Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol III).djvu/279

 CH. XXXV.] is at best a very loose, and unsatisfactory exposition, leaving the whole matter open to the most latitudinarian construction. What are subjects of great national magnitude and importance? Why may not a compact, or agreement between states, be perpetual? If it may not, what shall be its duration? Are not treaties often made for short periods, and upon questions of local interest, and for temporary objects?

§ 1397. Perhaps the language of the former clause may be more plausibly interpreted from the terms used, "treaty, alliance, or confederation," and upon the ground, that the sense of each is best known by its association (noscitur a sociis) to apply to treaties of a political character; such as treaties of alliance for purposes of peace and war; and treaties of confederation, in which the parties are leagued for mutual government, political cooperation, and the exercise of political sovereignty; and treaties of cession of sovereignty, or conferring internal political jurisdiction, or external political dependence, or general commercial privileges. The latter clause, "compacts and agreements," might then very properly apply to such, as regarded what might