-- I shall now lay down the principles
which according to my understanding govern the case.
I consider the people who constitute a society or nation as the
source of all authority in that nation, as free to transact their
common concerns by any agents they think proper, to change these
agents individually, or the organisation of them in form or function
whenever they please: that all the acts done by those agents under
the authority of the nation, are the acts of the nation, are
obligatory on them, & enure to their use, & can in no wise be
annulled or affected by any change in the form of the government, or
of the persons administering it. Consequently the Treaties between
the U S. and France, were not treaties between the U S. & Louis
Capet, but between the two nations of America & France, and the
nations remaining in existance, tho' both of them have since changed
their forms of government, the treaties are not annulled by these
changes.
The Law of nations, by which this question is to be determined,
is composed of three branches. 1. The Moral law of our nature. 2.
The Usages of nations. 3. Their special Conventions. The first of
these only, concerns this question, that is to say the Moral law to
which Man has been subjected by his creator, & of which his feelings,
or Conscience as it is sometimes called, are the evidence with which
his creator has furnished him.
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