CH. III.]
NATURE OF THE CONSTITUTION.
291
of the government in the hands of a single state, and enable it at will to defeat, or suspend the operation of the laws of the union, are too serious, not to require us to scrutinize with the utmost care and caution the principles, from which they flow, and by which they are attempted to be justified.
- ↑ Cited in Johnson's Dictionary, verb Compact. See Heinecc. Elem. Juris. Natur. L. 2, ch. 6, § 109 to 112.
- ↑ Pothier distinguishes between a contract and an agreement. An agreement, he says, is the consent of two or more persons to form some engagement, or to rescind, or modify an engagement already made. Duorum vel plurium in idem placitum consensus. Pand. Lib. 1, § 1. de Pactis. An agreement, by which two parties reciprocally promise and engage, or one of them singly promises and engages to the other, to give some particular thing, or to do or abstain from a particular act, is a contract; by which he means such an agreement, as gives a party the right legally to demand its performance. Pothier, Oblig. Part. 1, ch. I, § 1, art. 1, § 1. See 1 Black. Comm. 44, 45.
quently, that, as the parties to it, they must themselves decide in the last resort such questions, as may he of sufficient magnitude to require their interposition." Id. p. 8, 9.