Page:Review of the Proclamation of President Jackson.djvu/101

 But for this fact of violation on the part of France, Congress would have had no authority to enact this Statute; because by the Constitution, these Treaties had been expressly made the supreme law of the land. Therefore, the Statue does not profess to repeal them, by any enactment, but declared simply, that they were no longer obligatory upon us "of right," because they had been previously and repeatedly violated by France. So shewing, conclusively, that the violation of a contract by one of the sovereign parties to it, is sufficient to absolve the other party from all its obligations, if this other party chooses to adopt that course.

Now, surely, no one will contend, that what every individual does, and may of right do, in regard to his contracts; what every sovereign State has done, and has done rightfully, in regard to their agreements; is forbidden to be done by any of these sovereign States, in reference to their covenant with their co-States. It may be denied, as the author of this Proclamation does deny, that any of these States is a sovereign. It may be denied that they have entered into any covenant with each other: or that the Constitution of the United States is such a covenant. It may be denied, that this covenant has ever been broken; or that any State is responsible to any other, for any breach of it. But if all these things he granted (and in the question propounded, they are all assumed,) it follows necessarily, that a violation of the covenant by any of the States, leaves every other States, who is a party to it, the right to vacate the covenant as to itself also.

Nor can the exercise by a State, of this right of declaring a broken covenant no longer obligatory upon itself or its Citizens, be ascribed, with any propriety, to the high and indefeasible right of Revolution, which abides with every people. This last is a mere individual right, it stands upon the great maxim, salus populi est suprema lex. It is the right of self-defence, which man cannot alienate, although he may forbear to exert it. This high right rides over all other whatever they may be. It claims to legitimatize the dethronement of Sovereigns, the severance of Empires, the dissolution of ancient Societies, the breach of allegiance, and even of faith itself. But the right of declaring a covenant broken by one of the parties no longer obligatory upon another, is the very reverse of all this. It constitutes the