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SATURDAY, June 9, 1787. GEORGIA STATE GAZETTE O R INDEPENDENT REGISTER. ‘ '"" - ~ ' ** ■■ ■ 1 " ■ - ■ ■ - - ------- , ... FREEDOM of the PRESS, and TRIAL by JUR Y, to remain inviolate forever. Conjlituiion of Georgia. ,i .1.... | w _i 1— m m 1 AUGUSTA: Printed by JOHN E. SMITH, Printer to the State •, Efcys y Articles cf Intelligence , • Advertisements, &c, will be gratefully received , and every kind of Printing performed. The fallowing Circular Letter has been transmitted by the United States in C cngrefs ajfembled f to the Governors of the rcfpeilive States, S I R, OUR Secretary for Foreign Affairs has trans mitted to you copies of a letter to him from our Minister at the Court of London, of the 4th day of March, and of the papers mention ed to have been enclosed in it. We have deliberately and dispassionately exa mined and confidcred the several fads and matters urged by Britain as infractions of the treaty of peace on the part of America, and we regret that in some of the dates too little attention appears to have been paid to the public faith pledged by that treaty. T\.Tr>«- .I*, -Urlons dictates 011 cligion, Ul<»- J lity and national honor, but also the firft principles of good policy, demand a candid and pundual com pliance with engagements constitutionally and fair ly made. Our national constitution having committed to us the management of the national concerns with foreign dates and powers, it is our duty to take care that all the rights which they ought to enjoy within our jurifdidion by the laws of nations and - the faith of treaties, remain inviolate. And it is also our duty to provide that the efTential interests and peace of the whole confederacy, be not im paired or endangered by deviations from the line of public faith, into which any of its members may from whatever cause be unadvisedly drawn. Let it be remembered that thje Thirteen Inde pendent Sovereign States have, by express delega tion of power, formed and veiled in us a general though limitted sovereignty, for the general and national purposes fpecified in the confederation. In this sovereignty they cannot severally participate (except by their Delegates) nor with it have cur rent jurifditliou ; for the ninth article of the con federation mod expressly conveys to us the foie and ex clusive right and power of determining on war and peace, and of entering into treaties and alliances, &c. When therefore a treaty is conffitutionally made, ratified and publilhed, by us, it immediately be comes binding on the whole nation, and fuperadded to the laws of the land, without the intervention or fiat of State Legifiatures. Treaties derive their obligation from being compacts between thefover eign of this, and the foveteign of another nation ; whereas laws or statutes derive their force from being ads of a Legillature competent to the parting of them. Hence it is clear that treaties must be implicitly received and ebferved by every member THE of the nation ; for as State Legifiatures are not competent to the making of such comp ads or treaties, so neither are they competent in that capacity, authoritatively to decide on, or afeertain the couflrudion and sense of them. When doubts arise refpeding the couflrudion offtate laws, it is not unusual nor improper for the State Legifiatures by explanatory or declaratory ads, to remove those doubts : But the case between laws and corn pads or treaties, is in this widely different; for when doubts arise refpeding the sense and meaning of a treaty, they are so far from being cognizable by a State Legillature, that the United States in Congress assembled have no authority to fettle and determine them : For as the Legillature only, which conflitutionally pafies a law, has power to revise and amend it ; so the sovereigns only, who are parties to the treaties, have power by mutual conivill atUl pun&i lui aiuina IU bUI I vCI vt Viliam it. In cases between individuals, all doubts refped ing the meaning of a treaty, like all doubts re fpeding the meaning of a law, are in the firft in stance mere judicial questions, and arc to be heard and decfded in the Courts of Jurtice having cogni zance of the causes in which they arise, and vvhofe duty it is to determine them according to the rules and maxims established by the laws of nations for the interpretation of treaties. From these principles it follows of neceflary consequence, that no indivi dual state has a right by legifiative ads to decide and point out the sense in which their particular citizens and courts shall undetftand this or that article of a treaty. It is evident that a contrary dodrine would not only militate against the common and eftablilhed maxims and ideas relative to this fubjed, but would prove no less ludicrous in pradicethan it is irratio nal in theory ; for in that case the fame article of the fame treaty might by law be made to mean one thing in New-Hampihire, another thing in New-York, and neither the one nor the other of them in Georgia. How far such legifiative ads would be valid and obligatory even within the limits of the state parting them, i 3 a question which we hope never to have occasion to difeufs. Certain however it is that such ids cannot bind either of the contrading sover eigns, and confeqttently cannot be obligatory on their refpedive nations. But iftreaties, and every article in them, be (as they are and ought to be) binding on the whole nation j if individual states have no right to accept some articles and rejeft others ; and if the impro priety of state ads to interpret and decide the sense and couflrudion of them, be apparent ; ftiil more manifeft jnuube the impropriety of state ads to [No. XXXVII.] control, delay or modify, the operation and exe cution of thefc national compatts. When it is couiidercd, that the fever al States assembled by their Delegates in Congress, have express power to form treaties, furcly the treaties so formed are not afterwards to be fubjeft to such alterations as this or that Legislature may think ex* pedient to make, and that too without the consent of either of the parties to it—that is in the prefenc case without the consent of all the United States, who collectively are parties to this treaty on the one fide, and his Britannic Majcfty on the other. Were the Legislatures to possess and to exercise such power, we fiiould soon be involved as a nation,, in anarchy and confufion at home, and in disputes which would probably terminate in hostilities and war with the nations with, whom we may have ttwtln. InUanccs would then be frequent of treaties fully executed in one Hate, and only partly executed in another ; and of the fame article being executed in one manner in one fiate, and in a different manner, or not at all, in annother Hate.—Hiftoiy furnifhes no precedent of such liberties taken with treaties under form oliaw iu any nation. [ The remainder in our next .] A ROBBERY. ' STOLEN out of the Shop of the fubferiber, on Thursday night lart, a small Gold French Watch, about fixtecn Silver do. and one Pinchbeck do. one Half Joe, and about eight dollars in round money. TEN GUINEAS Reward will be given to any person who will apprehend {the thief or thieves, or give information where the above men tioned articles, may be had again. THOMAS BRAY. Augu/la, May Ten Pounds Sterling Reward in Specie. RUN AWAY, about fix weeks ago, a Negro Fellow, named 808, of a black complexion, and strong made, upwards of thirty years of age. The laid Fellow has lately been taken up at Co!. Marbury’s Plantation, above the town of Auguftaj ami since made his efcapc ; as he is very artful and feufiblc, it is probable he will endeavour to go to wards the Indian nation. The above Reward wiii be paid to any person who delivers the said fellow to me at Alhepoo, in South-Carolina, or iu Savan - nah Goal. EDMUND BELLINGER, jun. April io, 1787. ts