Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v3.djvu/527

.] gentleman used his usual discernment and penetration, he would see the difference between a commercial treaty and other treaties. A commercial treaty must be submitted to the consideration of Parliament, because such treaties will render it necessary to alter some laws, add new clauses to some, and repeal others. If this be not. done, the treaty is void, quoad hoc. The Mississippi cannot be dismembered but in two ways—by a common treaty, or a commercial treaty. If the interest of Congress will lead them to yield it by the first, the law of nations would justify the people of Kentucky to resist, and the cession would be nugatory. It cannot, then, be surrendered by a common treaty. Can it be done by a commercial treaty? If it should, the consent of the House of Representatives would be requisite, because of the correspondent alterations that must be made in the laws.

[Here Mr. Corbin illustrated his position by reading the last clause of the treaty with France, which gives certain commercial privileges to the subjects of France; to give full effect to which, certain correspondent alterations were necessary in the commercial regulations.]

This, continues he, secures legislative interference. Some of the most extraordinary calculations that ever were made have been adduced to prove that the navigation of the Mississippi is on a worse ground than it was before. We are told that five states can make a treaty. This is on a sup position that the senators from the other states will be absent, which is wild and extravagant. On this ground, three states can prevent it; and if Kentucky become a state, two other states, with it, can prevent the making such a treaty. I wish not to assert, but to prove. Suppose there be fourteen members, and the members from Kentucky be of the number. Two thirds, which are ten, are necessary to make a treaty. Three members, together with the two members from Kentucky, will be sufficient to prevent its being made. But suppose all the other states to be present, (which is the fair conclusion, for it is fair to conclude that men will be attentive to their own interest;) what would be the consequence? There would be twenty-eight; two thirds of which are nineteen, which is one member more than the senators of nine states; so that, in such a case, ten states must concur in the treaty; whereas, by the old Confederation, only nine states were necessary. I defy any man to