It surely does not
follow, that because they have given the power of making laws to the
legislature, that therefore they should likewise give them the power to
do every other act of sovereignty by which the citizens are to be bound
and affected.
Others, though content that treaties should be made in the mode
proposed, are averse to their being the SUPREME laws of the land. They
insist, and profess to believe, that treaties like acts of assembly,
should be repealable at pleasure. This idea seems to be new and peculiar
to this country, but new errors, as well as new truths, often appear.
These gentlemen would do well to reflect that a treaty is only another
name for a bargain, and that it would be impossible to find a nation who
would make any bargain with us, which should be binding on them
ABSOLUTELY, but on us only so long and so far as we may think proper to
be bound by it. They who make laws may, without doubt, amend or repeal
them; and it will not be disputed that they who make treaties may alter
or cancel them; but still let us not forget that treaties are made, not
by only one of the contracting parties, but by both; and consequently,
that as the consent of both was essential to their formation at first,
so must it ever afterwards be to alter or cancel them.
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