See EXECUTION, 3, Writ of; JUDGE; OFFICER; SHERand discharge commissions; or chargés d'affaires, because they are charged with business; or agents, because they act for their governments. All these, and other designa2. A person ordained to preach the gospel.2 ❘tions of public ministers, are found in the See ORDAIN, 2. 3. In laws respecting foreign relations, a person invested with and exercising the principal diplomatic functions.3 "The President shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls. "4 Foreign minister. In the diplomatic sense, a minister who comes from another jurisdiction or government. The modern law of nations recognizes a class of public officers, who, while bearing various designations, chiefly significant in the relation of rank, precedence, or dignity, possess in substance the same functions, rights, and privileges, - being agents of their respective governments for the transaction of diplomatic business abroad, possessing also such powers as their respective governments may please to confer, and enjoying, as a class, established legal rights and immunities of person and property in the governments to which they are accredited as the representatives of sovereign powers. history of modern negotiations, the name having no fixed relation to the functions or powers, or true nature of the office. In the simple indication of duties these public ministers would be divisible into three subdivisions of differences: ministers, representatives, and agents: ordinary, and extraordinary, that is, special; resident, and non-resident or transient; and plenipotentiary, and not plenipotentiary or with limited powers. But, in process of time, sometimes to flatter the pride of the sovereign represented, or that of the representative, or that of the government addressed; at other times to indicate shades of differences in functions, or in the place or manner of exercising them, and for other causes, arbitrary and artificial distinetions have grown up, in the use of titles, or names, which for the most part are independent of, or absolutely contrary to, the truth and substance of the things they pretend to designate. Thus it is that "ambassador," in origin the most equivocal of all the titles for "ambascia" is "officium vel ministerium quodcunque, nobile et ignobile," and "ambisciata" at this day is any message, though borne by a household servant-has come, notwithstanding its humble origin, to designate a diplomatic agent of the highest rank in the class, because taken to be the most direct representative of the sovereign; in this, reviving its original use of the personal client or agent of the chief or prince. Thus it is that the Papal See appoints peculiar ministers assumed to belong to the highest rank, under the name of "legate" or "nuncio," both in nature as ordinary, and the latter as humble, as any in the whole category. Thus it is that the ordinary "envoy," or agent of regular and ordinary func- ❘tions, is by mere titular exaggeration turned into "envoy extraordinary," while another agent, who is no more a resident minister than he, and just as much an "extraordinary" envoy, is denominated merely a "minister resident." Thus it is, also, that in one of the varieties of agents, to "envoy extraordinary," which is false, is added "minister plenipotentiary," which is inexact in fact and by specialty of application: for it is not usual to give any diplomatic agent general "plenipotentiary" powers, but limited ones; and such powers, whatever they may be, as are given to envoys ordinary and extraordinary are frequently given to commissioners, ministers resident, or even chargés d'affaires. And thus it is that "chargés d'affaires," in itself quite as general as any title, and often borne by persons exercising as high functions as any other, has settled into the designation of a mere provisional officer, in dignity of the lowest rank. Thus, also, while "commissioner," which in fact is more comprehensive than the others, like "deputy," R. S. § 4130: Act 1 Feb. 1876; 19 St. L. 2. when held by a person having foreign diplomatic 4 Constitution, Art. II, sec. 2, cl. 2. functions, as distinguished from functions wercal or Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, 5 Pet. *56 (1831), administrative, has come to have something of a speThompson, J. cific meaning by reason of its vagueness, as implying Disregarding questions of dignity, these diplomatic agents might all be denominated ambassadors, because they are immediate officers of the sovereign; or envoys, because they are persons sent; or ministers, because engaged in public service or duty; or procurators, because they are the proctors of their respective governments; or legates, because officially employed as the substitute of the superior; or nuncios, or internuncios, because they are messengers to or between governments; or deputies, because they are deputed; or commissioners, because they h