CONFLICT OF LAWS. On the breaking up of the Roman empire into separate king doms. as many systems of jurisprudence, more or less dissimilar, arose, and were admin istered side by side. But owing to commercial intercourse and inter-marriage, many persons held property in more countries than one; many possessed two nationalities by birth, and more than two—if nationality could be acquired by residence and interest iu a foreign state. In such circumstances, it often became an object of the utmost impor tance to individuals to ascertain, and of the greatest difficulty to lawyers to determine, whether the laws of one state or of another were to govern questions of sale, succession, status, and the like. As no state could vindicate its jurisdiction beyond its own boun daries, without being guilty of an act of aggression, it became absolutely indispensable that certain general rules should be fixed upon in order to prevent the danger of national hostilities on trifling occasions. The elaboration of these rules constituted a new branch of jurisprudence, to which the title of the C. of L. has been given, but which would be more
accurately described as the rules for the solution of that conflict. From the partially inde pendent character which belongs to the different states which constitute the American union, the labors of the continental jurists in international jurisprudence have been carefully adapted to the requirements of that country; and it is consequently to America and to continental Europe, rather than to the writers of our own country, that we must look for works of importance on this subject. By American writers, the term C. of L. has usually been confined to that branch of the law of nations which treats of the rights and duties of private individuals, and. it is consequently synonymous with what elsewhere is called private international law, under which head its various rules will be enumerated in this work. See INTERNATIONAL LAW, PRIVATE; COMITY OF NATIONS. See Story's Conflizta of Laws.