AMBASSADOR. In International Law. A public minister sent abroad by some sovereign state or prince, with a legal commission and authority to transact busi ness on behalf of his country with the gov ernment to which he is sent.
Extraordinary are those employed on par ticular or extraordinary occasions, or resid ing at a foreign court for an indeterminate period. Vattel, Droit des Gens, I. 4, c. 6, 44 70-79.
Ordinary are those sent on permanent missions.
An ambassador is a minister of the high est rank.
The United States have always been repre sented by ministers plenipotentiary, never having sent a person of the rank of an am bassador in the diplomatic sense. 1 Kent, Comm. 39, n.
2. Ambassadors, when acknowledged as such, are exempted absolutely from all alle giance, and from all responsibility to the laws. 7 Cranch, 138. If, however, they should be so regardless of their duty, and of the object of their privilege, as to insult or openly to attack the laws of the govern ment, their functions may be suspended by a refusal to treat with them, or application can be made to their own sovereign for their recall, or they may be dismissed, and re quired to depart within a reasonable time.
By fiction of law, an ambassador is consi dered as if he were out of the territory of the foreign power; and it is an implied agree ment among nations, that the ambassador, while he resides in the foreign state, shall be considered as a member of his own country, and the government he represents has exclu sive cognizance of his conduct and control of his person. Grotius, h. 2, c. 18, 1-6.
Ambassadors' children horn abroad are held not to be aliens. 7 Coke, 18 a. The persons of ambassadors and their domestic servants are exempt from arrest on civil pro cess. 1 Burr. 401; 3 Burr. 1731; Cas. temp. Hardw. 5 ; Stat. 7 Anne, c. 12; Act of Cong. April 30, 1790, 25.
Consult 2 Wash. C. C. 435 ; 7 Cranch, 138; 1 Kent, Comm. 14, 38, 182; 1 Blackstone, Comm. 253; Rutherford, inst. b. 2, u. Vattel, b. 4, c. 8, 4 113; Grotius, 1. 2, c. 8, 3.