280 APPENDIX TO BRITISH COUNTER CASE. 



pact of irrevocable acknowledgments, consummated by the ratifica- 

 tion; and that the third article in particular, adjusted the rights and 

 liberties of the parties in and to one common property, of which 

 neither party could ever afterwards divest the other without his 

 consent. 



When, therefore, the British government and Mr. Russell assert, 

 that war abrogates all treaties, and every article of every treaty, 

 they have yet proved nothing for their argument; they must pro- 

 ceed to affirm, that with the abrogation of the treaty by war, all the 

 rights and liberties recognized in the treaty as belonging to either 

 party, are likewise abrogated. And herein lies the fallacy of their 

 argument. 



******* 



If, then, none of the rights, liberties, or possessions, recognized by 

 the first and second articles of the treaty of 1783, as belonging to the 

 United States, were abrogated by the war of 1812, by what right, 

 and upon what principle, could Mr. Russell consider the fishing lib- 

 erty, recognized as belonging to them by the third article, to be 

 entirely at an end, without a new stipulation for its revival. The 

 whole of the third article, concerning the fisheries, was as much a 

 recognition of pre-existing rights, liberties, and possessions, as the 

 first and second articles. 



******* 



[After referring to the clauses of the treaty relating to independ- 

 ence and boundaries, Mr. Adams continued as follows:] 



But the doctrine itself, that war dissolves all treaties, and every 

 article of every treaty, without exception, is not correct. It has been 

 very solemnly disclaimed by the United States, in the following 

 terms of the 24th article of their first treaty with Prussia : 



And it is declared, that neither the pretence that war dissolves all treaties, 

 nor any other, whatever, shall be considered as annulling or suspending this 

 and the next preceding article; but on the contrary, that the state of war, is 

 precisely that for which they are provided ; and during which they are to be as 

 sacredly observed as the most acknowledged articles in the law of nature or 

 nations. 



Of this treaty, Dr. Franklin and Mr. Jefferson were two of the 

 negotiators on the part of the United States, and Frederick the sec- 

 ond was the sovereign with whom it was negotiated. It not 

 168 only contradicts the doctrine that war dissolves all treaties, 

 without exception, but fixes a stigma upon it as a pretence 

 usually resorted to for the purpose of disguising or of palliating a 

 violation of good faith. 



The pretence that war dissolves all treaties is itself a remnant of 

 that doctrine of the barbarous ages, that faith is not to be kept with 

 enemies, and that no compact made in war is obligatory. The mod- 

 ern writers upon the laws of nations, have exploded this opinion, and 

 expressly laid it down, that all articles of a treaty made during Avar, 

 or having in contemplation the state of war, as that in which they 

 are to take effect, remain in full force, and are not abrogated by war. 

 This, therefore, constitutes a large class of articles of treaties which 

 are not abrogated by war. Another class of articles, equally priv- 

 ileged from such abrogation, are all executed stipulations Cessions 

 cf territory, demarcations of boundary, acknowledgments of pre- 

 existing rights and liberties, belong to this class and in it are in- 

 cluded the first, second, and third articles of the treaty of 1783. 



