The source of these laws were actually pretty pragmatic. The point was to help enforce custom duties on people that would never step foot in the country. Inst

The source of these laws were actually pretty pragmatic. The point was to help enforce custom duties on people that would never step foot in the country. Instead of trying to chase someone down in, for example, France, that didn't pay their customs duties (not really practical in the 19th century), they seized the ship and the contents of it.