1912.] OF THE UNITED STATES. 345 



the question whether a treaty be in force is a political question for 

 the executive and legislative, not the judicial power. The only 

 remedy afiforded a creditor was given by the Constitution which 

 created a judiciary and laid upon it the obligation to enforce treaty- 

 provisions as the law of the land, supreme over State action. The 

 very entry of a judgment in Ware z's. Hylton affirmed by its entry 

 the efficacy of the Constitution and the supremacy of treaties over 

 States' rights: except by virtue of the Constitution no judgment 

 could have been entered.' It was a subject of curious interest, it is a 

 subject of historical study today, to determine how far the treaty of 

 peace operated of itself to repeal various State statutes in conflict 

 therewith. In international law, it would seem that Mr. Justice 

 Chase was right and Mr. Justice Iredell wrong. If the several 

 States chose to pass statutes and authorize executive acts at 

 variance with the treaty of peace, a grave breach was made in 

 international law, but as binding municipal and local law the treaty 

 was dead. But the question has no practical value. It was the Con- 

 stitution and the Constitution alone which gave the force of local 

 law to the treaty, and in the Federal judiciary created an effective 

 method for its enforcement. When that judiciary acted, its act was 

 necessarily done under the Constitution and constituted a recognition 

 and example of its existence and its supreme efificacy.-*^^ 



One year later there came before the Supreme Court a case 

 involving one question — 



" whether a paper money payment of a British debt into the treasury of 

 Maryland, during the war, by virtue of a law of the State, was a bar to the 

 creditor's recovery at this time."^° 



The reporter adds : 



"And the solemn adjudication in Ware rs. Hyhon et al., ant. p. 199, 

 having settled that point, Dallas, for the defendant in error, submitted the 

 case, without argument, to the Court, who, in general terms, reversed the 



'"*If the suggestion be offered that a distinction is possible between 

 " treaties made " and " treaties to be made " as the words are used in Article 

 VI, of the Constitution, and that the former are to be given more force than 

 the latter, the only answer is to say that such suggestion lacks any sanction 

 either in precedent or in reason. 



-"^ Clerke vs. Harwoode, 3 Dallas, 342 (1797) ■ 



