Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 1.djvu/509

IN BE TIBUKCIO PAR-IOIT. 501 �United States, provides that "no state shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation." Article 2, § 2, that the president "shall have power, by and with the adviee and consent of the senate, to make treaties, provided two-thirds of the senators present shall concur;" and article 6, that "this constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursiiance thereof, and ail treaties made, or which Bhall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land, and the judges in every state shall be hound thereby, anything in the constitution or laws ot any state to the contrary notwithstanding." �There can be no mistaking the significance or efEect of these plain, concise, emphatic provisions. The states have surren- dered the treaty-making power to the general government, and vested it in the president and senate ; and, when duly exer- cised by the president and senate, the treaty resulting is the supreme law of the land, to which not only state laws but state constitutions are in express terms subordinated. Soon after the adoption of this constitution the supreme court of the United States had occasion to consider this provision, making treaties the supreme law of the land, in Ware v.Hy • ton, and Mr. Justice Chase, speaking of its effect, said : "A treaty cannot be the supreme law of the land — that is, of ail the United States — if any act of a state legislature can stand in its way. If the constitution of a state (which is the fon- damental law of the state, and paramount to its legislature) must give way to a treaty and fall before it, can it be ques- tîoned whether the less power, an act of the state legislature, must not be prostrate ? It is the declared will of the people of the United States that every treaty made by the authority of the United States shall be superior to the constitution and laws of any individual state, and their will alone is to decide. If a law of a state, contrary to a treaty, is not void, but void- able only by repeal, or nullification by a state legislature, this certain consequence follows : that the will of a small part of the United States may control or defeatthe willof thewhole." 3 Dali. 236. again : "It is the declared duty of the state judges to determine any constitution or laws of any state contrary ��� �