Sec. 37. The third obstacle was the allowing paper money to be paid for goods sold under execution. The complaint on this head is only against Georgia, South Carolina, Jersey, and Rhode Island; and this obstruction, like the two others, sprung out of the peculiar nature of the war; for those will form very false conclusions, who reason, as to this war, from the circumstances which have attended other wars, and other nations. When any nation of Europe is attacked by another, it has neighbors, with whom its accustomary commerce goes on, without interruption; and its commerce with more distant nations is carried on by sea, in foreign bottoms, at least under protection of the laws of neutrality. The produce of its soil can be exchanged for money, as usual, and the stock of that medium of circulation is not at all diminished by war; so that property sells as readily and as well, for real money, at the close, as at the commencement of the war. But how different was our case: on the north and south, were our enemies; on the west, deserts inhabited by savages in league with them; on the east, an ocean of one thousand leagues, beyond which, indeed, were nations, who might have purchased the produce of our soil, and have given us real money in exchange, and thus kept up our stock of money, but who were deterred from coming to us by threats of war on the part of our enemies, if they should presume to consider us as a people, entitled to partake the benefit of that law of war, which allows commerce with neutral nations. What were the consequences? The stock of hard money, which we possessed in an ample degree, at the beginning of the war, soon flowed into Europe for supplies of arms, ammunition, and other necessaries, which we were not in the habit of manufacturing for ourselves. The produce of our soil, attempted to be carried in our own bottoms to Europe, fell, two-thirds of it, into the hands of our enemies, who were masters of the sea; the other third illy sufficed to procure the necessary implements of war; so that no returns of money supplied the place of that which had gone off. We were reduced, then, to the resource of a paper medium, and that completed the exile of the hard money; so that, in the latter stages of the war, we were, for years together, without seeing a single coin of the precious metals in circulation. It was closed with a stipulation that we should pay a large mass of debt, in such coin. If the whole soil of the United States had been offered for sale for ready coin, it would not have raised as much as would have satisfied this stipulation. The thing, then, was impossible, and reason and authority declare, "Si l'empêchement est reel, il faut donner du tems; car nul n'est tenu a l'impossible."[13] Vattel, l. 4, s. 51. We should, with confidence, have referred the case to the arbiter proposed by another jurist, who lays it down that a party, "Non ultra obligari, quam in quantum facere potest; et an possit, permittendum alterius principis, quo boni viri arbitrio."[14] Bynk. Q. J. P. l. 2, c. 10. That four of the States should resort, under such circumstances, to very small emissions of paper money, is not wonderful; that all did not, proves their firmness under sufferance, and that they were disposed to bear whatever could be borne, rather than contravene, even by way of equivalent, stipulations which had been authoritatively entered into for them. And even in the four States, which emitted paper money, it was in such small sums, and so secured, as to suffer only a short-lived, and not great depreciation of value; nor did they continue its quality as a tender, after the first paroxysms of distress were over. Here, too, it is to be observed, that natives were to receive this species of payment, equally with British subjects.

So that, when it is considered, that the other party had broken the treaty, from the beginning, and that, too, in points which lessened our ability to pay their debts, it was a proof of the moderation of our nation, to make no other use of the opportunity of retaliation presented to them, than to indulge the debtors with that time for discharging their debts, which their distresses called for, and the interests and the reason of their creditors approved.

Sec. 38. It is to be observed, that, during all this time, Congress, who alone possessed the power of peace and war, of making treaties, and, consequently, of declaring their infractions, had abstained from every public declaration, and had confined itself to the resolution of May 26th, 1783, and to repeated efforts, through their minister plenipotentiary at the court of London, to lead that court into a compliance on their part, and reparation of the breach they had committed. But the other party now laid hold of those very proceedings of our States, which their previous infractions had produced, as a ground for further refusal; and inverting the natural order of cause and effect, alleged that these proceedings of ours were the causes of the infractions, which they had committed months and years before. Thus the British minister for foreign affairs, in his answer of February 28th, 1786, to Mr. Adams' memorial, says, "The engagements entered into by treaty ought to be mutual, and equally binding on the respective contracting parties. It would, therefore, be the height of folly, as well as injustice, to suppose one party alone obliged to a strict observance of the public faith, while the other might remain free to deviate from its own engagements, as often as convenience might render such deviation necessary, though at the expense of its own national credit and importance; I flatter myself, however, Sir, that justice will speedily be done to British creditors; and I can assure you, Sir, that whenever America shall manifest a real intention to fulfil her part of the treaty, Great Britain will not hesitate to prove her sincerity to co-operate in whatever points depend upon her, for carrying every article of it into real and complete effect." Facts will furnish the best commentary on this letter. Let us pursue them.

The Secretary for Foreign Affairs of the United States, by order of Congress, immediately wrote circular letters to the Governors of the several States, dated May 3, 1786, No. 31, to obtain information how far they had complied with the proclamation of January 14th, 1784, and the recommendation accompanying it; and April 13, 1787, Congress, desirous of removing every pretext which might continue to cloak the inexecution of the treaty, wrote a circular letter to the several States, in which, in order to produce more surely the effect desired, they demonstrate that Congress alone possess the right of interpreting, restraining, impeding, or counteracting the operation and execution of treaties, which, on being constitutionally made, become, by the confederation, a part of the law of the land, and, as such, independent of the will and power of the Legislatures; that, in this point of view, the State acts, establishing provisions relative to the same objects, and incompatible with it, must be improper; resolving that all such acts now existing ought to be forthwith repealed, as well to prevent their continuing to be regarded as violations of the treaty, as to avoid the disagreeable necessity of discussing their validity; recommending, in order to obviate all future disputes and questions, that every State, as well those which had passed no such acts as those which had, should pass an act, repealing, in general terms, all acts and parts of acts repugnant to the treaty; and encouraging them to do this, by informing them that they had the strongest assurances that an exact compliance with the treaty on our part, would be followed by a punctual performance of it on the part of Great Britain.

Sec. 39. In consequence of these letters, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina, passed the acts Nos. 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40. New Jersey and Pennsylvania declared that no law existed with them repugnant to the treaty—see documents Nos. 41, 42, 43. Georgia had no law existing against the treaty. South Carolina, indeed, had a law existing, which subjected all persons, foreign or native, No. 44, to certain modifications of recovery and payment. But the liberality of her conduct on the other points is a proof she would have conformed in this also, had it appeared that the fullest conformity would have moved Great Britain to compliance, and had an express repeal been really necessary.

Sec. 40. For indeed all this was supererogation. It resulted from the instrument of confederation among the States, that treaties made by Congress, according to the confederation, were superior to the laws of the States. The circular letter of Congress had declared and demonstrated it, and the several States, by their acts and explanations before mentioned, had shown it to be their own sense, as we may safely affirm it to have been the general sense of those, at least, who were of the profession of the law. Besides the proof of this, drawn from the act of confederation itself, the declaration of Congress, and the acts of the States before mentioned, the same principle will be found acknowledged in several of the documents hereto annexed for other purposes. Thus, in Rhode Island, Governor Collins, in his letter, No. 20, says, "The treaty, in all its absolute parts, has been fully complied with, and to those parts that are merely recommendatory and depend upon the legislative discretion, the most candid attention hath been paid." Plainly implying that the absolute parts did not depend upon the legislative discretion. Mr. Channing, the attorney for the United States in that State, No. 19, speaking of an act passed before the treaty, says, "This act was considered by our courts as annulled by the treaty of peace, and subsequent to the ratification thereof no proceedings have been had thereon." The Governor of Connecticut, in his letter, No 18, says, "The sixth article of the treaty was immediately observed on receiving the same with the proclamation of Congress; the courts of justice adopted it as a principle of law. No further prosecutions were instituted against any person who came within that article, and all such prosecutions as were then pending were discontinued." Thus, prosecutions going on, under the law of the State, were discontinued, by the treaty operating as a repeal of the law. In Pennsylvania, Mr. Lewis, attorney for the United States, says, in his letter, No. 60, "The judges have, uniformly and without hesitation, declared in favor of the treaty, on the ground of its being the supreme law of the land. On this ground, they have not only discharged attainted traitors from arrest, but have frequently declared that they were entitled by the treaty to protection." The case of the Commonwealth vs. Gordon, January, 1788, Dallas' Reports, 233, is a proof of this. In Maryland, in the case of Mildred vs. Dorsey, cited in your letter [E. 4.] a law of the State, made during the war, had compelled those who owed debts to British subjects to pay them into the treasury of that State. This had been done by Dorsey, before the date of the treaty; yet the judges of the State general court decided that the treaty not only repealed the law for the future, but for the past also, and decreed that the defendant should pay the money over again to the British creditor. In Virginia, Mr. Monroe, one of the Senators of that State in Congress, and a lawyer of eminence, tells us, No. 52, that both court and counsel there avowed the opinion, that the treaty would control any law of the State opposed to it. And the Legislature itself, in an act of October, 1787, c. 36, concerning moneys carried into the public loan office, in payment of British debts, use these expressions: "And whereas it belongs not to the Legislature to decide particular questions, of which the judiciary have cognizance, and it is, therefore, unfit for them to determine whether the payments so made into the loan office be good or void between the creditor and debtor." In New York, Mr. Harrison, attorney for the United States in that district, assures us, No. 45, that the act of 1782, of that State, relative to the debts due to persons within the enemy's line, was, immediately after the treaty, restrained by the superior courts of the State from operating on British creditors, and that he did not know a single instance to the contrary—a full proof that they considered the treaty as a law of the land, paramount to the law of their State.

Sec. 41. The very case of Rutgers, vs. Waddington, [E. 8.] which is a subject of complaint in your letter, is a proof that the courts consider the treaty as paramount to the laws of the States. Some parts of your information, as to that case, have been inexact. The State of New York had, during the war, passed an act [C. 16.] declaring that, in any action by the proprietor of a house or tenement against the occupant, for rent or damage, no military order should be a justification; and, May 4, 1784, after the refusal of the British to deliver up the posts in the State of New York, that Legislature revived the same act. [C. 19.] Waddington, a British subject, had occupied a brew-house in New York, belonging to Rutgers, an American, while the British were in possession of New York. During a part of the time he had only permission from the quartermaster general; for another part he had an order of the commanding officer to authorize his possession. After the evacuation of the city, Rutgers, under the authority of this law of the State, brought an action against Waddington for rent and damages, in the Mayor's court of New York. Waddington pleaded the treaty, and the court declared the treaty a justification, in opposition to the law of the State, for that portion of the time authorized by the commanding officer, his authority being competent, and gave judgment for that part in favor of the defendant; but, for the time he held the house under permission of the quartermaster general only, they gave judgment against the defendant, considering the permission of that officer incompetent, according to the regulations of the existing powers. From this part of the judgment the defendant appealed. The first part, however, was an unequivocal decision of the superior authority of the treaty over the law. The latter part could only have been founded in an opinion of the sense of the treaty in that part of the 6th article which declares, "There shall be no future prosecutions against any persons for the part he may have taken in the war, and that no person should, on that account, suffer any future loss or damage in their property," &c. They must have understood this as only protecting actions which were conformable with the laws and authority existing at the time and place. The tenure of the defendant under the quartermaster general was not so conformable. That under the commanding officer was. Some may think that murders, and other crimes and offences, characterized as such by the authority of the time and place where committed, were meant to be protected by this paragraph of the treaty; and, perhaps, for peace sake, this construction may be the most convenient. The Mayor's court, however, seems to have revolted at it. The defendant appealed, and the question would have been authoritatively decided by the superior court, had not an amicable compromise taken place between the parties. See Mr. Hamilton's statement of this case, No. 46.

Sec. 42. The same kind of doubt brought on the arrest of John Smith Hatfield in New Jersey, whose case [E. 9.] is another ground of complaint in your letter. A refugee, sent out by the British as a spy, was taken within the American lines, regularly tried by a court martial, found guilty, and executed. There was one Ball, an inhabitant of the American part of Jersey, who, contrary to the laws of his country, was in the habit of secretly supplying the British camp in Staten Island with provisions. The first time Ball went over, after the execution of the spy, of which it does not appear he had any knowledge, and certainly no agency in his prosecution, John Smith Hatfield, a refugee also from Jersey, and some others of the same description, seized him, against the express orders of the British commanding officer, brought him out of the British lines, and Hatfield hung him with his own hands. The British officer sent a message to the Americans, disavowing this act, declaring that the British had nothing to do with it, and that those who had perpetrated the crime ought alone to suffer for it. The right to punish the guilty individual seems to have been yielded by the one party, and accepted by the other, in exchange for that of retaliation on an innocent person; an exchange which humanity would wish to see habitual. The criminal came afterwards into the very neighborhood, a member of which he had murdered. Peace, indeed, had now been made; but the magistrate, thinking probably, that it was for the honest soldier and citizen only, and not for the murderer, and supposing, with the mayor's court of New York, that the paragraph of the treaty against future persecutions meant to cover authorized acts only, and not murders and other atrocities, disavowed by the existing authority, arrested Hatfield. At the court which met for his trial, the witnesses failed to attend. The court released the criminal from confinement, on his giving the security required by law for his appearance at another court. He fled; and you say that, "as his friends doubted the disposition of the court to determine according to the terms of the treaty, they thought it more prudent to suffer the forfeiture of the recognizances, than to put his life again into jeopardy." But your information in this, Sir, has not been exact. The recognizances are not forfeited. His friends, confident in the opinion of their counsel, and the integrity of the judges, have determined to plead the treaty, and not even give themselves the trouble of asking a release from the Legislature; and the case is now depending. See the letter of Mr. Boudinot, member of Congress for Jersey, No. 47.

Sec. 43. In Georgia, Judge Walton, in a charge to a grand jury, says, "The State of Rhode Island having acceded to the Federal Constitution, the Union and Government have become complete. To comprehend the extent of the General Government, and to discern the relation between that and those of the States, will be equally our interest and duty. The Constitution, laws, and treaties of the Union are paramount." And in the same State, in their last federal circuit court, we learn from the public papers, that, in a case wherein the plaintiffs were Brailsford and others, British subjects, whose debts had been sequestered (not confiscated) by an act of the State during the war, the judges declared the treaty of peace a repeal of the act of the State, and gave judgment for the plaintiffs.

Sec. 44. The integrity of those opinions and proceedings of the several courts should have shielded them from the insinuations hazarded against them. In pages 9 and 10, it is said, "That during the war, the Legislatures passed laws to confiscate the estates of the loyalists, to enable debtors to pay into the State treasuries paper money, then exceedingly depreciated, in discharge of their debts." And page 24, "The dispensations of law by the State courts have been as unpropitious to the subjects of the crown, as the legislative acts of the different assemblies." Let us compare, if you please, Sir, these unpropitious opinions of our State courts with those of foreign lawyers' writing on the same subject. [15]"Quod dixi de actionibus recto publicandis ita demum obtinet; si quod subditi nostri hostibus nostris debent, princeps a subditis suis revera exegerit. Si exegerit, recte solutum est, si non exegerit, pace facta, reviviscit jus pristinum creditoris; secundum, hæc inter gentes fere convenit, ut nominibus bello publicatis, pace deinde factâ, exacta censeantur periisse, et maneant extincta; non autem exacta reviviscant et restiuantur veris creditoribus." Bynk. Q. J. P. l. 1, c. 7. But what said the judges of the State court of Maryland in the case of Mildred and Dorsey? That a debt forced from an American debtor into the treasury of his sovereign, is not extinct, but shall be paid over again to his British creditor. Which is most propitious, the unbiassed foreign jurist, or the American judge, charged with dispensing justice with favor and partiality? But from this, you say, there is an appeal. Is that the fault of the judge, or the fault of anybody? Is there a country on earth, or ought there to be one, allowing no appeal from the first errors of their courts? and if allowed from errors, how will those from just judgments be prevented? In England, as in other countries, an appeal is admitted to the party thinking himself injured; and here, had the judgment been against the British creditor, and an appeal denied, there would have been better cause of complaint than for not having denied it to his adversary. If an illegal judgment be ultimately rendered on the appeal, then will arise the right to question its propriety.