350 BURR— THE TREATY-MAKING POWER [Apnl 20, 



the Constitution, the words they spoke in its interpretation, the out- 

 cry and revolt against the poHcy of this very treaty of 1794. hut 

 never against its binding though hateful efficacy. May one ask 

 if Ben Jonson's words respecting his contemporary Shakespere 

 lose their force because it was not suggested to him that Shakespere 

 was Bacon? 



In Chirac I's. Chirac, -^^ Mr. Chief Justice Marshall delivered 

 the opinion of the court. The essential facts were that a holder of 

 real estate in Maryland had died in 1799 leaving as heirs-at-law 

 certain French citizens. The decedent had acquired the land while 

 a French citizen and had been naturalized after the adoption of the 

 Constitution. It was held that the treaty with France of 1778 pro- 

 tected his title until he became a citizen of the United States. His 

 death, however, occurred prior to the treaty of 1800; and on this 

 point the Chief Justice said : 



" Had John Baptiste Chirac, the person from whom the land in con- 

 troversy, descended, lived until this treaty became the law of the land, all 

 will admit that the provisions which have been stated would, if unrestrained 

 by other Hmitations, have vested the estate of which he died seised in his 

 heirs."-'* 



It was held that inasmuch as the law of Maryland protected such an 

 estate for ten years, the treaty operated at once upon its execution 

 to vest an absolute title in the French heirs, which was not lost by 

 the subsequent abrogation of the treaty. The discussion of the 

 meaning and eflfect of the Maryland acts and of the French treaties 

 by Mr. Chief Justice Marshall is long and necessarily complex ; he 

 disposes of the fundamental question now examined in the sentence 

 quoted from his opinion above by one phrase: "all ivHl admit." 

 Professor Mikell says of this case also : 



" The question of the power of the Federal government to make such a 

 treaty was not argued by counsel or discussed by the Court.'"'''' 



Can any one really believe that an argument on this point would 1iave 

 effaced from Marshall's memory the days through which he had 



^"2 Wheat., 259 (1817). 



.'"Ibid., p. 274. 



'^^ American Lazv Register, Vol. 57, p. 542. 



