Page:Review of the Proclamation of President Jackson.djvu/62

 can never make it right; it flowed from the very nature of the case. No arbiter is ever at liberty to decide for the parties, what is the subject submitted to him by them: it is his province to determine only that which they agree us so submitted. If the parties and their common arbiter differ, as to the extent of their submission, it would be idle for him to decide this matter, because the parties would at once agree to annul his decision, and to hold it for naught.

But if the common arbiter and one of the parties concur as to this point, and therein differ from the other party, wherever there exists a tribunal superior to them all, to that forum the dissenting party may appeal, to determine whether the matter decided was within his submission, or not.

Where no such tribunal exists however, (as is always the case where sovereigns are the parties,) it is of necessity, that each must decide this question for itself.

Nor is the faith of any pledged by the submission, to abide by any decision which it believes to have been unauthorized by that act. There is no necessity to "annul" such a decision, because if made without authority, it is already null and void of itself; and in refusing to submit to its execution, the party so refusing simply affirms this fact, and denies the obligation of an act of lawless power and usurped authority.

If this was not so, no prudent individual would, and no sovereign could agree, to submit any matter whatever, however unimportant it might be, to the arbitrament of another.—For, if the submission of one matter, could ever be considered as communicating a right to determine any other matter not submitted; or what is the same thing, if the submission of one matter to the arbitrament of a common arbiter, communicated to him, the right to determine for the parties, the extent of their submission, and bind their faith to abide by his determination, whatever that may be, this arbiter, although designed to be a Judge merely, becomes at once a sovereign, whose authority is without stint or limit. In the case of a submission made by the sovereigns, they would strip themselves of sovereignty by the every act of submission; for he who holds all his rights at the will or discretion of any other, is no longer a sovereign, but a mere dependent for the enjoyment of such rights upon this other.