as rightfully annul the promise of each, made to themselves, as any individual may cancel at his pleasure, a promise made to himself.—Neither is it possible, for any other than a party, to violate any covenant. For if this was possible, the faith of parties would not depend upon their own will and ability, but upon the will of others, over whom they may have no control; and so faith never could be kept.
Strangers, not parties to a covenant, may be their acts, prevent the parties from fulfilling its obligations upon them: but such acts of strangers, constitute no violation of these obligations, for none can violate it, but such as the obligation obliges; and it is absurd to suppose, that it can oblige any others, than the parties, who voluntarily agreed that they would be bound by it. Then, the covenant entered into by each of these States with its co-States, can be violated by none but the sovereign parties to that covenant. If this was not so, the peace of Nations and the faith of States, would hang it upon the will of every incendiary ruffian, who lives as the disgrace of the community of which he may be an unworthy member.
Here it may be asked, may no the government of the United States, or of any State, or of any Department of either of these governments, nay, may not any mere individual violate the Constitution of the United States? Doubtless, each of them may do so; and in so doing, would be guilty of a very wicked act, which, generally, would draw down upon the agent or agents, the consequences of a sanction, they might then probably discover was not a mere "moral sanction," although the act might be done, even by this would-be Sovereign, the government of the United States itself, which, if a Sovereign, could acknowledge no superior. But a violation of the Constitution of the United States, whether perpetrated by their government, or by anybody else except a Sovereign State, is not, of itself, any breach of the covenant for the observance of which the faith of the high contracting parties to that Covenant is mutually pledged to each other; and this for the reason before given, that none but the parties can violate a covenant; and that neither the government, nor any individual, is a party to that Covenant. When the Spanish Intendant at New Orleans, in contravention of the 22d Article of our Treaty with
