Page:Sketches of the life and character of Patrick Henry.djvu/382

 358 SKETCHES OF THE

jthat treaty as beticeen the nations^ being annulled, the next question was, whether any individual of the British nation could claim any advantage under the treaty? This he shows could not be done, because in making the treaty, the sovereigns of the two nations acted for all the individuals of their respective nations; the indivi- duals were bound by all the acts of those sovereigns, whether in making or abolishing a treaty. " Here/' said he, "are two moral persons, Great Britain and America, making a contract. The plaintiff claims and the defendant defends under and through them; and if either nation or moral person, has no rights to benefits from such contract, individuals claiming under them -can have none. The plaintiff then claims under his nation^ but if that nation have committed perfidy re- specting the observance of the compact, no right can be carried therefrom to the plaintiff. It puts him back in the same situation he was in before the treaty.^' He shows the absurdity of considering the treaty as annulled, in relation to all the individuals, in their col- lective character of a nation, and yet as in full force for the benefit of each individual separately; for if this plaintiff had a right to all the beneficial effects of the treaty, every man in England had the same right; aiid he cites and reads from Vattel, a conclusive authority to show that the conventional law of nations could take its effect only from universal right, extending equally to all the citizens or individuals of a nation. But to say, that America had a right to consider the treaty as void against all the individuals of the British nation, collectively, while each and every individual of that nation separately, could enforce it upon her, was to offer to the understanding, a paiadoxical absurdity.

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