Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v3.djvu/522

506 compact, the I may give it up. I look on that compact to be a part of the law of nations. The treaty of Munster formed a great part of the law of nations. How is the Scheldt given up? By that treaty, though contrary to the law of nations. Cannot Congress give the Mississippi also by treaty, though such cession would deprive us of a right to which, by the law of nations, we are inalienably and indefeasibly entitled? I lay it down as a principle that nations can, as well as individuals, renounce any particular right. Nations who inhabit on the sources of rivers have a right to navigate them, and go down, as well as the waters themselves.

Mr. GEORGE NICHOLAS again drew a parallel between the power of the king of Great Britain and that of Congress, with respect to making treaties. He contended that they were on the same foundation, and that every possible security which existed in the one instance was to be found in the other. To prove that there was no constitutional limit to the king's power of making treaties, and that treaties, when once by him made, were the supreme law of the land, he quoted the following lines in Blackstone's Commentaries, vol. i. page 257: "It is also the king's prerogative to make treaties, leagues, and alliances, with foreign states and princes; for it is, by the law of nations, essential to the goodness of a league, that it be made by the sovereign power; and then it is binding upon the whole community; and in England the sovereign power, quoad hoc, is vested in the person of the king. Whatever contracts, therefore, he engages in, no other power in the kingdom can legally delay, resist, or annul." A further proof, says Mr. Nicholas, that there is no limitation in this respect, is afforded by what he adds: "And yet, lest this plenitude of authority should be abused, to the detriment of the public, the constitution has interposed a check, by the means of parliamentary impeachment, for the punishment of such ministers as, from criminal motives, advise or conclude any treaty which shall afterwards be judged to derogate from the honor and interest of the nation." How does this apply to this Constitution? The President and Senate have the same power of making treaties; and when made, they are to have the same force and validity. They are to be the supreme law of the land here. This book shows us they are so in England.