![handle is hein.journals/pclscceqry7 and id is 1 raw text is:
Volume VII. ].
POLITICAL SCIENCE
QUARTERLY.
ASYLUM IN LEGATIONS AND CONSULATES AND
IN VESSELS. I.
I. The Rigkt of Asylum.
NO legal term in common use is perhaps so lacking in
uniformity and accuracy of definition as the right of
asylum. The word asylum has in its legal relations become to
a great extent metaphorical. In its original sense it was highly
descriptive. It was applied to privileged places, devoted to
special uses, among which was that of shelter for the fugitive.
These places were by positive law or by superstition protected
from invasion, and in reality they formed sanctuaries. If the
fugitive could reach one of them, he was safe from pursuit.
He had clothed himself with a right to protection which could
not be violated. It was the right of asylum.
This right was the natural product of the conditions under
which it arose. The inspiration of the ancient criminal law was
the principle of vengeance. Whether pronounced by the head
of a family or of a tribe, sitting in judgment upon an injury in-
flicted on one of its members, or by a priest, as the mouthpiece
of an offended deity, the sentence was imposed as an act of re-
venge. The right of private vengeance was fully recognized.
Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed,
was a law that imported at once the expiatory character of pun-
ishment and the righteousness of individual retaliation. The
slayer was pursued by the avenger of blood, and if overtaken
was summarily killed. It is not strange that under systems
based so entirely upon the lex talionis, sentiments of religion
and humanity, as well as of justice, should have suggested means
of escape from undiscriminating violence. Hunted by the
1
M1arck, 1892.
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