, it must be assumed that the authority to raise armies was intended to be limited to the right to call an army into existence counting alone upon the willingness of the citizen to do his duty in time of public need, that is, in time of war. But the premise of this proposition is so devoid of foundation that it leaves not even a shadow of ground upon which to base the conclusion. Let us see if this is not at once demonstrable. It may not be doubted that the very conception of a just government and its duty to the citizen includes the reciprocal obligation of the citizen to render military service in case of need, and the right to compel it. Vattel, Law of Nations, Book III, c. 1 & 2. To do more than state the proposition is absolutely unnecessary in view of the practical illustration afforded by the almost universal legislation to that effect now in force. [Footnote 1] In England, it is certain that, before the
Page 245 U. S. 379
Norman Conquest, the duty of the great militant body of the citizens was recognized and enforceable.
Full Text of Case
U.S. Supreme Court
New Jersey v. Delaware, 291 U.S. 361 (1934)
New Jersey v. Delaware
No. 13, original
Argued January 9, 10, 1934
Decided February 5, 1934
Then, with Grotius and Vattel, came the notion of equality of division (Nys, Droit International, vol. 1, pp. 425, 426; Hyde, supra, p. 244, citing Grotius, De Jure Belli et Pacis, and Vattel, Law of Nations), though how this was to be attained was still indefinite and uncertain, as the citations from Grotius and Vattel show. [Footnote 5]
[Footnote 5]
Grotius has this to say (De Jure Belli et Pacis, Book 2, c. 3, § 18):
“In case of any Doubt, the Jurisdictions on each Side reach to the Middle of the River that runs betwixt them, yet it may be, and in some Places it has actually happened, that the River wholly belongs to one Party, either because the other Nation had not got possession of the other Bank ‘till later, and when their Neighbours were already in Possession of the whole River, or else because Matters were stipulated by some Treaty.”
In an earlier section (§ 16, subdivision 2) he quotes a statement of Taxitus that, at a certain point “the Rhine began . . . to have a fixed Channel, which was proper to serve for a Boundary.”
Vattel (Law of Nations, supra) states the rule as follows:
“If, of two nations inhabiting the opposite banks of the river, neither party can prove that they themselves, or those whose rights they inherit, were the first settlers in those tracts, it is to be supposed that both nations came there at the same time, since neither of them can give any reason for claiming the preference, and in this case, the dominion of each will extend to the middle of the river.”